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Britain’s most troubled rail project forced to postpone work connecting new line with the northView the full article

Silicon Valley company with links to The President administration rides wave of investor enthusiasm View the full article

Sumaiya Balbale left the venture firm after it decided not to discipline outspoken investor for posts about Zohran MamdaniView the full article

In some cities, as Amazon delivery vans make the rounds with your latest order, they’re also delivering something different—free food to people who rely on food banks. In a program that quietly started during the pandemic, the company has used its logistics infrastructure to deliver enough groceries for 60 million meals to families facing food insecurity. Today, Amazon announced that it’s extending the program with its food bank partners through 2028. The Community Delivery program began early in the pandemic as the company’s disaster relief team saw long lines at food banks and looked for ways to help people stuck at home. “We started talking to our operational teams here at Amazon and said, we’re doing this for our customers—we’re delivering food to their doorstep,” says Bettina Stix, director of Amazon Community Impact. “What if we did that same delivery, but instead of coming from our Amazon grocery fulfillment, it would come from the food bank?” As pandemic restrictions ended, they realized that there was still a clear need for delivery. In a study with Feeding America last year, they found that 46% of visitors to food pantries had skipped visits because of transportation challenges. (Unsurprisingly, that number jumps to 60% for people without a car.) Others might work multiple jobs and simply not have enough time. Some recipients who use the delivery program said that they’d never been able to access free food from a pantry in the past. “There are many people who, because of disability or transportation or schedule constraints, can’t get to a pantry, or stand in line at a pantry, or transport a 25-pound bag of groceries home,” says Seth Harris, associate director of home-delivered groceries at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, one of more than 40 food banks that now works with Amazon. Picking up groceries from a food pantry might involve two hours of travel and trying to navigate a bus with a heavy package. Some food banks already offered limited home delivery, but it’s resource-intensive and typically relies on volunteers, making it difficult to scale. “At some point, you end up in a world where you have more deliveries than can be done by a single route,” says Josh Hirschland, principal product manager for food security at Amazon Community Impact. “So then you start to think about, okay, how do we divide up the packages across multiple routes? How do you set the order of the different stops to be the most efficient, and how do you divide that up? How do you manage all of these orders? How do you figure out which ones have been picked up? Have you made sure that they’re being delivered?” Hirschland adds. The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank had a delivery program before working with Amazon, but was able to significantly expand it. The nonprofit now makes around 1,000 home deliveries a day, primarily to seniors and adults with disabilities. In many cases, Amazon works with its network of Flex drivers, gig workers who use their own cars, to make the deliveries. Instead of picking up a shift for Amazon Fresh, a driver can choose to pick up a carful of prepacked boxes from a food bank and deliver them over the next hour or two. Amazon foots the bill. The program, like the rest of its Community Impact work, isn’t a separate philanthropic arm of the company, but part of a business strategy to find ways to benefit communities by using its existing infrastructure and technology. The company adapted software that it had initially used for Amazon Restaurants, a food delivery service that the company shut down in 2019. Engineers created a portal that food banks can use to add and track orders. In some cities, like Los Angeles and Austin, food banks pack shelf-stable food that doesn’t need to be delivered immediately, and the boxes can be incorporated into regular Amazon delivery routes. Larger trucks pick up pallets of boxes at food banks and take them to Amazon sort centers. “At the sort center, those boxes start to be comingled with iPhone cables and jigsaw puzzles, and then get sent down to a truck where they are driven to the delivery station,” Hirschland says. At the company’s last-mile delivery stations, boxes are loaded onto racks and then head out on vans. Using vans helps make it easier to reach rural areas, he says, where it’s often even harder for families to access food pantries. The company now has a team of engineers dedicated to continuing to improve the technology behind the philanthropic initiative. One recent feature, for example, tracks how long each package is with the driver, from pickup to delivery. Since the program started, Amazon has been renewing it with its food bank partners each year. But now, with a longer three-year extension, the nonprofits will be better able to plan. “If you are running a home delivery program as a food bank, even if the transportation is free, there are still any number of costs that you’re looking at,” Hirschland says. Food banks also don’t want to offer the service and then have to unexpectedly cancel it. The longer commitment “is something that we’ve been trying to do for a long time,” he says. The need keeps growing: The cost of food is now nearly 30% higher than it was in 2020. Tariffs are pushing up the cost of imported foods like bananas and coffee. The Department of Labor warned last week that current immigration policies are causing a shortage of workers on farms, and that’s also threatening the food supply chain and food prices. The budget bill that President The President signed in July made steep cuts to SNAP, the federal food assistance program, that will soon begin rolling out. Earlier in the year, the Department of Agriculture cut $1 billion in funding for food banks and school nutrition programs to buy food from local farms. With rents and energy prices also rising, buying food has become even more of a strain. The delivery program can’t solve the larger issues that make hunger a logistics problem. But in a strained system, it’s become a critical tool for food banks. View the full article

