Honda doubles down on ‘holy grail’ of EV batteriesShopping on Temu can feel like playing an arcade game. Instead of using a joystick-controlled claw to grab a toy, visitors to the online marketplace maneuver their computer mouses or cellphone screens to browse colorful gadgets, accessories and trinkets with prices that look too good to refuse. A pop-up spinning wheel offers the chance to win a coupon. Rotating captions warn that a less than $2 camouflage print balaclava and a $1.23 skeleton hand back scratcher are “Almost sold out.” A flame symbol indicates a $9.69 plush cat print hoodie is selling fast. A timed-down selection of discounted items adds to the sense of urgency. Pages from the Shein website, left, and from the Temu site, right. Welcome to the new online world of impulse buying, a place of guilty pleasures where the selection is vast, every day is Cyber Monday, and an instant dopamine hit is always just a click away. By all accounts, we’re living in an accelerating age for consumerism, one that Temu, which is owned by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings, and Shein, its fierce rival , supercharged with social media savvy and an interminable assortment of cheap goods, most shipped directly from merchants in China based on real-time demand. The business models of the two platforms, coupled with avalanches of digital or influencer advertising, have enabled them to give Western retailers a run for their money this holiday shopping season. A Christmas tree ornament purchased on Temu. Software company Salesforce said it expects roughly one in five online purchases in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada to be made through four online marketplaces based or founded in Asia: Shein, Temu, TikTok Shop — the e-commerce arm of video-sharing platform TikTok — and AliExpress. Analysts with Salesforce said they are expected to pull in roughly $160 billion in global sales outside of China. Most of the sales will go to Temu and Shein, a privately held company which is thought to lead the worldwide fast fashion market in revenue. Lisa Xiaoli Neville, a nonprofit manager who lives in Los Angeles, is sold on Shein. The bedroom of her home is stocked with jeans, shoes, press-on nails and other items from the ultra-fast fashion retailer, all of which she amassed after getting on the platform to buy a $2 pair of earrings she saw in a Facebook ad. Neville, 46, estimates she spends at least $75 a month on products from Shein. A $2 eggshell opener, a portable apple peeler and an apple corer, both costing less than $5, are among the quirky, single-use kitchen tools taking up drawer space. She acknowledges she doesn’t need them because she “doesn’t even cook like that.” Plus, she’s allergic to apples. “I won’t eat apples. It will kill me,” Neville said, laughing. “But I still want the coring thing.” Shein, now based in Singapore, uses some of the same web design features as Temu’s, such as pop-up coupons and ads, to persuade shoppers to keep clicking, but it appears a bit more restrained in its approach. Shein primarily targets young women through partnerships with social media influencers. Searching the company's name on video platforms turns up creators promoting Shein's Black Friday sales event and displaying the dozens of of trendy clothes and accessories they got for comparatively little money. But the Shein-focused content also includes videos of TikTokers saying they're embarrassed to admit they shopped there and critics lashing out at fans for not taking into account the environmental harms or potential labor abuses associated with products that are churned out and shipped worldwide at a speedy pace. Neville has already picked out holiday gifts for family and friends from the site. Most of the products in her online cart cost under $10, including graphic T-shirts she intends to buy for her son and jeans and loafers for her daughter. All told, she plans to spend about $200 on gifts, significantly less than $500 she used to shell out at other stores in prior years. “The visuals just make you want to spend more money,” she said, referring to the clothes on Shein's site. “They're very cheap and everything is just so cute.” Unlike Shein, Temu's appeal cuts across age groups and gender. The platform is the world’s second most-visited online shopping site, software company Similarweb reported in September. Customers go there looking for practical items like doormats and silly products like a whiskey flask shaped like a vintage cellphone from the 1990s. Temu advertised Black Friday bargains for some items at upwards of 70% off the recommended retail price. Making a purchase can quickly result in receiving dozens of emails offering free giveaways. The caveat: customers have to buy more products. Despite their rise, Temu and Shein have proven particularly ripe for pushback. Last year, a coalition of unnamed brands and organizations launched a campaign to oppose Shein in Washington. U.S. lawmakers also have raised the possibility that Temu is allowing goods made with forced labor to enter the country. More recently, the Biden administration put forward rules that would crack down on a trade rule known as the de minimis exception, which has allowed a lot of cheap products to come into the U.S. duty-free. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to slap high tariffs on goods from China, a move that would likely raise prices across the retail world. Both Shein and Temu have set up warehouses in the U.S. to speed up delivery times and help them better compete with Amazon, which is trying to erode their price advantage through a new storefront that also ships products directly from China. 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flydubai Celebrates a Game-Changing Double Victory at the 2024 Aviation Innovation Awards
