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「這次，『它』真的變得不一樣了……。」時間往前推，今年三月，全球最大的上市避險基金集團英仕曼（ManGroup），在官網發布了一篇分析報告，報告核心，圍繞在一個已開發國家近年推行的資本市場改革。報告的結論是這麼下的：「它付出的努力，曾經收效甚微，但，這一切很可能即將改變。」 「轉型」、「不一樣」……，這些象徵著自我革新與重生的語彙，指向的，是一個經濟發展停滯逾三十年的國度——日本。 「過去十年，是這個國家的盤整期，」談到日本的未來展望時，元大金控策略長吳杰用篤定與樂觀的語氣提出定調：「現在，它即將全面邁入復興的階段。」 時間回到五月十七日，當天，代表日本大型股表現的日經二二五指數升破了三萬點關卡，不僅創下二○二一年九月以來新高，更逼近一九九○年八月以來的最高水平；同期間，反映日本整體企業表現的東證指數（Topix）也突破了二一二七點，來到三十三年高位。 帶動日股創新高的一大功臣，是外資。 根據日本財務省日前公布的統計資料顯示，今年四月，外資在日本股市總計買超四．九八兆日圓，這個單月買超金額，創下自○五年一月日本開始統計外資動向以來的歷史最高紀錄。 另一邊，…

二○二三年，全球最褒貶兩極、擁護者與唱衰者最壁壘分明的企業，必然就是電動車龍頭廠特斯拉（Tesla）。 一月上旬，特斯拉旗下最熱銷兩大車款： Model 3與Model Y， 先後在中國、歐美、日韓等市場啟動大降價。以長程版的Model Y為例，美國消費者只要晚一天買車，就可以拿到便宜近兩成的價格，省下新台幣三十多萬元，而台灣市場也在一個月後，加入這波降價潮。 產品大降價 公司市值逆勢暴增 失去顧客信任 馬斯克無所謂 「之前買的虧大了！」「老車主被當盤子（台語「盼仔」的諧音，意指「凱子」）！」「韭菜割起來！」這些聲音，在台灣的車主間此起彼落；在中國，甚至有車主相約「維權」，跑到門市高喊退錢；在美國，則有消費者發起連署，企圖向該車廠追討折扣。 然而，一片罵聲中，特斯拉在去年重摔的資本市場，竟出現驚人翻轉。 總計今年初至二月中旬，該公司在短短一個半月內，股價從最低點的一○八美元，一路翻漲到二○八美元，帶動市值暴增逾三千億美元（約近九兆元新台幣）；反觀去年一整年，它股價、市 值雙雙蒸發近七成，該公司執行長馬斯克（Elon Musk），也因此交出坐了兩年的世界首富寶座。…

As the tech industry has matured, people in Silicon Valley have become obsessed with developing ways to stop the human aging process. It started with really long bike rides and intermittent fasting, but some venture capitalists and startup employees have moved on to taking dozens of pills every morning, or injecting stem cells into their brain, or infusing their body with the blood of the young and virile. This brand of life-extension experimentation remains fringe, probably because it’s weird and there’s not a ton of evidence any of it works. But Celine Halioua has a plan to take the field mainstream, and it involves dogs. Her startup, Cellular Longevity Inc., is developing treatments that extend the life span of dogs while also making them more active in their later years. Should…

When a scam artist called Cameron Huddleston’s mom to tell her to wire money in order to claim a prize, Huddleston had to intercept the calls. Her mom, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, was convinced she had to wire the money as soon as possible. “That was a wake-up call for me. If you have any cognitive decline, you don’t see those red flags anymore,” says Huddleston, who lives in Kentucky and is the director of education at Carefull, a service built to protect aging adults’ daily finances. She also wrote the book “Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk,” on how to have important conversations about money with your parents. Scam artists often target older adults, partly because they have amassed greater wealth. “If you are thinking from a criminal’s…

MILLIONS OF PAIRS OF UNSOLD Yeezys are sitting in purgatory, stacked in warehouses from the US to China. Sneakers—some looking like cozy turtleneck sweaters for your feet, others like they’ve grown teeth on their soles or solidified into pillowy clouds—that once would’ve sold out in limited-edition drops, often flipped for much more on StockX and Goat, now await their fate seven months after one of the biggest corporate meltdowns in history. Their owner, Adidas AG, couldn’t decide what to do with all the tarnished merchandise created by the man who was, until recently, its most prominent business partner: Kanye West, who now goes by Ye. The total value of these sneakers: about $1.3 billion. At Adidas headquarters in the medieval town of Herzogenaurach, Germany, senior executives have spent months mulling their…

FOR THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, ONE OF THE FIRST SIGNS OF THE COVID-19 pandemic to come was a tragedy at a nursing home near Seattle. On Feb. 29, 2020, officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Washington State announced the U.S. had its first outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Three people in the area had tested positive the day before; two of them were associated with Life Care Center of Kirkland, and officials expected more to follow soon. When asked what steps the nursing home could take to control the spread, Dr. Jeff Duchin, health officer for Seattle and King County, said he was working with the CDC to provide guidance, “but,” he acknowledged, “it is a very challenging environment, particularly with so many vulnerable patients,…

André Sougarret won global acclaim in 2010 as the chief engineer on a rescue of 33 Chilean miners who’d spent more than two months trapped 2,300 feet underground. Now, as chief executive officer of Codelco, he must attempt another difficult feat: digging the world’s No. 1 copper producer out of its current hole. At the state-owned behemoth, output is running at its lowest in a quarter century, costs have surged, and profit has slumped—all at a time when Chile’s government needs more money to fight festering inequalities and the world needs more copper for batteries and electric grids as it transitions away from fossil fuels. Codelco’s production is down by about a fifth from only six years ago. After a double-digit percentage drop in 2022, it’s expected to fall as much…

Linda Zhang started managing money in 2003. At the time, a little more than 1 in 10 portfolio managers were women. Almost two decades later, that number has barely changed. Women made up about 14% of the 25,000 portfolio managers globally who run fixed income, equity, and asset allocation mutual and exchange-traded funds as of Dec. 31, unchanged from 2000, according to Morningstar Inc. In the U.S. about 11% are female, a share that has held constant over the past decade and is down from 14% in 2000. “Our industry hasn’t changed that much,” says Zhang, who thought the numbers were low back in 2003. “I was managing a multi-asset mutual fund at one point, and I had over $2 billion under my management. I just saw there were very few women…

