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Its a well-known fact that phone time before bed makes it harder to sleep. Studies show that a nighttime scroll keeps your brain active, delays REM sleep, and may even disrupt your circadian rhythm. Now, Ikea has created an unusual solution to this damaging habit: designing a dedicated bed for your phone. The Ikea Phone Sleep Collection is essentially an ultra-miniaturized version of an Ikea bed frame, made in the perfect dimensions to cradle your smartphone on a bedside table. Embedded in the beds frame is an NFC chip that tracks how long the phone has been tucked in. If the time exceeds seven hours for seven consecutive nights, the user is rewarded with a shopping voucher of around $27. Despite its diminutive size, this five-piece product, like almost all of Ikeas inventory, comes flat-packed and requires self-assembly. From the masters of sleep comes a new revolution in rest: A complete breakthrough in bedtime that will change the world for good, an ad for the phone bed reads. Its the innovation you didnt know you needed until now, and that you will never not need again. Unfortunately for doomscrollers in the U.S., the agency Memac Ogilvy made the the Phone Sleep Collection exclusively for Ikea customers in the United Arab Emirates, where its currently available to locals who spend more than $207 on Ikea products. While the phone bed is clearly a marketing ploy, its not exactly an outlandish idea within todays growing market for hacks to reduce screentime. [Photo: Ikea] Why tucking your phone into bed makes sense, actually Around 2017, dumbphones enjoyed a spike in popularity as smartphone users began to realize just how much their phones dictated their daily lives, with brands including Nokia and Consumer Cellular jumping in on the trend. Since then, though, the dumbphone craze has waned slightly as smartphones have become an increasingly integral and unavoidable tool for both work and life. Instead, luddite hopefuls are turning to creative alternatives to cut their screentime. Recent solutions have included screentime reducing apps, like Hank Greens Focus Friend or the Touch Grass app; a Brick device that blocks distracting apps; and even a phone case thats so heavy its literally hard to pick up. The Ikea phone bed is basically another concept within this realm, except specifically geared toward the nighttime ritual. “While the Phone Sleep Collection is a limited launch here in the UAE, its underlying principle addresses a universal challenge,” says Carla Klumpenaar, Ikea UAE’s GM of marketing, communications, HF & retail design. “We believe that small, mindful rituals, like tucking your phone into its own bed, can create better routines that can contribute to improved sleep quality and mental clarity. This initiative transforms an everyday challenge into an engaging lifestyle habit, underlining IKEAs commitment to offering meaningful solutions that extend beyond just furniture.” Is it silly? Of course. But if it works to reclaim even a bit of shut-eye, it might just be genius.
Category:
E-Commerce
Once upon a time, the big idea was simplework from anywhere! Thanks to technological advances, you didnt need to be tethered to your office desk to collaborate with coworkers (or swap memes with them). As long as you had your laptop and good Wi-Fi you could be by the pool on a tropical island, drink in hand, and a magnificent sunset in the background. Forward-thinking companies would recognize that talent could be found in the most unexpected places. Employees get to mix and match their work with the life they love. Governments would enable this with offers of special digital nomad visas. The whole world would become one big, friendly workplace. Hold that thought. Before you swap suits for flip-flops, you should recognize that the future of work might not be what you pictured. An alternate future is taking shape, where geopolitics is shaping who works, the location of work, and the type of work. Driven by national security concerns and a proclivity to support their companies at the expense of others, governments are reshaping the future of work. YOUR remote work (Can YOU do the work remotely?) The first promise of remote work was that work could be democratized. More people from around the world could access jobs in a far more distributed model of talent and collaboration. Ideas flow across the world and organizations benefit from a more global intelligence. But that promise collides with geopolitical reality. Take the case of Apple. As the company started to move some of its manufacturing operations to India, it needed to hire workers at scale. According to an Economic Times report, Apples ecosystem in India was expected to create 600,000 jobs. But who works at these facilities is an increasingly geopolitically fraught question. There were initially hundreds of Chinese engineers and technicians supporting Apples expansion in India. But more than 300 of them were asked to return to China recently. The recall of engineersthe second in recent monthswas seen as a push by China to curb technology transfer to Indian operations and prevent manufacturing exits from the country. To continue operations, Apples suppliers have turned to engineers from Taiwan. Driven by geopolitical objectives, government restrictions increasingly shape who can work on leading or cutting-edge projects, the individuals a company can hire, and how long they can stay in those roles. Global companies are taking a close, hard look at their workforce and making difficult choices about who gets to work on different types of projects. Technology companies in Silicon Valley are increasing security vetting of potential recruits to keep commercial information secure. Changing tariff rates could risk millions of jobs in Asia and elsewhere. Thai workers manufacturing solar cells are bearing the brunt of a trade war between China and the U.S. A large-scale study of foreign directors in listed Chinese firms found that as political relations deteriorated, foreign directors were more likely to exit from their roles. On the other hand, scientists at U.S. federal