What's on Your Mind?

Eleven years after Google first announced its grand unifying theory of design—Material Design—it’s introducing its third major revision to the system. Called Material 3 Expressive, the company will tell you that it’s their most “researched update” ever, promising to help people find what they’re looking for on the screen faster than before. But it’s also the company’s most maximalist design system to date. Still enabling quieter minimalist designs, sure, but embracing bolder colors, more playful animations, and all around more overt approaches to interface. There’s a new roundness to almost every component, right down to the tips of Google’s new default typeface, Google S…

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a warning that more than a million taxpayers are still eligible to receive a share of more than $1 billion in refunds—but they need to act quickly. Here’s what you need to know. Over $1 billion in refunds still to be claimed The refunds are due to people who have yet to file their 2021 tax return. The IRS says the total potential value of the refunds still to be claimed is estimated to be $1,025,336,800. As many as 1,142,000 taxpayers are eligible for part of that payout and the median refund amount is estimated to be $781 per taxpayer, the agency says. That means half of the people who are due refunds will receive…

Ideo—the global design firm famous for putting Design Thinking into the lexicon of corporate America—has vastly reduced its staff as appetite for its services have waned. But two years following the culling, the company has hired a new CEO. Michael Peng will take the role in June. Peng is a former Ideo partner who has spent the last five years leading the venture studio Moon Creative Lab, which was founded by the Japanese investment firm Mitsui & Co. “His leadership will bring a unique blend of human-centered creativity, multicultural fluency, thoughtful collaboration, and strong business acumen,” the company announced in a press release. Meanwhile, Derek Robs…

Artists and cultural workers are falling through the cracks of our economy at a time when their work has never been more needed in society. Their ability to exist and thrive is threatened by the cost of living and housing affordability crisis, our increasingly precarious economy, and cuts to grant funding under the new administration. Many exist in a structural grey area between independent gig workers and small business owners. Their work is often episodic, making them easily left out of safety net programs like unemployment and healthcare—this is especially true for artists from historically marginalized communities. To address these challenges, we need new syst…

As far back as records of the subject go, the art and science of leadership has always addressed one constant question: How should humans lead other humans? Today, that paradigm is shifting. Leaders must now learn to guide hybrid teams—composed of both human professionals and AI systems that support and augment human team members, while increasingly also performing complex tasks independently. Already, more than 75% of knowledge workers report using AI at work. Meanwhile, Gartner predicts that 100 million workers will collaborate with “robo-colleagues” by 2026. This is not a minor evolution. It may be the most profound transformation in human history of how we con…

Data analytics firm LexisNexis Risk Solutions said it suffered a data breach that could have affected the names, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and contact information of more than 364,000 people. The company said in a filing with Maine’s attorney general that an “unauthorized third party” stole data from a third-party platform used for software development. A spokesperson told TechCrunch, which earlier reported of the breach, that an unknown hacker accessed its GitHub account. The breach dates back to last Christmas, though the company said it only discovered it on April 1. “Upon learning of the issue, we promptly launched an investigation …

Some office buildings are simply not blessed with natural light. Maybe they’re standing in the shadows of something taller. Or perhaps their windows are mostly oriented to the dark north instead of the sunny southwest. Or maybe they’re so big and wide that sunlight can’t find its way into their murky depths. Whatever the reason, the lack of natural light presents problems ranging from additional energy usage to diminished human well-being and productivity. CBT, an architecture firm based in Boston, has been exploring unique ways of solving these problems. Using passive design approaches that require no additional energy, the firm is finding innovative ways to bring mo…

Low-cost carrier Avelo Airlines has reportedly signed a deal with the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to start flying deportation flights from Arizona this May, a move the company’s CEO has acknowledged is controversial, according to the Associated Press. Avelo CEO Andrew Levy said, “we realize this is a sensitive and complicated topic,” but the airline’s flights would be part of a “long-term charter program” to support the DHS’ deportation plans, which would help with expansion and protect jobs. Meanwhile, some upset customers are taking to social media in protest. On Bluesky, one user posted, “Nope. They f…

Move aside, Google Maps: Snapchat’s Snap Map has hit a major milestone with 400 million monthly active users. Launched in 2017, Snap Map began as a GPS-based feature that allowed users to see their friends’ real-time locations. Those who opted in could view a live map showing not just where their friends were, but also what was happening nearby—and share their own location as well. Since then, Snapchat has significantly expanded its map features. Last year, Snap Map introduced “Footsteps,” a tool that helps users visualize how much of the world they’ve explored. For instance, the app might report that you’ve covered 75% of your local area. The feature is reminisce…

“He just put it in bold!” exclaimed Ryan Gosling’s character in a Saturday Night Live video that attracted a cult following in the world of graphic design last year. The follow-up to a 2017 SNL bit in which Gosling played a man haunted by his realization that the logo for the 2009 blockbuster Avatar was expressed in the gauche Papyrus typeface, the newer video centered on his fresh horror of discovering that the same graphic designer responsible for the first logo had updated the wordmark for the movie’s sequel by simply setting it in bold type. A year later, it seems that life is imitating satire, as, following last week’s announcement of Amazon’s brand refresh, 2025…

As you sift among the various options for your short-term investments, keep these key items on your dashboard: yield, guarantees, liquidity and your individual situation. The short-term investments that promise the highest yields often come with at least some risk and/or constraints on your daily access to funds. It may be that you’re just looking for the highest safe yield and don’t care that much about liquidity. Or maybe having ready access to your funds is the name of the game. Also think through whether you value an ironclad guarantee or are willing to go without in exchange for a potentially higher yield. Some cash instruments are fully FDIC-insured, while o…

