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As tech companies race to build more AI data centers, your electric bill is probably going up. And while some companies are prioritizing adding clean energy to accommodate their intensive demands, climate pollution is also climbing as utilities turn to gas or even coal to support our chatbot habits. But there might be another way for new data centers to get the enormous amount of energy they plan to use. A recent report from the nonprofit Rewiring America suggests that instead of building new power plants, hyperscalers—the Big Tech companies whose data centers provide the backbone to cloud computing—could help homeowners install new solar panels, batteries, and heat p…

There’s no clearer sign of anime’s cultural ascendance than the box office haul of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — Infinity Castle. The film, which hit U.S. theaters two weeks ago, has pulled in more than $555 million globally, including more than $104 million in North America, making it a bonafide hit for Sony Pictures, which distributed it outside of Japan through its anime streaming arm, Crunchyroll. The movie’s success reflects audiences’ growing interest in anime. A survey from market research firm Dentsu found that, 31% of people worldwide said they consumed anime at least weekly, with a full 50% of Gen Z reporting they watch it. That’s translated into a boom i…

Remember when former Try Guy Ned Fulmer was caught in a public cheating scandal that broke the internet? He’s back, this time with a new podcast called Rock Bottom with Ned Fulmer. Or as one commenter called it: “One of the most painful watches in YouTube history.” The podcast is meant to explore, “people’s lowest, most embarrassing, and challenging moments.” Fulmer’s first guest: his wife, Ariel. The first question many have asked is why would they do this? “Was this a humiliation ritual for him?” one TikTok user asked. According to Ariel, it was mostly for their children, aged 7 and 5, who they are currently coparenting, and as a way to move on and put the past…

The crash of a small plane in southwestern Brazil killed four people including Chinese landscape architect and urban planner Yu Kongjian, Brazilian authorities said Wednesday. The accident happened late Tuesday during a landing attempt at a large farm about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the municipality of Aquidauana in Mato Grosso do Sul state, firefighters said. Yu, who was known for promoting ecologically sound development, was traveling with two Brazilian documentary makers, Luiz Fernando Feres da Cunha Ferraz and Rubens Crispim Jr., who were making a film about the Pantanal wetlands. All three were killed along with pilot Marcelo Pereira de Barros, authorities sai…

If you think Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late night television this week spells the end of that whole saga, well, think again: A group of investors is demanding that Walt Disney share information about why he was suspended in the first place. Lawyers representing the American Federation of Teachers, Reporters Without Borders and other groups of Disney shareholders sent a letter to the entertainment giant on Wednesday requesting internal documents and communications related to the decision to remove Kimmel from the air. Kimmel was suspended by ABC “indefinitely” last week related to comments he made about the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The group of …

The Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday said it was extending an order limiting operations at Newark Liberty International Airport through October 24, 2026. The order, which limits the rate of arrivals and departures, follows comments from the New Jersey airport’s operator and airlines on extending flight limits to help address congestion at one of three main airports serving New York City. Newark is a major hub for United Airlines. —Jasper Ward, Reuters View the full article

Almost as soon as the first iPad was announced, a range of competitors sprung up in an attempt to become the “iPad killer.” Devices like the Motorola Xoom, BlackBerry PlayBook, and HP TouchPad all put another spin on the formula but couldn’t come close to the iPad’s blend of performance and App Store dominance. Android tablets are still around today, of course, but most manufacturers don’t push them too hard. They’re all fine at doing tablet things like watching videos, and they’re all worse than the iPad when it comes to the app ecosystem. In recent years I’ve used some great hardware from Xiaomi in particular that I still wouldn’t outright recommend over an iPad. …

It’s Sunday night. Before kids, this was the time to nurse a mimosa hangover and zone out to The Sopranos. Now? It’s a very different playbook. Sunday evenings feel less like a gentle exhale from the weekend and more like staging a Broadway play with a cast that hasn’t rehearsed and refuses to put on pants. You are simultaneously the chef, chauffeur, hairdresser, homework coach, and emotional support animal. For parents, the Sunday Scaries don’t whisper “your inbox is waiting.” They shout: Did you wash the soccer uniform? Are there enough snacks for afterschool? Is the social studies project due tomorrow or Wednesday? Ugh! Did I RSVP for that birthday pa…