The company's servicing valuations fell but by less than in previous quarters. Lower rates both aided production and created recapture opportunities. View the full article

Charity that sets voluntary rate says rise reflects increase in cost of essentials and higher expectations for living standardsView the full article

Firms are being welcomed as a spur to consolidation — so long as they know their placeView the full article

French technology group Positive acquires Surfer, expanding its full-funnel brand visibility ecosystem. The post Surfer SEO Acquired By Positive Group appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Iceland has long been known as the only habitable place in the world free from mosquitoes. (Antarctica is also mosquito-free, but is not habitable to humans). The Nordic country has been spared from the insects in part because of its intense winters and oceanic climate—until now. Mosquitoes have been found in Iceland for the first time this month, a sign of how our warming world is enabling the pesky and downright deadly insects to expand their range. An insect enthusiast in Kjós named Björn Hjaltason posted about his discovery in a Facebook group that translates to “Insects in Iceland,” multiple Icelandic news outlets have reported. “Ladies and gentlemen—may I introduce . . . for the first time in Iceland . . . MOSQUITO!” the post read, according to the Icelandic newspaper Vísir. After finding three mosquitoes, Hjaltason sent the insects to the Natural Science Institute of Iceland, which researches the country’s natural environment. Matthías Alfreðsson, an entomologist there, confirmed the bugs were, in fact, mosquitoes—specifically, ones from the Culiseta annulata species, which is native to northern Europe. Mosquitoes have previously been found on planes coming into Iceland, Alfreðsson told RÚV, the national public broadcaster, but this recent finding marked the first time that the insect has been found on Icelandic soil. He said the discovery was significant. A warming world Climate change is causing the entire planet to experience record-high temperatures, and Iceland is particularly affected. Iceland has been warming about three times faster than the global average warming rate, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office. Rising temperatures are also lighting a fuse under volcanoes, causing more eruptions—a process already observed in Iceland. Almost all of Iceland’s glaciers are receding, and some have vanished completely. As our planet warms, it becomes more hospitable to insects, which spread beyond their native regions. Scientists have long warned that mosquitoes are on the move, and as they are the world’s deadliest animal—carrying diseases from malaria to Zika virus to dengue fever—that puts millions more people at risk. Culiseta annulata is not considered a primary vector for disease, but other mosquitoes that have been expanding into colder areas of the world are. Asian tiger mosquitoes, originally from Southeast Asia, which transmit dengue, have recently been found in the United Kingdom, for example. In Iceland to stay Iceland was always somewhat of an anomaly when it came to its lack of the buzzing, biting bugs. Its Nordic neighbors, including Denmark, Norway, and Greenland, have had thriving mosquito populations. Iceland is also full of lakes and ponds, where mosquitoes often breed. (The country is home to other flying, biting bugs, though.) Scientists have theorized, The New York Times previously reported, that Iceland’s “oceanic climate,” including its multiple major freezes and thaws each year, has kept the bugs from breeding and surviving. But the mosquitoes recently found in Iceland are likely there to stay, entomologists say. The species is particularly cold-resistant and may survive the Icelandic winters by hiding out in basements or barns. Experts will need to monitor the situation come spring to see if the species really becomes “established” in Iceland, one entomologist told Fast Company. Their potential infiltration of the Nordic island ultimately isn’t much of a surprise to scientists, who have expected this outcome as the evidence of global warming has mounted. Iceland’s average air temperature has increased about 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 20 years, per the Times, allowing some 200 new insect species to make Iceland their home, when they couldn’t previously survive its conditions. “If the warming continues, we may find mosquitoes in Iceland in the near future,” Gisli Mar Gislason, a biologist at the University of Iceland, predicted in an interview with the Times in 2016. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Exercise is a healthy and, one might argue, necessary part of our lives. The guidelines from public health organizations tell you to aim for at least 150 minutes of “moderate” exercise each week, and that each minute of “vigorous” exercise counts double. That raises the question: What the hell is “moderate” exercise? How do you know when you’re doing it? Scientists measure METs, but you don't have to If you have any kind of smartwatch or fitness tracker, it may try to tell you that "moderate" exercise occurs at a certain heart rate. This isn't actually the case. The scientists who came up with the exercise guidelines didn't use heart rate as their guide. Instead, they used charts that measured how many "METs," or metabolic equivalents, each type of exercise requires. I'll explain more about METs below, but the important thing to know is that the type and intensity of exercise is what tells you whether it's moderate, not your heart rate while you're doing it. You can look up exercises on a chart like this one, but here's the basic idea: Walking is moderate, jogging or running is vigorous. Bicycling is moderate if it’s under about 12 miles per hour on the flat. Indoor cycling is moderate if it’s up to about 100 watts of power. All that said, you don’t have to overthink it. The guidelines that mention “moderate” and “vigorous” activities aren’t asking you to monitor your heart rate or any other numeric metric. They want you thinking in terms of generalities: walking versus running, leisurely bike commuting versus sweating your heart out in a spin studio. And honestly, if it’s easier to watch your heart rate than to worry about the above, that’s fine. For most of us, 150 minutes of Zone 2 is going to be at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise. So follow that guideline, and you’ll be an overachiever. It’s not really about heart rateSo why does your watch want to steer you toward a certain heart rate during exercise? Mostly because that's easy to measure. Moderate exercise sorta-kinda matches up to "zone 2" cardio, which I’ve previously explained. (Zone 2 is is the second-lowest intensity in a five-zone system, and the easiest way to know which zone you're in is to glance at your fitness watch.) While you can use heart rate zones as a rule of thumb to find moderate exercise, this idea falls short in two ways: (1) different gadgets and systems use different cutoffs to decide which numbers count as "zone 2", and (2) for most of us, zone 2 includes most moderate activities but also some vigorous activities. If you’re relatively fit, you can jog at a 12 minute-per-mile pace while keeping your heart rate in zone 2. That’s a “vigorous” activity in terms of METs, though. The other reason heart rate isn’t accurate for this task is that your heart rate changes for all kinds of reasons. The hotter it is when you're working out, the higher your heart rate tends to be. Same goes for when you’re nervous or stressed. And as you get fitter, you’ll be able to do the same activities at a lower heart rate. Those activities might feel easier than they used to, but they’re not any less work. What is a MET, anyway?One MET is the energy expended when you’re at rest—the amount of oxygen, calories, etc that it takes to keep you alive and breathing. (We use oxygen in the process of burning calories, so officially a MET is 3.2 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute.) Researchers can then put a mask on a person and measure how much oxygen they use while running, walking, playing guitar, etc. If an activity takes twice as much oxygen as sitting still, they say it takes two METs. Here are a few examples (taken from this scientific paper): 2 MET: washing dishes, or playing croquet 3 MET: walking at 3 miles per hour (a pretty typical walking pace) 4 MET: table tennis, ice skating 5 MET: modern dance, fast-paced ballroom dance 6 MET: volleyball, singles tennis 7 MET: jogging, jumping rope The numbers go up from there. Speed skating clocks in at 15 MET. To be clear, you will not be measuring METs directly when you exercise. The MET studies are done in labs so that we can use the information to get a sense of what MET values each common type of exercise tends to have. Moderate exercise is 3 to 6 MET, and vigorous is 6 or moreThe physical activity guidelines define “moderate” exercise as at least 3 MET, but less than 6. Vigorous is 6 MET or more. Because METs are specific to the activity, not to how fit you are, it makes the most sense to look at METs in terms of the pace you run or the settings you use on your treadmill or other cardio machine. Here are paces and activities that have been clocked as between 3 and 6 METs: Walking at 3-4 mph (a 15-minute to 20-minute mile) Cycling, between 50 to 100 watts Shooting baskets Playing baseball Taking a low-impact aerobics class And these are vigorous (6 or more MET): Race walking (5+ mph) Walking uphill Walking with a 12-pound pack Jogging (a 12-minute mile is 8.0 MET; the faster you go, the higher the MET) Bicycling at 12 miles per hour or faster Swimming laps Playing a game of basketball, soccer, or hockey So when you're trying to get your 150 minutes (or more) of moderate exercise each week, you can count all your walking, your easy bike riding, and your low-impact aerobics class. Give yourself credit for vigorous exercise for all the time you spend jogging (at any heart rate), lap swimming, or rucking. You may find you've been doing more exercise than you think. View the full article