Hubert Palan signed on to Zoom from his home in Oakland, Calif., on Feb. 2 and prepared to address the 400 or so employees at his startup, Productboard Inc. As chief executive officer, he had big news: Productboard had just raised a new round of funding at a valuation of $1.7 billion. That meant the company could now officially call itself a unicorn—the term for a startup that investors deem worth $1 billion or more. Palan, a wide-smiling 43-year-old father of two from the Czech Republic, tried to make the video call a celebratory moment. “I was jumping around over Zoom,” he says. “I was like, ‘Yay!’ ” He took out a unicorn-shaped Christmas ornament, which he’d decorated with a small sticker of the Productboard logo and attached to a long…

THE BEST DRESSED STARS BEST DRESSED ARRIVALS AND WINNERS EXECS ON PARADE PARTIES BASSETT, PUGH: MIKE COPPOLA/GETTY IMAGES. BLANCHETT, OLSEN: MIKE COPPOLA/GETTY IMAGES. MESCAL, CHAU, DE ARMAS: GILBERT FLORES/VARIETY VIA GETTY IMAGES. GURIRA, JORDAN: ARTURO HOLMES/GETTY IMAGES. MONÁE, KEERAVAANI: ABC/GETTY IMAGES. YEOH, URBAN, DEBOSE, DANO: EMMA MCINTYRE/GETTY IMAGES. DEL TORO, POLLEY: RICHARD HARBAUGH/A.M.P.A.S. VIA GETTY IMAGES. ALL OTHER EXECUTIVES: RODIN ECKENROTH/GA/THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER VIA GETTY IMAGES (16). JOHN: DAVID M. BENETT/GETTY IMAGES FOR ELTON JOHN AIDS FOUNDATION. QUAN, CURTIS: EMMA MCINTYRE/GETTY IMAGES. DAVID, MAJORS: ANGELA PHAM/BFA.COM.GARFIELD: AMY SUSSMAN/GETTY IMAGES. NOAH, PASCAL: RANDY SHROPSHIRE/GETTY IMAGES FOR CAA. CARDI: JEMAL COUNTESS/GA/THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER VIA GETTY IMAGES.…

With coronavirus lockdowns, a real estate downturn, and surging oil prices stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Xi Jinping is turning to reliable allies to keep his ambitious economic growth target in reach: China’s more than 50 million construction workers. At Beijing’s behest, local governments have drawn up lists of thousands of “major projects” they’re under great pressure to see through. Planned investment this year amounts to at least 14.8 trillion yuan ($2.3 trillion), according to a Bloomberg analysis. That’s more than double the new spending in the infrastructure package the U.S. Congress approved last year, which totals $1.1 trillion spread over five years. Much of the investment, like that in Washington’s plan, is slated for transportation, water, and digital infrastructure. But China already has more than twice as many miles…

2012年7月，我和伴侶凱文、兩名朋友戴蒙和莉安娜在育空河上划獨木舟漂流結束，毫髮無損地上岸後，準備慶祝我們從北方荒野安全歸來。然而經歷了反常的雷暴並與熊不期而遇之後，我們萬萬沒有想到這次旅途最讓人焦慮不安的，反而是回家的這段車程。 我們把撞變形的獨木舟划進道森市，準備買下一班開往白馬市的巴士車票，因為要搭乘黎明時分飛往多倫多的航班，而從道森市到白馬市的車程是6小時，所以時間很緊湊，不能出任何差池。 但我們並未意識到這個星期巴士停駛了，所以當下只有兩個選擇擺在我們面前：（1）在道森市天長地久地住下去，或者（2）找一個有一輛大車的人，裝得下我們4個人和所有的裝備，而且這個人馬上就可前往白馬市。遊客服務中心的櫃檯人員察覺到我們不斷上升的焦灼感，前前後後打了不下⋯ ⋯ 欸唷，2,000通電話，最後大聲宣布： 「我大概找到人了！」 一輛老掉牙、已經褪色的米白廂型車，嘎嚓嘎嚓爬過來，從駕駛座上下來、咧著嘴笑的是史丹。他的年紀在60開外，身材瘦高，繫著螢光黃吊褲帶，頂著一頭卷曲的銀髮。他自我介紹是專業生日小丑， 並笑說他的車子最近不太靈光，還驚詫克朗代克公路竟然如此偏僻，…

Decades before he founded Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Morris Chang was present at the creation of modern Silicon Valley. He reminisced at an event this April about being at an industry conference with Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce in 1958, 10 years before they started Intel Corp. The three men attended sessions all day, let the beer flow at dinner, and sang at the top of their lungs all the way back to their hotel, according to Chang. “We felt favored by the gods,” he said. Moore and Noyce’s company went on to become one of Silicon Valley’s most legendary institutions before stumbling in recent years. It’s Chang’s TSMC that now seems like the blessed one, the result of his early embrace of an untested business model and deft execution that’s…

The pandemic has tied a series of paralyzing knots in the global economy, but beyond the transportation delays and parts shortages lies a more enduring challenge for supply chains: climate change. Consider that last year alone saw Hurricane Ida, a typhoon near Chinese ports, the Texas freeze, British Columbia flooding, and freak December tornadoes across the U.S., and it’s clear that global trade is struggling to cope with much more than a health crisis. As temperatures creep higher, nature is likely to be a more frequent, intense, and random economic disrupter. An analysis of 405 extreme weather events over the past decade by Carbon Brief, a website in London devoted to climate science, shows that 70% were more likely to occur, or made more severe, because of global warming. “It’s not the…

By the end of March, the Cleveland Ballet’s prospects were bleak. The company was barely 5 years old, without an endowment, and responsible for the salaries of its five full-time and two part-time staff, plus 24 dancers—many of whom had moved to the city from other countries for the job. And because of the pandemic-related shutdown, the ballet’s revenue was reduced to grants, loans, and donations. “Our company had a better-than-average formula,” says co-founder Mike Krasnyansky. Almost 58% of revenue was from ticket sales, while 42% was from donations. “But that was working against us,” he says. Krasnyansky cut the Cleveland Ballet’s budget from $1.5 million to $1 million for the fiscal year begun in August and eliminated 80% of its performance costs—not hard, given that when performances did resume they were…

