The biggest drama in Hollywood in recent months hasnt been on the silver screen but in the boardrooms of two of the most powerful companies in the industry.
In December, streaming giant Netflix announced its intention to acquire legendary Hollywood studio Warner Bros. after its planned separation from Discovery Global.
The proposed merger has sparked heated debate in Hollywood about the future of the cinema industry, and now, one of the most successful filmmakers in the world, James Cameron, has entered the fray.
Titanic director calls proposed merger disastrous
Many in Hollywood have not publicly spoken out against the proposed Netflix-Warner Bros. merger, fearing it could hurt their future employment prospects should it go through.
However, as one of the most successful and profitable filmmakers of all time, James Cameron doesnt have to worry about any potential blacklisting.
On February 10, Cameron sent a letter to Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who is chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, and thus has significant sway over mergers the size of the one proposed by Netflix.
In the letter, which was first reported by CNBC, the Avatar director did not mince words, saying “the proposed sale of Warner Bros. Discovery to Netflix will be disastrous for the theatrical motion picture business that I have dedicated my life’s work to.
Camerons three main arguments against the megamerger
Cameron’s letter is comprehensive in detailing his opposition to a Netflix-Warner Bros. merger, but most of his points center around three main arguments.
First, Cameron says that if the Netflix-WB deal goes through, it will significantly harm the cinema industry.
The business model of Netflix is directly at odds with the theatrical film production and exhibition business, which employs hundreds of thousands of Americans, he points out. He noted that Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has in the past called cinemas “an outdated concept.
Cameron argues that if Netflix acquires Warner Bros. and, as a result, pushes more of WBs films to streaming instead of a theatrical release, that will result in movie theaters having fewer films to show, which will not only hurt theater chains but also their employees and thus local communities.
Cameron notes that while Netflix has committed to maintaining a theatrical window for releases for 17 days, that timeframe is ridiculously short compared to historic norms.
Second, Cameron says the merger would likely result in fewer motion pictures being made, which would dramatically impact those who work in the film industry, from PAs to visual effects (VFX) artists to caterers.
For instance, on a major film like Avatar, Cameron said that he frequently employs 3,000 people for up to four years. These types of job-creating big-budget films are highly dependent on a healthy exhibition community.
If such films are no longer green-lit because the market contracts further, which the Netflix acquisition of Warner Brothers will certainly accelerate, then many jobs will be lost, Cameron wrote. Theaters will close. Fewer films will be made. Service providers such as VFX companies will go out of business. The job losses will spiral.
Finally, the Aliens director contends that the Netflix-WB deal would hurt Americas soft power and cultural impact across the globe.
At a time when the US trade deficit is a major concern, one of America’s largest export sectors will be negatively impacted,” Cameron wrote. “Which is to say nothing of the cost to our greatest cultural export: movies.
“The US may no longer lead in auto or steel manufacturing, but it is still the world leader in movies,” he added. “That will change for the worse.
Fast Company has reached out to Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery for comment.
As industry awaits outcome, Netflix stock continues to sink
While Camerons letter opposing the Netflix-WB merger likely gives a lot of weight to those who share his arguments, the outcome of the proposed merger is still far from certainnot least of which because Netflix isnt the only one interested in acquiring Warner Bros.
Paramount Skydance has launched a hostile bid for Warner Bros. that would also include Discovery Global. Any final agreement would of course need to be approved by regulators.
Yet one thing is clear: Since the proposed Netflix-WB merger was announced in December, Netflixs stock price (Nasdaq: NFLX) has taken a beating.
On December 5, the day the deal was announced, Netflix stock closed at just above $100 per share. As of market close yesterday, NFLX shares were trading at $77. Thats a 23% drop.
On the other hand, shares of Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBD) have leapt in the same timeframe.
The day before the proposed merger was announced, WBD shares were trading at around $24.55. As of yesterdays close, those shares are sitting at $28.53, a jump of more than 16%.
In a stretch of Louisiana with about 170 fossil fuel and petrochemical plants, premature death is a fact of life for people living nearby. The air is so polluted and the cancer rates so high it is known as Cancer Alley.“Most adults in the area are attending two to three funerals per month,” said Gary C. Watson Jr., who was born and raised in St. John the Baptist Parish, a majority Black community in Cancer Alley about 30 miles outside of New Orleans. His father survived cancer, but in recent years, at least five relatives have died from it.Cancer Alley is one of many patches of America mostly minority and poor that suffer higher levels of air pollution from fossil fuel facilities that emit tiny particles connected to higher death rates. When the federal government in 2009 targeted carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as a public health danger because of climate change, it led to tighter regulation of pollution and cleaner air in some communities. But this month, the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency overturned that “endangerment finding.”Public health experts say the change will likely mean more illness and death for Americans, with communities like Watson’s hit hardest. On Wednesday, a coalition of health and environmental groups sued the EPA over the revocation, calling it unlawful and harmful.“Not having these protections, it’s only going to make things worse,” said Watson, with the environmental justice group Rise St. James Louisiana. He also worries that revoking the endangerment finding will increase emissions that will worsen the state’s hurricanes.The Trump administration said the finding a cornerstone for many regulations aimed at fighting climate change hurts industry and the economy. President Donald Trump has called the idea “a scam” despite repeated studies showing the opposite.Growing evidence shows that poor and Black, Latino and other racial and ethnic groups are typically more vulnerable than white people to pollution and climate-driven floods, hurricanes, extreme heat and more because they tend to have less resources to protect against and recover from them. The EPA, in a 2021 report no longer on its website, concluded the same.The finding’s reversal will affect everyone, but “overburdened communities, which are typically communities of color, Indigenous communities and low-income communities, they will, again, suffer most from these actions,” said Matthew Tejada, senior vice president for environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former deputy with the EPA’s office for environmental justice.Hilda Berganza, climate program manager with the Hispanic Access Foundation, said: “Communities that are the front lines are going to feel it the most. And we can see that the Latino population is one of those communities that is going feel it even more than others because of where we live, where we work.”
