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Zoom has announced a significant expansion of its AI Companion platform, introducing new agentic AI skills and custom agent capabilities that span across Zoom Meetings, Zoom Phone, Zoom Team Chat, Zoom Docs, and Zoom Contact Center. The announcement, made March 17 during a company event in Orlando, highlights more than 45 innovations aimed at boosting productivity, simplifying workflows, and strengthening relationships through enhanced AI functionality. “AI Companion is evolving from a personal assistant to being truly agentic, which signals a major leap forward in how AI can enhance productivity and collaboration at work,” said Smita Hashim, chief product officer at Zoom. “We’re delivering value for our customers through AI agents and agentic skills that solve real customer problems, helping them connect, collaborate, and get more done, all within the Zoom platform our users trust and love.” Agentic Skills for Streamlined Workflows Zoom’s AI Companion now includes multi-step task execution, using memory and reasoning to tap into appropriate agents and skills. New agentic features include calendar management, clip generation, advanced writing assistance, and the ability to manage complex customer service workflows through Zoom Virtual Agent. AI Companion’s expanded role includes task orchestration and decision-making capabilities, enabling it to learn over time and improve efficiency. Zoom users can also access custom AI agents through AI Studio, allowing tailored virtual agents for specific business needs. These features are available in beta and are expected to become widely accessible later this spring. Custom AI Companion Add-On Zoom plans to launch a Custom AI Companion add-on in April for $12 per user per month. The add-on enables organizations to customize AI Companion with their own meeting templates, industry-specific vocabulary, and third-party data sources. Features include a personal AI coach, custom meeting summaries, and the ability to create custom avatars for Zoom Clips using user-provided scripts. The add-on will incorporate Small Language Models (SLMs) trained on multilingual data to complement Zoom’s third-party LLMs. These models are optimized for specific tasks and built to facilitate multi-agent collaboration. AI Companion Across Zoom Workplace Zoom Tasks with AI Companion will debut in late March, allowing users to track and complete tasks from summaries, chats, and emails within Zoom Docs. AI-generated meeting agendas and live notes will launch in May, and voicemail summaries for Zoom Phone are already available. A new mobile voice recorder is also expected to launch in March, offering transcription and action item extraction. Zoom Docs will receive advanced AI enhancements in June and July, including context-based writing plans, internal/external data searches, and automated table generation. Zoom Drive, a centralized content repository, will launch in May. Customer Experience and Industry Solutions Zoom is extending AI capabilities into customer-facing services. Zoom Contact Center will feature Zoom Virtual Agent for voice and chat, along with AI-intent routing and Advanced Quality Management. AI-intent routing launches in March, with the latter expected in May. Zoom Business Services will integrate agentic skills for marketing, sales, and customer care. Zoom Revenue Accelerator will soon include a sales-focused agent offering insights and prospecting tools. Industry-specific offerings are also in development. Zoom Workplace for Frontline launches in April with mobile-first tools for on-shift workers. Zoom Workplace for Clinicians, expected in late March, will automatically generate clinical notes. Zoom Workplace for Education will add AI-generated lecture summaries in May and live transcript interaction later in the year. Zoom is also expanding its hardware certification program in April to include document cameras for education and patient-room cameras for healthcare. Zoom AI Companion continues to be included at no extra cost for customers with paid Zoom accounts. Some advanced features, customizations, and agents may require additional fees or separate pricing tiers. This article, "Zoom Unveils Major Expansion of AI Companion with Agentic Skills and Custom Agents" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Walmart has unveiled Wally, a generative AI-powered assistant developed to enhance the productivity of its merchants by automating key merchandising tasks. The company announced the tool on March 18, describing it as a “productivity multiplier” designed to streamline data analysis, operational support, and reporting processes for Walmart’s sourcing teams. According to the company, Wally was built using Walmart’s proprietary data and is aimed at eliminating the manual effort traditionally required for core merchandising functions. Tasks such as data entry and analysis, root cause identification for product performance, advanced calculations, and how-to support are now handled by the AI assistant. The company illustrated the utility of Wally with a scenario: a bread merchant looking to track trends in protein-based food demand might previously need to analyze a variety of performance data across channels, regions, and brands. The process required running multiple reports and manually extracting insights. Wally simplifies that by delivering answers in seconds through natural language queries. “Merchants can simply ask questions and receive actionable insights in seconds,” Walmart stated. The tool’s intuitive interface eliminates the need for technical training, allowing users to quickly extract and act on data insights. Wally is underpinned by a semantic layer built specifically to navigate the unique structure of Walmart’s proprietary data. This allows the AI assistant to process large volumes of product information efficiently using advanced algorithms and Walmart’s own computational infrastructure. Walmart emphasized that developing an AI assistant for its merchandising operations was a complex endeavor due to the specialized nature of the data involved. Traditional AI models, typically trained on publicly available information, were not suited to meet Walmart’s specific needs. “We built a semantic layer, enabling Wally to understand the intricacies of our proprietary data,” the company noted. Merchants have reportedly responded positively to Wally’s rollout, and Walmart plans to continue evolving the assistant. Future updates are expected to include autonomous functionality within configurable guardrails, enabling Wally to carry out tactical actions based on merchant strategies. By automating time-consuming tasks and providing real-time insights, Walmart aims to free its merchants to focus on strategic initiatives and creative decision-making. The company believes this will ultimately improve customer satisfaction by delivering the right products at the right time with greater efficiency. Image: Walmart This article, "Walmart Introduces GenAI-Powered Assistant to Support Merchants" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Walmart has unveiled Wally, a generative AI-powered assistant developed to enhance the productivity of its merchants by automating key merchandising tasks. The company announced the tool on March 18, describing it as a “productivity multiplier” designed to streamline data analysis, operational support, and reporting processes for Walmart’s sourcing teams. According to the company, Wally was built using Walmart’s proprietary data and is aimed at eliminating the manual effort traditionally required for core merchandising functions. Tasks such as data entry and analysis, root cause identification for product performance, advanced calculations, and how-to support are now handled by the AI assistant. The company illustrated the utility of Wally with a scenario: a bread merchant looking to track trends in protein-based food demand might previously need to analyze a variety of performance data across channels, regions, and brands. The process required running multiple reports and manually extracting insights. Wally simplifies that by delivering answers in seconds through natural language queries. “Merchants can simply ask questions and receive actionable insights in seconds,” Walmart stated. The tool’s intuitive interface eliminates the need for technical training, allowing users to quickly extract and act on data insights. Wally is underpinned by a semantic layer built specifically to navigate the unique structure of Walmart’s proprietary data. This allows the AI assistant to process large volumes of product information efficiently using advanced algorithms and Walmart’s own computational infrastructure. Walmart emphasized that developing an AI assistant for its merchandising operations was a complex endeavor due to the specialized nature of the data involved. Traditional AI models, typically trained on publicly available information, were not suited to meet Walmart’s specific needs. “We built a semantic layer, enabling Wally to understand the intricacies of our proprietary data,” the company noted. Merchants have reportedly responded positively to Wally’s rollout, and Walmart plans to continue evolving the assistant. Future updates are expected to include autonomous functionality within configurable guardrails, enabling Wally to carry out tactical actions based on merchant strategies. By automating time-consuming tasks and providing real-time insights, Walmart aims to free its merchants to focus on strategic initiatives and creative decision-making. The company believes this will ultimately improve customer satisfaction by delivering the right products at the right time with greater efficiency. Image: Walmart This article, "Walmart Introduces GenAI-Powered Assistant to Support Merchants" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Developers work in Jira, team leads work in Jira, and maybe even support specialists work in Jira. But the rest of the organization probably has their own tool they prefer, and that means someone has to jump back in forth between that tool and Jira. Or, if everyone’s in Jira, you’re struggling to build the reports your stakeholders want. Either way, you’re looking for a way to export Jira issues to excel. Creating that spreadsheet manually and copying the information in takes time you could be doing something more effective. So how can you get it done automatically? Here are three methods for doing that. In this article: When do you need to export Jira issues to Excel? First method: Export Jira to Excel as a CSV Second method: Export Jira projects to Excel with Unito Jira export to Excel FAQ When do you need to export Jira issues to Excel? Your software development team probably spends the majority of their non-coding time bouncing between Jira issues, but your project managers know the pain of switching between Jira and other tools. Whether they’re collaborating with marketing, going through tough support tickets with the service team, or reporting on project performance to various stakeholders, PMs are used to getting Jira data into spreadsheets. Excel is often used to give Jira issues more visibility for teams that aren’t used to Jira issues or as a stopover between Jira and some other tool. In the latter case, it often involves a ton of unnecessary manual work, which is why you need a better way to get your Jira export to Excel. First method: Export Jira to Excel as a CSV Jira has multiple options for those needing to export data to different formats, from HTML to RSS, Word, and, yes, a CSV file. That means you can potentially import that file into all sorts of databasing tools, from Excel to Sheets and Airtable. Here’s how it’s done. 1. First, go to your Jira instance and find the Jira project you want to export issues from. 2. Click on Issues on the left. You’ll get a full list of all the issues that are part of this project. Click on Export issues, then on Export Excel CSV. Your CSV file will download automatically. 