For years, Mercedes-Benz has relied on touchscreens as the command center of its vehicles. Is it too hot? Tap the screen to set the AC temperature. Want to listen to the news? Tap. Defrost the rear window? Tap, tap, tap. While the automaker has retained some physical controls in its cars, its modern user experience is effectively built around the screen. But that’s about to change. Magnus Östberg, chief software officer for Mercedes-Benz, recently announced that the company would be centering future car design around physical controls instead of screens. “The data shows us physical buttons are better,” Östberg told Autocar at the Munich motor show. He says Mercede…

Becoming a chartered financial analyst (CFA)—a certification that requires thousands of hours of professional experience, as well as taking a very rigorous exam; Investopedia calls it “one of the most respected designations in finance”—is no easy feat. That is, until now. Two years ago, AI models could only pass the first two sections of the prestigious, three-part exam. The essay section, however, had it stumped. And yet, in a new study from New York University’s Stern School of Business and GoodFin, an AI-powered wealth management platform, advanced AI like Gemini 2.5 Pro and Claude Opus passed the exam with flying colors. What would’ve taken a human 1,000 hour…

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Fast Company’s Plugged In. Our new print issue features “How YouTube Ate TV,” an oral history of the video-sharing site’s impact on entertainment, culture, and business as told by dozens of eyewitnesses past and present. As we stitched sound bites together into a story, it became clear that our interviews had provided an embarrassment of riches. Indeed, we had too many great stories and insights to cram into one magazine article. So we expanded the online version of the article into five oral histories. Two are live on our site now, covering the company’s earliest days and acquisition by Google. Three more will roll out next week,…

This week, President Donald The President and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his secretary of health and human services, suggested a link between Tylenol use during pregnancy and autism. The claim, which has been widely debunked by experts and is not backed by medical science, became instant social media fodder. The President and Kennedy’s announcement included a graphic featuring the words “Autism Announcement,” splashed across a blue background. It quickly became repurposed as a meme by many in the Autism community. “How it feels telling the group chat I don’t want to eat at the restaurant they planned because I don’t like the texture of the food they serve,” one X us…

Don’t look now, but President The President just issued more sweeping tariffs. This latest round stands to affect two groups particularly hard: homeowners and furniture and home furnishing companies. That’s because the new round of The President’s tariffs will see up to 50% fees applied to kitchen cabinets and upholstered furniture imported into the United States. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Yesterday, the president of the United States took to his social media platform to announce another sweeping round of tariffs, including a 100% tariff on some pharmaceutical products and a 25% tariff on heavy trucks. But smack in the middle of those two high …

There’s no doubt we are witnessing a quiet shift in labor: artificial intelligence is no longer confined to experimental labs or consumer chatbots, it is now eroding the foundation of human labor in ways that are less visible, but potentially more consequential, than the headlines about “AI assistants” or “superintelligence.” Last week, Google abruptly terminated 200 AI contractors, many of them involved in annotation and evaluation work. Officially, the company described this as part of a ramp-down, but workers pointed mainly to low pay and job insecurity. What matters is that the roles being cut are precisely those that ensure human oversight of AI systems: the rat…

Every comedian on the path to stardom will inevitably have to do shows they aren’t proud of. It’s sort of a rite of passage: the dreaded corporate gig or—shudder—the mortifying improv class at a company off-site. Typically, though, those embarrassing shows tend not to be paid for and hosted by countries accused of staggering human rights violations, nor do the performers tend to already be superstars. Perhaps the fact that so many well-known and well-compensated comics signed on to Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Comedy Festival can be read as both an indictment of the era of multimillion-dollar stand-up specials and its logical conclusion. Spread across two weeks,…

Below, Joe Nucci shares five key insights from his new book, Psychobabble: Viral Mental Health Myths & the Truths to Set You Free. Joe Nucci is a licensed psychotherapist. As a content creator, he contextualizes mental health misinformation. His videos at @joenuccitherapy reached over 10 million people in the first six months of posting and his writing can be found in his newsletter, Psychobabble. What’s the big idea? Psychobabble replaces mental health misconceptions with liberating truths that can help readers avoid misinformation, navigate important debates in the mental health field, and better maneuver their own therapy journeys. The problem is not tha…

