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Something is going on with Marjorie Taylor Greene that’s making Americans furrow their brows and say, “What in the MAGA universe is going on?” The thing is, the Republican representative from Georgia, known as “MTG,” is a suddenly making more sense—even to her detractors. In recent months, the conservative The President devotee, from whom Americans have come to expect off-the-cuff and often crude commentary, has been undeniably good natured, coming across as astoundingly reasonable during a number of appearances on CNN, Tucker Carlson Tonight, and elsewhere. But if that weren’t enough to cast aside doubts about a major pivot with the congresswoman (who once hara…

When it comes to agentic artificial intelligence, the fear of missing out factor is clear. Organizations are plopping down agents, in part, because that’s what everyone else seems to be doing. But FOMO is not a business strategy. To make agentic AI work, business leaders need to ignore the hype and concentrate on establishing exactly what agents can do for them, how, and at what cost. Our own work has proved that AI agents, which independently plan and execute complex multistep tasks, can deliver substantial value by accelerating timelines and reducing costs. And that is just the start. The ever-improving ability of AI agents to work with people to plan, communicate, …

America is in an overstock and returns crisis. Every year 8.4 billion pounds of products are returned to online sellers, according to the National Retail Federation. The typical solution from retailers is to send the roughly 17% of their inventory made up of returns to a landfill, regardless of the condition of the products. It’s a problem that sellers have little incentive to solve. Since dumping product can be written off as the cost of doing business in profit and loss statements, companies don’t invest in a complex reverse supply chain or inspect items for potential resale value. But recommerce site Rebel just raised a $25 million series B round to fuel its wo…

The early darkness in most of the U.S. means that fall has set in. That also means it’s officially holiday shopping season. With the economic impact of President The President’s ever-fluctuating tariffs an open question, there’s an opportunity for shoppers to make their spending meaningful, which opens up a lane for companies that are offering something other than the e-commerce onslaught of nearly identical products that populate sites like Amazon and Walmart. What the Amazons and even Etsys of the world are currently missing is the sense of curation that defines Uncommon Goods, an online shop stocked with exclusive, offbeat items sourced from independent artisans. …

Believing that digital transformation is about changing technology is like thinking firefighting is about riding in a fire truck. Firefighting is about putting out fires to save lives and property. Digital transformation is about changing how your organization functions and creates value using data, systems, skills, and processes. That might mean building dashboards that give executives real-time visibility across thousands of staff, training hundreds in new ways of working like Agile or DevOps, or automating back-office processes to free up time for higher-value work. The common thread is that technology becomes a catalyst for organisational change in strategy, peopl…

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here. AI assistants are now more than simple answer machines. ChatGPT’s new Study Mode, Claude’s Learning Mode, and Gemini’s Guided Learning represent a significant shift. Instead of just providing answers, these free tools act as adaptive, 24/7 personal tutors. Guidde | Create how-to guides with AI Tired of explaining the same thing over and over again to your colleagues? Guidde is an AI-powered tool that helps you explain the most complex tasks in seconds with AI-generated documentation. Turn boring documentation in…

It looks more like a racing yacht than a cargo ship. But this new 100% wind-powered vessel will soon begin bringing goods from Europe to the U.S.—and could make deliveries faster than conventional cargo ships. Vela, a French startup, pulled technology from the racing world to make the vessel run as fast as possible. It’s a trimaran, meaning it has three hulls, which helps it cut through water efficiently. The wide, stable shape allows it to carry large sails. As in racing yachts, the mast is made from carbon fiber, and the sails are made of high-performance fabric designed for strength. The ship also uses navigation tech developed for racing to help route toward ideal…

There’s a commercial break on the TV — why not scroll through a few TikToks to pass the time. Ten minutes early for an appointment? Catch up on Instagram Stories. Train delays? A quick doomscroll of the news while you wait. It’s a common reflex: Americans check their phones 144 times a day, on average, according to a survey from Reviews.org. It’s also a habit many are trying to break. “My biggest fear is that I’ll lie on my deathbed and regret how much time I spent on my phone,” TikTok creator Sierra Campbell said in a video posted in May. Her answer? An analog bag. Campbell carries with her a bag of analog activities at all times, including crossword puzz…

