Good morning.

It’s Thursday, January 8. The year is officially underway, emails are back, and pretending it’s “still early” is becoming legally questionable.

January has that fake calm energy. Everyone’s optimistic. Everyone’s “locked in.” Everyone swears this is the year everything clicks. Sure. We love the confidence.

Now take a sip of whatever you’re calling coffee today and let’s get to the news.

Today’s stories:

• Octopus camouflage inspires adaptive synthetic skin

• Boston Dynamics’ robot enters the workforce

• Car payments reach reality-detached highs

• Luxury watches quietly raised prices again

• Stripe officially brings crypto to checkout

• Netflix monetized popcorn, not tickets

• Trump targets Wall Street in housing

• Spotify made listening habits public

• CES delivers peak tech absurdity

• Luxury train travel hits $80,000

• Alaska bets big on Boeing

  and more…

US stocks finished mixed Wednesday, with the Dow slipping back below a key milestone after briefly breaking through it a day earlier. Fresh jobs data, headlines around Venezuelan oil, and renewed volatility in defense stocks — triggered by comments from President Donald Trump — kept markets on edge.

The Dow fell more than 450 points, or 0.9%, dropping back under 49,000. Amgen stood out, jumping over 3%, while Microsoft, Salesforce, and Nvidia each gained around 1%. Alphabet also stole the spotlight, overtaking Apple to become the market’s second-most valuable company.

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Your Wrist Just Got More Expensive

Rolex, Audemars Piguet, and Tudor kicked off 2026 by raising prices. Across the U.S. and the U.K., prices are up about 7% in the U.S., 5% in the U.K. Reasons include new 15% tariffs on Swiss watches entering the U.S., record gold prices, inflation everywhere, and a dollar that needs a nap. Rolex did what Rolex always does. Prices up 7% in the U.S. and 5.2% in the U.K. The white-gold Cosmograph Daytona jumped from $51,800 to $56,400. Same watch. New number. The Crown loves a January reset and occasionally throws in a mid-year surprise just to keep things exciting. Audemars Piguet followed closely. Prices rose 7.5% in the U.S. and 2.5% in the U.K. Royal Oaks took the biggest hit, because demand is loud and AP listens. The steel Royal Oak Chronograph moved from $40,500 to $44,400. Math, but luxury. Meanwhile, Patek Philippe, Omega, Breitling, Cartier, TAG Heuer, IWC, and Vacheron Constantin stayed quiet. For now. Time still moves at the same speed. It just costs more to measure it.

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Trump takes aim at corporate homebuyers. Donald Trump says institutional investors should stop buying single-family homes. His message was simple. People live in homes. Corporations do not. The announcement came via social media and is part of a broader push on housing affordability ahead of the midterms. Trump said more details are coming later this month at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Big stage. Big promise. Markets reacted immediately. Shares of Toll Brothers, Invitation Homes, KB Home, and PulteGroup fell. Blackstone, one of the biggest players in single-family rentals, dropped more than 9% at one point. Wall Street noticed.

Boeing got a confidence boost. Alaska Airlines just placed its biggest aircraft order ever. Over 100 planes. No hesitation. The airline ordered 105 Boeing 737 Max 10 jets that still need certification, plus five 787-10 Dreamliners. The long-haul planes support Alaska’s international plans, including new nonstop routes to Italy and South Korea. Expansion mode activated. According to CNBC, Alaska expects the Federal Aviation Administration to certify the Max 10 this year, with deliveries starting in 2027. The order also includes options for 35 more planes, because why stop now. Alaska, which acquired Hawaiian Airlines in 2024, plans to grow its fleet from 413 aircraft today to 550 by 2035. This order helps lock in delivery slots through the mid-2030s, when planes are basically a waiting list sport. The deal is also a quiet vote of confidence in Boeing, despite its very public issues. Two years ago, an Alaska-operated 737 Max 9 lost a door plug mid-flight. No serious injuries. Maximum embarrassment. Boeing has more than 6,000 planes on backorder and a complicated history with the Max program. Still, Alaska is betting on scale, timing, and the long game. Air travel drama aside, Alaska just secured its future seat assignments.

Car payments just hit peak delusion. New car payments just hit a record high. The average monthly payment is now $772, according to Edmunds. Ten years ago, it was $491. The average amount financed jumped from $28,769 to $43,759. More buyers are now paying $1,000 or more per month. Longer loans, higher prices, pricier insurance. Buying a car is starting to feel like buying a house, but with depreciation. As for what you should be spending, Chase Auto says total car costs should stay under 8% of your monthly income. That includes the payment, insurance, and gas. Not vibes. Actual math. Consumer Reports says the biggest fix is a bigger down payment. At least 15%. Also, don’t blindly take dealer financing. Credit unions exist. Refinancing exists. Pain is optional. Sales reps love to sell “low monthly payments.” What matters is the total price. Overpay and you end up underwater. Cars lose value fast. Regret lasts longer. 

