What's on Your Mind?

For actors, it’s the Golden Globes. Musicians, it’s the Grammys. Now, content creators have their own award to aspire to. Introducing Instagram Rings. As social media’s place in the entertainment ecosystem grows, the new award program from Instagram is meant to honor those creatives “who don’t just participate in culture – but shift it, break through whatever barrier holds them back to realize their ambitions,” according to a blog post about the launch. Judged by a panel of creatives spanning fashion and makeup to sports and entertainment, each nominated their own longlist of favorite creators and voted on which 25 of Instagram’s three billion users will be…

When you think of dangerous jobs, an office job that requires you to sit for hours probably doesn’t come to mind. And while many jobs are objectively riskier, a sedentary job can pose a serious risk to your health. The average office worker spends 70% of their workday sitting down, according to data by workplace supplies firm Banner. Yet, research shows that sitting for prolonged periods without any physical activity significantly increases the risk of ill effects such as high blood pressure, numerous musculoskeletal issues, and potentially heart disease. All in all, a desk job increases your risk of mortality by 16%, according to a study published by JAMA. Our ma…

Many people spend an incredible amount of time worrying about how to be more successful in life. But what if that’s the wrong question? What if the real struggle for lots of us isn’t how to be successful, but how to actually feel successful? That’s the issue lots of strivers truly face, according to ex-Googler turned neuroscientist and author Anne-Laure Le Cunff. In her book Tiny Experiments, she explores how to get off the treadmill of constantly chasing the next milestone, and instead find joy in the process of growth and uncertainty. “You’re probably doing better than you give yourself credit for,” she explained on LinkedIn recently, before offering 10 telltal…

As the end of 2025 approaches, a viral TikTok trend is helping people achieve their wellness goals: “The Great Lock In” encourages participants to finish the year strong by fully focusing on their life goals from Sept. 1 through Dec. 31. Many people focus on exercise or eating healthier. But the trend can also help you achieve your financial goals. There are no set rules for “The Great Lock In.” The phrase “lock in” is popular on social media and it means to focus intensely on a task. “Something I like about this particular trend is that it’s like New Year’s resolutions’ little sister,” said Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, financial therapist and founder of Mind Money Balance, a…

Organizations are scrambling to keep up with employees using AI tools like ChatGPT, text generators, and automation platforms to help them at work. The phenomenon is known as Bring Your Own AI. And while workers are hitting performance goals faster, they’re also exposing companies to unprecedented legal and security risks. View the full article

Microsoft just redesigned all of its Office icons to embrace the AI era, and, according to the company, that means ditching solid shapes for all things “fluid and vibrant.” The 12 new icons, which began rolling out on October 1, encompass all of Microsoft’s platforms from Outlook to Word Documents and Teams. This is the first time that Microsoft has updated the icons’ aesthetics in seven years, and the company’s designers have reworked every logo to be curvier, brighter, and more colorful. “Today, as we roll out refreshed icons for Microsoft 365 apps, small but significant design changes are a reflection and a signal,” a Microsoft blog post, published on October 1…

Clippy, the animated paper clip that annoyed Microsoft Office users nearly three decades ago, might have just been ahead of its time. Microsoft introduced a new artificial intelligence character called Mico (pronounced MEE’koh) on Thursday, a floating cartoon face shaped like a blob or flame that will embody the software giant’s Copilot virtual assistant and marks the latest attempt by tech companies to imbue their AI chatbots with more of a personality. Copilot’s cute new emoji-like exterior comes as AI developers face a crossroads in how they present their increasingly capable chatbots to consumers without causing harm or backlash. Some have opted for faceless s…

Gold has been having a very good year. That sentiment couldn’t have been clearer on Tuesday, October 7, as the precious metal hit a new milestone: $4,000 an ounce. As of early Wednesday, gold was up over 53% year to date. That’s significantly higher than the growth seen by major stock indexes over the same period The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 9.93% this year, the S&P 500 is up 14.42%, and the Nasdaq Composite is up 18.19% as of the market close on Tuesday. As a so-called safe-haven asset, gold has benefited from a few things this year, including a weakened dollar and an unpredictable economy. The latter has been especially true since the…

It’s official: AOL‘s dial-up internet has taken its last bow. AOL previously confirmed it would be pulling the plug on Tuesday (Sept. 30) — writing in a brief update on its support site last month that it “routinely evaluates” its offerings and had decided to discontinue dial-up, as well as associated software “optimized for older operating systems,” from its plans. Dial-up is now no longer advertised on AOL’s website. As of Wednesday, former company help pages like “connect to the internet with AOL Dialer” appeared unavailable — and nostalgic social media users took to the internet to say their final goodbyes. AOL, formerly America Online, introduced many hou…

For decades now, Google has been the unquestioned champion of search—our digital oracle, the first and last stop for every question, from “What’s the best pizza place near me?” to “How many protons are in a carbon atom?” But here’s the key difference now: while Google has started to incorporate AI with features like AI Overviews and the new AI Mode, a traditional keyword search is great for finding facts, but not so great at understanding context. It’s like asking a librarian for a book on “dogs” and expecting them to know you really want to know how to train a puppy. You might get a whole library, but you still have to find the right book yourself. That’s w…