3. Now go to Excel. 4. Drag your CSV file into your Excel workspace. And boom! Just like that, you have all your Jira issues exported to Excel. Each column represents a field in Excel, from the issue number to the assignee and labels. From here, you can clean this up, use data visualization tools to turn it into a report, or send it off to anyone who needs it. Limitations of this method It’s pretty hard to beat this method as far as ease-of-use goes. Go to Jira, hit export, and put the CSV file in Excel. But does simplicity make for the best method? Well that depends on whether these are dealbreakers for you or not: Manual exports: The unfortunate thing about this sort of export is that it becomes outdated the minute you do it. That’s because work is still happening in Jira after you export your issues. If you want to reflect those updates, you’ll need to export your issues again. One-way exports: If you ever want to get data from Excel into Jira — or make it flow back and forth — this method won’t work for you. Cleanup is required: Look at that screenshot again. How’s someone used to Jira — or any other project management tool — supposed to make sense of that raw data? Exporting Jira issues to Excel with this method isn’t a one-and-done process. You’ll need to clean up the result to get the most use out of it. If you only need to do a direct export from Jira to Excel every so often, and you already have workflows in place to make that data presentable, then this method might work for you. But if you want a better method, read on. Second method: Export Jira projects to Excel with Unito Unito is a no-code workflow management solution with some of the deepest two-way integrations for the most popular tools on the market, including Asana, Excel, Google Sheets, Jira, GitHub, and more. With a Unito flow, you can automatically export Jira issues to Excel, where they’ll be turned into rows. Then, whenever an issue is updated in Jira, you’ll see those updates in Microsoft Excel. No manual exporting required. The best part? We built a template you can use to build automatic reports in Excel from data in Jira. Get the template here. If you’re more of a visual learner, check out this video guide to this integration. Here’s why Unito is the best way to export your Jira issues to Microsoft Excel: It’s automatic: Once you’ve set up a Unito flow between Jira and Excel, issues will be automatically exported to Excel as they’re created in Jira. No need to check in or run the automation yourself. It’s one-way and two-way: If you’re building reports in Excel, you can use Unito to send Jira issues to Excel. But if you want to automatically update Jira projects from Excel, you can do that with Unito, too. At the same time. It’s automatically cleaned up: When you build a Unito flow, you can decide how much data you want to export, where it lands, and what it’ll look like when it gets there. Follow our step-by-step Jira Excel tutorial You can build your first Unito flow and start exporting Jira issues in minutes. Here’s how. First, connect Jira and Excel to Unito You’ll also pick the Jira project you want to export data from and the Excel spreadsheet you want it sent to. Use rules to filter out the Jira issues you don’t want exported to Excel You could exclude issues with specific labels, only sync tasks with a specific assignee, and more. Next, map your Jira issue fields to fields in Excel. And that’s it! Now just launch your flow and watch as your Jira issues are automatically exported to your Excel spreadsheet. Third method: Use Atlassian’s Jira Cloud for Excel add-in Excel add-ins allow you to add extra functionality to your spreadsheets, from enhancing Excel’s reporting features to aiding the transfer of data from other tools. Atlassian’s official Jira Cloud for Excel add-in fits in the latter category. Here’s how easy it is to add this integration to your Excel spreadsheet: Start in a blank Excel spreadsheet. From the Home tab, click on Add-ins. Type “Jira Cloud for Excel” in the search bar. Click Add. Once you’ve added this to your spreadsheet, you’ll need to properly authorize it to access your Jira projects. Here’s how: Click on the Get started prompt you’ll get once the add-in is installed. A Jira authorization screen will pop up, asking for a six-number code. Go to Excel and find the six-number code, and paste it into the Jira screen. Wait for the “Jira Cloud for Spreadsheets is requesting access to your Atlassian account” message to disappear. Choose the Jira Cloud URL of the workspace you want to connect to Excel and click Accept. And that’s it! You should get a Login Successful message. From there, you can start importing Jira issues into Excel reports so other users can track critical work. You can do this with a JQL query or a saved filter. So it’s easy to add to Excel and easy to get working. But does that mean it’s the best option for your team? Limitations of this method Despite its ease-of-use, this method comes with some drawbacks: No support for Jira Data Center: This Excel add-in only works for Jira Cloud. If you need to export Jira Data Center issues to Excel, you’ll have to use a different method. Manual exports: You can only export Jira Cloud issues to Excel with a JQL query or a saved filter in Jira. This needs to be manually triggered, which can be limiting in larger organizations and complex workflows. One-way: This add-in only works in one direction. Any work, comments, or changes happening in Excel won’t be sent back to Jira, which can be artificially limiting. Don't want to export Jira to Excel manually? Meet with our team to see how Unito can allow you to sync data back and forth between Excel and Jira automatically. Book a demo Jira export to Excel FAQ Why export Jira issues to Excel? Jira might be a great tool for some things, but it’s not necessarily appropriate for every workflow. Whenever you need to collaborate with teams that use other tools — or quickly report on a project’s progress to stakeholders — you might need to export issues out of Jira. Here are situations where having a dedicated solution for that is essential. Promoting collaboration between developers and marketers. Streamlining your support ticket escalation workflow. Reporting on project health. Keeping a database of issues for other teams. What’s the best way to export Jira issues to an Excel spreadsheet? There are two primary methods for getting a Jira export into Excel: Export Jira data as CSV files. This method involves more manual work, and can potentially lead to multiple versions of your data that are tough to keep track of. Use Unito to export issues from Jira. Unito is a no-code two-way sync solution that can automatically pull Jira issues and push them to Excel, keeping everything in sync the whole way. That means your spreadsheets always have the latest Jira data, with no extra work required. You can learn more about how this integration works here. What are some limitations of exporting Jira issues as CSV files? While using CSV files to export Jira issues to Excel is simple, it’s not always the best method. Here’s why. It’s a completely manual process. It gives you raw data that needs cleaning up. You’re limited to 1,000 issues per export. Your data can become outdated as soon as it’s exported. Can you export Jira issues to Excel with an automatic data refresh? Yes, but Unito’s the best way to do it by far. It supports more fields, has true two-way sync, and even supports more than 30 integrations. That means you can get data into Excel, other project management tools, CRM platforms, and a lot more. View the full article

A wholesale rewiring of the machinery of state is requiredView the full article

On average, the world’s leading brands see a lift in organic traffic by over 58% from multilingual SEO. For some companies, like Amazon, Wise, and Canva, multilingual SEO strategies deliver over 50% of their total organic traffic, contributing billions in…Read more ›View the full article

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. National home prices have risen by 2.1% year-over-year from February 2024 to February 2025, according to the Zillow Home Value Index. That’s a deceleration from the 4.6% year-over-year rate last spring. However, not every housing market is seeing rising home prices. Among the 300 largest metro area housing markets, 42 markets are seeing falling home prices on a year-over-year basis. That’s up from last month when just 31 of the nation’s 300 largest metro area housing markets had falling year-over-year home prices. While home prices continue to rise in regions with tight inventory—such as much of the Northeast, Midwest, and Southern California—some housing markets in states like Texas, Florida, and Louisiana, where inventory has now surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 levels, are experiencing modest price corrections. These year-over-year declines are evident in major metros such as Austin (-3.8%); Tampa (-3.6%); San Antonio (-2%); New Orleans (-1.7%); Phoenix (-1.6%); Jacksonville, Florida (-1.5%); Dallas (-1.4%); and Orlando (-1.4%). The markets seeing the most softness, where homebuyers are gaining leverage, are primarily located in Sun Belt regions, particularly the Gulf Coast and Mountain West. These areas saw major price surges during the pandemic housing boom, with home price growth outpacing local income levels. As pandemic-driven migration slowed and mortgage rates rose, markets like Tampa and Austin faced challenges, relying on local income levels to support frothy home prices. This softening trend is further compounded by an abundance of new home supply in the Sun Belt. Builders are often willing to lower prices or offer affordability incentives to maintain sales, which also has a cooling effect on the resale market. Some buyers, who would have previously considered existing homes, are now opting for new homes with more favorable deals. Will this softening continue this year? A key indicator to watch will be active inventory levels. If weaker markets like Tampa continue to see substantial increases in active inventory—already above pre-pandemic levels—it may signal ongoing softening, potentially creating more opportunities for homebuyers. View the full article

