Thanks to innovations in the cloud, the machines that we rely on every day are getting smarter. Increasingly, machines can “feel” the world around them thanks to a combination of sensors and cameras, then interpret that data using artificial intelligence, including computer vision. Today, our cars can detect poor road conditions and gather data that helps cities determine where to make repairs. Robots and automation make factory floors run more efficiently. The companies behind the
This article is about one of the honorees of Fast Company’s first Next Big Things in Tech awards. Read about all the winners here. When cardiologist Uma Valeti left a job as a medical school professor to launch a startup attempting to grow meat from cells in bioreactors in 2015, it was the biggest risk of his professional life. “Nearly everyone I spoke to said, Don’t do this,” he says. Most people who were paying attention thought that the idea wasn’t feasible;
This article is about one of the honorees of Fast Company’s first Next Big Things in Tech awards. Read about all the winners here. On a Sunday afternoon in Seoul in October, the K-pop sensation BTS took to the stage in front of hundreds of millions of fans for their latest show, Permission to Dance Onstage. But the audience that turned up to watch the seven sing and dance wasn’t in the stadium where the group was performing. They were in their homes, in dozens of countries around t
Quantum computing has been a science project for a long time. But in 2021 the technology is beginning to reach beyond the capabilities of classical supercomputers. That’s mainly because science is getting better at controlling and harnessing the atomic-scale qubits that are the basic units of logic in quantum processors. Research breakthroughs in this area at MIT and Harvard form the basis for a new Boston-based quantum startup called QuEra Computing, which is emerging from stealth with $
Get those wallets ready: The holidays are fast approaching. But as long as you’re grabbing your wallet, take out your smartphone, too. These helpful apps let you save better, shop smarter, and do more with less. Pay it off over time You’ve got a lot of stuff to buy inside a tiny window of time. Instead of putting everything on a credit card and dealing with it after the holidays, check out Afterpay. The service is supported by a bunch of retailers and splits each purchase into
Notion has a secret weapon against Microsoft and Google in its attempt to build the document editor of the future. As Notion’s style of free-flowing, interlinked documents has taken off—the app now has more than 20 million active users—both tech giants seem to have taken notice. Microsoft recently announced Loop, a Notion-style editor that integrates with Word and Excel. Google, meanwhile, has been making Docs more like Notion with interactive checkboxes,
Earlier this month when Pinterest launched Pinterest TV—a new, live video feature on the site where top creators have begun posting shoppable videos walking their followers through beauty routines and holiday cocktail recipes—the videos all shared a certain aesthetic and tone: breezy, instructional, and upbeat. This was by design. “We make sure the content is inspirational, it’s positive,” says Pinterest executive David Temple. “It’s the kind of c
IBM announced an important milestone in its years-long quest to build a quantum computer that matters. It’s built a new quantum processor called “Eagle” that breaks through the 100-qubit barrier with 127 qubits of processing power. Exceeding 100 qubits has been a tough problem for scientists: Quantum particles are by nature hard to control and given to errors. Earlier quantum machines have been used mainly by researchers to write and test quantum algorithms. Now, IBM says, r
The privacy-focused document editor Skiff believes it’s found a better way to protect your files. Instead of stashing your documents with a major cloud storage provider such as Amazon Web Services, Skiff is letting its users choose a decentralized alternative called Interplanetary File System, or IPFS. For users who opt in, Skiff will encrypt their documents, split them into pieces, and distribute them across a network of potential hosts, keeping them out of the hands of big tech companie
On a quiet weekend afternoon, I paused to reread the diary my late mother left behind as a means of remembering her and what she means to me. Mom was a professor of Sanskrit, and amid all her reflections of her day-to-day life and the challenges of being an academic, wife, and mother were observations that were more transcendental in nature, on topics ranging from nuances of ancient Sanskrit drama to her thoughts on Eastern and Western philosophers. One passage in her diary caught my attention.