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Nike’s recently relaunched sub-brand, ACG, just created a soccer field that can host a game anywhere—from a snowy slope to an island vista or a desert landscape. It’s made of more than 1,500 portable components. The creative agency Amsterdam Berlin designed the pitch kit, called the “All Conditions Cup System.” It includes everything one might need to host a game—from goals and field lines to chairs, lights, and whistles—all made out of lightweight, portable materials. The All Conditions Cup System was designed for the announcement of a new apparel collection between ACG and the Italian soccer club Inter Milan. (ACG, which stands for “All Conditions Gear,” re…

Americans are feeling financially stretched: 92% cut back on spending last year, including curbing essentials like healthcare and groceries. Is this really the time for Target to be focused on trendy throw pillows, luxury beauty products, and premium sodas? At Target’s investor day on Tuesday, CEO Michael Fiddelke tried to convince Wall Street that the retailer is about to undergo a massive turnaround, after years of declining comparable sales, most recently in this last quarter. His reinvention plan is anchored in stylish design, differentiation from other retailers, and delighting the customer in-store. But none of these strategies seemed built for the economic mome…

Since its invention in 1903, the classic Monopoly board game has spawned such a plethora of spin-offs that they nearly span the breadth of all possible human interests. From gardening and beer drinking to the FIFA World Cup, Star Wars, and the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, if you can think of it, there’s a fair chance it’s been turned into a Monopoly game. Now there’s yet another version out there. This one celebrates the life and legacy of artist Keith Haring in a design by WS Game Co., a licensee of Hasbro (Monopoly’s parent company) that specializes in deluxe versions of classic tabletop games. For the 40th anniversary of Haring’s iconic New York City store, Po…

Over the last 50 years, the chasm between average worker pay and CEO compensation has cracked wide open. Between 1978 and 2024, chief executive pay spiked by 1,094%, according to the Economic Policy Institute—which means the average CEO earns 281 times the average worker. A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive research organization, captures how this disparity persists across some of the largest companies in the country and how the low-wage workers they employ are forced to rely on public benefits. The report drew on the S&P 500 and tallied a list of 20 companies that have been dubbed the “Low-Wage 20,” which includes some of the u…

A Florida man initially began using Google’s Gemini AI platform last August for assistance with typical queries. By early October, the chatbot had driven him to commit suicide, claims a lawsuit filed against the tech giant on Wednesday. The father of Jonathan Gavalas is suing Alphabet, Google’s parent company, for monetary and punitive damages after discovering troubling messages in the chat logs that the 36-year-old exchanged with Gemini 2.5 Pro, Google’s latest AI model at the time. In the span of less than two months, the chatbot took on an outsized role in Gavalas’ life by adding fuel to his already “clear signs of psychosis,” stoking a quasi-romantic relationship…

When you visit the Samsung booth this week at the Mobile World Congress 2026—which, as always, is being held at the Fira Gran Via convention center in Barcelona—you can make your way past the array of brand-new devices to find a timeline of old Galaxy S phones mounted to a wall. It’s a neat piece of history, but I’m not sure it had the intended effect. Rather than demonstrating Samsung’s progress over the years, it highlights how the South Korean tech giant—still the No. 2 phone maker in the world, right behind Apple, according to data from Counterpoint—has been treading water at the top of its lineup. This year’s Galaxy S26 Ultra, announced a few days before the …

I may have just seen the biggest interface breakthrough in years. Or not. But I think so? Things are moving so fast that it’s hard to tell. Ryo Lu, head of design at the white-hot coding tool Cursor has invited me to their charcoal-hued San Francisco studio. Before anyone says hello, I’m greeted by a pile of footwear in the entry of the no-shoes open office. I suddenly regret my choice to wear my New Balance loafers without socks. The softspoken Lu, donning the creative-approved uniform of flowy wide-legged pants and a button down, weaves me through desks—past half a sports bar’s worth of uptime monitors and a shelf of knicknacks including a New Jeans record …

