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The U.S.military is paving the way for the regular deployment of high-energy laser weapons on American soil for air defense amid the expanding threat of low-cost weaponized drones. The Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S.Defense Department have reached a “landmark safety agreement” regarding the use of laser weapons to counter unauthorized drones at the U.S.-Mexico border following a safety assessment that concluded such countermeasures “do not pose undue risk to passenger aircraft,” the FAA announced on April 10. The assessment and resulting agreement were the direct result of two laser incidents along the southern border of Texas in February, which promp…

About 20 minutes into the Devil Wears Prada—the 2006 David Frankel film that constitutes one of the most important and perfect films ever produced (please hold all dissent)—Meryl Streep delivers a critical speech to Anne Hathaway that encompasses the plot’s primary tension. The moment, which may come up in the sequel (an Instagram post from a professional dyeing service in New York suggests this may be the case), comes as Streep’s Miranda, the frigid chief editor of a top fashion magazine is pondering items that might be featured for an upcoming issue, while surrounded by her stressed-out underlings. Also in the office is Andie (Hathaway), a comparatively disheveled …

In a video uploaded to X, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that military members would no longer be required to get the flu vaccine in order to serve. “We’re seizing this moment to discard any absurd, overreaching mandates that only weaken our war-fighting capabilities,” Hegseth declared. “In this case, this includes the universal flu vaccine and the mandate behind it.” In a memo accompanying the video announcement, the decision to seek the flu vaccine is described as “voluntary” for all active and reserve service members and for civilian personnel serving in the Department of Defense. “Our new policy is simple: If you are an American Warrior entrust…

Burger King is teaming up with Star Wars for a limited-time menu, bringing a galaxy far, far away to its restaurants. The promotion launches May 4—often celebrated as Star Wars Day— at participating US resturants with themed packaging and exclusive items tied to The Mandalorian and Grogu, which arrives in theaters May 22. “Star Wars has shaped generations of fans, and as we head into the release of Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, we saw an opportunity to bring that excitement straight into our restaurants,” Joel Yashinsky, Chief Marketing Officer of Burger King U.S. & Canada, said in a press statement. The themed packaging includes four collectible …

The United States’ advanced manufacturing future may have an unexpected limiting factor: a dire shortage of welders. While venture capital has placed big bets on a cutting-edge future of data centers, defense tech, and robotics, actually making the physical devices remains a challenge without finding the right talent to melt, fuse and repair metal. The American Welding Society projects that the country will need more than 320,000 new welding professionals by 2030, which means hiring about 80,000 new welders every year. Path Robotics believes the future of America’s manufacturing workforce will be augmented with torch-wielding robots. The Columbus, Ohio-based company,…

The modern email inbox can be disorganized and unwieldy. Important emails get lost under spam and receipts, and the search function doesn’t always work like you hoped it would. Many of us gave up on inbox zero long ago. If that sounds like you, this new smart email client might be exactly what you’re looking for. Extra is an email inbox app designed by Build Forever, a software company founded by a trio of former Pinterest employees. The app intriguingly reimagines the entire user experience of the inbox from one of stacked, accumulating, text-only subject lines to an image-rich interface that surfaces the most important emails for you using AI. Build Forever …

Today, one of the biggest tech showdowns of the year begins. It’s the day on which the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and the world’s most influential AI leader, Sam Altman, are expected to appear in court to issue their opening statements in the OpenAI trial. Here’s what you need to know about the high-stakes case. What is the OpenAI trial about? The trial centers around the very public dispute between Elon Musk and Sam Altman. Musk is suing Altman and OpenAI for allegedly deviating from their commitment to keep the company a nonprofit institution, as it was when Musk first invested millions of dollars in the then-upstart between 2015 and 2017. In 2018, Musk…

Passengers flying with low battery on their phones might be out of luck—at least if they are flying American Airlines. The country’s largest airline is implementing a new policy that will restrict how many portable chargers passengers may bring to the aircraft, citing potential safety concerns from lithium batteries. “We know our customers rely on portable chargers to keep devices powered throughout their journey,” the carrier told CBS. “To support safety on board while ensuring our customers continue to have the ability to charge when on the go, American is requiring customers to keep these devices easily accessible during flight.” The new policy goes into ef…

