Josie Fan

Latest Stories (18)

Restaurants say diners are bad at making reservations

Apr 17, 2018
Journalist Marissa Conrad watched careful planning unravel at popular dinner spots.
Restaurants have mixed feelings on how reservation platforms work.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images

How Levi Strauss & Co. is using lasers to make jeans

Mar 7, 2018
Automation touches many consumer products — the cars we drive, the sneakers we put on and now the jeans we wear.  Levi Strauss & Co. is planning to swap out garment workers for laser machines that could create the worn look on a pair of jeans in less than two minutes. Suzanne Kapner, a reporter […]

How does Adidas make shoes in days?

Mar 6, 2018
Making a pair of sneakers is a labor-intensive process, and it could take months. But Adidas is trying to change that. In its newly built Speedfactory in Germany, Adidas is making most parts of the shoes with machines. Marc Bain is a fashion reporter at Quartz and one of the first group of people who […]

Can we get enough of cup holders?

Mar 1, 2018
Whether it’s to fit an extra Big Gulp cup or to store your kids’ playthings, it seems like we always want more cup holders in our cars — and car makers are trying to meet this demand. Chester Dawson is a reporter from Wall Street Journal‘s Detroit Bureau. He writes about the new trend of […]

Why Pepperoni Rules Pizza Commercials

Feb 26, 2018
Pepperoni has been the main character for pizza commercial for decades. Why? Danielle Sepulveres, a freelance writer, explained in an interview with Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal “Pepperoni does look great on camera, and it does look good on commercials even if you don’t want pepperoni,” Sepulveres said. You can read Sepulvere’s article here. Click the […]

How all-day cafes are changing our lives

Feb 23, 2018
Welcome to a place where you can work, eat all three meals and feel extremely welcomed.

The darkest building on the planet is at the Olympics

The structure in Pyeongchang is painted with what its maker says is the darkest man-made substance, a material that absorbs 99 percent of light.
The Hyundai Pavilion at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea, designed by Asif Khan, is coated with Vantablack VBx2.
Luke Hayes

Business cards are getting weirder

Feb 8, 2018
Even in this digital age, the good old fashioned business card is far from dead. But it is getting weirder.  Some creative networkers and entrepreneurs are using oddball cards with unusual shapes and materials to stand out with potential clients. “What I found is that a lot of young people really love them because they […]