The first-floor apartment on West 37th Street, a few blocks south of Times Square, was popular with tourists—so popular that a set of keys was left at the counter of a nearby bodega for Airbnb renters to pick up. That’s where a 29-year-old Australian woman and a group of her friends retrieved them, no identification needed, when they arrived in Manhattan to celebrate New Year’s Eve in 2015. The apartment had been advertised on Airbnb even though most short-term rentals are illegal in New York. The city, prodded by powerful hotel unions, was at war with the company, which was listing thousands of apartments in the five boroughs despite some of the strictest regulations in the country. Soon after ringing in the new year, the woman left her friends at the…

Whether it’s fairly new or old, sometimes you buy a device and then…it sits. Maybe you don’t like it, or maybe you find something better. Regardless, if you want to free up some space and recoup some of your initial investment, you have several options. You can go about it in one of two ways: either through a buyback service like Decluttr or Gazelle, or through an online marketplace like eBay or Facebook Marketplace. (To learn more about the distinction, see our primer on how to sell old tech.) THE BEST WEBSITES FOR SELLING TECH Online marketplaces come in several flavors—some are auction based, others use a fixed price. Some limit transactions to local, in-person exchanges, while others focus on online sales. You can choose the type of interaction and level of seller…

Triathlon’s sixth appearance in the Olympic Games promises to be the most unpredictable yet. There are at least 10 legitimate medal contenders in the individual races, and the addition of the mixed relay makes this the most significant Olympics for triathlon since its debut in 2000. If you’re new to draft-legal racing, let’s start with a quick primer. The major difference is that drafting is allowed on the bike, because there would be no way to have a non-drafting race on a short, looped circuit with 65 athletes who are all within 1% of each other physiologically. That makes for pack racing, and the goal for the athletes trying to medal is to make it to T2 in the front pack—whether it’s a pack of four or 40. What makes the outcome…

With the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine newly given emergency-use authorization for children 5 to 11, many parents are asking the question: Should we vaccinate our kids? Many of them may have already made up their mind. Some of those arguing against vaccinating kids make the case that COVID-19 typically does not cause severe illness among children with healthy immune systems. Thankfully, purely as a percentage of total cases, it does hold true. To date, around 6 million children in the U.S. have contracted this coronavirus, which has led to more than 65,000 hospitalizations and 897 deaths. These numbers pale in comparison to the over 3 million hospitalizations among U.S. adults, and a staggering 754,000 deaths. The low rates of complications and severe illness from COVID-19 in children are the exact data needed to…

I’ll admit, I was pretty skeptical before unboxing the first smartwatch from OnePlus, aptly named the OnePlus Watch. At $159, it’s less than half the price of our Editors’ Choice winner, the Apple Watch Series 6 (which starts at $399). And while it doesn’t work with iPhones, it offers many of the same features as Apple’s market-leading wearable. So far, my skepticism appears to have been unfounded. The OnePlus Watch offers a large color touch screen, built-in GPS, 2GB of storage, a 402mAh battery that promises two weeks of power, and the ability to make and receive calls. It also has plenty of health and fitness features, including support for more than 110 workout types, automatic workout detection for jogging and running, rapid-heart-rate alerts, guided breathing exercises, stress detection, and the…

After releasing the relatively affordable Studio Buds ($149.99) earlier this year, Beats is back with a new pair of noise-cancelling true wireless earphones, the Beats Fit Pro. Aptly named, the focus here is on in-ear fit security, with built-in earfins made of a pliable material that truly helps create a more secure seal in your ear. They’re also armed with active noise cancellation (ANC), and since Beats is owned by Apple, you get the company’s H1 chip, which enables features including Spatial Audio with head tracking, Adaptive EQ, hands-free Siri, and one-touch iOS pairing. The sonic performance is classic Beats, with intense bass, boosted highs, and a scooped-out midrange. The ANC is better than average, with effective low-frequency noise elimination. For the price, there’s plenty to like, but the Beats…

落地窗內，多位身著綠色制服的華為門市人員，正忙著回應顧客對購置手機的需求；落地窗外，餐廳與手搖飲料店滿溢著排隊的人流。離開落地窗，沿著這條中國知名的步行街往東走，一路上，熙來攘往的當地行人與觀光客摩肩接踵，搭配歡鬧喧譁的交談聲，一切乍看明朗而美好……。過去三年，因為疫情導致的經濟陰影似乎已快速淡去，眼前，是一片欣欣向榮的消費復甦景象。 時間，四月中，地點，是上海的指標商圈南京路。 據上海復旦大學消費市場大數據實驗室統計顯示，今年二月，上海全市線下消費總額年增率○．八％，全市餐飲業和住宿業消費達到二○一九年一月統計以來的最高水準。 另一方面，衡量服務業表現的中國非製造業採購經理人指數（PMI），在三月分來到五十八．二，創下一一年五月以來新高；至於服務業PMI分項指標，則達到五十六．九，亦寫下一二年三月以來紀錄。 「大家，都被關太久了。」談及這股由「報復性消費」帶起的中國復甦動能，在上海擔任汽車業務銷售的雲芳（化名）向《今周刊》表示。…

去年11月，全球已因通膨、升息及美中角力等冰風暴，經濟凍傷，股市更崩跌20%，虧損金額逼近18兆美元（約合新台幣548兆元）。 但就在同時，一款人工智慧（Artificial Intelligence，以下簡稱AI）聊天機器人程式「ChatGPT」問世，用戶數竟在短短5天就達100萬人，2個月之後衝破1億人，更帶動股市破冰暴漲。2023年以來，美國、中國、台灣凡與AI沾上一點邊的概念股，漲幅動輒2位數起跳，AI概念幣的漲幅則以倍數計，最多竟高達380.2%。 在AI技術模型史，「ChatGPT」只是一個新的小星火，為何能在全球瞬間重燃AI熱火？而歷經過多次興衰的AI革命，這一回真的能帶來商機嗎？又有誰能成為「實利」贏家？ 「這一波，AI發展正式進入商業化的成長期！」台灣人工智慧學校校務長蔡明順說。而在3月21日的GTC 2023年度大會上，輝達（NVIDIA，美股代碼NVDA）執行長黃仁勳（Jensen Huang）說得更有感：「AI的iPhone時刻已經到來！」 自1956年夏天在達特茅斯學院的跨領域會議（Dartmouth Summer…

“RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU THINK YOU’VE HAD A HARDER week than I’ve had.” It was Feb. 14, 2019, in the early afternoon, and for perhaps the first time in the 25-year history of Amazon.com Inc., Jeff Bezos was prepared to explain himself to his employees. Bezos was a master compartmentalizer; his ability to keep the intricate threads of his personal and professional lives separate was unrivaled. This talent had allowed him to build Amazon while also running a space company, Blue Origin LLC, and reviving the Washington Post—all while keeping his family life private. But those threads had gotten tangled. Bezos, a father of four, was the subject of tabloid stories in the National Enquirer about his relationship with a married former television host. Rather than doing what most billionaires do under…

The McDonald’s in Great Barrington, Mass., had hired extra employees to keep up with the flow of hungry customers from a marijuana shop nearby. What its managers didn’t realize, on a Saturday afternoon in December, was that the payment processing technology at the dispensary was misidentifying a purchase of pear-flavored THC chews as a withdrawal from an ATM—at the burger joint’s address. The dispensary, Theory Wellness, didn’t know about the wrong address either. But why did the purchase show up as a cash withdrawal? Theory’s payment machine, which looked to a customer a lot like a card reader at a coffee shop, was in fact running a so-called cashless ATM. Instead of spitting out $20 bills, the machines work with software that programs them to send signals down debit rails, where…

Few vehicles sharing the same basic platform are better differentiated than the boxy, go-anywhere Bronco Sport and the urban-outfitted, lozenge-shaped Escape. Had these C2 platform-mates looked more similar, the former might have cannibalized the latter’s sales. Both are selling at or near capacity three years into the fourth-gen Escape’s model run, but Ford has toughened up softer-looking Escape’s visage and demeanor anyway. Most of the redesign comes courtesy of a bolder new hood, which sits atop a more deeply sculpted grille flanked by a pair of LED-outlined “four-eyed” headlamps. On upper trim levels, a so-called “coast-to-coast” LED light strip connects these headlamp DRLs, illuminating the gap between the hood and grille. A new fascia incorporating a faux skidplate completes the makeover. Other exterior changes are minimal: new 17-, 18-, and 19-inch…

Tommy and Dee Hilfiger are no strangers to waterfront living. For years the designer couple took respite at a Golden Beach, Florida, home with 100 feet of ocean frontage, and they continue to retreat to a vacation home on Mustique, where the estate’s swimming pool laps up against the sands of the Caribbean. Still, when the duo decided to decamp from their residence in Greenwich, Connecticut (AD, March 2017), and make a full-time move to Palm Beach, Florida, last year, they pondered a new kind of frontier. “We fell in love with this home and the fact that it was on the lake and on the lake trail,” says Dee, referencing the west side of Palm Beach overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, Lake Worth Lagoon. “We definitely wanted to experience something different.”…

The trip Tim Warrillow took in 2004 was epic: He flew from London to Nairobi, then hopped a flight to Kigali, then another to Kamembe. From there, he persuaded a taxi driver to take him through rural Rwanda and across the Congolese border. Along the way, he paid off militias armed with rocket launchers and gangs wielding nail-studded boards. Almost 24 hours after leaving his home in west London, he got to his destination, a cinchona plantation in eastern Congo. What was he after? Tree bark. The bark from the cinchona tree contains quinine, the bitter chemical compound in tonic water that balances the citrus from lemons and limes. As interest in artisanal gin surged, Warrillow had dreamed of creating a lineup of premium mixers. He sought an opportunity to displace…

Erine joined the Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Global Inc. in 2020, she says, attracted by the opportunity to work for one of the world’s hottest tech companies. That July she had one of her first assignments in a small town—a client meeting that ended with a banquet, the food washed down with many bottles of red wine and the Chinese liquor called baijiu. That wasn’t unusual: Chinese business dinners often involve lots of alcohol, not unlike the boozy work meetings of 1960s New York featured in Mad Men. Erine, now 33, was the only woman at the table, and she says she felt obligated to join the heavy drinking and keep going when the party moved to another restaurant. The next thing she says she remembers is the client groping her…

The pandemic-era pause on student loan payments has been a financially transformative experience for many Americans, allowing them to pay down debt, improve their credit scores, and save for the first time. The forbearance period, which was extended multiple times by both the Trump and Biden administrations, was set to end on May 1, but the White House has pushed the date out again to Aug. 31. A look at the finances of those who’d been struggling under mountains of college debt helps explain why it’s so hard to end the freeze. Since the government suspended payments on federal student loans in March 2020, the average credit score among borrowers rose to 668, from 640, according to an analysis by the California Policy Lab and the Student Loan Law Initiative. (Credit…

Imagine that you’re at an elevation of 28,000 feet (8,534 meters) on Mount Everest, trudging the final thousand feet to the top, and something goes horribly wrong: a whiteout disorients you, some crucial equipment fails, or a friend collapses. Nearby climbers leap into action, with only seconds to respond in the low-oxygen environment. The lesson for leaders? Preparation for that scenario would have occurred weeks earlier, down in oxygen-rich air, when the head of the expedition would have guided climbers through possible situations and trained them accordingly. Douglas Hicks, dean of Oxford College at Emory University, has used this Everest analogy in his introduction to leadership class since 1999. The scenario was originally part of his teaching on how leaders should approach extreme crises. But he recently realized that his trusty Himalayas…

We don’t blame you if you think to yourself, “Here we go again; MotorTrend is about to laud yet another 911 GT3.” We also won’t apologize, because few cars deserve the consistency of praise given to the latest 911 GT3 range, from the standard GT3 that won our 2022 Performance Vehicle of the Year award to the next-level-and-then-some GT3 RS we drove for the first time recently (January 2023). Now we’ve taken a 2022 911 GT3 Touring with a manual transmission to our testing grounds to see how the “least extreme” version gets on with its job. The wing delete is the only significant performance-altering change between the GT3 and GT3 Touring models, thanks to the aerodynamic downforce lost by replacing the large, fixed version with an active rear spoiler and…

