Signals

Every Friday, we offer an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and virals we’re all talking about. This week, insights and engagement director Olivia Houghton explores two very opposing – yet equally telling – cultural shifts, from at-home supercomputers to pubic politics.

: This week, Kim Kardashian’s Skims released a sheer mesh thong hand-tufted with curly and straight faux pubic hair – a product that sounds like an April Fool’s joke but isn’t. Available in 12 shades, it sold out instantly, echoing the frenzy of Skims’ nipple bra earlier this year. While it taps into a growing movement reclaiming body hair as a symbol of autonomy and natural confidence, it also raises the question whether this is empowerment or oppression. Why are the natural features of the female body only deemed acceptable when imitated by lingerie, packaged and sold? Women spend thousands lasering off their hair only for brands to sell it back as empowerment – a paradox that blurs the line between liberation and commodification.

: At the other end of the spectrum, Nvidia’s new personal AI supercomputer, Spark, is now available to buy – bringing the kind of processing power once limited to energy-hungry data centres onto desks. The device, which can train and run advanced AI models locally, marks a significant leap towards everyday super-intelligence, particularly for creative professionals, researchers and technologists.

In a world increasingly shaped by generative AI, the arrival of desktop-scale supercomputing signals a future where innovation becomes decentralised and intelligence is no longer cloud-bound, but human-directed.