Friday is the opening ceremony for the 2026 Winter Olympics. But, if youve spent any time on TikTok over the past week, you might have already got a sneak peek at some behind-the-scenes content courtesy of the athletes themselves.
In 2024, the International Olympic Committee loosened its rules governing what athletes can capture and share on social media. The shift helped spark viral moments during the Paris Games, when Team USA rugby star Ilona Maher and Norways swimmer Henrik Christiansen, whose chocolate muffin reviews became an unlikely hit, took over TikTok feeds.
This year, Olympians have already been posting vlogs of their journeys to the Olympic Village from all over the world. The Team USA ice dancer Emilea Zingas shared a snippet into what makeup she packed for the Olympics, as well as a get-ready-with-me video before her first practice. Dutch speed skater Jutta Leederman, who’s dating American boxer Jake Paul, documented her journey to Milan via private jet.
@zingaskolesnik33 Makeup is packed all my extras/other tools and things I packed yesterday:) #roadtomilanocortina2026 #icedance #iceskatingtiktok @Team USA original sound – Emi and Vadym
Once inside the Village, room tours have become a major draw. Sleeping arrangements, in particular, have drawn attention in recent years, following the Tokyo and Paris Games, where athletes slept on beds made from reinforced cardboard, reportedly designed to discourage intimacy. This time around, a Team GB athlete revealed that the beds are made from sturdier materials.
@nathanpare_ The details everyone wants to know!! Follow along to see the inside scoop of this Winter Olympics. #olympics #winterolympics #roomtour #fyp #teamusa original sound – nathanpare_
If youve ever wondered what Olympians eat in the run up to the games, look no further. South African snowboarder Matt Smith has been rating the food inside the athletes canteen, tucking into Italian staples like lasagna and pizza. The Olympic village gnocchi is my chocolate muffin, American snowboarder Hahna Norman said in a TikTok video of her own.
@thesnowbok Couldnt help but start my canteen exploration in the Italian section. #crosscountryskiing #xcskiing #athlete #milanocortina2026 #nordicskiing @Milano Cortina 2026 Get Lucky – Stay Groove Band
Olympic hauls are no longer limited to medals. Videos of athletes unboxing sponsored gear are going viral, too. Team USAs kit this year comes from Ralph Lauren, along with additional swag from Skims. Team South Korea ice dancer Hannah Lim modeled a North Face puffer jacket and matching luggage, while Canadian speed skater Brooklyn McDougall shared her Lululemon haul.
@brooklyn_mcdougall Come be overstimulated with me thank you @lululemon original sound – brooklyn_mcdougall
Between competitions and training sessions, athletes are also documenting how they spend their downtime. Coca-Cola has outfitted a recreational area with foosball tables, air hockey, and gaming systems, which American ice-dancing duo Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik toured for their nearly 36,000 followers. British ice dancer Phebe Bekker filmed herself attending a sound bath meditation session before being interrupted by media obligations. Speed skater Casey Dawson even treated followers to ice ASMR during a practice at the Milan arena.
@phebebekker Sound bath class in the Olympic village?! #olympics #milanocortina2026 #olympicvillage #coronacero Carefree Days – Peaceful Reveries
In between events, many Olympians are hoping to capitalize on this brief window of hyperattention. The hashtag #winterolympics has already been used in more than 37,000 TikTok posts, while #milancortina2026 has surpassed 900 tagged videos.
As the Games get started, even more content will be coming out of the Olympic Village. After all, competing may be the top priority, but posting about it has become a close second.
