What's on Your Mind?

When you describe it in words, the Indianapolis 500 might seem like a boring watch: Cars go round and round an oval track 200 times, totaling 500 miles over the course of a few hours. But if you were a driver, you’d be having a hell of a different experience. Think screaming speeds of 230 miles per hour, pulling 4 Gs on corners, with one’s reflexes and split-second decisions drawing a thin line between victory and tragedy . . . over the course of a few hours. It’s a level of intensity that TV networks have been trying to bring viewers into for years with in-car cameras and things like driver radio communiques. It has been working. Last year, NBC—which covered the spec…

The humanoid robotics revolution is just around the corner. Test models are already working in factories alongside human beings across the world, while AI companies develop new foundation models designed to help robots navigate their environments as easily as humans do. But computer “brains” are useless without the skeletons that give humanoid robots their form—and the many components that make up those skeletons need to come from somewhere. Alongside bearings, which reduce friction, motors, and gears, the average humanoid robot relies on dozens of screws—key components that convert the rotational motion produced by a motor into linear motion. Traditionally, ball …

Kathy Ruemmler, the top lawyer at storied investment bank Goldman Sachs and former White House counsel to President Barack Obama, announced her resignation Thursday, after emails between her and Jeffrey Epstein showed a close relationship where she described him as an “older brother” and downplayed his sex crimes. Ruemmler said in a statement that she would “step down as Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel of Goldman Sachs as of June 30, 2026.” Up until her resignation, Ruemmler repeatedly tried to distance herself from the emails and other correspondence and had been defiant that she would not resign from Goldman’s top legal post, which she had held since 2020. Wh…

There is no bad seat at Cercle Odyssey. In fact, there are no seats. Within the rectangular structure, screens project an art film inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, made especially for the concert. In the center of the space, world-famous electronic musicians—from Moby to Black Coffee—perform for a crowd of 5,000 fans. As the world’s first 360-degree immersive concert installation, it’s a FOMO-inducing Instagram story waiting to happen. Thing is, phones aren’t allowed inside (they’re secured in pouches at check-in). Instead, there’s no choice other than to be present. Cercle Odyssey is the latest project from Cercle, a French company known for producing livestream DJ sets …

Trying to get from point A to point B? If only it were that simple! With any manner of travel these days, you’ve got options: planes, trains, buses, ferries, and beyond. And finding the best path to embark on isn’t always easy. Even finding all the available options can sometimes be a pain. But it doesn’t have to be. For over a decade, I’ve been using a tool that demystifies how to get from one location to another. It’s a great way to see all the available travel options in a single spot—complete with estimated prices and travel times. Notably, there’s absolutely no AI at play here. AI travel tools may be interesting for brainstorming ideas, but this tool will…

Seeking a flatter management structure is a leadership trend you could compare to fashion’s craze for skinny jeans—trendy yesterday, forgotten tomorrow, then back in fashion again before you know it. Recently, big tech firms like Meta, Microsoft, and Google made headlines for cutting management positions to lower costs and increase productivity—turning some of their workloads over to AI tools. But a new survey from San Francisco-based workplace communications outfit Firstup shows that eliminating too many management jobs can have some unexpected effects on the way your teams work, sometimes damaging employee engagement, which undermines productivity. This is definitel…

Over 15 years of working with leaders, I’ve noticed a clear pattern: Burnout often stems from what I call the Superman leadership style. Many cultures hold tightly to this image of a leader as strong, confident, and capable of fixing anything. This ideal isn’t just a societal expectation—it’s one that leaders impose on themselves. But striving to be a “Superman” leader is a recipe for burnout, because it’s both unrealistic and unattainable. Burnout, as highlighted by the World Health Organization, is an occupational phenomenon. It’s marked by exhaustion, reduced professional effectiveness, and a sense of detachment from one’s work. And leaders that fit the Superma…

Porte Neue is the typeface of effortless sophistication, and that’s why the ‘Fast Company’ design team chose it for the latest issue View the full article

Porte Neue is the typeface of effortless sophistication, and that’s why the ‘Fast Company’ design team chose it for the latest issue View the full article

High-power magnets undergird an enormous amount of modern society. From high-end audio speakers to electric vehicles, wind turbines, and fighter jets, they are a vital component in much of the technology we touch every day. To make them requires mining and refining rare earth elements—a supply chain largely controlled by China. Companies around the world are racing to find alternatives by using materials that are more abundant and cheaper to produce domestically. Minneapolis-based Niron Magnetics believes it has found a solution, claiming it can approach key aspects of rare earth magnet performance, using humble iron and nitrogen—albeit in an exotic formulation. Gener…

The Swiss company Punkt has released its latest handset, the MC03, a cellphone that merges minimalist hardware design with a matching UX experience that promises total privacy protection against greedy corporations who want to track you and own your data for their own benefit. This thing got me at “DeGoogled From the Core,” which is one of the phone’s declared core selling points. According to founder Petter Neby, “Punkt is about using technology to help us adopt intelligent habits for less distracted lives.” In 2015, Punkt launched its first phone, the MP01, as a secure device that supported only text and calls. No apps. No tracking. Punkt later released the MP02—an …

