Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Instacart said Monday that it will no longer allow retailers to use an AI-powered price testing program, two weeks after an extensive investigation showed wide discrepancies in the cost of groceries purchased through the platform. Effective immediately, retailers will no longer be able to use Eversight technology to run price tests on Instacart, the San Francisco-based company said in a blog post. Previously, a small number of retail partners were able to conduct testing that resulted in different prices for the same item at the same store—something that “missed the mark for some customers,” Instacart said in a blog post. “At a time when families are working excep…

“Avatar: Fire and Ash” opened with $345 million in worldwide sales, according to studio estimates Sunday, notching the second-best global debut of the year and potentially putting James Cameron on course to set yet more blockbuster records. Sixteen years into the “Avatar” saga, Pandora is still abundant in box-office riches. “Fire and Ash,” the third film in Cameron’s science-fiction franchise, launched with $88 million domestically and $257 million internationally. The only film to open bigger in 2025 was “Zootopia 2” ($497.2 million over three days). In the coming weeks, “Fire and Ash” will have the significant benefit of the highly lucrative holiday moviegoing corrido…

The amount of electricity data centers use in the U.S. in the coming years is expected to be significant. But regular reports of proposals for new ones and cancellations of planned ones mean that it’s difficult to know exactly how many data centers will actually be built and how much electricity might be required to run them. As a researcher of energy policy who has studied the cost challenges associated with new utility infrastructure, I know that uncertainty comes with a cost. In the electricity sector, it is the challenge of state utility regulators to decide who pays what shares of the costs associated with generating and serving these types of operations, sometim…

When Calvin McDonald was appointed CEO of Lululemon in 2018, the activewear brand was a cult brand. But it had the potential to become a retail giant. Chip Wilson founded Lululemon in Vancouver in 1998 as a yoga brand. When he left the CEO role in 2005, the company was generating $80 million a year. In the decade that followed, Lululemon grew steadily, boosted by the broader athleisure trend. But it was McDonald—who previously spent five years delivering double-digit growth as CEO of Sephora Americas—who transformed Lululemon into one of the biggest clothing companies in the world. Over the course of his seven-year tenure, McDonald more than tripled the company’s…

Before becoming a coach for neurodiverse individuals with ADHD, Justine Capelle Collis had a successful advertising career. She worked in Australia and the UK, and also across the US and Canadian markets. Her clients have included Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. And she achieved all this without realizing that she has ADHD. That realization came when she became a mother. Both of her sons were diagnosed with ADHD, and she started asking questions. “How do I advocate” and get “the system to bend” for them, rather than having them “fit into the system and then break?” she asked. She then went on a personal journey to retrain. Collis enrolled in po…

When entrepreneurs list their principal reasons for launching a company, small business owners often cite being their own boss, flexibility in setting their working hours, and turning a commercial concept into reality as their main motivations. Now, new data identifies another incentive that may convince future entrepreneurs to take the plunge. According to a recent analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the average self-employed person earns significantly more income during their career than people who work for someone else. However, the report’s findings also note the widely varying levels of income among small business owners, and the length of time u…

Duolingo has been through a lot of changes over the past few years. What was once solely a language-learning app has grown into a social media marketing machine, a destination for math and music lessons, and now an online chess tutor. In June, Duolingo launched a Duolingo Chess course to teach beginners the basic rules and moves by allowing them to play against an AI tutor named Oscar. This month, the company is taking the course further, launching a multiplayer version of the game where users can compete against one another. Duolingo, which is on track to surpass $1 billion in revenue this year, has 48 million daily active users and 11 million paying subscribers…

Research is clear that multitasking significantly undermines career progress despite its popularity in modern workplaces. But why does multitasking harm workplace productivity? And how can you maintain concentration to get more accomplished? Below, experts share proven strategies that replace multitasking habits with intentional productivity systems to improve focus and work quality. No-Stacking Rule Drives Meaningful Project Completion Trying to multitask is the workplace version of spinning plates . . . except they all end up smashed! In my experience, multitasking is the fastest way to look busy while achieving very little. On the surface, it feels productiv…