On March 18, 2020, the United States registered its 150th coronavirusrelated death while trying to gauge, along with most of the world, just what was happening. Major market indices fell 5% after jumping 6% the previous day. Spring breakers partied blithely in Florida while officials decided to close the border with Canada. And a statistical team at Forbes locked the numbers for our 34th annual ranking of the world’s billionaires, unwittingly creating a snapshot of global wealth at the precise moment the world lurched into its most disruptive 12 months since World War II. Over the ensuing year, those 150 U.S. deaths swelled to 550,000; some 3 million souls were lost worldwide. Tens of millions of jobs evaporated, along with hundreds of thousands of small businesses. Remote work went from exotic…

The boom in Korean television in the US has been hard for anyone with a Netflix account to miss. But at the same time American audiences were bingeing on Squid Game and All of Us Are Dead over the past two years, another Korean cultural phenomenon was quietly insinuating itself into the US media diet: the webtoon. Webtoons are colorful digital comics designed to be scrolled through on mobile devices, usually consisting of serialized stories doled out in short episodes. Since emerging almost two decades ago, the medium has become a force in its home country, pushed by South Korean companies such as Naver Corp. and Kakao Corp. These platforms made it easy for authors to release content that might not have appealed to traditional publishers. As with other novel forms…

Four years after Li Hangwen returned from the US to launch a startup in Shanghai to develop a cancer vaccine with messenger RNA technology, a mysterious coronavirus emerged in the city of Wuhan. Trained in the US and long inspired by Moderna Inc.’s efforts at tapping genetic material for treatments, the cancer researcher quickly turned his efforts toward developing a shot against Covid-19 for China. After three years of painstaking labor, working nights, weekends and holidays, Li was finally able to get his startup, Stemirna Therapeutics, to produce an mRNA vaccine. But it completed human testing only in late 2022, when the worst of the pandemic had passed in much of the world. So far the treatment has been greenlighted only in Laos; it’s still awaiting approval in China. Other Chinese drug…

The base model feels less jerky and nervous, and through quick corners it subtly filters out ridges and random surface variations Not a boxer engine, nor a V6. Not a staggering power output. No highly advanced suspension. Yet despite the absence of things we usually treasure about Porsches, the base version of the facelifted Macan is probably the one to go for, because it best embodies that other thing we treasure about Porsches: it’s really good to drive. The new line-up consists of three models: the base Macan, with a 2.0-litre turbocharged inline four making 261bhp; the S, with a 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6, making 375bhp and priced from £53,300; and the GTS, with a 434bhp version of the V6, starting at £64,770. All gain some visual tweaks for a more aggressive look to…

這是深謀遠慮的引擎室。要真正做到深謀遠慮： This is the engine room of long-term thinking. To become an effective long-term thinker: 1 使用正確的框架設定目標 USE THE RIGHT FRAMEWORK for goals 2 預留時間進行「實驗」 SET ASIDE TIME for "experimentation" 3 學習如何在「波段」中思考 LEARN HOW TO THINK IN "WAVES" 4聰明利用你的時間 GET SMART about leveraging your time 5建立面向未來的強大網絡 BUILD A STRONG NETWORK – future-based 要訣 1使用正確的框架設定目標 Tip 1USE THE RIGHT FRAMEWORK for goals 目前，社會和文化的預設選項是為了錢必須優化你的生活和職業生涯，因此你需要選擇利潤豐厚的職業生涯。這不是問題，但如果是為了「有趣」，你的生活看起來會是什麼模樣呢。問自己以下問題： At…

Early January is when many investors give their portfolios a checkup, and this year a sting awaits from the bond market. While equity returns dazzled in 2021, “safe” government bonds registered their first negative return since 2013. Professional investors are of course accustomed to the idea that even so-called risk-free bonds lose money when interest rates rise—or are expected to rise. Those taking a diversified approach with their nest eggs are accustomed to think of Treasuries and high-quality bonds as conservative and safe investments that provide a consistent, if modest, positive return. Except the sanctuary of government bonds cracked last year, with the Bloomberg Treasury index providing a total return of –2.3%. A broader exposure to fixed income that includes debt from high-quality companies, the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund, lost…

The fabled Village Vanguard in New York is filled on this April evening with fans of Samara Joy. This isn’t simply because the gifted 23-year-old singer brings to mind Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald at their peak. The audience is here to be in the presence of a once-in-a-decade jazz superstar whose career has soared since she was crowned best new artist at the 2023 Grammy Awards in February. In between songs, Joy says she’s still getting used to it. “People come up to me in the street,” she says, laughing in disbelief. “And I’m not even dressed!” Listening intently from one of the club’s banquettes is Jamie Krents, head of Universal Music Group’s Verve and Impulse! record labels, whose catalogs boast some of the most important works of Fitzgerald and…

DIRECTIONS: Do this workout as a circuit. Complete all reps of each move, then go directly to the next move without resting. Rest 1 minute after each round. Do 5 rounds. THE WARMUP Spiderman Lunge to Thoracic Spine Rotation You’ll open tight hips, warm up your abs, and stretch your chest with this move. Start in pushup position, core tight (a). Step your right foot forward, outside your right hand (b). Squeeze your glutes. Lift your right hand and reach it toward the ceiling (c). Return it to the floor. That’s 1 rep; do 2 sets of 10 per side. THE WORKOUT 1 Single-Arm Clean and Press to Reverse Lunge Build explosive hip strength and shoulder strength at once. Stand with a dumbbell in your left hand at your hip, feet shoulder width apart. Bend your knees…

We won’t try to keep you in suspense. When we reviewed last year’s model, we called the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon the best laptop in the world—though we later decided it shared that title with the Dell XPS 13 OLED—and it hasn’t done anything in its latest revision to change that state of affairs. The X1 Carbon Gen 9 catches up with the Dell and other elite ultraportables by moving to an 11th Generation Intel “Tiger Lake” Core processor and a slightly taller 16:10 rather than 16:9 screen aspect ratio. Its premium price and lack of an SD card slot still knock half a star off what would otherwise be a perfect five-star rating, but it effortlessly collects yet another Editors’ Choice award as the most desirable executive notebook on…

