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Stop measuring AI by hours saved and start measuring the expansion, quality gains, and capabilities that move the business. The post Why CFOs Are Cutting AI Budgets (And The 3 Metrics That Save Them) appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos brings together an incongruous mix of celebrities (this year included Matt Damon, David Beckham, and Katy Perry, who was accompanying ex-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau), world leaders (President Donald The President), and nonprofit leaders. The event also reliably assembles an unrivaled group of global CEOs who offer a window into where business is heading. Some CEOs see sunny skies ahead This year, though, I found the window very foggy—and I wasn’t alone. According to PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey, released at the start of the meeting, only about a third of CEOs (30%) say they are confident about revenue growth in the next 12 months, down from 38% in 2025 and 56% in 2022. Yet Paul Griggs, CEO of PwC U.S., says the American CEOs he spoke with in Davos are feeling much more optimistic than the survey would suggest. While they acknowledge that they’re dealing with high levels of uncertainty, they’re also more prepared to deal with complexity through new workflows and processes to keep them agile. “I met with 10 CEOs today, and it was a day of optimism,” Griggs says. Sharon Marcil, who leads Boston Consulting Group in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, is also seeing bright spots. A new report, BCG AI Radar 2026, finds that four out of five CEOs say they are more optimistic about the returns on their AI investments than they were a year ago. “I do think 2026 is going to be a growth year,” she says. Who’s feeling blue? Most consultants I spoke with say European and U.K. CEOs are less confident than their U.S.- and Asia-based counterparts. AI’s impact beyond the hype The impact of AI on jobs was also hotly debated at Davos. While most CEOs and executives continue to insist that AI will make work better by reducing mundane tasks, a few CEOs have started to talk—publicly and privately—about the roles AI will eliminate and the need to prepare workers for changes. “We’re focused on being completely honest with our workforce,” says Kate Johnson, CEO of Lumen Technologies, a digital network services provider. Johnson says the company is committed to training employees for new roles in the organization but adds, “We have to reimagine what the world will look like in the future, and [employees] need to imagine a world where their current job may not exist.” Conversations about AI have also shifted away from applications (think OpenAI’s ChatGPT) and agents (software that can make decisions and complete tasks) to infrastructure. Throughout the week, executives shared insights on the energy and networking capacity needed as data centers built specifically to support AI crop up. “The big question now has gone from the potential to operational reality,” says Aamir Paul, president of North America Operations at energy technology company Schneider Electric. (Fast Company partnered with Schneider Electric on a series of videos in Davos.) “How do we make it happen . . . getting data centers built, getting energy access, getting it in a way that it doesn’t affect retail costs and consumers don’t have to take the burden, and doing it in a way where we’re still meeting our sustainability goals?” These are daunting challenges that will require investment and inventiveness to solve. Luckily, one of BCG’s recent business surveys saw a 14% uptick in mentions of innovation versus a year ago. Perhaps that’s another reason for optimism in 2026. Your views on 2026 How are you feeling about the year ahead? Do you agree with the prevailing sentiment at Davos, or are you less optimistic about what’s coming? I’d like to hear your thoughts and why you feel that way. Please send them to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. I may use your comments in a future newsletter. Read and watch more: Fast Company’s Brendan Vaughan offers his take on Davos CEO insularity threatens dialogue goal at Davos CEOs at Davos are buying the agentic AI hype​ View the full article

As an operative researcher for luxury retail companies, I spent my career grabbing onto one corporate contract after the next, like a tree-swinging retainer monkey. But in a tariff-distressed industry, those contract “branches” grew further and further apart until I was left hanging. Then a colleague experiencing a similar work gap said, “Well, I guess we’re retired.” I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but nothing prepared me for the word “retired.” I’m a freelancer, so no one is coming to my house with a gold watch as a reward for loyal service; I have no desire to move south; and I don’t play golf. My equally self-employed friend Roland had a suggestion: Why not consider myself “situationally” retired—that is, retired until the phone rings. It’s funny how one word can make or break your spirit. I was crushed by “retired” because the concept is foreign and frightening. But adding “situational” made it comfortingly familiar. After all, for us freelancers every corporate contract is situational; you might even say that situational is my superpower. A friend who’s spent decades in a grueling C-suite position still can’t bring himself to retire, despite vested stock and a strong financial footing. Happy or not, he remains in the grip of his job, unable to let go of a role he believes defines (and so ultimately confines) him. I’ve been an outside observer of corporate America long enough to understand his struggle, although it is not my own. Redirecting your energy As an independent contractor working for different companies, each with its own ecosystem, I constantly adapted my work persona to fit each unique corporate culture. Fluidity is what stabilized my career and so the loss of a fixed identity was not my retirement problem. My issue was displaced energy. Whether writing a history of plaid for a fashion CEO or helping the VP of design at a boutique hotel chain find just the right urban neighborhoods for expansion, every project required a tremendous amount of advance work. From sleuthing out relevant reference resources to searching for subject-specific experts, my research work was as fascinating as it was fun. I rarely left my desk yet built a national network of specialists and accumulated wide-ranging knowledge that often dovetailed, making every project a little easier. When the work slowed—and then stopped—my detective skills had nowhere to go. I can’t remember how long I was in that uncomfortable standstill until Roland’s use of the word “situational” got me moving. To kick off “Project Retirement,” I went on my usual research prowl. Every day, about 11,400 Americans turn 65—the traditional retirement milestone—fueling a busy and lucrative media market spanning content, publishing, and podcasts. But the most valuable operative research is not about finding the most information. It requires you to find the right information—information that is directional, that you can build upon, that can help steer your project to a successful conclusion. Redefining retirement For me, the initial guiding principles came from the YouTube channel Small Retired Life and Raina Vitanov’s practical yet inspirational attitude. Her conversation about being rebellious enough to redefine and rebrand retirement broadened my understanding and freed me to choose my own norms and values. But the most significant contribution was her observation that in retirement, “Productivity is not the conversation.” Using the Roland method, I added a word and had a revelation: Transactional productivity is no longer my conversation. The time between contracts used to feel borrowed; now I own it. And all that research joie de vivre that I enjoyed over my corporate years is mine to use as I like. Sit next to me if you want to talk about the architecture of Shaker communities, art in ’80s New York, or the difference between Ivy style and preppy fashion. I also started a side gig in a small boutique where I once shopped whenever I needed to outfit myself for a rare visit into corporate America. Because I’ve never had a structured straight job, I find the work to be fresh and interesting. It’s also rewarding because I get to use decades of style research on real live women, many playing out their own life-shifting issues through the lens of their wardrobes. Although I’m not sure I can pull off being an introvert cosplaying as an extrovert for more than my customary two workdays a week, I might give it a shot. Because now that I’ve got the hang of it, situational retirement can be whatever I want it to be. View the full article

I’m always amazed at how easily we give our time to others without thinking, and then are mad later when it was wasted. What exactly did we think was going to happen? That everyone was going to be prepared, productive, and appreciative? Time has become the ultimate luxury—we never have enough of it, and are jealous of those that have it. For too many of us, endless meetings, back-to-back emails, and constant interruptions leave little room for focused, meaningful work. Additionally, in our effort to be nice or generous, we offer our time even when we’re running on empty. But what if I told you that much of this time theft could be prevented with a little more mindfulness, intent, and discipline? Warren Buffett is a great example: He once shared his calendar with Bill Gates, and it was practically empty, which Gates found shocking. But Buffett was making a point—that one of the key reasons for his success is that he fiercely guards his time, knowing that “people will take your time if you let them.” Time is a nonrenewable resource, and we should be stingier with it. You can lose money and get it back, but you can never get it back lost time. Yet every day, unnecessary meetings and unproductive engagements hijack our calendars, diminishing both our productivity and morale. So why do we let it happen? It’s time to rethink how we treat time: not just our own, but the time of our teams and colleagues. Time as a Strategic Resource Let me introduce you to the concept of “time crime” that is emerging in workplaces today. Time is now considered an asset, and too many people are wasting it. It’s misused through poorly planned meetings, rambling conversations, and vague scheduling. This has an impact not just on productivity but missed opportunity, and as a result orgs have made bold moves to create strict policies on things like meetings. They’ve made it part of their culture change to treat time with respect, with scheduling a meeting becoming a last resort. The idea is about mutually respecting time—yours, and others. In 2023, Shopify ruthlessly cut all recurring meetings with more than two people, resulting in 322,000 fewer hours spent in meetings in one year. Can you imagine that impact? What would you do with all that found time? For Shopify, it meant more focus and more time for deep work. Alan Rankin, chief procurement officer at Moderna, shared an aha moment he had around time management, and it changed how he operates: “I was invited to a monthly operations meeting where many senior leaders in the company attended. I was really struggling to make a meaningful contribution to the meeting. I started to put myself under pressure to contribute more and say intelligent things. Then I had the lightbulb moment: Is this what is best for the company or is this all about me? I decided to stop attending and see if anything in my universe changed. And guess what? Nothing did. And now I have more time.” Revelations like this are impactful—and essential. While there are many ways time gets stolen, meetings are usually the biggest culprit. NBCUniversal, for example, has learned that fewer participants in meetings often lead to more productive discussions. For many business units, meetings include only the minimum number of people necessary to achieve the objectives, resulting in faster decisions and more meaningful input from all attendees. The Power of Less: Fewer People = More Productivity The power of “less” applies to emails, reports, committees, and most certainly, to meetings. I’ve never heard an organization tell me they wished their teams had more of any of these. Have you? Less equals focus, especially during meetings. When too many people are involved, important voices get drowned out. By keeping meetings lean and mean, you create an environment where only people that can contribute meaningfully attend, resulting in less distractions and more deep work. Atlassian lets employees question the necessity of every meeting. To decrease meetings, they use tools like Slack to handle simple status updates, letting teams focus more on high-value work. The message is to use your time with intention, and to only hold meetings when absolutely necessary. Stealing time is unacceptable. When meetings are held less often, they become a valuable commodity, where teams become more focused and disciplined with people’s time. Even Google has developed guidelines to make meetings productive and purposeful. Because innovation depends on it. Their meetings are short, focused, and to-the-point, with strict rules about minimizing unnecessary participants. The goal is to protect employees’ time by stopping lengthy, irrelevant discussions that take away from deep work. These guidelines help teams be mindful of how they spend their time, as well as how they use the time of others. Respecting Time Equals Respecting People Employees who feel their time is valued are more likely to be committed to their work. Time is, after all, one of the most tangible forms of respect you can show someone. At my own company, FutureThink, we regularly “uninvite” people to meetings, emphasizing that they don’t need to attend the meeting and can use their time for more urgent work. People love being uninvited because it feels like a gift—and our culture emphasizes that you need to use your time wisely; if you waste it on the unnecessary—that’s on you. The goal is for people to understand that time is something worth protecting. Guard Time Like It’s Your Most Valuable Asset Stop letting your calendar be overrun with things you do need to really do, and start using your time with intent. The next time someone asks for your time, ask yourself: Is this meeting truly necessary? Is this the best use of my time, and their time? Doing this will not only protect your own productivity but also foster a culture where everyone’s time is treated as the invaluable resource it truly is. View the full article

