The New Year's Eve ball drop in Times Square is one of the holiday's most cherished traditions, and this year might be its best one yet. Fiskars Living's Tom Brennan joins Cheddar to reveal what makes this year's Waterford New Year's Eve Ball so special. The master artisan explains the painstaking process of creating the iconic scene as the clock strikes midnight.
Brennan reveals why Waterford chose "Gift of Serenity" as this year's theme. He says it represents the spirit of balance and composure heading into the new year. The ball features 288 new crystals that make up the pattern representing the theme.
Finally, Brennan shows off some of the other ways that Waterford is celebrating the holidays. The crystal company is using the New Year's ball as inspiration for some new products including champagne flutes. He says it's a creative way to bring the spirit of the Times Square celebration into your own home.
Swedish startup Amuse looking to re-invent the record label through machine learning. The company, the world's first mobile record company, just launched a new feature called 'Fast Forward' that uses data to predict and pay artists for their future royalties. "We allow artists around the world to use our digital distribution service," explained Co-Founder and CEO Diego Farias. "They upload the music to us, we deliver it to Apple, Spotify, etc. Whatever earnings they get they keep, so 100 percent of what they make."
More than 50 years after the psychedelic Summer of Love, psilocybin, the psychoactive component in magic mushrooms, is having a moment. Researchers at leading universities have been conducting research on the purported medical benefits of mushrooms for years, but as studies yield promising results, the opioid epidemic persists and sentiment warms toward cannabis, mushrooms are earning a lot more attention. Lawmakers and psychotropic advocates have concurrently advanced separate measures in Oregon, Colorado, and, most recently, Iowa, that attempt to loosen restrictions on these hallucinogenic fungi.
Sen. Kamala Harris, weeks into her campaign for president, not only acknowledged that she has smoked pot, but said she isn't opposed to federal legalization of marijuana. "I think it gives a lot of people joy and we need more joy," Harris said, laughing, during an interview on the influential hip-hop radio show The Breakfast Club Monday morning.
Gwyneth Paltrow didn't mean to start a wellness empire. "It was quite accidental," Paltrow told Cheddar's Alyssa Julya Smith in an interview from the Los Angeles Goop Lab, her company's first brick-and-mortar store. Ten years after embarking on a journey to better understand "all aspects of wellness" in the wake of her late father's cancer diagnosis, Paltrow's Goop is now a multi-faceted wellness and lifestyle brand, with a hand in retail, digital media, publishing, events and, soon, a presence on Netflix.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Monday, Feb. 11, 2019.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Gavin de Becker has been operating in elite, high-profile circles for nearly four decades, but very few knew his name before Jeff Bezos mentioned it on Thursday in his explosive allegations that a tabloid publisher attempted to blackmail him over explicit photos. De Becker, Bezos' longtime private security consigliere, has a star-studded pedigree that spans 40 years.
About half of U.S. gamers are women, but you wouldn't necessarily know it by looking at hardware design. Vivian Lien, chief marketing officer at ASUS North America, joined Cheddar Friday to discuss how her company is trying to make gaming more welcoming for women.
Jonah Larson has threaded a small empire with his even smaller hands. The 11-year-old Wisconsin native and crocheting prodigy who learned his craft at age five has a massive following online 40,000 and counting through his viral Instagram account. He even has a business manager ー his mother, Jennifer Larson.
John Henry has some advice for young entrepreneurs ー but he'd rather they didn't listen too closely to it. "My advice is always the same," the entrepreneur and investor told Cheddar. "My advice is not to listen to so much advice." On Henry's new unscripted series, "Hustle," which premieres on Viceland later this month, he coaches a diverse group of real-life budding entrepreneurs struggling to make their dreams a reality in New York City.
