How Juul, founded on a life-saving mission, became 2018's most embattled startup

E-cigarette startup Juul Labs is valued at more than $16 billion. It’s also hooking teens on nicotine and drawing scrutiny from the FDA. Can the company innovate its way out of a crisis it helped create? | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

The film will screen in a thousand cinemas on December 15 for Prime members. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

One Concern uses AI to streamline disaster relief efforts

Cities are looking to machine learning to streamline their disaster-response efforts. Will it be too little too late? | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Excess heat from Bitcoin mining to warm buildings

As mining machines harvest bitcoin, they generate excess heat. Instead of letting it go to waste, a Canadian company is capturing it and using it to warm people’s homes. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

It’s not just Facebook. GOP-tied firm “brought oppo research to Silicon Valley”

Definers Public Affairs has sought to discredit opponents in part by spreading misleading stories via a network of right-wing sites—and through Facebook. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Can these 35-ton bricks solve renewable energy’s biggest problem?

These giant towers use a very low-tech solution to store energy created when the sun shines or the wind blows so it can be used later. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

Don’t wish on a star. Wish on a SpaceX satellite. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Facebook’s PR blitz linked an anti-Facebook group to George Soros: report

A deeply-reported New York Times story shows Facebook fumbling through the Russian propaganda crisis and using some sketchy methods of deflecting bad press. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Facebook’s fundraising tools have raised over $1B

Facebook launched its fundraising tools after it was inspired by the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which went viral in 2014. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Will the humans kill Mars?

Astronauts and researchers from National Geographic’s “Mars” grapple with the profit motives that could harm humans and the Red Planet. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Here are the most infuriating details of Amazon’s HQ2 deals

The sheer size of the handouts ($2.4 billion in tax incentives) already outraged critics on both the left and right, but some of the details about helipads and tax increases were particularly galling. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Amazon announced its “second headquarters,” and New York City politicians and locals began to mobilize against it–and the $1.5 billion in tax cuts it will receive. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Publishers don’t love Apple News. The king of sponsored links has another idea

With its new smartphone widget, Taboola aims to break news out of its walled gardens, says its CEO: “It’s not ads. It’s not sponsored content.” | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

If an app is your boss, what, exactly, are you?

The answer has big implications for the future of work, including possibly yours. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

This incredibly simple privacy app helps protect your phone from snoops

A new app from Cloudflare hides the location of sites and services you access from web browsers and any other apps on your Android or Apple device. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

The bad design that created one of America’s worst housing crises

Few realize how profoundly San Francisco’s physical form has been shaped by its planning department, whose best intentions have been overshadowed by efforts to appease the city’s wealthy, well-connected homeowners. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

AI Portraits AI photo filter turns you into a celebrity

This experiment in computer vision may make you appreciate your own quirks that much more. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

As laptop replacements, the iPad Pro and Surface Pro are worlds apart

If the Surface represents the convergence of tablet and PC, Apple sees the iPad Pro as a tablet capable of erasing that very divide. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

You’ll need Disney’s streaming service to see a new Star Wars series

Disney beat analysts expectations in its new earnings report, as CEO Bob Iger teased its Netflix competitor and said that prices on Hulu will likely rise. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

The global AI race is imperiling research, and no algorithm can fix it

Companies have been on a billion-dollar hiring spree for AI researchers in computer science departments. Who’s going to train the researchers of the future? | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Ted Cruz is still using a blacklisted Cambridge Analytica app developer

A Canadian data firm that is under investigation in multiple countries and suspended by Facebook built and maintained Ted Cruz’s campaign apps. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Trump Has Twitter. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Winning Instagram

With her disappearing stories, anecdotes, and fan art, the political newcomer from the Bronx is trailblazing a new path in political communication. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Chris Rock and Jewel endorse San Francisco’s tax to help homeless

The comedian and once-homeless musician added star firepower to the controversial $300 million tax to get people off the streets. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

The $367M Chinese startup invading the world’s classrooms

A young entrepreneur turned his hobby into Makeblock, a booming business that’s helping students around the world learn by building robots. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Designing people’s Instagram Stories is now a million-dollar business

Alfonso Cobo saw the potential in Stories early on. Today, his template app has 11 million users, and he’s launching a design agency focused on Stories alone. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

It’s time to stop spending billions on cheap conference swag

We’re facing a full-on environmental crisis. Do you really need another flimsy tote or pen? | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

Can mushrooms be the platform we build the future on?