Online reputation refers to how others perceive you or your business based on your digital footprint, which includes online reviews, social media interactions, and overall visibility. It’s vital since a positive reputation can greatly influence consumer trust and purchasing decisions. With 93% of consumers relying on online reviews, comprehension and managing your online presence becomes fundamental. So, what strategies can you implement to guarantee your reputation aligns with your goals? Key Takeaways Online reputation is the perception of a brand based on its digital presence, including reviews and social media interactions. 90% of consumers read reviews before making purchases, highlighting the importance of a positive online reputation. A strong online reputation can increase consumer trust by 74% and differentiate a business from its competitors. Negative feedback can lead to significant revenue declines, emphasizing the need for proactive reputation management. Engaging with customers and managing reviews effectively can foster long-term loyalty and financial benefits. Understanding Online Reputation Grasping online reputation is fundamental in today’s digital environment, where perceptions can shift quickly due to a single post or review. Online reputation refers to how consumers perceive a brand or individual based on their digital footprint, including social media interactions, reviews, and search engine results. Your reputation score can considerably impact consumer decisions, as approximately 90% of shoppers read reviews before purchasing. A positive online reputation can boost consumer trust by 74%, making it critical for attracting and retaining customers. Conversely, negative incidents can spread swiftly, potentially harming your business reputation score and leading to lost revenue opportunities. Regular assessment and management of your online presence are imperative, especially since 70% of employers check social media profiles before hiring. The Significance of Online Reputation In today’s marketplace, where consumers often rely on digital feedback to make informed choices, the significance of online reputation cannot be overstated. Your online reputation affects not just consumer decisions but also your financial success and career opportunities. Here’s a brief overview of its significance: Impact Area Details Consumer Decisions 93% say online reviews influence purchases. Financial Implications A one-star increase on Yelp can boost revenue by 5-9%. Job Opportunities 70% of employers check social media profiles. Maintaining a positive online image contributes to a favorable reputation scorecard, which helps differentiate you from competitors. When you focus on your online reputation, you attract higher-quality clients and cultivate long-term loyalty, key elements for success in any field. How Online Reputation Influences Consumer Behavior Your online reputation plays an essential role in shaping trustworthiness among consumers. Since many people turn to social media for opinions and experiences, a positive reputation can greatly influence their purchasing decisions. Conversely, negative feedback can lead potential customers to hesitate, ultimately impacting a business’s success. Impact on Trustworthiness As consumers navigate their purchasing decisions, they increasingly rely on online reviews and ratings to gauge a business’s trustworthiness. A solid online reputation can greatly influence your potential customers’ choices. Consider these key points: 93% of consumers state online reviews greatly impact their purchasing decisions, emphasizing their importance. A one-star increase in a Yelp rating can boost revenue by 5-9%, showcasing the financial implications of reputation. 75% of people read reviews before buying, highlighting the need for a strong online presence. 88% of consumers prefer brands that engage with reviews, underlining the importance of interaction to build trust. Neglecting your online reputation can deter 70% of consumers, illustrating the critical need for effective reputation management. Social Media Influence How does social media shape consumer behavior in today’s digital environment? Online reputation plays an essential role in how you make purchasing decisions. Approximately 75% of consumers read online reviews before buying, indicating that your reputation greatly impacts their choices. Furthermore, 71% of social media users have bought products they discovered on these platforms, showing how important a strong online presence is. When positive reviews are present, consumer trust can increase by 74%, directly enhancing conversion rates. In addition, 82% of consumers trust testimonials as much as personal recommendations, emphasizing the influence of online reputation. All these factors illustrate that a positive online reputation not only builds trust but also drives sales in today’s social media-driven market. The Role of Online Reviews and Customer Feedback Online reviews and customer feedback play a vital role in shaping a business’s reputation and influencing consumer choices. When potential customers look for services or products, they often rely on the experiences of others. Here are some key points to reflect on: Trust Factor: 74% of consumers trust businesses with positive reviews, which can boost your credibility. Review Volume: Average consumers read about 10 reviews before trusting a business, making a robust collection of feedback important. Social Proof: 82% of consumers trust testimonials as much as personal recommendations, highlighting their impact on decision-making. Financial Impact: A one-star increase in your Yelp rating can lead to a 5-9% increase in revenue, underlining the direct benefits of positive reviews. In today’s digital environment, managing your online reviews effectively can greatly influence consumer behavior and in the end drive your business success. Strategies for Managing Your Online Reputation Managing your online reputation is an ongoing process that requires active engagement and strategy. Start by regularly monitoring your online presence with tools like Google Alerts and Social Mention. This will help you stay informed about brand mentions and customer feedback, enabling timely responses. Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews, as 68% of consumers say they’d write a review if asked. Develop a strategy for responding to reviews; professional replies to negative feedback can improve trust, with 70% of consumers more likely to choose businesses that engage with reviews. Moreover, optimize positive content for search engines to guarantee it ranks higher than any negative information, as even a one-star increase in Yelp rating can boost revenue by 5-9%. Finally, engage with your audience across social media to build goodwill and transparency, since 88% of customers prefer brands that respond to all online reviews. Engaging With Customers to Enhance Reputation Engaging with customers is essential for enhancing your brand’s reputation, especially in today’s digital environment. To effectively connect with your audience, consider the following strategies: Respond to Reviews: Acknowledge all online reviews, as 88% of consumers prefer brands that do so, showing your commitment to customer satisfaction. Thank Customers: Express gratitude for feedback, which can boost consumer trust by 74%, making customers feel valued. Address Negative Feedback: Professionally responding to negative reviews can change 70% of consumers’ perceptions about your business, demonstrating your willingness to improve. Encourage Feedback: Actively seeking customer opinions can result in a 68% increase in satisfied customers leaving positive testimonials, further enhancing your online reputation. The Impact of Social Media on Online Reputation Social media plays a pivotal role in shaping your online reputation, as it directly influences how consumers perceive your brand. With the rapid spread of information, managing your reputation in real-time has never been more essential, especially considering that negative comments can quickly go viral. Comprehending these dynamics can help you engage effectively with your audience and protect your brand’s image in a digital environment where trust and authenticity matter. Social Media Influence Dynamics How does social media shape our perceptions of brands? It plays a vital role in influencing consumer behavior and shaping online reputation. Here are four key ways social media impacts your brand perception: Feedback Channel: 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Discovery: 71% of users purchase products they find on social media, demonstrating its influence. Negative Impact: 47% of consumers unfollow brands because of negative experiences, highlighting the need for vigilance. Research Tool: Approximately 93% of consumers use social media to research brands before buying. Engaging with customers on social media can boost loyalty by 20-40%, reinforcing the significance of maintaining a positive online presence. Real-Time Reputation Management The role of real-time reputation management has evolved markedly alongside the rise of social media, and it now stands as a fundamental aspect of maintaining a brand’s image. In the digital age, 90% of consumers read online reviews before making purchase decisions, often swayed by social media discussions. Customers expect brands to respond to 88% of online reviews, which directly influences satisfaction and loyalty. Swift responses to negative comments can prevent long-term damage, as issues can escalate swiftly. Engaging with customers improves credibility, with 82% of consumers trusting testimonials as much as personal recommendations. Viral Content Risks In today’s digital environment, where viral content can spread like wildfire, comprehending the risks associated with negative online perceptions is vital for businesses. A single negative incident can lead to significant consequences if not managed swiftly. Here are some important risks to take into account: Consumer Behavior: 90% of consumers read online reviews before purchasing, making reputation important. Hiring Impact: 70% of employers check social media profiles, so negative posts can hinder job prospects. Sales Decline: 93% of consumers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by online reviews, highlighting the weight of negative feedback. Revenue Loss: Businesses can face up to a 22% decline in revenue as a result of a poor online reputation. Understanding these risks can help you safeguard your brand’s image effectively. Seeking Professional Help for Reputation Management While managing your online reputation might seem straightforward, seeking professional help can greatly improve your efforts. With 93% of consumers stating that online reviews greatly impact their purchasing decisions, it’s essential to guarantee your online presence reflects a positive image. Professional online reputation management (ORM) services can monitor your digital footprint, enabling you to respond swiftly to negative feedback. This proactive approach not merely protects your brand but can likewise lead to substantial financial benefits; a mere one-star increase in Yelp ratings can result in a 5-9% revenue boost. Furthermore, with 70% of employers reviewing social media profiles before hiring, maintaining a strong online reputation can improve job prospects and attract top talent. Frequently Asked Questions What Is an Online Reputation and Why Is It Important? Your online reputation is how others perceive you based on your digital presence, including social media, reviews, and search results. It’s vital since it directly impacts consumer trust and purchasing decisions. Research shows that 93% of consumers consult reviews before buying, whereas 70% of employers check social media when hiring. A positive online reputation can improve your credibility and lead to increased sales, whereas a negative one can deter potential customers and job opportunities. What Is Your E-Reputation and Why Is It Important? Your e-reputation is the digital perception others have of you, shaped by your online activities, such as social media interactions and reviews. It’s important since it influences various aspects of your life, including job opportunities and personal relationships. Potential employers often check your online presence, affecting their hiring decisions. Moreover, a strong e-reputation can improve your credibility, whereas a poor one can lead to negative consequences, impacting trust and opportunities in both personal and professional settings. What Is Reputation and Why Is It Important? Reputation is the overall perception others have of you based on your actions, behavior, and interactions. It’s vital since it can impact personal and professional opportunities. A strong reputation builds trust, which is fundamental for relationships, whether in business or personal life. Conversely, a negative reputation can lead to mistrust and lost opportunities. Maintaining a positive reputation involves consistent, ethical behavior and effective communication, helping you navigate social and professional environments successfully. What Is an Example of Online Reputation? An example of online reputation is how businesses are rated on platforms like Yelp. When you see a company with a high average rating, it often leads to increased revenue, sometimes by 5-9% for each additional star. Additionally, customer reviews greatly influence purchasing decisions, with 93% of consumers stating they impact what they buy. Negative reviews can damage credibility, as 82% of people trust testimonials as much as personal recommendations. Conclusion In conclusion, online reputation is essential for both businesses and individuals, as it directly affects consumer trust and purchasing decisions. By comprehending its importance and actively managing your digital presence, you can cultivate positive interactions and improve customer loyalty. Engaging with feedback, utilizing social media effectively, and considering professional assistance can greatly enhance your online image. Ultimately, a strong online reputation not just differentiates you from competitors but likewise contributes to long-term success and revenue growth. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "What Is Online Reputation and Why Does It Matter?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

