What's on Your Mind?

When Dr. David Rabin told me how Apollo Sessions worked, my exact first thought was, “poppycock.” This was an app, he said, that would turn my iPhone into a healing device using the vibrations of the phone’s haptic engine. By stimulating the vagus nerve—a core component of the parasympathetic nervous system responsible for the body’s recovery and relaxation mechanisms—using certain frequencies, this iOS app would make me feel different. It works, he assured me. With trauma patients in clinical settings, he claimed. As someone who is skeptical about wundermedicine by default, I didn’t believe it. But as someone who has lived through a few years of a traumatic experience, I…

Few illustrations have electrified the climate movement more successfully—and globally—than Ed Hawkins’s climate stripes. Since the British climate scientist first published his graphic in 2018, the stripes have been displayed on Times Square billboards, printed on beer cans, splashed across fashion collections, and even woven on a scarf that was worn by the late Pope Francis. The graphic was enshrined as a design object in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection in New York. The problem is, “warming stripes” have only ever shown part of the picture—namely, global average temperatures on the surface of the Earth. But climate change doesn’t stop at the surf…

You are on a street. You see stone buildings, gas lamps, some men in long coats. Is this somewhere in Europe? Probably. But, when? That is the question that WenWare adds to the formula of GeoGuessr, a popular game that shows Google Maps locations all over the Earth and asks players to guess where it is. The free browser-based WenWare drops you inside an AI-generated historical panorama, completely navigable in virtual reality, and gives you 60 seconds to do two things: pinpoint the location on a world map and adjust a timeline slider to the correct year. The person behind the project goes by @underpaid_mom on X. With no real name, no company, the game was created…

Visit a celebrity’s Wikipedia page and there’s a good chance you’ll be greeted by a blurry, outdated, or unflattering photo. These images often look like they were snapped in passing at a public event—because, in many cases, they were. The reason? Wikipedia requires all images to be freely available for public use. Since professional photographers typically sell their work, high-quality portraits rarely make it onto the site. That’s bad news for celebrities, for whom this page is often their most-viewed online presence—and therefore the face they present to the world. Some photos are so notoriously bad, they’ve even earned a spot on a dedicated Instagram page. Ent…

Most upstart companies prepping a new product launch would probably not be thrilled to receive a cease and desist letter from an established giant of their field. But as is readily apparent from its insane packaging (not to mention its insane name), the gummy candy purveyor Rotten is not most companies. Last May, founder and CEO Michael Fisher had his signature gummy worms on hand at the industry’s Sweets & Snacks Expo—and a flyer for a new product: Rotten’s Gummy Cruncheez, which launch today and bear resemblance to Nerds’s uber-popular Gummy Clusters. [Image: Rotten] “Nerds and their parent company Ferrara got wind of the product, took a photo of the flye…

Affordable housing has gone in search of collaborations. Across the country, developers and cities have found a solution in pairing housing with unexpected projects to save money and build more vibrant communities. A wave of libraries, fire stations, and even Costco stores have been built below or adjacent to much-needed, lower-cost apartments. Now a new development in the Southern California city of San Juan Capistrano is sharing a lot with City Hall. Salida del Sol, a $31 million, 49-unit supportive housing development by Jamboree Housing Corp., opened this past July on a 2.2-acre site downtown. At a time when federal support for homeless services is waveri…

New York City is notoriously loud. Cabs honking everywhere, thousands of people flocking to the streets at all hours, and cars blasting music for all to hear. But while some of us hear only noise, others hear music. Joshua Wolk is one of those people. The designer is the creative mind behind Train Jazz, which turns the rhythm of NYC’s subway into an interactive musical website. Train Jazz started when Wolk came across New York City’s open repository of transit data. He first created a soundless live map of the city’s transit. “It felt unfinished. I soon realized that music was that missing piece,” he tells Fast Company. Train Jazz Wolk ended up assig…

Your pantry, your portfolio, even your flight plans all made headlines this week. The FDA turned everyone’s favorite spice into a hazard warning, while the world’s wealthiest got a new credit card that skips the whole Social Security number thing. Washington’s still stuck in neutral—though a few lucky borrowers are finally seeing their student loans disappear—and airports are feeling the fallout. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s on a downward spiral, gold’s having a moment, and the housing market’s math still doesn’t add up no matter how many times you punch the calculator. Retailers, at least, seem to be thriving in chaos. Walmart doubled down on AI, cutting a deal with Open…

There’s a chill in the air—and not just from the weather. A newly arrived La Niña pattern is setting the stage for a potentially wild winter, with experts predicting snow-packed northern states, a drier South, and maybe even more late-season hurricanes. Meanwhile, markets caught their own cold snap after fresh U.S.–China trade tensions sparked a global sell-off. Still, not all the week’s headlines were gloomy. Uniqlo is going on a U.S. growth spree with 11 new stores planned for next year. But other industries are feeling the squeeze—from whiskey makers battling tariffs and falling demand, to airlines struggling through a government shutdown that’s leaving thousands o…