Jensen Huang, the multibillionaire founder and CEO of chipmaking company Nvidia, was recently awarded the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Medal of Honor. He received the organization’s highest award for his leadership in GPU development and advancing the field of AI. Huang has built the most valuable company in the world. At the IEEE announcement ceremony earlier this year, he reflected on how it all started. Huang said he went into engineering because he always enjoyed solving math and science problems. Drawn to the challenging nature of the work, he studied electrical engineering at Oregon State University, where he became a member of IEEE and …

I have spent decades in the high-stakes world of finance, in rooms with CEOs, politicians, and men who run major organizations. On paper, these men have everything figured out. But when the doors close and the room gets quiet, a surprising truth tends to surface: They feel profoundly alone. They have golf partners, colleagues, and acquaintances. They can debate politics or dissect a balance sheet for hours. And they know who to rely on when it comes to resolving an issue in the business they know so well. But when life fractures, as it always does, these same capable men don’t know who to call. We are living through what the former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Mu…

There’s an idea in AI called “liquid content.” It typically refers to the idea of morphing the facts, ideas, and expressions from one medium to another. The most well-known example is a feature within Google’s NotebookLM: Once you’ve filled a folder with various kinds of data, it can whip up a podcast about that data, enlisting a couple of cheery AI-generated voices to give you an overview, analysis, or debate. Taken to its logical extreme, liquid content suggests a future for media companies where what you create is repurposed across any and all formats. Making a podcast? With the right tools and prompting, in mere minutes, it can be reimagined as a series of clips, …

There is a troubling contradiction at the heart of the global transition to a cleaner, greener, tech-driven future: Modern technologies—everything from AI to wind turbines, as well as cellphones, electric vehicles and defense systems—depend on critical minerals. But many of the communities where those minerals are mined end up with polluted water and poorer health because of the mining. Lithium powers batteries. Cobalt stabilizes them. Copper carries electricity. Rare earth elements make wind turbines and digital devices efficient and durable. Each of these are essential to the technologies of the fourth industrial revolution, but they are also toxic and require enorm…

Just as they did with televisions, many people used the pandemic as an excuse to upgrade their PC or laptop. It was a move that made sense at the time. Telecommuting became essential, and not all devices could adequately handle the demands of Zoom, Teams, and other work software. At the same time, digital communication was often the only way to stay in touch with friends and family. Smartphones handled some of that heavy lifting, of course, but the PC industry still saw shipments spike 14.5% from 1999 to 2000. Now, much like the TV market, many PC owners are reaching the point where a new device is becoming necessary. But unlike that living room fixture, PC sh…

Last September, OpenAI and Shopify made an announcement that sent ripples throughout the retail industry: They were partnering to launch Instant Checkout—a feature that would let people complete purchases directly within ChatGPT. Within months, the AI giant promised, we would be able to ask ChatGPT for Mother’s Day gift ideas or top-rated lightbulbs, and then click to buy products instantly. Shopify’s president, Harley Finkelstein, declared this the “the new frontier” of retail. But if you’ve tried to shop on ChatGPT recently, you know that this future never arrived. OpenAI quietly killed Instant Checkout in March. The official story, according to OpenAI’s blog p…

If the disappearing office snacks have you updating your LinkedIn, you might be the office Chicken Little. Psychologists call it intolerance of uncertainty, and your brain is literally hijacking your rational thought. Here’s how to stop the spiral before you stress out your whole team. View the full article

April was not a good month for the tech industry in terms of job losses. Last month, major firms—including Microsoft, Meta Platforms, and Snap—all announced significant workforce reductions. But now, May is not shaping up to be any better. This week alone, news emerged that several major tech companies, including Cloudflare, PayPal, and Coinbase, are set to cut thousands of positions. And yes, you can blame AI for the job cuts—or at least the bosses are. Cloudflare cuts more than 1,100 jobs Yesterday, Cloudflare announced that it was laying off more than 1,100 workers across the globe. That equates to roughly about 20% of the company’s workforce. …

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is just one month away. That event will see Apple launch the next iterations of the software that powers its various devices, including iOS 27 for the iPhone. But Apple will also be rolling out a new version of iOS before then, and it will feature an enhancement that will benefit Android users as much as Apple’s own. Here’s what you need to know. iOS 26.5 brings encrypted RCS messaging to iPhone Apple’s iMessage protocol has long had end-to-end encryption for texts sent between Apple devices. But for texts sent between Android phones and iPhones, encryption has always been absent. And that wasn’t the fault of …

