Technology

Repurposed Boeing 737 transforms into private jet villa soaring in luxury

Published

1 year ago

May 1, 2024

Repurposed Boeing 737 transforms into private jet villa soaring in luxury

If you are looking for a getaway that elevates your vacation to new heights, the Private Jet Villa in Bali turns that fantasy into reality.

Perched like a crown jewel atop the Nyang Nyang Beach cliff, this Indonesian villa epitomizes luxury and innovation.

The aircraft, a Boeing 737 that previously operated in Indonesia, was transported to the location via truck and crane following its decommissioning. Subsequently, it underwent an expert renovation right at the site.

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Private Jet Villa (Geometrium Studio team)

A fusion of flight and comfort

The Geometrium Studio team achieved a world first with the Private Jet Villa. It’s not just a place to stay; it’s an experience. Imagine waking up in a converted Boeing 737, approximately 492 feet above the sea, with the Indian Ocean as your backdrop.

Private Jet Villa (Geometrium Studio team)

Inside the fuselage

Guests access the interior of the villa via a floating staircase. The villa, encompassing an area of approximately 1,076 square feet, features a kitchen-living room, two bedrooms, one with a jacuzzi in the cockpit that’s surrounded by panoramic windows and two bathrooms.

Private Jet Villa (Geometrium Studio team)

In the villa’s design, the strategic placement of mirrors creates an illusion of a more expansive space. The incorporation of relief glass inserts in several rooms not only enhances the natural light coming in, but also fosters a seamless visual flow between the areas.

Private Jet Villa (Geometrium Studio team)

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Custom crafting for curved spaces

Because the aircraft’s body is all curves and no flat spots, the designers couldn’t just use off-the-shelf furniture and finishes. Everything had to be custom-made.

The dining area in the Private Jet Villa (Geometrium Studio team)

The extras outside the villa

But it’s the extras outside the villa that make it that much more special, including a bonfire area.

The Private Jet Villa’s exterior (Geometrium Studio team)

Guests arrive either by road or air using a helicopter landing pad that is only steps away from the villa.

View from above the Private Jet Villa (Geometrium Studio team)

But the big bonus is a unique terrace situated on the aircraft’s wing and a cantilever swimming pool with a hot tub floating in midair. It was designed with a special support system that spreads out the weight of the water evenly. Additionally, the pool features a glass section along its edge, allowing swimmers to submerge themselves and gaze out at the ocean from beneath the water’s surface.

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Private Jet Villa pool (Geometrium Studio team)

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Picture-perfect moments

Every corner of the Private Jet Villa is a photo opportunity. From the bathroom with ocean views to the terrace that feels like you’re soaring, it’s a social media dream come true. The villa is designed to stir emotions and create memories. It’s a playground for the senses, with interactive zones that make you feel like you’re flying without ever leaving the ground.

Private Jet Villa deck (Geometrium Studio team)

Balancing beauty and function

Despite the challenges of converting a plane into a living space, the design team has crafted a villa that feels open and inviting. They’ve used light tones, natural textures and clever engineering to make the most of the unique space.

CHILDREN FLYING ALONE WILL NEED EMERGENCY CONTACT INFORMATION, CHECKLISTS AND MORE FROM PARENTS

Private Jet Villa bathroom (Geometrium Studio team)

Privacy with a pattern

The design team also added a touch of privacy without building a fortress, designing a nifty fencing system. It’s got a checkerboard vibe that hides the aircraft from nosy passersby but still keeps things airy. And for a little extra separation from the neighbors, they put up a concrete wall and planted what’s going to be a lush, green living hedge.

Engineering ingenuity belowdecks

Down below, in what used to be the cargo hold, is where the air conditioning, electrical infrastructure and pipe distribution to the bathrooms are all housed.

Private Jet Villa entrance (Geometrium Studio team)

How to experience the Private Jet Villa

For those interested in experiencing the Private Jet Villa firsthand, it is listed on Airbnb for vacation rentals. The rental cost fluctuates based on the season and duration of the stay. Preliminary quotes range from approximately $2,000 to upwards of $5,000 per night, positioning it as a premium accommodation choice.

Private Jet Villa exterior (Geometrium Studio team)

Kurt’s key takeaways

The Private Jet Villa is more than just a place to stay. It’s a sanctuary that offers a taste of the high life, quite literally. However, it’s also a true testament to human creativity and the pursuit of creating extraordinary spaces.

What do you think about the concept of transforming aircraft into luxury living spaces? Would you like to spend a night in the Private Jet Villa? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.

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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Technology

The frenzied, gamified chase for Labubus

Published

3 days ago

July 21, 2025

Press Room

The frenzied, gamified chase for Labubus

On Thursday night, I toggled endlessly between a TikTok Live stream and a shopping app in anticipation of 9:30PM. For 30 minutes, I hunted for an available listing; many expletives were uttered. I exhibited bot behavior and got iced out of the app multiple times. I tapped so many times my thumbs got sore. This is Labubu drop night.