Amazon sales surged 14% during the fourth quarter, helped by strong holiday spending and a better-than-expected growth in its prominent cloud computing unit.But shares fell 11% in after hours trading on Thursday as investors appeared to be spooked by the Seattle-based tech company’s plans to increase capital spending by nearly 60% to $200 billion from last year’s $128 billion as it sees opportunities in artificial intelligence, robots, semiconductors and satellites. The company’s fourth-quarter profits also were slightly below analysts’ projections.Wall Street analysts were expecting capital spending to rise to around $147 billion this year, according to FactSet.Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy told investors on the call following the earnings release that it anticipates strong long-term return on the invested capital.“We are continuing to see as fast as we install this capacity, this AI capacity, we are monetizing it,” Jassy said. “So it’s just a very unusual opportunity. I passionately believe that every customer experience that we know of today is going to be reinvented.”The results come as Amazon is slashing about 16,000 corporate jobs in the second round of mass layoffs for the e-commerce company in three months. Amazon said in an emailed statement last week that AI was “not the reason behind the vast majority of these reductions.” Rather, the cuts had more to do with eliminating layers to drive speed.Separately, Amazon said last week it would cut about 5,000 retail workers, according to notices it sent to state workforce agencies in California, Maryland and Washington, resulting from its decision to close almost all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores.That’s on top of a round of 14,000 job cuts in October, bringing the total to well over 30,000 since Amazon’s Jassy first signaled a push for AI-driven organizational changes.Analysts are analyzing retailers’ performances for insight into how shoppers spent during the holidays and what’s in store for 2026.Amazon is also under pressure to shore up confidence that its computing arm Amazon Web Services is just as powerful as Microsoft’s Azure and Google’s Google Cloud platform.Amazon delivered 24% growth for AWS in the fourth quarter, the fastest in 13 quarters, the company said. That followed a 20% growth in the third quarter and a 17.5% increase in the second quarter. In comparison, Google parent Alphabet said Wednesday that its cloud business registered a 48% increase, or nearly $18 billion in revenue.Meta, Apple and other Big Tech firms are expected to ramp up their spending on artificial intelligence this year. After investing $91 billion into capital expenditures devoted mostly to AI, Alphabet said Wednesday that it expects to double down by spending another $175 billion to $185 billion this year.Amazon also continues to invest in its speedy fulfillment network, through a combination of robotics, AI technology and more efficient warehousing.Amazon’s new service called Amazon Now, an ultra-fast delivery that offers delivery on thousands of items in 30 minutes or less, is now available in various cities in India, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates and is being tested in several communities in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, the company said.Amazon is also expanding its same-day grocery delivery to more than 2,300 cities and towns across the U.S.Jassy told investors the company continues to see strong customer response to everyday essentials and groceries.Meanwhile, Amazon is closing almost all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations as it narrows its focus on food delivery and its grocery chain, Whole Foods Market.Some of the shuttered stores will be converted into Whole Foods locations, the company said in a blog post last week.Amazon reported net income of $21.2 billion, or $1.95 per share, for the three-month period ended Dec. 31. That compares with $20 billion, or $1.86 per share, in the year-ago quarter.Revenue rose to $213.4 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $187.8 billion in the year-ago period.Analysts were expecting $1.97 per share on sales of $211.4 billion, according to analysts polled by FactSet.Revenue from Amazon Web Services reached $35.6 billion. Analysts were expecting $34.9 billion.Product sales during the holiday period rose 9.4%, the company said.The company said that it expects sales to be between $173.5 billion and $178.5 billion for current quarter.Analysts are projecting $175.6 billion.
Anne D’Innocenzio, AP Retail writer
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans aim to translate the most up-to-date nutrition science into practical advice for the public as well as to guide federal policy for programs such as school lunches.
But the newest version of the guidelines, released on Jan. 7, 2026, seems to be spurring more confusion than clarity about what people should be eating.
Ive been studying nutrition and chronic disease for over 35 years, and in 2020 I wrote Sugarproof, a book about reducing consumption of added sugars to improve health. I served as a scientific adviser for the new guidelines.
I chose to participate in this process, despite its accelerated and sometimes controversial nature, for two reasons. First, I wanted to help ensure the review was conducted with scientific rigor. And second, federal health officials prioritized examining areas where the evidence has become especially strongparticularly food processing, added sugars and sugary beverages, which closely aligns with my research.
My role, along with colleagues, was to review and synthesize that evidence and help clarify where the science is strongest and most consistent.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=zo-f0j1E_jY%3Fwmode%3Dtransparent%26start%3D0
The latest dietary guidelines, published on Jan. 7, 2026, have received mixed reviews from nutrition experts.
Whats different in the new dietary guidelines?
The dietary guidelines, first published in 1980, are updated every five years. The newest version differs from the previous versions in a few key ways.
For one thing, the new report is shorter, at nine pages rather than 400. It offers simpler advice directly to the public, whereas previous guidelines were more directed at policymakers and nutrition experts.
Also, the new guidelines reflect an important paradigm shift in defining a healthy diet. For the past half-century, dietary advice has been shaped by a focus on general dietary patterns and targets for individual nutrients, such as protein, fat and carbohydrate. The new guidelines instead emphasize overall diet quality.
Some health and nutrition experts have criticized specific aspects of the guidelines, such as how the current administration developed them, or how they address saturated fat, beef, dairy, protein and alcohol intake. These points have dominated the public discourse. But while some of them are valid, they risk overshadowing the strongest, least controversial and most actionable conclusions from the scientific evidence.
What we found in our scientific assessment was that just a few straightforward changes to your dietspecifically, reducing highly processed foods and sugary drinks, and increasing whole grainscan meaningfully improve your health.
What the evidence actually shows
My research assistants and I evaluated the conclusions of studies on consuming sugar, highly processed foods and whole grains, and assessed how well they were conducted and how likely they were to be biased. We graded the overall quality of the findings as low, moderate or high based on standardized criteria such as their consistency and plausibility.
