What's on Your Mind?

The rise of artificial intelligence in recent years, along with the surge in AI-generated online content, has given more credibility to a decades-old conspiracy theory known as the Dead Internet Theory. It holds that most of the content we encounter online isn’t actually produced by living humans but by lifeless bots. AI is increasingly turning the once-fringe theory into a reality, but even today, at least one of the participants—the living, breathing observer browsing the web on the other side of the screen—is still usually a real, sentient being. Yet this may not be true for much longer. Thanks to AI systems’ increasing reliance on a technology known as headl…

San Francisco Bay Area residents woke up to some bad news for their Friday commute. Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, the region’s main commuter rail system, which connects San Francisco’s peninsula with the East and South Bay, systematically shut down due to a “computer networking problem” affecting train control. The agency announced it was closing all 50 stations at 4:24 a.m. on Friday morning, the East Bay Times reported. As of this writing on Friday morning, BART said that train service had resumed, although passengers should expect “major delays.” “Technicians are on site trying to get to the bottom of the situation, but right now, that is the infor…

House fires burn hotter and spread faster than ever before, leaving families with as little as two minutes to safely escape their homes. Despite that short window to reach safety, families are startlingly unprepared: Only 26% of American families have developed and practiced a home fire escape plan. The disconnect between the urgency of fire safety and actual household preparation points to a fundamental challenge in home safety education. Traditional approaches (pamphlets, static demonstrations, and classroom presentations) often fail to create the lasting behavioral change needed when seconds matter most. At Kidde, our ultimate goal is to help keep everyone safe…

The launch of a digital art department at upscale auction house Christie’s was precisely as well-publicized as its eventual shuttering was devoid of fanfare. On March 11, 2021, Christie’s made history as the first major auction house to sell art in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT). Digital artist Beeple managed to offload his massive mosaic, Everydays: The First 5000 Days, for a whopping $69 million, generating hundreds of astonished headlines and getting those three letters, NFT, in front of untold scads of early-adopter eyeballs. It was the sale heard ’round the world, a starter pistol kicking off the NFT gold rush. Cut to last month, when Christie’s quiet…

Humans have long been transfixed by the moon, awed and inspired by its reassuring presence in the night sky and its influence on the tides. In recent decades, though, our fascination with our nearest celestial neighbor has become somewhat more opportunistic: The moon contains valuable resources, and governments and companies are eager to get their hands on them. One such resource is helium-3 (He-3), a gas that some experts say could unlock clean and abundant energy on Earth as a fuel for fusion. It’s this gas that Interlune, a Seattle-based startup, has its sights on. The company wants to be the first to commercialize space resources, starting with He-3, which it pla…

Back in the 1930s, Robert W. Woodruff, president of the Coca-Cola Co., would carry a red swatch in his wallet. Of course, it wasn’t just any red. It was Coca-Cola red. And so anywhere he went and encountered his brand—painted on a wall, wrapping a refrigerator—he would pull out the little swatch to check that it matched. Woodruff understood the importance of Coca-Cola’s brand equity as it expanded globally—a challenge that has only grown since, now that Coca-Cola sells 2.2 billion servings a day across 200 countries, 150 languages, and 30 million points of sale. But where Woodruff used a swatch, Coca-Cola’s design team has spent the past four years dreaming up a modern op…

Let’s be honest: email kinda sucks. It’s not just the writing: it’s also the reading, the sorting, the figuring out what the third reply in a 15-message chain is supposed to mean. The good news is that artificial intelligence is now genuinely helpful when it comes to the soul-crushing drudgery of email. Free up the hours you spend every week typing, reading, and agonizing with these practical, AI-infused ways to tame your email. Instant thread summaries We’ve all been copied on the 27-reply thread with the subject line, “RE: FW: Re: Quick question.” Reading it is an act of sheer madness. Don’t. Use an AI assistant built into your email client—such as Gemini…

In honor of its 25th anniversary, the Gates Foundation made a major announcement. On Thursday, chair Bill Gates said he would give away most of his fortune over the next two decades. “People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” Gates wrote in an announcement on GatesNotes. The statement continued, “There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people. That is why I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned.” Gates explained that he would give away practically all of his fortune over the …

The Real ID requirement goes into effect today (Wednesday May 7, 2025). The deadline has been 20 years in the making, and its implementation today could cause some headaches—or at least some confusion—for those trying to fly domestically. Here’s what you need to know about today’s Real ID deadline and what it means for you. What is Real ID? A Real ID is the name given to an updated form of driver’s licenses and state IDs that have enhanced security measures. The federal government sets these standards, even though Real IDs are issued by individual states. From May 7, a Real ID will be required in most circumstances to board a domestic flight in America, ent…

Over the past several years, the art of the rebrand has increasingly become a spectacle sport. From cultural institutions like the Philadelphia Art Museum, which reportedly fired its CEO over a poorly received rebrand this year, to the furniture brand La-Z-Boy, which was widely praised for its modern revamp, the internet’s attention economy has meant that almost no notable rebrand is safe from social media’s deluge of hot takes. In 2025, that was more true than ever. Brands that rolled out a new look this year were scrutinized for everything from their font and color choices to the potential ideological implications of their visual pivots. In September, after the desi…

At a time of skyrocketing costs in the U.S., looming tariffs, and fears of a recession, New Yorkers are finally getting some good news: Over 8 million people in the Empire state will receive a sort of stimulus check, or officially, an “inflation refund check” this year, according to Democratic governor Kathy Hochul. The refunds come as Americans continue to battle high inflation, driving up prices on everything from housing to groceries, stemming from the global COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. While inflation has steadily decreased from its 2022 high of 9.1%, prices have not re-adjusted to levels before the pandemic, according to Newsweek. Last week, Hochul s…

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, …