European regulators begin investigation into creation and spread of sexualised images of women and children View the full article

On Jan. 26, use of the new Uniform Residential Appraisal Report shifts from limited production to the optional phase, giving lenders 10 months to get ready. View the full article

Apple will turn its Siri assistant into a full-fledged chatbot by next year. The company is working on a personal AI device to compete with the one OpenAI is building with Jony Ive. And Apple is putting control over its AI strategy into new hands within the company. So say a flurry of new reports, all advancing the larger story that Apple is doing what it can to get itself back in the AI race. And it’s doing it in a way that may allow it, in classic Apple fashion, to lead from behind. That is, it may hang back and benefit from the hard lessons learned by others marketing a new technology, then arrive fashionably late with a more polished product. Apple and Google announced on January 12 that the (notoriously slow) Siri assistant will be powered, at least in part, by Gemini models developed by Google’s DeepMind division. Apple has in the past voiced concern about the privacy implications of sending user data to AI models outside its own infrastructure. Apple has said it plans to run its AI models either within a secure Apple cloud, or, even better, on chips inside Apple devices. Bringing in Gemini But that may be changing. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple is now in talks with Google to run the Gemini models powering Siri and Apple Intelligence features within the Google Cloud. Previous reports said Apple could be paying Google as much as $1 billion per year for access to the Gemini models. The “new” Siri is expected to show up with iOS 26.4 in March or April, the report states. The assistant will reportedly gain a better contextual understanding of the user by accessing some types of personal data stored on the user’s device. It may also have an awareness of what the user is viewing or working on on their screen, as well as better internet search. These are the same “Apple Intelligence” features the company promised to deliver in 2024, but later postponed, explaining that it wasn’t happy with the performance and reliability of the AI. Then, in 2027, another upgrade will make Siri feel more like a real chatbot, meaning that users will be able to have extended back-and-forths with the assistant (including via their voice), as is common with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini chatbots. Apple also plans to integrate the smarter Siri deeper into the operating system, which could make it a more functional intermediary between the user and the capabilities of the device. The Information reports that Apple is also in the early stages of developing a small personal AI device–about the size of an AirTag–that can clip to a lapel and contains two cameras, three microphones, a little speaker, a battery, and inductive charging tech. (A patent search yielded no Apple designs fitting this description.) OpenAI attracted a lot of attention last year after announcing that it was developing a personal AI device in collaboration with Apple’s former design guru Jony Ive. It’s worth noting, however, that other companies have tried selling such a product, notably Humane (founded by some ex-Applers), and none have found much success. A new AI leader inside Apple The Google Gemini deal and the AI device reports come in the wake of a pretty major power shift at Apple regarding the company’s AI strategy. Apple struggled for years to build its own AI models under the leadership of ex-Google AI chief John Giannandrea (while balancing its historical concern for data privacy), and failed to deliver models that performed like those from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Now Apple has reportedly put its consumer AI problems in the lap of software chief Craig Fedherighi, who is known for his tall hair and utilitarian (and somewhat skeptical) views on the new technology. Fedherighi has viewed AI as an enabling technology that should work behind the scenes to make phone features work better. He’s also expressed concern over the predictability and reliability of the technology. Fedherighi is taking the reins at a pivotal moment. Apple is in a tough spot with AI. It fears the appearance of falling further behind OpenAI (and the punishment it might take from Wall Street), but it’s also traditionally hesitant to rush into an emerging technology that isn’t yet totally proven and reliable (AI chatbots still make mistakes and consumers don’t fully trust them). Apple is most comfortable taking a mature technology (like cell phones) and reinventing it for the mainstream with simplicity, utility, and artful design. So partnering with Google, talking about plans for new Gemini-powered features in the future, and preparing a personal AI device might be just the right moves for Apple right now. The deal with Google buys Apple time while its own researchers find ways to balance the twin needs of data privacy and high-performing models. (It might also shift some of the responsibility onto Google if the new Siri doesn’t work as promised.) Being late has worked out before There’s precedent for this. Apple relied on Intel processors in its computers while it built up the expertise and experience to make its own. Apple used Intel processors in its Mac computers for 15 years, before switching its lineup to Apple-designed chips. But planning the features of future Macs was difficult because it all depended on Intel’s roadmap for releasing new chips. Apple became acutely aware of the speed and efficiency gains to be had from designing custom chips that could be deeply integrated with its Mac operating system. Those improvements were first realised in the company’s first M-series Macs in late 2020. Apple also relied entirely on Qualcomm cellular modem chips for the iPhone before it was able to build its own. The first Apple-designed modem, the C1, shipped inside the iPhone 16e in 2025. While Qualcomm says it will continue to supply modems for iPhones in 2026, Apple’s intent is to build its own modem into the integrated silicon “system-on-a-chip” processor that powers iPhones, which could yield faster and more reliable cellular connections. However, in other cases, like internet search, Apple has been content to rely on Google as a partner. Who knows, Apple may believe generative AI will become a commodity in the future (models are indeed getting more efficient and cheaper to access), something it would rather buy than build. The news of an Apple AI device doesn’t hurt either. It shows an Apple that still has the appetite to mold emergent technologies into its own image and bring them to the mainstream, even without Ives. Apple’s relationship with generative AI is seen as rocky and mainly unsuccessful so far. That narrative may have seeped through the shell of Apple’s spaceship in Cupertino and caused a rush to ship a technology that wasn’t quite baked. The hype around generative AI is so thick now that we’re quick to judge any technology company that isn’t betting the farm on it. But it’s part of Apple’s culture to take the long view on new technology waves (notice that it didn’t change the company name when the “metaverse” was having its moment). Its hesitation, intentional or not, may give it more time to judge the real scale of the AI revolution, and more time to understand what it all should mean to Apple and its customers. View the full article

Federal immigration agents stationed in Minneapolis need not read polls or confront protesters to know how the city feels about their presence. Walking around just about any neighborhood in the area lately should provide a glimpse into the vast sprawl of graffiti and homemade yard signs expressing residents’ bone-deep aversion to ICE. One poster in particular, though, has been increasingly decorating the storefront windows of local restaurants, coffee shops, yarn stores, pubs, and bowling alleys, urging in no uncertain terms: “ICE out of Minneapolis.” This sign seems to have struck a chord within the community, not just because of its blunt message but the form it’s riffing on: a familiar red municipal sign highlighting snow emergency routes, already strewn throughout streets in the Twin Cities. While the original evokes the grill of a snowplow truck clearing out roads in the wake of a blizzard, the anti-ICE version includes helmets, rifles and handcuffs in the slushy waste. The new sign’s growing popularity suggests it’s tapping into residents’ regional identity as much as it is their love of creative protest art. Reimagining a local icon Burlesque of North America, a local design studio specializing in graphic arts and screenprinting, created the sign as a response to ICE’s incursion into Minneapolis. Owners Mike Davis and Wes Winship had previously created an anti-ICE enamel pin back in November when they first got the eerie sense something like Operation Metro Surge lay on the horizon. After their friends who run the nearby restaurant Hola Arepa were targeted by ICE in early December, the Burlesque team began playing with ideas for a protest poster. It didn’t take long for them to arrive at a concept rooted in the transportation department’s snow emergency sign. “We’ve been figuring out how to handle literal ice here for centuries,” Winship says. “And we’ve got this sign that’s pre-built, alerting people: There’s an emergency and we need to remove frozen precipitation from the streets.” It was clean, crisp iconography, on which to project a message of resistance. On top of that, it was instantly recognizable. “For the locals, everyone knows the sign. Everyone’s been living with it and responding to it,” says Davis. “But even people from out of town who don’t know the reference, they can still tell what it means and connect with it.” After working on a mockup, the two paused on the project as the holidays kicked into high gear. It remained set aside until January 7, the day an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good. That drastic escalation spurred the pair back into action on their poster. By the following night, Davis and Winship had completed all the design elements. The next day, they’d screenprinted the first of what would become over 5,000 copies to distribute around Minneapolis. They also offered free PDFs on their website, an open-source touch allowing out-of-towners to print signs and shirts of their own. The power of posters Although projects like concert posters are Burlesque’s bread and butter, the team has been rooted in socially conscious art for ages. Amid the Syrian refugee crisis, for instance, they created a Refugees Welcome image that went viral in 2015 when the Walker Art Center featured it and several news outlets ultimately wrote about it. After George Floyd was killed in 2020, Davis and Winship printed out several artists’ protest graphics for free and handed out copies from their delivery truck at the intersection quickly dubbed George Floyd Square. It’s in that very area where the city’s love of protest art is most evident—made manifest by the iconic raised fist of steel in Floyd’s memory, designed by artist Jerome Powell-Karis. The Burlesque team have now seen, once again, how much that love still radiates throughout the city during moments of upheaval. As they handed out their anti-ICE posters, restaurant and shop owners lit up at the sight of it. Davis brought 600 copies to a protest in Powderhorn Park the weekend after Good was killed, and his supply was picked clean within 15 minutes. When the team later asked for donations to cover their ink and paper costs, they hit their goal in three days. Meanwhile, the response on Instagram was unlike anything the pair had ever experienced. “We’re still being contacted almost hourly by someone who either wants one or wants an entire stack to give away at their bike shop or trivia night,” Davis says. The signs seem especially resonant at restaurants, where some owners are now opting to keep their doors locked during daytime hours to prevent ICE from entering. Local service workers seem haunted by recent reports of ICE agents eating at a restaurant in a town outside of Minneapolis, only to detain several employees afterward. The anti-ICE signs add some extra oomph to the locked doors, and let prospective diners know where the establishment stands. (Many restaurants without this particular sign have homemade anti-ICE signage of their own.) Although the snow emergency poster has started gaining a lot of traction, it feels perfectly at home among all the other protest art on display throughout the city—whether it’s the signs featuring Minnesota state bird, the loon, melting ice with laser eyes, an image with roots in local lore; all the inventive DIY anti-ICE entries at last weekend’s Art Sled Rally; or the ubiquitous stickers depicting melted ice. The Twin Cities community has clearly come together around its resistance to the current siege and Burlesque is happy to have helped play some small part in it. “I’m not going to be out there with a gas mask at the Federal Building, catching rubber bullets,” Davis says. “So, it feels good that I have something to contribute to the cause. Like, I’m a graphic designer. This is what I can do.” View the full article

