NOT A HOTEL and ‘Pokémon Sleep’ Turn a Poké Ball Into a Place You Can Actually Sleep In.NOT A HOTEL and Pokémon Sleep have announced a collaboration centered on a Poké Ball-themed hotel in HokkaidoThe project reimagines the Poké Ball as a restful space for people, echoing the sleep-tracking game at its coreA campaign will give entrants the chance to stay in the one-off structure, with details due in mid-SeptemberNOT A HOTEL and Pokémon Sleep are joining forces on a Poké Ball you can spend the night inside. Set to appear in Hokkaido...

Asia's population is aging faster than any other region globally, exposing a severe structural imbalance between retirement anxiety and actual financial preparation. A report published in September 2026 by McKinsey & Company, titled Asia's 75-point gap: Moving consumers from retirement angst to action, reveals a 75-percentage-point gap between consumer awareness of retirement risks and concrete planning. Drawing on a survey of nearly 2,000 consumers across eight key Asia-Pacific markets—including Hong Kong, Japan, Mainland China, Malays...

Autonomous blood-drawing devices could help address phlebotomist shortages.Sitting down, placing an arm in a cradle, and pressing a single button sets a fully autonomous medical procedure in motion. A near-infrared light sweeps across the inner elbow searching for a viable vein, a puff of alcohol spray disinfects the skin, and an ultrasound probe glides across the arm to map vessel depth and trajectory while Doppler imaging captures blood flow direction to rule out underlying arteries. A cuff tightens around the upper arm, a needle pierces t...

With a raft of high-profile acquisitions, sponsors and strategics are looking at the segment with fresh interest. That’s making it harder to stand out, but smart brands are focussing on ownable niches.Driven by increasingly educated consumers, the body care market is shifting towards efficacy, value, and performance-led formulation.Major conglomerates like Beiersdorf and Unilever are well-positioned to expand and diversify their body care portfolios through strategic acquisitions beyond their established mass market brands.To achieve premiu...

A whale-shaped museum is taking form on the northern coast of Norway, with The Whale set to open in Andenes in June next year.Designed by Danish architecture studio Dorte Mandrup, the new knowledge and experience centre will use architecture, science, art and sound to explore whales and the oceans they inhabit.Its sweeping concrete roof rises from the rocky shoreline like a whale surfacing or diving, while remaining low enough to feel like part of the landscape.The roof is formed from a single curved concrete shell supported at three points,...

These companies are paying to use home servers.If you own a home server, gaming PC, or unused laptop, you can now rent out its spare computing power to AI companies and earn passive income. Several startups are building platforms that connect distributed computing resources with companies needing capacity for AI inference.“Imagine Uber or Airbnb, but for AI-inference computing tasks,” says Ilman Shazhaev, founder and CEO of Far Labs.The AI boom has driven massive investment in data centers, which can strain local electricity and water reso...

Soccer stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are the two most-followed people on Instagram.Sixteen years after Instagram launched, its biggest personal accounts have audiences numbering in the hundreds of millions.This visualization ranks the 20 most-followed people on Instagram as of late August 2026, based on follower counts on the platform. Accounts belonging to brands have been excluded from this ranking.The Big Two of SoccerCristiano Ronaldo leads all individual accounts with 679 million followers, putting him 163 million ahead of Li...

More Than a Third of Workers Say They’re Hoarding Expertise Because They Fear Being Replaced by the AI Agents They’re Being Asked to Train.Is it any wonder? ‘This is like asking a turkey to vote for Christmas.’By Faisal HoqueThis spring, Meta told thousands of U.S. employees that software on their work computers would begin capturing mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes. Meta needed this data, they said, to help train its AI agents on real examples of how people work.And it’s not just Meta that needs this kind of data. Any company tr...

1. (PDF) BoF Insights - 2026–2027 패션 및 스포츠 이커머스 트렌드 리포트유통 채널과 소비 패턴의 파편화: 멀티 브랜드 플랫폼(58%)이 주도하나 Z세대는 리세일 및 소셜 커머스 활용도가 높으며, 셀럽보다 실구매자 리뷰(68%)와 스포츠 선수(29%)의 진정성 있는 검증을 신뢰.대화형 AI 검색으로의 이동과 GEO 격차: 대화형 AI를 통한 제품 검색이 확산되며 Generative Engine Optimization(GEO)의 중요성이 커졌으나, 멀티 브랜드 유통사의 56%가 GEO를 도입한 반면 개별 브랜드는 20%에 그쳐 노출 부재 위험 상존.구매 전환의 근본적 병목과 운영 효율화: 시각적 디자인 투자와 달리...