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A new IMF report exaggerates the gloomy economic backdrop, but there are valid reasons for policymakers to be glumView the full article

Fund upgrades outlook for global growth but warns of more ‘pass-through’ of tariff costs to consumersView the full article

Bank of England should not lower interest rates before price pressure shows signs of easing, says chief economistView the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. If you’ve been looking for a great pair of noise-canceling earbuds that don’t cost a fortune, the JBL Tune Buds are now down to $44.95, their lowest price yet, according to price trackers. That’s less than half of what they’re originally sold for, which makes them a strong contender in the under-$50 range. JBL Tune Buds $44.95 at Amazon $99.95 Save $55.00 Get Deal Get Deal $44.95 at Amazon $99.95 Save $55.00 These are true wireless earbuds that focus on delivering that signature JBL bass (deep and thumpy) but with enough flexibility to tweak the sound using the JBL app. Out of the box, they lean heavy on the low end, which works well for pop and EDM, but you can easily adjust the EQ if you prefer something more neutral. Performance-wise, the Tune Buds pack in more than you’d expect for the price. They support Bluetooth 5.3, AAC, and SBC codecs, along with multipoint pairing, so you can jump between your phone and laptop without reconnecting. The active noise cancellation is solid for casual use—good enough to dull traffic noise or a chatty office, even if it can’t fully block the low rumble of a subway, notes this PCMag review. There’s also an IP54 rating, meaning these can handle sweat and light rain, making them suitable for workouts or daily commutes. Touch controls are customizable through the companion app, and there’s built-in Alexa support if you like using voice commands hands-free. As for the battery life, JBL claims up to 10 hours per charge with ANC on and 12 hours without, plus an extra 30 to 36 hours from the charging case. That’s easily a few days of use (your mileage may vary) without needing to plug in. The 10mm drivers cover the standard 20Hz to 20kHz range, and the earbuds come with three silicone tip sizes to help with comfort and fit. They don’t offer premium-level sound or the silence of high-end ANC sets from Sony or Bose, but they strike a good balance between affordability, sound, and everyday convenience. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 2 Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $197.00 (List Price $249.00) Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 256GB Unlocked AI Phone (Titanium JetBlack) — $819.99 (List Price $1,099.99) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $319.00 (List Price $349.00) Blink Mini 2 1080p Indoor Security Camera (2-Pack, White) — $34.99 (List Price $69.99) Ring Battery Doorbell Plus — $149.99 (List Price $149.99) Blink Video Doorbell Wireless (Newest Model) + Sync Module Core — $34.99 (List Price $69.99) Ring Indoor Cam (2nd Gen, 2-pack, White) — $79.99 (List Price $99.98) Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (2nd Gen, 2023) — $29.99 (List Price $49.99) Shark AV2501S AI Ultra Robot Vacuum with HEPA Self-Empty Base — $359.89 (List Price $549.99) Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) — $69.99 (List Price $139.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. Many established study methods grew out of old research and stuffy pedagogical theories, so when a new one crops up on social media it’s worth checking out—if only to gauge whether a modernized approach can pay dividends. Sometimes, the most tried-and-true, old-school methods are best, but that doesn't mean fresh updates on traditional ideas can't be great, too. One study technique that frequently makes the rounds on social media is dubbed the “2, 3, 5, 7” method (or usually just "2357"). What’s interesting about this method is that while it is new in a sense, it is a modification of one of those older, time-tested techniques. More on that below, as well as what you need to know to use 2357 for your next study session. What is the 2357 study method?When using the 2357 technique, you revise your notes and study materials over and over again, following a set schedule: Day 1: Revise your initial notes Day 2: Revise and review them Day 3: Revise and review again Day 5: Revise and review again Day 7: Revise and review again Each time you revise, you should identify and expand upon key facts that you need to remember. If you usually take notes by hand, digitizing them can serve as your first revision. Conversely, you can play around with note types. On Day 2, you can redo your notes using the Cornell method, for instance, then make a mind map on Day 3. Taking a slightly different approach each time will force you to reconsider the material, identify elements you can expand on or you're not quite grasping, and think a little differently about how it all fits together. By the time you have completed that final revision on day seven, the content should be easy to retrieve from your memory with minimal effort. Days 5 and 7 should also focus a little more on reviewing, not just revising. One of those days can be dedicated to blurting, for instance, which is a technique that asks you to write down everything you can remember about a topic before checking against your notes and other resources for anything you missed. Try blurting a new note outline entirely. Why the 2357 method worksThis study method is effective because it combines elements of a few tried-and-true techniques, including spaced repetition, an established way to combat the so-called “forgetting curve” by increasing the amount of time between your study sessions until the information enters your long-term memory. This TikTok-beloved hack also employs elements of distributed practice, which operates on a similar theory. Studying via 2357 will work best if you slowly start weaning yourself off your notes and materials as you go, which forces you to practice active recall as you progress through the latter days of the cycle. Like I said, those final days of the cycle should be more about reviewing than revising. If you're running across information you're not quite grasping, mix in other techniques, like the Leitner flashcard method, which also relies on distributed practice to help you entrench material in your memory. Doing this all sounds easy, but it isn't quite. It might be harder than you think to remember to stick to this very specific schedule. If you find yourself struggling, call for backup. A school-focused planning app, like My Study Life, can help you create a schedule and carve out time for all these little studying tricks. View the full article

