What's on Your Mind?

There’s a new AI companion in town. Just don’t call it that. Launching today, Stream Ring is a wearable device that lets you capture your thoughts, brainstorm ideas, prepare for an interview, or—if you’re the company CTO’s 7-year-old child—simply learn about dinosaurs. The ring, which comes in silver ($249) and gold ($299), with a black resin contour on the inside, is available to preorder now, with shipping to begin in summer 2026. It only listens when you press and hold on its miniature touchpad, a bit like a walkie-talkie. You wear it on your index finger, raise it to your lips when you want to save that brilliant idea you just had, or find a quick recipe for J…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Zillow economists use an economic model they call the Zillow Market Heat Index to gauge the competitiveness of housing markets across the country. This model looks at key indicators—including home price changes, inventory levels, and days on market—to generate a score showing whether a market favors sellers or buyers. Higher scores point to hotter, seller-friendly metro housing markets. Lower scores signal cooler markets where buyers hold more negotiating power. According to Zillow: Score of 70 or higher = strong seller’s market Score fro…

Pinterest, a platform Futurism described as “being strangled by AI slop,” is not having a great day. The image-based social media company yesterday released its third-quarter earnings and, despite a 17% increase in revenue year-over-year (YOY), its shares took a tremendous tumble. Pinterest stock (NYSE: PINS) dropped about 20% through after-hours trading and into premarket on Wednesday, sitting at 18.6% down at the time of publishing. We’ll get into the “AI slop” factor, but first it’s worth noting that Pinterest’s revenue might have improved YOY, but it only just met Wall Street’s expectations of $1.05 billion, according to consensus estimates cited by CNBC.…

A UPS wide-body cargo plane crashed on Tuesday and erupted into a fireball moments after takeoff from the international airport in Louisville, Kentucky, killing seven, including all three aboard, and injuring 11 on the ground, officials said. Flames from the crash, shortly before sundown, ignited a string of fires in an industrial corridor adjacent to the airport, forcing authorities to halt flight operations through the night, the officials said. The Louisville airport, which is home to UPS Worldport — a global hub for the shipping company’s air cargo operations and its largest package-handling facility worldwide — was expected to reopen on Wednesday morning. …

Duolingo has been through a lot of changes over the past few years. What was once solely a language-learning app has grown into a social media marketing machine, a destination for math and music lessons, and now an online chess tutor. In June, Duolingo launched a Duolingo Chess course to teach beginners the basic rules and moves by allowing them to play against an AI tutor named Oscar. This month, the company is taking the course further, launching a multiplayer version of the game where users can compete against one another. Duolingo, which is on track to surpass $1 billion in revenue this year, has 48 million daily active users and 11 million paying subscribers…

Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York on Tuesday, capping a stunning ascent for the 34-year-old, far-left state lawmaker, who promised to transform city government to restore power to the working class and fight back against a hostile The President administration. In a victory for the Democratic party’s progressive wing, Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani must now navigate the unending demands of America’s biggest city and deliver on ambitious — skeptics say unrealistic — campaign promises. With his commanding win, the democratic socialist will etch his place in history as the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of Sou…

Black Friday isn’t what it once was. Less than 15 years ago, it was fairly common for people to wake up at ridiculously early hours to drive to a store, where they would stand in line, waiting for the doors to open in order to grab the best deals. Those people still exist, but not in the numbers they used to, thanks to the convenience of online shopping (and the early start to holiday deals). But as artificial intelligence becomes more entrenched in people’s habits, it could have an increasingly large role in Black Friday (and Cyber Monday). And 2025 could be something of a test case for the technology. The average consumer is expected to spend $1,595 on holiday g…

Some companies see leadership and managerial training as an investment. Others, however, provide very few resources for the transition from individual contributor to leaders. For most of the latter companies, managerial training is a one-off event. Take a seminar or two, and off you go. Sometimes you get a company that offers executive coaching or mentorship to their C-suites. But for many first-time (and even some middle) managers, they’re often left to fend for themselves. This is the problem that leadership coaching startups are trying to solve. The answer, they believe? AI. While founders of these startups acknowledge the limitations, many are adamant tha…

How do I control my emotions? I get asked that question a lot. As an emotional intelligence coach, I’ve received thousands of emails from readers over the years who get caught up in a cycle of emotional thinking, which leads them to say or do things they later regret. Often, this results in harm to their closest relationships, professional and personal. Here’s the thing: Emotions aren’t bad. They’re what make us human, and that’s a good thing. The key isn’t taking emotions out of the equation. Rather, you want to balance emotions and rational thinking, so you can look back and be proud of what you’ve said or done. To help with this, I recommend using simpl…

From my earliest days as a journalist, I’ve always prized my dictaphone. It sounds quaint now, but I actually remember excitedly keeping up with advancements in the field. Sony’s ICD-TX50 was a particular revelation for me in 2012, with its tiny OLED display and world’s-thinnest 6.4mm frame. There was no sleeker way to show up to Tokyo press conferences. In recent years, though, my dictaphone collection has taken on a new, less physical form. Google’s Pixel phones have been a revelation for journalists, offering real-time, on-device transcription through the Recorder app. I’ve often found myself bringing a Pixel along to a press event even if I wasn’t actively using i…

