Universal Music Group is ready to pull its catalog of songs and artists—the industry’s most expansive—from TikTok, unless the two companies can hash out a new contract that addresses Universal’s concerns about artist royalties, the deepfakes flooding the platform, and problems curbing hate speech and harassment on the app.
Late on Tuesday, Universal went public with a letter (titled “Why we must call time out on TikTok”) that accused the soc
Once considered the hottest startup in Silicon Valley, 23andMe’s fall from grace has been swift and brutal. The genetic testing company, which was valued at $6 billion just a few years ago, is now facing both a possible delisting from Nasdaq and dozens class action lawsuits.
It’s all part of the continuing fallout of the hacking of the company last year. The company has since admitted it failed to detect the data breach for more than five months, giving the bad actors
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly LinkedIn newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. If a friend or colleague shared this newsletter with you, you can sign up to receive it every week here.
AI deepfake tech is advancing faster than legal frameworks to control it
Over the past two weeks the world got a preview of the kind of damage AI deepfakes are capable of inflicting. Some New Hampshi
The tech industry has had a rough start to the new year. As the first month of 2024 comes to a close, it goes out in much the same way as it came in: with more tech layoffs. According to tech layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi, January 2024 has seen a total of 28,970 jobs lost across 104 companies. In the past two days alone, job cuts at several high-profile tech companies were revealed. They include:
- PayPal: On Tuesday, PayPal CEO Alex Chriss sent a letter to employee
Romain Godin prides himself on being able to fix a wide variety of consumer devices. But recently, what was once a basic repair job for his Portland, Oregon-based business Hyperion Computerworks—replacing a cracked iPhone screen—has become needlessly complicated.
In the past, Godin would have replaced the broken screen on the spot with a working screen harvested from a dead phone, saving the customer from having to buy a brand new screen from Apple. But if Godin perfor
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First, four Fast Company tech stories you may not have seen yet:
For Roblox fans, this year’s Super Bowl is coming to Bikini Bottom.
Thanks to a collaboration between the NFL and game developer Gamefam, a number of the company’s popular Roblox games, including the newly released SpongeBob Simulator, will be featuring special Super Bowl material from early February through Super Bowl Sunday.
SpongeBob Simulator players will be able to help prepare Bikini Bottom—SpongeBob’s hometown—for the big game, fan
A startup called Owner wants to help mom-and-pop restaurants thrive online.
Digital ordering and online marketing have become more essential to a restaurant’s survival than ever. While that shift online can be a relatively easy one for chain establishments, Owner cofounder and CEO Adam Guild says independent restaurants can easily end up spending a lot of time and money on delivery services, web design, emailing marketing tools, and other digital tools without seeing a great
For 16 years, Fast Company has produced an annual list of the world’s Most Innovative Companies (MICs), highlighting organizations whose high-impact innovations set them apart from their competitors. The program has recognized startups and multinational corporations alike, and has presaged major business trends, such as generative AI, social commerce, and inclusive health services.
This year, Fast Company set out to understand the processes and cultures that enable MICs to co
The full committee hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the failures of Big Tech to protect kids from sexual exploitation online is set to take place today, 10 a.m. EST.
During the hearing, CEOs of five Big Tech companies will testify about the problem of online child sexual exploitation, including X’s Linda Yaccarino, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, Discord’s Jason Citron, TikTok’s Shou Chew, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. The hearing will serve as a so