Cultivating a loyal fan base is every brand’s dream. So why not take a page out of the book of companies that have made fandom the foundation of their business? Earlier this month at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW, executives from Weverse, Crunchyroll, and Wattpad/Webtoon spoke about how their companies cultivate and serve their diehard fandoms—and how you can apply that approach to your customers. For Joon Choi, president of Weverse, a platform bridging fans to artists, fandom always starts with authenticity, particularly with the artists on the platform. He recognized that “special” and “happy” experience of being in a fandom. So if an artist isn’t authentically connected to their fanbase, then a platform like Weverse just isn’t for them. And that idea, he said, goes for companies trying to connect with their consumers. Aron Levitz, president of Wattpad Webtoon Studios and co-president of Wattpad, noted that part of defining yourself as a brand is figuring out who you are in different channels. “Have you ever looked at Build-a-Bear’s Instagram? It is not what you think it is. Go read it. It is unhinged,” he said. “But they decided that in that channel they can talk about themselves in a different way than they ever would in a store.” The key is to be true to a persona and be ready to experiment to get to that persona, especially on social media where there’s a constant churn of content. “You can think like a tech company and do some A/B testing to really understand what could your brand be,” Levitz said. For Gita Rebbapragada, chief operating officer of anime streaming service Crunchyroll, it’s about identifying the nuances within your fanbase. “When [you] think about a specific fandom as a monolith, you will fail,” she said. “The beauty of being focused around one specific fandom is the diversity in it.” She also mentioned that fans are highly adept at sniffing out inauthentic ploys for monetization from a company. But that there are indeed opportunities to engage with fans in a financial way if it’s “well-aligned” with the community. “A lot of times we think of monetizing a fan base as kind of an uncomfortable thing to talk about,” Rebbapragada said. “[But] if you love a story or a game, you want to engage with it in so many different ways. And a company or a brand that gives you a cool product that you want to have in your home or put on your shelf or wear, that is creating value for the person that loves that particular thing. It’s really about understanding what the motivations are.” Watch the full panel below: View the full article

If you watch any economic news, you’ve probably seen economists biting their nails while raising the alarm about the dreaded “R-word”: recession. These financial experts are so terrified of a potential recession that they refer to it obliquely, in the same superstitious way your Great-Aunt Esther used to whisper the word “cancer.” But refusing to call a recession by its name does not reduce financial panic, improve the stock market, or even make julienne fries: It just makes a recession seem like an unstoppable force coming to ruin our lives, which is simply not true. While there isn’t much that an individual can do to avert a recession, there’s plenty you can do to shore up your personal finances to prepare for one. Here’s how you can protect yourself and your finances in case a recession materializes this year. What is a recession anyway? Since economists talk about recessions in the same frightened tones that teens in 80s slasher movies discuss Freddy Krueger, it’s easy to assume a recession is the economic equivalent of sudden death. But a recession is a specific and definable economic condition, not a terrifying supernatural monster. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) describes a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.” Although other economic experts may define a recession using slightly different terms or metrics, there are economic indicators that all recessions typically share. These indicators include a falling stock market, a reduction in consumer spending, and widespread cost-cutting within businesses, which often includes layoffs. All in all, it’s not great–but it is survivable. How to recession-proof your money There are several important steps you can take to prepare yourself and your finances for a potential recession. What’s even better is that these strategies will benefit you even if the recession never comes. Determine your baseline expenses Job loss is one of the biggest economic risks an individual might face during a recession. Layoffs are common during recessions and it’s tough to find a new position when so many businesses are tightening their belts and you’re competing with a lot more potential job candidates. Even if you’re certain your job is safe, now is a good time to figure out your bare minimum budget needs. How much money do you need each month to keep the lights on and the dog in kibble? Going through this exercise will help you determine your baseline monthly expenditures—which is a number you need to calculate your emergency fund goal. Emergency fund math Remember how financial experts are constantly harping on the need for an emergency fund equal to three to six months’ worth of expenses? Most people ignore this advice since it sounds completely unhinged. After all, the average person can’t afford to save the equivalent of what they spend in six months. But the common advice about the ideal size of an emergency fund is based on your monthly baseline expenses, not how much you spend per month. In other words, a recession-resistant emergency fund will have enough cash to cover three to six months’ worth of your bare minimum, keep-the-wolf-from-the-door-and-yes-that-means-cancelling-Netflix expenses. You don’t have to have enough set aside to cover your normal spending habits. Once you have calculated your baseline monthly budget, multiply it by three to get your initial emergency fund goal. Having at least three months’ worth of expenses set aside in an emergency fund can give you the cushion you need in case of a job loss or a pay cut. Pump up your emergency fund If your current emergency fund is looking a little anemic (or non-existent), don’t panic! Remember that any amount of money you can set aside now will be helpful if you get a pink slip. Start with an automatic transfer to your savings account with every paycheck. Even as little as $20 per transfer will add up over time. If you get a tax refund this year, use a portion of it to bulk up your savings. And since you have just determined your baseline budget, challenge yourself to cut some of the non-essential costs you identified and put the savings into your emergency fund. Tackle credit card debt The average cardholder is carrying $6,580 in credit card debt, and paying 22.89% interest on that balance. That equates to a minimum monthly payment of over $190 that would take nearly five years to pay off. And it would be an albatross around the neck of anyone struggling financially during a recession. If you are carrying a credit card balance, do what you can to pay it off or pay it down while you’re still in relatively good financial shape. If making larger-than-minimum payments to your credit card is out of reach, consider a balance transfer to a 0% interest rate card or taking out a low-interest rate personal loan. It’s much easier to quickly pay off a debt when you’re not also paying nearly 23% in interest. Identify other sources of ready cash Recessions and layoffs don’t arrive at anyone’s convenience. That’s why it’s important to put a plan B in place for additional cash now, just in case you’re not prepared with a robust emergency fund and paid-off credit card if and when the ax falls. Someone looking to generate cash in a hurry generally can either plan on borrowing money or selling something. But thinking through your options ahead of time can make it possible for you to immediately pull the trigger on your plan if you need it. Some specific ways to prepare might include: Open a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) now that you don’t touch unless you need to access cash. Get ready to potentially sell a car by researching its value, gathering the title and other paperwork, and excavating the petrified french fries from under the driver’s seat. Identify and prepare items in your home to sell on Facebook Marketplace or the like. Find out if your brokerage allows you to borrow money against your investments. Recession doesn’t mean ruin While no one will ever give three hearty cheers for a recession, it doesn’t need to be a source of fear. You can prepare your financial house for a recession by calculating your baseline expenses, beefing up your emergency savings, paying down debt, and identifying backup money sources you can tap if your savings aren’t enough. A recession may not be pleasant, but it is possible to get to the other side—even if you call it by its full name. View the full article

Loneliness isn’t just a lingering by-product of COVID lockdowns—it’s a public health crisis. The impacts of social isolation are said to be as detrimental to human health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, according to former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Loneliness can increase the risk of heart disease and strokes by roughly 30%, and dementia by about 50%. In some ways, we’ve never been more connected thanks to online networks. Yet for many people, social media has fueled perceptions that others are living fuller, more vibrant lives in comparison to their own. Some have found that online interactions pale in comparison to in-person hang outs. Champagne sales are down, raising questions of whether party culture is dead. Overall, the downtrend of socialization in the U.S. paints a pretty bleak picture. Companies have taken this public health diagnosis as a cue to step in, fill those cracks in our social fabric, and develop a cure for loneliness. At the Fast Company Grill at SXSW this month, business leaders shared how their companies are encouraging people to leverage online interfaces to—counterintuitively—get offline, or filling gaps in the market with products that account for new social trends and behaviors, like the sober curious movement. Cultivating community at all life stages When Andy Dunn moved to Chicago a few years ago to be closer to his family, he found it difficult to forge new friendships, joking that all he did was just “parent and work.” This lack of infrastructure around simply finding things to do—and people to do them with—inspired him to create Pie, a social app aiming to combat social isolation. Dunn, who is also the founder of clothing company Bonobos, said that between moving cities, switching jobs, marriage, starting a family, and other milestones, he estimates people go through anywhere from eight to 15 major life events that may upend their friend groups. This can leave people “at an inflection point where you have more social capacity than you have social opportunity.” Pie creates those opportunities by using AI to bring together groups of six people—which the app takes its name from, as there are usually six slices in a pie—and help them discover events and activities they share a mutual interest in attending. It’s led to lasting connections, Dunn said, because Pie takes the two ingredients necessary to forming meaningful friendships, “repeated social collision in a group setting, and then mutual disclosure of vulnerable information,” and uses an easily accessible platform to facilitate these interactions. Developing the perfect recipe for get togethers Melanie Masarin, CEO and founder of the nonalcoholic aperitif brand Ghia, built her company after she quit drinking. “I stopped drinking for no particular reason, which is an important distinction. I wasn’t sick, I wasn’t pregnant, I just felt better without it,” she explained. “I was at a point in time where I hosted a lot. I always had my friends over for dinner, and I was constantly being questioned for why I wasn’t drinking. And I was like, ‘There’s more