Welcome back to Plugged In, Fast Company’s weekly tech update from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to you—or you’re reading it on FastCompany.com—you can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Wednesday morning. Your comments, questions, and suggestions are most welcome: Write to me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com.
First up, four fresh Fast Company tech stories for you:
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On the worst day on Wall Street since last March, shares of rideshare service Lyft blew up briefly in after-hours trading after the company posted erroneous earnings projections in an earnings press release that sent investors into a frenzy.
Shares of Lyft were up 63% at one point in the post-market, spiking from a $12.13 per share at market close (a 2% drop) to just shy of $20, an area it hasn’t been close to since May 2022. That surge came after the company said in an earni
Love might be blind, but it’s not fiscally irresponsible. At least not if a new dating app has its way. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Score, a new app (and website) for the financially minded, hopes to attract people with “good to excellent” credit who know the importance of monitoring their finances. No one with a credit score of less than 675 is allowed to join. (A score of 850 is considered perfect, though very few people are near that level.)
Scor
U.S. worker safety officials fined Elon Musk’s SpaceX $3,600 this month after an accident at its site in Washington state led to a “near amputation,” according to inspection records reviewed by Reuters.
A Reuters investigation late last year found that Musk’s rocket company disregarded worker-safety regulations and standard practices at its facilities nationwide. Through interviews and government records, the news organization documented at least 600 prev
Not since the original iPhone came out 2007 has a device launch garnered as much media attention as the Apple Vision Pro. It’s been the subject of countless reviews and thought pieces, with some (including yours truly) even exploring its potential as a retirement nest egg. But very few have raised questions about the privacy implications of the device. Those who have have been rightly wary. There is reason to be suspicious of home gadgets packed with microphones, cameras, and sensors&#
A judge has ordered Elon Musk to testify for a third time as part of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation into his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, now called X, in 2022.
Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler issued an order Saturday giving Musk, his team and the SEC a week to agree on a date and location for Musk’s testimony. In a court hearing last December, Beeler said she would issue an order if the two sides couldn’t agree on when and w
Paramount Global is laying off about 800 employees, or roughly 3% of its workforce, CNBC reported on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
The media industry has been grappling with the changing landscape of streaming gaining dominance over traditional television and the impact from the Hollywood strikes last year. A soft advertising market and economic uncertainties have added to the pressure.
The affected workers will be notified Tuesday, the report quoted C
Tinder emerged onto the scene 12 years ago and disrupted online dating forever with the swipe. Now the company’s new CEO says it’s time for another shift—and she wants to make sure Tinder is once again at the forefront.
“We’re due for another kind of category shift and change,” says Faye Iosotaluno, who was named chief executive on January 9. “Because we are the largest dating app in the world, we’re in a prime position to make
Love it or hate it, email remains a critical communication channel. However, managing an overflowing inbox or crafting the perfect message sometimes feels like more trouble than it’s worth.
Thankfully, we’re entering the golden age of artificial intelligence. From crafting professional responses to organizing your inbox, the technology is revolutionizing the way we interact with our emails by . . . well, minimizing the amount of time we interact with our emails.
Carjackings and car thefts are up significantly compared with the number of incidents before the pandemic, prompting fear and calls for action in many American cities.
Motor vehicle thefts increased by 29% in 2023 compared with the previous year, while carjackings slightly decreased by 5% in nearly 40 American cities, according to the Council on Criminal Justice’s most recent crime trends report. But between 2019 and 2023, both car thefts and carjackings i