Ecovative thinks it can use mycelia, the hair-like network of cells that grows in mushrooms, to help build everything from lab-grown meat to 3D-printed organs to biofabricated leather. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

I Ditched the Mac for the iPad, and I'll never go back

The iPad Pro has changed my life, and I don’t care about desktop computing anymore. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 5 years ago

A reality-TV real estate mogul is funding a crackdown on vagrants in New Orleans

Sidney Torres IV, a mogul and reality TV star in The Big Easy, previously funded police patrols and a crime reporting app in the city. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

NASA astronauts will get to use this extraterrestrial supercomputer

After proving that radiation won’t fry the system, NASA and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are putting a gigaflop “supercomputer” on duty for the next few months. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

How old-school silicon could bring quantum computers to the masses

A new approach to quantum—schlepping data with light—depends upon the very readily available stuff of classical computer chips. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

Intel drops support for Steve King

King has a history of openly espousing racist views and supporting white supremacists. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

The future of passwords? Your brain

Forget “guest.” Forget two-factor. Soon, all you’ll need is your unique brain waves. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

Fund clean energy, anywhere in the world

Jumpstart lets you put just a few bucks toward crowdfunded clean energy projects, to try to close the world’s clean energy investment gap. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

Forget Startups–Just Buy a Small Business from a Retiring Entrepreneur

Droves of baby boomer business owners are starting to retire, and looking to hand off their life’s work. That spells opportunity. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

IBM explores the intersection of AI, ethics--and Pac-Man

The lessons you learn teaching an iconic video game character to rack up points–without mowing down ghosts–might serve a higher purpose. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

Suspicious packages spotlight vast mail surveillance system

The Postal Service photographs the outside of every piece of mail, and frequently shares images and metadata from mail with law enforcement. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

This city is angling to build the East Coast’s next innovation hub

How geography, a new train stop, and aggressive planning are combining to make Somerville, Massachusetts’s Union Square the northeast’s next promising tech hot spot. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

Netflix and the streaming wars create income inequality

How Netflix and the streaming wars are creating massive income inequality in the entertainment industry. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

Soon you may be able to live in a house made out of pee

Bio-Bricks are a revolutionary building material made from pee, loose sand, and bacteria. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

War is memes. Just “don’t be a victim like the Americans”

LikeWar author P.W. Singer on how Taylor Swift, Facebook, Trump, and others helped turn us into accidental soldiers in the battles of the future. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

Trump’s tapped phone may be the largest White House breach ever: former official

“America’s most sophisticated peer competitor now has a direct line into the President’s confidential thinking,” said former White House CIO Theresa Payton. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

In first-time ruling, Apple and Samsung were fined over slowed-down phones

Italian authorities imposed a €10 million fine on Apple and a €5 million fine on Samsung over the alleged “planned obsolescence” of their smartphones. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

The secret history of Ctrl+Alt+Del

David Bradley was one of 12 engineers who developed the first IBM PCs. And he left his mark. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

Big Brother is being increasingly outsourced to Silicon Valley, says report

Immigrant and privacy activists are detailing the involvement of big tech–especially Amazon–with the military, ICE, and local law enforcement. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

This app lets you take a knee during the anthem in the comfort of your own home

The app’s creator says he wants people to experience something like what NFL players feel when making what he calls “a respectful gesture of protest.” | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

Socialism means costlier pickup trucks, Trump's White House warns

The title of the report alone–“The Opportunity Costs of Socialism”–betrays curled-lip snark and fears of growing support for single-payer healthcare. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago

A Chinese-built replica of the Titanic will set sail from Dubai in 2022

The $500 million cruise ship will be built in China and will follow the original route from Southampton to New York, minus the detour to the ocean bottom. | Continue reading


@fastcompany.com | 6 years ago