Research shows the unequal harms of pollution, climate change
A study published in November found more than 46 million people in the U.S. live within a mile of at least one type of energy supply infrastructure, such as an oil well, a power plant or an oil refinery. But the study found that “persistently marginalized” racial and ethnic groups were more likely to live near multiple such sites. Latinos had the highest exposure.The EPA, in that 2021 report, estimated that with a 2-degree Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) rise in global warming, Black people were 40% more likely to live in places with the highest projected rise in deaths because of extreme heat. Latinos, who are overrepresented in outdoor industries such as agriculture and construction, were 43% more likely to live where labor hour losses were expected to be the highest because of heat.Julia Silver, a senior research analyst at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Latino Policy and Politics Institute, found in her own research that California Latino communities had 23 more days of extreme heat annually than non-Latino white neighborhoods. Her team also found those areas have poor air quality at about double the rate, with twice as many asthma-related emergency room visits. Other research shows that Latino children are 40% more likely to die from asthma than white children in part because many lack consistent health care access.“What we’re risking with a rollback like this at the federal level is really human health and well-being in these marginalized groups,” Silver said.
Experts say the disparate impacts will be significant
Armando Carpio, a longtime pastor in Los Angeles, has seen firsthand how vulnerable his mostly Latino parishioners are. Many are construction workers and gardeners who work outside, often in extreme heat. Others live and work near polluting freeways. He sees children with asthma and elders with dementia, both linked to exposure to air pollution.“We’re regressing,” he said. “I don’t know how many years back, but all of this really affects us.”It is difficult to quantify how much more communities of color could be impacted by the finding’s revocation, but experts who spoke with The Associated Press all said it would be significant.“You will see statistically significant increases in excess morbidity and mortality when it comes to climate impacts and health impacts associated with co-pollutants” in communities of color, said Sacoby Wilson, a University of Maryland professor and executive director of the nonprofit Center for Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health INpowering Communities.Beverly Wright, founding director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice in New Orleans, said at least four Black communities in Cancer Alley no longer exist because of the expansion of industrial facilities. The repeal will bring more pollution, higher cancer rates, more extreme weather and the disappearance of more historic communities, she said.“It has us going in the wrong direction, and our communities are now at greater risk,” she said.
The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
Dorany Pineda and Seth Borenstein, Associated Press
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 Joes chicken fried rice.
Frozen food manufacturer Ajinomoto Foods North America is recalling more than three million pounds of chicken fried rice products due to potential glass contamination.
The recall includes products with both Ajinomoto and Trader Joes branding. The manufacturer, based in Portland, Oregon, notified the U.S. Department of Agricultures (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) after it received four customer complaints of glass in the rice.
As of Thursday, February 19, no related injuries have been reported. Here’s what you need to know.
[Photos: via USDA]
What products are affected?
The recall concerns two types of frozen not ready-to-eat (NRTE) chicken fried rice.
They were produced between September 8, 2025, and November 17, 2025, with each item containing establishment number P-18356 in its USDA inspection mark. Below are their full names and best-by dates:
1.53-kilogram cardboard packages with six bags of frozen Ajinomoto Yakitori Chicken with Japanese-Style Fried Rice. Their best by dates range from September 9, 2026 to November 12, 2026.
20-ounce (1 pound and 4 ounce) plastic bag packages with frozen Trader Joes Chicken Fried Rice with stir fried rice, vegetables, seasoned dark chicken meat and eggs. Their best by dates range from September 8, 2026 to November 17, 2026.
Pictures of the impacted products are available here.
Where and when was the product sold?
Ajinomotos fried rice was exported exclusively to Canada and not sold in U.S. stores. The Trader Joes fried rice was sent to retail locations across the United States.
What should I do if I have this product?
The FSIS stresses that anyone who has this product should not consume it. Instead, the item should be thrown away or returned to the store.
Fast Company has reached out to Trader Joes for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
This is far from the first recall to impact Trader Joes. Products sold by the popular retailer have seen everything from rocks in cookies to risks of food-borne pathogens like listeria.
As the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games unfold, something is unmistakable: Women are driving the moment.
Theyre leading highlight reels. Headlining broadcasts. Powering the storylines fans are sharing and following in real time. From figure skating to freestyle skiing to hockey, women athletes arent a side stage to the Gamesthey are the main event.
And the data backs up what were all seeing.
In new international research from Parity and SurveyMonkey surveying nearly 12,000 adults across the U.S., Canada, the UK/Ireland, and Australia, womens events are as popular asor more popular thanmens events in the majority of Winter Olympic sports. High-profile women athletes, including Lindsey Vonn, Eileen Gu, and Marie-Philip Poulin, account for 55% of named competitors fans say theyre most excited to follow. And 25% of adults who are excited about the Olympic Games plans to follow more womens events this year than they have in the past.
This raises a more nuanced question: If fans say womens sports matter, why is the U.S. less emphatic about demanding equal treatment for women athletes? And why is the U.S. defining equality differently than the rest of the world?