Chancellor fleshes out Budget plan to target those with ‘the broadest shoulders’ such as lawyers, doctors and accountantsView the full article

Netflix missed Wall Street’s third-quarter earnings targets because of an unexpected expense from a dispute with Brazilian tax authorities, while it offered a forecast a touch ahead of Wall Street projections for the rest of the year. The report failed to impress investors accustomed to fast-paced growth from the streaming video pioneer. Shares of Netflix, which had risen 39% this year ahead of the earnings report, fell 6.3%, to $1,163.80, in after-hours trading on Tuesday. Netflix posted net income of $2.5 billion and diluted earnings per share of $5.87 for July through September, a period when the animated K-Pop Demon Hunters became the most-watched movie in Netflix history. Analysts had expected $3 billion and $6.97, respectively, according to the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). Revenue was even with forecasts, at $11.5 billion. Netflix is seeking growth from new areas such as advertising and video games after attracting more than 300 million customers around the world. It faces competition from YouTube, Amazon’s Prime Video, Disney+, and others. The media business is facing major changes, including the potential sale of industry titan Warner Bros. Discovery and the rise of generative artificial intelligence with the ability to produce short-form video. Netflix reported an operating margin of 28% for the third quarter. Without the Brazilian tax expense of roughly $619 million, the margin would have exceeded the company’s guidance of 31.5%, it said, adding that it did not expect the matter to have a material impact on future results. PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore said he believed the tax issue weighed on Netflix shares. “All things considered, this was another robust quarter, despite a blip due to an unforeseen expense,” Pescatore said. For the fourth quarter, Netflix forecast revenue of $11.96 billion, compared with Wall Street’s projection of $11.90 billion. It projected diluted earnings per share a penny ahead of analysts’ targets, at $5.45. For the third quarter, Netflix said it recorded its best ad sales quarter in history but did not disclose a number. “This gives the impression that the sustained revenue growth achieved this quarter, and forecasted for next quarter, will predominantly continue to come from subscription fees,” eMarketer analyst Ross Benes said. Netflix will release the final season of one of its biggest hits, Stranger Things, in November and December, and stream two live National Football League games on Christmas. “We’re finishing the year with good momentum and have an exciting Q4 slate,” Netflix said in its quarterly letter to shareholders. Earlier this year, Netflix stopped reporting subscriber numbers and urged investors to focus on revenue and profit. It has expanded into video games and advertising, two areas that have contributed little to revenue so far, according to analysts and investors. —By Lisa Richwine, Reuters View the full article