If you slip a tiny wearable device on your fingertip and slide it over a smooth surface like a touchscreen, you can feel digital textures like denim or mesh. The device, designed by researchers at Northwestern University, is the first of its kind to achieve “human resolution,” meaning that it can more accurately match the complex way a human fingertip senses the world. In previous attempts at haptic devices like this, “once you compare them to real textures, you realize there’s something still missing,” says Sylvia Tan, a PhD student at Northwestern and one of the authors of a new study in Science Advances about the research. “It’s close, but not quite there. Our …

With enrollment on the rise, the California Polytechnic State University in seaside San Luis Obispo has found itself staring down a familiar California problem: a severe housing shortage. “Cal Poly’s located in this beautiful town of San Luis Obispo. That is one of our competitive advantages, but it also means that everybody else wants to live here, too,” says Mike McCormick, vice president of facilities management and development at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo This desirability poses a problem for the university, which has seen enrollment grow in recent years, with trendlines suggesting an additional 4,000 students by the end of the decade. “It’s really hard for us…

If your social media suitor seems too good to be true, it might be a scam. Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta Platforms is urging users to stay vigilant about “romance scams” ahead of Valentine’s Day, warning of unsolicited messages through its apps and other social media platforms, as well as general text messages. Scammers tend to pose as “attractive, single and successful individuals,” Meta says. They often claim to have military, medical or business backgrounds, with photos either stolen from real people’s accounts or generated through artificial intelligence. Initially, messages are sent to a large pool of people in the hopes of getting a response. A …

When Sky Kurtz set out to grow produce in the desert via vertical farming in 2016, laying the groundwork for what became Dubai-based ag-tech startup Pure Harvest Smart Farms, “People thought we were crazy,” he says. “I was fearful, I would never get off the ground.” But Kurtz’s came at a time when the UAE was beginning to take the idea seriously and companies like Pure Harvest began cropping up. Over the past nine years, though, Pure Harvest Farms has become one of the sector’s biggest players. It has raised more than $450 million in funding, according to market analysis company PitchBook, and grows an array of crops that includes tomatoes, green vegetables, and berr…

How much would you pay for a gray fleece? Yes, the type that’s ubiquitous in corporate cubicles and business-casual work conferences across America. What if it had the Miu Miu logo stitched on the left chest? If you said $2,500, you’d be on the money. Miu Miu’s $2,500 fleece sweatshirt, specifically in gray, has been trending online in recent months, spotted on celebs and featured in dozens of videos across social media platforms. You might think it looks like any other gray fleece. And you’d be right. Yet the Miu Miu version has inspired dupes and influenced people to unearth 4imprint jackets from their dad’s closet or old thrift finds to participate in the tr…

When Dr. David Rabin told me how Apollo Sessions worked, my exact first thought was, “poppycock.” This was an app, he said, that would turn my iPhone into a healing device using the vibrations of the phone’s haptic engine. By stimulating the vagus nerve—a core component of the parasympathetic nervous system responsible for the body’s recovery and relaxation mechanisms—using certain frequencies, this iOS app would make me feel different. It works, he assured me. With trauma patients in clinical settings, he claimed. As someone who is skeptical about wundermedicine by default, I didn’t believe it. But as someone who has lived through a few years of a traumatic experience, I…

Few illustrations have electrified the climate movement more successfully—and globally—than Ed Hawkins’s climate stripes. Since the British climate scientist first published his graphic in 2018, the stripes have been displayed on Times Square billboards, printed on beer cans, splashed across fashion collections, and even woven on a scarf that was worn by the late Pope Francis. The graphic was enshrined as a design object in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection in New York. The problem is, “warming stripes” have only ever shown part of the picture—namely, global average temperatures on the surface of the Earth. But climate change doesn’t stop at the surf…

Visit a celebrity’s Wikipedia page and there’s a good chance you’ll be greeted by a blurry, outdated, or unflattering photo. These images often look like they were snapped in passing at a public event—because, in many cases, they were. The reason? Wikipedia requires all images to be freely available for public use. Since professional photographers typically sell their work, high-quality portraits rarely make it onto the site. That’s bad news for celebrities, for whom this page is often their most-viewed online presence—and therefore the face they present to the world. Some photos are so notoriously bad, they’ve even earned a spot on a dedicated Instagram page. Ent…

Most upstart companies prepping a new product launch would probably not be thrilled to receive a cease and desist letter from an established giant of their field. But as is readily apparent from its insane packaging (not to mention its insane name), the gummy candy purveyor Rotten is not most companies. Last May, founder and CEO Michael Fisher had his signature gummy worms on hand at the industry’s Sweets & Snacks Expo—and a flyer for a new product: Rotten’s Gummy Cruncheez, which launch today and bear resemblance to Nerds’s uber-popular Gummy Clusters. [Image: Rotten] “Nerds and their parent company Ferrara got wind of the product, took a photo of the flye…

Affordable housing has gone in search of collaborations. Across the country, developers and cities have found a solution in pairing housing with unexpected projects to save money and build more vibrant communities. A wave of libraries, fire stations, and even Costco stores have been built below or adjacent to much-needed, lower-cost apartments. Now a new development in the Southern California city of San Juan Capistrano is sharing a lot with City Hall. Salida del Sol, a $31 million, 49-unit supportive housing development by Jamboree Housing Corp., opened this past July on a 2.2-acre site downtown. At a time when federal support for homeless services is waveri…