Pedestrians wearing headphones who are unaware of their surroundings pose an accident risk for cyclists—especially if those pedestrians are blasting their favorite tunes in noise-canceling headphones that block out the rest of the world. A new bike bell is designed to pierce that bubble. Škoda, a Czech automaker, calls its new DuoBell an analog solution to a digital problem. It’s a mechanical bell, but the company says its the first to engineer a sound that specifically tricks a headphone’s algorithm. The Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) technology employed in headphones works by detecting outside sound and playing back an inverted signal…
Author: Staff Writer
We talk a lot about visionary leadership. You know, the ability to see around corners, spot emerging patterns, and imagine futures that don’t yet exist. These are all very important activities for strategic work. But something we rarely consider is what happens when the physical instrument of vision itself is under siege. Said more bluntly, what happens when our eyes succumb to the daily assault of screen time? I recently spoke with Dr. Valerie Sheety-Pilon, SVP of clinical and medical affairs at VSP Vision Care, whose organization has spent three years tracking the state of vision health in the American…
On the heels of a two-week ceasefire in the Iran war—which requires reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil passageway—benchmark U.S. crude oil prices sank to $94.98 a barrel on April 8, down 16%. That’s left many Americans wondering when fuel prices—and therefore airline ticket prices—might come down. The answer: probably not anytime soon. First, let’s take a look at gas prices. On Wednesday, the day after the ceasefire was announced, gas prices went up 2 cents, not down, hitting an average of $4.16 a gallon nationwide. Why aren’t we seeing prices fall? There are a few reasons. For one, reopening the Strait of…
Mindless sheep exist on both wings of the bird. I often criticize the Democrats for their far-left views, but we are now witnessing the dark side of blind party politics. The latest headlines surrounding Megyn Kelly state she would remain loyal to the Republican Party “even if Trump dropped a nuke on another country.” Independent thought is collapsing. When you step back and look at the broader data, the American people themselves are not aligned with this type of blind loyalty. Poll after poll shows the opposite. A CNN poll found that 59% of Americans disapprove of military action against…
Getting a seat at the Masters is notoriously difficult, with tickets to the prestigious golf tournament only available to the public through an online lottery that has to be entered a year in advance. But the Masters Tournament may have an even more exclusive offering than attendance: a limited-edition garden gnome potentially worth thousands of dollars. In 2016, Augusta National, the Georgia golf course that hosts the Masters every year, released the first gnome of what is now a coveted set of 10. Each year, the gnome sports a different outfit. Sometimes it’s a golfer, sporting a set of clubs…
The Russian police has launched a mass-campaign of pulling people over and checking their phones to see if they have “illegal VPNs” installed pic.twitter.com/m4oBBvE2dO — Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 6, 2026 Russia has now begun implementing what can only be described as a street-level surveillance hunt, with police conducting mass traffic stops not for crime in the traditional sense, but to inspect citizens’ phones for so-called “illegal VPNs.” This marks a profound shift in the role of law enforcement, in which the objective is no longer simply to maintain public safety but to control access to information. Reports indicate that…
One of the biggest barriers people face to their productivity is an inability to focus. Most people are highly distracted and distractable, which makes it hard to sustain the level of attention required to complete complex tasks and to think through difficult problems. Chances are at least part of your problem is self-inflicted. We have created environments with lots of attention-grabbing information. You have learned to seek out that information regularly. Indeed, your brain has timing mechanisms in it, and the desire to check your phone or your web browser may interrupt you at regular intervals, even when you’re trying…
When you strip away the propaganda, foreign aid is rarely about charity. It is about strategy, war, and buying influence. The latest long-run data show that from 1946 through 2024, more than $1 trillion in inflation-adjusted U.S. foreign aid went to just five recipients: Israel at $337.0 billion, Egypt at $198.9 billion, former South Vietnam at $193.8 billion, Afghanistan at $168.5 billion, and South Korea at $127.6 billion. Together, those five alone absorbed roughly 30% of all U.S. foreign aid since World War II. In fiscal 2024, overall U.S. foreign aid obligations were about $82.3 billion, covering 177 countries, and…
Samsung is saying goodbye to its namesake texting app, at least for United States customers. According to an end-of-service announcement published on the tech giant’s U.S. support website, Samsung Messages will be discontinued in July. Impacted owners of Samsung smartphones and other gadgets are being asked to switch to Google Messages in the meantime, “to maintain a consistent messaging experience on Android.” All Samsung Galaxy phones run on Google’s Android operating system. To switch to Google Messages, Samsung’s website gives users instructions to download the app from the Play Store, if not already on their phone, and set it as the default. Some people…
Europe is now removing any doubt about the seriousness of this crisis, because governments do not tell millions of people to stay home from work unless there is a genuine shortage forming beneath the surface. The European Union has begun urging citizens to work from home, drive less, reduce speed limits, and cut overall energy consumption as part of an emergency response to the shock created by the Iran war. The language coming out of officials makes it clear that this is not temporary. European authorities are warning of a “very serious situation” with no immediate end in sight, and…