Fitness tracker sales soared for years without boosting physical activity, analysis shows

Worldwide sales of fitness trackers increased from $14 billion in 2017 to over $36 billion in 2020. The skyrocketing success of these gadgets suggests that more people than ever see some value in keeping tabs on the number of steps they take, flights of stairs they climb, time they spend sitting and calories they burn.

The manufacturers of these devices certainly want consumers to believe that

Lead the human-AI workforce without fear

In 2023, economist Richard Baldwin said, “AI won’t take your job. It’s somebody using AI that will take your job.” Since then, we have been imagining the workforce of tomorrow, full of AI power users who are not just competent in their own right, but successfully engage with AI tools to achieve results. Not quite the human-robot collaborations that play out in our favorite s

How this company’s AI tools help prevent suicide and mental health crises

Suicide rates are on the rise. Nearly 50,000 people died by suicide in 2022, a 3% increase from the previous year according to the CDC, and a 36% increase since 2000. Not only is suicide traumatic; it’s expensive. During 2015-2020, suicides and self-harm cost an average of $510 billion a year

Three Mile Island was the site of the country’s worst nuclear disaster. Now AI energy demands might turn it back on

In 1979, a partial meltdown of a reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant along the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania brought America’s nuclear fears to life. For the past five years, that plant has been dormant, but a movement is underway to turn things back on, as demand for power sources by artificial intelligence companies continues to grow.

Elon Musk doesn’t owe ex-Twitter employees $500 million in severance, the court rules

In a win for Elon Musk, a judge dismissed a lawsuit claiming that the billionaire owed former Twitter employees upwards of $500 million in severance after buying the social media company and gutting its staff. 

The lawsuit, filed by former employees, alleged that Twitter paid laid-off employees less severance than they were contractually promised, ci

Samsung pushes AI features in new foldable smartphones, ring and smartwatch

Samsung Electronics unveiled its latest foldable smartphones on Wednesday, making its priciest flagship model lighter and slimmer and

In the world’s race for cleaner, faster and cheaper lithium, all eyes are on Argentina’s salt flats

In a dusty plain in northern Argentina’s mountains, black tubes stretching two stories high fill a massive tank with salty brine sucked from deep below ground.

The brine contains lithium, a silvery white metal essential for making electric vehicle batteries

VW’s Audi factory in Brussels may close due to low demand for EVs

Volkswagen on Tuesday warned it may close the Brussels site of its luxury brand Audi due to a sharp drop in demand for high-end electric cars that has hit Europe’s top carmaker, forcing it to cut its margin target for the current yea

Female entrepreneurs can fundraise 20% faster than men on crowdfunding platforms, research finds

Crowdfunding campaigns fronted by women reach their fundraising targets 20% faster than those promoted by men and couples, according to a new study.

Pomme Theunissen at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and Matteo Millone, who works at APG Asset Management, analyzed 934 bids for business loans on three Dutch crowdfunding platforms. The Netherlands is “surprisingly the third-biggest crowdfunding market in the world,

Creatives must embrace technology or get left behind

In 1991, I was a fresh-out-of-school graphic designer whose first real gig was working at an entertainment marketing powerhouse in Hollywood. One fateful day that spring, I was asked to help move boxes off a truck at our loading dock. I didn’t know it at the time, but inside the boxes were the key to my future: the most technologically advanced tools hitting the creative scene. There were 12 Macintosh Quadra 900s, complete with a floppy-disk, monitor, and an incredible 256 megabytes of RAM.


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