Something that’s lost in the Labubu mania is that actually buying one from the source is, in one word, maddening. There are, of course, countless fake options (“Lafufus”) that some collectors have come to embrace. But if you want a guaranteed real one, you have to go to the source. Pop Mart, the Chinese toy company that sells Labubu products, has created a series of Sisyphean tasks to subject shoppers to, a humiliation ritual with the chance of getting a little figurine at the end. Unlike many other rare, trendy, or collectible items, the barrier to entry for Labubus is not the cost of the item ($27.99) — it’s everything you need to learn how to do before you buy them.

I spent about a day researching how to actually purchase a legit Labubu from Pop Mart. It’s not a straightforward shopping experience of simply clicking “check out” faster than everyone else. Pop Mart has created a digital frenzy that somewhat resembles what shopping in-person on Black Friday is like: interactive illustrations show display cases stocked with up to six boxes of Labubus. Seconds after they hit the site, all of the boxes are grayed out, meaning someone has at least temporarily claimed them. If you haven’t secured a Labubu, you must scroll through a seemingly endless list of display cases, looking for the rare box up for grabs; more often, though, you must tap constantly, looking for a gray box with a timer that is about to expire, at which point it will be released and available again. You have to play what is essentially a mobile game to even get a chance to buy a Labubu.

The complexity and finickiness of the Pop Mart app mean that there is no shortage of content with tips, hints, and hacks for securing a Labubu. Some influencers have racked up millions of views almost exclusively making videos about how to score popular Pop Mart products. Some of the tips I studied ended up helping me: when I tapped too many times and was blocked by the app, turning Wi-Fi on and off did indeed fix the problem. But other suggestions from collectors were impossible to follow. Some fans swear by camping out on Pop Mart’s hourslong TikTok live streams, waiting for the host to randomly list Labubus for sale on the platform’s shopping page; the auctioneer-style monologues were simply too much for me to listen to.

After about 30 minutes of uninterrupted two-handed tapping, close encounters, and error messages, I finally spammed a gray box right at the moment it was released. The mystery Labubu was mine. I “shook” the virtual box, which gave me a hint as to what color character was inside: it was not orange or green (I didn’t have a color preference, but other shoppers might at this point abandon a box that Pop Mart says does not contain their color of choice). After checkout, I opted to reveal which Labubu I had purchased — it was the blue one, named “Hope.”

It’s not entirely surprising that Labubus have taken off like this: the more you are forced to look at them, the cuter they become (maybe). They’re not the first so-called blind box toy to gain a cult following, and there’s a somewhat dark comparison to be made between Labubus and gambling — for serious collectors, the thrill is in the reveal, the chance that you hit the rare color that Pop Mart says is in one out of 72 boxes. It’s addictive, plain and simple.

But the longer I spent on Labubu forums or on the Pop Mart site, the more I understood that the toy at the end is almost beside the point: legit Labubus represent the time and effort that came before the unboxing, along with the pure luck of what’s inside. A friend who has scored dozens of Labubus for their network told me flipping the dolls isn’t even worth it unless it’s an unopened box or a rare color — the margins are too low to make real money. The pervasiveness of Lafufus no doubt helps to push prices down. The real value of Labubus is in the ridiculous hoops you have to jump through to get a shot at something collectible.

According to Google Trends, search volume for “Labubu” is as high as it’s been. The TikTok livestreams will drone on, the bots will be deployed nightly, and the viral unboxings will pull in views. The hype will die down only when it’s no longer torture to buy one, when the little guys (who are actually canonically girls) are just a toy, not a stand-in for your effort. When that will happen is anyone’s guess; my Labubu is scheduled to ship out in September.

Technology

Amazon’s AI wants to own online shopping data

Published

3 days ago

July 21, 2025

Press Room

Amazon’s AI wants to own online shopping data

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Amazon already dominates online shopping, but now it’s setting its sights even higher. With a new artificial intelligence-powered project called Starfish, the company aims to become the world’s most complete and trusted source of product information.

The goal? Make every listing on Amazon accurate, detailed and easy to understand, whether the product is sold by Amazon or a third-party seller. If the project works as planned, it could save sellers hours of work and help shoppers find what they need faster.

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Amazon website (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

What is Amazon’s Starfish AI project?

Starfish is a multi-year initiative built around generative AI. According to an internal Amazon document obtained by Business Insider, the system gathers product data from across the web, including external websites and images. It then uses large language models (LLMs) to create “complete, correct and consistent” product listings. This isn’t a small update. Amazon expects Starfish to boost sales by $7.5 billion in 2025 alone by improving conversion rates and expanding product variety.

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?

