It’s not just a virtual world that we can step into, but one we can embody ourselves — While billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos took their space-crafts for a spin into outer space, another billionaire focused on the challenge of competing in an entirely different universe. The driving ambition to expand and explore is driven by a primal urge to escape our origins and reach for the…

Pivots in the business world shape the stories that brands tell us, in turn influencing how consumers view the world — Late last year, Disney announced a major reorganization prioritizing its streaming-video services. CEO Bob Chapek said that the move was a recognition of how consumers had changed their consumption habits amid the pandemic, favoring streaming platforms over movie theaters, as well as traditional broadcast and cable channels. Disney reoriented its…

Blockchain technology still leaves digital crumbs behind — Sixty-four bitcoin, or roughly $2.3 million: That’s how much cryptocurrency the Justice Department recovered earlier this week from the total 75 bitcoin ransom paid by Colonial Pipeline, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The cyberattack shut down the country’s largest oil pipeline in May, prompting gas shortages and price…

A little less enterprisey than Slack. A little more structured than Clubhouse. It’s just right. — In 2007, when BlackBerry was still the leader in the enterprise mobile space, a new competitor launched an irresistibly sleek touch-screen smartphone that epitomized the marriage of art and science. (Yes, we’re talking about the iPhone’s debut). BlackBerry executives scoffed at the seemingly pretentious device, which they thought would only…

Our kids understand it better than we do. And it’s training them for the token economy. — The stock market, still caught up in the GameStop trading frenzy, recently put a spotlight on the gaming industry’s latest entrant: Roblox. It debuted on the New York Stock Exchange last week via direct listing and was valued at a mind-boggling $45 billion. The gaming platform of the future has…

Amazon changed its logo from a dot-com era shopping cart to its signature brown shipping box sealed with blue tape. The image, while clean, minimalistic and innocent, still represents a shipping box — the physical manifestation of our weakening resolve to address single-use, one-way packaging. If an icon update is…

In the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma there is a fictional scene depicting a modern family trying to enjoy their dinner, where the mom decides each member of the family must place their phones inside a lockable cookie jar. The purpose is to be present in the moment, away from…

Technical details don’t seem to matter. — With its $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin, analysts estimate that Tesla is “on a trajectory to make more from its Bitcoin investments than profits from selling its EV (electric vehicle) cars in all of 2020.” However it is ironic that Tesla, whose mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to…

How the meme-inspired cryptocurrency became an Elon Musk obsession — Forget the Year of the Ox — 2021 is rapidly shaping up to be the Year of the Doge, a cryptocurrency based on the internet meme of a Shiba Inu dog with a less than stellar command of English, hence “doge” and not “dog.” Nowhere has this development been cheered…