A lot of people chase bigger paychecks and fancier titles, convinced that their next role will finally make them happy. I know I did. That’s why I spent years stuck in a job that, on paper, many would consider glamorous. But deep down inside, I knew it was toxic. I took on more and more responsibilities, kept a chaotic schedule, and bent over backwards to please my demanding boss. All because I thought that’s what it took to be successful. Then I would get home and push myself more, scrolling job boards, tweaking my résumé, and submitting applications. I was working around the clock, and rest wasn’t an option. All because I was convinced that a new role would change everything. But my job was never the real problem. And, chances are, it isn’t yours either. Burnout is the real culprit The real issue? You work too hard, stress too much, and rest too little. Of course you’re struggling. As a certified health coach, I’ve learned that most people misunderstand what burnout actually is. They think they’re just tired and in need of a good sleep or a long weekend. But really, it’s chronic stress and exhaustion, and that doesn’t magically disappear after a few days off. Take Headway’s recent survey, 24% of people returned from the festive break feeling like they hadn’t rested at all. In the early stages, burnout causes low energy and constant fatigue. Then brain fog creeps in. Your concentration drops, you become forgetful, and your brain slows. So you work harder to compensate, yet get less done, and your workload piles up. You push through anyway, because you don’t want to fail, but that only makes things worse. And that little voice in the back of your head telling you to quit? That’s another clear sign. Burnout breeds cynicism, which fuels disillusionment and distrust towards your employer. When everything is awful, even your dream role can start to feel unbearable. But chances are, the grass won’t be any greener if you don’t first change the way you work. Why quitting your job won’t fix everything Headway’s recent survey found that 24% of people are looking for a new job or considering an entirely different career path. But handing in your resignation isn’t always the fix that you hope it to be. Starting a new role is a major life change, and 87% experience the “new job jitters.” You want to impress, and you’re terrified of failing, so you work harder than ever. You tell yourself you’ll rest once you’ve proven yourself. Then the thrill of quitting wears off, and you somehow feel just as drained (if you’re lucky). Feeling worse off, 30% end up wishing they had never left their old role. The thing is, the job was never the issue. As human beings, we’re just not meant to juggle everything and never switch off. Many of us try to do so anyway, and that is a recipe for burnout. If you’re thinking of jumping roles or changing careers, try going easier on yourself first. Give yourself time to recover, and you might just realize that your workplace isn’t toxic. You do, however, probably need to change how you’re working. More effort isn’t the answer And that doesn’t mean putting in more effort. What you really need is capacity, and you can’t magically increase your brain’s bandwidth by demanding more from yourself. That just drains your capacity further. This means working smarter with what you have. Start by setting boundaries and building healthier working habits. Log off at 5 p.m., take your whole lunch break, and stop trying to prove your worth through overworking. Saying “yes” to everything and taking on tasks that aren’t your responsibility doesn’t help anyone. It only wastes energy, and as a result, you don’t have as much energy for the work that you really need to do (and makes the most impact). Prioritizing yourself and setting boundaries doesn’t mean you care any less. It means you understand that you can’t work well unless you feel well. Research shows that burnout causes the hippocampus to shrink and damages the brain’s neuroplasticity. It literally reduces our mental capacity, harming everything from memory to focus, and impulse control to executive function. But once you stop overworking, you should feel your brain clear, and your mental capacity should grow. Don’t leave burnout in charge of your career Burnout has a way of convincing us that everything is awful and that only drastic measures, whether moving to Bali or changing careers, will help. But that’s just your stress response. After fighting for so long, it’s easy to see why flight feels like the only option. But you’ve been fighting the wrong thing. To do it, it’s important to address the cause and give your mind time to recover. Only then can you decide with any real clarity whether a career change will actually solve your problems. View the full article

When a stranger smiles at you, you smile back. That is why, when Sir Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings, X-Men, Amadeus) walked on the stage in front of me, looked me straight in the eye, and smiled at me, I smiled back. It was the polite thing to do. It was also completely unnecessary, because McKellen was not actually on the stage in front of me. He smiled at me through a pair of special glasses. The reason for this unusual social interaction is called An Ark, which bills itself as the first play to be created in mixed-reality. Using Magic Leap glasses, the play blends the physical world with the digital realm, creating an unusually intimate theater experience. Opening January 21 at The Shed—the arts center in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards—An Ark tells a story of humanity through the perspective of four unnamed characters speaking to you from the afterlife. The characters—played by McKellen, Golda Rosheuvel of Bridgerton fame, Rosie Sheehy (a Welsh stage and screen actor, known for her work with the Royal Shakespeare Company,) and Arinzé Kene (a British actor and playwright who originated the lead role of Bob Marley in the West End musical Get Up, Stand Up!)—appear to sit in a semi-circle that you, a member of the audience, are part of. From the second they appear on stage, their eyes peer straight into your soul as they talk directly to you for the length of the play, which lasts 47 minutes. The illusion, which some might find disconcerting, is that each member of the audience is the center of the attention. In a purely physical world, this conceit would be impossible to realize unless the play were performed privately, one audience member at a time. But with the help of technology, it was convincing enough to elicit an unconscious smile from me—until my brain caught up to the trickery and the magic spell broke. The making of a mixed-reality play An Ark was written by British playwright Simon Stephens, who is perhaps most famous for his stage adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and directed by Sarah Frankcom, a British director known for her work at the Royal Exchange and National Theatre. The mastermind is Todd Eckert, who both conceived of and produced the play. Eckert built a decades-long career in music journalism, film, and dance before embracing technology for its ability to liberate storytelling. In 2012, he joined Magic Leap as director of content development, where he helped pioneer mixed-reality hardware. Four years later, in 2016, he founded a mixed-reality studio called Tin Drum, bought 400 Magic Leap headsets, which he owns to this day, and set out to change what theater could be. First came The Life, a mixed-reality project with his long-time partner, the artist Marina Abramović. Then came Kagami, an ethereal, mixed-reality concert by the Japanese composer and pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto, who collaborated with Eckert to create the show before he passed away. Kagami, which first premiered at The Shed in 2023, and has since toured globally, was so dazzling that I wept when I attended a performance in Manhattan. Eckert is immensely proud of the work, but he says An Ark was even more ambitious. “Nobody had ever captured four people simultaneously,” he says of the underlying technology. The team gathered in London, where they rehearsed An Ark like you would rehearse a traditional play, from beginning to end, with no interruption. Then, they flew to Grenoble, in southeastern France, where 4DViews, the company that designed the volumetric video system that can capture all four actors in full 3D, is headquartered. In Grenoble, they filmed the play under the scrutiny of 48 cameras, including a cluster of two cameras that stood in for the eventual audience members. “We ultimately got three full takes,” Eckert recalls of the shoot, which took place in an entirely green room he’s previously likened to “Kermit land.” After three months of data processing, the play was ready for opening night. What’s next for theater? Theater is becoming an increasingly endangered art form. Since the pandemic, audiences have been slower to return to in-person performances, production costs have climbed, and public funding has shrunk. Across the country, regional theaters have been cutting back seasons and are still struggling to recover, while Broadway budgets now routinely reach into the tens of millions. As a result, ticket prices have risen, often putting live theater out of reach for younger audiences and first-time attendees. “There is an entire community of people who feel art is not being made for them,” says Daniel Sherman, a San Francisco-based artist who has been producing theater since 2010, and who also recently finished a play in mixed-reality (though it hasn’t been staged yet.) “If we can add a tech component, and meet people where they are, maybe this could be the thing that brings in younger audiences,” he says. One of the obvious promises of the mixed-reality technology is it could make theater more accessible. With no actors to tour, no sets to build or transport, and far fewer recurring labor and logistics costs tied to global touring, a mixed-reality play should be a lot more affordable than a traditional production. (A ticket for An Ark costs around $45.) There are other benefits, too. As producers around the world continue to rethink the genre, technology is increasingly being used not as a cost-cutting tool, but as a way to stretch what theater can do. In the Broadway production of The Picture of Dorian Gray, director Kip Williams used live video capture to allow a single performer (Sarah Snook) to inhabit multiple characters at once in ways that would be difficult to achieve through traditional staging alone. And in Briar & Rose, an augmented-reality children’s play that ran across Europe, Glitch studio combined physical performance with augmented reality technology, placing audiences inside a layered narrative space rather than in front of a fixed stage. Still, some have been skeptical of technology’s potential for years. Sarah Frankcom, An Ark‘s very own director, used to be one of them. In fact, when Eckert first approached her, she refused the job, arguing, as Eckert recalls, that she was not interested in technology; she was interested in humans in a room. What made her change her mind? She experienced Kagami through the glasses. “I was intrigued by how it put an audience in a different relationship to a live experience and the possibilities of its intimacy,” she told me in an email. “I was excited by the way it could summon up a communal experience.” Frankcom says that working with this particular technology has reframed her ideas of what theater could be. “This feels like the beginning of a new form,” she wrote. “And whilst there is no live acting in a traditional sense, I’ve been very struck by how much an audience interact with the actors and how they laugh, cry and reach to hold their hands.” What do we gain and what do we lose with technology? Is a play still a play if there are no live actors on stage? Perhaps that’s a matter of semantics. Or perhaps it helps to consider a definition of theater that doesn’t focus on the physicality of the experience, but rather the emotions that it conjures up. The technology promises cinematic realism, and it mostly delivers. While some glitches made the actors’ arms and feet flicker and stretch into their surroundings (glitches Eckert says he could fix if he had unlimited funds) their faces looked as real as they could through a pair of eyeglasses. The team also fine-tuned the distance between the actors and audience members so the experience feels as intimate as it would in real life. (You can’t ever see all four actors at the same time, forcing you to turn your head to stay engaged.) But there is only so much realism to conjure when all it takes to break the spell is to peek underneath the glasses and see a room full of bespectacled people staring into nothing. I like to think I would have felt the story in my bones if only the actors had delivered it to me in real life. But I will never be able to put my theory to the test because this exact play, in this exact configuration, could never be performed without technology. “What can we do that’s not possible in any other way?” Eckert first wondered when brainstorming what the play could be with Simmons. The idea, he says, was never to supplant traditional theater but rather to broaden its potential and having actors of such great caliber address audience members in such an intimate setting accomplishes just that. “Art, I think, is ultimately a way of making sense of things that don’t make sense,” Eckert told me after the show. If Ian McKellen ushered me off stage to guide me into the afterlife, it would not make sense without a strong sense of suspended disbelief. But here, in the hazy world that only mixed-reality can afford, it does. View the full article

