This story is from Fast Company’s new Plugged In newsletter, a weekly roundup of tech insights, news, and trends from global technology editor Harry McCracken, delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning. Sign up for it here.
For a tech pundit, the smartest possible thing to say about Apple’s upcoming mixed-reality headset right now might be absolutely nothing.
Until Apple announces the gadget—possibly to be named
Semiconductors are to the 21st century what petroleum was to the 20th: essential to economic growth, military power, and a modern, connected society. The U.S. invented semiconductors but today produces only 12% of the world’s supply.
Recent shortages and supply chain interruptions have proven the risk of relying on foreign production (where the U.S. is not always the first customer in line) while rising geopolitical tensions have made semiconductor supply an urgent priority f
Monsters, AI, scary DALL-E art, Marcus Aurelius, cannibalism. An interview that covers such a wide range of topics was probably a pretty good chinwag. And that’s what happened when Fast Company spoke to Emmy Award-winning actor Paul Giamatti and philosopher/author Stephen Asma about their new podcast—called, appropriately enough Chinwag—which debuts today on all major podcast platforms.
The podcast finds Giamatti and Asma talking each week with a different celeb
On Tuesday, the U.S. Defense Department said it has named Apple executive Doug Beck to lead its Defense Innovation Unit, a special group that seeks out and certifies commercial sector technologies for use by the armed forces.
Beck will report to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, creating a direct-report line between the DIU chief and secretary of defense for the first time in years. With that change, and the appointment to the role of an executive from a high-profile tech industry com
Amazon Prime U.S. memberships may have fallen for the first time ever last year—at least according to one estimate—leaving its rival Walmart ready to lure over disgruntled shoppers. Yesterday, the retail giant unveiled a polished overhaul of its website and app to make them more engaging and personalized. Both appear to borrow heavily from Amazon. They feature a checkerboard of eye-grabbing photos, plus catchier names for categories, deals, and seasonal promotions—&#
Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates responded to calls made last week to pause the development of artificial intelligence, saying it would not “solve the challenges ahead,” in an interview with Reuters.
Last Tuesday, the Future of Life Institute published an open letter calling for a six-month pause on training AI systems “more powerful” than OpenAI’s leading GPT-4 service, which can carry human-like conversations. The letter was si
It was bound to happen eventually. The widespread layoffs sweeping across the tech industry are finally hitting Apple. According to a report from Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the matter, Apple will eliminate roles in its corporate retail teams. To be clear, these are not retail employee roles, such as those who work in Apple retail stores. Rather they are corporate jobs at Apple whose roles involve overseeing Apple retail workers of some kind.
Specifically, Bloomberg r
Travel booking giant Expedia is integrating ChatGPT into its app as a beta test starting Tuesday to see how users interact with the ability to use generative AI when it comes to planning trips.
The chatbot, available in English on iOS, can give advice on where to go, where to stay, what to see, and what to do. The tool will also save any hotels discussed during the conversation in the app to remind bookers what was addressed.
“We view this as a really interesting ca
This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.
Scrintal is a promising new app for organizing ideas. Use it like a digital bulletin board to organize notes on a visual canvas. I’ve used it to brainstorm ideas and plan out writing projects.
- What to use it for: Map out a creative project and organize ideas visually
While I’ve been intrigued by cloud gaming services ever since the launch of OnLive in 2010, I’ve never had much luck using them.
Services like Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming and Amazon’s Luna promise to let you play the latest video games on practically any device, using remote servers that do all the heavy graphics processing. With a fast and reliable internet connection, you can stream games at console quality on phones, lightweight laptops, and smart TV