When Apple’s AirTag came out four years ago, one of the most obvious uses for it was for luggage. On my long trips to Asia, I always breathe a sign of relief when I glance at my phone and find that my checked suitcase has been loaded onto the aircraft. And I often wish I had one in my carry-on suitcase, especially when the overhead bins run out of space and the flight attendant checks my bag at the gate. July, a fast-growing Australian startup, has become the first luggage brand to incorporate AirTags directly into its suitcases. The technology was made in partnership with Apple and Google, so the tags are integrated with both Apple’s Find My and Google’s Find Hub networks. On October 14, July unveils this new feature, which will eventually be incorporated into its full line of carry-ons and suitcases. Cofounder Athan Didaskalou believes trackers will soon become standard in all suitcases, but it is still important to him for July to be first to market with this technology. “We have a team of industrial designers on hand, and we like making things,” Didaskalou says. “The only way to stand out today is by continuing to innovate.” The Ubiquitous Roller Suitcase Step into an airport today, and you’ll see virtually every traveler pushing wheeled luggage. Didaskalou points out that each element in the now-ubiquitous roller suitcase was the result of a breakthrough in design. In 1987, an airline pilot developed the concept of a wheeled suitcase with a telescoping handle—a vast improvement over having to carry your suitcase like a briefcase. By the 1990s, most suitcase brands had shifted to this design. In recent decades there have been incremental improvements. After September 11, 2005, the Transportation Security Administration imposed a new regulation that all luggage locks had to have a keyhole that agents could access. Soon after, it became standard for all suitcases to have TSA locks. And a decade ago, brands began incorporating phone chargers into their suitcases so travelers could charge their phones on the go. (The TSA now forbids phone chargers in checked luggage, so chargers in suitcases must be removable.) The global luggage market is enormous: It was $38.8 billion in 2023, according to Grand View Research, and it’s projected to grow to $61.49 billion by 2030. Given that most suitcases today have the same set of standard features, brands often end up competing with each other based on aesthetics. Samsonite dominates the industry, owning a fifth of the market with its many brands, which include American Tourister and Tumi. Samsonite generated $3.68 billion in 2023. But there are many other players. At the high end, there’s Rimowa, known for making durable suitcases with distinct grooves. Over the past decade, a wave of startups has popped up with sleeker and more colorful designs at an affordable price point of $200 to $300 for a carry-on. Direct-to-consumer startups like Away, Monos, Béis, and Floyd all create trendy cases that target the millennial and Gen Z traveler. But it’s a crowded, competitive market, and some brands have struggled. Paravel, for instance, tried to create an eco-friendly suitcase, but it filed for bankruptcy in May of this year, and was acquired by the British suitcase brand Antler. Another luggage brand, Baboon to the Moon, was struggling to grow its revenue and was acquired by turnaround firm the Hedgehog Co. in 2023. Improving the Design of a Suitcase July was founded in Australia in 2019. Its sleek, colorful suitcases have become very popular in Australia and across the Asia Pacific region, which North American brands like Away and Monos have been slower to enter. Didaskalou wants July to stand out from competitors by rethinking the design of its suitcases in a more fundamental way. Over the past few years, the brand has been playing with the configuration of suitcases. It was among the first brands to launch the trunk format, where the suitcase doesn’t open in the middle, but rather toward the top. “Some people want depth when they’re packing,” he says. “It can be awkward to open your luggage in the middle and try to balance it on the luggage stand at your hotel.” When Apple and Google opened up the API for the AirTag, it occurred to Didaskalou that luggage tracking was the next frontier of suitcases. Many consumers were already putting AirTags in their suitcases, but it was not a seamless solution. “They might need to move the AirTag from one suitcase to another, or take it out to use it for something else,” he says. “Or they might forget to use it altogether. It’s just another thing to worry about when you’ve already got a lot on your mind.” July’s designers spent months trying to figure out how to incorporate AirTags seamlessly into suitcases. They ended up putting them into the strip of plastic at the top of the suitcase, right next to the TSA lock. When you first get the suitcase, you pull on the plastic tab that separates the battery from the AirTag to activate it. Then you press a button on the strip to activate it, to see your luggage in your Apple Find My or Google Find Hub app on your smartphone. Didaskalou says that while the experience is simple for consumers, it was complex to design. It was important to make the underside of the AirTag accessible to change its battery. However, the AirTag is on the same strip as the TSA lock. “We needed to have access to the AirTag but not expose the TSA lock,” he says. “We also needed everything to be very tightly secured, because things bounce and move when you travel.” July has patented some aspects of this AirTag component, but Didaskalou believes many other luggage brands will soon realize that consumers now expect to be able to easily track their luggage. So they will soon begin incorporating AirTags or other trackers directly into their suitcases. But he believes they will only become widespread in the next year or so. And ultimately, Didaskalou believes that it’s the larger luggage makers that are more likely to update their suitcases first. In many ways, he’s looking to compete with Samsonite, an innovator with roughly 20% of the market share. “Samsonite has always been first to come up with new materials and manufacturing processes,” Didaskalou says. “We’re proud because this is the first time we’ve beat them.” View the full article