We found moderate to high quality evidence that people who eat higher amounts of processed foods have a higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia and death from any cause.
Similarly, we found moderately solid evidence that people who drink more sugar-sweetened beverages have a higher risk of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, as well as quite conclusive evidence that children who drink fruit juice have a higher risk of obesity. And consuming more beverages containing artificial sweeteners raises the risk of death from any cause and Alzheimers disease, based on moderately good evidence.
Whole grains, on the other hand, have a protective effect on health. We found high-quality evidence that people who eat more whole grains have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and death from any cause. People who consume more dietary fiber, which is abundant in whole grains, have a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes and death from any cause, based on moderate-quality research.
According to the research we evaluated, its these aspectstoo much highly processed foods and sweetened beverages, and too little whole grain foodsthat are significantly contributing to the epidemic of chronic diseases such as obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease in this countryand not protein, beef or dairy intake.
From scientific evidence to guidelines
Our report was the first one to recommend that the guidelines explicitly mention decreasing consumption of highly processed foods. Overall, though, research on the negative health effects of sugar and processed foods and the beneficial effects of whole grains has been building for many years and has been noted in previous reports.
On the other hand, research on how strongly protein, red meat, saturated fat and dairy are linked with chronic disease risk is much less conclusive. Yet the 2025 guidelines encourage increasing consumption of those foodsa change from previous versions.
The inverted pyramid imagery used to represent the 2025 guidelines also emphasizes proteinspecifically, meat and dairyby putting these foods in a highly prominent spot in the top left corner of the image. Whole grains sit at the very bottom; and except for milk, beverages are not represented.
Scientific advisers were not involved in designing the image.
Making small changes that can improve your health
An important point we encountered repeatedly in reviewing the research was that even small dietary changes could meaningfully lower peoples chronic disease risks.
For example, consuming just 10% fewer calories per day from highly processed foods could lower the risk of diabetes by 14%, according to one of the lead studies we relied on for the evidence review. Another study showed that eating one less serving of highly processed foods per day lowers the risk of heart disease by 4%.
You can achieve that simply by switching from a highly processed packaged bread to one with fewer ingredients or replacing one fast-food meal per week with a simple home-cooked meal. Or, switch your preferred brands of daily staples such as tomato sauce, yogurt, salad dressing, crackers and nut butter to ones that have fewer ingredients like added sugars, sweeteners, emulsifiers and preservatives.
Cutting down on sugary beveragesfor example, soda, sweet teas, juices and energy drinkshad an equally dramatic effect. Simply drinking the equivalent of one can less per day lowers the risk of diabetes by 26% and the risk of heart disease by 14%.
And eating just one additional serving of whole grains per daysay, replacing packaged bread with whole grain breadresults in an 18% lower risk of diabetes and a 13% lower risk of death from all causes combined.
How to adopt kitchen processing
Another way to make these improvements is to take basic elements of food processing back from manufacturers and return them to your own kitchen what I call kitchen processing. Humans have always processed food by chopping, cooking, fermenting, drying or freezing. The problem with highly processed foods isnt just the industrial processing that transforms the chemical structure of natural ingredients, but also what chemicals are added to improve taste and shelf life.
Kitchen processing, though, can instead be optimized for health and for your households flavor preferencesand you can easily do it without cooking from scratch. Here are some simple examples:
Instead of flavored yogurts, buy plain yogurt and add your favorite fruit or some homemade simple fruit compote.
Instead of sugary or diet beverages, use a squeeze of citrus or even a splash of juice to flavor plain sparkling water.
Start with a plain whole grain breakfast cereal and add your own favorite source of fiber and/or fruit.
Instead of packaged energy bars make your own preferred mixture of nuts, seeds and dried fruit.
Instead of bottled salad dressing, make a simple one at home with olive oil, vinegar or lemon juice, a dab of mustard and other flavorings of choice, such as garlic, herbs, or honey.
You can adapt this way of thinking to the foods you eat most often by making similar types of swaps. They may seem small, but they will build over time and have an outsized effect on your health.
Michael I Goran is a professor of pediatrics and a vice chair for research at the University of Southern California.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Its time to become an armchair expert on sports that you only think about every four years. In other words, the 2026 Winter Olympics have arrived.
This years competition takes place in two Italian cities, Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, and the surrounding regions. It is not Cortinas first rodeo, as the city hosted previously in 1956, while the country of Italy has hosted the games three times prior.
The action kicked off on Wednesday, February 4, when the worlds best alpine skiers and curlers strutted their stuff.
Despite the curling, the official Olympic Opening Ceremony takes place today (Friday, February 6). Heres everything you need to know so you can comfortably coach the players from your couch.
