Philippa Kaur

Two big shifts are under way in the world of software development. Since the launch of Chatgpt in 2022, bosses have been falling over themselves to try to find ways to use generative artificial intelligence (AI) productively. Most efforts have so far yielded little, but one exception is software programming. Surveys suggest that developers around the world find generative ai so useful that already about two-fifths of them use it. More

THE 2015-16 season was an epic one for Nike’s athletes. LeBron James led the Cleveland Cavaliers to basketball glory in the NBA play-offs and the Denver Broncos, quarterbacked by the Nike-shod Peyton Manning, triumphed in American football’s 50th Super Bowl. In proper football, Cristiano Ronaldo won both the UEFA Champions League (with Real Madrid) and the European championship (with Portugal). In tennis, Serena Williams secured her seventh Wimbledon singles title. At the Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, 89 track-and-field medallists plus the entire male marathon podium wore Nikes, and Simone Biles, who had clinched an endorsement deal with the sportswear giant the year before, tumbled her way to four gymnastics golds and a bronze. More

The competition to be the worst two words in the English language is extremely hard-fought. Surprise party. Cruise holiday. Rice pudding. Keen golfer. The list goes on and on. But right up there is “sandwich lunch”. Separately, each of these words contains lots of promise. In combination they spell unmitigated disaster. More

Northvolt had all the trappings of an industrial champion. Capital had poured in from Wall Street titans such as Goldman Sachs and BlackRock. Assorted governments had blessed its plans with generous grants and big customers had vouched for its technology. But on September 23rd the seven-year-old Swedish battery-maker announced that it would suspend work on one of its new manufacturing plants, slow the expansion of its research and development (R&D) unit and lay off a fifth of its workforce. It was the second round of cutbacks in a month. More

In May Equinox, a luxury gym, launched a membership that costs $40,000 per year—half the median household income in America, where the chain is based. The plan includes blood tests, a sleep coach and a nutritionist, as well as access to the group’s swanky clubs. Julia Klim of Equinox explains why people pay: “You can buy a Chanel bag every year, but health and looking well is the ultimate luxury symbol.” More

A few weeks ago people within OpenAI were keen to assure your correspondent that the maker of ChatGPT had matured, following the coup almost a year ago against Sam Altman and the counter-coup shortly afterwards that reinstated him as CEO. But on September 25th not even Mr Altman could sustain the fiction. “We are not a normal company,” he tweeted, admitting he was caught out by the abrupt decision to quit by Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer (pictured with Mr Altman last year). More

Intel has spent two decades missing the next big thing. The chipmaker’s dominant PC business blinded it to the opportunity from mobile phones in the 2000s. More recently, the firm was slow to adopt extreme-ultraviolet lithography, an expensive chipmaking process that was originally funded by Intel itself. Now Nvidia dominates the white-hot market for designing artificial-intelligence (AI) chips, becoming the world’s most valuable semiconductor company. Investors in Intel have voted with their feet (see chart). More

The twelve new restaurants added to the New York Michelin Guide this month, serving up cuisine ranging from “haute French” to “eco-chic”, will be toasting their success. Being featured in the handbook of the tyre-maker-turned-restaurant-critic is the first step towards receiving a Michelin star, the most coveted award in fine dining. Yet according to research recently published in the Strategic Management Journal, an improbable source of culinary intelligence, restaurants might be better off remaining starless. More