agencies facing layoffsespecially those with expertise in artificial intelligencewere targeted for recruitment to research operations in China. your REMOTE work (Can you do the work REMOTELY?) The second promise of remote work is that work could be done from anywhere. As the technology continues to improve, employees don’t need to be in the office or even in the country. Digital nomads skipped through cities, countries, or even continents. You could log in to work while also visiting your family in another country. You adopt a more flexible lifestyle. But geopolitical reality strikes again. As countries emphasize sovereignty, data security, and the protection of strategic interests, the data, models, and technology resources that can be used from other countries becomes more limited. The Financial Times reported that foreign universities and research institutes lost access to Chinas largest academic database. More countries are adopting data localization laws, which require businesses to store certain types of data within the country to protect national security. The U.S. restricts the transfer of citizens data to countries of concern. Such requirements make it harder to access data and information from another country, even for employees of the same company. American business travelers to China may not, for instance, have access to their work email. Financial analysts working at a fanatic pace to evaluate deal opportunities may find that they need to be on the ground in a given market to access relevant data, not because the technology to transfer those data to another country doesnt exist, but because political interests prevent the transfer of such data overseas. Some companies are asking staff traveling to certain countries to use temporary loaner phones and not bring company laptops. Without your trusty laptop, expect disruptions to work and productivity. your remote WORK (Can you do the WORK remotely?) The final promise of remote work is that technology would allow you to do your job; i.e., execute the same tasks as you would have when it was business-as-usual. But geopolitics has changed the job description for many employees. Focusing on teams, operations, or finances of a business used to be the typical mandate for a manager. With appropriate routines in place, these tasks could even be completed from a remote location. But todays managers have to take on different tasks. Consider Jensen Huang, the CEO of the worlds most valuable company, NVIDIA. For years, Mr. Huang avoided the rough and tumble world of Washington lobbying, preferring the company of the video-gamers. But when the companys AI chips became enmeshed in global politics, Mr. Huangs work changed. He crisscrossed the world convincing lawmakers to facilitate the sales of his companys chips. He became a geopolitical superstar convincing leaders from the U.S. to China about his companys role in their vision. Mr. Huang is not alone. Fortune reported on how companies set up teams to track political developments and quickly present leadership with optionsbut that those team members completely dropped their day jobs. With the need to have an ear to the ground and interact with political actors, remote work becomes increasingly challenging.
Category:
E-Commerce
Protests against President Trumps decision to send the National Guard into American cities have no shortage of whimsy, but the empire struck back against one demonstrator. A lawsuit filed on October 23 accuses police officers and a National Guard member of violating a protesters constitutional right to play the Imperial March theme from Star Wars. The D.C. resident, Sam OHara, was tightly handcuffed and detained for 20 minutes after ignoring a warning from a National Guard member to stop playing the song. In the complaint, OHara alleges that four Washington, D.C., police officers, an Ohio National Guard sergeant, and the District of Columbia violated his First Amendment rights. Government conduct of this sort might have received legal sanction a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the suit on OHaras behalf, stated. But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from restraining individuals from recording law enforcement or peacefully protesting, and the Fourth Amendment (along with the Districts prohibition on false arrest) bars groundless seizures. OHara began filming the National Guard deployment in D.C. over the summer, often following behind Guard members while playing the song and then posting the videos to a TikTok account that has more than a million likes across 24 videos. Armed National Guard should not be policing D.C. residents as we walk around our neighborhoods, OHara said. It was important to me not to normalize this dystopian occupation. The Imperial March theme is associated with the fictional fascist empire from Star Wars; its main villain, Darth Vader; and the empires foot soldiers, the Stormtroopers. The Galactic Empire, long a fixture of pop culture, intentionally echoes the aesthetics and policies of Nazi Germany. The government doesn’t get to decide if your protest is funny, and government officials cant punish you for making them the punch line, ACLU-DC senior staff attorney Michael Perloff said in a press release. Thats really the whole point of the First Amendment. Clashes over National Guard deployment The lawsuit is the latest clash in courts over the Trump administrations decision to deploy National Guard troops to a handful of U.S. cities with Democratic leadership. The National Guard has already been activated in Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Portland, Oregon; and Memphis, though those deployments are the subject of ongoing court battles between state and local leaders and the federal government. Trump has also threatened deployments in New York City, Baltimore, the Bay Area, St. Louis, and New Orleans. The National Guard is historically called in by state governors to help with emergencies and natural disasters, but guard members can also be mobilized by the federal government for national emergencies. Last year, National Guard members deployed in 17 states