Shares in America’s “Quantum Four” quantum computing companies surged again yesterday. D-Wave, IonQ, Quantum Computing, and Rigetti all saw their stock prices jump by double-digit percentages. But why? The Quantum Four’s big stock price gains had nothing to do with radical new quantum computing breakthroughs. Instead, investors can thank banking giant JPMorganChase for the gains. Here’s what you need to know. Why did quantum computing shares surge yesterday? Yesterday, America’s four most prominent quantum computing companies saw their stock prices surge by double-digit percentages. But the genesis behind these soaring share prices wasn’t directly related to news about the companies. Instead, the upward movement in the Quantum Four’s share prices was largely due to financial giant JPMorganChase. On Monday, the investment bank announced a “Security and Resiliency Initiative” to invest in industries critical to America’s national economic security interests. This initiative will see JPMorganChase invest $1.5 trillion in select industries over the next 10 years. And the first wave of this funding—to the tune of up to $10 billion—has already been decided upon. The banking giant announced it will invest the 11-figure sum via “direct equity and venture capital investments” in companies operating across four key areas, which include: Supply Chain and Advanced Manufacturing Defense and Aerospace Energy Independence and Resilience Frontier and Strategic Technologies For quantum computing investors, it’s that last area—frontier and strategic technologies—that matters. Included in that grouping are companies in the AI, cybersecurity, and quantum computing space. “It has become painfully clear that the United States has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products, and manufacturing—all of which are essential for our national security,” JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon said in a press release announcing the initiative. He added, “This new initiative includes efforts like ensuring reliable access to life-saving medicines and critical minerals, defending our nation, building energy systems to meet AI-driven demand, and advancing technologies like semiconductors and data centers. Our support of clients in these industries remains unwavering.” However, it is worth noting that Dimon did not specify which quantum computing companies would receive investments from the bank. In an accompanying chart, the bank merely said that strengthening capabilities in quantum computing and other areas, including AI and cybersecurity, “could directly translate into higher GDP and create military, intelligence, biotech, and cyber resilience benefits.” Yet despite not name-dropping any of the Quantum Four, their stocks surged. Quantum stocks soared by double digits In the United States, there are four prominent publicly traded quantum computing companies: D-Wave, IonQ, Quantum Computing, and Rigetti. All four companies saw their stock soar yesterday after JPMorganChase’s announcement. D-Wave Quantum (NYSE: QBTS): up 23% to $40.62 IonQ (NYSE: IONQ): up 16% to $82.09 Quantum Computing (Nasdaq: QUBT): up 12% to $21.46 Rigetti Computing (Nasdaq: RGTI): up 25% to $54.91 In addition to America’s Quantum Four, shares in the United Kingdom’s Arqit Quantum (Nasdaq: ARQQ) also jumped 20% to close at $58.27. Despite Monday’s price surges, all Quantum Four stocks and the U.K.’s Arqit are currently down in premarket trading on Tuesday morning, as of the time of this writing. The drops aren’t large: QBTS is down less than 3%, IONQ and QUBT are down around 4%, RGTI is down just over 3%, and ARQQ is down just under 3%. These modest declines suggest that some investors are engaging in profit-taking after yesterday’s share price surge. Still, many quantum investors are likely buoyed by the notion that one of America’s biggest investment firms thinks quantum computing will be critical to national security in the years ahead. If that conjecture is correct, companies operating in those spaces have a lot to gain. Shares in the Quantum Four have had a great year While the real-world benefits of quantum computing, which uses the properties of quantum mechanics to solve computational problems that classical computers couldn’t hope to, are likely still years away, the companies operating in the nascent space have seen tremendous returns over the past year. When it comes to the Quantum Four, all have had incredible returns both year-to-date (YTD) and over the past twelve months (12/m), as of yesterday’s stock market close: D-Wave Quantum (NYSE: QBTS): up 383% YTD, up 4,087% (12/m) IonQ (NYSE: IONQ): up 96% YTD, up 670% (12/m) Quantum Computing (Nasdaq: QUBT): up 29% YTD, up 3,001% (12/m) Rigetti Computing (Nasdaq: RGTI): up 259% YTD, up 6,629% (12/m) These are gains that many investors are hoping will continue well into the future. View the full article

IBM’s recent partnership with Anthropic marks a significant milestone for small businesses aiming to streamline their software development processes. By integrating Anthropic’s advanced AI model, Claude, into its suite of tools, IBM aims to deliver enhanced productivity, security, and governance within enterprise environments. This strategic alliance is particularly beneficial for small business owners looking for ways to leverage technology in their operations. With productivity gains averaging an impressive 45% reported by over 6,000 early adopters using IBM’s new AI-first integrated development environment (IDE), the potential for cost savings while maintaining high standards of code quality is a compelling reason to consider these new tools. Dinesh Nirmal, Senior Vice President of Software at IBM, stated, “This partnership enhances our software portfolio with advanced AI capabilities while maintaining the governance, security, and reliability that our clients have come to expect.” The IDE is designed specifically for enterprise software development lifecycles (SDLC), facilitating tasks like application modernization, code generation, and intelligent code review. These capabilities can not only save time but also lessen the burden on smaller development teams with limited resources. As digital transformation accelerates, the needs of small businesses often mirror those of larger enterprises, particularly in terms of efficient software development and data management. Developers using the new IDE can expect features such as: Application Modernization at Scale: Support for automated system upgrades and multi-step refactoring can help small businesses transition from legacy systems to modern frameworks without extensive downtime. Intelligent Code Generation and Review: AI-assisted code generation tailored to enterprise architecture patterns ensures that security and compliance needs are met, which can be crucial for small businesses operating in regulated environments. Security-First Development: The integration of security measures directly into development workflows allows for quicker addresses to vulnerabilities and compliance with industry standards, enhancing operational safety. End-to-End Orchestration: This capability coordinates tasks across the entire software lifecycle—from development through testing to maintenance—making it easier for small businesses to manage complex projects. Moreover, the partnership extends beyond the tools themselves. IBM has introduced a guide for enterprises on architecting secure AI agents, emphasizing a structured approach to managing AI within business contexts. This guide aims to make AI applications more reliable and safe, aspects that many small business owners find critical when adopting new technologies. However, while the advantages are compelling, small business owners should remain aware of certain challenges. Transitioning to AI-enhanced tools may require initial investment in training, as well as potential disruptions during onboarding. Ensuring that existing systems integrate smoothly with new AI solutions is paramount, particularly for those operating within tight budgets or facing resource constraints. Another consideration is the security aspect of deploying advanced AI tools. Small businesses must remain vigilant regarding data protection and compliance with regulations—challenges that could be heightened with the introduction of new technologies. As Mike Krieger, Chief Product Officer at Anthropic, noted, “Enterprises are looking for AI they can actually trust with their code, their data, and their day-to-day operations.” Ultimately, the partnership between IBM and Anthropic signifies a shift toward more accessible, secure, and efficient software development tools that can directly benefit small businesses. As the marketplace evolves, utilizing enhanced AI capabilities not only helps in modernizing operations but can also offer a competitive advantage. For small business owners eager to explore what AI can bring to their operations, this collaboration could pave the way for transformative growth. For further details about this collaboration and its implications for enterprise software development, you can access the full press release at IBM’s newsroom here. This article, "IBM and Anthropic Team Up to Revolutionize Enterprise Software Development" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