For the past 30 years, the web browser has been the primary way humans navigate the internet. It makes sense, then, that as artificial intelligence becomes more humanlike in its capabilities, it would use the same tool. That’s basically the idea behind AI-powered browsers, which are definitely having an “it” moment now that OpenAI has launched Atlas, its own web browser that incorporates ChatGPT as an ever-present helper. Atlas follows Perplexity’s Comet, which arrived in the summer to quickly capture the imagination of what an AI browser could do. In both cases, the user can, at any time, call up an AI assistant (aka agent), able to perform multistep tasks—such as na…

We don’t fully understand human biology. Not proteins, or cells or tissues—and certainly not how they all interact in the dynamic systems that make up our body. I believe AI is the answer to that problem. It offers the promise of a step-change in data analysis and eventually will understand our bodies’ processes at a fundamental level. It will “solve” biology. But it can’t be done by generalist large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. We’re going to need domain-specific agentic software that plans, acts, and adapts. The sort of AI that can support us across messy, multimodal workflows inherent to biological research. This is how we unlock the medicines and treat…

Commuting in New York City can be a relentless sensory overload—the hustling, the pushing, the yelling, the ads whirling from every side. Getting to work can feel like a frantic race of people trying to escape the train station all at once. While the city hurtles past in a blur, Brandon Stanton has stopped to write it a love letter—on the walls of Grand Central itself. For the first time, the terminal and its subway station have been completely cleared of flashing advertisements and replaced with art. Brandon Stanton More than 150 digital screens now display thousands of portraits and stories from Stanton’s Humans of New York—the largest and most diverse colle…

When the federal government shutdown on October 1, it started a chain reaction of income problems for federal workers. Roughly 900,000 government employees are now on furlough. Another 700,000 are working without pay because their jobs are too critical for them to stay home. To add insult to entirely preventable injury, the current administration has indicated that it may not provide the legally mandated back pay to these workers once the shutdown is over. Considering the fact that getting another job during the furlough may require the government employee’s agency approval (and wouldn’t help critical employees working without a paycheck), the shutdown could be a pers…

The cracks in postmodern economic theories are visible. They’ve spilled into politics, with governments slashing budgets worldwide. The spark came from Richard Thaler (Nudge) and Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow), but the roots run deeper. In 1978, Herbert Simon won the first Nobel Prize for behavioral economics. Thaler later brought the field into public view with his “anomalies” articles in the Journal of Economic Perspectives between 1987 and 1990. The message was clear: People act based on their environments. Psychology had already demonstrated this in clinical practice; economics eventually followed. With that, homo economicus—the hyperrational ac…

We’re more than half a decade removed from pandemic lockdowns—when remote work profoundly upended the 9-to-5—yet the preference for workday flexibility endures, a new report shows. According to the recently released ninth annual State of Hybrid Work report from Owl Labs, a video conference tech company, 65% of workers are interested in a concept the report refers to as “microshifting”: “structured flexibility with short, nonlinear work blocks matched to your energy, duties, or productivity.” In other words: breaking up your work shift into a bunch of tiny ones. Perhaps you log on at 6 a.m. to get a head start, then take a break for a midmorning Pilates class befo…

Artificial intelligence isn’t just a technical challenge. It’s a relationship challenge. Every time you give a task to AI, whether it’s approving a loan or driving a car, you’re shaping the relationship between humans and AI. These relationships aren’t always static. AI that begins as a simple tool can morph into something far more complicated: a challenger, a companion, a leader, a teammate, or some combination thereof. Movies have long been a testing ground for imagining how these relationships might evolve. From 1980s sci-fi films to today’s blockbusters, filmmakers have wrestled with questions about what happens when humans rely on intelligent machines. These …