Who is the creative force behind the opening ceremony?
Host countries take the duty of putting on a spectacular opening ceremony very seriously. This also means most of the specific details are kept secret until showtime. This year is no exception to the rule.
Many creatives have collaborated to create the opening ceremonies. Balich Wonder Studio is producing and Maria Laura Iascone serves as the director of ceremonies for the Milano Cortina Foundation organizing committee.
While he cant get into specifics, creative director Marco Balich explained to Reuters that the theme of the evening is the Greek concept of harmony and, of course, celebrating the host country of Italy.
We want to show that Italy, though small, has influenced global habits through design, fashion and food,” he mused.
A rendering of an Olympic cauldron. [Image: IOC]
Audiences should be prepared for a big spectacle, spread out for the first time across multiple locations.
The main action will take place at Milans historic San Siro Stadium with simultaneous events taking place at Predazzo, Livigno, and Cortina dAmpezzo. At the conclusion, two Olympic cauldrons will be ignited at the Arco della Pace in Milan and in Piazza Dibona in Cortina dAmpezzo.
Who is performing at the opening ceremony?
A cast of 1,200 volunteer performers, ages ranging from 10 to 70from 27 different countrieswill take the stage. These performers will don 1,400 different costumes and utilize around 1,000 props.
Beyond the volunteers, world-famous musicians and actors will lead their talents to the big event.
Mariah Carey and Andrea Bocelli are scheduled to perform. Additionally, The White Lotuss Sabrina Impacciatore, Chinese pianist Lang Lang, and Italian singer Laura Pausini will do their thing.
Lets not forget Italian actor and film producer Pierfrancesco Favino and mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli. The Law According to Lydia Poets Matilde De Angelis will narrate the action.
How can I watch or stream the Olympic Opening Ceremony?
To see this technological marvel and cheer on your favorite athlete, all you have to do is tune into NBC, the official channel for all things Olympics.
If you have traditional cable, you’re all set. Cable subscribers can also watch the action on NBCOlympics.com, NBC.com, the NBC app, or the NBC Sports app.
And remember you can watch NBC for free with an over-the-air antenna, you are set.
You can also watch the ceremony on NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service.
If Peacock is not in your streaming arsenal, consider a live-TV streaming service that carries NBC, such as YouTube TV, Hulu+Live TV, or Fubo.
Be sure to double-check regional differences before committing to a new monthly charge, as coverage varies.
What time does the ceremony begin?
The event takes place at 2 p.m. ET. If you’re stuck at work and can’t watch, never fear. NBC and Peacock will re-air the ceremony for a special prime-time event at 8 p.m. ET.
The price of Bitcoin has declined dramatically in recent weeks, and cryptocurrency investors are more fearful than ever. In the past 24 hours, the crypto king dipped to the $60,000 rangea low it has not seen since October 2024.
While Bitcoin has now recovered slightly to around $66,000, many analysts and investors still think the token may not have bottomed out yet. Heres what you need to know about Bitcoin’s continued fall, and how low things might go.
Why is Bitcoin falling?
Like most cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (BTC) has been steadily falling almost since the year began. As Fast Company previously reported, there were two main drivers for this fall.
The first is increased geopolitical uncertainty.
Since the year began, America attacked Venezuela, threatened to take Greenland by force from one of its most important European allies, and is now in a standoff with Iran.
Military conflict almost always affects markets, but until it happens, no one can predict by how much or in what direction. That uncertainty generally leads investors to pull their money from relatively risky assets, like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and park it in safe havens, like gold or the U.S. dollar (USD).
The second recent driver was President Trumps announcement, in late January, the he has selected Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve chair. The news caused the U.S. dollar to spike, making it more valuable.
And since cryptocurrencies are priced in dollars, the same amount of dollars could buy more crypto, thereby impacting the value of the digital tokens.
In recent days, other factors have pushed Bitcoin down to levels not seen in well over a year.
Those factors include a bearish run in tech stocks. When tech stocks decline, crypto tends to follow suit. Additionally, there have been significant forced liquidations of Bitcoin in recent days. These selloffs happen automatically when Bitcoin hits a certain price level. These automated selloffs can prompt other investors to sell their shares, too, before the price drops any further.
In short, Bitcoin isnt dropping for any one reason. There are numerous factors working against it right now.
Bitcoin isnt the only cryptocurrency that is falling
Without a doubt, Bitcoin is having a bad day. Over the past 24 hours, the token fell as low as $60,074.80. That represented a more than 50% decline from its all-time high of $126,198.07 in October.
At its current price of around $66,378, Bitcoin has now lost more than 42% of its value in the past six months alone. But Bitcoin isnt the only crypto that has suffered a major crash.