Let’s be honest: we’ve all got that one celebrity, influencer, or podcast host who lives rent-free in our heads. You know their dog’s name, their morning routine, their trauma story, and their oat milk brand of choice. You might even find yourself defending them in comment sections like they’re your actual friend. Congratulations, you’ve formed a parasocial relationship. For those who aren’t as active on social media, that’s a one-sided bond we form with people we don’t actually know. And while these connections can sometimes sound a little delusional, here’s the twist: they’re not all bad. In fact, parasocial relationships can meet some very real psychological n…

Phones have always been fashion statements. What started as simple cases to protect your phone has evolved into decking out the devices with every accessory imaginable: dangling charms and key chains, PopSockets, phone wallets, straps, and now . . . pockets? Apple just launched a new product called the iPhone Pocket, and it’s effectively a knitted bag for your iPhone. Apple designed the pouch in collaboration with high-end Japanese fashion brand Issey Miyake, whose relationship with Apple stretches back to the Steve Jobs era. (Jobs’s signature turtlenecks were designed by Miyake, who retired the iconic shirts following Jobs’s death in 2011.) The tech giant say…

People often take walking for granted. We just move, one step after another, without ever thinking about what it takes to make that happen. Yet every single step is an extraordinary act of coordination, driven by precise timing between spinal cord, brain, nerves, muscles, and joints. Historically, people have used stopwatches, cameras, or trained eyes to assess walking and its deficits. However, recent technological advances such as motion capture, wearable sensors, and data science methods can record and quantify characteristics of step-by-step movement. We are researchers who study biomechanics and human performance. We and other researchers are increasingly app…

You might not have noticed if you’re the type to upgrade your smartphone frequently, but the main cameras that they use have been getting wider and wider in their field of view throughout the years. While phones are now indisputably the most popular cameras in the world, most manufacturers have settled on a type of lens that used to be considered quite exotic and challenging to use in the camera space. The main camera on the iPhone 17 Pro, for example, has the same field of view as a 24mm lens on a full-frame camera, which is the general photographic standard for measuring focal lengths. This is a perspective that few companies would have considered using on a point-a…

In 2010, Phil Gilbert was a longtime startup entrepreneur when IBM acquired the software company he ran. The “slower, process-oriented culture” was a struggle for someone who was used to the faster pace of startup life, he writes in his new book, Irrestible Change: A Blueprint for Earning Buy-In and Breakout Success. When IBM tapped him to lead a transformation of the company, it was a daunting task. Over the next few years, Gilbert guided IBM’s shift toward design-thinking and re-trained thousands of employees to work differently, all without mandating a thing. Today, he sees corporate mandates as pointless: They don’t work, he says. And yet, they’re ubiquitous—take …

When most people think about immigration enforcement, they picture border crossings and airport checkpoints. But the new front line may be your social media feed. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has published a request for information for private-sector contractors to launch a round-the-clock social media monitoring program. The request states that private contractors will be paid to comb through “Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, VK, Flickr, Myspace, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Reddit, WhatsApp, YouTube, etc.,” turning public posts into enforcement leads that feed directly into ICE’s databases. The request for information reads…

Below, co-authors Suzy Burke, Rhett Power, and Ryan Berman share five key insights from their new book, Headamentals: How Leaders Can Crack Negative Self-Talk. Suzy, president and co-founder of the leadership consultancy Accountability Inc., is an organizational psychologist and seasoned executive with an exceptional track record in a diverse array of businesses, from a Fortune 20 technology company to a highly successful beverage start-up. She is also a National Institute of Mental Health scholar and member of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches Agency. Rhett is the CEO and co-founder of Accountability Inc. and was named the #1 Thought Leader on Entrepreneurship b…

Self-growth requires two things parents often lack: time and energy. Between cleaning messes, cooking meals, and managing extracurriculars, the average parent gets just two hours a week to focus on personal development. Growth doesn’t stop when you become a parent. Raising children offers lifelong learning. Yet, for parents used to measuring their success in qualifications and promotions, it often doesn’t feel like growth—especially when you’re sleep-deprived and energy-drained. To them, professional development and personal development are one and the same. It’s no wonder 50% are left feeling as if parenthood has hijacked or delayed their growth. As Headway’s pro…