As press releases go, it was a mic drop moment. On September 4, OpenAI announced that it was coming after LinkedIn. And it was coming after job search specifically. For those unfamiliar with the story, it was reported across multiple sources that not content with torpedoing Google, education, interpersonal relationships, and entire industries such as psychiatry or management consultancy (both smugly considered untouchable until about 15 minutes ago), OpenAI is now coming after the age-old industry of human resources. Specifically, the $300 billion company wants to streamline the process of hiring by automatically matching candidates to roles via context alone,…

Today (Monday, September 29) is National Coffee Day. To celebrate, many coffee shops and eateries are promoting discounts and freebies. Keep these National Coffee Day deals and freebies in mind when stopping to get your daily dose of caffeine. Bruegger’s Bagels Rewards members can get a free hot or iced coffee with a purchase when ordering in the app. Burger King Burger King Royal Perks rewards members can get a free medium iced coffee with a minimum purchase of $1 when ordering through the Burger King app. Members must activate the offer before placing an order. Caribou Coffee On September 29, receive a free medium hot or iced classic latte with …

A quiet crisis is brewing in today’s workforce, and it’s not about automation or AI replacing jobs. It’s about the erosion of human skills that make teams work: communication, empathy, adaptability, and emotional intelligence. These so-called “soft skills” are proving to be among the hardest to teach and the most critical to get right. In fact, the lack of them is costing U.S. companies an estimated $160 billion a year in lost productivity, poor communication, and employee turnover. In 40-plus years of building a global technology company, the biggest performance gaps I’ve seen haven’t come from a lack of technical skill, but from a lack of training in how people …

When Christopher Pelkey was killed in a road rage incident in Arizona, his family was left not only to grieve but also to navigate how to represent him in court. As they prepared to confront his killer, Gabriel Horcasitas, during sentencing, they made an unusual and deeply controversial choice: to have Pelkey appear to speak from beyond the grave. To do so, they turned to technology: An AI-generated video featuring a re-created voice and likeness of Pelkey was presented as a victim impact statement ahead of sentencing. The video showed a digitally resurrected Pelkey appearing to speak directly to the judge. Of course, the statement wasn’t truly Pelkey’s. He couldn…

Our phones are making us unhappy, but I’m not sure cutting myself off from humanity’s universe of information with a dumbphone is the answer. It’s kind of like how we know walking is healthier than driving, but it’s a moot point when the average person lives 27 miles from their workplace. However, maybe our smartphones don’t need a lobotomy. Maybe they just need to respect our boundaries. This is an idea explored in a new concept called Aperture, by the London studio Special Projects. It’s a case that crops your smartphone into a small square of your screen when you flip your case over, revealing a series of smart widgets. By the same firm that developed ideas like discre…

New Jersey has a million acres filled with towering pitch pines. It’s springtime and the trees stand straight, bare and bonelike, above a carpet of winter needles that worry state fire service professionals. This week, a swath of the Pine Barrens went up in flames, a stark warning of what might be a treacherous fire season. About 11,500 acres were affected by a fire that started Tuesday morning in the Greenwood Forest Wildlife Management Area of Ocean County, New Jersey Forest Fire Service said midday Wednesday. The Garden State Parkway was shut down for miles as thick smoke wafted into neighborhoods and thousands of households and businesses were evacuated for hours …

A cardinal of the Catholic church going viral for singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” was not on this year’s bingo card. Pope Francis’s passing on Easter Monday sent shockwaves around the world, with around 250,000 visitors flooding St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican to say goodbye to the progressive Pontiff. As the Vatican readies for the conclave, speculations on who might take over the highest role in the Catholic Church is on the rise. But, on TikTok, users have already chosen its favorite contender: Filipino prelate Luis Antonio Tagle. Videos of Tagle–a liberal-leaning front runner for pope referred to as “Asian Francis”–resurfaced in the days following the p…