As Fast Company reported yesterday, XRP has been getting hammered as of late. In the past six months, the popular token has lost more than 54% of its value.
Other popular tokens, including Ethereum, BNB, and Solana, have also seen incredible drops during the same period.
Crypto greed and fear index hits all-time low
In the wake of this recent crypto crash, it should be no surprise that the majority of cryptocurrency investors are experiencing significant dread at this time.
Indeed, CoinMarketCaps Crypto Fear and Greed Index has now reached an all-time low. The index measures investor sentiment in the crypto market.
An index value of 80-100 indicates that investors are experiencing extreme greed, which often manifests as surging crypto prices. Meanwhile, 60-80 represents greed, 40-60 neutral, and 20-40 fear.
Today, the index has fallen to 5 on the scale, which puts it in the 0-20 range, which means investors are experiencing extreme fear.
A rating of 5 is an all-time low for the index, and is 50% lower than its previous all-time low of 10 during a crypto selloff in November 2025.
Where is the bottom for Bitcoin?
While no one can predict what Bitcoin or any asset will do in the future, what everyone wants to know now is whether Bitcoin has hit its floor or if things are going to get worse.
Crypto-watchers with more positive inclinations might point out that while Bitcoin fell to the $60,000 range in the past 24 hours, it did not fall through that barrier. And the coin has now recovered about 10% of its 24-hour low.
Bitcoin is currently trading at $66,378 at the time of this writing.
However, there are plenty of analysts who think Bitcoin may not have hit the bottom yet.
On February 1, Galaxy Asset Management sent a memo to investors warning that the token could trade in the $56,000 to $58,000 in the near term. Meanwhile, 10x Researchs CEO, Markus Thielen, today told CNBC International that Bitcoin could drop to as low as $50,000.
If thats the case, todays fall is far from the bottom for Bitcoin.
This Sunday will see the Seattle Seahawks face off against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX.
The game will also mark the conclusion of the tenth football season featuring Next Gen Stats, the analytics system that delivers detailed data about every game to coaches and broadcasters through a partnership with Amazon Web Services. Next Gen Stats began in 2015, when the National Football League deployed RFID chips in player shoulder pads and even in the football itself, enabling the league to capture location data multiple times per second through sensors installed throughout stadiums.
It has since become a mainstay of football broadcasts and training sessions, delivering granular insights to a sport that previously could track only a fraction of the complex movements of 22 players and the ball across the field.
Next Gen Stats is part of the vernacular now, says Julie Souza, AWSs global head of sports.
Bringing data to the gridiron
Behind the scenes, dozens of machine learning modelsthe same kinds of systems AWS offers to process business datatranslate the raw numbers generated by the sensors into understandable stats in real time. With the recent addition of 4K cameras to NFL venues, the system can now capture not just player position on the field but the precise position of shoulders, elbows, knees, and hands, generating 29 data points per player 60 times per second. That data is processed by in-stadium AWS servers in roughly 700 milliseconds, then sent to the cloud to feed machine learning models that run in under 100 milliseconds. The result is analytics delivered to broadcasters within about a second, shorter than the NFLs typical broadcast delay.
Announcers are equipped with dashboards that surface key stats, along with AI systems that allow them to ask natural-language questions based on new and historical data, Souza says, such as, When was the last time this particular play happened, or that you know, this metric was achieved? The data is also increasingly used to inform player coaching and off-the-field training, as well as rule changes designed to make the game safer.
AWS helped the NFL run thousands of simulated football seasons that informed the Dynamic Kickoff rule, introduced in the 2025 season. The change helped boost returned kickoffs while reducing the plays historically elevated concussion rate. Whats amazing about that is everything that we had modeled for them is what has panned out from the results, Souza says.
Analytic dashboards also help teams identify players at risk of injury, allowing coaching and training staffs to intervene before injuries occur. Those changes in play and training led to roughly 700 fewer missed games by players last season, she says.
More detailed stats can also help newer fans, including international audiences and younger viewers, understand the game more quickly. Richer player data has enabled new types of broadcasts as well, including animated versions of real games that appeal to families with children, and Amazon Prime Videos Prime Vision with Next Gen Stats stream of Thursday Night Football. Features tested in the Prime Vision stream, such as highlighting players likely to blitz the quarterback, have since made their way into the main broadcast.
You can do all of these different versions of broadcast to serve different and specific audiences, but it’s all coming from that same set of data, says Souza.
A different kind of bowl game
Next Gen Stats data is also used in the NFLs annual Big Data Bowl, an analytics competition that invites contestants to develop new use cases for the leagues vast trove of data, and in some cases leads to jobs with the NFL or individual teams. Souza, who has served as a judge in the competition, says new judging criteria are being added to evaluate how proposed analytics could be conveyed to fans during a broadcast. The shift reflects a broader recognition that even as sports become more driven by data, storytelling remains central.