Working out on your own can be a struggle, or it can be a blast. It all depends on whether you’ve found a fitness activity that excites you and motivates you to get up and move. Here’s the good news about workout apps: App stores are absolutely saturated with them, which means there’s something for everyone at a range of prices. Whether you like to lift weights on your own, want to join a high-intensity cardio class, or need guidance while training for a marathon, you’re sure to find an app for you. Want more good news? Prices for fitness apps are often lower than they appear; the prices given below are list prices, which is not necessarily what you’ll pay. Workout subscriptions are perpetually on sale. App makers would love for…

四月二十六日，星宇航空創辦人張國煒親自執飛，台北洛杉磯的首航。 這是重要性不亞於三年前開航的飛行任務。 飛向北美天空，意味著星宇從區域走向國際。猶如四十年前，張國煒的父親張榮發獨排眾議，大膽開出橫跨太平洋與大西洋的雙向環球航線，讓長榮海運由亞洲船公司變成世界第一。 「他們（父子）DNA是一樣的，都很有魄力、很有魅力，」長榮集團出身、前中菲行執行長林天送評論。 北美首航，轉動了星宇最關鍵的中轉客商模。這位台灣唯一、世界少數同時擁有機師和維修證照的航空公司董事長，要驗證自己「從王子變成King（國王）」，只能贏不能輸的不可能任務。 首航倒數前兩天，星宇航空的營運大腦，張國煒與執行長翟健華所在的內湖總部十六樓，透明辦公室一目了然，從主管房內到開放空間的討論區，沒有一張會議桌是空的，都處於作戰模式。就連秘書遞送文件也都急如風、甚至小跑步。 競爭對手不是兩位老大哥 當年， 看好亞洲成為世界工廠，張榮發大膽擴張海運版圖，捉住趨勢破浪。而張國煒眼中的航空市場，「台灣的地理位置這麼好，如果你善用它，台灣市場無限大，真的太大了，」張國煒左右手，翟健華提高音調分析。…

「領先的科技巨頭正在積極定義 AI！」投資數據庫公司PitchBook資深分析師布蘭登‧柏克（Brendan Burke）說，今年4月他在接受《財星》（Fortune）採訪時指出，由於科技巨頭擁有研究實驗室和應用工具，在資本投入和創新都居領先地位，接下來將成AI高成長的推手。 那麼，現今領先的科技巨頭有誰呢？根據史登商學院策略遠見教授艾美‧韋伯（Amy Webb）在《AI未來賽局》一書中的調查研究，以及柏克、美國科技股投資家林子揚的長期觀察，在美中競合框架下，將是10大科技巨頭建構未來的AI世界。詳細分析如下： 布局領域 關注美國7巨頭＋中國3巨頭 堪稱美、中AI國家代表隊的10大科技巨頭如下： 1.美國7巨頭：亞馬遜（AMZN；編按：公司名括號內為股票代碼，英文名詳見表1，以下皆同）、蘋果（AAPL）、字母（GOOGL）、IBM（IBM）、Meta（META）、微軟（MSFT），以及輝達（NVDA）。而除輝達外，市場取其他6家公司名中的1個字母，合稱之為G-MAFIA（此處的F為Facebook，2021年更名為Meta）。…

Standing Room Only It’s illegal to spontaneously dance in a bar or restaurant in Sweden. Owners must adhere to a bygone law and get a dance licence. The Swedish parliament announced its intention to repeal the law in 2016, yet a restaurant owner in the province of Härjedalen was prosecuted as recently as 2020. Lights Out No light must be visible within five kilometres of the king’s bedroom in the Palace of Versailles in France. This 18th-century law means the Versailles football club doesn’t have floodlights and, as a result, can’t host all of its home games – including one against Toulouse in January 2022. It had to move the match to its opponent’s pitch nearly 700 kilometres away. Rodent Repellent Rats aren’t allowed to enter the province of Alberta in Canada, not even as…

So you’re ready to buy a new laptop. What do you need it for? What do you really need it for? It’s tempting to look at a top-of-the-line model, but most of us aren’t doing complex professional video edits on 4K video, heavy-duty scientific work, or really big coding projects every day. Most of us spend our time with some browser tabs open, a handful of apps for email and messaging, editing photos or maybe some simple videos, watching streaming video, that sort of thing. If you’re a gamer that wants to play the latest games, our sister site, PCWorld, can point you in the direction of a Windows laptop, but for everyone else—everyone who doesn’t use their laptop for very intensive tasks all day long—the MacBook Air is exactly what…

將顧客置於所有績效指標的中心。強調你能管理和掌控的投入，以及能夠產生預期成果的活動。做好這件事，營收和股價等產出指標自然水到渠成。 Put the customer at the center of all performance metrics. Emphasize inputs you do manage and control, and activities which will yield the desired results. Do that well, and the output metrics like revenue and stock price will take care of themselves. 關鍵思惟 「企業時常關注錯誤的信號，或者缺乏洞察關鍵商業趨勢的能力，即使他們覺得自己完全被數據淹沒。真正重要的是關注『可控制的投入指標』，也就是你能直接控制的活動，這些最終將影響股價等產出指標。」 ──科林．布萊爾與比爾．卡爾 Key Thoughts "All too often, companies pay attention to the wrong…

我記得的最後一件事，就是我用拳頭捶打車身的悶響聲，接著我覺得自己好像在翻滾。滿腦子想的都是： 司機快停車吧， 別讓第二組車輪輾軋過來。 想過怎樣才能體驗到被卡車輾過去的感覺嗎？我的建議是，首先要騎自行車。 我住在紐約的布魯克林區。布魯克林的所有潮男潮女都騎自行車： 背個郵差包、戴著復古風眼鏡，就 連騎自行車穿越威廉斯堡大橋（Williamsburg Bridge）都顯得又酷又輕鬆。我就在想，這些音樂迷都可以在布魯克林騎車兜風，沒道理我不行。拜託，我高中時可是全郡的田徑冠軍耶。 於是我也開始騎起自行車來，騎了將近一年。我出門辦事騎車、上班騎車、去附近朋友的公寓也騎車。我會把車鎖在停車牌下，覺得這麼做既環保又有公共意識。夏季裡我還會騎車外出溜達。遲暮時分停在麥卡倫公園（McCarren Park）裡，我感覺彷彿置身於異國電影中，頭戴黑色貝雷帽、頸繫圍巾，坐在公園長椅凳上─但我其實穿著運動短褲和慢跑鞋，坐在東禿一塊、西禿一塊枯黃的草坪上。…

