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Legos newest set is a replica of a Nintendo Game Boy, and its designed to tap into the millennial nostalgia thats ruling the cultural zeitgeist. The 421-piece set is the latest in a series of collaborations between Nintendo and Lego, which have included builds based on the Super Mario, Animal Crossing, and Mario Kart worlds. Currently, the Game Boy is available for preorder at a price point of $60; it will be purchasable online and in stores starting October 1. [Photo: Lego] According to a press release, the collectible is an almost one-to-one replica of the original Game Boy, standing at just over 5.5 inches tall and 3.5 inches wide. It comes complete with a control pad, A and B buttons, a contrast adjustment, and a volume dialessentially, all the elements youd find on the original device. The main drawback is that, tragically, the brick-based Game Boy is not playable. However, it does come with a Game Pak slot and two Game Paks (also made of Legos, of course) based on The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and Super Mario Land. The Game Paks come with lenticular screensor screens that use light deflection to mimic movementreplicating scenes from the respective games, so you can briefly pretend that its a functioning electronic. Legos Game Boy replica comes as 80s and 90s IP has flourished in pop culture. Movies like Barbie and Twisters, fast-food menu throwbacks, and the return of 90s fashion (like via the long-dead J.Crew catalog) have all brought millennial nostalgia into the limelight. [Photo: Lego] Theres also renewed interest in retro tech aesthetics, even among younger generations who werent around during the products heydays. In 2024, that meant product releases like Anduril founder Palmer Luckeys 90s-esque portable gaming device and a pager by Sega that only sends emojis. So far this year, the Commodore 64 PC has already made a comeback and the iPod Nano got turned into a design object. Now the Game Boy is on sale againif only in Lego form.
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E-Commerce
In a new stadium under construction in Egypt for Cairos Al-Ahly Football Club, the soccer field and more than half the seats are sunken slightly underground. The design is partly a way to meet local height restrictions. But the lower temperature below ground also helps keep the outdoor stadium more comfortable, even in sweltering summer weather. Al-Ahly Stadium in Cairo [Photo: Gensler] It allows us to benefit from natural cooling, says Ryan Sickman, who leads the sports practice at Gensler, the architecture firm behind the design. The stadiums facade, designed for LED displays, is also perforated so breezes can easily flow through. Its one of many ways that architects are designing sports venues for extreme heat as the world gets hotter and it’s becoming more difficult for athletes to playand for fans to watchsafely. In Austin, another Gensler-designed stadium is oriented so that as many fans as possible can sit in the shade during games. To keep the space ventilated, it isn’t enclosed. Instead of typical plastic seats, the designers chose mesh to help keep fans cooler. Q2 Stadium in Austin [Photo: Gensler] In Qatar, a stadium designed for the 2022 World Cup uses a white roof to reflect sunlight. Zaha Hadid Architects, the team that created the design, also shaped the roof to help channel hot air away from the stadium. It can be rolled out like a sail to shade the field or fully enclose the space. Inside, a solar-powered cooling system pumps cool air to each seat while also forming a cool bubble over the playing field. Materials also help. In Las Vegas, engineers at Arup used several different materials in the facade of Allegiant Stadium to keep it cooler inside. A translucent ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) roof insulates the space. Black-and-silver coatings use infrared reflective pigments to reflect as much sun as possible. Tinted glass also helps reflect sunlight and reduce glare. Al Janoub Stadium in Doha [Photo: Hufton + Crow] Some approaches take inspiration from older ideas. A technology that circulates water under a field to help keep natural turf healthy, for example, can double as a way to keep the field cooler for players. In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the Arup-designed King Abdullah Sports City Stadium uses traditional Islamic screens for shade and ventilation. The cladding is designed to pull cool air in, then let it rise and exit the top of the stadium. On the roof, perforated mesh inserts inspired by bedouin tents let air flow through. Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas [Photo: Jason O’Rear] Passive techniques like this reduce or sometimes eliminate the need for energy-intensive air-conditioning. Sickman says architects “can use some of the things that maybe we forgot because of the advent of technology and active cooling, and go back to strategies that served the test of time. Still, outdoor stadiums can only go so far. In cities like Cairo, soccer games are already played at night when the temperature is lower. The World Cup in Qatar was moved from summer to winter because of the heat. But as extreme heat waves become more common, it may sometimes be too hot to play even as teams try to adjust their scheduling. A report in the medical journal Lancet found that in 2023 people around the world experienced an average of 50 more days of health-threatening temperaturestimes when it could be dangerous to play sportsthan they would have without climate change.