Everything we’re talking about right now is the sciencethe science, and the engineering, and the analytics, and the rigor, and the math, she says. It only matters if the art is there, and the art is the storytelling.
Hello, and welcome back to Fast Companys Plugged In.
Programming, as it turns out, is just typing.
Talking at Ciscos AI Summit in San Francisco on February 3, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made that pithy observation to sum up the phenomenon of people using AI coding tools to simply describe in plain language software they want to exist, with an algorithm doing the heavy lifting. The comment came during a wild, wide-ranging riff on how AI is changing the world, and Huang kept joking that his chatter might have been influenced by several glasses of wine. (Hey, he was the after-dinner speaker.) But even if alcohol-fueled poetic license was involved, the sentiment captured the present moment.
The earliest evidence that AI could transform how people program computers came even before ChatGPTs arrival, dating to when GitHub released the first version of its Copilot in 2021. At that point, AI was autocompleting snippets of code for humans rather than generating software from scratch. The progress has been radical since then, reflected in the boom for coding agents such as Cursor, Windsurf, Replit, and the industrys current darling, Anthropics Claude Code. Along the way, the act of willing software into reality through AI got a name: vibe coding.
At the Cisco event, Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Andreessen Horowitz cofounder Marc Andreessen, and other Silicon Valley luminaries talked about the whole industry having arrived at a crucial juncture in the pivot to AI software generation. Anthropics chief product officer, Mike Krieger, whose boss, Dario Amodei, predicted last March that AI would be writing essentially all of the code within a year, suggested thats in the neighborhood of coming trueat least at Anthropic: Right now, for most products . . . it’s effectively 100%.
Along with potentially upending the entire tech industry, AIs ability to write programs could have a powerful democratizing effect on how the world uses technology. For the past few decades, most people who use computers have been wholly dependent on software written by trained professionals. What happens when that trained professional might be an algorithm, available to the masses to create whatever pops into their minds?
Ive been exploring that question since last March, when I used Replit to bring my dream note-taking app to life. The experience was amazing enough that I put up with Replits many rough edges, including its iffy debugging skills, repeated introduction of security flaws, and sycophantic tendency to tell me my ideas were pure genius. Since then, I have had better luck with new and improved versions of the service. Ive also dabbled with several other coding platforms with increasingly impressive results.
But Claude Code, which Ive been using recently to reimagine a game I wrote back in high school, is the most uncanny of them all. As a lark, I fed it my 1980s BASIC code, expecting it would have no clue what to do with something written in such an obsolete language. Instead, it roughed out a modern, web-native version in minutes. Since then, weClaude Code and Ihave been collaborating to improve the game and dress up its graphics.
I say we because it truly feels like were working as a team. Claude builds out my ideas without me having to spell them out in excruciating detail, and sometimes comes up with ones of its own. Its ability to understand what I want the game to do, and why, can feel like it borders on the clairvoyant. When Ive finished fooling around with the new versionsoonIll share it here so you can judge the results for yourself.
(Full disclosure: I had one bizarre issue with Claude Code. For a few days, it labored under the mistaken understanding that some of my requests were examples of prompt injectiona nefarious third party issuing commands meant to interfere with the projectand kept assuring me that it was ignoring them. Despite that, it continued to code up a storm. I asked Anthropic what was going on, but the company hasnt yet provided an explanation.)
Quirks and all, Im thoroughly enjoying making AI-generated software. But I do confess that its brought out my inner Edsger Dijkstra. A celebrated computer scientist and A.M. Turing Award winner, Dijkstra bristled at the notion that anyone should be able to create software. He maintained that proper programming required an especially deep understanding of mathematics. Mere mortals shouldnt even try.
In a 1975 essay, Dijkstra ripped into BASIC, the language I used to write the original version of my game. Created at Dartmouth in 1964 and initially intended for non-techie liberal arts majors, BASIC emphasized approachability over elegance. Instead of demanding too much from these neophytes, it was simple to learn and tolerated sloppy code. He hated it.
As someone who once programmed a fair amount but allowed my skills to atrophy, I am nagged by the fear that vibe coding is a form of cheating. It feels too easy. Im also bothered by the fact that I dont fully understand the code Claude wrote, and in fact have barely glanced at it. In short, I havent been entirely comfortable with the prospect of software becoming something that anyone can make.
Dijkstra, who died in 2002, isnt around to chime in on Claude Code or other forms of vibe coding. I cant imagine hed be thrilled with them, though. In many cases, their algorithms seem to settle for the most expedient approach to a job, resulting in software that may be less than optimal even if it gets the job done. I cheerfully admit to being unqualified to judge Claudes coding proficiency, but my high school programming buddy Charles, who went on to become a professional developer, took a peek and deemed some of its techniques cringe-worthy.