people in my apartment than there are chairs, and I cooked for everyone, and I feel so isolated because I’m not partaking in a social occasion.’” Masarin says she became “obsessed” with the idea of creating a better-for-you drink that provided the same experience of imbibing alcohol. It’s an offering that’s struck a chord with Gen Z consumers in particular, who are drinking alcohol at far lower rates than previous generations but still want the fun of going out. She pointed out that a number of cultures have long decentered alcohol in their social gatherings—for example, many Muslims choose not to drink—and that part of Ghia’s success has been reframing its customers as the “hero,” rather than its products. “All of our products are just a catalyst for people coming together. They’re not necessarily trying to be the center of attention,” she said. “We’ve been conditioned to think that alcohol is the life of the party, and actually our customer is the life of the party.” Masarin also noted that Ghia is not a product purely for people interested in practicing sobriety. Rather, its demand reflects the downward trend in alcohol consumption fueled by a desire for moderation that came out of the COVID-19 pandemic. She mentioned that 92% of Ghia drinkers also consume alcohol. Preventing missed connections Ev Williams, creator of the private social network Mozi and founder of Twitter, Medium, and Blogger, experienced a rude awakening in the years after lockdown ended. “I’d spent my life building startups, mostly on the information and tech side. And around my 50th birthday I actually started to shift my priorities and realized that I had underinvested in relationships,” he said. “The best source of information I had was my contacts app, which [for most people] is full of outdated and incomplete information.” Williams found himself wanting to start at the most basic level: understanding who his friends were and where they were located. That desire led to Mozi, which syncs with a user’s contacts app and allows them to share their location or plans with a curated network of individuals. Mozi works best for people who travel often and may not realize when they’re overlapping with friends. Users are able to post the dates they’re traveling to a city or an event they’re planning to attend, as well as solicit travel advice from mutuals. Williams suggested the app can also take away some of the awkwardness that comes with asking someone you may not feel as close to yet to do something with you. “If you were to individually text [a friend of a friend], you would make yourself vulnerable,” he said. “But if you were to say, ‘Oh, I’m going to this show,’ or ‘I’m going to this event and I’m happy for these people to see that I’m going to this and join me there,’ because it’s a public thing, it’s not in [their] house, it’s not risky.” Williams is excited to see that using technology to facilitate offline interactions has become more mainstream. “I love that there’s a new generation of social products that are actually social, and what we call social media is actually just media—and it’s been becoming media for a long time,” he said. “We’re less kidding ourselves that [social media] is where people connect. It’s not.” View the full article

“It is surprisingly kind of anticlimactic,” Tristan ‘Geppetto’ Brandenburg says about the time he broke the sound barrier. “You don’t hear a sonic boom from the cockpit because you are leaving the shock waves behind you. You can only feel that she is happy flying at supersonic speed.” Brandenburg is the chief test pilot of Boom Supersonic. And the “she” he’s referring to is the XB-1, a long, thin dart designed to cut through the air in the most efficient way possible. Last month, the XB-1 broke the sound barrier over the Mojave Desert. The event positions Boom Supersonic to produce the first supersonic airliner since the Concorde was grounded in 2003. Getting there will take time. And there are plenty of challenges to overcome, including designing a new engine that can cut down on fuel costs. But Boom Supersonic is confident that it can solve these challenges. If it succeeds, we’re on the cusp of a new era of air travel that will bring Concorde speed for business class prices. The seeds of Boom Supersonic The success of the XB-1 is the culmination of a not-so-noisy trip that started when Blake Scholl, the founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, visited the Museum of Flight in Seattle in his 20s and got into the Concorde for the first time. It was 2007, just four years after the mighty anglo-french beast had been retired. He was surprised that the most amazing airliner ever built was in a museum, not in the skies. “I never got to fly on Concorde,” he says. He just didn’t have the money to spare. “It was twenty thousand a ticket and that is, you know, that’s really for royalty and rock stars. It’s not for ordinary people. But that day I set a lifetime goal of flying supersonic.” [Photo: Boom Supersonic] A high school dropout and self-made entrepreneur, Scholl started his career at Amazon in the late 1990s. “When everybody else thought it was just an online bookstore,” he says. He left Amazon to cofound Kima Labs, a mobile technology startup that was acquired by Groupon in 2012. At that point, he had the money to fly on the Concorde, but it was too late—the legendary airplane retired in 2003 because it was deemed too expensive and too dangerous to fly. Still, Scholl was hopeful. He kept waiting for someone to announce a supersonic jet. He recalls setting a Google search alert because he wanted to be the first to know so he could buy a ticket right away. “I kind of assumed somebody would do it. But, after 10 years, it was just crickets.” In early 2014, Scholl took aircraft design classes. “Back then there were some efforts at creating a supertime business jet,” he says. “But that would take the price of flying supersonic from $20,000 up to like $20 million.” Not exactly a winning formula to democratize really fast flights. That’s when Scholl decided to do something about it. “I said, okay, well, nobody is doing this. So there’s probably a good reason why, but I want to understand it for myself. Why couldn’t you make a supersonic airliner?” The Concord was too expensive for the average traveler, but there was still a large market for ultrafast flight in the business world. That’s tens of millions of passengers every year, Scholl points out. “If you look at the anatomy of international air travel, it’s about 20% of seats, but it’s half the revenue and about 80% of the profit. Business class is where all the money is for international travel.” Knowing the price of a business class flatbed, Scholl made calculations to see if it was possible to fly a modern supersonic jet and make a profit. His idea was to create a jet that could allow current business class passengers to get to their destination in half the time at the same price of what they were paying now. He discovered that to make it work economically, it only required a single digit improvement from Concord in fuel efficiency. “And I was like, wow, that’s pretty small. It’s been 50 years. Every generation of airplanes is significantly better efficiency-wise than the generation that came before it. We’ve gone through several generations since Concord. We can do this,” he thought. “I bought every textbook I could find. I read them, I did the problem sets. I did calculus and physics, because I hadn’t had any since high school. I took an airplane design class, and I built a spreadsheet model of the airplane and a spreadsheet model of the market. The conclusion was that you didn’t have to invent anything to do this.” He sought feedback from a Stanford professor, who reviewed his calculations and encouraged him to aim for more speed and more profit, saying the estimates in his spreadsheet were conservative. All the technology he needed was already flying in other airplanes. “The 20-year-old technology in the Boeing 707 is all you need to do supersonic,” he says. “You take a 707, scale it down, make it long and skinny, and put twice as many engines so you can go twice as fast.” Of course, it wasn’t that simple. But Scholl did think it was doable, so he invested half of his share of the proceeds from the sale of Kima Labs into a new venture to make his dream come true. If he could achieve what everyone thought was impossible, he could change aviation forever. He founded Boom Supersonic and became the CEO in 2015. [Photo: Boom Supersonic] From spreadsheet to composite reality Fast-forward to 2024. After multiple design changes, Boom Supersonic made the XB-1, a 62-foot-long jet with short delta-shaped wings that make it look like the tip of a spear. It really looks like prototype planes that the United States built after World War II to fly as fast as an airplane can fly. And like those X-planes flown by heroes like Chuck Yeager, the XB-1 fuselage compresses the air molecules in front of it, creating a force that, when the plane finally goes faster than the speed of sound, unleashes a deafening boom noise that everyone on the ground can hear, shattering windows, dogs, and people alike. NASA tried to mitigate this boom by making an even sharper, longer airplane, the X-59, which will fly later in the year. Thanks to its aerodynamic shape, the X-59 will generate a sound shock that, in theory, will feel like a thump. But while Brandenburg couldn’t feel the shockwaves made by XB-1, his ride did cause a very loud boom every time it got supersonic. And yet, nobody on the ground got to hear it. [Image: Boom Supersonic] While Boom built the one-third-scale Mach 2.2-capable XB-1 to test the technologies for the Overture— the commercial airliner that Boom Supersonic plans to launch in 2029—the latter will be a Mach 1.7 vehicle Mach 1.7 (roughly 1,300 miles per hour). “It’s more balanced for the economics,” says Nick Sheryka, chief flight test engineer at Boom Supersonic. “Building a prototype for Mach 2.2 was an incredibly challenging thing to do. We didn’t operate XB-1 all the way up to Mach 2.2, but all the design considerations and the difficulty level in designing and building it were based on that key assumption.” [Image: Boom Supersonic] The XB-1 is a complex machine with tens of thousands of parts, but most of them are not custom-made. To design and build every single part of the plane, like all military supersonic jets in existence, would have been prohibitively expensive. The design team had to work with what they had and only design parts that you couldn’t find anywhere else. “We had to make that trade for almost each and every part on the airplane,” Sheryka says. “Obviously the shape of the aircraft, its structure, the carbon fiber and titanium fuselage of the aircraft, the wings, that was all our design,” he adds. The company also created their own landing gear from scratch. The rest was all off-the-shelf parts, what in the industry calls Line Replaceable Unit (LRU), a chunk of a system that you strip off another airplane or something that you could buy from a supplier. Things like the flight control actuators, which is what moves the surfaces that control the plane, were taken from other airplanes. “It was a prudent balance of work that needed to be custom versus things that would work off-the-shelf,” Sheryka tells me. Sometimes these parts were modified. “The data acquisition software necessary to measure things around the plane was a collection