Crypto entered mainstream payments. Stripe just partnered with Crypto.com to let businesses accept crypto payments. Stripe users can now let customers pay with crypto or stablecoins. Stripe and Crypto.com handle the conversion and deposit regular money into the merchant’s bank account. Crypto on the front end. Fiat on the back end. Everyone stays calm. Stripe also lets users buy crypto with credit or debit cards through the partnership. One app. Fewer excuses. This is Stripe’s first official crypto integration. A big deal, considering Stripe processes over $1.4 trillion a year across 50+ countries. When Stripe moves, payments listen.

The Dancing Robot Got a Job

After years of flips, dances, and internet fame, Boston Dynamics says Atlas is officially entering production. The announcement landed at CES 2026. This time, it’s not a demo. The final enterprise version is being built now. First deployments go to Hyundai, Boston Dynamics’ majority owner, and Google DeepMind, its new AI partner. Atlas is designed for industrial work. It can operate autonomously, be remotely controlled, or guided via tablet. It lifts up to 110 pounds, reaches 7.5 feet, and works in temperatures from below freezing to desert heat. Strong. Reliable. No vibes, just output. Hyundai plans to use Atlas in car factories starting in 2028 for parts sequencing, with bigger assembly tasks coming later. Google DeepMind will use the robot to integrate its Gemini Robotics AI into real-world machines. Atlas started as a DARPA project in 2011, went fully electric in 2024, and now has a job description. The dancing era is over. The labor era has begun.

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Spotify just exposed your music taste. Spotify just added real-time sharing. Your friends can now see what you’re listening to as it happens. No screenshots needed. The new Messages update shows your listening activity at the top of chats, once you turn it on in settings. Friends can tap the song, save it, play it, or react with an emoji. Your taste is now a conversation. Spotify also lets Premium users send requests to start Jams, its group listening feature. Accept the invite and both people can add songs to the same queue and listen together. Very cozy. Very monitored. The feature is rolling out on iOS and Android and should be fully live by early February. Free users can join Jams if invited by a Premium friend.

Octopus tech is the blueprint. Scientists have created a synthetic skin inspired by octopus camouflage. It changes color and texture. At the same time. On purpose. The research, published in Nature, shows a material that mimics how octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish disappear into their surroundings. Not just color shifts. Texture too. That’s the flex. The team, led by researchers from Stanford University, used semiconductor techniques to carve microscopic patterns into a flexible polymer film. Rough surface. Smooth surface. Different light reflection. Totally different look. The skin reacts in about 20 seconds when water is applied and resets when it dries. Five color states. Fully adjustable texture. Very customizable. Very sci-fi. Future versions could use cameras and digital controls so robots can visually adapt to their environment in real time. Beyond robots, the tech could be used for dynamic displays, encryption, smart touchscreens, braille-on-demand, and experimental art. Experts say this is a reminder that evolution is still the best designer in the room. Science just keeps borrowing the notes.

Tech innovation, no adult supervision. CES 2026 is packed with serious launches from serious companies. Naturally, the best part is the stuff that makes you pause and blink. We’re here to spotlight the wildest products we’ve found so far. CES 2026 is a trip — strange, smart, futuristic, and occasionally questionable. So far, that includes an AI-powered panda that reacts to touch, a $500 ice cube maker that uses AI to be quieter, and a holographic anime assistant from Razer. All real. All confident. All very CES.

The Most Expensive Train Ride Ever

Once upon a time, JR was a Paris teen tagging trains with a spray can. Same obsession. Very different budget. JR has always loved trains. Growing up outside Paris, he saw them as moving canvases that could carry art across cities. That idea never left. He just upgraded the materials. In 2024, JR unveiled “L’Observatoire” at the Venice Art Biennale — a fully redesigned early-1900s train carriage commissioned by Belmond. The result now lives on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, already one of the most over-the-top train rides on Earth. The price starts at $80,000 for one night. What you get is “an apartment on wheels.” Bedroom. Lounge. Private dining room. Bathroom. Library. Tea room. A bathtub that steals the spotlight. An electric fireplace. A skylight that opens like a camera lens because of course it does. Same artist. Same trains. Completely different tax bracket.

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Netflix turned popcorn into currency. Stranger Things just broke a box office record without actually selling tickets. Extremely 2026 behavior. Netflix let the season 5 finale play in theaters on New Year’s Eve while dropping it online at the same time. But theaters weren’t allowed to sell tickets because of cast contracts. So they sold “concessions vouchers” instead. Snacks were the entry fee. That move pulled in between $25 and $28 million in popcorn and soda, according to Variety. At least 1.1 million vouchers were sold. All that money went straight to theaters, not Netflix. Still, the finale beat KPop Demon Hunters in concessions and even out-snacked Avatar: Fire and Ash by James Cameron.

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TikTok of the day: watch here

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