Legitimate reasons exist to be skittish about the quality of vibe-coded software, particularly on the security front. Last week, an app called Moltbooka social network for AI agents< .="" href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/01/ai-agents-now-have-their-own-reddit-style-social-network-and-its-getting-weird-fast/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">made quite a splash. According to security firm Wiz, it also left its database of user information vulnerable to leaks, due to a misconfigured server. Vibe coding may have been to blame.
My reluctance to be responsible for assuring other peoples privacy is the biggest reason why I havent shared any of the productivity apps Ive vibe coded for myself. Presumably, software companies with human engineers in the loopsuch as Nvidia and Anthropichave charged them with vetting the robustness of AIs handiwork. Its tough to imagine the day coming when that isnt essential.
Still, I am slowly getting around to the belief that vibe coding is not an alternative to coding, but a legitimate form of it. Even the most gifted programmer typically needs help translating their work into something a computer can understand. Most of them rely on high-level programming languages that break tasks into the reduced set of low-level instructions a processor performs natively.
Until now, those high-level languages have had names such as Python, JavaScript, Swift, and C++. Thanks to remarkable tools such as Claude Code, they can now have names like English. Im looking forward to seeing what happens once the floodgates break wide open.
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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Organizational leaders are witnessing a steep and unprecedented rise in employee healthcare costs that is eroding bottom-line profitability. According to data from the Business Group on Health, these costs are projected to rise by 9% this year, representing a 62% increase since 2017. To put it in perspective, this represents an incremental hit of nearly $1 million to the bottom line for a midsize organization of 500 people.
What CFOs are now confronting is a tipping point where the average total cost to insure an employee is nearing $20,000 annually. Notably, it is specifically mental health claims that are driving the spike. PwCs 2026 Medical Trend report shows that inpatient mental health claims have jumped a staggering 80% in the last 24 months.
For years, the corporate world has treated employee mental health as an imported problempersonal struggles that people bring with them into the workplace. But the evidence is now irrefutable that how employers manage their employees is having the greater impact and is often the leading driver of the strain. To be very clear, the way we work today has become a primary manufacturer of incremental stress, burnout, and mental health decline.
The Smoking Gun: Work is the Cause
Until now, the standard corporate response to employee mental health challenges has been to treat the symptoms rather than address the root causes. This means theyve offered workers resilience training, yoga and exercise classes, and sleep and meditation appsall band-aids on a structural wound.
The evidence shows that mental health strain is no longer an outlier and is the predictable outcome of employee expectations that exceed the human ability to recover and sustain high levels of productivity. According to the Mental Health America (MHA) data, 84% of workers identified at least one workplace factornot a personal onethat was actively harming their mental health.
This suggests that for the vast majority of people, the mental health crisis isnt bred at home; its being created at their desk. Here are three workplace leadership factors causing the most damage:
A Deliberate Lack Of Boundaries:With technology allowing people the ability to remain connected to work at all hours, the clear line between when employees workdays start and end has been entirely erased. Not wanting to forfeit productivity, organizations have so far resisted giving people this clarityand workplace managers too often exploit this by texting and e-mailing employees at odd hours and on weekends. Always being on and expected to respond prevents the human nervous system from ever truly recovering. People never get off the treadmill.
The Erosion of Human Connection: A focus on efficiencyand doing more with lessincreasingly means workplace leaders are stretched too thin to hold weekly check-in meetings with their teams. Companies are systematically replacing human-to-human coaching with AI systems, providing performance feedback via online dashboards and algorithmic scores. This is a biological disaster; it deprives the human nervous system of the context and connection required to feel safe. It also greatly undermines feelings of belonging, which is known to be the cornerstone of human well-being.
The Micromanagement Surge:
The rise of digital oversight is slowly creating a pervasive surveillance culture in our workplaces. In the 2024 American Psychological Associations, Work in America survey, 43% of employees reported feeling “monitored” at work in some way, and those who felt monitored were significantly more likely to report poor mental health. The lack of trust makes people feel incapable of doing the job they were hired to do and whittles away at their self-esteem. Furthermore, this lack of agency strips away their sense of control, which is another primary driver of human well-being.
The Managerial Squeeze
The primary source of employee stress isnt just their draining workloads, it is the person assigning them. The MHA report found that nearly 40% of employees explicitly name their manager as the top cause of their mental health issues.
This is further validated by Gallups 2025 State of the Global Workplace Report, which found that managers report higher levels of daily stress and burnout than the people they leada stress contagion that inevitably flows downward to their teams.