IBM’s recent partnership with Anthropic marks a significant milestone for small businesses aiming to streamline their software development processes. By integrating Anthropic’s advanced AI model, Claude, into its suite of tools, IBM aims to deliver enhanced productivity, security, and governance within enterprise environments. This strategic alliance is particularly beneficial for small business owners looking for ways to leverage technology in their operations. With productivity gains averaging an impressive 45% reported by over 6,000 early adopters using IBM’s new AI-first integrated development environment (IDE), the potential for cost savings while maintaining high standards of code quality is a compelling reason to consider these new tools. Dinesh Nirmal, Senior Vice President of Software at IBM, stated, “This partnership enhances our software portfolio with advanced AI capabilities while maintaining the governance, security, and reliability that our clients have come to expect.” The IDE is designed specifically for enterprise software development lifecycles (SDLC), facilitating tasks like application modernization, code generation, and intelligent code review. These capabilities can not only save time but also lessen the burden on smaller development teams with limited resources. As digital transformation accelerates, the needs of small businesses often mirror those of larger enterprises, particularly in terms of efficient software development and data management. Developers using the new IDE can expect features such as: Application Modernization at Scale: Support for automated system upgrades and multi-step refactoring can help small businesses transition from legacy systems to modern frameworks without extensive downtime. Intelligent Code Generation and Review: AI-assisted code generation tailored to enterprise architecture patterns ensures that security and compliance needs are met, which can be crucial for small businesses operating in regulated environments. Security-First Development: The integration of security measures directly into development workflows allows for quicker addresses to vulnerabilities and compliance with industry standards, enhancing operational safety. End-to-End Orchestration: This capability coordinates tasks across the entire software lifecycle—from development through testing to maintenance—making it easier for small businesses to manage complex projects. Moreover, the partnership extends beyond the tools themselves. IBM has introduced a guide for enterprises on architecting secure AI agents, emphasizing a structured approach to managing AI within business contexts. This guide aims to make AI applications more reliable and safe, aspects that many small business owners find critical when adopting new technologies. However, while the advantages are compelling, small business owners should remain aware of certain challenges. Transitioning to AI-enhanced tools may require initial investment in training, as well as potential disruptions during onboarding. Ensuring that existing systems integrate smoothly with new AI solutions is paramount, particularly for those operating within tight budgets or facing resource constraints. Another consideration is the security aspect of deploying advanced AI tools. Small businesses must remain vigilant regarding data protection and compliance with regulations—challenges that could be heightened with the introduction of new technologies. As Mike Krieger, Chief Product Officer at Anthropic, noted, “Enterprises are looking for AI they can actually trust with their code, their data, and their day-to-day operations.” Ultimately, the partnership between IBM and Anthropic signifies a shift toward more accessible, secure, and efficient software development tools that can directly benefit small businesses. As the marketplace evolves, utilizing enhanced AI capabilities not only helps in modernizing operations but can also offer a competitive advantage. For small business owners eager to explore what AI can bring to their operations, this collaboration could pave the way for transformative growth. For further details about this collaboration and its implications for enterprise software development, you can access the full press release at IBM’s newsroom here. This article, "IBM and Anthropic Team Up to Revolutionize Enterprise Software Development" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Watchdog did not have proper basis for decision to write down SFr16.5bn of AT1 debt as part of rescue deal, judges findView the full article

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. Studying is about so much more than just rereading some chapters and notes. That said, while it's a good idea to have a strategy for actually retaining what you’re going over, if your method is too convoluted, you’ll never stick to it—and then it's just as useless as mindlessly rereading the same section five times. The best study methods not only rely on research and established understandings of how memory works, but are easy to incorporate in a practical way. The "123" method meets all the criteria of a good study method. What is the 123 study method?The 123 study method is a lot like the 2357 method, except it’s much easier to stay on top of and actually execute. With 2357, you review and revise your notes and materials on days two, three, five, and seven after first learning them, which is a tricky schedule to remember and maintain. You can and should, however, call on a study-scheduling app, like My Study Life, to help you with this and other time-based academic tasks. The 123 method is simpler: On day one, you learn your material. On day two, you review it. Review it again on day three, then don’t think about it for a week, at which point you'll review it again. Again, use of a planner, calendar, or scheduler is encouraged here. These techniques are useful, but only if you actually execute and stick to them, so don't be afraid to get a little boost from an app or even your phone's built-in "reminders" function. Why the 123 study method worksThe 123 method relies on distributed practice, which calls for you to review your materials at spaced intervals to better retain them in your long-term memory. That's a technique that works fabulously, but often, adherents expect you to distribute the practice in ways that are difficult to manage. By going over it for three days, then giving your brain a week and seeing how much you retained, you can fit distributed practice into your life a lot more easily than if you follow some elaborate, torturous schedule of off days and on days. This method is best done about 10 days out from a big test, so you can study and review on those first three days, then once more the day before the test. How you review is up to you, but you can try flashcards, which help you with memory retrieval, or blurting, which helps you identify your problem areas by forcing you to recall as much information as you can without looking at your notes. Whatever method you choose for the actual review, try to make sure it incorporates some element of active recall, or the act of forcing yourself to pull key information from your memory. Just know that the one-week interval between reviews is key. When your brain has almost forgotten something, it works a little harder to pull the information out of your memory, which is what will truly help get the facts to stick before your big test. View the full article