Muscat: Hydrom, Oman’s green hydrogen company, has announced the launch of its third public bidding process for green hydrogen project lands The bidding round is set to begin in March 2025. This move underscores Oman’s continued efforts to offer investment opportunities in the renewable energy and green hydrogen sectors, supporting strategic goals and national efforts to sustain jobs and economic opportunities. Engineer Abdulaziz bin Saeed Al Sheidhani, General Manager of Hydrom, explained that the company aims to allocate at least two new zones in this third bidding round, identified within the designated lands for green hydrogen projects in the Al Wusta and Dhofar Governorates. These zones will vary in size to attract new categories of potential investors and enhance participation opportunities in future rounds. In a statement to the Oman News Agency, Al Sheidhani said that, in addition to previous participants, the company targets new markets and economies such as China, the USA, several European and Asian countries, and neighbouring investments with an interest in the green hydrogen sector. Discussing the challenges in the hydrogen sector, Al Sheidhani noted that "challenges always exist in this sector, starting from market and procurement challenges to those related to political changes, as well as technical challenges." He emphasised that gauging market interest will provide a clearer view of the opportunities available. He affirmed that green hydrogen prices mainly depend on production costs, which are gradually improving due to ongoing advancements in technology, financing, and economies of scale, contributing to reduced production costs. On the other hand, global demand for green hydrogen is increasing, supported by incentives and government policies, as seen in countries like Germany, some EU nations, and East Asian economies like Singapore, South Korea, and Japan. Al Sheidhani added that Hydrom continues its efforts to attract more projects to achieve Oman’s strategic targets for green hydrogen.Shopping on Shein and Temu for holiday gifts? You're not the only oneFacebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Shopping on Temu can feel like playing an arcade game. Instead of using a joystick-controlled claw to grab a toy, visitors to the online marketplace maneuver their computer mouses or cellphone screens to browse colorful gadgets, accessories and trinkets with prices that look too good to refuse. A pop-up spinning wheel offers the chance to win a coupon. Rotating captions warn that a less than $2 camouflage print balaclava and a $1.23 skeleton hand back scratcher are “Almost sold out.” A flame symbol indicates a $9.69 plush cat print hoodie is selling fast. A timed-down selection of discounted items adds to the sense of urgency. Pages from the Shein website, left, and from the Temu site, right. Welcome to the new online world of impulse buying, a place of guilty pleasures where the selection is vast, every day is Cyber Monday, and an instant dopamine hit is always just a click away. Questions about Gillian’s Wonderland finances draw angry response from Mita Absecon police detain suspect in dollar store robbery Pleasantville man accused of murdering girlfriend Northfield intersection to become four-way stop 4 Bridgeton men indicted in alleged sex trafficking ring Northfield Councilman Leeds resigns, citing concerns over Mayor Chau's criminal charges Atlantic City mayor waives first appearance on witness tampering charge Wonderland developer to pitch vision again Wednesday at Ocean City Tabernacle Former Galloway gymnastics co-owner accused of sex with minor to remain in jail These South Jersey bars and restaurants have transformed into holiday wonderlands Some Atlantic City casino workers call on union boss to resign for opposing a smoking ban Atlantic County suing NJ Juvenile Justice Commission over placement of youth offenders Longport administrator and former police chief Scott Porter dies District overspending main focus for new Atlantic City school board member Ron Bailey 9-year-old Margate boy wins tautog tourney in Ventnor: Shep On Fishing By all accounts, we’re living in an accelerating age for consumerism, one that Temu, which is owned by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings, and Shein, its fierce rival , supercharged with social media savvy and an interminable assortment of cheap goods, most shipped directly from merchants in China based on real-time demand. The business models of the two platforms, coupled