FANS ARENT ASKING FOR PARITY, THEY EXPECT IT
The most striking finding from the research isnt just interest. Its expectation.
Across political affiliations and demographics, a majority of U.S. adults say its important that men and women athletes be treated equally at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
That includes everything from sponsorship investment and marketing dollars to media coverage, resources, and overall visibility.
But heres where the U.S. story gets complicated.
When we compared attitudes internationally, Americans lagged behind their peers in the strength and depth of their conviction. In the UK and Ireland, nearly 80% of adults say equal treatment is important. In the U.S., that drops to 59%. And the real gap is among adults across countries who describe it as very important that men and women athletes are treated equally.
That gap matters. At a time when women athletes are delivering some of the most compelling performances of the Games, that hesitation matters.
In Canada, the UK/Ireland, and Australia, adults most often felt that equal funding support from their countries exemplified equalitya structural, institutional commitment that ensures women athletes have the same resources to train, compete, and win. In the U.S., however, the top measure wasnt funding. It was the amount of media coverage.
Globally, equality is viewed as an investment decision. In the U.S., its still often treated as a visibility problem.
Across every country, equal rules or judging criteria and offering the same sports for men and women rounded out the top four ways to achieve equality at the Games.
However it manifests, audiences want equalityand they expect brands to reflect that standard.
Fifty-one percent of U.S. adults say Olympic and Paralympic sponsors should invest marketing dollars equally between men and women athletes. Yet 43% believe Olympic and Paralympic brands arent spending enough on womens sports today.
Consumers see the gap. And when expectations outpace action, trust erodes.
THIS IS NO LONGER A GROWTH BET, BUT A GROWTH ENGINE
For years, womens sports were framed as something brands should support, after the audience showed up. That argument doesnt hold anymore.
The audience is already here.
Womens events are matchingand often exceedingmens in popularity. Women athletes are generating outsized engagement and cultural relevance. And younger fans, especially, expect brands to reflect their values.
At Parity, we have the privilege of working with more than 1,400 professional women athletes, including hundreds of Olympians and Paralympians, and over 50 of our athletes are in action in Milan-Cortina. We consistently see that partnerships with women athletes drive stronger trust, deeper community connection, and more authentic storytelling.
In a fragmented world where attention is scarce, trusted voices matter more than ever. Women athletes are some of the most credible and relatable storytellers in sports.
Brands that recognize this are gaining share of heart, and share of market.
THE GAMES ARE A GLOBAL STAGELEADERSHIP IS VISIBLE
The Olympics and Paralympics arent just sporting events. Theyre cultural mirrors and megaphones. They show the world what we value, and who we value.
When coverage, sponsorship, and storytelling skew unequal, it sends a message. So does equal investment.
Audiences outside the U.S. are expressing stronger expectations around gender equality.
As the worlds largest sports and advertising marketand with the 2028 Summer Olympics coming to Los Angelesthe U.S. should be setting the standard, not trailing it. Especially when women athletes are already delivering some of the most electric moments of the Games.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Progress doesnt require patience, it requires priority.
Today, brands can choose to fund women athletes equally, tell their stories more prominently, and show up where fans already are. Because the audience has spoken. The momentum is real. The upside is obvious.
And midway through these Games, one thing is undeniable: Womens sports arent catching up.
Theyre leading.
And its time for the rest of the ecosystemespecially here in the U.S.to lead with them.
Leela Srinivasan is CEO of Parity.
Hello again, welcome to Fast Companys 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 project.
Late Show host Stephen Colbert and his network, CBS, are still at odds over why his planned interview with James Talarico, a Democratic candidate for a Texas U.S. Senate seat, didnt air last Monday. In Colberts account, CBS lawyers forbid the broadcast after Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr said talk show interviews might trigger the FCCs equal time rule, which requires broadcasters to give equivalent airtime to competing candidates if requested. For its part, CBS maintained that its lawyers didnt quash the interview but rather informed Colbert of the equal-time issue.
Either way, Colbert had a problem on his handsbut an easily solvable one. The Late Show simply put the interview on YouTube, whichlike all streaming servicesis not subject to the equal time rule. Its since racked up more than eight million views, well over three times the typical live/DVR viewership of Colberts program in its classic form.
For CBS, the incident was particularly touchy. Its parent company, Paramount Skydance, is currently trying to engineer a takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal that would require approval by the Trump administrations Department of Justice. Given that the FCC was already investigating ABCs The View over a Talarico interview, Carrthe guy who managed to get Jimmy Kimmel knocked off the air for four nights last Septembercould have seized on a Late Show interview as a provocation. Bumping the segment to YouTube eliminated it as grist for his mill. (For the record, Carr claimed to be entertained by the whole affair.)
Along with the Trumpy intrigue, the Colbert-Talarico-Carr drama provides more evidence that YouTube has eaten TVa topic I explored last October in an oral history titled, well, How YouTube Ate TV. Once Colbert concluded he couldnt run the Talarico interview on his broadcast show, its tough to believe he spent much time figuring out where to put it. What about Paramount+, Paramount Skydances own streaming contender? Well, maybe, if Colbert had wanted to reach its 77.5 million subscribers. But releasing it on YouTube, which has two billion logged-in watchers a month, was the surest way to make the interview available to the largest possible audience.