of commercial [computer] boxes. They present data to the pilot or the ground system, but they run customized software that Boom wrote explicitly for the project.” [Image: Boom Supersonic] One of the biggest design challenges was the modification of the most crucial part for the airplane: its engine. While they are developing a new type of engine for the Overture—called Symphony—Boom Supersonic couldn’t invest the amount required to develop an engine for a one-off prototype. “We used surplus military engines for XB-1,” he says. But these needed to be modified. When it comes to supersonic propulsion systems, there are essentially two components, the jet engine and the intake. The jet engine, while subsonic in its internal workings, requires a separate component to handle supersonic air. This component is known as the intake or inlet, which serves as an adapter to transition supersonic air to subsonic conditions. [Image: Boom Supersonic] The intake’s primary function is to slow down the supersonic air, compressing it in preparation for combustion. The design of intakes for supersonic aircraft can be quite complex. For instance, the SR-71 Blackbird—the Cold War–era USAF spy plane that holds the record for the fastest air-breathing manned jet in history—features a distinctive spike-like shape in front of its engine, while the Concorde employed rectangular intakes. These designs pose significant challenges in aerodynamic engineering, potentially surpassing the complexity of the engine itself. “In the development of the XB-1, our team designed its own intake for the engine we bought,” Scholl describes. “For Overture we will get our own engines and our own intakes.” The result is the first private supersonic airplane in the world, made for orders of magnitude less than most supersonic planes (this is correct and we can’t really make a direct comparison with F-35, X-59 or Concorde). “Any aircraft that’s ever been supersonic is effectively a government program,” Sheryka says. “There are either military programs or government-sponsored programs, like the Concorde.” There wasn’t even a turnkey provider, like NASA has done outsourcing the X-59 to Lockheed Martin (with taxpayer dollars). “Maybe it’s more prudent to hire a company to do the prototype for us,” Sheryka says. “But that didn’t exist either.” [Photo: Boom Supersonic] The Boom Supersonic is also unique because it’s been the first “clean sheet” (designed from the ground up) supersonic aircraft to fly in the United States since the F-35, a military jet fighter developed by Lockheed Martin, which began its layout in the early ‘90s. The total development timeline for the XB-1 was about eight years. “Conceptual design began in earnest in 2016. That design matured in early 2017, when we started doing real detail level engineering, making the drawings, spec-ing components, and ordering them,” Sheryka tells me. The hardware started rolling through the door in late 2017, early 2018, and assembly began in 2019 until 2020. “There was obviously a huge impact there with COVID. It absolutely impacted the timeline because you can’t assemble an airplane if people are remote,” Sheryka says. The vehicle started to look complete in the 2020 time frame. Then they began a ground testing campaign in 2021, activating systems for the first time, from electrical power to fuel to hydraulics. They started to do engine runs at the end of 2021 throughout the end of 2022, which is what NASA is currently doing with the X-59. In 2023, XB-1 was shipped to California, first flying in 2024. Four supersonic flights later, on February 10, 2025, Boom Supersonic completed all its tests successfully. The funny thing? They never expected any of those flights to be silent. And yet they were, according to NASA itself, who photographed the sound shockwaves and measured the noise in the ground. [Image: Boom Supersonic] The key to supersonic flight without the boom Brandenburg made the silent boom happen, flying the XB-1 at the right speed and altitude. “It’s a function of physics,” he tells me. “It’s a function of the atmosphere.” The ground crew works to figure out what the actual atmosphere conditions are and then take advantage of those to make the magic happen. They tell you the optimal altitude that presents a good compromise between fuel consumption for range, speed, and to achieve Mach cutoff. Temperature and wind gradients affect the local speed of sound. This makes the sonic shockwave bend as it travels through the air. “Eventually, if you’ve got enough of the temperature differential and a shallow enough shock wave, this physical phenomenon will actually reverse the shock wave and send it back up the atmosphere.” That’s why nobody can hear it. “There is a boom that comes off the airplane, but it makes a kind of U-turn in the sky,” Scholl explains. “And as long as the boom is coming off the airplane at the right angle and it’s high enough, you can think of it as the bottom of the U never touches the ground. And as long as the bottom of the U never touches the ground, there’s no audible boom.” Unlike the X-59’s low-boom approach, where people will hear a distant thud, Boomless Cruise—as Boom Supersonic is branding its Mach cutoff flight—aims to entirely eliminate the boom at ground level. The X-59 is designed to manage the shockwaves through its airframe design. The way the engine is placed way on its tail, the fact that there’s no cockpit breaking the flow of air, and its extreme Pinocchio nose reduces the sonic boom. Scholl says the approach works, but there’s still a boom. “With Boomless Cruise, there literally is none.” Tristan ‘Geppetto’ Brandenburg [Photo: Boom Supersonic] Brandenburg tells me that flying XB-1 felt incredibly exciting, especially after the small team spent years building it. “It’s like the ultimate test flight. You’re getting into this airplane that you’ve been working on for years, and it’s finally time to take it for a spin,” he says. Once in the air, however, the machine was one of the hardest he has ever flown. The machine didn’t use the usual fly-by-wire technology that modern jets use, where a computer interprets your joystick motion and moves the airplane control surfaces to go into the direction the pilot wants. Instead, it was all direct control, which required a lot of effort and concentration, especially as he was approaching the sound barrier and everything started to rattle like it did for pilots back in the late ‘40s and ‘50s. The machine was built for speed, Geppetto says, not for maneuverability, so it was very hard to turn it around. Then, 11 minutes and 37 seconds into the first test flight, at an altitude of 33,100 feet over Mojave Desert, Brandenburg silently broke the sound barrier. The rattling anger of the flying beast he was flying disappeared: “The XB-1 supersonic was the best she had ever flown. It was her happy place. I could pitch, roll, and everything felt much easier to control. Everything felt smoother. So it was really exciting to take the airplane to her happy place.” It was one of only two airplanes that he had flown that seemed to be happier supersonic than they were subsonic. The other one was the F-104 Starfighter, a plane that looks as sci-fi as the XB-1. “I’ve flown supersonic in the T-38, F-5 and F-18, but those ones seem to be happier at the Mach 0.85 to 0.9 range. The XB1 was the happiest supersonic.” [Image: Boom Supersonic] Design lessons The XB-1 is effectively a testing ground for Overture. One of the key innovations that will be carried over to their future supersonic airliner is the virtual cockpit. Like the X-59’s external visibility system, a big screen that offers an augmented reality view of what lies in front of the pilot, the XB-1 also had a screen designed to provide Geppetto with enhanced situational awareness. His was a tiny TV screen, but it worked great. “The virtual cockpit is a significant advancement,” he says. “It allows us to integrate all the necessary information into a single, intuitive display. This reduces pilot workload and enhances safety, particularly at supersonic speeds.” It’s also necessary to see the runway when taking off and landing, as Overture will not have a moving nose, like the Concorde did to allow pilots to physically see the landing strip. [Photo: Boom Supersonic] There were other invaluable lessons learned from the XB-1’s development which will be crucial for Overture’s success, like the way the inlet behaved, the creation process of the fuselage, or how silent boom actually works. Sheryka says that the design process was a lesson unto itself. “We’re willing to fail along the way. We want to try a few things, iterate, and learn. This enables us to go much faster and ultimately have a much better product.” However, he underscores the importance of being willing to iterate, have prototypes, and conduct tests that don’t pass, all in pursuit of a successful product. This philosophy is at the heart of Overture’s approach. Now, the future of Overture hinges on the development of the Symphony engines, which will be specifically designed for enhanced transonic performance, enabling Boomless Cruise. This technology is pivotal in achieving supersonic flight without the sonic boom. If they can pull it off, Scholl says the Symphony engine will be the real game-changer. “It will allow Overture to fly at Mach 1.7 over water and at controlled supersonic speeds over land, while still maintaining economic viability.” Scholl says that Overture is designed to fit within existing airport infrastructure. The airplane will be able to operate from existing gates and runways, making it practical for commercial use. He claims that it will be impossible for something like the X-59 to scale to airliner size because it will be absurdly long and impossible to fit in current airports without redesigning or building new gates. But Scholl is aware that he’s talking about step 5,000 in a long path to commercial supersonic travel. They are perhaps at step 500. XB-1 has proven that his idea works and that a silent boom can be achieved without extreme investments or weird designs. He still needs to build capable engines, a totally new airframe, a whole range of subsystems from electrical to landing gear, and pass all the imaginable tests and regulations. It’s going to be very hard, but now he knows there is a runway. He just needs his old supersonic dream to taxi to it, talk to the tower, and take off. View the full article

Dozens of flights cancelled because planes, crews and passengers are scattered across the worldView the full article