Working with AI as a team isn’t about knowing the latest technology. It’s about changing your mindset to build skills AI can’t replace, focusing on outcomes, not optics, and leaving room for strategic tests. View the full article

Electronic Arts has announced plans to go private in what will be the largest leveraged buyout in history. The $55 billion purchase of the entertainment giant behind franchises that include Madden NFL and Battlefield is set to close in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) will be, by far, the majority investor in EA, one of the largest third-party publishers of video games. Silver Lake and Affinity Partners (whose CEO is Donald The President’s son-in-law Jared Kushner) will own minority interests. CEO Andrew Wilson will continue to head EA. The all-cash deal calls for a buyout of EA stock at a price of $210 per share. …

It is a sad fact of online life that users search for information about suicide. In the earliest days of the internet, bulletin boards featured suicide discussion groups. To this day, Google hosts archives of these groups, as do other services. Google and others can host and display this content under the protective cloak of U.S. immunity from liability for the dangerous advice third parties might give about suicide. That’s because the speech is the third party’s, not Google’s. But what if ChatGPT, informed by the very same online suicide materials, gives you suicide advice in a chatbot conversation? I’m a technology law scholar and a former lawyer and engineering…

Chick-fil-A says it’s testing out a stand-alone drinks-focused restaurant concept. Called Daybright, the new concept will open this fall outside Atlanta, Chick-fil-A tells Fast Company. It’s being brought to life by Red Wagon Ventures, a Chick-fil-A subsidiary and business incubator named after founder Truett Cathy’s first business selling Coca-Cola out of a red wagon when he was 6 years old. “We look forward to sharing more details in the future,” Chick-fil-A says about the concept. Though there’s not yet a public menu for Daybright, it’s expected to serve coffee, smoothies, and cold-pressed juice alongside a limited selection of food. But sorry, peach milksh…

The return-to-office debate sees no end in sight. Workers still want flexible work—and drag their feet complying with RTO, it was reported this week. Some workers have suspected such policies have been a way of companies saying: “Don’t like it? Quit.” Turns out, maybe they are. A recent Fortune article, citing a 2024 survey of more than 1,500 U.S. managers, found that a quarter of C-suite executives hoped for some voluntary turnover after introducing an RTO policy. One in five HR leaders went further, admitting their stricter office requirements were designed to push staff out. So when the article started making the rounds on Reddit last week, the general la…

For more than a century, a stretch of riverfront in Toronto was an industrial wasteland, with oil storage tanks, factories, and shipping infrastructure sitting on former wetlands. Now, part of the site is a sprawling new park, and next year, construction will begin on a new neighborhood inside it. “It’s incredibly transformed,” says Emily Mueller De Celis, a landscape architect at the firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, which won a competition to “renaturalize” the area in 2007. “Rather than walking around in and amongst oil refineries and other industry, now you are immersed in nature, walking along the banks of a river with spectacular views back to the cit…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Most of America’s largest homebuilders have publicly stated that the peak 2025 housing market saw softer-than-expected conditions, particularly in many parts of the Sun Belt. This softer housing market environment caused unsold inventory to tick up. Indeed, since the pandemic housing boom fizzled out, the number of unsold completed U.S. new single-family homes has been rising: August 2016 —> 61,000 August 2017 —> 63,000 August 2018 —> 69,000 August 2019 —> 79,000 August 2020 —> 52,000 August 2021 —> 34,000 Aug…

“Tron: Ares” powered up the box office grid in the top spot this weekend, but Disney’s third entry in the sci-fi franchise fell short of expectations. Despite some favorable reviews — including a three-out-of-four-star one from The Associated Press — the new “Tron” film starring Jared Leto, Greta Lee and Jeff Bridges earned $33.5 million, according to Comscore estimates on Sunday. The big-budget project, reported to cost around $150 million, arrived 15 years after “Tron: Legacy” opened to $44 million before grossing more than $400 million globally. The latest chapter follows a battle between two powerful technology firms, Emcom and Dillinger, who face off against the s…

Facebook parent Meta has reached nuclear power deals with three companies as it continues to look for electricity sources for its artificial intelligence data centers. Meta struck agreements with TerraPower, Oklo and Vistra for nuclear power for its Prometheus AI data center that is being built in New Albany, Ohio. Meta announced Prometheus, which will be a 1-gigawatt cluster spanning across multiple data center buildings, in July. It’s anticipated to come online this year. Financial terms of the deals with TerraPower, Oklo and Vistra were not disclosed. The Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta said in a statement on Friday that the three deals will support up to 6.6 gigawatts of …

The government shutdown is delaying another major economic report, leaving policymakers at the Federal Reserve with a cloudier picture even as the economy enters a challenging phase of stubbornly persistent inflation and a sharp slowdown in hiring. The Labor Department’s monthly inflation data was scheduled for release Wednesday, but late last week was postponed until Oct. 24. The department is recalling some employees to assemble the data, which was collected before the shutdown began. The figures are needed for the government to calculate the annual cost of living adjustment for tens of millions of recipients of benefit programs such as Social Security. The shutdown c…