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The Grammy Awards will look a little bit different this week. Each year, the Recording Academy hosts a multitude of events to welcome the music industry during Grammy week and record labels do the same. However, many institutions have canceled their plans—Universal Music Group, Sony, Spotify, BMG, and Warner Music Group among them—and instead are allocating resources to help those affected by the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires. The Grammys will still take place on Sunday at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles but now will focus its attention on helping wildfire victims. How will Grammy week differ in 2025? Within days of fires ravaging the Pacific Palisad…

With its powerful camera, the French Navy surveillance plane scouring the Baltic Sea zoomed in on a cargo ship plowing the waters below—closer, closer, and closer still until the camera operator could make out details on the vessel’s front deck and smoke pouring from its chimney. The long-range Atlantique 2 aircraft on a new mission for NATO then shifted its high-tech gaze onto another target, and another after that until, after more than five hours on patrol, the plane’s array of sensors had scoped out the bulk of the Baltic—from Germany in the west to Estonia in the northeast, bordering Russia. The flight’s mere presence in the skies above the strategic sea last week,…

After years of pressure from the pandemic, the challenges of managing remote, hybrid, and RTO workplaces, and inconsistent organizational support, managers are on the brink of a crash. The coming manager collapse is kicking off a vicious cycle for organizations. As managers struggle, Gen Z sees the toll of the job and backs away, leaving fewer employees to rise into management roles. This puts more pressure on remaining managers. At the same time, several years of manager layoffs have left fewer people taking on these responsibilities. In 2023 alone, middle managers made up over a third of all layoffs. The remaining managers are under more pressure, with growing s…

Now this is a Lego set suitable for framing. Soon Lego will release an artful 2,615-piece set based on Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting in collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which has the original work in its permanent collection. There’s no oil paint required for this rendition, though: The Lego set has enough blocks to make 16 sunflowers with adjustable petals, plus a tile with Van Gogh’s signature and a removable frame. The set is currently available for preorder for $199.99 and will ship starting March 1. Lego’s Amsterdam store and the Van Gogh Museum will permanently display sets of their own beginning March 1 as well. [Photo: Lego…

Winning over Gen Z employees isn’t about flashy perks or trendy office spaces—it’s about leadership that actually walks the talk. This younger generation of employees has different values than their predecessors. It expects transparency, meaningful work, and a culture that values their contributions. If leaders want to earn their trust and loyalty, they need to rethink traditional management styles and embrace a more authentic, collaborative approach. From recognition and flexibility to open communication, here’s what nine leaders say it takes to lead Gen Z employees in a way that actually resonates. Provide regular recognition I’ve seen how regular recognition…

When disaster strikes, government emergency alert systems offer a simple promise: Residents will get information about nearby dangers and instructions to help them stay safe. As the deadly L.A. wildfires and other major emergencies have shown, alerts rely on a complicated chain of communication between first responders, government administrators, third-party companies, and the public. Sometimes, the chain breaks. After the wind-driven wildfires broke out in Southern California on January 7, evacuation orders for some neighborhoods—including the part of Altadena where the majority of deaths occurred—came long after houses were reported on fire. On Tuesday, Los Angeles C…

Imagine, just for a second, that Post Malone and Shane Gillis are your neighbors—not in a now-you’re-rich-and-live-among-pop-stars-and-comedy-elite way, just your average suburban cul-de-sac situation. This is what Bud Light has been asking of us in its recent Super Bowl ad teasers. In one, we see Post and Gillis through a doorbell cam. In another, Gillis is outlining the rules of actually drinking in a beer ad (no bueno). These were mere sips of what was to come. Today, Bud Light decided to jam a proverbial screwdriver into the side of the can and let the world shotgun its full big game ad ahead of time. Now we know what the tucked golf shirts and jorts hyp…

The future may be female, but in economic terms, the present is as well. The gender gap—which references how much more the average man in the United States earns compared to the average woman—has eroded in recent years, largely because women are earning more money, according to new data from the Bank of America Institute. In a report published this month, the data shows that women’s median discretionary spending increased 0.9% year-over-year during November, and that it’s been growing faster than men’s spending over the previous two-year period. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, female workers’ median annual income growth is growing faster than male workers,…