In September 2025, the nation received its latest report card on 12th-grade math from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. These results should be a wake-up call for any American concerned about the future of education and workforce development in the United States. The findings showed that 78% of 12th graders were not proficient in mathematics, with more students than ever falling below the math proficiency benchmarks established by the National Center for Education Statistics. This widening skills gap signals serious trouble ahead for the American workforce. As the future of work becomes increasingly dependent on STEM skills, we are failing to equip millions…

Just days after abandoning its planned Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, Netflix is back with a very different kind of deal: The streaming giant has acquired InterPositive, a startup founded by actor and director Ben Affleck that is developing AI tools for filmmakers. InterPositive’s entire team will join Netflix as part of the acquisition, and Affleck himself will become an advisor to the streamer. Financial details of the deal weren’t disclosed. Affleck founded InterPositive in 2022 after realizing that existing AI video models weren’t ready to produce Hollywood-grade footage from scratch. “Together with a small team of engineers, researchers and creatives, I bega…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. After taking a big macro hit during the 2022 rate-shock, United Wholesale Mortgage’s (UWM) refinance volume has found its footing—and keeps climbing: 2020: $140B 2021: $139B 2022: $36B 2023: $14B (cycle low) 2024: $43B 2025: $70B That’s a +387% increase in UWM’s refi volume since its 2023 cycle low. Even without a full refi boom, refinance volume is slowly coming back, with the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate as tracked by Freddie Mac down to 5.98% last week—or 1.81 bps below its cycle high of 7.79% in October 2023. Ma…

Groceries are a little harder to come by in dozens of neighborhoods this year in the wake of an ongoing retreat from The Kroger Co. The Cincinnati-based supermarket company has been shuttering locations since June of last year, when it announced a footprint optimization plan that would result in the closure of about 60 stores. According to a Fast Company review of local media reports and online review platforms like Yelp, Kroger could be more than halfway through that process. Some 33 stores have already closed, with at least three more confirmed so far this year. Closures in the months since the announcement largely impact stores under the flagship Kroger ba…

When leaders think about burnout, they often imagine visible distress, absence, emotional overwhelm or resignation. However, burnout does not always look like struggle. Often, it looks like competence. It looks like the person who always delivers. The one who volunteers to pick up the slack. The one answering work emails while watching their son’s nativity play, so they do not let anybody down. The one who says, “It’s fine, I’ll sort it.” The one who absorbs tension in the room so others do not have to. These people are not on a performance plan or raising red flags. They are not the ones asking for help. They are functioning. And those around them may not see…

The next wave of AI will be defined by agentic systems that can take actions: query databases, navigate portals, retrieve records, and increasingly interact with public digital infrastructure at scale. That shift is already showing up as traffic hitting government sites and services is becoming machine traffic. Some of it is benign (search and discovery). Some of it is ambiguous (scraping and automated browsing). And some of it could become actively harmful if agents can reserve scarce services, submit fraudulent requests, or generate volume that overwhelms public systems. The problem is that the government’s current interfaces were not designed for agent-to-gove…

After losing an hour of shut-eye, thanks to daylight savings time, sleep is one many people’s minds today. The day after we “spring forward,” people are significantly more tired—and cranky—due to that lost hour of sleep, which disrupts our natural circadian rhythm, increasing the risks of car accidents, strokes and even heart attacks, according to John Hopkins’s Bloomberg School of Health. In honor of Sleep Awareness Week—that elusive thing many Americans just don’t get enough of—we though we would introduce you to the Dutch method for getting a good night’s rest. In the U.S., “sleep hygiene” a popular way to clean up your sleep routine, is a hack that comes…

You want more confidence at work, but chances are you’re struggling to feel it. In fact, many people say that even if they’re achieving success, they still feel behind or doubt themselves. Confidence is critical not only to accomplishing objectives, but also to your self-esteem. It’s even linked with greater salary, status, and job satisfaction. When you demonstrate confidence, people are more likely to collaborate with you, and you’re also more likely to have the kind of impact that contributes to your self-assurance. But confidence is at a premium today. In fact, while 77% of people say they’re successful, 81% still feel they are behind others, according to a su…