with avalanches of digital or influencer advertising, have enabled them to give Western retailers a run for their money this holiday shopping season. A Christmas tree ornament purchased on Temu. Software company Salesforce said it expects roughly one in five online purchases in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada to be made through four online marketplaces based or founded in Asia: Shein, Temu, TikTok Shop — the e-commerce arm of video-sharing platform TikTok — and AliExpress. Analysts with Salesforce said they are expected to pull in roughly $160 billion in global sales outside of China. Most of the sales will go to Temu and Shein, a privately held company which is thought to lead the worldwide fast fashion market in revenue. Lisa Xiaoli Neville, a nonprofit manager who lives in Los Angeles, is sold on Shein. The bedroom of her home is stocked with jeans, shoes, press-on nails and other items from the ultra-fast fashion retailer, all of which she amassed after getting on the platform to buy a $2 pair of earrings she saw in a Facebook ad. Neville, 46, estimates she spends at least $75 a month on products from Shein. A $2 eggshell opener, a portable apple peeler and an apple corer, both costing less than $5, are among the quirky, single-use kitchen tools taking up drawer space. She acknowledges she doesn’t need them because she “doesn’t even cook like that.” Plus, she’s allergic to apples. “I won’t eat apples. It will kill me,” Neville said, laughing. “But I still want the coring thing.” Osheen Jain Shein, now based in Singapore, uses some of the same web design features as Temu’s, such as pop-up coupons and ads, to persuade shoppers to keep clicking, but it appears a bit more restrained in its approach. Shein primarily targets young women through partnerships with social media influencers. Searching the company's name on video platforms turns up creators promoting Shein's Black Friday sales event and displaying the dozens of of trendy clothes and accessories they got for comparatively little money. But the Shein-focused content also includes videos of TikTokers saying they're embarrassed to admit they shopped there and critics lashing out at fans for not taking into account the environmental harms or potential labor abuses associated with products that are churned out and shipped worldwide at a speedy pace. Neville has already picked out holiday gifts for family and friends from the site. Most of the products in her online cart cost under $10, including graphic T-shirts she intends to buy for her son and jeans and loafers for her daughter. All told, she plans to spend about $200 on gifts, significantly less than $500 she used to shell out at other stores in prior years. “The visuals just make you want to spend more money,” she said, referring to the clothes on Shein's site. “They're very cheap and everything is just so cute.” HALELUYA HADERO Associated Press Unlike Shein, Temu's appeal cuts across age groups and gender. The platform is the world’s second most-visited online shopping site, software company Similarweb reported in September. Customers go there looking for practical items like doormats and silly products like a whiskey flask shaped like a vintage cellphone from the 1990s. Temu advertised Black Friday bargains for some items at upwards of 70% off the recommended retail price. Making a purchase can quickly result in receiving dozens of emails offering free giveaways. The caveat: customers have to buy more products. Despite their rise, Temu and Shein have proven particularly ripe for pushback. Last year, a coalition of unnamed brands and organizations launched a campaign to oppose Shein in Washington. U.S. lawmakers also have raised the possibility that Temu is allowing goods made with forced labor to enter the country. More recently, the Biden administration put forward rules that would crack down on a trade rule known as the de minimis exception, which has allowed a lot of cheap products to come into the U.S. duty-free. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to slap high tariffs on goods from China, a move that would likely raise prices across the retail world. Both Shein and Temu have set up warehouses in the U.S. to speed up delivery times and help them better compete with Amazon, which is trying to erode their price advantage through a new storefront that also ships products directly from China. DONNA EDWARDSAssociated Press By KATIE WORKMAN Associated Press By JESSICA DAMIANO Associated Press Brooke CainThe Bradenton Herald(TNS) The business news you need Get the latest local business news delivered FREE to your inbox weekly.
NonePay first, deliver later: Some women are being asked to prepay for their baby