If you glanced at the headlines this week, you might think everything is fine. Markets are not in full panic mode, unemployment is not spiking, and earnings season is still producing plenty of upbeat charts for investor decks. Underneath that, though, there is a very different story taking shape about what it takes to keep growth going when people are tired of paying more for less. Across the economy, companies are being forced to get creative. Some are reworking how they price core products, others are quietly shrinking their physical footprint, and a few are openly trying to trade short term stock market love for longer term loyalty. Even the hottest corners of tech…

If you blinked this week, you might’ve missed a few major moves. Netflix decided it’s time for a stock split, Amazon trimmed thousands of jobs, and Walmart is already dropping “Black Friday” prices before the Halloween candy wrappers are even off. Meanwhile, housing trends, climate shocks, and AI budgets kept reshaping the conversation about what’s next for growth. Here’s a look at what mattered most this week, and why these stories could shape the months ahead. Mortgage-free America hits a new high A record 40.3% of owner-occupied homes are owned free and clear, up from 39.8% last year. Aging baby boomers and longer lifespans concentrate equity among older…

This week’s biggest business news is perhaps that the U.S. federal government shutdown finally ended; however, that ending didn’t come without more than a few noteworthy concessions. Meanwhile, a beloved coffee chain walked straight into a strike on one of its biggest promo days, and a regional grocer found a way to turn literal loose change into both PR and foot traffic. In the background, the tech world reminded everyone that hype cycles come with fine print. CoreWeave, one of the hottest names in AI infrastructure, delivered blockbuster revenue but still saw its stock sink on news of a delayed data center. IBM, facing louder rivals in quantum computing, rolled out …

The Sundance Film Festival may be a little bittersweet this year. It will be familiar in some ways as it kicks off on Thursday in Park City, Utah. There will be stars, from Natalie Portman to Charli XCX, and breakout discoveries, tearjerkers, comedies, thrillers, oddities that defy categorization and maybe even a few future Oscar nominees. The pop ups and sponsors will be out in full force on Main Street. The lines to get into the 90 movies premiering across 10 days will be long and the volunteers will be endlessly helpful and cheery in subfreezing temperatures. But the country’s premier showcase for independent film is also in a time of profound transition after decades…

Would you share the pages of your journal with a bunch of strangers, because that’s the idea behind social wellness app Exist. The new iOS social wellness app wants to turn journaling into a social experience. Originally designed with Gen Z in mind, Exist unexpectedly found its audience among middle-age users, with the average sign-up age landing at 40. Seeing this, the founders pivoted to focus on this group, creating a space for real, raw conversations about life’s challenges. Exist calls itself the edgier cousin of Calm and Headspace, but instead of solo meditation, it puts social journaling at the center of its mission. The app is built on the idea that heali…

Gustaf Westman, the homeware designer known for his delightfully chunky objects, just unveiled his latest project. It’s a shelf inspired by classic puzzles. Gustaf Westman In a new video posted to his Instagram, Westman introduces the Puzzle Shelf, a modular unit that comes in the form of several components resembling giant puzzle pieces. Users can assemble the shelf however they see fit, as well as select their own piece colors, which include white, forest green, fire-engine red, pink, a range of blues, and even a metallic silver. It’s currently available on a made-to-order basis, as each unique shelf is produced by a London-based 3D-print artist. Westman’s ir…

At least three-quarters of the speaking invitations I get these days are about AI. But lately, they’re for different reasons. Companies used to bring me in under the assumption that artificial intelligence was going to change everything. So they’d ask me to talk about the jobless future, prompt engineering, or automating marketing online. Today, they’re asking a different kind of question: What went wrong? Where are the promised productivity gains? In other words, why isn’t AI helping our company do stuff? And if I were to answer honestly, I’d tell them the simple truth: It’s because you and your people don’t know what you want to do with it! This is not a technology…

The metallic fringe hanging down from the edge of Anishnawbe Health Toronto’s community health center near downtown Toronto is the biggest indication that something different is happening here. Created to provide centralized health care and traditional healing to the 90,000-strong Indigenous population of Toronto, the clinic is the centerpiece of a unique city block of development that was intentionally led by the Indigenous community and designed to reflect its culture. The wraparound fringe of more than 12,000 strands of stainless steel chain—the kind of aesthetic flourish easily targeted for elimination by the value engineers of a typical development—is ju…

As the preeminent internet encyclopedia, Wikipedia is known for having articles on every topic under the sun. From the commonplace to the esoteric, if it’s at all noteworthy in the grand scheme of the universe, it’ll have its own Wikipedia entry. But what about everything that never happened? Meet Halupedia, a new online encyclopedia dedicated to “topics that have received insufficient attention in mainstream reference works,” as the site’s homepage reads. In other words, every entry on Halupedia is entirely invented—or rather, hallucinated—by AI. No matter what you’re looking for on Halupedia, there will be an entry for it. Visitors to the site can press the “Stu…

It looks more like a racing yacht than a cargo ship. But this new 100% wind-powered vessel will soon begin bringing goods from Europe to the U.S.—and could make deliveries faster than conventional cargo ships. Vela, a French startup, pulled technology from the racing world to make the vessel run as fast as possible. It’s a trimaran, meaning it has three hulls, which helps it cut through water efficiently. The wide, stable shape allows it to carry large sails. As in racing yachts, the mast is made from carbon fiber, and the sails are made of high-performance fabric designed for strength. The ship also uses navigation tech developed for racing to help route toward ideal…