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E-Commerce
Theres a quiet unraveling happening in business. You feel it in the glassy eyes of employees. You see it in customers ghosting once-beloved brands. You hear it in leadership meetings when someone asks, Why arent people sticking around? and no one has a real answer. The truth is that brand loyalty is fading. Not because people are distracted. Because theyre disillusioned. And no, a new logo wont fix it. The Belief Gap There was a time, not long ago, when brand was a kind of secular faith. We believed in Nike, Apple, or Patagonia. These brands stood for something, or at least they made us feel like they did. They gave shape to aspiration. They helped us orient ourselves in a world that often felt chaotic. But faith, as theologians have long known, requires more than symbols. And trust, once broken, is a difficult thing to restore. What used to bind uscustomer to brand, employee to companyis fraying. Not because people are fickle, but because brands became false idols. The modern brand machine promised meaning and delivered margin. They said people first, but meant until the next earnings call. Todays consumers are savvier, and employees are more vocal. Neither will tolerate brands that say one thing and do another. Theyre not impressed by slogans. They want to know what your company actually stands forand if your actions align with that claim. Theyre asking, Do I see myself in this? Do I trust this? Does this matter to me? And if the answer is no, theyre gone. The Quiet Collapse of Brand Meaning According to McKinsey, three out of four consumers have changed brands in the past two years. Meanwhile, research from MIT Sloan reveals that toxic culturenot payis the number-one predictor of employee attrition. Its not just bad bosses or weak onboarding. Its something deeper: a breach of belief. The breach happens quietly. The brand deck claims innovation, but inside, risk is punished. The values on the wall say people first, but layoffs come before leadership cuts. The company celebrates diversity in its marketing while sidelining it in its hiring practices. People notice. And once they do, no creative or bold rebrand can undo it. This isnt a customer service issue or an HR problem. Its a crisis of meaning. Brands Built for Yesterday Cant Survive Tomorrow For decades, brand loyalty followed a predictable pattern: identify a target audience, claim a point of view, build a story, develop an identity, and launch. Then, pour money into media and hope the message sticks. Meanwhile, culture, what it feels like to actually work there, was a separate track, typically owned by HR, reduced to perks and performance reviews. In an era where every employee has a microphone and every customer has a camera, the gap between what a company says and how it behaves is visible. Its searchable. Its shareable. The line between internal and external is invisible. The pandemic, political polarization, economic volatility, and a new generation of employees and customers have shifted the calculus. Today, people dont just want good products or clever taglines; they also want meaningful experiences. And when the story you tell the market doesnt match the one your team lives every day, brand loyalty dissolves. The Brands That Still Have Devotion? Theyve Earned It. Trader Joes, for all its cult-favorite snacks, has never been about product alone. Its about people. The staff doesnt feel like theyre trapped in a fluorescent prison. Theyre trusted, empowered, often joyful. That energy transfers. The experience feels human. It makes loyalty feel easy. Costco didnt build its billion-dollar business by playing it safe. It pays better wages than nearly anyone else in retail. Its benefits rival some tech companies. It knows that loyalty at scale starts with respect, not perks. And then theres Chobani. Its founder, Hamdi Ulukaya, didnt just democratize Greek yogurt. He redefined what it means to lead with conscience, giving refugees jobs and equity, turning profit into purpose without ever preaching about it. The brands moral backbone is the brand. None of these brands engineered loyalty. They didnt split-test their way into affection. They simply aligned what they stood for with how they behaved. The Old Brand Playbook? Burn It. You know the one: Identify your audience (our audience is . . . everyone!). Conduct market research regarding their preferences, values, and unmet needs, (probably just a hunch, its gotta be a millennial). Stake out a position (throw in a cheesy tagline for good measure). Develop your brand story (two people found an alpaca farm, cut out the middle man, and brought you a better poncho). Develop your visuals (fingers crossed this looks good for as cheaply as possible). Throw lots of money at marketing (nothing like wasting a lot of money to market a bad brand!). This formula used to work when people asked fewer questions. But today, a brand that only looks good is a brand thats already behind. Today, you cant brand your way out of a broken culture. You cant market your way past mistrust. You cant buy loyalty with a new logo and some values in a pitch deck. Rebuilding Loyalty Is a Leadership Mandate This is no longer a task for the marketing department. Brand loyalty has become a test of leadership and vision. Rebuilding loyalty isnt about going louder; its about going deeper. It starts with asking better questionsand being willing to sit with the answers. Ask your employees: What do we stand for, from your perspective? What do we ignore that truly matters? What would make you proud to work here? Ask your customers: What values should this company embody? Where are we falling short? What would make you proud to buy from us? What change would make you stay? These are not marketing questions. They are questions of identity. What youll find in those answers is not just sentiment, but structure, and a blueprint for rebuilding not just brand loyalty, but brand integrity. Loyalty Isnt Gone. But Its No Longer Passive. Lets stop pretending people are loyal to colors, fonts, or discounts. Theyre loyal to how your company makes them feel, to whether they believe youre worth their time, attention, and energy. The good news? Loyalty is still possible. Its just more discerning. The brands that will win in this new era wont be the noisiest. Theyll be the clearest. The ones who know exactly who theyre customer is and theyll run through brick walls to keep them. People arent loyal to campaigns. Theyre loyal to conviction. So dont just try to win loyalty back. Build something bigger:belief.