The fact that YouTube is now the U.S.s largest video service, period, only makes the equal time ruleand its focus on media brought into homes by antennaslook more antiquated. Its certainly possible to see noble intentions in the FCC mandate, which predates the agencys 1934 establishment and happens to be almost exactly the same age as CBS. (Both will mark their respective centenaries next year.) Radio, the medium that inspired it, used public airwaves, was greatly constrained by available spectrum, and exerted tremendous power over political candidates ability to reach voters. So did TV, once it arrived in force in the late 1940s.
But just a decade after that, the equal time rule was already regarded as counterproductive if not faintly ridiculous. A Chicago kook/perennial candidate named Lar Dalywho campaigned in an Uncle Sam suitseized it to secure TV airtime in his 1959 campaign for mayor of Chicago. The following year, when he ran for president, he even forced his way onto The Tonight Show. His antics helped prompt Congress to carve out exemptions protecting many broadcasts from having to comply with the rule, including the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates.
By the 1980s, so many types of programming were exemptincluding newscasts and news interview shows such as Meet the Pressthat when the equal time rule came into play, it was often in edge cases such as stations choosing not to run old Ronald Reagan movies during his presidential campaigns. (Sorry, Bedtime for Bonzo fans.) As recently as 2006, the FCC told a California gubernatorial candidate that incumbent governor Arnold Schwarzeneggers appearance on The Tonight Show did not entitle him to equivalent time. (Carrs recent stance that talk shows may be subject to the rule is at odds with that ruling.)
Maybe there was an argument for the rule when streaming video did not yet exist, and even cable TV reached a minority of U.S. households. But according to the Pew Research Center, 78% of American households have broadband. Another study, from Nielsen, found that only 18% of homes had an antenna rigged up for over-the-air broadcasts, and that most of those also had access to streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix. Thats not accounting for people who watch internet video on a phone via a cellular connection.
Bottom line: Very few people are watching broadcast TV solely because they dont have other options. Indeed, its old-school TV thats become a niche. Which helps explain why Paramount Skydance is so eager to scarf up Warner Bros. Discoverys colossal back catalog but so disinterested in Colbert that it canceled his show. (The company maintains the cancellation was a prudent financial decision, not a token of goodwill to Trump as his DoJ was preparing to sign off on Paramounts merger with Skydance; regardless of the motivation, its a sign of traditional TVs diminished relevance.)
YouTube is hardly immune to government interference in its political content. On Wednesday, attorneys general from 16 states sent a letter to Alphabet Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker claiming it had censored videos from conservative political commentators such as Glenn Beck and Ben Shapiro. Still, as far as I know, nobody argues that anything resembling the equal time rule should apply on YouTube. Given that there are millions of YouTubers, it would hard to know where to start. But with millions of YouTubers of wildly different predilections posting videos to the platform, a powerful form of equal time is built in.
Meanwhile, broadcast medias control by a shrinking number of giant companies is a bigger problem than ever, and Carr doesnt seem to care, at least as long as it might tilt in a Trump-friendly direction. On Wednesday, he said he supports lifting an ownership cap on TV stations to allow the right-leaning media company Nexstar to acquire its rival Tegna.
Carr will presumably continue to wield the equal time rule as a cudgel against Trump critics, particularly if it leads media companies to obey in advance, as CBS seems to have done. I dont discount the possibility of some future Democratic FCC chair abusing it in a similar fashion. But its nice to think that the mandatewhich, in our lifetimes, always seemed both impotent and misguidedmight continue to fade away along with the 20th-century forms of media that inspired it.
Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on fastcompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard.
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Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand Wednesday to defend his companys practices in a landmark trial that could determine whether social media companies can be held liable for alleged harms to children. But if the defendants lose, the implications could extend far beyond social media.
The case centers on Meta and Google, with plaintiffs alleging that services like Instagram and YouTube are intentionally designed to keep users, especially kids, engageda dynamic they say can lead to harmful mental health effects, including addiction. The trial is widely viewed as a test case for roughly 1,500 similar lawsuits waiting in the wings. Meta and Google deny the charges, with Zuckerberg testifying on Wednesday that “I care about the well-being of teens and kids who are using our services.”
If Meta and Google lose this case, it could change how people interact with their platforms. But the consequences may not stop there: The outcome could also have implications for other tech giants, as well as companies far outside the technology sector.
More insurance claims for social media addiction?
Insurance companies, for example, could see a rise in claims for digital or social media addiction treatment. For now, social media addiction is not recognized as an official disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR), the authoritative guide used to diagnose mental health issues. That makes specialized coverage rare, though insurers do pay for underlying mental health conditions caused or worsened by social media, such as anxiety, depression, or behavioral disorders.
Still, the DSM-5-TR is published by the American Psychiatric Association, which has warned that “excessive, compulsive or out-of-control use of various types of technologies is an increasing area of concern.” Business experts say a legal victory by the plaintiffs could accelerate that shift, making digital addiction a more bigger factor for insurers and employers alike.
“I think, depending on the outcome of this court case, that may give more credibility to the notion of digital addiction,” says David Schweidel, a marketing professor and the chair of Business Technology at Emory Universitys Goizueta Business School. “In an extreme scenario, social media could get labeled as the next Big Tobacco.”
Insurance companies declined to comment on the trial and its implications, but some have already taken steps to shield their liability when it comes to social media clients. In 2024, Hartford Casualty and several other insurers filed suit in Delaware seeking declaratory relief that they were not legally required to cover Metas legal defense or any resulting settlements or damages in a consolidated California case alleging that social media platforms contribute to harmful behaviors in children. (That case is still pending.)