Headaches continued for U.S. travelers over the weekend as a combination of bad weather and impacts from the ongoing government shutdown ensnarled many would-be fliers. Flight delays and cancellations piled up over the three-day holiday period, with flight-tracking service FlightAware showing nearly 30,000 delays in and out of U.S. airports from Sunday of last week through Monday. Here’s the latest on the situation at U.S. airports and what travelers need to know: How bad have flight delays been? Delays and cancellations at many airports have grown progressively worse since the U.S. government shut down on October 1. With no end in sight to the political impasse in Washington that brought us here, the shutdown will enter its third week tomorrow. FlightAware data shows there were 7,928 delays in and out of U.S. airports yesterday, along with 592 cancellations. Saturday and Sunday were roughly the same, with 5,007 delays and 114 cancellations on Saturday and 7,981 and 271 cancellations on Sunday. Airlines for America, a trade group representing U.S. airlines, had warned before the weekend that shutdown-related shortages in air traffic controllers could create travel headaches at a number of airports, although the group insisted that flying remains safe, as CNN reported. Bad weather, including a nor’easter that made its way up the East Coast, contributed to the chaos, causing delays at Northeast airports including New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark International Airport in New Jersey. Will delays continue this week? As of early Tuesday morning, FlightAware data showed significantly fewer delays and cancellations for today (499 and 26, respectively), but the number was rising rapidly and only time will tell what the future has in store. (We’ll update this post later today with the most recent numbers.) Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill remain deadlocked over key sticking points. Most crucially, Democrats want to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits that are set to expire this year. According to estimates from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), the loss of the credits would lead to significantly higher healthcare premiums for millions of Americans. View the full article

FSB launches fresh criminal case against former Yukos oil magnate and 22 other dissidents in exileView the full article

The $4.6 trillion-asset company's report comes after it committed to funneling $1.5 trillion into industries it said were important to national security. View the full article

Attack on Gazans inspecting homes comes days after fragile ceasefire goes into effect View the full article

The President’s latest piece of brinkmanship is likely to result in another climbdownView the full article

Companies that endure beyond 15 years understand that innovation is not optional—it’s essential to fend off constant disruption, stay ahead of competitors, and sustain growth. The opportunities are endless, from modernizing entrenched processes to strengthening business continuity. Axon For helping law enforcement coordinate manhunts The proliferation of public cameras, vehicle sensors, and other data sources can greatly aid law enforcement in locating suspects, but only if the information is efficiently collected and analyzed. Axon Fusus provides a unified interface that integrates video feeds, alerts, analytics, and vehicle data from Axon devices, community cameras, and partner technologies. The result is not just more effective pursuit but what one police captain describes as “precision policing,” where fewer innocent people are questioned. Fusion Risk Management For turning static continuity plans into actionable simulations Businesses often focus on refining operations when conditions are favorable but approach contingency planning with less urgency. Fusion Risk Management‘s BC Plan inFusion addresses this gap by eliminating the fragmentation and incompatibilities of traditional continuity plans using automated scenario testing, predictive modeling, and cross-functional coordination. Early adopters have cut manual plan-management time by more than 70%, while organizations that have faced crises report marked improvements in plan accuracy. Milwaukee Tool For helping pipe fitters find a new groove For decades, professionals needing to groove pipes faced a trade-off: portable tools that were difficult to operate or large machines that were cumbersome to deploy. Milwaukee Tool’s cordless M18 Fuel Roll Groover changes that equation, using built-in intelligence for quick setup and eliminating manual ratcheting and cranking. After an operator enters pipe specifications, the tool calculates the ideal force, speed, and indexing, adjusting automatically to the material. One foreman estimated it saved his crew 40 to 50 hours on a project—much of it otherwise spent on exhausting manual labor. TraceLink For making the medical supply chain safer The circulation of counterfeit or unsafe medications poses a serious public health risk. TraceLink’s Opus is a supply chain management platform designed to bring order to a highly fragmented system spanning multiple transaction types and thousands of partners. Built for operations professionals without coding expertise, it helps ensure the safe and timely delivery of prescriptions. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

The coming years offer an opportunity to transform education. AI can provide precise insights about student needs and deliver lessons in a way that resonates with students’ interests and learning style. However, the technology also raises questions about academic integrity and the future nature of learning and teaching, questions that emerging tools are taking thoughtful approaches to addressing. Amira Learning For accelerating literacy with AI and neuroscience The Amira Reading Suite is designed to capture virtually every aspect of a student’s reading performance, using AI and neuroscience to prioritize instruction needs. Thanks to a partnership with Anthropic, the platform now provides instruction via voice-based conversations. Working in collaboration with educators, the company says its tool has been shown to accelerate reading growth by up to 70% faster than traditional methods, which translates into an average of seven additional weeks of reading growth in a single school year. eSelf For personalizing AI tutor avatars Many students who could benefit from a tutor don’t have that opportunity because of cost or location. eSelf is developing lifelike avatars that help students understand academic material, practice independently, and prepare for exams in more than 30 languages, with culturally relevant touches such as posing a question about baseball to a student in the U.S. versus one about soccer to a student in Brazil. In March 2025, the company teamed with Harvard and Israel’s largest textbook publisher to deploy its tutors to every school in Israel. Grammarly For tackling AI cheating at the source Long before ChatGPT started composing essays, Grammarly was helping millions of users polish their prose. Now the company is focusing on helping students prove that their work is authentic. Taking advantage of the 500,000 apps and websites on which it’s used, its opt-in Authorship tool can identify which content has been generated by AI, modified by AI, pasted from another source, or edited by Grammarly or a native spell-checker. Launched in October 2024, the tool was used to generate more than 4 million reports in its first eight months. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

