Back when I was in the age range that Gen Z is now, it seemed impossible to imagine that I, too, would one day be old. I couldn’t even visualize what an old me would look like. Jump forward to 2023, and those who are young now don’t even need to try to visualize what they will look like in the years ahead thanks to a new viral TikTok filter.
In recent days, Gen Z has become obsessed with what is colloquially known as the “aged” filter on TikTok. The offic
In late November, the board of OpenAI, creator of the popular ChatGPT and DALL-E artificial intelligence tools, fired Sam Altman, its chief executive officer.
Chaos ensued as investors and employees rebelled. By the time the mayhem had subsided five days later, Altman had returned triumphantly to the OpenAI fold amid staff euphoria, and three of the board members who had sought his ouster had resigned.
The structure of the board—a nonprofit
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been behind some of the most eye-watering fines and censures of big tech companies in the last few years. But now arguably the biggest big tech company of them all is seeking to get its own back—by petitioning a court to declare the FTC is unconstitutional.
In May 2023, the FTC sought to strengthen a privacy order Meta signed with the regulator in 2020 that would block the tech company from making money off its younger users. As part of
Seven months after Google warned people it would be mass-deleting inactive accounts, the company will begin pulling the trigger this Friday, December 1.
That’s going to mean Gmail, Google Chat, Google Drive and other services that haven’t been accessed in quite some time (24 months or longer, to be precise) are going to disappear—and the data they contain will be lost forever. For the most part, that’s not going to be an issue. Ghost accounts are often ab
The food system is at a pivotal moment: The agriculture sector has a massive carbon footprint, and the extreme weather caused by climate change is making farming more difficult. But the problems are also driving technological innovation in the industry, from solar-powered, robotic farm equipment to the world’s first vaccine designed for bees.
AigenFor taking robotic farming off the gridAigen‘s robotic weeding machine is d
Security and privacy can sometimes be at odds, or they can go hand in hand, but finding enough of both requires nothing less than a fight. Whether you’re running security at a bank or protecting yourself from phone scammers and data-hungry apps, the bad guys have never been more plentiful, more capable, and more ubiquitous. With the abundance of digital devices and the help of advances in generative AI, the attack surface feels like everything, everywhere, all at once. But thanks in pa
The crypto bubble may have burst, but innovation in fintech, Web3, and the blockchain has far from fizzled out. The solutions that companies both big and small are building will transform commerce across the world, from the way bus riders choose their routes in Seattle, to how soybean farmers finance their crops in Brazil.
NavanFor making a slicker corporate credit cardNavan‘s corporate credit card offers employees frictionless
As automation advances, a startup can’t expect to stand out just for having yet another robot boot up. But if that robot comes optimized for use cases that other firms have yet to tackle—especially those that are especially inefficient or hazardous for humans—then it’s earned some extra attention. Among the examples that caught ours: washing office-building windows and finishing drywall at large venues.
Canv
Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2023 honor 119 innovations that are paying dividends right now—and hold the potential to drive further progress over the next five years. We decided to give four organizations an additional Excellence in Innovation award to acknowledge the breath of their ingenuity. Among well-known companies, Adobe and the Walt Disney Co. have been busy imbuing multiple areas of their businesses with new technologies. Meanwhile, Phasecraft has t
Reddit’s long on-again, off-again plans to go public might be on yet again.
Bloomberg reports that the social media giant has once more begun holding talks with potential investors, with optimism rising about a possible window for public debuts. A Reddit IPO could come as early as the first quarter of 2024, Bloomberg reports.
Reddit is reportedly considering a valuation as high as $15 billion.
A lot of the decision could hinge on the success of a pending I