Ever get a feeling that something isn’t right? An internal voice that is trying to tell you something? It could be your intuition bubbling up. Or maybe it’s anxiety. Or both. Learning to tell the difference between anxiety and intuition can help you determine if that feeling is something you should listen to or address in another way, but it’s easy to confuse the two. “People have become disconnected from their emotions, beliefs, and self-confidence,” says intuitive life coach Tammy Adams. “They have so much doubt within themselves that they don’t listen to their own intuition. People veer off with fear and live more in anxiety than they do in confidence.” Your gut feeling is your intuition, says Adams. “It has many different names,” she says. “I call it our sixth sense. The more you connect to your senses, the more information you get.” Anxiety is an alert system, a feeling of apprehension, says Laura Day, a practicing intuitive and author of Practical Intuition: How to Harness the Power of Your Instinct and Make It Work for You. “It can be useful momentarily because it makes you pay attention to the data that intuition is providing,” she says. “That data gives you a blueprint that leads you immediately to the right action or perception. Anxiety has put the spotlight on your intuition, but it is the intuition that is useful, not the anxiety. When anxiety persists after that, it is no longer useful.” A test for anxiety Telling the difference between intuition and anxiety is simple, says Adams. If acting on the information makes you feel free, it’s intuition. If that feeling doesn’t go away, it’s anxiety. “We often create our own anxiety by putting ourselves in negative situations because we’re creatures of habit,” she says. “True anxiety is not something someone just catches or has. It’s been built up.” The only time that anxiety would persist in an intuitive paradigm is if a boundary has been crossed, says Day. For example, you see a good friend do something unethical and dangerous, such as stealing or lying. Your intuition tells you that the person needs to be stopped, but you will often be anxious because someone close to you has broken rules you hold dear. How to Get Better at Listening to Your Intuition Your intuition is something that needs to be trained, and it’s different from belief, says Day. “Trust is belief without proof,” she says. “Intuition provides proof; it does not require belief to be present and useful. I am wary when I hear people say, ‘I believe in intuition.’ That is like saying, ‘I believe in gravity.’ Intuition simply is. If you refine and document its action, you quickly discover that you can rely on it. But when you ‘magicalize’ it with belief, you remove its burden of proof, thus rendering it less useful.” Day recommends recording your feelings of intuition. You can use a journal, for example, but she recommends removing any attached emotional content. Also, don’t try to make sense of what you feel. “We get lots of information all the time, but we don’t have a very good filing system, especially for our intuitive information,” says Day. “Intuition functions best on automatic pilot. When you document it, you begin to see that it’s accurate, it’s precognitive. Your subconscious will make it more available. It’s noticing what you notice, not looking for anything.” The importance of goal-setting To use intuition, it’s important to know what you’re working on and know what your goals are. “You don’t see what you’re not looking for,” says Day. “You will know how to address your intuition when you know what your goals are.” Adams also recommends practicing meditation for at least 20 minutes a day as a way to make room for intuition. “Allow yourself to step away from situations that could become negative habits, such as wasting your night on things that are not important,” she says. “Reclaim quality time by doing meditation, being silent, or walking in nature. . . . Pay attention to your breath. When you’re quiet, your soul, spirit, and body—the true trinity that’s inside of us—will have an epiphany and the knowledge and knowing inside you starts kicking in.” Every human being has intuition, says Adams. “We can all feel energy, because we are all energy,” she says. “Feel the energy coming off other people. The energy may tell you that person’s not so happy, or that person is really happy. You can’t lose your intuition. You can disconnect from it, you can ignore it, but you can’t lose it.” View the full article

Earlier this month, Apple officially announced that it would be postponing the launch of some planned Apple Intelligence features to a later, unspecified date in the future. These features mainly revolved around an AI-supercharged Siri. The news of the delay sent the tech press into a frenzy, with many writers criticizing the company for failing to deliver on its promises. Additionally, people speculated that the delay of these features could impact iPhone sales this year. While the criticism is justified, I think the prediction that the delay will impact iPhone sales places too much faith in the appeal of AI. Apple delays new Siri AI features As noted by 9to5Mac, the delayed features include Siri’s ability to understand queries based on personal context (“What time does dad’s train get in?”), consider what you are doing on your screen when you ask it to carry out a certain task (“Make a reservation at this restaurant”), and perform in-app actions (“Crop this photo using a square aspect ratio”). When the news officially dropped—Apple made the announcement in a statement to well-known tech blogger John Gruber—there was a big reaction from the tech media, including my colleague Harry McCracken, who wrote a smart response in his newsletter, Plugged In. Reporters and Apple fans alike weren’t merely disappointed that Apple delayed the features; they were upset that Apple purportedly showcased the features “working” last year—but in reality, that demonstration was nothing more than an animated mockup. “There’s a name for products like that: vaporware,” McCracken said. “The tech industry is rife with examples. Apple, in its modern history, has been atypically disciplined about avoiding them—which makes this incident only more striking.” When evaluating Apple’s actions from this perspective, I agree. You don’t expect a company of Apple’s caliber and market cap of over $3.2 trillion to show off what are essentially just concepts. Other companies, yes, but not Apple. What I don’t necessarily agree with is the belief by some Wall Street analysts that Apple’s delay of some of its AI features will negatively affect iPhone sales in the near term—or even into next year, when some of these features are now expected. That argument doesn’t make a lot of sense to me—for two big reasons. The average consumer doesn’t seem to care about AI smartphone features too much While I know that tech enthusiasts like me seem to care a lot about Apple’s AI offerings, I don’t believe that the same holds true for average consumers (e.g. those who don’t follow tech news or consider tech gadgets to be a very important aspect of their lives). Why do I think that “average” consumers care so little about Apple Intelligence? Because ever since Apple announced Apple Intelligence last June and rolled it out in October, I’ve never met a single person who said Apple’s new AI platform is why they are planning on buying a new iPhone. I’ve had people tell me they bought a new iPhone 16 Pro because of the camera upgrades or because they wanted a bigger screen or a faster device. But not once has anyone ever cited Apple Intelligence as the reason for their purchase. I’ve also had people tell me that they can’t wait to buy the iPhone 17 Air, rumored to be released this fall, but only because of its ultra-slim design, not because of Apple Intelligence. It’s not just my anecdotal observations that support my belief. As CNET reported in December 2024, a survey from trade journal SellCell found that 73% of iPhone owners and 87% of Samsung owners said that AI features “add little to no value” to their smartphone experiences. This was on top of an earlier CNET survey that found that among the 10 things that motivate consumers to upgrade their smartphone, “AI integrations” took 7th place, with only 18% of respondents saying it matters (beating out “phone color”). The most motivating factor spurring upgrades was “longer battery life” (61%), followed by “more storage” (46%), “camera features” (38%), “phone display/screen size” (32%), “keeping the ecosystem (i.e., iOS to iOS, Android to Android)” (24%), and “a new product release” (23%). Meanwhile, in January, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo—one of the most reputable and respected Apple analysts—published a blog post stating that there was no evidence that Apple Intelligence was actually driving hardware upgrade cycles. If Kuo, SellCell, CNET, and my observations are correct—and I think they are—then Apple’s delay of Apple Intelligence features won’t have much of an impact on iPhone sales in the near term. The iPhone is already one of the most versatile AI smartphones on the market But let’s say I’m wrong. Let’s say the average consumer really does care that their smartphone is packed with AI. I still don’t think Apple’s delay of some Apple Intelligence features matters that much—at least when it comes to the delay’s impact on iPhone sales. Why? Because the iPhone is already a powerful AI smartphone—and it has been for years. Not only are the majority of previously announced Apple Intelligence features already integrated into supported iPhones, but the App Store is filled with hundreds of AI apps, all of which allow you to expand the iPhone’s AI capabilities. These apps include chatbots like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity, plus myriad AI image-generation apps, like DaVinci and WOMBO, and AI note-taking apps like Otter. Like other tech enthusiasts, I’m looking forward to the complete rollout of Apple Intelligence. But the iPhone doesn’t depend on it for its AI capabilities. The iPhone is already a platform on which hundreds of AI apps and services can run—and Apple’s delay in releasing its own AI offerings doesn’t change that. View the full article

Windstorms can seem like they come out of nowhere, hitting with a sudden blast. They might be hundreds of miles long, stretching over several states, or just in your neighborhood. But they all have one thing in common: a change in air pressure. Just like air rushing out of your car tire when the valve is open, air in the atmosphere is forced from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure. The stronger the difference in pressure, the stronger the winds that will ultimately result. On this forecast for March 18, 2025, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, L represents low-pressure systems. The shaded area over New Mexico and west Texas represents strong winds and low humidity that combine to raise the risk of wildfires. [Image: NOAA Weather Prediction Center] Other forces related to the Earth’s rotation, friction and gravity can also alter the speed and direction of winds. But it all starts with this change in pressure over a distance—what meteorologists like me call a pressure gradient. So how do we get pressure gradients? Strong pressure gradients ultimately owe their existence to the simple fact that the Earth is round and rotates. Wind speed and direction in the upper atmosphere on March 14, 2025, show waves in the jet stream. Downstream of a trough in this wave, winds diverge and low pressure can form near the surface. [Image: NCAR] Because the Earth is round, the sun is more directly overhead during the day at the equator than at the poles. This means more energy reaches the surface of the Earth near the equator. And that causes the lower part of the atmosphere, where weather occurs, to be both warmer and have higher pressure on average than the poles. Nature doesn’t like imbalances. As a result of this temperature difference, strong winds develop at high altitudes over midlatitude locations, like the continental U.S. This is the jet stream, and even though it’s several miles up in the atmosphere, it has a big impact on the winds we feel at the surface. Because Earth rotates, these upper-altitude winds blow from west to east. Waves in the jet stream—a consequence of Earth’s