“The interesting thing about television is that it always seems to shoot for the lowest common denominator.” That’s a wonderfully acidic takedown—just the kind of thing you might expect Steve Jobs to say. What makes it particularly noteworthy is that he’s saying it to ABC News reporter Bob Brown in February 1981, in footage never meant for public consumption. The 25-year-old Jobs was snarking about Brown’s profession as the two got ready for an interview
Editor’s Note: This article is part of Fast Company Spark, a new initiative for middle and high school readers. The first TikTok on Gohar Khan’s (@goharsguide) account looks a lot like other videos users scroll past on their For You Pages: a 20-something, talking into their front-facing camera with YouTube-like jump cuts. The post–which garnered 21,700 views, 1,939 likes, and 27 comments–was the first of two videos breaking down how Khan got into the Massachusetts Ins
The augmented reality game developer Niantic announced on Thursday that it has agreed to buy a company, well known within augmented reality circles, called 8th Wall, which has developed a way for users to view AR experiences on mobile devices without the need to open an app. Niantic says the 8th Wall technology will become one of the tools it offers to developers in its Lightship development platform. Developers use Lightship to create games and other experiences on top of the same platform Nian
Magic Leap, the storied consumer AR company that’s found a second chance servicing the enterprise market, has taken the wraps off its new Magic Leap 2 headset. I found it to be a meaningful improvement over its predecessor, the Magic Leap 1. The new headset is Magic Leap’s first to be designed for the enterprise market. The Magic Leap 1 (formerly called Magic Leap One Creator Edition) was originally designed for the consumer market, well before the company pivoted to the enterprise
This past October, in Baltimore, high school students had to show proof that they were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to weekly testing, in order to play sports. While Baltimore has made that call, the story is different in other neighboring districts, like Cecil County and Allegany County, where public schools are not asking for vaccination status or doing surveillance testing of any kind. Like many states across the U.S. there are no longer unified COVID protocols. Decisions on va
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When you think about things having a copyright, what probably comes to mind are movies, music, books—really anything that has a well-documented history of piracy or plagiarism. Because that’s what copyrights are for: to promote the creation of original work by giving those creators the ability to make money from their efforts withou
After months of speculation, Amazon finally gave users a peek at Amp, a live radio app that it sees as a competitor to Clubhouse. The early results showed potential, even if the current iteration was light on customization. Amp says it will allow users to “be a DJ” of their own online space, letting them create live shows where they can discuss, well, anything. Amazon has already lined up an army of celebrities and personalities to drum up interest in the platform: Influencers Niki
The executive order that President Biden signed early Wednesday on the government’s approach toward cryptocurrencies is getting good reviews from both the crypto world and key government officials. The crypto industry had been nervously awaiting some clarity from the government on how it would try to regulate the tech. After all, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has repeatedly expressed anxiety over the stability of the new currencies, and SEC chair Gary Gensler has called crypto a “
You may have already thought we had too many streaming services to deal with, but sports fans should prepare for the situation to get worse. On Tuesday, Apple announced a deal with Major League Baseball that will bring two games to Apple TV+ every Friday night starting this season (assuming the league can end its lockout with the season intact). Those games will be exclusive to Apple TV+, which means they won’t be carried by regional sports channels or other traditional TV networks. On it
The book industry had a banner year in 2021 thanks, in large part, to TikTok. In a niche corner of the app, #BookTok—a community of TikTokers who review books and give recommendations—has blown up since the start of the pandemic. While users are treated to a bountiful number of new reads, authors of those books have seen an increase in sales and appearances on the New York Times Best Seller list years after release. According to NPD Bookscan, the publishing industry sold approximat