If there’s one thing businesses have in abundance, it’s data—in some cases, far more of it than they know what to do with. AI can turn daunting mountains of information into knowledge that’s accessible to staffers across the organization, regardless of their technical chops. These honorees are helping their customers unlock better understanding of data to do everything from supercharging sales teams to choosing the right music to license. Baseten For giving companies big and small a head start on inference Anyone building an AI application has access to powerful open-weight LLMs such as DeepSeek-R1. But the fact that the models are freely available doesn’t mean they’re easy to adopt. Running on thousands of GPUs spread across more than 10 cloud providers, Baseten’s Inference Stack lets startups build apps based on open AI without having to assemble and manage their own infrastructure, freeing them from the need to sweat details like uptime and capacity. Startups such as Descript, Abridge, and Gamma build on Baseten’s platform; its customer base has grown 5.5x in the past year, with larger companies representing a growing percentage of the mix. Gong For capturing the nuance of customer interactions No information is more valuable to companies than the data reflected in customer meetings, calls, emails, and other interactions. Gong’s revenue AI is engineered to outperform general-purpose LLMs at extracting actionable insights from such data. The company’s new AI Agents then use it to help revenue teams make strategic decisions relating to existing and prospective customers. In May, Gong announced a partnership with Microsoft that allows users to build custom autonomous agents for use in apps such as Teams, Outlook, and Dynamics 365 Sales. Incorta For letting companies talk to their data Incorta’s Nexus is a generative AI platform designed to help people throughout companies get more out of live operational data stored in systems such as Oracle, SAP, and Workday. Its copilot-assisted experience allows employees to retrieve information by posing natural language questions, reducing their reliance on IT and data engineering teams. The list of big customers Incorta has signed up—including Broadcom, Genworth, Shutterfly, and Skechers—conveys Nexus’s broad applicability. Known For building an AI operating system for marketers Marketing agency Known’s Skeptic applies AI to an array of challenges faced by its clients. It can perform automated bidding on their behalf, track media spend efficiency, and score assets for brand compliance. A tool called “The Big Lebotski” helps marketers pinpoint Reddit conversations they might want to join. In the past 12 months, Known says, Skeptic has led its clients to more than $500 million in growth opportunities and savings. Songtradr For turning music into actionable data Songtradr has used AI to generate more than 18,000 data points about each of the more than 200 million audio tracks it’s analyzed. That wealth of information powers multiple tools for its customers, including music licensing recommendations, MusicIQ scores that help brands connect with audiences, and enhanced search for global music platforms. More than 400 audio dimensions are covered by the company’s analysis, including energy, genre, instrumentation, and mood. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

The next frontier of consumer tech isn’t just about adding more screens to your life or boosting your devices’ processing power. Instead, it’s empowering users to accomplish more, from powerful new maker tools to more efficient skincare solutions. On the home front, assistive robots are suddenly in reach, and AI cameras are learning to provide better pet care instead of just surveilling humans. Of course, there’s cool screen-related stuff too, including wildly thin foldable phones and increasingly immersive AR glasses. Anker For 3D printing onto pretty much anything Printing 3D textures onto materials such as wood and metal usually requires industrial-grade tools, but Anker has plans to bring this technology home. Its $1,699 EufyMake E1 is about the size of a desktop computer and uses an ultraviolet lamp to cure a special kind of ink. Hobbyists can use it to print custom patterns and textures onto phone cases, glass bottles, ceramic plates, and more. Anker says it’s close to shipping the first units to early backers on Kickstarter, where the idea raised nearly $47 million. Honor For putting slimmer batteries in new places Honor continues to prove that its foray into new battery chemistry isn’t a fluke. With its Magic V5 foldable phone, Honor has pushed battery capacity to 6,150 mAh—versus 4,400 mAh on Samsung’s rival Galaxy Z Fold 7—while still offering the slimmest foldable on the market. New efficiencies in its silicon carbon anode battery chemistry allow it to incorporate a record 25% silicon content, for an even denser battery. Honor has also brought the same type of battery to its MagicPad 3 tablet, hinting at a future in which all of our gadgets last longer on a charge. L’Oréal For taking skincare analysis below the surface level To help folks find the right skincare products without months of tedious trial and error, L’Oréal believes it needs to get under the skin. With its Cell BioPrint assessment device, the company can analyze skin cell samples to determine their biological age and look for underlying issues such as chronic inflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction. Machine learning algorithms then generate personalized recommendations within minutes, based on how the skin might react to different ingredients. L’Oréal says it’s the culmination of more than a decade of research into the biomarkers that indicate potential skin problems. It plans to launch the tech in Asia later this year. Petlibro For building a pet cam with purpose For pet owners who want to keep track of their furry friends throughout the workday, Petlibro aspires to do more than just capture video. Its Scout camera uses on-device image processing to recognize individual pets from multiple angles, then uses cloud processing to understand when they’re playing, eating, drinking, or using a litter box. Eventually, Petlibro hopes to flag signs of potential stress or illness so that owners can take action earlier. As a way to stay informed about pet behavior, it beats setting up a general-purpose webcam that surveils your entire family in the process. Roborock For giving a hand to robot vacuums New versions of robot vacuums tend to be pretty boring, with incremental upgrades to cleaning power or room mapping. Roborock‘s Saros Z70 includes something truly new, with a five-axis robotic arm that can pick up small objects and carry them to predefined spaces. While the arm’s only purpose right now is to move things out of the way while cleaning, it could also clear a path to more ambitious home robots that tackle a wider range of tasks. Xreal For busting the AR glasses field wide open Peering through augmented-reality glasses can feel a bit claustrophobic, with narrow fields of view that squeeze whatever projected screen is in front of you. Xreal’s One Pro glasses represent a big step forward, with a 57-degree field of view that stretches the picture to your peripheral vision. For now, Xreal’s glasses mainly act as portable monitors that can plug into gaming systems, phones, and laptops, but a true foray into augmented reality is coming. The company is partnering with Google on a separate set of lightweight glasses for Gemini AI, codenamed Project Aura, with motion sensors for gesture control and cameras to interact with the outside world. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