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E-Commerce
For the third consecutive year, venture capital investment in climate tech fell in 2024. Investment in the sector reached only $37.8 billion, nearly 40% lower than its all-time high in 2021. Looking ahead to 2025, a report from PitchBook suggests climate tech investments could fall even further. The broad scope of climate tech means the companies focused on it are subject to policy and industry changes impacting many sectors, such as energy, agriculture, and transportation. However, even as tariffs and shifting policy priorities threaten companies bottom line, many venture investors in the space say there is no cause for alarm. This isn’t surprising to us, says Sara Simonds, executive director of Venture Climate Alliance, an organization that brings together climate-focused venture capital firms. Many of the VCs that we work with have been investing in these sectors for the better part of a decade or longer and are accustomed to the ebbs and flows in industry outlook. The last surge of investment started in 2021, when the market for renewable energy and other climate technologies looked very different. Favorable policies under President Joe Biden bolstered the sector and made it a hotbed of activity even for venture capitalists who werent previously involved in the space. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, for example, invested billions in clean energy, electric vehicles, and other climate-friendly technologies. That act built on tax credits for electric vehicles, carbon sequestration, and other initiatives provided by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress in 2021. On the venture capitalist side, those policies led to expensive deals that pushed the annual VC deal value over $60.5 billion in 2021 and $53.8 billion in 2022, according to the PitchBook report. Now some climate-favorable policies and tax breaks are gone under President Donald Trump, and tariffs are raising the cost of clean energy in the U.S. (China remains the leading supplier of solar panels, wind turbine components, and lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles, according to the International Energy Agency.) Many tourist investors who temporarily entered the climate space during its period of high growth have taken these changes as a sign to scale back investments or leave the space. This, combined with declines in the number of VC deals in the tech sector more broadly, has added to climate techs troubles. However, venture capitalists who specialize in climate tech investments arent worried. In fact, they see opportunities for growth that may outweigh the financial risks these policy and market changes bring. Part of their confidence in the sector comes from having experienced past boom-bust cycles in climate technology markets. The CleanTech 1.0 eraa period in the mid-2000s when venture capitalists heavily staked renewable energy startups that ultimately failedwas a formative experience for many of todays climate tech investors. They observed not only how these businesses failed but also how others succeeded in their wake as the need for climate-friendly solutions grows. Climate change is the macro of all macro trends, says Andrew Beebe, managing director at Obvious Ventures. Maybe not as a human, but as an investor, the macro on climate is amazing. The challenge becomes greater by the day and that means the opportunities just become greater by the day. Additionally, many of the changes on the policy side have greater impacts on mature industries that venture capitalists are less directly involved in, says Matt Eggers, managing director at Prelude Ventures. Venture capitalists tend to invest in startups and other early-stage companies with potential to grow. While there is always innovation going on behind the scenes of mature industries, some that are well-established (like traditional solar and wind technologies) are less appealing to investors looking for groundbreaking new technologies or unexplored areas of industries. What many dedicated climate tech investors are looking for remains the same as when the sector hit its peak three years agonew or improved technologies that are scalable and have strong market potential. Last year, North America remained the largest market for climate tech investment, and it saw big gains in the energy sector, according to the PitchBook report. In particular, growth was notable in dispatchable energy sources whose output is easily increased or decreased to meet demand, and in infrastructure to produce, store, and transport hydrogen. Similarly, the first quarter of this year saw more investments in energy, with large fusion and nuclear deals. Weve got technology that were really excited about in the portfolio, Eggers says. He and Beebe both see opportunities in companies using electrification and artificial intelligence to transform the climate tech sector. Beyond the technology, Eggers adds that investors look for companies with strong leadership teams and ideas that appeal to big or fast-growing markets, particularly those that have been disrupted by the types of policy and economic changes plaguing many industries today. When theres disruption, theres opportunity, Eggers says. This extends to the investment space as well, where investors are finding promising companies to fund in this now less-crowded area of the venture market.