And insurance companies may not be the only businesses to feel the ripple effects. If the jury finds that programmed algorithms are not protected by Section 230, the federal law that shields social media companies from liability over content posted by their users, it could expose many tech companies outside the social media industry to new legal risks.
Streamers could feel the effects, too
Streaming services that rely on autoplay to encourage binge-watching, or mobile games that lure players back with dopamine-triggering lock-screen alerts, could also find themselves on shakier legal ground. (The European Union, meanwhile, has opened a formal investigation into online retailer Shein that includes scrutiny of its addictive design, specifically gamified programs that reward shoppers with points and other incentives.)
Even smartphone makers could be forced to make changes, such as giving users more control over notifications. Other companies across the business spectrum could feel the effects if a growing number of people begin seeking treatment for digital addiction.
“Employers could potentially affected by severity of addition as well,” says Schweidel. “As the idea of treatment for digital addiction or social media addiction becomes more socially acceptable, people will be taking more time off work to get that treatment.”
Can a headline-making squabble with a client actually be good for a brand? This weeks dispute between the Department of Defense and Anthropic, a high-profile player in the super-competitive field of artificial intelligence, may be just that.
The dispute involves whether the Pentagon, which has an agreement to use Anthropic technology, can apply it in a wider range of scenarios: all lawful use cases. Anthropic has resisted signing off on some potential scenarios, and the Pentagon has essentially accused it of being overly cautious. As it happens, that assessment basically aligns with Anthropics efforts (most recently via Super Bowl ads aimed squarely at prominent rival OpenAI) to burnish a reputation as a thoughtful and considered AI innovator. At a moment when the pros-vs.-cons implications and potential consequences of AI are more hotly debated than ever, Anthropics public image tries to straddle the divide.
Presumably Anthropic (best known to consumers for its AI chat tool Claude) would prefer to push that reputation without alienating a lucrative client. But the underlying feud concerns how the military can use Anthropics technology, with the company reportedly seeking limits on applications involving mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. A Pentagon spokesman told Fast Company that the militarys relationship with Anthropic is being reviewed, adding: Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight. The department has reportedly threatened to label Anthropic a supply chain risk, lumping it in with supposedly woke tech companies, causing potential problems not just for Anthropic but for partners like Palintir.
So far Anthropics basic stance amounts to: This is a uniquely potent technology whose eventualities we dont fully comprehend, so there are limits to uses well currently permit. Put more bluntly: We are not reckless.
Not moving so fast that you break important thingslike user trust, or civilizationis a message thats of a piece with the official image Anthropic has sought to cultivate. The company was founded by OpenAI refugees who argued back in 2021 that the company was prioritizing monetization over safety. Its recent Super Bowl ads are the highest-profile example of this branding so far: directly mocking OpenAI for experimenting with advertising on its consumer-facing product ChatGPT, and presenting the results as a slop-dystopian mess.
The spots were, as Fast Companys Jeff Beer explained, a rare example of straight-up ire slung at a category competitor. They could arguably be the first salvo in a branding battle akin to Apple vs. Microsoft, with Anthropic seizing the role of righteous challenger. (OpenAIs initial response included belittling Anthropics business, which just lends to the latters underdog pose.)
As a brand image to shoot for, being the responsible AI player is an understandable goal. The technology has been divisive for years at this point, and lately thats reached a crescendo. Seen by many as a threat to privacy, a job-killer, an environmental menace, and a source of endless misinformation and slop, its simultaneously touted by Silicon Valley elites and their intellectual brethren as an unprecedented boon to humanity.
The only point of agreement is that the changes will be big and fast and pretty much unstoppable. And no matter how much you already believe that, there is some guy on X arguing that you still dont really get it. No wonder there seems to be room for an AI company with a cautious message.
Of course this is branding were talking about, and ultimately Anthropic is under the same marketplace pressures as its rivals. And its actual behavior hasnt always been pristine. Notably it agreed last year to pay a record $1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging its models trained on some 500,000 copyrighted books.
Despite its Pentagon dispute, its technology is already intertwined with the American military, and was reportedly used in the recent U.S. capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. And of course it may yet acquiesce to Pentagon demands. (According to Axios, Anthropics annual revenue is around $14 billion, and its Department of Defense deal is pegged at $200 millionnot chump change, but not existential.)
Still, the squabble is an occasion for Anthropic to demonstrate that its rhetoric and actions line up. At the very least, that could be good for its flagship chat tool Claude: Consumers tempted by AI hype but worried about its potential downsides may see Anthropic as the fledgling technologys least-reckless major player. And given how divisive the AI category has become, that might count as a brand win.
“I really want to see a mass driver on the moon that is shooting AI satellites into deep space,” Elon Musk said last week when he announced his plan to go to the moon. “It’s going to be incredibly exciting to see it happen.” He’s right. I want to see it too, although probably we will both be dead before his vision is realized.
The lunar mass driveressentially a cannon that uses magnetic power to accelerate an objectis a key component to launch the million satellites Musk wants to put in orbit around the Earth. But Musk wasn’t the first person to come up with the idea. Smarter people than him thought about this in the 1970s as the solution to a key problem for human exploration.