Pizza Hut could soon be up for sale. Yum Brands, Pizza Hut’s parent company, said Tuesday it’s conducting a formal review of options for the brand, which has struggled to compete in a crowded pizza market. Yum CEO Chris Turner said Pizza Hut has many strengths, including a global footprint and strong growth in many markets. Pizza Hut has nearly 20,000 stores in more than 100 countries, and its international sales were up 2% in the first nine months of this year. China is its second-largest market outside the U.S. But Pizza Hut gets nearly half its sales from the U.S., where it has around 6,500 stores, and U.S. sales fell 7% in the same period. Pizza Hut was lo…

Here’s a guide to the most notable features of the top AI chat apps. ChatGPT: Your Conversationalist 🗣️ iOS & Android Advanced Voice Mode is the ChatGPT app’s most distinctive feature. Ask it to play a tough interviewer or a skeptical client as you prepare for a difficult conversation. Or have it ask questions to help you make a decision. Most of what you can do on your laptop you can do in the ChatGPT mobile app. Create an image. Ask for an infographic, a cartoon, or a photo illustration. See examples of seven ways I use these images. Ask for deep research. Get a detailed analysis with dozens of sources. See examples of nine ways I use this researc…

Artificial intelligence company Stability AI mostly prevailed against Getty Images Tuesday in a British court battle over intellectual property. Seattle-based Getty had accused Stability AI of infringing its copyright and trademark by scraping 12 million images from its website, without permission, to train its popular image generator, Stable Diffusion. The closely followed case at Britain’s High Court was among the first in a wave of lawsuits involving generative AI as movie studios, authors, and artists challenged tech companies’ use of their works to train AI chatbots. Tech companies have long argued that “fair use” or “fair dealing” legal doctrines in the …

Shares in two closely watched AI-adjacent companies, Nvidia Corporation and Palantir Technologies, are falling this morning. Currently, Nvidia shares are down more than 2.2% and Palantir shares are down more than 6%. The share price drops of two of the most prominent AI companies come as investors seem increasingly worried that the AI boom is starting to look more like an AI bubble, reminiscent of the dotcom bubble of the late ’90s and early 2000s. In part due to these concerns, an increasing number of investors have recently begun betting against the stocks of companies benefitting from the artificial intelligence boom—including Michael Burry, the investor who b…

More than six years after a Boeing 737 Max jetliner crashed in Ethiopia, the first civil trial stemming from the disaster that killed all 157 people on board the plane appears poised to move forward. Boeing has settled most of the dozens of wrongful death lawsuits that families of the victims filed against the aircraft maker after the March 2019 crash, but two of the remaining cases are scheduled to open before a federal court jury as soon as Tuesday. The trial in Chicago, where Boeing used to have its headquarters, isn’t expected to examine the company’s liability. Boeing already accepted responsibility for what happened to Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and for a…

Saudi oil giant Aramco reported Tuesday a $26.9 billion profit in the third quarter, down slightly from last year as global energy prices remain depressed over concerns of too much oil being on the market. Aramco’s results serve as a bellwether for the wider oil industry, which is still digesting the OPEC+ decision this weekend to halt planned production increases in the first quarter of next year over supply worries. Benchmark Brent crude, at just under $65 a barrel, has been fluttering near a four-year low. In filing on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange, Aramco, formally known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., reported overall revenue of $111 billion in the third quarter, c…

Microdosing isn’t just about mushrooms any more. While taking tiny non-psychedelic doses of hallucinogens was once the health craze du jour, small, sub-clinical doses of weight loss drugs have taken over the term “microdosing” in 2025. Little research has been done on the efficacy of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic when prescribed in smaller doses, but that hasn’t stopped the craze from catching on. People are turning to microdosed GLP-1s to manage their weight, stave off side effects and to make the medications more affordable on a long term basis. For telehealth companies cashing in on off-brand formulations of popular weight loss drugs, microdosing is an option …

Nobody sitting with perfect posture in a room of button-down shirts, looking at a slide that says “leverage strategic capabilities,” is doing their best work. They’re just not. You know what they’re doing instead? They’re nodding pleasantly, wondering the last time they went to the bathroom, and trying to figure out when to jump into the conversation with an agreeable, jargon-filled platitude. This is good for no one. I have been a management consultant for over a decade, serving many Fortune 500 clients, and I have spewed my share of jargon. I understand the instinct. We want to telegraph our competence and we want to fit in, and therefore, we put on “busines…

Hyper-independence looks like your best employee. The one who never says no, stays late, and carries the team on their back. Leaders often interpret it as strength, but researchers and workplace experts warn it is often a coping mechanism that masks burnout, erodes collaboration, and stalls leadership growth. The behavior has gained cultural visibility. On TikTok, the hashtag “hyper-independence” has racked up millions of views in videos tagged “hyper-independence is a trauma response” and “signs of hyper-independence.” For many viewers, the content is striking because they assumed this was simply how success was achieved, not a survival strategy with hidden costs. Th…

There are many, many maps of New York City. There are the decor maps, sold on Amazon, and the tourist maps, which mostly focus, erroneously, only on Manhattan. There’s the iconic subway map, as well as the MTA’s new version. There’s the Eater and Grubhub maps, which tell us where to eat. And then there’s the map that really matters: the official legal map for the city, which quite literally rules the streets of the city, complete with boundaries and widths. It’s also the map that doesn’t currently exist, at least in one singular and easy-to-use form. That’s changing, though. On Tuesday night, New Yorkers appeared poised to approve Proposal 5, a measure that will…