Fast company - tech

Snap’s ‘cute’ Pixy microdrone may be the start of something much bigger

In an early scene in Blade Runner 2049, K. (Ryan Gosling) arrives at a crime scene and his drone automatically lifts up from his flying car and begins hovering around. Because, of course—the drone is his second set of eyes, his “eyes in the sky.” Extending the sight of human beings seems natural enough, and clearly useful. That combination suggests a technology that, done well, could fold easily into the set of personal technologies we use every day to organize, work, social

Gen Z is going to reinvent the supply chain

Supply chains across the world are undergoing major transformations, largely in part to technology and process improvements that are helping to increase efficiencies. But it’s more than just technology fueling supply chain innovation: It’s Gen Z. Each year, new, multigenerational talent enters the industry. They bring with them strong skills in science, technology, engineering, and math. These two elements—advanced technology and talent—create the perfect storm for ne

BerbixMe helps you vet online contacts you plan to meet in person

Berbix, a company founded by two ex-Airbnb staffers, announced Thursday that it will now offer individuals a way to verify the identities of people they meet online. Online businesses have a number of ways to verify digital identities for purely online transactions, but some of our online transactions—such as online dating and Craigslist sales—often lead to real-world contact with people we barely know. Little wonder, then, that identity fraud cost Americans about $56 billion in 20

This is Elon Musk’s opportunity to make Twitter users more open minded

Elon Musk is one of the most widely spoken about people in the world, the richest person in the world ($266 billion), and the man behind Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and now Twitter (as reported in Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post). His seemingly spontaneous and unfiltered tweets (which included calling a cave explorer who rescued trapped kids in Thailand a “pedo guy” and challenging Vladimir Putin to a “combat fight”) led both The Economist and The New York Times to

A geographer explains how satellites give an important—but partial—picture of the war in Ukraine

As the war in Ukraine rages on, people around the world continue to look to the sky for information. An unprecedented number of so-called very-high resolution (VHR) satellite images have been marshaled to document and communicate to the public the brutality of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The images conveyed are jarring: burning buildings, destroyed bridges, mass graves. But there is more than meets the eye to mapping the consequences of this (or any) war with satellite images.  It&#x20

Does your company need a podcast?

In 2019, the The New York Times’s T Brand Studio debuted its first-ever branded custom podcast, a six-part series called The Special, which was created for its advertising partner BMW. In the three years since, they’ve launched many more—including Accenture’s Built for Change and Why Women Kill for CBS , the latter of which made Spotify’s best-of short list in the true crime category. More than a dozen years after its first editorial podcast, The New York Times

Elon Musk’s two big goals for Twitter are totally at odds

When Twitter announced on Monday that it had agreed to sell itself to Elon Musk, its press release included a statement from Musk about his hopes for the acquisition. It was a statement from which one word was conspicuously missing: “profit.” While Musk did mention his plans to improve the Twitter user experience, he made it clear that he isn’t spending $46 billion to acquire the company because he wants to get rich (or, rather, to get richer than he already is). He’s

Twitter shouldn’t exist, no matter who owns it, and it’s on VCs to not fund harmful tech in the future

Amid all the hubbub of excitement and consternation around Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s founder, issued a puzzling tweet: “In principle, I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company. Solving for the problem of it being a company however, Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.” Seriously? Light of consciousnes

Women have a new digital option for improving pelvic health

Remote physical therapy provider Hinge Health announced Wednesday a new program focused on improving access to pelvic physical therapy for women, designed by a team of women. The women’s pelvic health program is meant to help address common pelvic floor disorders such as pelvic organ prolapse and incontinence. One in four women have a pelvic floor disorder and experience urinary incontinence at some point. Karen Stander, VP of physical therapy at Hinge Health, says the company began devel

Slack is definitely part of Salesforce now, and here’s proof

Once upon a time, Slack was a sort of Switzerland of workplace productivity—a central collaborative hub that offered an array of integrations with other business tools rather than competing with them or treating one third-party offering differently than another. But the company entered a new era in December 2020, when it agreed to sell itself to software-as-a-service giant Salesforce for $27.7 billion. And today, at Salesforce’s TrailblazerDX ’22 conference, Slack and Salesf


Search