Customers said metal discs popped off and caused bruises, burns and welts
Read More Holiday spending up 8%; online sales surge
Stores saw a late surge in shopping
Read More In ’15, China slumped, Uber craze drove debate
In other top business news, seven years of near-zero interest rates ended in the U.S. and VW cheated on emissions tests
Read More Editors’ Picks: Our Favorite Fast Company Stories Of 2015
Mark Zuckerberg, Afghanistan, diversity in tech, and more . . .
The gifts have been gifted. The in-laws are gone. It’s time to relax. We’ve compiled a list of our favorite Fast Company longreads that you may have missed during this long and busy year. So, in this blissful time between merry madness and the start of 2016, read about Mark Zuckerberg’s plans for the future of Facebook, the U.S.’s challenge of getting out of Afghanistan, the state of tech’s gender-diversity push, or—for something lighter—what the condiment aisle says about current American demographics in Hot Sauce, USA.
What The Chinese Business Ritual Of Tea Time Could Do For Your Business
When visiting China, Rex Kuo and Charles Ng of Australia-based Orbitkey learned a warmer way of doing business.
When Rex Kuo and Charles Ng began to build their company, Orbitkey, which sells a kind of futuristic key ring, they found themselves taking a lot of meetings with suppliers in China. They found business was done quite differently there than in Australia (where Orbitkey is based).
It’s Been A Challenging Year But Bitcoin Is Still Booming
Bitcoin has yet to find its “killer app” but the currency’s being traded at higher volumes than ever.
Though headlines about bitcoin this year have focused on the challenges facing the cryptocurrency, it’s still booming with some of the highest mining and transaction rates in its history, according to recent statistics.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Sets His Sights On An Oscar
The company best known for shipping you industrial-sized packages of dog food also has grand ambitions for Hollywood.
Not content to claim that his rocket, not Elon Musk’s, was the first to successfully return to Earth after a space launch, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is now gunning for another lofty goal: an Academy Award.
Mark Zuckerberg Defends Facebook Against Free Basics’ Critics
Is Free Basics an altruistic effort to connect the world to opportunities, or a neocolonial race to control and capitalize on new markets?
Today, Mark Zuckerberg published a lengthy opinion article in The Times Of India defending his attempt to connect millions of people to the Internet via a suite of Facebook-approved apps. It’s called Free Basics, and the service lets people with feature phones and other devices access online services without paying data charges.
You Can’t Shut Down The Internet, But A New Filter Takes Donald Trump Off Of It
The Chrome extension, its creator says, will “make America great again.”
Love your Internet but feel hijacked by all the Donald Trump news? There’s an app for that.
Justin Bieber Is Crushing The Beatles On Spotify
Songs like “Come Together” and “Let It Be” have a long way to go to catch up with today’s pop hits.
The Beatles may have been “more popular than Jesus,” at least in John Lennon’s eyes, but the songwriter failed to foresee the rise of another widely worshipped deity: Justin Bieber.
