Fast company - tech

Google’s ‘quiet’ decision to remove cultural events from its Calendar app sent a loud message

Starting today, thousands of changemakers and leaders will descend upon Austin for one of the biggest festivals and conferences of the year: South by Southwest (SXSW). It’s the “level playing field” event where startups and Fortune 500 companies share the same stage to discuss the hottest topics and trends in film, tech, sustainability and travel, social good, and health and wellness. It’s where brands unveil new products, relationships are formed, and celebrities premiere their

Spotify’s leaning hard into video podcasts. Here’s how creators are adapting

Spotify just opened up a new stream of revenue for podcasters. That is, if they’re uploading video. 

What was once an audio-first medium, podcasting is now increasingly filmed and produced. That started on YouTube, which is now racking up one billion podcast viewers a month. While Spotify has hosted podcasts for a decade now, the company is suddenly racing to

Remembering how 18F modernized government technology

Healthcare.gov, the government health insurance marketplace website, launched in October 2013 only to buckle under the weight of just 2,000 simultaneous users. As millions of Americans stared at error messages and frozen screens, a political crisis unfolded, but so did a new era of government technology.

The result was 18F, an in-house digital services consulting agency that bro

Glydways wants to reinvent transit—no more than four passengers at a time

Management at the Bay Area transportation startup Glydways wants you to be clear about what the company is not: It may plan to move people in futuristic autonomous pods, but it’s not hyperloop-grade vaporware. And its funding by big-name Silicon Valley investors does not make it a ride for the 1%. 

“Public transit for everyone, everywhere,” says founder Mark Seeger.

But Glydways is starting smaller than that. Its first green-lit project (after a

How this sex-forward gay cruising site finally launched an Apple-approved iOS app

As an app designed to facilitate gay hookups, popular site Sniffies has had a limitation since it started in 2018—it was only accessible via web browser. Until Monday, when the map-based cruising site debuted its Apple-approved iOS app. 

Building an app that complies with Apple’s notoriously stringent content moderation—and total ban on apps that directly serve adult content—was a challenge for Sniffies, which wears its sexuality proudly. Its users, which it calls “

Why weird JD Vance memes have taken over the internet

Ironically enough, a divisive moment in the Oval Office last weekend seems to have brought the entire internet together. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy  visited the White House on February 28, ostensibly to hammer out plans for a peace agreement between his country and Russia, he probably didn’t expect to get berated by both Donald Trump and Vice President J

TSMC’s $100 billion U.S. commitment could calm Taiwan tensions

Welcome to AI DecodedFast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here.

TSMC’s new $100 billion U.S. chip investment could ease Taiwan tensions

TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufactu

Gig Companies are backing Trump’s Labor Secretary nominee. Here’s what that means for workers

The trade association representing America’s largest gig companies is backing President Trump’s nominees to lead the Department of Labor—an endorsement that could shape the future of worker classification in the gig economy.

Flex, the lobbying group founded in 2022 by names including Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash, said Wednesday it’s in favor of Lori Chavez-DeRemer to lead the department and for Keith Sonderling to serve as deputy secretary. 

“The Department of Labor has

The Trump administration just cut Defense Department grants that research terrorism and drug trafficking

Researchers in a highly regarded Department of Defense program called the Minerva Research Initiative recently received word that grants already awarded by the Defense Department are being terminated, potentially putting their work—and in some cases even paychecks for their students and lab staff—in peril. 

Since 2008, the Minerva program has funded university social science research projects related to U.S. national security. Created

YouTube is doubling down on ‘bedtime’ reminders. Do they work?

Teenage YouTube users across the world will now get automatic reminders to go to bed and take a break from their screens. 

YouTube announced this week it was expanding such reminders to minors across the globe, ensuring they are full-screen and toggled-on by default. The feature first debuted in the U.S. seven years ago, and went automatic for minors in 2023. So-called “bedtime” not


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