Remember how much fun it was to shop on the internet a decade ago? If you visited the Goop website, Gwyneth Paltrow might introduce you to her favorite $75 candle or $95 vibrator. If you were looking for a lasagne recipe, you could find a good one on Food52—along with recommendations for a baking dish hand-selected by former New York Times food editor Amanda Hesser. Watch-lovers flocked to Hodinkee to see what founder Benjamin Clymer thought of the cool new Longines or Omega timepiece (with a handy link to buy it, in case you really liked it). At their peak, around five years ago, all of these media companies landed millions of dollars in venture capital and had valuations well into the nine figures. Legacy media ranging from the New Yorker to Vogue took a page from their book, too, linking to products you could buy directly from the pieces published on their websites. Gwyneth PaltrowKerry WashingtonGoop But over the last two years, this generation of content-to-commerce pioneers has fizzled out. Goop has gone through multiple rounds of layoffs and its website is a shell of what it used to be. In 2024, Hodinkee was sold at a fraction of its former valuation. And last month, Food52 declared bankruptcy and is headed towards a fire sale. It’s worth asking what happened to these startups—and what comes next, as AI transforms the way we shop online. The rise and fall of Food52 The rise and fall of Food52 offers insight into what went wrong with the content-to-commerce model. Founders Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs had come from the traditional food media. They saw a gap between legacy magazines like Bon Appétit and Food & Wine, which prioritized the perspectives of elite chefs, and amateur food blogs, which were flooding the internet. With Food52, they invited home cooks to submit recipes, which their team would test. The best ones would be featured on the site, alongside beautiful photography. The concept resonated and site traffic grew quickly. Initially, the company generated revenue from advertising and brand partnerships. But in 2013, the site launched a shop that sold kitchenware and artisanal ingredients that Food52 staffers recommended. This approach made sense says Dan Frommer, founder of The New Consumer. One of the biggest problems with shopping online is the overwhelming volume of products available. First generation content-to-commerce startups offered expertise and a point of view, which gave them the authority to recommend products. “They were offering curation, which was a valuable service at the time,” he says. Goop and Hodinkee followed similar trajectories. They began as blogs centered around a particular perspective and aspirational lifestyle, driven by their well-known founders. Over time, they built up enough trust with their readers to sell them products. (Food52 declined to comment on the story. We reached out to Goop and Hodinkee, but neither got back to us by the time of publication.) In 2019 and 2020, investors still believed this might be the future of retail. They pumped millions into their startups to grow their audiences, start new revenue streams like events, and start their own product lines. Food52, for instance, was valued at $300 million in 2021, after an $80 million investment from TCG (which also invested in Hodinkee). But this funding may have inadvertently led to their decline. With the influx of cash, these startups had a mandate to scale, but they all struggled to grow sustainably. By the start of this year, Food52 had declared bankruptcy. America’s Test Kitchen has reportedly agreed to buy it for $6.5 million, of which $3.42 million is Chapter 11 financing. Frommer argues that there were many idiosyncratic reasons why each of these companies failed. Food52, for instance, appeared to have bitten off more than it could chew. In 2019, it launched its own in-house kitchenware line; it also acquired two entirely new companies, the Danish cookware brand Dansk and the lighting brand Schoolhouse. “There was a lot wrong with the business,” Frommer says. “There were failures in strategy and execution.” But taking a step back, it’s clear that there were also broader issues with the content-to-commerce model that affected all of these businesses. What Didn’t Work—and What Did These early content-to-commerce platforms accurately identified that consumers were overwhelmed with the avalanche of products available on the internet—and they also knew that taste could be monetized. Still, there were flaws with their model. For one thing, consumers often didn’t come to these websites with the intent to shop. They were there to take in the content: the recipes, listicles of clean beauty products, or a conversation with Ed Sheeran about his favorite watches. Only a small proportion of consumers would feel compelled to buy a product. Often, when a publication’s famous founder recommended a product, it would sell better; but over time, as the sites grew to have teams of writers, the sites no longer conveyed the distinct sensibilities of Paltrow, Hesser, or Clymer. Then there were the economics. It is hard to make money by marketing other brand’s products. These sites generated small amounts of revenue by selling products at a markup on their online stores or by making a commission by driving the customer to another brand’s website. All of these companies realized that a more profitable route was to make their own products, which they all did, from Goop’s beauty and fashion lines to Hodinkee’s watch straps and limited edition collaborations with brands like Longines. But this meant building out teams with expertise in designing and sourcing products, which was also a major investment. Finally, there was all the competition. Other media sites quickly realized they, too, could create a new revenue stream by linking to products. And some began doing it much more effectively. In 2016, for instance, the New York Times acquired Wirecutter for $30 million. Unlike Food52, Goop, and Hodinkee, Wirecutter was designed to help consumers at the moment when they were ready to buy a product. New York Magazine built its own product recommendation site called The Strategist, which has a similar model. “Content that really drives commerce is not just ambient recommendations around fun articles,” says Frommer. “It’s really purpose-driven content designed to help the consumer solve a problem. The majority of traffic to Wirecutter and The Strategist happens at the moment of need—they promote their humidifier recommendations when the winter air is dry.” The content-to-commerce model hasn’t disappeared; it has shape shifted. There are now massive players like Wirecutter that dominate the landscape. And at the other end of the spectrum, there are armies of individual content creators who recommend products to their followers on Substack, Instagram, or TikTok. It’s just the middle of the market that has collapsed. But as with everything on the internet, change is constant. And everything we know about how to shop online is about to get transformed by AI, which is already where many people begin their shopping journey. In many ways, AI agents are the ultimate blending of content and commerce: They offers product recommendations, personalized to the user, presented within a conversation. But what’s missing from AI is a unique point of view or sensibility—which is what the early content-to-commerce players excelled in. In an AI-driven shopping future, the winners won’t be the smartest algorithms. It’ll be the ones that blend data with something that feels like taste. View the full article

A reader recently sent me a viral video. It features a heavily muscled and perpetually shirtless fitness influencer named Ashton Hall demonstrating what he calls “the morning routine that changed my life.” It starts at 3:52 a.m. with Hall flexing in the mirror as he pulls off a piece of tape covering his mouth (presumably placed the night before to promote nose breathing during sleep). At 3:54 a.m., he brushes his teeth and gargles water from a fancy bottle. At 4:00 a.m., he walks onto his balcony to do push-ups. Then he performs some standing meditation. At 4:40 a.m., Hall journals. At 4:55, he listens to sermons on his phone while continuing to drink from the same water bottle, and at 5:46, he pours the remaining water into a bowl of ice and plunges his face into it. And so on… The video continues until 9:26 a.m., when Hall finally eats breakfast. It’s been five and a half hours since he woke up, and now he’s finally ready to start his day. This Ashton Hall video is obviously extreme. But it’s a good example of a popular type of online content that presents overly-complex routines that promise to deliver you a desirable reward, be it a superhero’s body or a supervillain’s bank account. Many commentators like to make fun of these influencers, and I get it, as these earnest efforts are out of step with an online culture that tends toward sardonic detachment. (One of the top comments on the Hall video dryly quips: “The last time I stepped on the balcony to do my morning pushups, I noticed I don’t have a balcony. Broke three ribs.”) But I’ve become worried that a deeper issue lurks. I’m less concerned about what makes these influencers cringe than I am about what makes them popular. This genre seems to work, in part, because the instructions it provides are hard enough that you can believe them capable of delivering real rewards, and yet are also sufficiently tractable that you can imagine yourself following them – a sweet spot that’s compulsively consumable. This formula essentially hijacks our natural ambition, shifting our attention from the hard, ambiguous, but ultimately satisfying efforts required for true accomplishment toward overwrought prescriptions that waste our time. I’m particularly worried about young people (a popular audience of this content) who might be diverted into these clickbait rabbit holes at a time when they should be seeking genuine mentorship instead. To help make sense of these issues, I recently sat down to talk with bestselling writer Brad Stulberg, whose fantastic new book, The Way of Excellence: A Guide to True Greatness and Deep Satisfaction in a Chaotic World, comes out tomorrow. Stulberg is an expert in the field of (actual, measurable) performance. His new book (which 9-time NBA Champion Steve Kerr described as capturing “a lot of what I believe as a coach”) makes the case that embracing a commitment to “genuine excellence” can deliver more meaning than the types of performative efforts popular online. Here are three useful things I learned from Stulberg, each set up by a quote from his book: → “There is no greater illusion than thinking the accomplishment of some goal will change your life.” Genuine excellence is more about craft than rewards. You need to find meaning in the act of trying to improve at something. This satisfaction is more lasting than any isolated achievement. → “Caring is cool.” You have to care deeply about what you’re pursuing, meaning it should align with your values and help make you a better person. This is quite different from, say, trying to develop biceps purely to impress girls or buying a fancy car to make your friends jealous. → “True discipline is not a chest-thumping, hype-speech giving, performative act of toughness.” Excellence works better when you disconnect. Don’t brag about your accomplishments online. Don’t look for brief hits of hype from emotionally manipulative videos. Instead, take care of your business with a quiet, inward satisfaction. If you’re worried about the internet hijacking your ambition (or the ambition of someone you care about), then keep these ideas in mind. It’s not enough to dismiss influencers like Ashton Hall; you need to replace what they’re offering with a more compelling alternative. Stulberg’s writing, in my opinion, points the way to one such alternative. “The real reward is that you become a better version of yourself,” he summarizes toward the end of his book. This might not be as exciting as sticking your face in ice water before sunrise. But it sounds about right to me. — It may go without saying that I highly recommend The Way of Excellence. It’s a must-read book that offers a path toward the discipline of mastery, competence, and mattering. Consider buying a copy today. And if you do, fill out this form to obtain some bonus material from Stulberg, including a video master class on the topic and a list of related reading. The post Is the Internet Hijacking Our Ambition? appeared first on Cal Newport. View the full article