rotation and variations in the surface land, terrain and oceans—can cause air to diverge, or spread out, at certain points. As the air spreads out, the number of air molecules in a column decreases, ultimately reducing the air pressure at Earth’s surface. The pressure can drop quite dramatically over a few days or even just a few hours, leading to the birth of a low-pressure system—what meteorologists call an extratropical cyclone. The opposite chain of events, with air converging at other locations, can form high pressure at the surface. In between these low-pressure and high-pressure systems is a strong change in pressure over a distance—a pressure gradient. And that pressure gradient leads to strong winds. Earth’s rotation causes these winds to spiral around areas of high and low pressure. These highs and lows are like large circular mixers, with air blowing clockwise around high pressure and counterclockwise around low pressure. This flow pattern blows warm air northward toward the poles east of lows and cool air southward toward the equator west of lows. A map illustrates lines of surface pressure, called isobars, with areas of high and low pressure marked for March 14, 2025. Winds are strongest when isobars are packed closely together. [Image: Plymouth State University, CC BY-NC-SA] As the waves in the jet stream migrate from west to east, so do the surface lows and highs, and with them, the corridors of strong winds. That’s what the U.S. experienced when a strong extratropical cyclone caused winds stretching thousands of miles that whipped up dust storms and spread wildfires, and even caused tornadoes and blizzards in the central and southern U.S. in March 2025. Whipping up dust storms and spreading fires The jet stream over the U.S. is strongest and often the most “wavy” in the springtime, when the south-to-north difference in temperature is often the strongest. Winds associated with large-scale pressure systems can become quite strong in areas where there is limited friction at the ground, like the flat, less forested terrain of the Great Plains. One of the biggest risks is dust storms in arid regions of west Texas or eastern New Mexico, exacerbated by drought in these areas. When the ground and vegetation are dry and the air has low relative humidity, high winds can also spread wildfires out of control. Even more intense winds can occur when the pressure gradient interacts with terrain. Winds can sometimes rush faster downslope, as happens in the Rockies or with the Santa Ana winds that fueled devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area in January. Violent tornadoes and storms Of course, winds can become even stronger and more violent on local scales associated with thunderstorms. When thunderstorms form, hail and precipitation in them can cause the air to rapidly fall in a downdraft, causing very high pressure under these storms. That pressure forces the air to spread out horizontally when it reaches the ground. Meteorologists call these straight line winds, and the process that forms them is a downburst. Large thunderstorms or chains of them moving across a region can cause large swaths of strong wind over 60 mph, called a derecho. Finally, some of nature’s strongest winds occur inside tornadoes. They form when the winds surrounding a thunderstorm change speed and direction with height. This can cause part of the storm to rotate, setting off a chain of events that may lead to a tornado and winds as strong as 300 mph in the most violent tornadoes. Tornado winds are also associated with an intense pressure gradient. The pressure inside the center of a tornado is often very low and varies considerably over a very small distance. It’s no coincidence that localized violent winds from thunderstorm downbursts and tornadoes often occur amid large-scale windstorms. Extratropical cyclones often draw warm, moist air northward on strong winds from the south, which is a key ingredient for thunderstorms. Storms also become more severe and may produce tornadoes when the jet stream is in close proximity to these low-pressure centers. In the winter and early spring, cold air funneling south on the northwest side of strong extratropical cyclones can even lead to blizzards. So, the same wave in the jet stream can lead to strong winds, blowing dust and fire danger in one region while simultaneously triggering a tornado outbreak and a blizzard in other regions. Chris Nowotarski is an associate professor of atmospheric science, Texas A&M University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

Your home is your sanctuary. Let’s keep it that way. Simplicity is about creating space in your life for what matters most. It’s about clearing the clutter from our homes and hearts so we can live with intention and purpose. As the world gets busier and noisier, embracing simplicity and minimalism becomes even more important. But we all need inspiration to keep us going. That’s why I carefully selected these articles for you. I hope they inspire you to continue on this beautiful journey towards a simpler life. Find a cozy spot, prepare your favorite drink, and immerse yourself in these thought-provoking reads this weekend. On First Principles, Consumerism, and Why We’re All a Bit Lost | Medium by Charles Adede. Maybe fulfillment isn’t about gaining more control, but about aligning more closely with reality as it is. The Psychology Behind Consumerism: Why Do We Buy Things We Don’t Need? | The Arabian Stories by Navida Sait. Have you ever walked into a shop intending to buy just one item but left with a basket full of things you hadn’t planned for? You’re not alone. The Coolest People Online Are Barely Posting at All | Popsugar by Jasmine Desiree. In a world where oversharing has become the norm, a quiet counterculture is emerging: the rise of digital minimalism. The Best Investment You Can Make: Simplifying Your Life | Simple Money by Richard James. If you want a better return on your time, energy, money, and peace of mind—start simplifying. I Tried the 30-Day Minimalism Game and Decluttered 465 Things in One Month | Good Housekeeping by Katie Mortram. If you manage to stick to this decluttering game, it can make a big difference to all sorts of areas around the home. 8 Reasons Decluttering a Little Made a Big Difference for Me | No Sidebar by Karen Trefzger. An active life might mean that some clutter will always be entering my home. That’s why I take a few minutes each week to remove the extras. Recently Released Inspiring Videos 12 Items to Declutter That Instantly Create More Space | YouTube by Joshua Becker. If your home feels cluttered and cramped, you’re not alone. By letting go of the excess, you can quickly create more room to breathe, live, and enjoy your home. 10 Money Saving Hacks Minimalists Swear By | YouTube by Joshua Becker. Whether you want to get out of debt, get ahead financially, or start giving more, saving money is always helpful. And by shifting your mindset and habits, you can break free from the cycle of overspending and find greater financial freedom. The post Inspiring Simplicity. Weekend Reads. appeared first on Becoming Minimalist. View the full article

A guide to the best beach areas in the coastal resort city of Nha Trang, Vietnam. Nha Trang is a beach city in the South Central Coast region of Vietnam. The city is a popular destination for those wanting a beach break with the comforts of city lifestyle. The good thing about Nha Trang is that is has all the trappings of a beach resort town, but go inland a few blocks and it’s a regular provincial Vietnamese city with street food and garden cafes. This guide lists the mains areas to stay in the Nha Trang. Where to stay in Nha Trang guide Map of Nha Trang hotels Best area to stay in Nha Trang Nha Trang Beach (the main beach of the city) Other areas to stay in Nha Trang Hon Chong Beach (smaller beach north of Nha Trang Beach) Duong De (future marina development) Vega City (leisure-themed new urban area) Hon Tre Island (Vinpearl resort and themepark island) Hon Ta, Island (small island with one resort hotel) Phuoc Ha (Diamond Bay Golf) Map of Nha Trang hotels Hotels and other locations mentioned in this article are pinned on this map of Nha Trang. [Map of hotels in Nha Trang.] Best area to stay in Nha Trang If you’re visiting Nha Trang for the first time then stay near Nha Trang Beach. Search for hotels near Nha Trang Beach. Nha Trang Beach Nha Trang Beach (Bãi biển Nha Trang) is the obvious draw of Nha Trang, and this is the best area to stay if you’re visiting for the first time. It’s also referred to as Tran Phu Beach (after the beachside road) and it’s in Lộc Thọ Ward (though as a tourist this will mean nothing). [Wall of hotels along Tran Phu Road.] The central point of Nha Trang Beach is at the Agarwood Tower (Tháp Trầm Hương). This is next to the 2nd April Suare on the beachfront, where festivals and evetns are often held. The main tourist area is in the streets bounded by Tran Phu (the beach road), Tue Tinh, Nguyen Thien Thuat, and Nguyen Thi Minh Khai. This area is full of hotels, travel agents, tourist shops, and restaurants catering for foreigners. This is the most touristy area in Nha Trang, so stay or avoid according to your taste. The area on the north side of Le Thanh Ton Street (north or the Agarwood Tower) doesn’t feel as touristy as the aforementioned main tourist block. This area feels like being in city while still being close to the beach. Budget hotels There’s an abundance of budget hotels near the beach. There are so many hotels that Nha Trang must be one of the world’s best value beach destinations. Some streets are wall-to-wall hotels, so if you are just looking for the cheapest room there are plenty to choose from. [Row of hotels in Nha Trang.] Search for cheap places to stay in Nha Trang. Mid-range hotels Top-rated mid-range hotels in the central beach area include: Novotel Nha Trang Hotel (4-Star) [Novotel Nha Trang Hotel.] ibis Styles Nha Trang (4-Star) Luxury hotels Top-rated 5-star hotels in the central beach area include: – Citadines Bayfront Nha Trang – StarCity Nha Trang Hotel – Muong Thanh Luxury Nha Trang Hotel – Vinpearl Beachfront Nha Trang is part of the Vincom Plaza (a mall facing the beach). [Vinpearl Beachfront Nha Trang.] One of the landmark apartment towers on the beachfront is Panorama Nha Trang. The main hotel in this tower is The Empyrean Nha Trang. Booking sites also show individual apartments for rent in this tower. If you search for “Panorama Nha Trang”, you will be presented with multiple options. [Panorama Nha Trang is as central as it gets on the beachfront.] Opposite the Agarwood Tower is AB Central Square. This building is home to the Hyatt Regency Nha Trang, which is expected to open in Q2 2025. [Hyatt Regency Nha Trang – AB Central Square.] In the middle of the city area on Le Thanh Ton is the Meliá Vinpearl Nha Trang Empire. North of the tourist area (north of Le Thanh Ton) are more 5-star hotels along the beach. – InterContinental Nha Trang. – The Sheraton Nha Trang Hotel & Spa has the distinctive Altitude Rooftop Bar. [Intercontinental and Sheraton on Nha Trang Beach.] – TUI BLUE Nha Trang. – Annova Nha Trang Hotel is just off the beachfront in a distinct high-rise tower. [Annova Nha Trang Hotel.] Other areas to stay in Nha Trang Hon Chong Beach North of Nha Trang Beach on the other side of Cai River is Hon Chong Beach in Vĩnh Hải Ward. Hon Chong Beach is a much smaller beach, and the