In a story that sounds straight out of a comic book, German authorities announce the arrest of more than twenty people who were apparently on the cusp of attempting to overthrow the government. The FBI raises public concern that China may have secret police stations -- not just in the United States... but in countries across the world. All this and more in this week's Strange News with Ben and Matt. They don’t want you to read our book.
Around the world, billions of people can sell their wares online, in part thanks to solutions that handle the complexities of securely and reliably managing transactions. Businesses, large and small, can sell directly to customers. But a lot of these ecommerce services provide a heavier surface than many need by managing product catalogs and requiring inflexible interfaces.
On this sponsored podcast episode, Ben and Ryan talk with Filippo Conforti, co-founder of Commerce Layer, an API-only ecommerce platform that focuses on the transaction engine. We talk about his early years building ecommerce at Italian luxury brands, the importance of front-ends (and micro-frontends) to ecom, and how milliseconds of page load speed can cost millions.
Episode notes
Conforti was the first Gucci employee building out their ecommerce, so he got to experience life in a fast-moving startup within a big brand. When he left five years later, the team had grown to around 100 people.
The ecommerce space is crowded—one of Commerce Layer’s recent clients evaluated around 40 other platforms—but Conforti thinks Commerce Layer stands out by making any web page a shoppable experience.
Conforti thinks composable commerce back ends that neglect the front end neutralize the benefits. Commerce Layer provides micro-frontends—standard web components that you can inject into any web page to create shoppable experiences.
Getting your ecommerce platform as close to your customer makes real monetary difference. A report from Deloitte finds that a 100ms response time increase on mobile translates to an 8% increase in the conversion rate.
Storms bring snow and severe weather to Americans from coast to coast. Justice for the Pan Am 103 bombing. An update on Britney Griner. CBS News Correspondent Steve Kathan has today's World News Roundup.
Jessica Roy was hanging with friends at a piano bar when her wallet was stolen — and became a victim of identity theft. Roy filed the necessary reports and thought she’d be able to handle everything pretty quickly. That didn’t happen.
Today, she shares her ordeal and explains why fixing identity theft is a never-ending nightmare and why recovering from it is so much harder than you think.
With astonishing speed, the machinery of testing, tracing and lockdowns is being dismantled. We examine the risks that will pose to a country that is not prepared for big outbreaks. A winemaker’s lawsuit in Napa Valley reveals why many Californians believe regulators are unfriendly to business. And a clever solution to spare sharks from becoming unwanted “bycatch”. Help us make the show better: take our listener survey at http://economist.com/intelligencesurvey For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, subscribe here www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer
Johan Eklöf is a Swedish bat scientist on a mission. In The Darkness Manifesto (translated by Elizabeth DeNoma) he warns how light pollution is threatening the ancient rhythms of life. Many creatures across the world come to life at night – with bats specially adapted to fly using echolocation. By keeping the lights on we are disrupting entire ecosystems.
But darkness can appear alien and frightening. The writer Kate Summerscale explores the phobias that haunt the imagination as the lights go off: nyctophobia, xylophobia and hypnophobia – intense and morbid fears of the dark, of forests and of falling asleep.
But why do bumps in the night sound so much more unnerving than during the day? The neuroscientist Professor Geraint Rees focuses his research on seeking to understand the neural basis of consciousness and he explores how our different senses are integral to the way we perceive and experience the world around us.
The forces of light and darkness are pitted against each other in the classic children’s story The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, now adapted for BBC World Service radio, starting on Tuesday 20th December. Producer and co-adapter Simon McBurney creates a spine-tingling winter soundscape with the use of binaural sound, giving listeners using headphones a unique immersive experience.
Utah is America’s biggest sweettooth, which is one reason it’s home to Crumbl — the fastest-growing restaurant chain in the country. Lululemon trails only Nike in apparel, because investors want to play with Profit Puppies, not run with Revenue Rabbits. And Microsoft spent $69B to play a video game, but was just told to go to its room.
$LULU $MSFT
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There are estimated to be over 1,300 active volcanoes in the world today.
Almost all of them have one thing in common, they were around well before there were humans to record their creation. In fact, their creation might have taken many thousands of years.
However, there is one volcano were know quite a bit about because we were around when it was born, and we have everything on film.
Learn more about Paricutin, the volcano that we witnessed being born, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