A reader recently sent me a viral video. It features a heavily muscled and perpetually shirtless fitness influencer named Ashton Hall demonstrating what he calls “the morning routine that changed my life.” It starts at 3:52 a.m. with Hall flexing in the mirror as he pulls off a piece of tape covering his mouth (presumably placed the night before to promote nose breathing during sleep). At 3:54 a.m., he brushes his teeth and gargles water from a fancy bottle. At 4:00 a.m., he walks onto his balcony to do push-ups. Then he performs some standing meditation. At 4:40 a.m., Hall journals. At 4:55, he listens to sermons on his phone while continuing to drink from the same water bottle, and at 5:46, he pours the remaining water into a bowl of ice and plunges his face into it. And so on… The video continues until 9:26 a.m., when Hall finally eats breakfast. It’s been five and a half hours since he woke up, and now he’s finally ready to start his day. This Ashton Hall video is obviously extreme. But it’s a good example of a popular type of online content that presents overly-complex routines that promise to deliver you a desirable reward, be it a superhero’s body or a supervillain’s bank account. Many commentators like to make fun of these influencers, and I get it, as these earnest efforts are out of step with an online culture that tends toward sardonic detachment. (One of the top comments on the Hall video dryly quips: “The last time I stepped on the balcony to do my morning pushups, I noticed I don’t have a balcony. Broke three ribs.”) But I’ve become worried that a deeper issue lurks. I’m less concerned about what makes these influencers cringe than I am about what makes them popular. This genre seems to work, in part, because the instructions it provides are hard enough that you can believe them capable of delivering real rewards, and yet are also sufficiently tractable that you can imagine yourself following them – a sweet spot that’s compulsively consumable. This formula essentially hijacks our natural ambition, shifting our attention from the hard, ambiguous, but ultimately satisfying efforts required for true accomplishment toward overwrought prescriptions that waste our time. I’m particularly worried about young people (a popular audience of this content) who might be diverted into these clickbait rabbit holes at a time when they should be seeking genuine mentorship instead. To help make sense of these issues, I recently sat down to talk with bestselling writer Brad Stulberg, whose fantastic new book, The Way of Excellence: A Guide to True Greatness and Deep Satisfaction in a Chaotic World, comes out tomorrow. Stulberg is an expert in the field of (actual, measurable) performance. His new book (which 9-time NBA Champion Steve Kerr described as capturing “a lot of what I believe as a coach”) makes the case that embracing a commitment to “genuine excellence” can deliver more meaning than the types of performative efforts popular online. Here are three useful things I learned from Stulberg, each set up by a quote from his book: → “There is no greater illusion than thinking the accomplishment of some goal will change your life.” Genuine excellence is more about craft than rewards. You need to find meaning in the act of trying to improve at something. This satisfaction is more lasting than any isolated achievement. → “Caring is cool.” You have to care deeply about what you’re pursuing, meaning it should align with your values and help make you a better person. This is quite different from, say, trying to develop biceps purely to impress girls or buying a fancy car to make your friends jealous. → “True discipline is not a chest-thumping, hype-speech giving, performative act of toughness.” Excellence works better when you disconnect. Don’t brag about your accomplishments online. Don’t look for brief hits of hype from emotionally manipulative videos. Instead, take care of your business with a quiet, inward satisfaction. If you’re worried about the internet hijacking your ambition (or the ambition of someone you care about), then keep these ideas in mind. It’s not enough to dismiss influencers like Ashton Hall; you need to replace what they’re offering with a more compelling alternative. Stulberg’s writing, in my opinion, points the way to one such alternative. “The real reward is that you become a better version of yourself,” he summarizes toward the end of his book. This might not be as exciting as sticking your face in ice water before sunrise. But it sounds about right to me. — It may go without saying that I highly recommend The Way of Excellence. It’s a must-read book that offers a path toward the discipline of mastery, competence, and mattering. Consider buying a copy today. And if you do, fill out this form to obtain some bonus material from Stulberg, including a video master class on the topic and a list of related reading. The post Is the Internet Hijacking Our Ambition? appeared first on Cal Newport. View the full article

President Donald The President's recently filed lawsuit against megabank JPMorganChase and its CEO Jamie Dimon is not expected to succeed in court, legal experts say. View the full article

United Wholesale Mortgage, which was sued twice in December for alleged violations, put the blame for some text messages on an independent mortgage broker. View the full article

Prepayment speeds approached recent highs last month, but distressed borrower data paints a mixed picture about the current housing market, according to ICE. View the full article

Google's user intent extraction research shows how AI on mobile devices could be used to proactively assist users and automate tasks. The post Google’s New User Intent Extraction Method appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Greater Manchester mayor seen as rival to Keir Starmer as party leaderView the full article

