Now that the Food and Drug Administration has approved COVID-19 vaccine boosters for all adults, people are looking ahead to what next year holds for COVID-19 and the future of vaccination. And many questions remain. At the New Economy Forum this week in Singapore, Bill Gates said he expects that by mid-2022, deaths from COVID-19 and infection rates in general will drop lower than those for seasonal flu, so long as a new dangerous variant doesn’t crop up. That’s an even shorter tim
Back in my day, Black Friday was an actual day. The Friday after Thanksgiving! Those of us who wanted to score a $99 TV rolled ourselves out of bed and into a freezing cold car—all before sunrise. Then we’d wait outside—in the cold, remember —at the end of a big, long line of other foolish humans. All this was happening on pavement in front of a building made with bricks. At some point, an underpaid retail worker would unlock the doors far earlier than usual, we&
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. A tractor moves slowly down a long field between rows of grape vines, spraying a fine mist of water on the plants. The space is tight but even though there’s no driver behind the wheel the machine stays perfectly between the rows. Its electric motor is barely audible. Cameras and sensors watch each plant, looking for signs of ill health or pest damage.
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. A woman named Hepburn is on my screen speaking my words, warmly, professionally, smiling in a sharp blue blazer, like a TV reporter or one of those improbably clear-skinned creators who make their living on YouTube. Then there’s a small clue: she mispronounces COVID like Ovid. The truth is, Hepburn lives in the cloud, and had been summoned just a few mi
On her first full day as the mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu asked the Boston City Council for $8 million in order to make three city bus lines free for two years. The idea of fare-free public transit may sound surprising, particularly for those used to swiping or tapping their transit cards as part of their daily routine, or people who have noticed fares steadily ticking up over the years as transit lines struggle with their operational budgets (a trend that has only worsened during the pandemic,
The creator economy’s growth has spawned a patchwork of services aimed at becoming key assets in a creator’s tool kit. Various website builders, merchandise stores, membership platforms, and so forth are stitched together to create a comprehensive strategy for generating social commerce, which, according to market-research company eMarketer, is expected to rise nearly 36% this year to hit $36.6 billion. Clearly, there’s no shortage of creators who have made cobbling services
For folks who want to protect their privacy, using an Android phone can feel like a compromise. While Apple has been aggressive about building anti-tracking tools into iOS, Google is still working on a way to let Android users opt out of being tracked across apps. And unlike Apple, Google—whose whole business is based on keeping tabs on users to target advertising—won’t require app makers to get opt-in permission if they want to track you in the first place. So now, privacy-
Elon Musk is almost ready to light SpaceX’s biggest candle yet. In a video appearance at a space-science conference on Wednesday, he predicted the two-stage, fully reusable Starship rocket could make its first orbital launch early next year. “The first orbital flight, we’re hoping to do in January,” “We’ll be complete with the launch pad and launch tower later this month,” the SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO said at the fall meeting of the Natio
Earlier this week, Spotify dropped some culture-rattling news: J.J. Abrams’s production company Bad Robot will now be creating podcasts for the streaming platform in an exclusive, first-look deal. It’s the kind of announcement observers have come to expect from Spotify, whose foray into podcasting has been defined by splashy content deals with the likes of Joe Rogan, Dax Shepard (via his popular Armchair Expert podcast), Michelle Obama, and The Ringer, Bill Simmons’s sports
As ever-more aspects of our personal and professional lives go virtual, there’s boundless opportunity for technologists to rethink how we communicate with each other. At the same time, content creators are getting powerful new tools for producing Hollywood-quality media without a Hollywood budget. These Experiences winners and honorable mentions in Fast Company’s inaugural Next Big Things in Tech awards cover both types of innovations and are transforming homes, workplaces, cars, a