Why you can trust AppleInsider Read how we test products or view our ethics policy . If you shop through our links, we may get a commission. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: The pinnacle of the portable Mac Andrew O'Hara | Nov 22, 2024 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Peak MacBook Pro 3 Facebook x.com Reddit The latest MacBook Pro update arrived in November, alongside multiple other Macs. We similarly got a new M4 -powered iMac and a completely redesigned Mac mini . Looking at the MacBook Pros specifically, they come in both 14- and 16-inch versions. You can get the 14-inch in M4 and M4 Pro versions and the 16-inch with the M4 Pro or M4 Max. This review is sponsored by tomtoc . Tomtoc is a design-driven, tech-savvy brand focused on providing innovative protection for your digital devices. With an emphasis on quality, functionality, and a perfect fit, tomtoc's products keep your gear safe in style. Get ready for their Black Friday sale with up to 50% off and don't miss your chance to upgrade your protection! We're looking at the Space Black 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M4 Max processor and its 40-core GPU. It has 1TB of storage and 64GB of unified memory. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Internals and ports Much of this machine is the same as before. The design is unchanged on the outside, other than that the base M4 model can now be obtained in the Space Black colorway that's become so popular. We still wish it was a bit darker. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: The left side has MagSafe 3, Thunderbolt 5 ports, and an audio jack As you face it, on the left of the machine is a MagSafe 3 port for charging at up to 140W, saddled by two Thunderbolt ports and a 3.5mm audio jack. The right has an SDXC card reader, another Thunderbolt port, and an HDMI connector. You get Apple's excellent built in keyboard above the still-spacious glass trackpad. Years later, Apple's trackpad is still unmatched by the competition. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: The keyboard is as good as ever and a joy to type on The display is 16.2-inches on the diagonal and measures 3456 by 2234 in resolution. It looks beautiful, has 1000 nits of typical brightness, ProMotion up to 120Hz, supports the P3 wide color gamut, and has TrueTone. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: What's new this time around? There are a number of improvements here, even if Apple kept the body the same. For example, the display's 1000 nit max brightness is 400 nits above where it was before. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: The screen looks gorgeous with the matte finish That's particularly useful when outdoors, no matter if you opted for the glossy or the new nano-texture finish. Similarly, it can get dimmer too. If you've ever worked into the wee hours or tried to use your computer in bed in the dark, you may have tried to turn your display brightness extremely low. Like the iPhone 16 line, it can now go as low as 1 nit. We certainly work into the wee hours of the night, frequently. So, this, like it was on the iPhone, has been a surprisingly useful feature. Not everyone is going to need this and it's not really that heavily promoted by Apple. For us, though, it's so helpful and more comfortable on our eyes. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: The new camera is 12MP and supports desk view Also on the display is a beefed up camera hiding in the notch. It's now 12MP and supports Desk View. Video is still capped at 1080p though. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Desk View on the upgraded camera Even if you don't use Desk View, the higher resolution and improved M4 ISP is welcomed and we were shocked at how much better we looked. We did a side-by-side with our M3 Max MacBook Pro and it was drastic. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: The old versus new camera quality The photo was richer with more contrast and better colors. It frankly makes the camera much more usable for processional applications. Thunderbolt 5 will be a standout feature — eventually After we got our first look at Thunderbolt 5 prototype devices at CES 2024, we're finally seeing the first cables and docks coming to market. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: A third party Thunderbolt 5 cable It's capable of 120Gb/s of aggregated data which is up to three times that of Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4. There aren't many devices now, but we're going to see many over the lifespan of this machine. When buying a Mac that you plan to use three, five, or even ten years you want it to support the latest technology. That's what this offers. It'll make more of a difference when there are more peripherals available. At the time of writing, only a few things have been announced. One thing we didn't get here was Wi-Fi 7 and we're sorely disappointed. This is the one upgrade we expected to get and didn't, purely based on the new wireless standard being finalized earlier this year. The iPhone 16 series also already supports it. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Apple has plenty of ports Once more, when you want a machine that will last, you want the latest standards and it's frustrating to see that omitted here. We'd prefer it on our Macs versus our iPhones. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Nano texture display Filed under "new changes in 2024" for the MacBook Pro is an optional nano texture finish. It's similar to what the iPad Pro , iMac, and Studio Display offer. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Trying to flash a light at the glossy (left) and matte (right) finish options We're not going to get into it again, given that this isn't Apple's first product with it. In short, it reduces glare and the impact of bright lights on the display. This diffused light, in our experience, makes the screen even better. There will be debate on what's better for color-specific workflows like video color grading or professional editing in Lightroom and Photoshop, but for us, it makes sense. Side by side, the color difference is minimal. If you are worrying that much about the color representation, a dedicated reference monitor may make more sense. With a laptop, the idea is to be portable and the nano texture affords that. The only downside is that because of the diffused light, it does appear slightly dimmer in certain environments. That's a worthwhile tradeoff though because we'd usually have to crank the brightness to battle the glare. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Testing the two displays outside When outside and the brightness cranks up to that 1000 nit level, that difference goes away and the new model looks just as bright as the older one. It also has great viewing angles, which is a plus. In all the environments we tested, the nano texture looked better. Even the clarity loss is minimal and we'd happily pay the $150 upgrade cost. Funny enough, the nano texture also kept out display cleaner. It still showed some oils, but overall looked and stayed cleaner than the normal glossy one. We've disliked the traditional anti-glare screens found on PCs and it's clear why Apple waited for a more suitable technology before introducing their own Mac-specific version of it. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Performance Here, we're testing the M4 Max 16-inch MacBook Pro which is a 16-core CPU with 12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Geekbench single-core results That's the same breakdown as the M3 Max. It's now faster though, increasing the clockspeed from 3.68GHz to 4.5GHz. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Geekbench multi-core results In terms of benchmarked performance, Geekbench 6 is showing us a 25% boost in the single core performance. We also saw a 30% boost in the multi-core performance. The Metal graphics test was a little more modest, going to 189752 from 163927. That's about a 15% increase for that 40-core GPU. Putting these numbers into perspective, the M4 Max easily outperforms the M2 Ultra CPU. That shouldn't be a huge surprise since we never got an M3 Ultra chip to compare with. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Blender GPU benchmarks Perhaps even more impressive, the M4 Max is also comparable to the GeForce 4080 super GPU in some workloads. That's a huge, desktop graphics card that has similar performance to a laptop. We wanted throw something different at the new machine in our testing, which was perfectly timed with Apple's new update to Final Cut Pro. One of the new features to that is Magnetic Mask, which is one of the more computationally intensive video tasks we do, outside of 3D motion graphics. It uses AI to track a subject, masking out the background without the need for a green screen. We applied it to a 12 minute 4K 24FPS video and it took 14 minutes and 27 seconds to complete. On the M3 Max model, it took a minute and 32 seconds longer. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Testing editing with Final Cut Pro Overall it's about a 10% boost in that performance. That's not a ton but on a longer or higher resolution project, that could amount to a serious time savings. Of course, higher-end workflows probably aren't using Magnetic Mask, but still. For completeness sake, we ran Cinebench R23 on both our last-gen and current gen machines. The M4 Max achieved 27108 for the multi-core sore and 2237 for the single-core, compared to 21355 and 1816 for the M3 Max respectively. That once more is showing about a 30% increase in multi-core performance. For a yearly update, that's a solid increase, and even more impressive compared to the exceptional M1 Max machine many still use. This may be a big enough jump to encourage holdouts to make the jump to Apple's latest and greatest portable Mac. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: M4 Pro is where it's at While the M4 Max is an incredibly powerful chip, and also points to a mind-bending M4 Ultra release down the pike, the real story seems to be the M4 Pro. Generationally, it's a bigger increase than its predecessor and at the rate of Apple Silicon , it's still more power than a lot of pro users will need. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Apple's M4 series chips are great Our most demanding workflow, multi-cam 4K video, is now barely taxing even for a base M4 processor. We'd be fine with an M4 Pro these days, even if we opt for the extra headroom and better performance the M4 Max offers. Notably, the M4 Pro is up to a 14-core, two more than before, but also increased the performance cores from six to ten. We'd have been fine had Apple gave us just more efficiency cores. Memory bandwidth also nearly doubled from 150GB/s to 273GB/s. It all amounts to an exceptional upgrade for the mid-tier chip. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Some of our benchmarking suite Last year, the M3 Pro felt like we got slighted with a middling update. It gave users more of a reason to jump to the "max" variant. This year, it feels like the M4 Pro is where it's at and unless you have an ultra-demanding workflow, it will probably keep up. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Should you buy Apple's new flagship portable Mac? Not every year of Apple Silicon needs to be a monumental increase. This year it was probably above average for the M4 Max, between 20% and 30% for the CPU and less for the GPU. Still, it's so impressive how much power Apple is able to pack into a laptop that is so incredibly portable. And unlike many Windows-based PCs, you don't see a massive performance dip when running on battery. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Sliding the MacBook Pro into a backpack is easy, even at 16 inches There's very little to criticize here as Apple has continued to refine and push the MacBook Pro line. There's the absence of Wi-Fi 7, but otherwise Apple knocked it out of the park. It's powerful, fast, elegant, portable, and reliable. It's the machine we turn to most often to get work done. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: The new MacBook Pro is incredibly good The only reason not to buy the M4 Max 16-inch MacBook Pro is if you don't need this much power. In that case, the M4 Pro model is perfectly suitable. Next year it's rumored we'll see a redesigned MacBook Pro that's even thinner and presumably adding Wi-Fi 7 and upgraded OLED displays. That's what's on the roadmap which will hopefully make any upgrade decisions easier. This is a workhorse of a machine and would be a solid upgrade choice before jumping to a redesigned model in a few years, when Apple has any first-gen bugs worked out. This is peak MacBook Pro. And we're here for it. 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Pros Nano-texture display is incredible upgrade Performance of M4 Pro and M4 Max are both outstanding New camera is markedly better Peak design and performance of the portable Mac Thunderbolt 5 will be a game changer New minimum brightness is great for late night working 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max review: Cons No Wi-Fi 7 Thunderbolt 5 accessories are still scarce to start 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max rating: 5 out of 5 This review is sponsored by tomtoc . Tomtoc is a design-driven, tech-savvy brand focused on providing innovative protection for your digital devices. With an emphasis on quality, functionality, and a perfect fit, tomtoc's products keep your gear safe in style. Get ready for their Black Friday sale with up to 50% off and don't miss your chance to upgrade your protection! Where to buy Apple's 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max at a discount The 2024 MacBook Pro 16-inch is already on sale at numerous Apple resellers, with discounted prices starting at $2,199 in our 16-inch MacBook Pro Price Guide . Amazon has M4 Max models marked down to as low as $3,199 at press time, reflecting a triple-digit discount off MSRP. AppleInsider readers can also save up to $300 on every CTO M4 MacBook Pro configuration with promo code APINSIDER at Apple Authorized Reseller Adorama. The same code takes $30 off three years of AppleCare for the 14-inch models and $40 off three years of AppleCare for the 16-inch MacBook Pro. You can also find the latest 14-inch MacBook Pro deals in our Price Guides: 14-inch MacBook Pro M4 prices 14-inch MacBook Pro M4 Pro & M4 Max prices
Shopping on Temu can feel like playing an arcade game. Instead of using a joystick-controlled claw to grab a toy, visitors to the online marketplace maneuver their computer mouses or cellphone screens to browse colorful gadgets, accessories and trinkets with prices that look too good to refuse. A pop-up spinning wheel offers the chance to win a coupon. Rotating captions warn that a less than $2 camouflage print balaclava and a $1.23 skeleton hand back scratcher are “Almost sold out.” A flame symbol indicates a $9.69 plush cat print hoodie is selling fast. A timed-down selection of discounted items adds to the sense of urgency. Pages from the Shein website, left, and from the Temu site, right. Welcome to the new online world of impulse buying, a place of guilty pleasures where the selection is vast, every day is Cyber Monday, and an instant dopamine hit is always just a click away. By all accounts, we’re living in an accelerating age for consumerism, one that Temu, which is owned by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings, and Shein, its fierce rival , supercharged with social media savvy and an interminable assortment of cheap goods, most shipped directly from merchants in China based on real-time demand. The business models of the two platforms, coupled with avalanches of digital or influencer advertising, have enabled them to give Western retailers a run for their money this holiday