A wartime price surge is slamming consumers while boosting investors.The largest oil disruption in history is widening an economic divide, with Americans spending $45 billion more on gasoline and diesel during the Iran war than the same period a year ago.Surging energy costs disproportionately burden low- and middle-income consumers, while oil-and-gas companies are reporting record earnings.Free-cash flow for major oil companies rose 84% to $36 billion in the first quarter, as lower-income households cut fuel-ups.Americans have cumulatively...

Decart, an AI software startup, raised $300 million in a funding round led by Radical Ventures, valuing the company at nearly $4 billion. Decart’s valuation hits nearly $4 billion as investors pour capital into startups making AI computing more efficient.Most artificial-intelligence companies are so desperate for computing capacity that they will use any advanced chip they can lay hands on, but switching to a new computing system can be complex and costly.Decart, a San Francisco-based software startup, says it has found a way to make it eas...

A12-gram brooch captures sound and beams it to the ear, sidestepping the muffling effect that standard hearing aids suffer under a hijab.The hijab is part of daily life and an expression of faith for millions of women in Indonesia. Hearing aids, however, were not designed with that reality in mind. According to Dentsu Indonesia, devices worn beneath the fabric can muffle warning sounds by up to 15 dB, raising the risk of accidents in busy urban environments by as much as 60%. The fabric also dampens conversations, leaving wearers struggling...

On's Q1 gross margin of 64.2% significantly outperforms traditional sportswear giants, aligning more with luxury brand profitability.The company has managed to maintain these margins because of its consistent full-price sales and avoidance of promotional tactics with its newest products.Some are sceptical that the brand will be able to maintain these margins forever as its growth in key regions slowly decelerates.When Swiss sneaker brand On reported its latest results last week, the company couldn’t help boasting about its profitability.Des...

Flint Says Its Battery Is Sustainable, Delivers Up To 4.2 Volts.Batteries are essential to modern life. They store energy collected by solar plants, power our smartphones, and lurk even in vehicles powered by fossil fuels. They’re so useful that we overlook their problems. Some batteries use potentially dangerous metals. Others have a tendency to catch fire and explode when damaged. Many companies have tried to design a battery that addresses these issues. Flint, a startup based in Singapore, is a new contender with a “paper battery.” The...

Turnover rates are a signal of a business’s and the industry’s overall health, as this Qualtrics study demonstrates. High turnover forces companies to spend more on recruiting, hiring, and training, so business leaders and HR professionals should pay attention to turnover trends.The industries with the highest turnover rates are arts and entertainment, accommodation and food services, leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, retail, and transportation. The team explains that the main drivers of employee turnover were in...

The lighting company is launching a series of new wireless lamps, and giving everyone else the chance to design their own via a new platform.Ian Yang saw the idea in a restaurant: a small wireless lamp used to read menus in the dark. The product was common, but limited—too dim, too small, and not really designed as a full residential lighting product. Yang believed Gantri could change that. That insight led to three new wireless lighting lines from Gantri, along with a new digital manufacturing platform aimed at helping other designers buil...

Your desk says something about you before you ever open your mouth. The monitor, the mug, the little objects arranged around your keyboard, they all add up to a portrait. And the keyboard sits dead center in that portrait, the most touched, most visible, most personal object in the whole setup. So why do most of them look like they were designed by someone who has never once cared about how a workspace feels?Lofree has been answering that question for years, building a catalog around the idea that a keyboard can carry genuine personality. Th...