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How Big Tech Plans To Profit From The Pandemic

How Big Tech Plans To Profit From The Pandemic

Long Reads Tech

As the coronavirus continues to kill thousands each day, tech companies are seizing the opportunity to extend their reach and power. Towards a future in which, for the privileged, almost everything is home delivered, either virtually via streaming and cloud technology, or physically via driverless vehicle or drone.

No, You Don’t Really Look Like That

No, You Don’t Really Look Like That

Explainers Tech

Every digital camera uses algorithms to transform the different wavelengths of light that hit its sensor into an actual image. What makes the iPhone XS’s skin-smoothing remarkable is that it is simply the default for the camera. Snap a selfie, and that’s what you get.

How A Single Mom Created A Plastic Food-Storage Empire

How A Single Mom Created A Plastic Food-Storage Empire

Business History Long Reads

The story of Tupperware is a story of innovation and reinvention: how a new kind of plastic, made from industrial waste material, ended up a symbol of female empowerment. The product ushered women into the workforce, encouraging them to make their own money, better their families, and win accolades and prizes.

The Cab Ride That Nearly Killed Me Changed How I Think About Ride-Hailing Apps

The Cab Ride That Nearly Killed Me Changed How I Think About Ride-Hailing Apps

Apps Business Tech

Were ride-hailing companies doing enough to protect passengers from negligent drivers? Maybe Grab’s growth and its perceived triumph over Uber the day before my accident had come at a cost. Was it possible that, for all the convenience ride-hailing services offered, they were making cities less safe?

Africa’s Richest Man Makes A $17 Billion Bid For Immortality

Africa’s Richest Man Makes A $17 Billion Bid For Immortality

Business World

Aliko Dangote’s plan to reduce Nigeria’s dependency on fuel imports will carve out an even bigger slice of the nation’s $376 billion economy for his empire. Dangote’s future—and, as he likes to say, that of the entire continent’s economy—lies to the south on the Nigerian coast: the construction of a vast oil refinery.

Can China Dump Its Waste Addiction?

Can China Dump Its Waste Addiction?

Nature Videos

China sent Australia’s recycling industry into a spin when it banned most waste imports. Now it’s tackling a home-grown rubbish crisis. Bill Birtles looks at China’s own war on waste and asks: is it winning?

The Most Fascinating Riot You’ve Never Heard Of

The Most Fascinating Riot You’ve Never Heard Of

Art Crime History

A mob of thousands attempted to storm a theater over a performance of Macbeth, the National Guard had to be called up, 31 people were killed and more than 100 wounded all over the personal jealousies of two vain and insecure actors. This is the story of the Astor Place Opera House Riot of May 10, 1849.

Who To Sue When A Robot Loses Your Fortune

Who To Sue When A Robot Loses Your Fortune

Business Tech

The first known case of humans going to court over investment losses triggered by autonomous machines will test the limits of liability. A Hong Kong tycoon is going after the salesman who persuaded him to entrust his fortune to the supercomputer whose trades cost him more than $20 million.

Bashir Sultani

Inspiration
Bashir Sultani
One Woman's Instagram-Fueled Ascent To ‘Boss Lady Status’

One Woman's Instagram-Fueled Ascent To ‘Boss Lady Status’

Apps Business Long Reads

For New Orleans entrepreneur Jesseca Dupart, social media isn’t just a tool for building her business—it’s a platform for inspiring other black women to do the same. She started as a simple hair salon in 2012, now her beauty products are available in stores in every state, as well as Canada, the Caribbean, and the UK.

Chasing Escobar

Chasing Escobar

Crime History

Javier Peña, as a character, was popularized through the Netflix series ’Narcos.’ But the story of the real Peña—who lives in San Antonio—and his quest to end the reign of Pablo Escobar is bigger than a screen. Peña’s life, or death, was particularly valuable to Escobar—fear of the U.S. government made DEA agents a tough mark for hitmen.

The Long-Lost Story Of The Longest Book Ever Written

The Long-Lost Story Of The Longest Book Ever Written

History Long Reads

For or a long time, Joe Gould thought he was going blind. This was before he lost his teeth, and years before he lost the history of the world he’d been writing in hundreds of dime-store composition notebooks, their black covers mottled like the pelt of a speckled goat, their white pages lined with thin blue veins.

The Tricky Economics Of All-You-Can-Eat Buffets

The Tricky Economics Of All-You-Can-Eat Buffets

Economics Food

For a small fee, you’re granted unencumbered access to a wonderland of gluttony. Is it possible to out-eat the price you pay for a buffet? How do these places make money? We looked at the dollars and cents behind the meat and potatoes.

"Locker Room", Thought-Provoking Short Film About Teenage Friendships

"Locker Room", Thought-Provoking Short Film About Teenage Friendships

Videos

A teenage girl discovers her male friends’ secret group chat, forcing her to question her friendship with them. Through the lens of neither a perpetrator or survivor, Locker Room draws attention to the social responsibility of bystanders to bad behavior and the pressures that can cause them to turn a blind eye.

Grieving With Google Street View

Grieving With Google Street View

Apps Life Psychology Tech

One Twitter user recently posted that her family never got to say goodbye to her grandpa when he died a few years ago, but when she visited her grandpa’s farm through Street View, there he was, sitting at the end of the road.  Thousands of people responded with their own Google Street View stories.

