What's on Your Mind?

Disney might tout its rides and character IP when it looks to lure people to its theme parks around the world, but once visitors get there, the draw is an escape from reality. Fans call it the “Disney Bubble”: The day-to-day world melts away and you’re immersed in an environment that is carefully crafted (and controlled) by Disney. The Disney Bubble is designed to let vacationers to take one step away from the real world for the length of their stay. Distractions are minimized. You don’t even need to pull out your wallet. Paying for things like a souvenir or a snack can be done with just the tap of your phone or Magic Band. The Bubble is why many guests prefer t…

When Todd Willing was 15, he entered a high school work experience program at Ford’s Australian Design Studio. His father owned a garage, and he’d always been around cars. “I had a loose understanding of what went into them because of that exposure, and I always had a creative bent I guess,” says Willing. “I would be drawing cars most of the time, to the frustration of my teachers.” The experience is still so vivid in Willing’s mind: the plane ride to Melbourne, the energy and feel of a space devoted to creativity, the culture and environment of a creative team. “That was it for me,” he says. “I wasn’t going to be doing anything else.” Now, 22 years later and still at Fo…

Few apps are as inextricably linked to the iPhone as Apple’s Messages. Introduced with the original iPhone almost 18 years ago, the app (then called “Text”) has become the primary messenger for most iPhone users worldwide. It allows users to receive Apple’s proprietary iMessages, as well as RCS messages and old-school SMS messages. In recent years, Apple has introduced several new features to the Messages app and its iMessage protocol. Most recently, in iOS 18, the company allowed users to stylize text by bolding or underlining words, incorporated animated effects that make words shake or appear to explode, and enabled users to react to a message with any emoji. But …

The benefits of taking time off from work are well-documented. In previous coverage, Fast Company has detailed how vacations stave off burnout, promote engagement, and may even help you be healthier. There are a number of ways to get more out of your vacation days, says time-off expert Jackie Swayze, founder of Maximizing My PTO, a website that helps people use a number of tips and tricks to plan unusual getaways. She says that one size does not fit all when it comes to paid time off. “There’s so much more creativity to be had than the standard, you know, take one week off in the summer,” she says. Here are some ways others have made their time off distinctly thei…

Bui Van Phong faced a choice when the Vietnam War ended 50 years ago: stay in his small village, helping his parents carry on the family’s centuries-old tradition of making fish sauce, or join the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing his country for a better life. Phong chose to stay behind and nurtured a business making the beloved condiment, known as nuoc mam in Vietnam, that is now in its fourth generation with his son, Bui Van Phu, 41, at the helm. Fish sauce from the village has been recognized by Vietnam as an indelible part of the country’s heritage and the younger Bui is acutely aware of what that means. “It isn’t just the quality of fish sauce. It is a…

Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, the United States finds itself in the midst of another public health crisis. This particular pandemic is a psychological one: widespread loneliness and isolation. About half of adults in the U.S. report feeling lonely—what former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has characterized as an epidemic. The increase in social isolation has extensive costs for “schools, workplaces, and civic organizations, where performance, productivity, and engagement are diminished,” he wrote in 2023. As a business school professor who studies intergenerational relationships, I believe that our workplaces hold untapped potential for alleviating …

(Reuters) – Elon Musk said on Friday that his xAI has acquired X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter, in an all-stock transaction for $45 billion, including $12 billion debt. “xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said in a post on X, adding that the combined company would be valued at $80 billion. Neither X nor xAI immediately responded to a request for comment. The billionaire’s AI startup, which was launched in 2023, recently raised $6 billion from investors in a funding round that valued the company at $40 billion, sources told Reuters earlier…

Betty White is making her mark on the nation’s snail mail. The beloved actor of “The Golden Girls” fame was celebrated with a new U.S. Postal Service stamp at a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Los Angeles Zoo on Thursday. Fans that were crowded behind barricades cheered as a blue curtain dropped to reveal the stamp featuring a portrait of White against a violet-colored background with lighter shades of bubbly spots in a nod to her sparkling personality. She wears a blue polka-dot blouse and peeking out of her blond curls is an earring shaped like a pawprint. “When I was working on the stamp surrounding myself with Betty White videos and pictures, I felt lik…

There’s a reason Haliey Welch seemingly vanished from the internet overnight: she’s the focus of an upcoming documentary exploring her meteoric rise—and dramatic fall—from viral fame. The 22-year-old influencer will be the subject of an upcoming documentary from Emmy-winning production company Bungalow Media + Entertainment, according to Deadline. “The documentary will chronicle how Welch, a young woman from a small-town with no active social media presence, unknowingly created a viral moment that gave way into a global phenomenon,” per a press release shared with the outlet. The documentary will focus on Welch’s “unexpected rise to fame, the scrutiny that followe…

Meta wants to revive Facebook’s old-school appeal by introducing a new Friends Tab, which will focus solely on posts shared by a user’s friends and family. This Friends Tab will replace the section in the app that previously displayed friend requests and suggested friends. Instead, users in the United States and Canada will now see a scrolling feed featuring photos, videos, friend requests, birthday reminders, and text posts. “Over the years, Facebook evolved to meet changing needs and created best-in-class experiences across Groups, Video, Marketplace and more, but the magic of friends has fallen away,” the company wrote in an unattributed blog post. “We’ll be ad…

If you’ve bought the antihistamine medication Benadryl from Amazon in the past few years, you’ll want to make sure to carefully check its packaging to make sure it is not part of the recall that was posted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) this month. That’s because a select Benadryl product sold on the e-commerce giant’s website has a fault that could lead to the risk of a child being poisoned. Here’s what you need to know. Benadryl Liquid Elixir sold on Amazon.com is being recalled On March 20, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission posted a recall notice on its website for Benadryl Liquid Elixir imported by Arsell Inc. of Brooklyn, N…