Key Takeaways Pixy Launch: Snapchat’s Pixy is a compact drone designed to elevate content creation for both casual users and seasoned enthusiasts, enabling stunning aerial shots for social media. User-Friendly Features: With its intuitive design and four preset flight modes—Hover, Reveal, Follow, and Orbit—Pixy makes capturing dynamic video content easy for users of all skill levels. Boosts Engagement: Pixy’s unique capabilities encourage the creation of user-generated content, helping brands foster community interactions and increase engagement across platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Brand Awareness: The ability to create high-quality visual content enhances brand storytelling, making Pixy a valuable tool for small businesses to improve their social media strategies and attract followers. Potential Challenges: Despite its innovative design, initial critiques regarding safety and technical issues highlight the importance of reliability in new marketing tools to maintain user trust and brand consistency. Competitive Advantage: By leveraging Pixy for influencer marketing and compelling content, small businesses can differentiate themselves and thrive in an increasingly competitive online landscape. Snapchat’s latest innovation, Pixy, is set to change the way you capture and share your moments. This new drone offers a unique blend of convenience and creativity, allowing you to take your Snapchat experience to new heights—literally. With its compact design and user-friendly features, Pixy is perfect for both seasoned drone enthusiasts and casual users alike. Overview of Snapchat Launches Pixy Snapchat introduces Pixy, a compact and intuitive drone aimed at transforming content creation. Designed for both casual users and experienced drone enthusiasts, Pixy enhances social media posts through stunning aerial footage. You can effortlessly capture moments by launching Pixy from your palm, making it ideal for diverse environments. Pixy delivers convenience with features that allow for easy sharing on your preferred social media platforms, like Instagram and TikTok. This integration boosts brand awareness, improving your overall social media strategy. By creating video content with Pixy, you enhance storytelling potential, leading to increased engagement rates. Consider using Pixy to produce user-generated content that resonates with your audience. This not only fosters community management but also elevates your social media engagement. As trends evolve, tools like Pixy help amplify your brand’s online presence while maintaining brand consistency across different channels. Utilize Pixy to develop effective social media campaigns. Capture unique angles and creative shots that stand out. As a small business, this innovation allows you to leverage influencer marketing opportunities, expanding your reach through partnerships with popular content creators. With Pixy, your brand can thrive in today’s competitive landscape, adapting to social media trends and driving organic growth. Features of Pixy Pixy’s features cater to your content creation needs, making it an excellent tool for small businesses looking to enhance their online presence. This pocket-sized drone offers unique functionalities that simplify capturing and sharing video content across social media platforms. Camera Capabilities Pixy boasts impressive camera capabilities, allowing you to capture high-quality footage effortlessly. The drone includes a built-in camera that enables you to create stunning aerial videos and photos. With 16 gigabytes of storage, Pixy holds approximately 100 videos or 1,000 photos, ideal for your social media marketing needs. You can easily showcase your products, services, or events, driving engagement rates with dynamic visual storytelling. This visual content can be shared on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, effectively boosting brand awareness and attracting social media followers. Design and Usability Pixy’s compact design ensures portability, allowing you to take it anywhere. The user-friendly interface simplifies operation with four preset flight modes tailored for various scenarios: Hover: The drone floats in front of you for quick selfies. Reveal: The drone pans backward and rises, providing unique perspectives of your surroundings. Follow: The drone tracks your movements, perfect for action shots during events. Orbit: The drone circles around you, ideal for captivating videos. The recall mechanism adds convenience; simply turn your palm up, and Pixy lands gently in your hand. This functionality elevates your content creation, helping you maintain brand consistency across social media posts while engaging your audience more effectively. Incorporating Pixy into your social media strategy enhances customer interaction and elevates your storytelling methods. Impacts on Social Media Trends Pixy’s launch significantly influences social media trends, especially for small businesses looking to enhance their online presence. The pocket-sized selfie drone optimizes content creation, emphasizing the importance of innovative visual storytelling on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. User Engagement Engagement rates may see a boost as Pixy’s unique capabilities allow users to capture compelling video content from dynamic angles. User-generated content will likely flourish, encouraging followers to share their own Pixy experiences. This creative approach fosters community management and enhances brand consistency, as customers engage with your brand more meaningfully. Using Pixy can streamline content sharing across various platforms, aiding your social media strategy and maximizing organic reach. Competitive Landscape The competitive landscape shifts with Pixy’s introduction. Small businesses can utilize the drone to differentiate themselves through eye-catching social media ads and authentic storytelling, attracting followers more effectively. By harnessing Pixy for influencer marketing, you can tap into new audiences and optimize collaborations with reputable creators. Embracing such innovative tools is essential to maintain brand awareness, refine audience targeting, and adapt to evolving social media trends, ensuring your brand remains relevant amid fierce competition. Community Reactions Snapchat’s Pixy has garnered a variety of reactions from users since its launch. Feedback highlights the drone’s potential for enhancing content creation, particularly for small businesses focused on social media marketing. Positive Feedback Many users appreciate Pixy’s innovative design as a flying selfie camera, offering a unique way to capture engaging video content for platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. The compact and portable nature of Pixy facilitates easy transportation, allowing you to integrate it into your social media strategy seamlessly. Users find the integration with the Snapchat app particularly beneficial, as it streamlines content sharing directly to your audience, enhancing brand awareness and customer interaction. The preset flight modes—Hover, Reveal, Follow, and Orbit—help users create dynamic social media posts that elevate storytelling and engagement rate, making Pixy an effective tool for social media campaigns. Critiques Some critiques emerged following a recall of 71,000 Pixy units due to safety concerns. This raised questions about reliability and safety protocols, leading to skepticism among potential users. Users expressed concerns about technical issues, which could impact the overall customer experience and, consequently, your business’s online presence. The safety feedback highlights the importance of ensuring product reliability, especially when incorporating new tools into your social media toolkit. Addressing these critiques is crucial for maintaining brand consistency and building trust with your audience as you navigate social media trends. Incorporating Pixy into your content marketing efforts offers substantial opportunities for social media growth, but ensuring that you maintain high standards and address any concerns is essential for your brand’s success. Conclusion Snapchat’s Pixy is set to revolutionize the way you capture and share moments. With its user-friendly design and impressive features, it caters to both casual users and seasoned drone enthusiasts. This innovative tool not only enhances your storytelling capabilities but also elevates your social media presence. As you explore Pixy’s potential, consider how it can transform your content strategy. By leveraging its aerial footage and unique angles, you’ll stand out in a competitive landscape. While addressing any concerns regarding reliability is crucial, the opportunities for engagement and creativity are immense. Embrace Pixy to take your social media marketing to new heights. Frequently Asked Questions What is Snapchat’s Pixy? Pixy is a compact, user-friendly drone developed by Snapchat to help users capture and share moments from a unique aerial perspective. Designed for both experienced and casual users, it aims to enhance content creation for social media platforms. How does Pixy improve content creation? Pixy allows users to capture stunning aerial footage effortlessly, making storytelling more dynamic and engaging. Its various preset flight modes cater to different scenarios, helping users create high-quality videos that can boost brand visibility. What are Pixy’s main features? Pixy offers impressive camera capabilities, allowing users to store around 100 videos or 1,000 photos. Its compact design enhances portability, and user-friendly flight modes like Hover, Follow, and Orbit make capturing content easier. How can small businesses benefit from using Pixy? Small businesses can use Pixy to create eye-catching social media ads and authentic storytelling, which differentiates them in a competitive landscape. It also fosters community management through user-generated content. What safety concerns have been associated with Pixy? A recall of 71,000 Pixy units was initiated due to safety concerns, leading to questions about reliability and technical issues. Addressing these critiques is essential for maintaining brand trust and consistency among users. How can Pixy enhance social media engagement? By producing compelling video content and allowing for unique angles, Pixy encourages user-generated content and interaction. This enhances storytelling methods and encourages active customer engagement on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Image Via Envato This article, "Snapchat Launches Pixy: Discover the New Drone for Capturing Moments" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Key Takeaways Pixy Launch: Snapchat’s Pixy is a compact drone designed to elevate content creation for both casual users and seasoned enthusiasts, enabling stunning aerial shots for social media. User-Friendly Features: With its intuitive design and four preset flight modes—Hover, Reveal, Follow, and Orbit—Pixy makes capturing dynamic video content easy for users of all skill levels. Boosts Engagement: Pixy’s unique capabilities encourage the creation of user-generated content, helping brands foster community interactions and increase engagement across platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Brand Awareness: The ability to create high-quality visual content enhances brand storytelling, making Pixy a valuable tool for small businesses to improve their social media strategies and attract followers. Potential Challenges: Despite its innovative design, initial critiques regarding safety and technical issues highlight the importance of reliability in new marketing tools to maintain user trust and brand consistency. Competitive Advantage: By leveraging Pixy for influencer marketing and compelling content, small businesses can differentiate themselves and thrive in an increasingly competitive online landscape. Snapchat’s latest innovation, Pixy, is set to change the way you capture and share your moments. This new drone offers a unique blend of convenience and creativity, allowing you to take your Snapchat experience to new heights—literally. With its compact design and user-friendly features, Pixy is perfect for both seasoned drone enthusiasts and casual users alike. Overview of Snapchat Launches Pixy Snapchat introduces Pixy, a compact and intuitive drone aimed at transforming content creation. Designed for both casual users and experienced drone enthusiasts, Pixy enhances social media posts through stunning aerial footage. You can effortlessly capture moments by launching Pixy from your palm, making it ideal for diverse environments. Pixy delivers convenience with features that allow for easy sharing on your preferred social media platforms, like Instagram and TikTok. This integration boosts brand awareness, improving your overall social media strategy. By creating video content with Pixy, you enhance storytelling potential, leading to increased engagement rates. Consider using Pixy to produce user-generated content that resonates with your audience. This not only fosters community management but also elevates your social media engagement. As trends evolve, tools like Pixy help amplify your brand’s online presence while maintaining brand consistency across different channels. Utilize Pixy to develop effective social media campaigns. Capture unique angles and creative shots that stand out. As a small business, this innovation allows you to leverage influencer marketing opportunities, expanding your reach through partnerships with popular content creators. With Pixy, your brand can thrive in today’s competitive landscape, adapting to social media trends and driving organic growth. Features of Pixy Pixy’s features cater to your content creation needs, making it an excellent tool for small businesses looking to enhance their online presence. This pocket-sized drone offers unique functionalities that simplify capturing and sharing video content across social media platforms. Camera Capabilities Pixy boasts impressive camera capabilities, allowing you to capture high-quality footage effortlessly. The drone includes a built-in camera that enables you to create stunning aerial videos and photos. With 16 gigabytes of storage, Pixy holds approximately 100 videos or 1,000 photos, ideal for your social media marketing needs. You can easily showcase your products, services, or events, driving engagement rates with dynamic visual storytelling. This visual content can be shared on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, effectively boosting brand awareness and attracting social media followers. Design and Usability Pixy’s compact design ensures portability, allowing you to take it anywhere. The user-friendly interface simplifies operation with four preset flight modes tailored for various scenarios: Hover: The drone floats in front of you for quick selfies. Reveal: The drone pans backward and rises, providing unique perspectives of your surroundings. Follow: The drone tracks your movements, perfect for action shots during events. Orbit: The drone circles around you, ideal for captivating videos. The recall mechanism adds convenience; simply turn your palm up, and Pixy lands gently in your hand. This functionality elevates your content creation, helping you maintain brand consistency across social media posts while engaging your audience more effectively. Incorporating Pixy into your social media strategy enhances customer interaction and elevates your storytelling methods. Impacts on Social Media Trends Pixy’s launch significantly influences social media trends, especially for small businesses looking to enhance their online presence. The pocket-sized selfie drone optimizes content creation, emphasizing the importance of innovative visual storytelling on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. User Engagement Engagement rates may see a boost as Pixy’s unique capabilities allow users to capture compelling video content from dynamic angles. User-generated content will likely flourish, encouraging followers to share their own Pixy experiences. This creative approach fosters community management and enhances brand consistency, as customers engage with your brand more meaningfully. Using Pixy can streamline content sharing across various platforms, aiding your social media strategy and maximizing organic reach. Competitive Landscape The competitive landscape shifts with Pixy’s introduction. Small businesses can utilize the drone to differentiate themselves through eye-catching social media ads and authentic storytelling, attracting followers more effectively. By harnessing Pixy for influencer marketing, you can tap into new audiences and optimize collaborations with reputable creators. Embracing such innovative tools is essential to maintain brand awareness, refine audience targeting, and adapt to evolving social media trends, ensuring your brand remains relevant amid fierce competition. Community Reactions Snapchat’s Pixy has garnered a variety of reactions from users since its launch. Feedback highlights the drone’s potential for enhancing content creation, particularly for small businesses focused on social media marketing. Positive Feedback Many users appreciate Pixy’s innovative design as a flying selfie camera, offering a unique way to capture engaging video content for platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. The compact and portable nature of Pixy facilitates easy transportation, allowing you to integrate it into your social media strategy seamlessly. Users find the integration with the Snapchat app particularly beneficial, as it streamlines content sharing directly to your audience, enhancing brand awareness and customer interaction. The preset flight modes—Hover, Reveal, Follow, and Orbit—help users create dynamic social media posts that elevate storytelling and engagement rate, making Pixy an effective tool for social media campaigns. Critiques Some critiques emerged following a recall of 71,000 Pixy units due to safety concerns. This raised questions about reliability and safety protocols, leading to skepticism among potential users. Users expressed concerns about technical issues, which could impact the overall customer experience and, consequently, your business’s online presence. The safety feedback highlights the importance of ensuring product reliability, especially when incorporating new tools into your social media toolkit. Addressing these critiques is crucial for maintaining brand consistency and building trust with your audience as you navigate social media trends. Incorporating Pixy into your content marketing efforts offers substantial opportunities for social media growth, but ensuring that you maintain high standards and address any concerns is essential for your brand’s success. Conclusion Snapchat’s Pixy is set to revolutionize the way you capture and share moments. With its user-friendly design and impressive features, it caters to both casual users and seasoned drone enthusiasts. This innovative tool not only enhances your storytelling capabilities but also elevates your social media presence. As you explore Pixy’s potential, consider how it can transform your content strategy. By leveraging its aerial footage and unique angles, you’ll stand out in a competitive landscape. While addressing any concerns regarding reliability is crucial, the opportunities for engagement and creativity are immense. Embrace Pixy to take your social media marketing to new heights. Frequently Asked Questions What is Snapchat’s Pixy? Pixy is a compact, user-friendly drone developed by Snapchat to help users capture and share moments from a unique aerial perspective. Designed for both experienced and casual users, it aims to enhance content creation for social media platforms. How does Pixy improve content creation? Pixy allows users to capture stunning aerial footage effortlessly, making storytelling more dynamic and engaging. Its various preset flight modes cater to different scenarios, helping users create high-quality videos that can boost brand visibility. What are Pixy’s main features? Pixy offers impressive camera capabilities, allowing users to store around 100 videos or 1,000 photos. Its compact design enhances portability, and user-friendly flight modes like Hover, Follow, and Orbit make capturing content easier. How can small businesses benefit from using Pixy? Small businesses can use Pixy to create eye-catching social media ads and authentic storytelling, which differentiates them in a competitive landscape. It also fosters community management through user-generated content. What safety concerns have been associated with Pixy? A recall of 71,000 Pixy units was initiated due to safety concerns, leading to questions about reliability and technical issues. Addressing these critiques is essential for maintaining brand trust and consistency among users. How can Pixy enhance social media engagement? By producing compelling video content and allowing for unique angles, Pixy encourages user-generated content and interaction. This enhances storytelling methods and encourages active customer engagement on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Image Via Envato This article, "Snapchat Launches Pixy: Discover the New Drone for Capturing Moments" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