On Tuesday, SoftBank, the Japanese financial giant, announced plans to dump all 32 million of its shares in Nvidia, the AI chip maker. The news won’t be the needle that pops the AI bubble, but it did cause enough of a stir to make Nvidia’s shares drop 2% Tuesday morning. The bad vibes were muted somewhat by news of what SoftBank says it will do with the proceeds of the sell off, along with those from the sale of some of its $9.17 billion T-Mobile stake: The firm will double down on another big bet in the AI space–OpenAI. SoftBank expects to directly invest $30 billion in OpenAI this year, according to its second-quarter financial statement in September. And it had …

When Amazon proposed building its Project Blue data center in Tucson, Arizona, the company faced intense pushback. Residents raised concerns about the enormous amounts of water and electricity that the data center would need, two major ways such projects impact the environment, especially in a desert city. Ultimately, Tucson’s town council rejected the proposal (though its developer hasn’t given up). But the story highlights both the growing environmental impacts of data centers, and how location matters to that impact. A study published this week in the journal Nature Sustainability makes that connection even clearer. Led by researchers at Cornell University, t…

Just when you thought you’d seen it all on Capitol Hill, reopening the federal government appears to have hit yet another roadblock: Hemp. A day after Democratic Senators reached a deal with their Republican counterparts in the Senate to end the longest government shutdown in history, a vote on the agreement was held up by a provision in the bill that would ban the unregulated sale of hemp-based or derived products. The provision relates to funding for the Department of Agriculture, and was flagged by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, home to a burgeoning hemp industry. Paul introduced an amendment to strip the language on Monday, but the amendment failed. Subsequent…

Apple said it has pulled two of China’s biggest gay dating apps, Blued and Finka, under pressure from Chinese authorities, in the latest sign of a tightening grip on the LGBTQ+ community. An Apple spokesperson said in a statement that the company removed the two dating apps from China “based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China”, without further elaborating. “We follow the laws in the countries where we operate,” the spokesperson told The Associated Press. A check by The Associated Press on Tuesday found that the two apps are not available on Apple’s app store in China, although an “express” version of Blued could still be found. It was uncl…

The tech industry is moving fast and breaking things again—and this time it is humanity’s shared reality and control of our likeness before and after death—thanks to artificial intelligence image-generation platforms like OpenAI’s Sora 2. The typical Sora video, made on OpenAI’s app and spread onto TikTok, Instagram, X, and Facebook, is designed to be amusing enough for you to click and share. It could be Queen Elizabeth II rapping or something more ordinary and believable. One popular Sora genre is fake doorbell camera footage capturing something slightly uncanny —say, a boa constrictor on the porch or an alligator approaching an unfazed child—and ends with a mild sh…

ByHeart Whole Nutrition Infant Formula is being recalled in 12 states due to concerns it may be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to investigate a multi-state outbreak of infant botulism. As of November 10, 15 infants who were either fed the formula or exposed to it have developed infant botulism in 12 different states. Those states are: Arizona, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington. The investigation remains ongoing. All 15 infants were hospitalized, and no deaths …

Young people early in their careers are understandably alarmed by reports that their jobs are most at risk from AI automation. Some are even reconsidering their career choices due to what’s been dubbed AI anxiety. But job seekers shouldn’t give up. People whose jobs are threatened by AI must look for ways to play to their strengths and their human qualities. They should focus on the many areas where humans outshine AI—things like relationship building, resourcefulness, emotional intelligence, teamwork, and leadership. For much of the labor force, of course, it won’t be possible to avoid AI completely. Many occupations will involve working with AI not just as an as…

If you’re flying later this month, you may need to temper your expectations now: The major U.S. airlines are warning that flight disruptions could persist even after the government shutdown ends. The longest government shutdown in U.S. history seemingly has an end in sight now that the Senate passed legislation Monday night to end the shutdown. But the recent flurry of canceled and delayed flights could continue, warned a trade group made up of the major U.S.-based airlines—American, Southwest, Delta, and United—as well as UPS and FedEx. “Airlines’ reduced flight schedules cannot immediately bounce back to full capacity right after the government reopens,” Airlin…

You may see more smiles next time you walk into a Target. That’s because the big box retailer is hoping to provide an “elevated” customer experience with it’s new “10-4” policy, requiring staffers out on the floor to smile, wave, and welcome customers within 10 feet—and greet those just 4 feet away, USA Today reported. Fast Company has reached out to Target for comment. The policy comes less than three weeks before Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which officially kicks off the busiest and most profitable time of the year. Many stores, including Target, have already begun to roll out their Black Friday sales this year. Target’s early 2025 Black Frida…