IN APRIL, THE CIA’S TWITTER ACCOUNT REMINISCED ABOUT THE TIME THE United States supplied Afghan guerrillas with Stinger missiles. That was back in the go-go 1980s, when the U. S. national-security establishment was determined to ensure the Soviets, who had invaded Afghanistan, experienced “their own Vietnam.” By 1989, the CIA website crows, “the Soviet Union had concluded that the fight was not worth the cost and withdrew from the country.” The Soviets were in Afghanistan for ten years. The United States has been there for 20. When the U. S. invaded following the attacks of September 11, the Taliban was in control. As President Joe Biden announces plans to withdraw by September 11, 2021—an admission, witting or not, of the arbitrariness of it all—the Taliban rules large swaths of the country.…

For more than two decades, Airbus SE and Qatar Airways have been locked in a tumultuous relationship. The Gulf airline’s chief executive officer, Akbar Al Baker, has always relished a good fight, ridiculing the plane maker’s managers in public or refusing to take aircraft because of a perceived defect. Each time, Airbus endured the torment because the carrier is among its best customers, with billions of dollars’ worth of planes on order. Now the two are airing their grievances in public once again—only this time Airbus is fighting back. The companies are facing off in court in a highstakes showdown that’s being closely watched in the industry, because it stands to redefine the relationship between manufacturers and airlines. It all started with flaking paint on an Airbus A350 aircraft. The airline, the…

Josh Pyatt and Jamie Horowitz flew to Denver in September 2020 armed with a pitch deck and a prayer. Pyatt, an agent at talent firm WME, had helped basketball stars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant build their respective media companies, SpringHill Co. and Granity Studios. Horowitz, a former executive at ESPN and Fox, had demonstrated an eye for talent in nurturing the careers of sports commentators Colin Cowherd and Skip Bayless. Both saw potential in Peyton Manning, a generational performer on the football field and a popular spokesperson off it. But first they had to persuade Manning to start a company. “From what everyone had told me, he wasn’t interested,” Pyatt says. Manning had retired from football in 2016 with no plan. He knew he didn’t want to coach and had…

BMW should have picked a name and stuck with it. After our David E. Davis Jr. sang the praises of the 1968 2002, BMW might have said, “Our overachieving compact sports coupe will be called 2002 forevermore.” But no. BMW kept building cars in the 2002 idiom, joyful rear-drive coupes, but the names were inconsistent: 3-series, 1-series, 2-series, 4-series. If BMW hadn’t stopped building the 2002—and it basically didn’t—the redesigned 2022 230i would be the latest model, and we’d all know what to expect, which is to say a practical everyday car with a secret rambunctious side. Though BMW rates the 230i’s turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four at just 255 horsepower, these are Bavarian horses, meaning a good number of them escaped the count. As such, the 3554-pound 230i rips to 60 mph…

二月十六日， 農曆春節剛過完不久， 一則「 澳豐基金爆雷」的報紙標題引起市場不小關注，在台灣銷售逾十年、被指以年報酬穩達八％為行銷訴求的澳豐金融集團（Ayers Alliance Financial Group，市場簡稱A.A）相關基金，驚傳客戶紛紛收到暫停贖回、匯款延遲通知。 隨後數日，被點名持有基金的寶齡富錦、台端等上市公司陸續發布重訊，至三月六日，兩家公司終於證實接獲澳豐來信，確認相關基金暫停淨值計算、延遲贖回。 一家神祕的境外基金公司、其所銷售的多檔高報酬基金，至此，在國內資本市場與投資圈瞬間引爆話題，同時也引發主管機關金管會的高度關注。畢竟，所謂的澳豐基金，影響範圍絕不僅只是兩家上市公司而已。 根據《今周刊》透過經濟新報資料庫調查，至去年第三季底，帳上有投資澳豐相關基金的掛牌公司達十家，除了寶齡富錦與台端，還包含義隆、宏致、時報、新復興、巨有科技、欣天然、南光、創為精密，合計持有約二十三．六四億元。…

After years of unhappy reliance on Comcast Corp. and other carriers, Pleasant Grove, on Utah’s Wasatch Front, is turning to a new broadband option: a municipally owned company called Utopia Fiber. The choice follows a pandemic year that showed just how much households need fast, reliable internet connections for jobs, schooling, and medical care. To reach homes that lack good service, or have none at all, President Joe Biden has proposed funding networks such as Utopia Fiber that are run by cities and nonprofits. That’s not sitting well with Comcast, AT&T, Verizon Communications, and other dominant carriers, which don’t like the prospect of facing subsidized competitors. Pleasant Grove shows why established carriers might be vulnerable. With 38,000 residents, it’s nestled between the Wasatch Range and the Great Salt Lake Basin, just south…

Sustainable investing was a feel-good business for Wall Street, a way for asset managers to tout their ability to make money while paying attention to companies’ carbon footprint and social impact. Then it got pulled into America’s culture wars. The acronym ESG—for environmental, social and governance investing—was transformed from finance industry jargon into another three-letter acronym for something conservatives don’t like, alongside DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and CRT (critical race theory). Elon Musk has attacked ESG on Twitter, and many Republicans want to cancel it. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a likely 2024 White House candidate, signed a bill in May banning the use of ESG criteria when investing public money. Other anti-ESG bills are wending through statehouses, while GOP-controlled states have collectively pulled billions of dollars from funds run by…

Some file optimization and application removal programs on the Mac reach for the stars, trying to perform every possible task of optimization, file cleanup, operating system customization, and malware removal the developers can think of as part of an overarching package. Other apps have been more streamlined, seeking to perform fewer functions and executing them well. DaisyDisk, the brainchild of developers Taras Brizitsky (who programmed the original idea, interaction, and graphic design) and Oleg Krupnov (who now handles the code and technical support), as well as a large group of translators and contributors, belongs to the latter group. The application (version 4.20.3 reviewed here) focuses on locating file clusters, groups them by size, and offers a quick and easy means of dragging them to a delete icon and getting rid of…