Seeking a flatter management structure is a leadership trend you could compare to fashion’s craze for skinny jeans—trendy yesterday, forgotten tomorrow, then back in fashion again before you know it. Recently, big tech firms like Meta, Microsoft, and Google made headlines for cutting management positions to lower costs and increase productivity—turning some of their workloads over to AI tools. But a new survey from San Francisco-based workplace communications outfit Firstup shows that eliminating too many management jobs can have some unexpected effects on the way your teams work, sometimes damaging employee engagement, which undermines productivity. This is definitely something to bear in mind if you’re considering restructuring your own company’s management ranks. The survey’s top results show that employees think middle management layers are crucial to the company success. More than half the people surveyed said their direct manager was their “most trusted source” for up-to-date workplace news—compared to just 10% who think that senior leadership is their best source for this information. Interestingly, the Firstup survey, which quizzed 1,000 U.S.-based, full-time non-managerial employees at companies that carried out layoffs in the last year, shows that junior staff think that their middle management layers are critical to their well-being at work. Fully 75% of respondents said they rely on managers for recognition and appreciation, 63% said they relied on them for helping tackle workplace challenges, while 50% said they seek coaching and development advice from managers. Meanwhile, 86% of people said they relied on managers to “translate” company updates into meaningful advice about what changes mean for individual workers. This paints a picture of junior staff relying on their layers of middle management as a trust and information barrier between themselves and senior leadership—perhaps hinting at an “ivory tower” syndrome surrounding senior management. Other survey details offer a deeper view of what happens when layoffs hit the management structure of a company. Fully 38% of survey respondents said that since their company experienced layoffs, their manager had become less accessible. This has had consequences: 30% of people said they’d felt less support when things were disrupted or changed, 34% expected they’ll lose a sense of connection and 30% expected decreased or zero access for mentorship and career development options. Employees also don’t trust senior leaders, with nearly 40% saying they can’t get mentorship or guidance from upper management, 37% saying they feel unheard by the top leaders, and only 47% agreeing that their company leadership is “somewhat” transparent. This paints an interesting picture of how the average U.S. worker views their management, relying on their direct supervisors while apparently distrusting upper layers of company leadership. The report quotes Firstup CEO Bill Schuh, who explained that the data show workers see middle managers as critical for “translating organizational priorities into action, clarity, and connection for their direct report.” As companies shed middle managers, they risk losing this vital link, which can leave frontline workers feeling lost and unsupported. That discontent will likely diminish their engagement with their work, and could reduce their productivity. Meanwhile Schuh also noted that stripping managers out adds strain on their remaining colleagues. That means companies are “asking fewer managers to do more, and that simply is not sustainable,” he said. While AI is useful for handling some mundane managerial tasks, it “won’t replace the human connection and leadership that great managers provide.” What does this mean for your company? In smaller organizations, there may be more of a direct line of communication between senior leaders and frontline workers: but these data are still important. If you’re considering trimming your intermediate management structure, you should consider how this will impact employee trust and expectations for career advancement. Open and frank conversations may improve levels of trust among your employees and help support their engagement and productivity during times of upheaval. —Kit Eaton This article originally appeared on Fast Company‘s sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy. View the full article

Kin, a direct-to-consumer insurance provider, has started a mortgage broker in Florida which also takes loan applications through a call center or online. View the full article

Bank of America has a playbook for government shutdowns, which includes providing fee and payment waivers as well as loan deferrals and forbearance programs, CEO Brian Moynihan said at the American Bankers Association's annual convention. View the full article