Launching spacecraft from Earth is extremely expensive. Every pound lifted from Cape Canaveral to low Earth orbit costs thousands of dollars in fuel, hardware, and operational complexity. The farther you want to go in space, the more massive and complex the rocket has to be, increasing costs. Chemical rockets must carry their own oxidizer and propellant, which means most of the vehicle’s mass is just fuel to lift more fuel. This tyranny of the rocket equation has strangled space development for seven decades, only slightly eased by the economics of reusable rockets like the Falcon 9.
A mass driver could break that stranglehold by using electricity instead of explosives, turning launches into a utility-scale operation rather than a high-wire act. On the Moon, where gravity is one-sixth of Earth’s and there’s no atmosphere to create drag, this technology could launch payloads at a fraction of the costa few dollars per pound in electricity. Compare that to the $1,200 per pound it currently costs to launch a payload on a reusable Falcon 9 rocket.
[Image: Xai]
An elegant design
American physicist Gerard O’Neill and MIT physicist Henry Kolm built the first prototype of a mass driver in 1976 with a $2,000 budget. The Mass Drive 1 could fire objects at 131 feet per second while experiencing 33 times Earth’s gravity. Their next version achieved 10 times greater acceleration with a comparable funding increase. University of Texas researchers subsequently priced a serious version at $47 million for a device capable of launching a 22-pound payload at 13,400 miles per hour.
A mass driver is basically a very long track stretching across the lunar surface, angled gently skyward at its far end. The track is lined from end to end with hundreds of electromagnetic coils, which are simply loops of wire that snap into powerful magnets the instant electricity runs through them. A payload sits inside a magnetizable carrier called a bucket.
To move the bucket, the coils fire in a precise sequence, one after another, each energizing at exactly the right moment as the bucket reaches it, grabbing it forward, then cutting off the instant it passes. The result is a cascade of invisible magnetic hands, each passing the bucket to the next. The bucket never makes mechanical contact with any surface: It is held aloft and guided entirely by the interplay of magnetic fields, which is why these systems have a theoretical operational lifespan of up to millions of launches with negligible wear.
Musk describes it as a large maglev train, the same levitation technology that holds high-speed trains above their rails in Japan or China. But the mass driver reaches much faster speeds than any train on Earth: about 1.5 miles per second, enough to escape the gravity pull of the Moon. To achieve that speed, the mass driver uses two distinct engineered stages. In the first, the coils sit at equal intervals and their electrical timing locks to the bucket’s exact positioneach successive push arrives at precisely the right instant, so the force compounds as velocity builds.
In the second stage, the interval between coils progressively widens, which paces the pushes further apart in distance and holds the rate of acceleration constant rather than letting it keep climbing so the increase in acceleration doesnt destroy the bucket or its cargo. At the terminal end of the track, the bucket releases its payloada xAI satellite according to Musk’s visioninto space at a minimum speed of 5,300 mph, enough escape the Moon’s gravity. The trajectory that the load follows depends on the position of the Moon at the moment of the launch, following the orientation of the mass driver relative to the space.
Then the bucket gets caught by a braking system, recovered, and sent back to the beginning for the next launch. No combustion. No exhaust. No rocket equation. No problems.
Its a beautiful solution. Its also doable, as ONeill and Kolm demonstrated practically. According to independent researcher and author Keith Sadlocha, a working lunar mass driver would require a track between 1,620 and 5,350 feet long, operating at accelerations between 30 and 400 times Earth’s gravity in standard operation.
At those forces, only rugged, non-human cargo survives the ridewhich is exactly what Musk is planning. Musk has his sights set on manufacturing AI computing satellites on the lunar surface. The system can fire one payload every 10 to 11 seconds. Scaled to Musk’s stated target of one million satellites in orbit, that cadence, sustained continuously, is what makes the economics viable in a way no rocket ever could.
But to accomplish this, you will need a lot of electricity. For Musk’s purposes, system requires 8.7 to 20 megawatts of continuous power, enough to run a small town. Delivering that on the lunar surface requires between 400,000 and 634,000 square feet of solar arrayssomewhere between seven and 11 NFL football fields’ worth of panels according to Sadlocha’s calculations and NASA’s estimates. That’s using solar panel’s with an efficieny of roughly 30%, the figure NASA uses for cells especially designed for space use.
Since the Moon endures two weeks of total darkness every month, this means the mass driver either sits idle for half of every lunar cycle or relies on supplemental power to keep firing through the night. NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy are developing a solution: The Fission Surface Power (FSP) project, which builds on the earlier Kilopower research program to produce compact nuclear fission reactors targeting 10 to 40 kilowatts of continuous output each, capable of running for a decade without refueling.
Each FSP reactor will produce enough electricity to power just a few homes. Bridging the full gap between those modest reactors and a mass driver that demands the output of a small power plant would require deploying them not one or two at a time, but in the hundreds. That is not a technology problem so much as a logistics oneevery reactor has to be launched from Earth, landed softly on the Moon, and connected to the grid before the mass driver fires its first payload. The program, however, is still in development and a lunar deployment is not expected before the late 2020s at the earliest. And thats extremely optimistic, given the constant delays of those nuclear projects and the Moon return plans.
[Image: Xai]
Unrealistic timeline
Scaling from the $47 million 22-pound-launch prototype that University of Texas researchers projected to a working lunar installation capable of launching huge satellites is where you begin to feel just how vast the distance is between a compelling idea and a functioning machine.
Sadlocha estimates that a full lunar mass driver system requires approximately 362 metric tons of hardware. Thats 24 heavy-lift rocket launches worth of components that must be manufactured on Earth, survive a 239,000-mile journey through the void, and be assembled by people wearing pressurized suits on a surface thatbathed by radiationis extremely hostile to humans.