Tasting is both simple and highly complex. A child can do it (I’m not talking about wine, obviously), and yet it’s a vast subject whose intricacies could fill many books. So how do you go about getting the most out of your wine glass? I’ve talked to some of the world’s best tasters to discuss the tactics that they use when assessing, or just enjoying, a wine. Professional athletes are keenly aware of what affects their form. Wine tasters – especially those on the buying and writing side of the fence – are more likely to promote the myth of the infallible palate (theirs, naturally). Happily, that conversation is now changing as we learn more about our olfactory and taste systems. ➢ ‘The wine taster’s instrument is not only the nose but…

Since the pandemic began, Kevin Liles has been running his New York record label, 300 Entertainment, from the patio by the swimming pool at his home in suburban Cresskill, N.J. Early one afternoon in January he’s there, smoking a cigar and conducting a staff meeting on Zoom. He doesn’t seem to notice that it’s started to snow. Sitting at a table near a blazing open-air fireplace, clad in a red hoodie and a green beanie with a pompom, Liles pelts his employees with questions about the performance of a potential hit, Play w/ me, by Bailey Bryan, a country singer turned edgy pop chanteuse. She’s scheduled to perform it on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s YouTube channel. Liles wants his promotions people to flog the tune harder to keep…

SENATOR PAUL LAXALT WAS IN A CLASSIFIED BRIEFING ABOUT political chaos in the Philippines when an assistant interrupted: He had an urgent phone call from Manila. On the other end of the line was Ferdinand Marcos, the country’s president. Marcos wanted to know if it was true that Ronald Reagan wished to see him step down. It was Feb. 24, 1986, and for the past several days millions of people had swarmed Manila’s streets in protest. The immediate trigger was Marcos’s victory in a seemingly fixed election, but the ire went much deeper. In the 1970s, Marcos had led a military government of uncommon brutality, disbanding Congress, silencing the media, and using the army to torture and kill thousands of citizens. Marcos partially restored democratic government in 1981, and, in hopes of…

Caracas once looked like a glimpse of Latin America’s future. When petrodollars flowed into Venezuela in the 1960s and ’70s, the nation’s capital experienced a building boom. Highways ringed the growing metropolis, which boasted a university suffused with public art and the region’s tallest skyscrapers. Big American cars prowled the streets, thanks to generous fuel subsidies, while world-class museums and theaters and state-managed housing complexes were built. But when Caracas turned 454 years old on July 25, it was less a cause for celebration and more of a reminder of the city’s reversal of fortune. A spate of economic crises ensued in the ’80s after oil prices crashed and the government accrued massive foreign debts, setting the stage for the election of President Hugo Chávez in 1998 and the socialist project known…

Is the 2024 Cadillac Celestiq for real? This head-turning, all-electric superluxury sedan is longer than the brand’s Escalade SUV and priced in a stratosphere Cadillac has long only dreamed of returning to. To wit: Pricing will start above the $300,000 threshold, but customers can easily add up to $100,000 more via customization, all but guaranteeing no two owners have the same exact car. The mere fact Cadillac is producing the Celestiq is nearly as surprising as the vehicle itself, which fulfills a longstanding desire to build a proper flagship. An idea became a vision, then a concept car, and now a fabulous final-form four-door that brings to life almost all the gee-whiz features envisioned along the way. The Celestiq has an estimated 600 hp and 640 lb-ft of torque, a 0–60…

While accusing the giant social network of pursuing profits over safety, a former Facebook data scientist told Congress Tuesday she believes stricter government oversight could alleviate the dangers the company poses, from harming children to inciting political violence to fueling misinformation. Frances Haugen, testifying to the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, presented a wide-ranging condemnation of Facebook. She accused the company of failing to make changes to Instagram after internal research showed apparent harm to some teens and being dishonest in its public fight against hate and misinformation. Haugen’s accusations were buttressed by tens of thousands of pages of internal research documents she secretly copied before leaving her job in the company’s civic integrity unit. But she also offered thoughtful ideas about how Facebook’s social media platforms could be made safer.…

AMD promised the Radeon RX 6600 XT would deliver “epic” 1080p gaming, and the company’s latest graphics card delivers that in spades. This RDNA 2-powered GPU doesn’t just blow past the Radeon RX 5600 XT it’s replacing, but also skirts by the Radeon RX 5700 XT—a graphics card not one but two tiers higher than the 5600 XT was. This is impressive stuff. The Radeon RX 6600 XT will absolutely scream when paired with a high refresh-rate monitor. On the other hand, that lead diminishes more than you might expect when you bump up the resolution to 1440p. That’s due to some key tweaks introduced in the Radeon RX 6600 XT’s memory subsystem and its implementation of AMD’s radical new Infinity Cache. You also can’t ignore the sticker price: The Radeon…

Sometimes it takes something being taken away from you to realize how much you really love it. With racing mostly wiped out in 2020, the triumphant return of multisport racing in 2021 was doubly sweet. I savored the finish chute a little more and recaptured the excitement of competing I felt when I was just getting started in the sport. And that excitement for racing continues into this new year. In 2021, local race directors brought back racing in a big way, as more than 3,500 events were held across the United States. These events, so vital to the multisport community, brought us newfound joy and passion for the sport. We were all brought a sense of normalcy with races again on the calendar. I know when I returned to compete in…

The public beta of macOS Monterey, released by Apple in early July, doesn’t look surprisingly new. Exceptions include Safari, which gets a dynamically resizing tab bar and other conveniences, and FaceTime, which gets a background-blurring portrait mode and screen-sharing features. As you get more familiar with Monterey, however, you’ll find improvements and conveniences everywhere and may wonder how you managed without them. This is because Apple’s annual updates to the Mac operating system tend to have a regular rhythm. Massive updates arrive on even-numbered years: Big Sur, for example, the 2020 update to macOS that was also the first version that ran on Apple Silicon hardware. Updates in odd-numbered years, such as Monterey, look more or less like the previous version but come with under-the-hood improvements that may do more for…