Brave disclosed security vulnerabilities in AI browsers that could let malicious sites access user banking and email accounts. The post Brave Reveals Systemic Security Issues In AI Browsers appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Streamer reports strong revenue growth due to success of films such as ‘KPop Demon Hunters’View the full article

For many of us, Monday was a workday defined by the AWS outage. Amazon Web Services experienced intermittent issues, throwing a huge fraction of the internet into chaos, as the sites and services built on it faltered or stopped working altogether. It was a sobering reminder that a lot of the world relies on AWS for networking, computing, and data storage. Truth be told, I was surprised to learn just how owned we really are, especially after a number of my work apps experienced issues. In fact, over four million business with a physical address use AWS for cloud-computing needs. It is the largest cloud infrastructure servicer in the world, with a whopping 30% of the market share. That's why when a global outage like this occurs, it's impossible to ignore: So many companies and products are affected, from streaming platforms like Prime Video, to social media sites like Facebook, that almost everyone who goes online will experience the disruption. But 30% is not 100%. AWS might be the market leader, but it is not the entire market. There are plenty of other cloud infrastructure companies out there offering similar services—and posing similar risks should they experience outages. Why use a cloud infrastructure company?It's not necessarily a bad thing for companies turn to an AWS for their computing needs. It's simply much more cost efficient to outsource the resources necessary for running programs, storing data, and hosting traffic, especially as businesses rapidly grow and change. Rather than spend the time and money constantly purchasing and upgrading on-site hardware, companies can pay for servers as they go. Companies like AWS will scale up or down as needed, without interruption to service—until, of course, there is an interruption to services. These companies can offer a host of cloud-based services and tools, including compute, databases, machine learning, networking, security, and storage. AWS just so happens to be the biggest of the bunch, but plenty of companies choose other cloud infrastructure options for their needs. AWS alternativesThere are many other companies offering the same services as AWS, but for our purposes, I'm going to list seven of the most popular, starting with AWS' main competitors: Microsoft Azure: Microsoft's cloud computing services is only second to AWS in terms of global market share. Microsoft obviously uses its own cloud infrastructure, but plenty of other companies do too, including Ralph Laruen, Best Buy, Procter & Gamble, Coca Cola, Abercrombie & Fitch, and even local, state, and federal governments. Google Cloud: Google Cloud is the third largest player in this space, with companies like Lowe's, Wendy's, EA, Fox Sports, Bayer, and McLaren all using its services. Alibaba Cloud: Alibaba Cloud has a large cloud computing market share, and is used by companies like Air Asia, Zara, Lenovo Group, and JNE Express. Oracle Cloud: Oracle Cloud includes customers like Quest Diagnostics, Baylor University, Smeg, Northwell Health, DHL, and MEO. Salesforce: Companies like Pacers Sports, Indeed, F1, and The Adecco Group use Salesforce's data cloud services. IBM Cloud: Deloitte, Pfizer, Harvard, Vodafone, and even the US Open purchase cloud products from IBM Cloud. Tencent Cloud: You might know Tencent particularly from its massive games division, but its cloud services are also wide reaching. They include services for companies like L'Oréal Paris, Tim Hortons, and Dell, as well as its own subsidiaries like Supercell and DouYu. If there's a silver lining here, it's that there are more than just two or three companies powering sites and services around the globe, and we're not quite at the point where every company connected to the internet relies on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. That level of centralization would pose even larger risks than the ones we're currently living with. Still, present circumstance are, still pretty risky. AWS has 30% of the market share, Azure has 20%, and Google Cloud has 12%. Taken together, these three companies make up 62% of all cloud infrastructure companies around the globe. Yes, it's good the other 38% is spread out amongst a collection of other players, but the risk of another AWS-like outage is high. Hopefully, following Monday's debacle, there is work currently being done to prevent such a thing from happening again, but that's being optimistic. View the full article