The companies that create the foundational technologies that enable other companies’ progress are embracing AI, of course. But that’s only part of the story. These honorees made big progress in 2025 on quantum computing, battery science, and other fronts. AIStorm For giving sensors the power of neural networks AIStorm’s technology pushes AI to the edge of computing experiences by allowing sensors to run neural networks—a feat with applications everywhere from consumer electronics to factory-floor robotics. The company has a deal with Audioscenic to put latency-free, position-adaptive 3D sound in laptops, monitors, and soundbars starting in 2026. Aledia For charting a bright future for AR glasses For AR glasses to have a shot at catching on, they need display technology that’s compact, power-efficient, and capable of rendering bright imagery. Aledia’s 3D nanowire microLEDs emit red, green, and blue light from a single chip—a key to achieving those goals. To ensure scalable quality control, the company has invested $200 million in its own manufacturing line in Grenoble, France. Classiq For helping experts harness quantum computing’s advances As quantum computing’s potential to blaze through algorithms that classical computers can’t tackle at all edges toward reality, it’s time to think about implementing specific applications in a range of domains. Domain experts at companies such as BMW, Rolls-Royce, and Deloitte use Classiq’s Qmod functional modeling language to design programs. Deep knowledge of quantum computing is not required. And the results run on cloud platforms from Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft. D-Wave For showing what quantum computing can do right now The future of quantum computers is all about getting the technology out of the lab and into the real world. Available both as a cloud service and in an on-premises form, D-Wave’s sixth-generation Advantage2 computer packs more than 4,400 qubits, the building blocks of quantum computing’s unprecedented capabilities. Customers such as defense contractor Davidson Technologies are already using the Advantage2, whose “annealing” technology sets it apart from the more common gate-based designs used by other quantum computer manufacturers. In March, D-Wave reported that the Advantage2 performed a calculation job that would have taken the U.S. Department of Energy’s Frontier supercomputer almost a million years to complete. Enovix For building a battery for the AI era Thanks in part to AI, devices such as smartphones, headsets, and smart glasses are rapidly evolving. But most are still dependent on lithium-ion batteries, a technology that long ago plateaued—and, under certain circumstance, can be dangerous. Enovix’s fully active silicon anode batteries house strips of silicon in a steel container, overcoming the risk of swelling and damage that’s inherent to lithium-ion battery design. The company, whose next-generation EX-2M battery offers 22% more energy density than lithium-ion, says it has agreements with large manufacturers of smartphones, mixed-reality headsets, and IoT products to adopt its batteries in upcoming devices. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

A smooth retail experience depends on efficient shipping and hassle-free purchases, two elements that can create significant cost implications for retailers. These honorees in the commerce category are developing infrastructure that can make more efficient use of freight trucks, streamline theft detection, and ease the checkout process in warehouse club environments. Flock Freight For reducing inefficiency in truckloads When it comes to freight trucks, wasted space is wasted money. Flock Freight estimates that the equivalent of one in three trucks runs empty because of inefficient deck-space utilization. The Certified B Corporation has built on its patented Shared Truckload technology, a kind of demand-side “carpooling for boxes,” with STL AddOns, which allow suppliers to dynamically add their compatible shipments even after a truck is en route, reducing costs for shippers and carriers while cutting emissions. One trucking customer says STL AddOns helped it achieve an 88% increase in earnings. Sam’s Club For automating the receipt-checking process The popularity of warehouse clubs often leads to long lines as staffers ensure that customers’ items appear on the receipt. To speed things along, Walmart’s Sam’s Club has leveraged an array of cameras that point down at shoppers’ carts and use a proprietary computer vision algorithm that identities items using shape, size, color, and branding markers. The results are matched against a customer’s digital receipt within 400 milliseconds, eliminating the historic wait time when departing the store. Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions For reducing retail “shrink” without hassling shoppers Retailers lose $100 billion to shoplifting, fraud, and just plain checkout error. The Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions ELERA Security Suite uses edge AI to help guard against this “shrink” at self-checkout lanes, produce scales, and grocery carts without bogging down the shopping process. The system also uses AI to help customers more easily ring up their own orders—by, for example, detecting the kind of unpackaged produce being checked out. In Toshiba’s 2024 fiscal year, ELERA processed more than 25 million transactions. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

Construction and real estate are in a challenging moment, with prices beyond reach for many buyers and little sign of near-term relief. Still, several recent breakthroughs could bring the goal of homeownership closer for more Americans, while other innovations focus on providing shelter for those who might otherwise go without. Beewise For a buzzy way to help resurrect the bee population Honeybee colonies in the United States could decline by as much as 70% in 2025, according to researchers at Washington State University. Beewise aims to counter that trend with the BeeHome, an autonomous hive that manages routine tasks and helps commercial beekeepers reduce colony losses. The system also considers human interaction, limiting nuisance when hives are placed near populated areas. Through Beewise’s app, beekeepers can monitor colonies with high-resolution cameras, track health metrics, and rely on AI and robotics to address problems in real time. Cuby Technologies For offering a possible solution for the housing crisis By blending automation and modular manufacturing, Cuby can set up a housing factory in under two months and then produce 200 code-compliant homes every 30 days. Those domiciles are delivered at a 40% cost savings and with 80% less waste—and come with aerospace-level tolerances, making them a lot more durable than prefabricated homes. It’s more than theoretical: Cuby is already building homes in Eastern Europe and has deployed a facility outside of Las Vegas that will create 1,890 homes in the next 11 years. iGuide For making it easier for online home shoppers to narrow their list Online listings have become a crucial part of the home-buying process, with shoppers looking for ways to evaluate properties efficiently. iGuide gives real estate professionals tools to create virtual tours and detailed floor plans, and the company says the technology can shorten sales timelines by up to 39%. The system relies on a 360-degree lidar-equipped camera from Planix that lets agents capture a property in full during a single visit. Multiply Mortgage For making houses a little bit less expensive for buyers With mortgage rates at 10-year highs and housing prices increasingly out of reach for first-time buyers, Multiply Mortgage offers a tool that can reduce loan interest rates by nearly a full percentage point. The platform uses AI to automate tasks such as document review, underwriting, and compliance checks, passing along savings that can lower rates by up to 0.75%. Borrowers are also paired with mortgage advisers for guidance throughout the process. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