For decades, people with disabilities have relied on service dogs to help them perform daily tasks like opening doors, turning on lights, or alerting caregivers to emergencies. By some estimates, there are 500,000 service dogs in the U.S., but little attention has been paid to the fact that these dogs have been trained to interact with interfaces that are made for humans. A team of researchers from the United Kingdom wants to change that by designing accessible products for, and with dogs. The Open University’s Animal-Computer Interaction Laboratory in the UK was founded in 2011 to help promote the art and science of designing animal-centered systems. Led by Clara Mancini, a professor of animal-computer interaction, the lab studies how animals interact with technology and develops interactive systems designed to improve their wellbeing and support their relationships with humans. The team’s first commercially available product is a specifically-designed button that service dogs can press to help turn on corresponding appliances at home, like a lamp, a kettle, or a fan. The Dogosophy Button took more than ten years to develop and was tested with about 20 dogs from UK charity Dogs for Good. It gives dogs more control over certain aspects of their home, which can make training them easier and further strengthen the bond between a human and their dog. It’s also taught the team a few lessons about how to design for humans. “I am now a better human designer,” says Luisa Ruge, an industrial designer who worked with Mancini and led the design of the button. For now, the Dogosophy Button is only available for purchase in the UK (for about $130). The challenges of designing for animals Anyone who’s ever designed a product for a human client knows the process relies on a perfect storm of variables like gender, age, background, and personal preferences. But these designers also have one advantage they likely take for granted: they can ask their client what they think at every step of the way. Getting feedback from a dog is much harder and requires an understanding of animal behavior. “There’s a lot of iteration,” says Ruge, “and a huge ethical and reflective component because I can’t be a dog, I don’t [feel] what they feel.” Ruge began her career as an industrial designer, but as she moved up the corporate ladder, she realized she was fascinated with animals. Her interest led her to train as a service dog trainer at Bergin College of Canine Studies in California. “One of the ways to bond is we had to be tied to our dog with a carabiner and leash for 8 days, 24/7,” she recalls. Later, she attended a conference on human behavior change for animal welfare, where she met Mancini and became interested in her lab. Ruge immediately enrolled in a PhD at The Open University, and spent the next three years writing a thesis on designing for the animal user experience and proving out her dog-centered methodology. Ruge followed the five human factors model, a method that helps designers understand the end user’s behavior by breaking down the UX into five factors. The typical list includes physical, cognitive, social, cultural, and emotional factors, but Ruge added a sixth—sensory—and then later, a seventh: consent. To understand the exact characteristics and abilities she had to design for, she focused on Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, as these are the most common breeds for service dogs. Her research led to various correlations that informed the design of the button. For example: since both breeds have long tails, the button should not feature sensors that might accidentaly be activated by it. Since both breeds are predisposed to hip dysplasia and joint problems, the button should also not be designed in a way that requires jumping to activate. And since all dogs see the world in hues of yellow, blue, and brown, the button should be made in one of these colors so it is easy to perceive. When Ruge first got involved, the prototype Mancini had developed was square in shape, and looked a bit like the standard metallic button that people with wheelchairs can press to open a door. Now—after about 20 iterations and five prototypes—the button is round, convex, and blue. It is textured to prevent a dog’s wet snout from sliding on it, and its push depth is such that a more timid dog shouldn’t have to press hard to activate it. Ruge had to test some of her designs the hard way. The first prototype she ever made took days to develop and the dogs destroyed it “in two seconds,” she recalls with a laugh. But dogs don’t know that a prototype should be handled with care. To them, a work-in-progress product looks no different than a finished product. Animal design as a discipline Designing for dogs humbled Ruge’s assumptions. “It lets you know you’re never 100% right,” she says, adding that the only way to confirm her theories was through extensive testing and observation. It also made her a better designer for humans, because she learned to better spot her biases and assumptions. “Sometimes, I’m assuming you feel a handle like I do, and you don’t,” she says. In the end, though, animal design is where Ruge’s passion lies. Since earning her PhD, she has moved back to her native Colombia and started a design consultancy called Ph-auna (pronounced “fauna”) where she focuses on animal centered innovation. She hosts a podcast called Pomodogo, guiding humans to better connect with their dogs, and is now working on an app that gamifies dog training and inspires humans to be better caretakers. “There’s an immense opportunity for animal design to be its own design discipline,” she says. Meanwhile, in the UK, the Dogosophy Button is available to individual customers willing to buy it, but the team is hoping to broaden its scope beyond the home. Mancini, who spearheaded the button project, says they first installed an earlier version of the button to operate the motorized door of a restaurant’s accessible toilet, but the restaurant ended up shuttering. Then, they tried installing it at a local shopping mall, but the plan fell through due to budget constraints. Still, she plans to continue developing new versions and adapt them for the characteristics of other species too. “It is my interest to try and install the buttons in public buildings,” she says. “I would love for whole cities to be more accessible for dogs and other urban animals.” View the full article

These questions aren’t easy to answer—especially since Google keeps AI Overview data under lock and key. But, if you keep reading, you might just find out… When people talk about “tracking AI Overviews”, they could be referring to a few…Read more ›View the full article

On my phone, there are already videos of the next moon landing. In one, an astronaut springs off the rung of a ladder, strung out from the lander, before slowly plopping to the surface. He is, alas, still getting accustomed to the weaker gravity. In another, the crew collects a sample—a classic lunar expedition activity—while another person lazily minds the rover. A third video shows an astronaut affixing the American flag to the ground, because this act of patriotism is even better the second time around. The blue oceans of Earth are visible, in the background, and a radio calls out: “Artemis crew is on the surface.” America is going back to the moon, and NASA is in the final weeks of preparing for the Artemis II mission, which will have astronauts conduct a lunar flyby for the first time in decades. If all goes well, during the next endeavor, Artemis III, they’ll finally land on the lunar surface, marking an extraordinary and historical and in some sense, nostalgic, accomplishment. The aforementioned videos are not advance copies, or some vision of the future, though. They were generated with OpenAI’s video generation model and are extremely fake. Still, this kind of content is a reminder that the upcoming Artemis missions promise a major epistemic test for the deniers of the original moon landing. This a small but passionate and enduring community who doubt the Apollo moon landing for a host of reasons, including that (they allege) the government lied or (they believe) it is simply physically impossible for humans to go the moon. Now, when NASA returns to the lunar surface, these people will be confronted with far more evidence than from the last time around. The space agency operation will be broadcast, live, and including camera technology and social media platforms that just weren’t around in the 1960s. But there’s also a bigger challenge before us. NASA will be launching its moon return effort in a period of major distrust in American scientific and government institutions, and, amid the proliferation of generative AI, declining confidence in the veracity of digital content. Most observers will be able to sort through the real NASA imagery, and anything fake that might show up. Still, there tends to be a small number of people who doubt these kinds of milestones, especially when a U.S. federal agency is involved. Adding AI to the conspiracy theory cocktail “When the moon landing first came in, AI wasn’t a thing. The sophistication of [the landing] didn’t necessarily make us question it,” says David Jolley, a professor at the University of Nottingham who studies conspiracy theories. “But now, with the power of AI and the power of images that you can create, it certainly offers that different reality if you want to interpret it in that way.” “It’s the trust in those sources that we need to kind of really create. Of course, if you haven’t got trust in our gatekeepers and you don’t trust scientists, well, suddenly you are going to lean into: well, this, is this real? Is this just AI?” he continues. The upcoming Artemis missions aren’t yet a major topic among lunar landing deniers. But there are hints it will attract more attention from conspiracy theorists. During the last Artemis mission, which was unmanned, Reuters had to push back on online posts suggesting the expedition “proved” that Apollo 11 didn’t actually happen. (Skeptics suggested longer Artemis I mission timelines, a product of a change in route, actually cast doubt on the original Apollo timeline). Other online skeptics have already suggested that, with Artemis, NASA is yet again faking a space endeavor. Some people in internet conspiracy communities suggest the upcoming moon missions will be entirely CGI (computer-generated imagery). Generative AI stands to introduce even more confusion, says Ben Colman, the CEO of Reality Defenders, a deep fake detection platform. Generating a believable image of a (fake) moon landing is now something any consumer can do. “Any astute physicist will be able to tell you if these videos get star placement or physics wrong, as they are likely to do,” he says, “but even that is getting better with each model iteration.” Conspiracy theories are sticky There are, of course, many reasons why people say they deny reality of the first lunar expeditions. They are canonical, misinterpreted references, like Van Allen belts, a zone of energetic charged particles that surrounds the planet (critics say the belts are too radioactive for manned vehicles to traverse) and the suspicious flag-in-the-wind (there’s no wind on the moon!). All of these points—and the many other points deniers bring up—have been thoroughly debunked. Still, this small community of self-appointed detectives are insistent. Even decades after the missions ended, people are still combing through NASA’s videos and images, mining for signs of alternations or other surreptitious editing. To them, an expected shimmer reveals a film operation just beyond the view of the camera. A movement that might not look right is a hint that the world has been duped. Open source intelligence (OSINT) becomes the rabbit hole. “Some allege we didn’t go to the moon, perhaps because we were trying to trick the Soviets into thinking that we had superior technology than they did,” explains Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami who also studies conspiratorial beliefs. “Some people think we did go but it wasn’t televised. And that footage that we saw was made later in a sound studio. Some people think Stanley Kubrick was in charge of filming the ‘faked’ Moon Landing footage.” For its part, NASA is preparing to point to evidence, should any deepfake allegations come their way. Agency spokesperson Lauren Low tells Fast Company: “We expect AI experts will be looking closely at all our images and will be able to verify they are real images taken by real astronauts as part of the Artemis II test flight around the Moon.” Moreover, Low added, there will be many ways for people to watch the lunar flyby themselves, including live broadcasts, two 24/7 YouTube streams, a new conference, and “views from Orion cameras.” In other words, the reality of Artemis will be very hard to deny. Research suggests that conspiracy theories are entertaining, and even serve peoples’ core psychological needs, like a desire to understand the world or a way of dealing with uncertainty. Finding other people, including on social media, pushing these theories can help normalize them, and make someone feel like they’re part of a broader community. Some people simply don’t trust institutions, and evidence that something did, indeed, happen only raises further questions, and suspicions that it didn’t. To an extent, politics matters, too; people outside the United States are more likely to deny the moon landing, polls show. In the end, says Uscinski, we should prepare for people who are prone to conspiratorial thinking, or prone to mistrusting institutions, to take a skeptical view of any big news event. This may happen again when the Artemis missions finally launch. “The good news is that belief in conspiracy theories isn’t likely to get worse,” he explains. “The bad news is that this conspiratorial thinking has always been this pervasive.” “People are very good at waving away evidence that tells them things they don’t want to hear, and they’re very good at believing things, either without evidence or with really shitty evidence when it tells them what they do want to believe about the world,” Uscinski adds. “You don’t need AI or sophisticated technology to provide a justification.” View the full article

Search engines “think” in topics, not keywords. They understand entities—people, places, products, ideas—and how they relate. They focus on meaning, not word matching. If you want to do SEO today, or show up in AI recommendations, you need to understand…Read more ›View the full article