The branding and packaging for Target’s beloved Up&Up brand is now more colorful than ever. Over the course of three years, design agency Collins reimagined the wide-ranging private-label brand, which has more than 2,000 products spanning aluminum foil and copy paper to pet grooming products and a wrist blood pressure monitor. The Up&Up brand does nearly $3 billion in annual sales for Target. The retailer wanted to relaunch it with reformulated products, reduced plastic usage, and hundreds of new items, which began rolling out in stores last year and will continue through early 2025. [Image: Target]New private-label packaging elevates bargain shoppingThis comes at…

Paola Antonelli has a litmus test for worthy design. People often ask the Museum of Modern Art’s senior curator of architecture and design how she decides what to add to the museum’s collection, and she gives them simple instructions: “Close your eyes and think, If this object did not exist, would the world miss out?” she says. Of course, filling one of the world’s preeminent art museums is not quite that easy. Antontelli says you also have to consider an object’s form, function, and problem-solving utility—but her litmus test is something she returns to again and again. “It doesn’t mean that something has to be necessary,” Antonelli clarifies. Take, for example, the …

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has classified a recall of Frito-Lay potato chips at the highest level of risk. The newly announced classification means that under certain conditions, those who consume the chips are at risk of experiencing serious adverse health consequences or even death. Here’s what you need to know about the Frito-Lay potato chips recall. What’s happened? On December 16, 2024, Frito-Lay issued a voluntary limited recall on select packages of some of its Lay’s Classic Potato Chips. The recall was first published on the FDA’s website two days later. But this week, the FDA said in its enforcement database that it has classified the reca…

In the ’90s, Dyson transformed the way we clean our homes by launching the most powerful vacuum cleaner the world had ever seen—one that used a cyclone, rather than suction, to extract dust. Three decades later, Dyson has incorporated this same technology into almost every kind of vacuum you could imagine, from robots to heavy-duty mops. Today, Dyson adds a new vacuum to its portfolio: One focused specifically on cars. Priced at $280, it’s three or four times more expensive than similar handheld vacuums by brands like Shark or Bissell, but it’s one of the most affordable products within Dyson’s range. The vacuum comes with three tools designed specifically for cleanin…

Picture this: A teenager stares at their phone, paralyzed by headline after headline about the climate crisis, political dysfunction, and societal division. They want to act but feel overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the problem. This scene plays out millions of times daily, and it represents a critical challenge for brands: 80% of Gen Z globally report being personally affected by climate change, yet their engagement with sustainable solutions is declining. Looking to the future, many young people are asking, “What’s the point?” Instead of feeling empowered to act, young people are becoming paralyzed by anxiety, overwhelmed by complexity, disillusioned by a lack of l…

In an effort to monetize the social media platform, Elon Musk’s X announced Tuesday it would be partnering with Visa on a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payment services for its upcoming X Money Account. The product, which is likely to launch in the first quarter of this year, would enable users to move funds between their bank accounts and a digital wallet in real time, similar to Venmo or Zelle, with more deals on the horizon, CNBC reported. CEO Linda Yaccarino said on X it will launch later in 2025 and is just the “first of many big announcements about X Money this year.” Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, has struggled to make X profitable …

Adapted from Nonlinear: Navigating Design With Curiosity and Conviction (MIT Press, February 4, 2025). When I open my smartphone in the morning, every social media app is full of advertisements marketing something to me. I feel like I’m trapped in a circuitous loop from ads and information coming through my devices: “Buy this, buy that!” We’re all stuck in this loop. Can we fix it? John Maeda (vice president of engineering, computational design, and AI at Microsoft) once created a computational artwork of an infinity loop that he often uses in his keynotes. We talked about my interpretation of his visual during a video livestream together back in 2020. I like…

Maybe you’re managing a team while being a caregiver, or breaking sales records while working remotely as a single parent. Each challenge carves a mark on your journey to growth, purpose, and legacy, and earns a spot on your résumé. A résumé of challenges is not a list of defeats, but a record of victories: the battles you’ve fought, the lessons you’ve learned, and the resilience that will carry you forward. Having an awareness and understanding of your résumé of challenges helps you understand your own strengths and ability to rise. Being able to speak to your honest (nonfabricated or misrepresented) résumé of challenges before and/or during a job interview can…

Female streamers are being told to hire security after a spate of recent attacks. Popular Twitch stars Valkyrae, Cinna, and Emiru were out in public at the Santa Monica Pier on March 2 as part of their “sisathon” streaming marathon, when a man lunged toward them, saying, “I’ll kill you right now.” The streamers called for help from security as the man chased them before the stream turned off. He had tracked their location using the live broadcast and earlier had gotten down on one knee, proposed to the three streamers, and asked one for her phone number, which she refused. Issuing an update later that evening on X, Cinna posted, “Hey everyone we are safe. Unfort…