Even as digital and physical threats reach record levels, advances in security and privacy are giving us stronger defenses than ever before. New tools can now scan the wireless spectrum to flag hidden risks, protect faces and voices from AI misuse, map out who has access to sensitive data in real time, and guard large language models against prompt injection and data leaks. Together, these innovations are reshaping how we safeguard both our information and our personal safety. Bastille Networks For keeping tabs on airborne threats Wireless signals are more crowded than ever, from Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to 5G and beyond—and the data they carry is as valuable as anything sent over fiber. That makes them an appealing target for attackers. Bastille’s platform uses software-defined radio and AI to map the wireless environment in real time, detect threats, and trigger instant alerts while integrating with major security platforms such as XDR, CAASM, SIEM, SOAR, and Zero Trust systems. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the company holds 34 patents, with more pending, and has tripled its annual recurring revenue in the past year. Its customers include Fortune 500 firms, government agencies, and military units, with deployments already protecting 5 million square feet of intelligence community facilities. In its most recent Series C round, Goldman Sachs joined Bessemer Venture Partners to invest $44 million. Loti AI For helping people control their name, image, and likeness in the AI era How do you keep control over your face in the age of AI? Loti AI does it at scale with a massive network of tens of thousands of servers that collectively scan everything uploaded to the internet each day. The three-year-old Seattle-based company’s system combines large-scale web crawling; multimodal detection across voice, image, and video; and an automated rights-enforcement layer tailored to the entertainment and media industry. Loti AI reports a 95% takedown success rate within 17 hours. With regulatory momentum from the proposed No Fakes Act, $16 million in new funding from Khosla Ventures, and partnerships across media and security, the company has also launched a free app for individuals. Pangea For keeping LLMs safe and secure As companies adopt LLMs and AI-driven applications, protecting the data flowing through them has become a critical concern. Pangea’s AI Guard acts as a proxy that developers can access via API, sitting between applications and the LLM or agent to defend against advanced prompt injection attacks such as token smuggling and multilingual exploits. Its suite of tools—including sensors and a Chrome extension—lets administrators monitor for sensitive-data leakage while applying native access controls for agentic and RAG systems. To keep latency low, Pangea uses smaller LLMs to flag malicious or inappropriate content and prevent confidential data from entering models. The four-year-old startup, which pivoted from cloud security after the rise of ChatGPT, was acquired by security giant CrowdStrike in September 2025. Veza For monitoring access and privileges in real time As apps, databases, and agents proliferate, companies are hard-pressed to know who has access to what, what they can do with that access, and whether they should even have it. While traditional identity governance tools rely on static roles and manual processes, Veza’s “identity security platform” looks at authorization metadata in real time—the data that governs what users and machines can actually do across apps, infrastructure, and data systems, from AWS and Salesforce to Active Directory and Snowflake—to build a dynamic graph of permissions across human and nonhuman identities. That hands admins more fine-grained visibility and control through risk detection, least privilege analysis, just-in-time access, and real-time access reviews. Founded five years ago in Los Gatos, California, Veza more than doubled sales last year and raised $108 million this spring in a round backed by Atlassian, Snowflake, and Workday, valuing the company at $800 million. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

These companies aren’t big—but they’re bringing new ideas to some thorny challenges. Kids have been crafting with cardboard for decades, but Chompshop has found a way to make it safer and more fun. Online clothes shopping has long been a bit hit or miss, but Veesual’s found a way to maximize the number of hits. And GoodMaps and Overture Maps have tackled longstanding navigation problems. Chompshop For making kids’ cardboard crafts safer and more fun Cheap, abundant cardboard is great for kids’ art and science projects, but it’s often hard to trim with scissors. Chompshop has developed a kid-safe power tool specifically designed for this versatile material. While it’s called a ChompSaw and looks like a table saw, it’s based on a protected hole-punch mechanism that keeps children’s hands safe. After a successful Kickstarter campaign and Shark Tank appearance, the company has sold more than 17,000 ChompSaws since its October 2024 launch. GoodMaps For helping people navigate indoors as easily as on the road Navigating indoor spaces like airports and museums can be complicated, especially as GPS-style assistance is typically not available. GoodMaps developed an AI-powered system letting venue operators scan and map facilities using just an iPhone. A GoodMaps Studio application lets operators customize maps and guidance. The platform has been embraced by airports from London Heathrow to Dallas Fort Worth International, as well as institutions such as Ohio’s Armstrong Air & Space Museum. Overture Maps For setting the standard for unifying messy map data A collaborative open-data initiative founded by Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and TomTom and embraced by other big names such as Esri, Tripadvisor, and Uber, Overture Maps built an identification system for more than 3 billion global locations that’s as unique as the human fingerprint. Its Global Entity Reference System makes it clear that “Tom’s Diner” is (or isn’t) the same location as “Tom’s Restaurant,” whichever app or dataset you’re working with. GERS can also benefit governments tracking data like car accidents and serve autonomous cars needing clear navigational information. Veesual For letting online shoppers get an accurate view before they buy clothes Online clothes shopping is notoriously hit-or-miss. While some companies have developed virtual AI models, they can distort the look of garments and the body itself. Veesual created an alternative, physics-informed approach, displaying clothes as they’d actually appear on a range of models and letting customers see how they’ll look on someone like them. The startup has worked with brands such as Eileen Fisher, Lululemon, and Adore Me, and it raised a $7.5 million seed round in 2024. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article