Nikolay Schegolev

Inspiration
Nikolay Schegolev
Coming Out Of The Shadows: What It Means To Be French And Chinese

Coming Out Of The Shadows: What It Means To Be French And Chinese

Long Reads Politics World

France is home to large Vietnamese and Cambodian communities who arrived in the country in great numbers following the wars in the former French colonies in the 1970s. People of Chinese descent have long faced prejudice and violence in France. But today a new generation is staking out its rightful place in society.

McHive, The World’s Smallest McDonald’s For Bees

McHive, The World’s Smallest McDonald’s For Bees

Food Media Videos

Some of McDonald’s restaurants in Sweden have beehives on their rooftops. The initiative started out locally but is now growing. To celebrate the initiative which is part of McDonald’s Swedens sustainability work, they created what could be the world’s smallest McDonald’s – a fully functioning beehive.

Everyone Needs To Stop Building Giant Glass Skyscrapers

Everyone Needs To Stop Building Giant Glass Skyscrapers

Architecture Cities Nature

Any building playing host to hundreds of people is going to have a huge climate footprint, but the glass is particularly problematic. The sunlight has unlimited access into the building, but no way to get out. That’s great for tomatoes, but for people it just means more air conditioning.

The State Of Qatar’s Hack Of Democracies: A Global Cyber-Crime Operation

The State Of Qatar’s Hack Of Democracies: A Global Cyber-Crime Operation

Crime Long Reads Tech

In one of the largest state-sponsored computer hacks ever detected, Qatar’s proxies cyberattacked more than 1,400 high-status and ordinary citizens who were exercising their free-speech rights in democracies across North America, the Middle East, Asia and Europe, according to U.S. court filings.

How Silicon Valley Ruined Work Culture

How Silicon Valley Ruined Work Culture

Business Life

More and more offices are adopting the work culture invented by the technology upstarts. These are not the offices where your grandparents worked, clocking out at 5 sharp, eyeballing the corner office. There is no corner office here—just “hot desks” and open floor plans, wide as the prairie.

Trump’s Art Of The Steal

Trump’s Art Of The Steal

Long Reads Politics

How Donald Trump rode to power by parroting other people’s fringe ideas, got himself impeached for it—and might prevail anyway. Trump mines Twitter, plucking what he wants, “very comfortable with half thoughts,” “always looking for tidbits of information that he can use to his advantage.”

Is The Hidden Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia Ready To Open To The World?

Is The Hidden Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia Ready To Open To The World?

Videos World

The ‘hidden kingdom’ of Saudi Arabia has been mostly closed to journalists and travelers…until now. In a glitzy PR push, the country wants to promote itself as a tourist destination. Foreign Correspondent rides the magic carpet to extraordinary sites, thousands of years old, holding mysteries archaeologists are just beginning to uncover.

Michael Crichton

Inspiration
Michael Crichton
How Our Home Delivery Habit Reshaped The World

How Our Home Delivery Habit Reshaped The World

Business Long Reads Tech

The great trick of online retail has been to get us to do more shopping while thinking less about it – thinking less, in particular, about how our purchases reach our homes. This divorce of a product from its voyage to us is perhaps the thing that Amazon has sold us most successfully.

The Myth Of The Ethical Shopper

The Myth Of The Ethical Shopper

Business Economics Long Reads

What has happened in those sweatshops since they became a cultural fixation three decades ago? All sources led to the same conclusion: Boycotts have failed. Our clothes are being made in ways that advocacy campaigns can’t affect and in places they can’t reach. So how are we going to stop sweatshops now?

How The ‘Rugby Rape Trial’ Divided Ireland

How The ‘Rugby Rape Trial’ Divided Ireland

Crime Long Reads

After a trial that dominated the news, the accused were all found not guilty. But the case had tapped into a deeper rage that has not died down. The #MeToo movement was in full flow, and women from all over the island of Ireland were telling painful stories of sexual humiliations at the hands of men.

Can Tiny Houses Save Detroit?

Can Tiny Houses Save Detroit?

Architecture Cities Videos

Detroit is grappling with both devastating poverty and a hot real estate market. But Rev. Faith Fowler of the nonprofit Cass Community Social Services sees a way to remedy both: Develop tiny houses, and create a rent-to-own financing mechanism to help impoverished Detroiters become owners of those homes.

Hangover Inc.: The Companies Getting You Over Last Night

Hangover Inc.: The Companies Getting You Over Last Night

Business Health

Once a hush-hush luxury for the quietly-pampered, banana bags outside the hospital are hitting the mainstream. Nurses stand ready to provide intravenous care to the dehydrated, alcoholically and otherwise, in their homes and hotel rooms, at walk-in centers and on a hangover bus for special events.

Modern Slavery Of Disabled People In South Korea

Modern Slavery Of Disabled People In South Korea

Health Videos

30 Years A Slave: A moving report from South Korea where the police have rescued hundreds of modern-day slaves tricked into working on salt and seaweed farms on a chain of remote islands. Shockingly, many of those rescued have learning disabilities.

The Air Conditioning Trap: How Cold Air Is Heating The World

The Air Conditioning Trap: How Cold Air Is Heating The World

Long Reads Nature

Warmer temperatures lead to more air conditioning; more air conditioning leads to warmer temperatures. The problem posed by air conditioning resembles, in miniature, the problem we face in tackling the climate crisis. The solutions that we reach for most easily only bind us closer to the original problem.

This Was The Decade Climate Change Slapped Us In The Face

This Was The Decade Climate Change Slapped Us In The Face

Nature Science

Broken temperature records, unnatural disasters, and homes lost would show just how catastrophically humans had transformed the planet. It’s been a decade of adapting to a new normal while clumsily figuring out how to safeguard the future from a climate crisis that’s only going to get worse.

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