After a record-setting rally over the past week, commodities traders went all in on a massive gold sell-off on Tuesday. The price of the precious metal fell down to $4,118 an ounce, after a high of $4,381.52 an ounce just one day before. Meanwhile, silver is trading at $48.76 an ounce in midday trading at the time of this writing, down from $54.35 last week. At the time of this writing, the live gold spot price for an ounce of gold in U.S. dollars (USD) is $4,133.13, a gram of gold is $132.88 and one kilogram of gold is $132,883.22, according to JM Bullion.(Gold spot price can fluctuate by the second.) For some context, that means gold prices have decreased the most they have in four years, and silver is seeing its biggest drop since early 2021, per Bloomberg. This is a stunning reversal from last week, which saw gold and silver prices spiking as investors sought out a “safe haven” from more volatility in the stock market due to overall economic uncertainty. The two main ways to invest in gold and silver are by buying the physical metals, or through futures contracts. What’s causing the abrupt change? Analysts say it’s not just one thing causing the slump. They point to the current economic and political climate, including a prolonged government shutdown; upcoming U.S. and China trade talks amid The President’s escalating tariff wars with Beijing; and softer than expected numbers from the US Consumer Price Index (CPI), which are expected to be released by end of week. The shutdown is delaying some economic and jobs data from coming out as government workers are currently furloughed, while at the same time, there have been mass firings. Meanwhile, a standoff with Beijing over rare earth minerals resulted in President Donald The President threatening a “massive increase of tariffs on Chinese products,” seemingly triggering a market sell-off. However, a retreat from gold and silver could mean the market is feeling more secure—and therefore, a good sign investors aren’t running for cover. View the full article

Brussels’ trade commissioner and Chinese commerce minister also discuss ‘serious’ situation at chipmaker NexperiaView the full article

The housing agency director also announced plans to donate his salary to help wounded veterans as CHLA and ICBA push for the enterprises to resume MBS buying. View the full article