conducted search and rescue missions and delivered food and water to victims of Hurricane Helene. Since first deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles in June against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom, Trump has escalated his unprecedented use of the state military force in U.S. cities. Trump claims that the National Guard is necessary to quell urban crime, but violent crime has already dropped dramatically in many of the cities targeted for the unusual deployments. Homicide rates dropped by 50% in the first half of 2025 in Portland, Oregon, and in Memphis, robbery, burglary, and larceny hit 25-year lows this year. As I have said from the beginning, the number of federal troops we need in Portland is zero, Mayor Keith Wilson said of the deployment earlier this month. Not from Oregon. Not from California. Not from Texas. And not from anywhere else. On October 23, Trump appeared to back down from a threat to send the National Guard to San Francisco after a persuasive phone call with the CEOs of Nvidia and Salesforce. Great people like Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff, and others have called saying that the future of San Francisco is great, Trump wrote on Truth Social. They want to give it a shot. Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday. Chicken suits and Star Wars As the courts decide the legality of Trumps unilateral use of National Guard troops, protesters are weaponizing absurdism and humor against the presence of federal law enforcement. In Portland, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility has famously attracted a growing crowd of peaceful protesters wearing inflatable animal costumes. The trend was inspired by the early appearance of a frog-suit-clad activist who has since been pepper sprayed directly into his air-intake vent. Another Portland protest regular famous for wearing a chicken suit explained the use of humor in a recent interview with the citys alt-weekly: What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it [says] that were actually not that afraid, Jack Dickinson, 26, told the Willamette Week. When they try to describe this situation as war-torn, it becomes much harder to take them seriously, Dickinson added. Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and its eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.
Category:
E-Commerce
This week, tech companies were either melting down in real time or promising a future where computers are smarter than we are. Investors panicked, calmed down, panicked again, and then bought T-shirts for sea otters. We saw a giant internet outage that reminded everyone just how dependent the modern world is on one company. We also saw a stock that most people had basically pronounced dead suddenly rip higher like it was 2021 again. There was drama in Washington, too. The White House leaned even harder into AI content as a political weapon, raising a question that has been building all year, which is: Are we entering the AI misinformation era for real, or are we already in it and pretending we aren’t? At the same time, Meta cut jobs in the name of moving faster on artificial intelligence, and Apple gave Wall Street something to cheer about by proving that, yes, people will still buy a new iPhone if you make it fast, thin, and expensive. But the biggest optimism play of the week came from someplace totally different. Taylor Swift wore a vintage aquarium T-shirt, and her fans turned that into millions of dollars for sea otter rescue in a matter of hours. There are very few forces on Earth that can move money that fast. Central banks. Oil markets. Taylor Swift. AWS outage hits much of the internet An overnight outage at Amazon Web Services took down big parts of the internet, including apps and sites like Reddit, Lyft, and McDonalds. The problem was tied to AWS systems in one U.S. region, but because so many companies run through that same infrastructure, the impact went global. Amazon said the root issue was a DNS problem that it has mostly fixed, but a lot of users still saw slowdowns and random errors long after the first alert. The outage was another reminder that a huge amount of the modern economy sits on top of someone elses server. Beyond Meat stock suddenly rips higher Beyond Meats stock shot up more than 60 percent after spending the past few weeks in penny stock territory. The spike does not mean the business is suddenly healthy. Demand for plant-based meat has cooled, sales have dropped, and the company is still deep in trouble. What actually happened is a classic short squeeze in which traders who were betting against the stock got forced to buy shares back fast, which pushed the price higher. Trump responds to protests with AI video After the nationwide “No Kings” protests, President Trump posted an AI-generated video of himself in a fighter jet dumping sewage on protesters. He also dismissed the nearly 7 million people who showed up, saying they do not represent the country. Vice President JD Vance boosted a matching AI-style meme of Trump in a crown. Critics say this kind of content is basically making the protesters point for them and also shows how comfortable the administration is with pushing AI-altered media at scale. Meta cuts 600 jobs from its AI lab Meta said it is cutting about 600 jobs in the new AI superintelligence lab that it launched this year. Leadership says the smaller team will be able to move faster and make decisions with less internal debate. The company has been pouring tens of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence and high-end infrastructure, including new data centers and ad tools. The layoff news barely moved the stock, which suggests investors see this as normal cost control for a company that is still planning to spend heavily on AI. Quantum computing stocks pop on takeover rumors Shares of several U.S. quantum computing companies jumped after reports that the Commerce Department is talking to them about possible government investments. The basic idea is that Washington may want a financial stake in these firms in exchange for federal funding. Traders