What's on Your Mind?

Walmart will be putting millions of sensors on its pallets across its supply chain chain, in a move that technology partner Wiliot is calling “the first large-scale deployment of ambient Internet of Things (IoT)” sensors in the retail industry. The technology is currently deployed in 500 Walmart locations, and the retail giant plans to expand nationwide in 2026. The ambient IoT sensors are battery-free and operate by harvesting energy from sources such as radio waves, light, motion, and heat, according to CNBC. The wide rollout will cover 4,600 Walmart Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets, and over 40 distribution centers, generating high-resolution supply chain…

A majority of Gen Z workers are turning to AI chatbots during the workday for personal reasons, including mental health support, with 40% saying they talk to AI for at least an hour every day, according to a new Resume.org survey. “Many Gen Zers entered hybrid or remote jobs where casual mentorship or watercooler chats never formed, so AI fills that relational void,” said Kara Dennison, Resume.org’s head of career advising. “It listens, it responds thoughtfully, and it never criticizes.” She added: “That creates a sense of psychological safety that’s often missing in corporate hierarchies. It’s about connection, control, and immediacy. They’re using AI the way ear…

What if, instead of working toward an exit strategy, we built companies for longevity? That’s the question at the heart of employee ownership. It’s not just a perk to lure talent. It’s a fundamentally different way of building a business, and one that might just be the key to long-term resilience. I’ve spent nearly my entire career inside a 100% employee-owned architecture, engineering, planning, and interiors design firm. Today as CEO, I lead its 1,800 employee-owners. I’ve seen firsthand how this model changes everything, from how team members treat clients to how the organization is able to weather change. But this isn’t a story about just one company. It’s abo…

Apple’s mission to remake Apple TV into a streaming hub for sports is on track, literally. Apple will buy exclusive broadcast rights to Formula One (F1) races in the U.S. for the next five years, the company announced Friday. Apple cited the success of F1: The Movie in its decision to partner more deeply with Formula One, as the international motorsport gains a foothold among U.S. viewers. The five-year deal aims to extend the appeal of an Apple TV subscription to a broader swath of viewers while converting existing Apple TV users into racing fans, if things go as planned. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but reports from CNBC and New York Times-owned The Ath…

I just got back from a week on the beach. The water was crystal clear, the sky blue, and my butt was in a lounge chair all day. I certainly enjoyed myself and caught up on a ton of sleep. But did I return to work today bursting with ideas and fresh energy? If I’m honest, not really. It feels more like I left my brain sunning itself on the seaside. Meanwhile, I need to dig myself out from under a mountain of work and complete my massive back-to-school to-do list. Where did I go wrong in my vacation planning? If I was looking to maximize floating time and the amount of tasty fish I ate, nowhere. But according to psychology, as much as I enjoyed my break, I al…

A new music startup created an instrument that can turn your microwave, electric toothbrush, and baby monitor into hauntingly beautiful music. Its branding converts all of those fascinating outputs into an infinite series of Victorian-inspired patterns. Eternal Research is a brand founded by musician Alexandra Fierra, and it’s dedicated to “unlocking the existing music hidden in everyday things,” per its website. The company’s debut product is called the Demon Box. This fully analog device uses an intricate array of sensors to detect the electro-magnetic fields (EMFs) of almost any electronic device around it, and then turns those EMFs into music. The brand hit its fu…

The Federal Reserve’s influence on the economy is immense, and often misunderstood. President of the San Francisco Fed Mary Daly gives an exclusive, firsthand look into the central bank’s daily decision-making, explaining how the Fed’s policies, at both the regional and national level, ripple through society. From housing prices to immigration’s impact on labor, Daly weighs the major factors shaping the U.S. economy. As political and market pressures mount, she reflects on what it means to lead with discipline and data, and what every business leader can learn from the Fed’s balancing act. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by t…

E-commerce continues to eat up ever-increasing share of the U.S. retail market: Americans bought more than $3.3 billion of items online every day in the second quarter of last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Online retail’s share of spending is increasing with every year that passes. Traditionally, that’s meant typing a term or phrase into a search bar and clicking through to a shopping basket. But the AI revolution is poised to swamp online retail, too, with agentic AI set to shop on behalf of customers. The e-commerce sector is rapidly preparing for what’s about to come—an influx of non-human customers acting on behalf of humans. “We avoid hype aroun…