Understanding intelligence and creating intelligent machines are grand scientific challenges of our times. The ability to learn from experience is a cornerstone of intelligence for machines and living beings alike. In a remarkably prescient 1948 report, Alan Turing—the father of modern computer science—proposed the construction of machines that display intelligent behavior. He also discussed the “education” of such machines “by means of rewards and punishments.” Turing’s ideas ultimately led to the development of reinforcement learning, a branch of artificial intelligence. Reinforcement learning designs intelligent agents by training them to maximize rewards as th…

It would seem unlikely for clothing designers get their wheels turning by thinking about what happens to garments when people are through with them. But that’s exactly the sort of backward thinking that led to Under Armour’s new “regenerative sportswear collection,” created in collaboration with Portland, Oregon-based Unless Collective. The collection, which is making its debut in Italy this week during Milan Design Week, comprises footwear and clothing made entirely from plants and plant-based materials. That means they’re biodegradable and compostable. “All of our products make good dirt,” says Eric Liedtke, Unless co-founder & Under Armour EVP of brand stra…

If you’ve followed Apple for any length of time, you’ve no doubt come across the notion that the company doesn’t rush into adopting cutting-edge technology; instead, it waits until it can do it right. “We don’t feel an impatience to be first,” CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg in 2017. “Our thing is to be the best and to give the user something that really makes a difference in their lives.” But I’m starting to wonder if something else is going on. Sure, a lot of Apple’s Android competitors have sometimes been accused of throwing features at the wall. These days, though, I think their hardware is often just markedly better—and it hits the market earlier. There hav…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. The speed and breadth of the changing political/cultural status quo in the U.S. has been breathtaking and disorienting for brand leaders across the tech/business community. Some leaders ​​have gone all in to kiss the ring of the new status quo. Many more are wrestling with the question “How do I continue to support the ideals my brand believes in without causing serious self-sabotage?” Thi…

Apple just announced new accessibility features coming to its operating systems. There’s a redesigned braille input experience, and a new reader that allows you to customize your text so it’s more legible. But there’s one that will be great for anyone attending any lecture or presentation: Magnifier for Mac. The iPhone and iPad got their Magnifier apps back in 2016. It worked pretty much like the iOS camera: You point your device anywhere you want and zoom in to the desired level. It also allows you to apply real-time filters to enhance readability depending on your vision’s condition, like turning a book’s black text over white page into white text over blue, as well as …

A few years ago, a sales executive I worked with found himself in a difficult position. His company was under review for a potential buyout, and his director asked him to present a version of the company’s story that, while technically true, left out critical details. The omission would make the company look healthier than it was, protecting its valuation and the leadership team’s positions post-acquisition. He knew this wasn’t an outright lie, but it didn’t feel honest either. Was this just strategic messaging or something more ethically concerning? And how could he navigate this without jeopardizing his reputation or future at the company? A third path He cho…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. “Every accumulation becomes the means of new accumulation.” This is what Karl Marx has to say about capital. He does not get enough credit for being one of the more accurate predictors of capitalism because people understandably do not like his solution. But the truth is, most philosophers do not even present a solution and he understood the problem as well as anyone. We saw more bankruptcie…

Anthropic announced Thursday that it has added web search capability to its Claude chatbot. It’s not a new feature to the AI world—but the company’s approach stands as one the most thoughtful to date. Much like its rival Perplexity, Anthropic’s Claude works relevant information from the web into a conversational answer, and includes clickable source citations. Web search is available as a “feature preview” for U.S. users of the Claude 3.7 Sonnet model, with plans to expand to the free tier and to more countries What sets Anthropic’s web search feature apart is that it is automatic. Rather than requiring users to manually select a web search on a given query …

A strong solar storm headed to Earth could produce colorful aurora displays across more U.S. states than usual Tuesday night. The sun earlier this week burped out huge bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections, leading space weather forecasters to issue a geomagnetic storm watch. Northern lights were forecast in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Parts of northern Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania may also get a view. The strength of the light show will depend on how Earth’s magnetic field interacts with the solar bursts, said …

Business leaders love to talk about innovation. But for all the energy poured into frameworks and strategy decks, most teams rarely experience what innovation actually feels like. Real innovation is uncertain, emotional, iterative, and profoundly human. That’s why Cliff has spent the past several years guiding organizations through songwriting experiences—yes, literal songwriting—to unlock the emotional and relational capacities that innovation demands. And as someone who works at the intersection of story, leadership, and transformational design, Tony sees this as more than a clever workshop: it’s a reorientation. The same skills it takes to write a compelling song—…

Chinese automaker BYD sold more electric vehicles in Europe than Tesla for the first time, according to a report by JATO Dynamics, as an aging model lineup and CEO Elon Musk’s politics hurt demand for the U.S. EV maker’s cars. BYD, which also makes plug-in hybrid vehicles, registered 7,231 battery-powered electric vehicles (BEV) in Europe in April, while Tesla registered 7,165 units, the market research firm said. “This is a watershed moment for Europe’s car market, particularly when you consider that Tesla has led the European BEV market for years, while BYD only officially began operations beyond Norway and the Netherlands in late 2022,” JATO Dynamics’ global an…

For decades, huge swaths of Brazil’s Cerrado ecosystem have been used to support the global demand for burgers. Forests and grasslands were replaced by pastures along with farms growing soy to feed cattle. But a major restoration project is now underway on an area nearly twice as large as Manhattan. If you fly over one part of southwestern Brazil, you’ll see a patchwork of dozens of square plots where a local university is studying different methods of helping native plants regrow on former cattle pastures. On more than 25,000 acres, along rivers and the edge of remaining pieces of forest, new vegetation has been growing quickly over the past two years. Wildlife camer…