The US State Department is building a web portal, where Europeans and anyone else can see online content banned by their governments, according to Reuters. It was supposed to be launched at Munich Security Conference last month, but some state department officials reportedly voiced their concerns about the project. The portal will be hosted on…
Royal West of England Academy Both artists and astronomers are, in a way, translators. They convert what we can see into a story we can tell. In Cosmos: The art of observing space, a new exhibition at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol, UK, every facet of this process is on display. “We…
You can put a lot of different things in fried rice, but certainly not glass. Unfortunately, that might be an ingredient in certain packages of Trader Joe’s chicken fried rice. Frozen food manufacturer Ajinomoto Foods North America is recalling more than 3 million pounds of chicken fried rice products due to potential glass contamination. The…
This week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in a landmark social media trial, claiming the company only wanted to make Instagram “useful” and not addictive. In this episode, we chat about Zuck’s testimony and the potential implications of this trial for social media companies. Also, we dive into the latest effects of the RAMaggedon RAM…
Ice cream and other confections are ultra-processed foods Martin Parr/Magnum Photos A few months ago, I tried my hand, unsuccessfully, at coining a neologism. I was writing a feature about how obesity, stress, heatwaves and pollution accelerate ageing, or senescence, in which I proposed that our modern world should be called the “senesogenic environment”. (I…
Hello again, welcome to Fast Company’s Plugged In, and a quick note: A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned a game I was vibe-coding using Claude Code, and said I would share it once I finished it. Here it is, along with more thoughts on the uncanny experience of collaborating with AI on a programming…
Apple has lined up its first event of the year. Already! It’s taking place in New York City on March 4 at 9AM ET, but the company hasn’t confirmed if it will stream the media event. It seems likely the event will be mainly iPads and MacBooks — so business as usual. However, it could…
Illustration of the exoplanet K2-18b NASA The planet K2-18b, which drew intense speculation last year due to apparent signs of life, shows no signs of advanced civilisation after a comprehensive search for radio signals from it. In 2025, Nikku Madhusudhan at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues sensationally claimed that K2-18b, an apparent water…
Even if you barely use AI, pretty soon you’ll be paying the price for it. Due to the demands of AI data centers, memory supplies are drying up for all kinds of devices, from phones and laptops to desktop PCs and game consoles. Three companies control nearly all the world’s DRAM production—Micron Technology, Samsung Electronics,…
Google has announced that with the help of AI, it blocked 1.75 million apps that violated its policies in 2025, significantly down from 2.36 million in 2024. The lower numbers this year, it said, are because its “AI-powered, multi-layer protections” are deterring bad actors from even trying to publish bad apps. Google said it now…