The ChompSaw is a power tool made for kids to cut, craft, and create with cardboard. Its unique design makes it perfectly safe for little hands to use and easily carve precise corners or elegant edges through old boxes. Developed by college friends Kausi Raman and Max Liechty, ChompSaw raised $1.2 million in less than a month on Kickstarter and has already sold more than 30,000 units online. The ChompSaw is a winner of Fast Company’s 2025 Innovation by Design Awards. View the full article

More than a month after the The President administration forced a nearly complete wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut to stop construction—costing the developers more than $2 million per day—the project just resumed work. On August 22, the government issued a stop-work order for the Revolution Wind project, which is designed to power 350,000 homes. It cited unspecified “national security concerns” despite years of review by federal agencies including the Department of Defense. Hundreds of workers were left idle. On September 22, a federal judge granted the developers a preliminary injunction to allow construction to continue. Judge Royce Lamberth, …

The new Adobe Premiere Mobile is now available for free in the Apple Store. It promises “pro-level” video editing for YouTube and TikTok pros—or anyone who needs cutting multiple tracks of video at 4K resolution together with motion graphics, subtitles generation, overlay captions, AI-generated stickers, and a never-ending list of technical features. That’s cool, but Adobe really had me on board when it showed off its AI sound generator, which can interpret your vocals to generate actual effects. Like you hum, “pa-pa! pa-pa! Paaaaa-para-pa-PA!” in your iPhone’s microphone, ask Premier to turn it into a fanfare, and it will remake your voice into a full orchestral 20th…

The stat that women receive less than 2% of VC funding is often cited—but that figure tells only part of the story. Angel investors, non-dilutive grants, and other funding methods are shifting the landscape for women and other underrepresented founders—especially at a time when DEI initiatives are in peril. This panel explores how investors are closing the funding gap and what you should know to get the capital you need. View the full article

Today, design drives effective business strategy, but design education hasn’t caught up. As companies scramble to digitally transform, adapt to the climate crisis, and navigate culture and trade wars, design’s role has expanded—moving to the center of how organizations shape products, services, and systems. With this elevated role comes a sobering reality: Many design leaders feel increasingly out of their depth. Promoted for creative excellence, they suddenly find themselves navigating boardrooms, budgets, business models, and organizational change without the proper preparation. As Fast Company puts it, a generation of design leaders are in the midst of a “big desig…

TikTok has been abuzz with the workplace trend “task-masking”—that is, making yourself look busy so that your boss thinks you’re hard at work. Cue behaviors like pounding hard on the keyboard, always keeping your status to “active,” or walking around the office with your laptop and looking like you have somewhere to be when you don’t. “It’s all show. It’s all performance,” one TikTok user posted. “They could be typing a thousand words a minute, but really be typing nothing,” posted another. Some argue that it’s backlash against return-to-office policies: “Many of these employees, especially Gen Z, feel like their presence doesn’t equal productivity,” a TikTok user sa…

The United States has agreed to allow South Korean workers on short-term visas or a visa waiver program to help build industrial sites in America, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. The announcement came weeks after South Korea flew home more than 300 of its nationals who had been detained in a massive immigration raid at a battery factory being built on Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant campus near Savannah, Georgia. The roundup, along with U.S. video footage showing Korean workers shackled at the hands, ankles and waist, fueled public outrage and a sense of betrayal in South Korea — a key U.S. ally that had pledged hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. investment…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Zillow is facing mounting legal battles—including a lawsuit Tuesday brought by the Federal Trade Commission alleging that Zillow paid rival Redfin $100 million to exit and stop competing in the online apartment rental listings market. The FTC claims the arrangement—framed publicly as a “partnership”—was in fact an unlawful anticompetitive agreement that eliminated Redfin as a meaningful competitor in the online rental space. According to the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the February 2025 deal requi…

Figma burst into the public eye in 2022 after Adobe was blocked from buying the design startup for $20 billion. This chapter set the stage for an even bigger milestone at Figma: a splashy IPO this summer at nearly double that valuation. Cofounder and CEO Dylan Field shares what distinguishes Figma from competitors, and why design is increasingly at the center of every industry in today’s software-driven economy. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business lead…