residential area doesn’t have the gridded streets of the main city area. Hon Chong Beach is dominated by the Muong Thanh apartment block, which also includes a hotel. This beach area has beome popular with Russian families. [Muong Thanh Vien Trieu Apartment on Hon Chong Beach.] The main hotels near Hon Chong Beach include: Anrizon Hotel Nha Trang (4-Star) Scenia Bay Residences (4-Star) Muong Thanh Luxury Vien Trieu Nha Trang Hotel (5-Star) [Scenia Bay Residences.] Duong De Northeast of Hon Chong Beach is the Duong De area. This part of the coast includes Ana Marina, which is billed as the first international standard marina in Vietnam. This area is still a work in progress, but I list it here in case you are wondering what the big buildings are. The Swisstouches La Luna Resort is being built here, but the project is on hold and the buildings remain unfinished. Vega City If you stand on Nha Trang Beach and look north, the tallest building in the distance is at Vega City. This is a new urban area that has been carved into the rocky coastline. I have been visiting Vega City to report on construction updates, and it has similarities to the fake European villages in Phu Quoc. The shophouses feel like they are in a theme park. The main hotel here is Villa Le Corail, A Gran Melia Hotel. Hon Tre Island Hon Tre is the big island in Nha Trang Bay. The island is home to the Vinpearl resort complex, and from Nha Trang Beach you can see “VINPEARL” emblazoned on the side of the island. [Hon Tre Island viewed from Nha Trang Beach.] The island features luxury hotels, water activities, an amusement park, an observation wheel, and a fake European town and castle. This is a typical resort and theme park experience that Vin Group (and Sun Group) have built across Vietnam. Vietnam loves cable cars, and there is a cable car that connects the mainland to the island. There is no township to stay in, so don’t go there expecting a quaint fishing village. The only hotels are resorts. Hotels include the Vinpearl Resort & Spa Nha Trang Bay, Vinpearl Resort Nha Trang, and Nha Trang Marriott Resort & Spa, Hon Tre Island. Hon Tam Island Hon Tam (Silkworm Island) is a smaller island that has one hotel, the Hon Tam Resort (formerly the Merperle Hon Tam Resort). Phuoc Ha The Phuoc Ha area is in a valley along the road the goes to Cam Ranh Airport. The main resort here is Diamond Bay Resort & Spa. Near the resort is the Diamond Bay Golf and Villas. The resort is technically in Nha Trang, but it’s 13 km from the centre of Nha Trang Beach. South of Phuoc Ha is the Cam Ranh resort area. View the full article

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Optimum Business and the LIA Foundation have announced the relaunch of the L.O.C.A.L. (Lifting Our Community Businesses Across Long Island) Small Business Grants, aimed at supporting small businesses across Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Now in its second year, the program will award $5,000 grants to 40 selected small businesses, along with two grand prize grants of $25,000—one each for a business in Nassau and Suffolk County. According to the announcement, the program’s goal is to invest directly in the local economy by helping small businesses grow and thrive. The L.O.C.A.L. grants are made possible through Optimum Business, the program’s founding partner. “Optimum Business is thrilled to continue our partnership with the LIA Foundation to support the vibrant small business community on Long Island. By providing these grants once again, we are not just investing in individual businesses, but in the economic health and future prosperity of our entire region,” said Andrew Rainone, Senior Vice President of National Sales at Optimum. “Our commitment to the small business community goes beyond financial support; Optimum Business is dedicated to fostering an environment where these businesses can thrive and providing connectivity services and resources to succeed in today’s digital world.” To date, the partnership has awarded $250,000 in grants to 50 small businesses. This year, the program continues to expand outreach efforts by working with the Long Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (LIHCC) and the Long Island African American Chamber of Commerce (LIAACC). “The LIA is extraordinarily proud to partner once again with Optimum Business, the Long Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and Long Island African American Chamber of Commerce to stimulate economic growth across Long Island,” said Matt Cohen, President & CEO of the Long Island Association. “Small businesses fuel our region’s vibrancy, and the goals of L.O.C.A.L. Small Business Grants program are to empower entrepreneurs, create jobs, and enhance the overall quality of life for residents on Long Island.” As an added benefit, the LIA will offer a six-month complimentary membership to applicants and a one-year membership to grant recipients who are new to the organization, further supporting their business development and networking opportunities. Phil Andrews, President of the Long Island African American Chamber of Commerce, emphasized the broader economic impact of the program. “The L.O.C.A.L. Small Business Grants funded by Optimum in partnership with the LIA, LIAACC, and the LIHCC provides support to small businesses to Long Island’s regional economy and serves as a marketing function to highlight business success on Long Island,” Andrews said. “Supporting small businesses on Long Island creates and maintains jobs on Long Island which supports a strong Long Island economy.” Luis Vazquez, President of the Long Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, highlighted the continued challenges faced by Hispanic-owned businesses. “The 2025 L.O.C.A.L. Small Business Grants represent a critical investment in the future of our small businesses. Hispanic-owned businesses, in particular, continue to navigate the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, facing ongoing challenges in the recovery process,” Vazquez said. “These grants will provide essential financial support to help them grow, create jobs, and further contribute to the communities they serve. Small businesses are the backbone of our local economy, and the diverse entrepreneurs who power them are key to Long Island’s prosperity. We are proud to play a role in lifting up our business community and ensuring a thriving, inclusive economic future for all.” Grant recipients are expected to be announced later this year. Optimum Business will also host recognition events this summer, joined by local officials and community partners. Optimum Business states that its continued investment in initiatives like L.O.C.A.L. underscores the company’s commitment to connecting customers to what matters most. More information, including submission requirements and official program rules, is available at www.longislandassociation.org/foundation. This article, "Optimum Business and LIA Foundation Relaunch L.O.C.A.L. Small Business Grants" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Optimum Business and the LIA Foundation have announced the relaunch of the L.O.C.A.L. (Lifting Our Community Businesses Across Long Island) Small Business Grants, aimed at supporting small businesses across Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Now in its second year, the program will award $5,000 grants to 40 selected small businesses, along with two grand prize grants of $25,000—one each for a business in Nassau and Suffolk County. According to the announcement, the program’s goal is to invest directly in the local economy by helping small businesses grow and thrive. The L.O.C.A.L. grants are made possible through Optimum Business, the program’s founding partner. “Optimum Business is thrilled to continue our partnership with the LIA Foundation to support the vibrant small business community on Long Island. By providing these grants once again, we are not just investing in individual businesses, but in the economic health and future prosperity of our entire region,” said Andrew Rainone, Senior Vice President of National Sales at Optimum. “Our commitment to the small business community goes beyond financial support; Optimum Business is dedicated to fostering an environment where these businesses can thrive and providing connectivity services and resources to succeed in today’s digital world.” To date, the partnership has awarded $250,000 in grants to 50 small businesses. This year, the program continues to expand outreach efforts by working with the Long Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (LIHCC) and the Long Island African American Chamber of Commerce (LIAACC). “The LIA is extraordinarily proud to partner once again with Optimum Business, the Long Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and Long Island African American Chamber of Commerce to stimulate economic growth across Long Island,” said Matt Cohen, President & CEO of the Long Island Association. “Small businesses fuel our region’s vibrancy, and the goals of L.O.C.A.L. Small Business Grants program are to empower entrepreneurs, create jobs, and enhance the overall quality of life for residents on Long Island.” As an added benefit, the LIA will offer a six-month complimentary membership to applicants and a one-year membership to grant recipients who are new to the organization, further supporting their business development and networking opportunities. Phil Andrews, President of the Long Island African American Chamber of Commerce, emphasized the broader economic impact of the program. “The L.O.C.A.L. Small Business Grants funded by Optimum in partnership with the LIA, LIAACC, and the LIHCC provides support to small businesses to Long Island’s regional economy and serves as a marketing function to highlight business success on Long Island,” Andrews said. “Supporting small businesses on Long Island creates and maintains jobs on Long Island which supports a strong Long Island economy.” Luis Vazquez, President of the Long Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, highlighted the continued challenges faced by Hispanic-owned businesses. “The 2025 L.O.C.A.L. Small Business Grants represent a critical investment in the future of our small businesses. Hispanic-owned businesses, in particular, continue to navigate the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, facing ongoing challenges in the recovery process,” Vazquez said. “These grants will provide essential financial support to help them grow, create jobs, and further contribute to the communities they serve. Small businesses are the backbone of our local economy, and the diverse entrepreneurs who power them are key to Long Island’s prosperity. We are proud to play a role in lifting up our business community and ensuring a thriving, inclusive economic future for all.” Grant recipients are expected to be announced later this year. Optimum Business will also host recognition events this summer, joined by local officials and community partners. Optimum Business states that its continued investment in initiatives like L.O.C.A.L. underscores the company’s commitment to connecting customers to what matters most. More information, including submission requirements and official program rules, is available at www.longislandassociation.org/foundation. This article, "Optimum Business and LIA Foundation Relaunch L.O.C.A.L. Small Business Grants" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article