shopping season. A Christmas tree ornament purchased on Temu. Software company Salesforce said it expects roughly one in five online purchases in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada to be made through four online marketplaces based or founded in Asia: Shein, Temu, TikTok Shop — the e-commerce arm of video-sharing platform TikTok — and AliExpress. Analysts with Salesforce said they are expected to pull in roughly $160 billion in global sales outside of China. Most of the sales will go to Temu and Shein, a privately held company which is thought to lead the worldwide fast fashion market in revenue. Lisa Xiaoli Neville, a nonprofit manager who lives in Los Angeles, is sold on Shein. The bedroom of her home is stocked with jeans, shoes, press-on nails and other items from the ultra-fast fashion retailer, all of which she amassed after getting on the platform to buy a $2 pair of earrings she saw in a Facebook ad. Neville, 46, estimates she spends at least $75 a month on products from Shein. A $2 eggshell opener, a portable apple peeler and an apple corer, both costing less than $5, are among the quirky, single-use kitchen tools taking up drawer space. She acknowledges she doesn’t need them because she “doesn’t even cook like that.” Plus, she’s allergic to apples. “I won’t eat apples. It will kill me,” Neville said, laughing. “But I still want the coring thing.” Shein, now based in Singapore, uses some of the same web design features as Temu’s, such as pop-up coupons and ads, to persuade shoppers to keep clicking, but it appears a bit more restrained in its approach. Shein primarily targets young women through partnerships with social media influencers. Searching the company's name on video platforms turns up creators promoting Shein's Black Friday sales event and displaying the dozens of of trendy clothes and accessories they got for comparatively little money. But the Shein-focused content also includes videos of TikTokers saying they're embarrassed to admit they shopped there and critics lashing out at fans for not taking into account the environmental harms or potential labor abuses associated with products that are churned out and shipped worldwide at a speedy pace. Neville has already picked out holiday gifts for family and friends from the site. Most of the products in her online cart cost under $10, including graphic T-shirts she intends to buy for her son and jeans and loafers for her daughter. All told, she plans to spend about $200 on gifts, significantly less than $500 she used to shell out at other stores in prior years. “The visuals just make you want to spend more money,” she said, referring to the clothes on Shein's site. “They're very cheap and everything is just so cute.” Unlike Shein, Temu's appeal cuts across age groups and gender. The platform is the world’s second most-visited online shopping site, software company Similarweb reported in September. Customers go there looking for practical items like doormats and silly products like a whiskey flask shaped like a vintage cellphone from the 1990s. Temu advertised Black Friday bargains for some items at upwards of 70% off the recommended retail price. Making a purchase can quickly result in receiving dozens of emails offering free giveaways. The caveat: customers have to buy more products. Despite their rise, Temu and Shein have proven particularly ripe for pushback. Last year, a coalition of unnamed brands and organizations launched a campaign to oppose Shein in Washington. U.S. lawmakers also have raised the possibility that Temu is allowing goods made with forced labor to enter the country. More recently, the Biden administration put forward rules that would crack down on a trade rule known as the de minimis exception, which has allowed a lot of cheap products to come into the U.S. duty-free. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to slap high tariffs on goods from China, a move that would likely raise prices across the retail world. Both Shein and Temu have set up warehouses in the U.S. to speed up delivery times and help them better compete with Amazon, which is trying to erode their price advantage through a new storefront that also ships products directly from China. 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NEW YORK (AP) — In a string of visits, dinners, calls, monetary pledges and social media overtures, big tech chiefs — including Apple’s Tim Cook, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — have joined a parade of and world leaders in trying to improve their standing with President-elect Donald Trump before he takes office in January. “The first term, everybody was fighting me,” Trump said in . “In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.” Tech companies and leaders have millions into his inauguration fund, a sharp increase — in most cases — from past pledges to incoming presidents. But what does the tech industry expect to gain out of their renewed relationships with Trump? A clue to what the industry is looking for came just days before the election when Microsoft executives — who’ve largely tried to show a neutral or bipartisan stance — joined with a close Trump