Journal

Global poverty, health, and education are getting better. Climate change, extremism, and inequality are getting worse. The balance is positive—for now.

Is the world improving or deteriorating? Are people’s lives getting better or worse? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic about the future? No doubt, you can make a case either way. But according to a big new report about the state of the planet, there might be more positives than negatives. The world is mostly getting better, though, of course, we face many challenges.

Read Full Story

Take notes, organize meetings, send out invoices, and more.

One-person shops, we salute you! You’ve singlehandedly got the sales, marketing, support, development, accounting, and legal departments humming together like a well-oiled machine before you’ve even had your first sip of coffee each day.

Read Full Story

Babies don’t really need expensive leather shoes. But thanks to some strategic mom marketing, Freshly Picked’s adorbs $60 baby moccs are hot.

In 2009, Susan Petersen, a stay-at-home mom in Provo, Utah, had a lightning bolt of an idea. She’d been struggling to find shoes for Gus, her newborn son. The baby shoes she saw in stores tended to be made of cheap materials. They looked shabby and often didn’t stay on his fast-growing feet. One day, she dreamt up tiny moccasins that, similar to Robeez, would fit snuggly around her baby’s foot and expand to accommodate chubby baby ankles.

Read Full Story

A Harvard professor contrasts two different corporate experiments in fair pay.

Back in April, Seattle credit card processing company Gravity Payments announced it would raise the minimum wage for its 120-person staff to $70,000. For CEO Dan Price, the bump up from the average $48,000 salary was an attempt to ensure the happiness of his employees, based on a Princeton study that measured the dollar figure that triggered contentment among 450,000 U.S. residents.

Read Full Story

A New Zealander with 3,000 hours on his hands built this smartphone-controlled shelter in the sky. It comes with a gorgeous view.

If you never had a treehouse as a kid, then prepare yourself for a fit of jealousy. Jono Williams has built the best treehouse ever, only instead of wood it uses $50,000-worth of imported Chinese steel and other materials, and instead of a tree, it sits atop a 10-meter steel pole.

Read Full Story

If you enjoy watching people fall down, this is for you.

Tough Mudder created a new obstacle course, Urban Mudder, using some of the materials you find in urban areas. Is it easier than Tough Mudder? Well, we sent intrepid reporter Mark Wilson to test it out, and the results are hilarious.

Read Full Story

Updating the world’s most iconic transportation map … after dark.

The London Underground, or “the Tube” as it’s colloquially known, is the oldest metro system in the world. It began its life in January 1863 with a single underground line running between Paddington and Farringdon—about four miles—in central London. On its opening day it carried over 38,000 passengers via steam locomotives and wooden carriages illuminated by gas-light.

Jump forward 152 years and the single line London Underground has grown exponentially–-and organically-–trying to keep pace with the global metropolis London has become. Today the London Underground comprises 270 stations across 250 miles of track. Its annual number of passengers exceeds 1.2 billion per year, millions of those journeys made by tourists who would never consider visiting London without taking a ride on the Tube, that rickety central nervous system of the capital. Indeed, the Underground is now as synonymous with “London” as Big Ben or Buckingham Palace. It is also one of the most well-known and recognizable public transport systems in the world–even to those who have never stepped foot in the capital, thanks to one thing: the design of its map.

Read Full Story

Short answer: No.

File the Buddy—a souped-up dog collar—under egregiously excessive design. Chances are your dog doesn’t need an activity monitor, GPS tracker, temperature and light sensors, and OLED display around its neck. But if you want your pooch to “express its unique character through light,” as the designers tout, perhaps this Kickstarter is for you.

Read Full Story

What happened this week? Here’s our quiz for August 14, 2015.

Did you follow the news this week? Research says that one of the best ways to solidify new information is to be tested on it. Here’s a chance to bolster your knowledge of current events—and earn a special emoji badge.

Read Full Story

Barcelona-based Onionlab uses 3-D projection mapping to blow a building in Spain apart, and it’s incredible.

We’ve seen many, many, many times before how projection mapping can be used to create mind-blowing optical illusions. But what happens when you add 3-D glasses to the mix?

Read Full Story