It’s the kind of place where you kill time reading a book, or play games on your mobile while you wait for your train to arrive. But the subway has found a new position in Korea. It doubles up as a supermarket. Tesco just launched an interesting experiment where the walls are full of virtual merchandise. But …
It’s easy enough to understand money when it passes through your hands. Comfortable denominations, a feeling of solidity and remarkably efficient for transactions. The credit card changed all of that. Suddenly, you could sign off on a receipt and your bank account got a little lighter every time you filled up at the petrol bunk, …
When Novak Djokovic crashed to the ground after defeating Nadal and became the 2011 Wimbledon Champion, he lay on his back looking up at the sky. Crossing over from competitor to victor, he savoured the moment and the most telling gesture afterwards was the bit of the hallowed grass he plucked and stuffed into his mouth. The …
It’s the lazy commenters’ favourite tool – needs no effort apart from a click. The numbers pile up, provide gratification for those who receive it and according to the Wall Street Journal article, encourage conformity. In an age when the average comment is the meaningless ‘Nice post’ or ‘Great’, there is a rationale for the ‘Like’ …
Why are we so obsessed with looking young? From Oscar Wilde’s iconic story – ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ to the botox treatments and the nose jobs that our actresses routinely have, it has become fashionable to cheat on nature and interfere with the inevitable ageing process. And why we are so mortified with the lines that …
Twitter has been experimenting with several features on its home page, but the latest one does a good job of highlighting the Twitterati who are active across topics. This is certainly better than trying to get attention by highlighting just a few tweets on trending topics. It gives a good idea of the kind of …
A lot of people find absolute darkness terrifying – but it has been proven to be beneficial for deep sleep and better health. Waking up in the middle of a night in a remote location in Kerala, I found that I could not see my fingers in front of my eyes even though they were …
Can you imagine a McDonald burger being promoted as an antidote to a hangover? The advertising requirement was to get more people to walk in in the early morning and late hours. The communication solution showed a burger dropping into a glass leaving a trail of sesame seeds. The image is striking, not because it is inherently …
Conventional wisdom dictates that the world’s problems – safe drinking water, disease prevention and shelter can only be solved by governments and charities. Very few companies see them as market opportunities that need unconventional thinking. Consider this – 90% of the world’s investment in health benefits cover just 10% of the world’s population – mainly …
GIFs (Graphics Interchange Format), those animated, flashing monstrosities have been a bane since the early days of the web. They creep, crawl and make web pages dotted with them an exercise in tolerance if the content is worth staying with. Try reading a book with the margins full of flashing lights and jiggly worms – it’s precisely …