My friend turned to me the other day with a sly smirk and whispered, “Are you also part of Group 7?” I shook my head, unsure of what she meant—feeling left out of whatever secret club she was referring to. It didn’t take long for the algorithm to catch up with me. Within a few hours, my For You Page on TikTok was flooded, and before I knew it, I, too, was officially part of the internet’s newest inside joke. “Group 7” began as a simple experiment by musician Sophia James, who wanted to promote her new song So Unfair—and experiment with the quirky nature of TikTok’s algorithm. TikTok’s For You Page, or FYP, described by the Guardian as “uncannily good at predicting what videos will catch your eye,” works differently than older recommendation systems. Rather than passively waiting for users to engage with a video, it actively evaluates its own predictions, presenting content it anticipates users will find appealing and gauging their responses. “It pushes the boundaries of your interests and monitors how you engage with those new videos it seeds in your For You Page,” Chris Stokel-Walker, author of TikTok Boom and frequent Fast Company contributor, told the Guardian in 2022. Every user has the potential for global fame. Even with zero followers, a video can eventually land on someone’s FYP. Positive engagement can quickly snowball into millions of views. TikTok’s short-form format accelerates this learning. Leveraging this insight, James posted seven nearly identical videos of her track, each labeled with a different group number. “You are in group [number],” the text read. “Group 7,” uploaded last, swiftly became the algorithm’s favorite—and TikTok’s latest obsession. Before long, everyone wanted in. Users jumped on the “exclusive” group trend, now the center of TikTok lore. “Can you imagine not being in Group 7?” one user commented. “I hereby declare group 7 is the most elite group,” another added. “Group 7 is the hot girl group—I don’t make the rules.” Even brands and celebrities crowded into the group. Clorox dubbed Group 7 “clean girl coded.” HBO Max chimed in with “judging groups 1–6,” and Shark Tank star Barbara Corcoran along with the actress Madelyn Cline also jumped on board. On music marketing and memes “It’s immaculate marketing,” one TikTok user said in a viral post praising the stunt. And she wasn’t wrong. James managed to get millions of people to stream, share, and memeify So Unfair without spending a cent on traditional promotion, now garnering over 2.5 million likes and 114,600 comments on her post. Fans soon began referring to the song as the “Group 7 anthem.” The track became ubiquitous, climbed the charts, and Sophia James emerged as the internet’s latest marketing sensation. According to the New York Times, she has gained more than 100,000 TikTok followers and seen a significant uptick in streams of her music. Taking her efforts beyond TikTok, James has launched an official “Group 7” section on her website, promoting a real-life meetup at the Bedford Pub in London on October 24. Are inside jokes the new marketing strategy? This is not the first instance of the internet transforming a half-joke into a cultural phenomenon. From the chair emoji saga to Crop and Story Time, TikTok users gravitate toward communities that feel exclusive—even when built entirely on shared irony. James’s experiment demonstrates a larger trend: In an era where authenticity is algorithmic, the best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing at all. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Ever since the Google Pixel Watch 4 came out this summer, the Pixel Watch 3 became "old," which means you can expect a better price for it. And right now, Walmart is selling the wifi-only 45mm Google Pixel Watch 3 for $224.33 (originally $399.99) after a $175.66 discount. It might have been supplanted by the Pixel Watch 4, but the Pixel Watch 3 is still a great fitness watch in 2025, and it's at a great price right now. Pixel Watch 3 (WiFi, 45mm) $224.33 at Walmart $399.99 Save $175.66 Get Deal Get Deal $224.33 at Walmart $399.99 Save $175.66 Certainly there is not enough of a difference between the Pixel Watch 4 and the Pixel Watch 3 to warrant an upgrade if you already own the latter. The main differences are the 4's ultra-fast charging, satellite SOS, and dual-band GPS. But if those things aren't very important to you, the Pixel Watch 3 can still get you the latest Pixel software features for much less money. The Pixel Watch series has never been known for its long battery life, although the third generation improved the battery significantly, to 36 hours. That might not be anywhere near what you can get from competitors like Garmin, but the Pixel makes up for it with other features. The display is bright and can be seen outdoors on a sunny day while wearing polarized glasses, a big plus for outdoor enthusiasts. It offers a ton of fitness metrics, including recovery and running dynamics that are perfect for casual fitness, according to Lifehacker senior health editor Beth Skwarecki's review. The GPS tracking is good, but not perfect, so sticklers should probably go with a different option if this is an important feature. The sleep and heart rate monitor are reliable, however. Keep in mind the Pixel Watch 3 is all touchscreen, and there are no physical buttons, which is a pro or con depending on your preferences. If you're not a professional athlete and are looking for a health- and fitness-focused smart watch that will save you money in the Android ecosystem, the Pixel Watch 3 is a great buy right now. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 2 Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $169.99 (List Price $249.00) Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 256GB Unlocked AI Phone (Titanium JetBlack) — $799.99 (List Price $799.99) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Blink Mini 2 1080p Indoor Security Camera (2-Pack, White) — $69.99 (List Price $69.99) Ring Battery Doorbell Plus — $149.99 (List Price $149.99) Blink Video Doorbell Wireless (Newest Model) + Sync Module Core — $69.99 (List Price $69.99) Ring Indoor Cam (2nd Gen, 2-pack, White) — $79.99 (List Price $99.98) Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (2nd Gen, 2023) — $49.99 (List Price $49.99) Shark AV2501S AI Ultra Robot Vacuum with HEPA Self-Empty Base — $359.89 (List Price $549.99) Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) — $139.99 (List Price $139.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

Statement by Volodymyr Zelenskyy and nine national leaders comes after volatile White House meeting View the full article

The NRMLA/Riskspan Reverse Mortgage Market Index set a new high of 502.42, with the dollar amount of home equity for those 62 or over reaching $14.4 trillion. View the full article