That surface is coated in lunar dust too, ultra-fine abrasive shaped by billions of years of micrometeoroid impacts into particles with microscopic cutting edges that never dulled, because there has never been wind or rain or any erosive force on the Moon to round them off. It clings electrostatically to visors, suits, seals, and coil windings alike. The payload carriers themselves face thermal melting at extreme velocities, demanding materials that do not yet exist in proven lunar-rated form. You can argue that maybe Musks Optimus robots can avoid this, but his robots can barely function on Earth.
Musk’s stated plan is to mine lunar silicon and oxygen and manufacture the server hardware on the surfacea bootstrapping strategy that, if it works, would reduce Earth-launch dependency over time toward what he called a self-growing city capable of rapid expansion from local resources.
The Moon does contain silicon, oxygen, helium-3, and water ice at the poles. But the superconducting coils at the heart of the mass driver require precisely manufactured materials that the lunar industry will not be able to produce in decades. Every critical component rides to the Moon on Starship until that changes. We know that Starship is so behind schedule that it has pushed the first mission back to the Moon from 2027s NASA projected time to 2028.
Sadlocha rates the technology at readiness level 5 on NASA’s 1-to-9 scale components validated in laboratories, not yet tested in space. Realistic deployment, his study concludes, will take between 5 and 15 years from the moment serious investment begins. That can take the project into the 2040s, easily. Thats why Lluc Palerm, satellite research director at Analysys Mason, said to PC Magazine that Musk’s lunar server plan carries a magnitude of challenge equivalent to a Mars mission.
But like we already pointed out, Musk’s timeline is fantasy, or “aspirational” as he qualifies his predictions. The gap between his ambitious renderings and actual functioning hardware remains a dream measured in decades, not the 10 years he’s promising investors before his planned June 2026 initial public offering targeting a $1.5 trillion valuation. Musk is no JFK, and building factories and a mass driver on the Moon is orders of magnitude more complex than just putting boots on the Moon like the Apollo program did. It’s doable, yes. We’ll get the mass driver, eventually. Just not on Musk time.
The retail platform eBay is set to acquire fashion resale app Depop from Etsy in a $1.2 billion transaction. Ostensibly, the deal will help eBay to cultivate a new audience of Gen Z and Gen Alpha shoppers. But I think theres a deeper reason that eBay might want to lock Depop down: its simply the best looking resale interface out there right now.
The deal was announced on February 18 in a press release from Etsy. Its expected to close some time in the second quarter of 2026, and, per an email sent to Depops customers, after the merger Depop will remain a stand-alone brand within eBay and retain its name, brand, and platform.
For eBay, acquiring Depop makes a good measure of intuitive sense. Generally, resale is trending upward: Based on ThredUps 2025 Resale Report, the secondhand apparel market is expected to reach $367 billion by 2029, growing 2.7 times faster than the overall global apparel market. Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha shoppers are some of the strongest drivers of that trend, with 39% of younger generation shoppers having made a secondhand apparel purchase on a social commerce platform in the 12 months before the study was published.
Depop is one of the top platforms for young people looking to buy and sell clothes. In 2025, the brand achieved approximately $1 billion in sales, including nearly 60% year-over-year growth in the U.S. As of December 31, it had seven million active customers, nearly 90% of which were younger than 34. That user base will be a major boon for eBay, who says that millennial and Gen Z consumers have been two of the biggest drivers of active buyer growth in the past three years.
As a Gen Z vintage clothing enthusiast, Ive shopped on pretty much every resale site you can think of, from Poshmark and ThredUp to eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Mercari, and Etsy. Among all of these options, Depop is far and away the best resale site to look at and the easiest one to use. Thats not to say that Depop doesnt have any issuesa brief glance at the sites subreddit will reveal plenty of user grievances, not least of which is the tendency of certain Depop sellers to price a Brandy Melville baby tee at a cost that could put your checking account in the red.
But from a pure UX and design standpoint, Depop is far outperforming its competitors by taking its major design cues from popular social media apps. And for a digitally native generation thats used to doing most of their shopping online, that makes a big difference.
A social media-esque app experience
Depop knows that its customers are young, tech savvy, and probably spending most of their phone time on social media sites like TikTok and Instagramand it shows in the apps design.
Depop homepage [Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
When you open the Depop app, youre immediately greeted with a Suggested for you page that’s functionally similarly to TikToks Explore feature. Here, the Depop algorithm presents you with an endlessly scrollable page of items curated based on your searches, likes, and saveslike how TikTok or Instagram might serve you videos according to your interests.
In contrast, eBays app homepage looks more similar to a standard e-commerce webpage, directing users to its different goods categories and promoting whatever deals and sales are currently trending.
eBay homepage [Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
In terms of its layout, Depops app is simple and aesthetically pleasing. Its interface is almost identical to Pinterestwhere many customers are likely looking for outfit inspirationwith a subtle bar of categories at the bottom of the page and about four spotlighted items on view at a time.
The minimalist information density encourages you to keep scrolling to find more items, rather than overwhelming you with a sea of information. Other apps, like Poshmark, eBay, and ThredUp, seem to opt instead for presenting users with a wealth of options to choose from when they first log on, which, counterintuitively, can make scrolling feel less appealing.
While I tend to open my computer if I want to browse other retail sites, I almost always open Depop on my phone, and imagine it in a similar category to social media apps. Considering that the secondhand apparel market is becoming so popular among younger shoppers, other resale platforms might want to take note.