read that as a sign that quantum is getting treated like strategic tech, similar to chips and rare earth minerals. The result was a fast rebound for names like IonQ and Rigetti after a rough day in the broader market. Gold and silver prices fall hard Gold and silver both dropped sharply after hitting record levels earlier in the week. Prices for gold fell back toward the low $4,100 range per ounce, and silver slid under $50. The pullback suggests investors are feeling slightly less panicked about things like tariffs, inflation, and the government shutdown. In plain terms, money moved out of crisis mode and back toward risk. Iceland finds mosquitoes for the first time Scientists confirmed that mosquitoes have now shown up in Iceland, a country that’s basically never had them in human history. Warmer average temperatures are making the island friendlier to insects that could not survive there before. The specific species they found is cold-tolerant, which means it might be able to last through Icelandic winters and stick around. It is a small discovery with big implications because mosquitoes carry disease, and climate change is helping them expand north. Egg recalls keep growing More than 6 million eggs have now been pulled over salmonella concerns tied to Black Sheep Egg Company and others. The FDA escalated the recall to its highest risk tier and keeps adding new affected lots and brands. Experts say the spike in recalls is not only about farms doing something wrong. It is also about better, faster testing that can spot contamination earlier and force products off shelves before people get sick. Apple hits a record high on iPhone 17 Apple stock hit an all-time high, at around $264 a share, after early data suggested the iPhone 17 lineup is selling faster than last years iPhone 16 launch. The standout this cycle is the new iPhone Air, which is thinner, lighter, and still priced as a flagship. Strong demand in both the U.S. and China helped fuel the rally and gave investors fresh confidence heading into Apples next earnings report. Taylor Swift raises millions for sea otters Taylor Swift wore a vintage Monterey Bay Aquarium T-shirt in her latest concert film, and her fans did the rest. The aquarium brought the shirt back, priced it at $65.13, and raised more than $2.3 million for sea otter rescue and rehab. The campaign ran on Tiltify, which let the aquarium process tens of thousands of orders almost instantly. It was a case study in what happens when fandom, nostalgia, and e-commerce all hit at once.
Category:
E-Commerce
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. National home prices rose 0.01% year over year from September 2024 to September 2025, according to the Zillow Home Value Index reading published on October 16decelerated from the 2.4% year-over-year rate from September 2023 to September 2024. This year, the number of major metro-area housing markets seeing year-over-year declines has climbed. > 31 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (10% of markets) had a falling year-over-year reading from January 2024 to January 2025. > 42 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (14%) had a falling year-over-year reading from February 2024 to February 2025. > 60 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (20%) had a falling year-over-year reading from March 2024 to March 2025. > 80 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (27%) had a falling year-over-year reading from April 2024 to April 2025. > 96 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (32%) had a falling year-over-year reading from May 2024 to May 2025. > 110 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (36%) had a falling year-over-year reading from June 2024 to June 2025. > 105 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (36%) had a falling year-over-year reading from July 2024 to July 2025. > 109 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (35%) had a falling year-over-year reading from August 2024 to August 2025. > 105 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (35%) had a falling year-over-year reading from September 2024 to September 2025. Earlier this year, an increasing number of housing markets slipped into year-over-year price declines as the supply-demand balance gradually tilted more toward buyers. But in recent months, the list of declining markets has begun to stabilize as inventory growth has stalled. Home prices are still climbing in many regions where active inventory remains well below pre-pandemic 2019 levels, such as pockets of the Northeast and Midwest. In contrast, some pockets in states like Arizona, Texas, Florida, and Coloradowhere active inventory exceeds pre-pandemic 2019 levelsare seeing modest home price pullbacks. Many of the housing markets seeing the most softness, where homebuyers have gained the most leverage, are primarily located in Sunbelt regions, particularly the Gulf Coast and Mountain West. Many of these areas saw major price surges during the Pandemic Housing Boom, with home price growth outpacing local income levels. As pandemic-driven domestic migration slowed and mortgage rates rose, markets like Tampa and Austin faced challenges, relying on local income levels to support frothy home prices. This softening trend is further compounded by an abundance of new-home supply in the Sunbelt. Builders are often willing to lower prices or offer affordability incentives to maintain sales, which also has a cooling effect on the resale market. Some buyers who would have previously considered existing homes are now opting for new homes with more favorable homebuilder deals. window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}); Of course, while 105 of the nations 300 largest metro-area housing markets are seeing year-over-year home price declines, another 195 are still seeing year-over-year home price increases. Where are home prices still up on a year-over-year basis? See the map below. window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}});
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E-Commerce
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