Business | Prestige and the podiumWill it pay off?Photograph: Nelson Rosier/LVMH Jul 25th 2024Pay close attention as the medals are draped over the victors of this year’s Olympic games in Paris and you may spot a hexagonal piece of wrought iron at their centre. That is a piece of the Eiffel Tower, kept after a renovation. The medals, designed by Chaumet,...

Business | DogfightIt hopes to succeed where others have failedScheduled for take-offPhotograph: Getty Images Jul 25th 2024|FarnboroughEach year Airbus and Boeing, the two halves of the global aircraft duopoly, face off at the world’s most prestigious airshow, which alternates between Paris and Farnborough, in the countryside close to London. This year’s...

Business | BartlebyHow robots and AI change the meaningfulness of workPhotograph: Ryan Gillett Jul 25th 2024July 19th was a day for help-desk heroes and support superstars. A routine software update by CrowdStrike, a cyber-security company, caused computer outages in offices, hospitals and airports worldwide. Most white-collar workers looked disconsolately...

Business | SchumpeterAugustus Caesar goes on the open-source warpath Illustration: Mari Fouz Jul 24th 2024As alter egos go, Augustus Caesar is not a bad one for Mark Zuckerberg, pontifex maximus of Meta, owner of the Facebook family of apps. Both men started their march to power as teenagers. Both stopped at nothing to build empires—though unlike the...

Business | The fossil-fuel fantasyThere is not much he could do to boost fossil fuels—or rein in clean energyIllustration: Carl Godfrey Jul 24th 2024“We will drill, baby, drill!” So thundered Donald Trump in his speech on July 19th at the Republican National Convention, where he accepted his party’s nomination as its presidential candidate. Encouraged...

Business | Bump startBaidu is leaving Western carmakers in the dustPhotograph: Getty Images Jul 24th 2024|WuhanIf autonomous cars are supposed to make life easy, then Apollo Go, the robotaxi unit of Baidu, a Chinese tech giant, still has work to do. When your correspondent tested its service in the city of Wuhan he had to find his way to a designated...