An in-person remote position sounds like an oxymoron, but that’s exactly what athletic supplement company Inno Supps was advertising in a LinkedIn job posting that’s gone viral for all the wrong reasons. Though its listing for a senior copywriter was labeled as remote, job seekers were quick to call out the fine print at the top of the job description: “Please apply only if you are willing to eventually work onsite in Henderson, Nevada,” it read. “While this role is listed as ‘remote’ for visibility, it is an onsite position and requires in-office presence.” Inno Supps was apparently looking to capitalize on the gap between the demand and supply for remote work. A…

The Pentagon is releasing “never-before-seen” files on UFOs. The files, many which have been under wraps for decades, can now be accessed by anyone online. The Friday release includes the declassification of 162 files on what the government officially calls unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) these days. These files can be found under a new tab on the Defense Department’s website. The move follows a presidential order that came in February, which called for greater transparency around UAP. “The American people can now access the federal government’s declassified UAP files instantly. The latest UAP videos, photos, and original source documents from across the entir…

The founders of Crumbl are stepping down. The move comes amid a “planned transition” for the cookie chain, the leaders shared in an X post on Monday. The post, shared by CEO Jason McGowan, explained that he, along with co-founder and chief brand officer Sawyer Hemsley, as well as chief technology officer Bryce Redd will all be leaving their roles permanently. The three will remain in their positions until they find outside replacements through “rigorous hiring process.” The post explained that the leaders would remain closely connected to the brand with McGowan becoming chairman of the board and Hemsley and Redd as board members. “I believe now is the right time …

The Wendy’s Company could go private if billionaire Nelson Peltz has anything to say about it. The Trian Fund Management cofounder is looking for outside investors to help with a takeover of Wendy’s, the Financial Times reports. The news isn’t exactly surprising—in February, Trian used its regulatory filing to announce it might sell its stake or attempt a takeover of Wendy’s. Peltz and Trian currently own a 16% stake in Wendy’s, along with the Peltz family’s minority stake in a New York-area Wendy’s franchise owner. Peltz’s son, Bradley Peltz, and Trian cofounder and president Peter May are also on the board of Wendy’s. Fast Company reached out to Trian and W…

Multiple reports this week revealed that General Motors is cutting hundreds of jobs in its IT department—but not with the intent to replace them outright with AI. The layoffs are reportedly impacting about 600 employees, or about 10% of the IT team, and the job cuts are partly designed to allow the company to bring on new employees with specific AI skills. General Motors has confirmed the layoffs and suggested they were part of a broader change to its IT operations. “GM is transforming its Information Technology organization to better position the company for the future,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “As part of that work, we have made the difficult de…

LinkedIn on Wednesday joined what’s become a near-daily drumbeat of layoff announcements among tech companies. The Microsoft-owned company will reportedly eliminate about 5% of its headcount, which might total roughly 875 employees based on the latest headcount estimate. The cuts are part of a broader reorganization, as LinkedIn CEO Daniel Shapero detailed in an internal memo to staff. As has been true among several other tech companies recently, Shapero didn’t specifically mention AI as a reason for the layoffs in his missive sent at 7 a.m. Pacific. Rather, he emphasized a shifting landscape, according to the text of his memo obtained by Business Insider. “…

Today is an important day in the 2026 IPO landscape: Cerebras Systems Inc. is making its much-anticipated market debut. While not a household name like Nvidia, Intel, or TSMC, Cerebras is a chipmaker that is rapidly becoming a critical player in the AI semiconductor space. And investors will be casting a keen eye on how its stock performs in the early days of trading, looking for hints about how other, even more anticipated AI-related listings may play out later this year. Here’s what you need to know about Cerebras and its initial public offering: What is Cerebras Systems? Cerebras Systems is an AI semiconductor company headquartered in Sunnyvale, C…

A case of mistaken identity can cost you, especially if it involves Kim Kardashian. When Kim Kardashian shared a photo of a Texas death row inmate on Instagram to raise questions about his conviction for double murder, there was only one problem: She had the wrong man. With his execution date nearing in early 2024, Kardashian posted on Instagram and Facebook to raise awareness about Ivan Cantu, who was convicted of killing his cousin and his cousin’s fiancée. The image she posted unfortunately featured a different Ivan Cantu – one very much not behind bars and living in Westchester, New York. Her social media team had mistakenly identified that Cantu, who worked …