AI is often sold as the ultimate productivity hack. Just imagine: the report you dreaded writing, drafted in seconds. The spreadsheet you didn’t want to touch, analyzed instantly. The code that once took you days, generated before lunch. For professionals who already struggle with overwhelm and the daily battle to manage their time, AI feels like salvation. At Lifehack Method, where we help clients master time management and build systems for living fulfilling, balanced lives, we see this every day. People are desperate for tools that promise to take the weight off their shoulders. AI seems like the next logical step in that search. There’s no denying the dopamine hit…

This drone is so small that it can sneak anywhere. Flying with the stability and agility of a normal quadcopter, its design is unlike anything you’ve seen before. The tiny aircraft, which could fly comfortably through a Pringles can, also has a built-in camera. Imagine the Death Star’s trench-run-like possibilities. “I wanted to build the world’s smallest FPV drone,” declares its creator in his how-to video. While there are other commercial drones that are almost as small, I couldn’t find a true first-person-view drone—a remote-controlled aircraft you can maneuver with VR glasses on—that could approach the diminutive size of this thingamajig. To create the dro…

The structural DNA of the newest statement lamp from Ikea is hidden inside its glowing, basket-like construction, but it will be familiar to almost anyone who’s ever assembled a piece of Ikea furniture. Named Ödleblad, the spherical lamp is made up of 60 snap-together pieces that were inspired by the shape of the Allen key wrench, the most essential tool in the Ikea pantheon. But in a twist, the Allen key that inspired the lamp’s design isn’t even needed to put it together. Instead, the Allen key shaped components are flat pieces of birch veneer that use precisely placed notches to slot together, forming pentagon-shaped rings that patch together like an oversize socce…

Love it or hate it, iOS 26 brought the most radical software redesign to the iPhone in over a decade. The company’s new design language, Liquid Glass, mimics how light in the real world warps and transforms when passing through physical glass. Many iPhone users find Liquid Glass refreshing, fun, and technically impressive. Detractors of the new design say Liquid Glass’s myriad transparent toolbars and other UI elements, which let the content behind them bleed through, make iOS 26 harder to navigate than its predecessors. Regardless of where you stand, Liquid Glass isn’t going away. Yet, if you fall into the latter camp and find the new design element distracting, …

Stocks are drifting near their record heights on Wall Street Wednesday, while the price of gold falls again to trim more off its tremendous gain for the year. The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% in early trading and is sitting just underneath its all-time high, which was set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 65 points, or 0.1%, coming off its own record. The Nasdaq composite was 0.3% lower, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time. Bank stocks were holding relatively steady after Capital One Financial, Western Alliance Bancorp and others reported stronger profits for the summer than analysts expected. The report from Western Alliance was particularly welcome af…

Electric-truck maker Rivian is laying off another 600 people, or about 4% of its workforce as the global demand for electric vehicles decreases, the Wall Street Journal reported. This follows a previous round of layoffs in 2024. Rivian is one of a number of technology and media companies that have seen layoffs in October, including: Meta, Paycom, Charter, NBC News and the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, October 2025 is no outlier. From technology companies to media conglomerates, the layoffs are part of a trend in both the U.S. and Europe as companies start to slash staff and downsize. Some are blaming artificial intelligence (AI), though critics say it’s …

You promised yourself this was the year you’d finally launch–and sustain–some sort of side project, be it picking up a few freelance clients, launching a blog, podcast, or YouTube channel, or setting up an e-commerce shop. One day in the hopefully not-too-distant future, your side hustle might even grow into a full-time business. View the full article

You may not realize you’re still clinging to the corporate world’s measures of success, but they can undermine your solo efforts. View the full article

NASA just handed Elon Musk a very public reality check—and virtually threw its own moon plans into the trashcan, although the U.S. space agency won’t be admitting that. SpaceX isn’t necessarily the shoo-in to land the first Americans on the moon since the Apollo 17 mission 52 years ago. Instead, NASA is opening the contract to other companies, like Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin. While this doesn’t mean that SpaceX won’t get it, it’s the agency’s way of slamming SpaceX for its delays and lack of focus on the lunar program. Reopening the marquee Artemis crewed landing contract to competition is an admission that the Starship won’t be ready on time. Americ…