Electric freight has reached a critical inflection point. The long-standing question about whether electric trucks can reliably handle long-haul duty cycles has been answered. Several heavy-duty battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have proved that zero-emission trucks can meet real work freight demands by completing single-charge journeys making corridor freight transportation a reality. Long-term forecasts for medium- and heavy-duty electric trucks and charging infrastructure also remain optimistic as original equipment manufacturers roll out new nameplates and next-generation platforms. But performance alone will not define the next chapter. Energy availability, in…

Shares in the preeminent graphics software company Adobe Inc. (Nasdaq: ADBE) are dropping significantly in premarket trading this morning following the company’s Q1 2026 earnings results. Yet it’s not the earnings themselves that are driving ADBE stock lower. It’s an announcement from the company’s CEO, Shantanu Narayen, who said he plans to exit the role he has held for over 18 years. Here’s what you need to know: What’s happened? On Thursday, Adobe announced the results of its first quarter for fiscal 2026. And for all intents and purposes, the results were of the caliber that would normally make investors happy: Total revenue of $6.4 billion (up 12% ye…

Carnival Cruise Line has announced that it is launching a new dining experience on its ships for people who don’t like the long, leisurely evening dinners that cruises are known for. Here’s why Carnival is introducing the new option, and what it means for you if you’re traveling on a Carnival cruise soon. What’s happened? This week, Carnival announced that it is rolling out a new “Express Dining” option on more than a dozen of its ships. The cruise giant says that the new dining experience is designed to offer “a freshly prepared multi-course dinner experience in under an hour for groups of six guests or fewer.” The idea behind Express Dining is that if Carniva…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. While active listings are rising year-over-year in most regional housing markets, a slight majority of markets are still below pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels. Generally speaking, housing markets where inventory (i.e., active listings) has returned to pre-pandemic 2019 levels have experienced weaker home price growth (or outright declines) over the past 42 months. Conversely, housing markets where inventory remains far below pre-pandemic 2019 levels have, generally speaking, experienced more resilient home price growth over the past 42 months. …

Getting good sleep is critical. A 2018 study found that people who sleep for five to six hours are 19% less productive than people who regularly sleep for seven to eight hours per night. People who sleep for fewer than five hours are nearly 30% less productive. Sure, they’re awake longer. But they actually get less done. That’s because other research shows that only getting six hours of sleep makes any task that requires focus, deep thinking, or problem-solving a lot harder. In fact, where attention and reaction time are concerned, only sleeping six hours is like drinking a couple of beers, and only sleeping four hours is like drinking five beers. Other research s…

Coleman just invented a hard cooler that can collapse in on itself like an accordion, shrink to one-third of its full size, and slot neatly onto a storage shelf. The cooler, called the Snap ’N Go, officially launched on March 17 in three sizes, with prices ranging from $199.99 to $239.99. It’s a first of its kind in the world of food and beverage insulation: While companies like REI, Yeti, and Coleman itself have created large soft cooler bags that can be compressed for storage, no one has ever manufactured a collapsible hard-sided cooler. That’s somewhat surprising, given that hard coolers are often more durable, more insulated, and easier to clean than their soft co…

AI-generated content is making it harder to trust what we see and hear. But at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, a new installation is using the same tech to place people inside history’s most defining moments. “The Great Dictator,” which premiered this week in Austin, flips the script on what deepfakes have come to represent. Instead of using generative AI to create misinformation, it uses AI video and voice tools to blend participants into archival footage to experience history through their own voice and likeness. It’s the latest project from filmmaker and artist Gabo Arora, who wanted to show how emerging tech can be used for something other than profit…

Nearly every major policy paper, and the wannabe thought leaders that quote them, says that university enrollment and programming skills are the winning combination for the next Industrial Revolution. My analysis of 11 million professional programmers at Gild completely disagreed. This is not the Industrial Revolution. Don’t believe me? Try this thought experiment . . . and be honest. You are the CEO of a multinational company with 100,000 employees. Rate all of their jobs on a scale from ‘lowest’ to ‘highest’ skill. Now consider a near future in which AI and automation have disrupted the bottom 80% of those jobs by skill-level. Those 80,000 jobs are not needed anymor…