Detroit is beautiful-though you probably have to be a child of the industrial Midwest, like me, to see it. As you may have heard, the city is in trouble. At the end of the 2013 fiscal year, Detroit had a balance sheet with liabilities of $9.05 billio…

I grew up in an affluent area. Most kids owned multiple Cabbage Patch dolls and Gear bags and pairs of Jordache jeans (not to mention the beloved Atari 2600). I certainly had enough, but it felt like all of my peers possessed more. I wanted Benetton…

Next to have their jobs automated: airport-security screeners? Aviation and government authorities are starting to use machines in lieu of people to verify the identities of fliers by scanning their faces, irises or fingerprints. Dozens of airports i…

The big push in office design is forcing co-workers to interact more. Cubicle walls are lower, office doors are no more and communal cafes and snack bars abound. cubicle:小卧室,小隔间 communal:公共的,公社的 Like most grand social experiments, though, open-plan o…

Recently, an almost literal case of lifeboat ethics occurred. On Aug. 4, Graham and Sheryl Anley, while yachting off the coast of South Africa, hit a reef, capsizing their boat. As the boat threatened to sink and they scrambled to get off, Sheryl's s…

Billions of dollars are flowing into online advertising. But marketers also are confronting an uncomfortable reality: rampant fraud. rampant:猖獗的,狂暴的 About 36% of all Web traffic is considered fake, the product of computers hijacked by viruses and pro…

China has tried your form of government and found it wanting. That was the message delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping during an expansive address at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, this week that capped off his first visit to Western…

The appointment of India-born Satya Nadella as Microsoft Corp.'s CEO has caused a bit of a stir in China, where people are questioning why Indians but not Chinese are getting top jobs in the U.S. Language and familiarity with Western culture are the…

Buying real estate involves weighing a lot of factors: location, price . . . smell? Some condo developers are betting that the best way to a buyer's heart is through the nose. The latest sales tools are signature scents designed to enhance a buyer's…

AT THE ACADEMY AWARDS earlier this month, Kerry Washington, the star of the ABC-TV series 'Scandal,' wore a lilac Jason Wu gown, tailor-made to accommodate what she playfully called her little 'accessory'-a growing baby bump. These days, that's just…