ally, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, to outlining their approach to artificial intelligence policy. “Regulation should be implemented only if its benefits outweigh its costs,” said the document signed by Andreessen, his business partner Ben Horowitz, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and the company’s president, Brad Smith. They also urged the government to back off on any attempt to strengthen copyright laws that would make it harder for companies to use publicly available data to train their AI systems. And they said, “the government should examine its procurement practices to enable more startups to sell technology to the government.” Trump has pledged to rescind President Joe Biden’s sweeping AI executive order, which sought to protect people’s rights and safety without stifling innovation. He hasn’t specified what he would do in its place, but his campaign said AI development should be “rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing.” Trump’s choice to head the Interior Department, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, has spoken openly about the need to boost electricity production to meet increased demand from data centers and artificial intelligence. “The AI battle affects everything from defense to healthcare to education to productivity as a country,′′ Burgum said on Nov. 15, referring to artificial intelligence. “And the AI that’s coming in the next 18 months is going to be revolutionary. So there’s just a sense of urgency and a sense of understanding in the Trump administration′′ to address it. Demand for data centers due to the rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and local governments are competing for lucrative deals with big tech companies. But as data centers begin to consume more resources, some residents are pushing back against the world’s most powerful corporations over concerns about the economic, social and environmental health of their communities. “Maybe Big Tech should buy a copy of ‘The Art of The Deal’ to figure out how to best negotiate with this administration,” suggested Paul Swanson, an antitrust attorney for the law firm Holland & Hart. “I won’t be surprised if they find ways to reach some accommodations and we end up seeing more negotiated resolutions and consent decrees.” Although federal regulators began cracking down on Google and Facebook during Trump’s first term as president — and flourished under Biden — most experts expect his second administration to and be more receptive to business mergers. Google may benefit from Trump’s return after he made comments on the campaign trail suggesting isn’t in the U.S. national interest, after a judge declared its search engine . But recent nominations put forward by his transition team have favored those who have been critical of Big Tech companies, suggesting Google won’t be entirely off the hook. Cook’s notoriously rocky relationship with the EU can be traced back to a 2016 ruling from Brussels in a tax case targeting Apple. Cook slammed the bloc’s order for Apple to pay back up to $13.7 billion in Irish back taxes as “total political crap.” Trump, then in his first term as president, piled on, referring to the European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who was spearheading a campaign on special tax deals and a crackdown on Big Tech companies, as the “tax lady” who “really hates the U.S.” Brussels was after the bloc’s top court rejected Apple’s appeal this year, though it didn’t stop Cook from calling Trump to complain, Trump in October. Trump hosted Cook for a Friday evening dinner at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly. Neither Apple nor the Trump transition team has commented on the nature of their discussions. , Amazon and Meta all pledged to donate $1 million each to Trump’s inaugural fund. During his first term, Trump criticized Amazon and railed against the political coverage at The Washington Post, which billionaire Bezos owns. Meanwhile, Bezos had criticized some of Trump’s past rhetoric. In 2019, Amazon also argued in a court case that Trump’s bias against the company harmed its chances of winning a $10 billion Pentagon contract. More recently, Bezos has struck a more conciliatory tone. He recently said at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit in New York that he was “optimistic” about Trump’s second term, while also endorsing president-elect’s plans to cut regulations. The donation from Meta came just weeks after privately at Mar-a-Lago. During the 2024 campaign, Zuckerberg did not endorse a candidate for president, but voiced a more positive stance toward Trump. Earlier this year, he praised Trump’s response to his first assassination attempt. Still, Trump in recent months had continued to attack Zuckerberg publicly. And Altman, who is in a legal dispute with AI rival Elon Musk, has said he is about the Tesla CEO’s influence in the incoming administration. Musk, an early OpenAI investor and board member, sued the artificial intelligence company earlier this year alleging that the maker of ChatGPT betrayed its founding aims of benefiting the public good rather than pursuing profits.