Simple selling UI
Over the past few months, Ive developed the niche hobby of restoring and selling vintage wedding dresses online (typically for a profit of about $10 apiece, but Im in it for the fun of the game). Having used both Depop and Etsy to sell my own products, I find Depops seler UX more intuitive and simple to follow.
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
From an app standpoint, Etsy has two separate platforms: one app for selling, and one app for buying. On its website, sellers also have to navigate to a shop management platform to look at their listings. Depop, on the other hand, is consolidated into one app experience, where sellers can manage all of their listings and their purchases.
Creating an actual Depop listing feels akin to making a post on Instagram. Sellers navigate to a + at the bottom of the app (like Instagram), add a series of photos and a caption (also like Instagram), and include a few key tags for their item. Depop also handles shipping through a system that lets users provide an estimate of their items weight and then creates an appropriate label. Shipping on Etsy is more seller-directed. While some more experienced sellers might prefer Etsys approach, Depops feels more beginner-friendly.
A final refuge from AI listings
One of my biggest personal gripes with the current state of resale shopping is the absolute deluge of AI-generated product images that seem to have flooded certain sites over the past few months.
From top: Depop, eBay, Etsy. [Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
In my experience, eBay and Etsy are the biggest offenders of this trend. Searching for the term fantasy dress, on eBay and Etsy, for example, leads to at least one out of four top results with all the hallmarks of an AI image. The same search on Depop yields results that all seem to be real photographs. This example is just one small microcosm of the shopping experience on these sites: while AI photos are becoming increasingly common in resale, buying on Depop still largely feels like sifting through a strangers closet, which was the sites original charm.
Its unclear exactly why AI photos seem less prominent on Depop; though it may be related to the companys regulations against stock photos. In its guidelines, Depop instructs sellers to Only use photos taken by yourself. Depop didnt immediately respond to Fast Companys request for comment on its AI imagery policies.
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 productionMicron Technology, Samsung Electronics, and SK Hynixand they’ve shifted production toward the type of RAM that those data centers run on. This comes at the expense of RAM for consumer electronics, resulting in a shortage that could last into 2028.
It’s early days for the fallout, but what sounded like an abstract concern in 2025 is quickly becoming real, as electronics makers raise prices, delay new devices, and cancel products that aren’t essential to their businesses.
To illustrate exactly how AI is sucking the life out of consumer electronics, here’s a running list of every device that’s being affected by the RAM crunch. I plan to update this list over time, so feel free to reach out via email or on Bluesky if you spot any more bad news.
Price hikes
Standalone RAM kits for desktop PCs were among the first products affected by the RAM crunch. For instance, a 32 GB RAM kit from Crucial that cost around $70 in July now sells for $324.
Framework has repeatedly raised RAM prices for its repairable laptops, so a laptop with 8 GB of RAM now costs $90 more than it did in September.
The Raspberry Pi 5 micro-computer with 16 GB of RAM now costs $205, up from $120 prior to December.
Valve has discontinued the LCD model of its Steam Deck gaming handheld, effectively raising the starting price from $399 to $549 for the version with an OLED screen.
Desktop PC maker CyberPower raised prices across all of its systems in December.
Chinese phone maker Xiaomi raised tablet prices by $14 to $42 in December, and raised the price of its flagship 17 Ultra phone by about $76 over the previous model.
PC makers such as Lenovo, Dell, HP, Acer, and Asus have all confirmed 15% to 20% price hikes in the months ahead, according to IDC.
A Dell price list viewed by Business Insider showed price hikes for a range of laptops, including increases of $130 to $230 for Dell Pro and Pro Max laptops with 32 GB of RAM.
It’s still a rumor for now, but sources tell Bloomberg that Nintendo is considering a price hike for its Switch 2 console.
Delays
Valve has indefinitely delayed its Steam Machine desktop/gaming system and its Steam Frame VR system, and has held off on announcing prices for either.
Sources tell Bloomberg that Sony is considering a delay for its next PlayStation console until 2028 or even 2029.
Sources tell The Information that Nvidia won’t release new graphics cards in 2026. This would be its first year in three decades without new GPUs for gaming.
Disappearances
Valve says its Steam Deck OLED gaming handheld will be “intermittently” out of stock due to memory and storage shortages.
Intel reportedly scrapped its highly anticipated B770 graphics card, with memory shortages as a possible factor.
In the burgeoning “ChiFi” audio gear scene, HiBy Digital suspended pre-sales of its latest digital audio player in December.
Degradations
In December, the market research firm TrendForce said to expect laptops and phones with less memory than earlier models as an alternative to price hikes. This could result in low-end phones with just 4 GB of RAM, and laptops once again returning to 8 GB of RAM as a baseline.
What’s next?
The list of affected companies is still missing some big names, partly because those companies are in better position to ride out the RAM shortage. Apple, for instance, negotiates long-term supply contracts well in advance for products like the iPhone, so it’s potentially bought itself more time than competitors. Lenovo, meanwhile, confirmed that it’s been stockpiling RAM to minimize disruptions this year.
There’s also a chance that alternative suppliers could step in to blunt the impact. According to Jason England at Tom’s Guide, Acer is now looking into the smaller RAM providers that haven’t gone all-in on AI, and may see an opportunity to cater to consume electronics in particular.
But given that Samsung reportedly can’t even get extra RAM from itself for its forthcoming flagship phones, some adjustments seem inevitable even for the largest electronics makers.