How Amazon is using AI to improve product listings

Starfish builds on earlier AI tools that Amazon began testing in 2023. These tools could:

Automatically generate product images and video ads
Fill in missing data for third-party listings
Rewrite product titles, bullet points and descriptions to be more relevant

Now, with Starfish, Amazon wants to scale that effort across millions of listings. The AI will also collect data from 200,000 external brand websites by crawling, scraping and mapping their content to Amazon’s catalog. It’s not yet clear whether Amazon’s own web crawler, Amazonbot, is powering Starfish. But the company confirmed to Business Insider that Starfish is already supporting its new “Buy for Me” feature. This feature recommends products from external websites and lets shoppers buy them directly within Amazon’s app.

A person shopping on Amazon (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Why Amazon built the Starfish AI for marketplace listings

Manually creating product listings is slow and often inconsistent. That’s a problem when Amazon wants to offer a massive selection with reliable information. If shoppers can’t find what they’re looking for, or if the listings are vague, they may head elsewhere. Starfish addresses this by automating the tedious parts of listing creation. That helps sellers spend less time writing and more time selling. For Amazon, better listings mean higher conversion rates and happier customers. Plus, this move positions Amazon to compete more directly with Google Shopping, which also aims to be a central hub for product information.

Amazon’s Starfish AI is expanding globally

Amazon is testing Starfish’s effectiveness with A/B comparisons, measuring sales performance of AI-enriched listings versus standard ones. It’s also rolling out bulk listing tools and preparing to expand the system globally. This isn’t just about improving Amazon’s website. It’s about changing the way product information is gathered, created and shared at scale.

A person shopping on Amazon (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

What does this mean for you as an Amazon shopper or seller

If you’re a shopper on Amazon, this could mean faster access to clearer, more accurate product listings, especially for obscure or hard-to-find items. As Amazon’s AI fills in missing details and improves titles and descriptions, the results should help you make better decisions with less research.

For sellers, this streamlines the work of creating listings. If you’ve struggled to write compelling descriptions or keep up with Amazon’s catalog standards, the Starfish project may do much of the heavy lifting. That could save time, reduce errors and improve sales performance.

However, there are some trade-offs. As Amazon scrapes more data from across the web to power its listings, brands and smaller websites may worry about how their product information is being used. And if AI-generated content becomes widespread, quality and trust in listings may vary depending on how well the system works.

In short, expect a more automated Amazon shopping experience, with both conveniences and questions about how your data and the broader web are being used to power it.

Kurt’s key takeaways

Amazon’s Starfish project signals a major shift in how e-commerce works. By combining web scraping, AI models and deep integration into its Marketplace, Amazon hopes to automate one of the most time-consuming parts of online selling. For buyers and sellers, this could mean more convenience and better results. But it also raises important questions about transparency, data ownership and the future role of AI in shaping what we see online.

Would you trust AI to tell you everything you need to know before you click “Buy Now”? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact

Technology

Nintendo’s slow drip of Switch 2 games is a feature, not a bug

Published

6 days ago

July 18, 2025

Press Room

Nintendo’s slow drip of Switch 2 games is a feature, not a bug

When Nintendo first announced the Switch 2’s slate of launch titles, people were very quick to cry foul about how few original, exclusive games the company had lined up for its latest console. There were ports from other systems and updated versions of original Switch games. But Mario Kart World was the Switch 2’s only major new exclusive title, which, for some, put a further damper on a launch that was already mired in confusion about pricing and game key cards.

Back in April when Nintendo first announced all of the Switch 2 games slated to come out through the end of 2025, you could see that the company was loosely following a monthly release schedule for its new exclusives. June would go to Mario Kart World and Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour. And Donkey Kong Bananza would drop in July amid the releases of a couple Switch 2 editions of older games. At the time, Nintendo said that Drag x Drive would debut at some point in “the summer,” but it has since pegged the game to a firm August 14th release date.

Currently, there’s nothing on the docket for September, but the month could easily go to Kirby Air Riders, which is supposed to come out this year. And after Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s release in October, the “winter” will belong to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment (and maybe Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which is also due out sometime in 2025).

Looking at Nintendo’s roadmap for the rest of the year, it feels as if the company is trying to pace things in a way that gives people time to really sit with and enjoy its exclusives. For every hardcore gamer who prides themself on speeding through a title and being the first to uncover or unlock all of its surprises, there are far more casuals who prefer taking their time. Nintendo could have opted to flood the zone with more exclusives from the jump — a move that probably would have made the Switch 2’s launch seem like a splashier beat in the console wars’ twilight hours. But by spacing things out, the company is guaranteeing that there will be a steady stream of new stuff for people to dig into, and giving people ample time to decide if they’re willing to pay the games’ higher prices.

The Switch 2 is Nintendo’s new flagship, which is to say it’s not going away anytime soon and there will be plenty more games for it in due time. Had Donkey Kong Bananza dropped alongside Mario Kart World, neither game would have been able to take up so much space and command attention they way they could with some distance between them. Releasing new titles at a steady pace was a major part of Nintendo’s vision for the original Switch, and that strategy paid off through the console’s life cycle. Now it looks like Nintendo’s sticking to its guns, and the Switch 2 will probably be better off for it.