Growing up in rural Northern California and later serving in the military, stationed in Mississippi, I experienced firsthand the stark disparities in access to quality goods. Even finding fresh, local produce often meant bypassing the grocery store for a farm stand because the desired options simply weren’t stocked. In many communities I lived in and visited, the available choices were severely limited, creating a significant market gap that persists today. This isn’t just a social issue I observed; it’s a massive missed revenue opportunity for retailers who are overly focused on saturated urban markets while overlooking the immense potential waiting in rural and Middle A…

About 35,000 feet (10,670 meters) over the Mojave Desert, northwest of Los Angeles, Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 became the first privately funded airplane to break the sound barrier during a test flight on Tuesday. “She was real happy supersonic,” Boom Chief Test Pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg said after landing, in a video posted by Boom Supersonic. “That’s the best she’s ever flown, was supersonic.” After getting to altitude, Brandenburg opened up the test plane’s throttles, accelerating to Mach 1.1, or about 845 mph (1,360 kph) — faster than the speed at which sound travels. In 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first human to break the sound barrier when he pu…

Software increasingly makes the world go round. Without this critical digital infrastructure, the economy—and society at large—wouldn’t function. But as recent events like last year’s CrowdStrike outage have shown, enormous leaps in software power and complexity, including the integration of AI into the development process, ratchet up the potential for things to go sideways, fast. How can software teams better harness the supercharged new tools at their disposal? Here’s a look at five things that lie ahead. 1. As consumers lose patience with outages, developers make software more resilient For consumers, the CrowdStrike outage is just the tip of the iceberg…

OpenAI released its newest reasoning model, called o3-mini, on Friday. OpenAI says the model delivers more intelligence than OpenAI’s first small reasoning model, o1-mini, while maintaining o1-mini’s low price and speed. The company says o3-mini excels in science, math, and coding problems. Developers can access o3-mini through an API, and can select between three levels of reasoning intensity. The lowest setting, for example, might be best for less difficult problems where speed of response is a factor. ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Pro users can access OpenAI o3-mini starting today, OpenAI says, while enterprise users will get access in a week. The announcement comes…

Wilson’s Airless Gen1 basketball is back. The hollow, $2,500 3D-printed basketball that doesn’t need to be inflated was first showcased at the 2023 NBA All-Star Weekend. Now, Wilson is selling the ball via a new production run for the remaining few people who can afford to spend thousands of dollars on a basketball. The Airless Gen1 ball features a latticed pattern of hexagonal holes and doesn’t require an inflated bladder inside. By all accounts of professional and amateur players who have tried the airless wonder, its honeycomb architecture and plastic material makes it perform like a traditional basketball, matching its size, weight, and rebound characteristics. …

January was a long month, but we finally have some good news in 2025: Bookseller Barnes & Noble plans to open at least 60 new stores this year, topping last year’s record of 57 stores and marking a steady revival of its brick-and-mortar bookstores across the country. “[Barnes & Noble] is experiencing strong sales in its existing stores and has been opening many new stores after more than 15 years of declining store numbers,” the company told Fast Company. “In 2024, Barnes & Noble opened more new bookstores in a single year than it had in the whole decade from 2009 to 2019 . . . [The company] is enjoying a period of tremendous growth as the strategy to hand…

Recently, Chinese startup DeepSeek created state-of-the art AI models using far less computing power and capital than anyone thought possible. It then showed its work in published research papers and by allowing its models to explain the reasoning process that led to this answer or that. It also scored at or near the top in a range of benchmark tests, besting OpenAI models in several skill areas. The surprising work seems to have let some of the air out of the AI industry’s main assumption—that the best way to make models smarter is by giving them more computing power, so that the AI lab with the most Nvidia chips will have the best models and shortest route to artificial…

There was a time when artists representing two of America’s biggest homegrown musical genres wouldn’t get a look in at the Grammys. Hip-hop and house both have their origins in the 1970s and early 1980s—in fact, they recently celebrated a 50th and 40th birthday, respectively. But it was only in 1989 that an award category for “best rap performance” started recognizing hip-hop’s contribution to U.S. music, and house had to wait another decade, with the introduction of “best dance/electronic recording” in 1998. At this year’s awards, taking place on February 2, hip-hop and house artists will be among the most talked about. House duo Justice and Kendrick Lamar, a hip…