Fast company - tech

Uber staff revolts over return-to-office mandate

Uber is facing internal staff unrest as it attempts to implement a three-day-per-week return to office (RTO) mandate and stricter sabbatical eligibility. 

An all-hands meeting late last month descended into acrimony as staff flooded the online meeting chat with queries about why the mandate was being enacted. “How is five years of service not a tenured employee? Especially when burnout is rampant in the org,” read one message that was

Why ‘k’ is the most hated text message, according to science

A study has confirmed what we all suspected: “K” is officially the worst text you can send.

It might look harmless enough, but this single letter has the power to shut down a conversation and leave the recipient spiraling. According to a study published in the International Journal of Mobile Communications, “K” was ranked as the most negatively received response in digital conversations—worse than being left o

SoundCloud faces backlash after adding an AI training clause in its user terms

SoundCloud is facing backlash after creators took to social media to complain upon discovering that the music-sharing platform uses uploaded music to train its AI systems.

According to SoundCloud’s terms of use, unless a separate agreement states otherwise, users “explicitly agree that your Content may be used to inform, train, develop or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies or services as p

U.S. air traffic control system that relies on floppy disks will cost ‘lots of billions’ to overhaul

The Trump administration on Thursday proposed a multibillion-dollar overhaul of a U.S. air traffic control system that it said still relies on floppy disks and replacement parts found on eBay and has come under renewed scrutiny in the wake of

Figma’s world is growing fast

As recently as 2021, Figma was a one-product company. That product was Figma Design, the dominant tool for creating app and web interfaces. The company’s subsequent addition of offerings such as FigJam (whiteboarding) and Figma Slides (presentations) was hardly a frenzied land grab.

But the

Gen Z social app Fizz sues Instacart over trademark infringement

A startup marketing to Gen Z on college campuses filed a lawsuit this week alleging that Instacart engaged in federal trademark infringement and unfair competition by naming its new group ordering app “Fizz.”

The plaintiffs, Fizz Social Corp., claim they have been operating their event planning platform under the “FIZZ” trademark and have become a well-known social platform used on more than 400 college campuses. The app, which requires users to sign up with a college e

This new mental health service targets burned-out content creators

Influencers often face more negativity than most people experience in a lifetime—and with that comes a significant mental health toll. Now, a new therapy service has been launched specifically for content creators.

CreatorCare, cofounded by digital creator Shira Lazar and backed by Creators 4 Mental Health and Revive Health Therapy, aims to break down both financial and systemic barriers to mental health care. While some creators earn millions

AI brought a road rage victim ‘back to life’ in court. Experts say it went too far

When Christopher Pelkey was killed in a road rage incident in Arizona, his family was left not only to grieve but also to navigate how to represent him in court. As they prepared to confront his killer, Gabriel Horcasitas, during sentencing, they made an unusual and deeply controversial choice: to have Pelkey appear to speak from beyond the grave.

To do so, they turned to

Gamma aims to free you from ‘death by PowerPoint’—with help from AI

If there’s one thing worse than having to assemble a PowerPoint presentation, it’s being forced to sit through an achingly dull one conducted by someone else.

So what if there were a better option—a way anyone, regardless of skill, could create a sleek and actually engaging slideshow that looks like a professional designer had a hand in it?

If you ask Grant Lee, we’ve already reached the point where that’s possible. And it doesn’t en

What ChatGPT’s ‘sycophancy’ failure teaches publishers about AI and trust

When OpenAI pulled back its latest ChatGPT release—one that apparently turned the helpful chatbot into a total suck-up—the company took the welcome step of explaining exactly what happened in a pair of blog posts. The response was a notable move and really pulled b


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