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How do you shop in virtual reality? That was the question staring down Steven Brennen at the beginning of the year. Brennen is eBay Australia’s senior director of marketing and retail innovation and his company had decided to partner with Myer, Australia’s largest department store, to create a world-first shopping experience in VR. “When we first started, we imagined a virtual world that looked a lot like a real, traditional department store, with a concierge greeting you and guiding you through a grand glass lobby and showing you through all of the different sections,” he says. “But then we thought: hang on—why? Why are we limiting ourselves to what we know? What would it be like if we didn’t need walls, floors, or escalators to move through the experience? What would happen if we stopped telling customers which products fit together and they told us instead?”

On game day, the stadium bursts into full color. Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas, is a soaring architectural marvel, a venue envied by soccer-loving cities worldwide. But you can’t fully appreciate the building without feeling the atmosphere inside it when the hometown team, Sporting Kansas City, emerges from the tunnel and the crowd erupts.

(See the infographic enlarged.)

(See infographic enlarged.)

(See infographic enlarged.)

Across Asia, rising incomes are creating an enormous new class of consumers. Much of that growth is coming from China, whose working population is larger than those of the US and Europe combined. Right now, only 11% of China’s population is considered middle class. As more people gain purchasing power, their needs and preferences will have a powerful effect on the global economy.

We’re on the cusp of enormous change caused by what we call the Idea Economy—the concept that disruption is all around us, and the ability to turn an idea into a new product or a new industry is more accessible than ever before.

It’s a no-brainer—we’d all become better decision-makers if we could. But rather than rewiring how we think, behavioral economics trains us to recognize shortfalls in the way we think when making decisions. Combining psychology, economics, and other analytical disciplines, the field aims to improve our decisions by offering evaluative tools and considering the physical decision-making environment.

It’s a no-brainer—we’d all become better decision-makers if we could. But rather than rewiring how we think, behavioral economics trains us to recognize shortfalls in the way we think when making decisions. Combining psychology, economics, and other analytical disciplines, the field aims to improve our decisions by offering evaluative tools and considering the physical decision-making environment.

Since their first automobile was introduced in 1886, Mercedes-Benz has made constant reinvention a priority. From developing landmark safety features to pioneering ways to make environmentally friendly cars, Mercedes-Benz has long been at the forefront of automobile design and innovation. The new GLE line represents a continuation of this proud tradition. Explore the timeline to discover the innovations that culminate with the release of the GLE.

Two hundred and fifty people. Four to five years. One groundbreaking movie. That was Pixar’s formula for hit after hit—though it took nearly 20 years for its founding team to produce Toy Story, released in 1995 as the first full-length computer-generated movie.

Qualcomm is inventing a world where an enormous ecosystem of connected places and things intelligently work in concert—seamlessly connecting what we drive, what we wear, and where we live to intuitively respond to our needs. In this environment, devices are safer, smarter, and more dynamic, and the Internet as we know it looks radically different, touching every aspect of our daily lives. 

First published in 1936, the Negro Motorist Green Book directed black Americans through segregated areas in which a guide was urgently and unfortunately needed. One passage traded the practical for the prescient, though:

This article is part of an ongoing BULLETIN series exploring GE’s innovation, technology, and manufacturing initiatives in India.

Responsible finance. It is the view that businesses can create value by pursuing projects that make progress toward socially beneficial ends. This makes sense at Citi, where “progress makers” are encouraged to marry “doing well” with “doing good,” recognizing that projects can both be financially prudent and further social gain.

With Americans making more than 405 million long distance business trips per year, the airplane has become a mobile office and media center, driving demand for connectivity to the web and email in the skies. It’s a call that airlines have heeded in recent years, with airlines like Delta offering Wi-Fi on laptops, tablets, and smartphones through the inflight internet service Gogo, which serves 2 million customers per month. To the delight of online speed-seekers, the provider recently announced plans to launch the satellite-based system 2ku, which promises to deliver 70 megabits per second—22 times faster than current speeds available.

Responsible finance. It is the view that businesses can create value by pursuing projects that make progress toward socially beneficial ends. This makes sense at Citi, where “progress makers” are encouraged to marry “doing well” with “doing good,” recognizing that projects can both be financially prudent and further social gain.

Americans experience a certain magic every time they step into a supermarket. We eat fresh food year-round. Avocados, tomatoes, and summer squash are available in winter. Bananas, raspberries, and blueberries shipped thousands of miles from tropical countries arrive on shelves on the cusp of ripening. Even finicky and highly perishable lettuce sits on display as if freshly picked, though it was harvested weeks before, then shrink-wrapped and cooled while it was still in the field.

The defining feature of the 21st century is connectivity. From commerce and innovation to transportation and personal usage, we live much of our lives online, streaming Netflix on our tablets and scrolling through our Twitter feeds in line at Starbucks. We shop for groceries on FreshDirect, call Uber for a ride, make reservations on OpenTable, and pay for more and more of all that we do with apps like Square and Apple Pay.

It’s shortly after midnight, and you’ve just been awakened by a phone call from one of your company’s attorneys. She is letting you know that, as an officer and director of the company, you have been named as a defendant in a major securities class action lawsuit. The suit alleges that you, along with the company’s other directors and officers (D&O), have made misleading claims about the state of the company’s compliance with the environmental regulations in several of the countries in which the company operates. In addition, she adds, regulators in one of the countries have filed a separate but parallel lawsuit that also names you and your fellow D&O as defendants.

(See the infographic enlarged.)

(See the infographic enlarged.)

Technology has radically altered the landscape of travel planning in recent years, creating a profusion of websites, apps, and devices designed to book trips better—making it significantly more difficult to cut through the noise in the process. The solution is a carefully edited mix drawn from the hundreds of available services, which in combination can smooth out a potentially rocky odyssey into a seamless journey tailored for efficiency or pleasure.

In terms of negative, high profile events, the recent years have been challenging for the airline industry, primarily because of two incidents. In early March 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 mysteriously disappeared, with 239 passengers and crew on board, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. And in July 2014, the same airline’s Flight 17 was shot down over war-torn Ukraine, shortly after departing Amsterdam en route to Kuala Lumpur. All 298 passengers and crewmembers were killed.