Singapore's National Library Board is pioneering technology that could reshape how people engage with books. The library system has developed Augmented Reading — an experience that uses Snap's Spectacles to overlay real-time audio and visual effects onto physical books. The glasses scan text as readers progress through pages, using machine learning to trigger ambient soundscapes, music and vis...

Monaco is the world’s most expensive real estate market, followed by New York City and Hong Kong. This top 20 list also includes six French cities.In this graphic, we explore the world’s most expensive real estate markets, using data as of December 2024. The rankings are based on the average price per square meter for a prime 100–200 m² (1,075-2,150 sq. ft) apartment, sourced from New World...

Lynx rolled out bold and ballsy ‘scratch and sniff’ billboards across the city in a new campaign created by Lola MullenLowe.In order to launch its new Lower Body Spray, a fragrance that appreciates people wanting to smell great everywhere, Lynx and Madrid based creative agency Lola MullenLowe have taken the male, natural instinct of scratching ones crotch and giving it a good sniff, and have...

There are over 1,200 unicorns in the world. Musk’s xAI is targeting a much more exclusive club.When venture capitalist Aileen Lee coined the term “unicorn” in 2013 to refer to those rare, near-mythical startups worth more than $1 billion, she probably didn’t foresee a future where more than a thousand of them stalked the land.In 12 short years, however, that’s exactly what’s happened: dat...

Nothing has a true flagship phone due for release soon, but we don’t have a confirmed date. Carl Pei and company have been keeping things guarded closely. When it does drop, the Nothing Phone 3 will be missing the glyph interface that the British consumer electronics manufacturer has been possessive about in the past iterations. It will, however, have a triple camera array including a telephot...

Apple wants to know when someone’s trying to talk to you. The company is seeking to patent a system for “headphone conversation” detection. In an era where wearable tech is becoming increasingly intelligent, a newly published U.S. patent is pushing the boundaries of how headphones interact with our surroundings—especially with the people around us. Filed under the title "Headphone Conversat...

Cost optimization can provide the resilience that asset managers need in an era of unpredictable markets.To optimize cost efficiencies, many firms are adopting strategic models that emphasize spending in one or another of three areas: investment management and trade execution; sales, marketing, and operations; or IT.A zero-based approach can ensure that an organization’s cost structures are up...

The green apple has always played a central role in the work of the Japanese architect and guest editor of Domus in 2021, and it features in the watch he designed for Cauny.This watch is a manifesto for an idea, and is the vision behind the new model created by Tadao Ando for Cauny, a watch company founded in Switzerland and now based in Portugal. Following collaborations with Álvaro Siza, Edu...

In partnership with Stablecon, we leveraged CB Insights’ Business Graph data to identify and map 172 high-momentum companies powering the stablecoin ecosystem across core infrastructure, consumer financial services, and enterprise solutions.[click to enlarge]Funding to stablecoin companies is projected to rise to $12.3B in 2025 — more than 10x 2024’s $1B in funding. This unprecedented growth...