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E-Commerce
Every few years, the tires on your car wear thin and need to be replaced. But where does that lost tire material go? The answer, unfortunately, is often waterways, where the tiny microplastic particles from the tires synthetic rubber carry several chemicals that can transfer into fish, crabs, and perhaps even the people who eat them. We are analytical and environmental chemists who are studying ways to remove those microplasticsand the toxic chemicals they carrybefore they reach waterways and the aquatic organisms that live there. Microplastics, macro-problem Millions of metric tons of plastic waste enter the worlds oceans every year. In recent times, tire wear particles (TWPs) have been found to account for about 45% of all microplastics in both terrestrial and aquatic systems. Tires shed tiny microplastics as they move over roadways. Rain washes those TWPs into ditches, where they flow into streams, lakes, rivers, and oceans. Along the way, fish, crabs, oysters, and other aquatic life often find these TWPs in their food. With each bite, the fish also consume extremely toxic chemicals that can affect both the fish themselves and whatever creatures eat them. Some fish species, like rainbow trout, brook trout, and coho salmon, are dying from toxic chemicals linked to TWPs. Researchers in 2020 found that more than half of the coho salmon returning to streams in Washington state died before spawning, largely because of 6PPD-Q, a chemical stemming from 6PPD, which is added to tires to help keep them from degrading. But the effects of tire wear particles arent just on aquatic organisms. Humans and animals alike may be exposed to airborne TWPs, especially people and animals who live near major roadways. In a study in China, the same chemical, 6PPD-Q, was also found in the urine of children and adults. While the effects of this chemical on the human body are still being studied, recent research shows that exposure to this chemical could harm multiple human organs, including the liver, lungs, and kidneys. In Oxford, Mississippi, we identified more than 30,000 TWPs in 24 liters of stormwater runoff from roads and parking lots after two rainstorms. In heavy traffic areas, we believe the concentrations could be much higher. The Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council, a states-led coalition, in 2023 recommended identifying and deploying alternatives to 6PPD in tires to reduce 6PPD-Q in the environment. But tire manufacturers say theres no suitable replacement yet. What can communities do to reduce harm? At the University of Mississippi, we are experimenting with sustainable ways of removing TWPs from waterways with accessible and low-cost natural materials from agricultural waste. The idea is simple: Capture the tire wear particles before they reach the streams, rivers, and oceans. In a recent study, we tested pine wood chips and biochara form or charcoal made from heating rice husks in a limited oxygen chamber, a process known as pyrolysisand found they could remove approximately 90% of TWPs from water runoff at our test sites in Oxford. Biochar is an established material for removing contaminants from water due to its large surface area and pores, abundant chemical binding groups, high stability, strong adsorption capacity, and low cost. Wood chips, because of their rich composition of natural organic compounds, have also been shown to remove contaminants. Other scientists have also used sand to filter out microplastics, but its removal rate was low compared with biochar. We designed a biofiltration system using biochar and wood chips in a filter sock and placed it at the mouth of a drainage outlet. Then we collected stormwater runoff samples and measured the TWPs before and after the biofilters were in place during two storms over the span of two months. The concentration of TWPs was found to be significantly lower after the biofilter was in place. The unique elongated and jagged features of tire wear particles make it easy for them to get trapped or entangled in the pores of these materials during a storm event. Even the smallest TWPs were trapped in the intricate network of these materials. Using biomass filters in the future We believe this approach holds strong potential for scalability to mitigate TWP pollution and other contaminants during rainstorms. Since biochar and wood chips can be generated from agricultural waste, they are relatively inexpensive and readily available to local communities. Long-term monitoring studies will be needed, especially in heavy traffic environments, to fully determine the effectiveness and scalability of the approach. The source of the filtering material is also important. There have been some concerns about whether raw farm waste that has not undergone pyrolysis could release organic pollutants. Like most filters, the biofilters would need to be replaced over timewith used filters disposed of properlysince the contaminants build up and the filters degrade. Plastic waste is harming the environment, the food people eat, and potentially human health. We believe biofilters made from plant waste could be an effective and relatively inexpensive, environmentally friendly solution. Boluwatife S. Olubusoye is a PhD candidate in chemistry at the University of Mississippi. James V Cizdziel is a professor of chemistry at the University of Mississippi. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
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