Its clear that when managers are run thin by layoffs and executive pressure, they often default to transactional and impersonal styles that make people feel devalued and tipped into survival mode. And, whenever human beings feel unsafethat their job is constantly on the linetheyre naturally more likely to break.
In the big picture, research shows many workers feel that their bosses are simply not there for them; they dont feel known and respected for who they are outside of work or valued for all they contribute. All of this means that workplace leaders have become stressors rather than stress relievers.
The Remedies: A Redirection Of Time And Intention
Facing both a financial and moral imperative to neutralize these stressors, organizations must now find the courage to sustainably pivotmoving away from whats effectively been wellness theater and toward structural changes explicitly known to elevate employee well-beingand help restore mental health:
Re-establish The On/Off Switch
Even if companies choose against establishing a one-size-fits-all remedy, workplace leaders should set explicit dark hours (e.g., 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.) for their own teams so people can rejuvenate. This will demand that leaders model and respect those boundaries and remove any stigma currently attached to not responding to messages after work. Nothing says people cant work beyond normal hours if they choose to. Its the expectation of always needing to be on that is the real pain point.
Foster Radical Belonging
Human beings aren’t built to handle pressure alone, and feeling connected to ones team is what supports resilience and personal thriving. Intentionally creating opportunities for employees to connect socially has become essential today. Leaders must also restore weekly check-ins (and coaching) with all direct reports and allow sufficient time to discuss each persons well-being before focusing on work goals and performance.
Look Out For People
What people need to flourish are feelings of psychological and emotional safety. So, leaders should ask themselves, Do my employees have work demnds they can reasonably meet? Am I available enough to them as a resource and sounding board? Do my actions demonstrate that I care about each person on and support them individually? Do people feel they have a voice in how their work gets done and in many of the decisions I make?
The Heart of the Matter
If were learning anything today, its that organizations cannot successfully scale productivity by subtracting humanity. The dramatic rise in healthcare costs and mental health claims reveals the illusion of this, and companies themselves are paying just as great a price as workers.
In the end, the most effective mental health support a company can offer is a manager who treats their people humanely.
Maybe youre not a hardcore football fan. Maybe youre looking forward to the ads and the halftime show more than the actual Super Bowl LX game. Youre not alonean estimated 40% of the more than 100 million U.S. Super Bowl audience consists of people who dont normally follow football.
But even if the names Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts dont ring any bells (the starting quarterbacks of last years Super Bowl contenders, the Kansas City Chiefs and the victorious Philadelphia Eagles), a quick overview of this years big game may come in handy this weekend.
Who’s playing
The Seattle Seahawks will face the New England Patriots in Santa Claras Levis Stadium on Sunday, February 8, on NBC. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 pm ET.
No, you’re not experiencing déj vu
These two teams played in Super Bowl XLIX eleven years ago, with the Patriots winning 28-24 in what was, at the time, the biggest Super Bowl 4th quarter comeback ever. Tom Brady led two touchdown drives to bring New England from 10 points down to take the lead, and Russell Wilson threw an interception to little-known Malcolm Butler on the goal line with less than 30 seconds left, sealing the Patriots fourth Super Bowl.
Who are Super Bowl LX’s QB’s?
New England is led by second year sensation Drake Maye, Seattle by Sam Darnold.
Some key facts on Maye:
He was the third overall draft choice in 2024 out of North Carolina.
Just 23, Maye is set to become the second youngest quarterback to start a Super Bowl at 23 years and 162 days. (Dan Marino was just 23 years and 127 days when he started at QB for the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl XIX following the 1984 season.)
Mayes brother Luke was a star player for the Tar Heels basketball team.
In his second NFL season, Maye led the NFL in completion percentage, yards per pass attempt, passer rating, and various advanced metrics. He finished second in MVP voting (behind Matthew Stafford, quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams).
Key facts on Darnold:
At 28, Darnold is already playing for his fifth NFL team. He was considered a draft bust after flaming out with the New York Jets, who selected him third overall in the 2018 draft, and then struggling with the Carolina Panthers. He was a backup for San Francisco in 2023.
Darnold became the starter at Minnesota in 2024 after rookie J.J. McCarthy suffered a season-ending injury and led the team to the playoffs.
Darnold has been stellar for the Seahawks this year, including playing arguably his best game in the NFL in the NFC Championship win over the Rams, sealing a trip to Super Bowl LX for Seattle.
Key facts about the two head coaches
Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel has the chance to become the first person to win a Super Bowl as both player and head coach for the same franchise. Hes in his first season with the team, and orchestrated a turnaround from eight combined wins over the last two seasons to a 14-3 regular season and a trip to the Super Bowl. Vrabel was a star linebacker for New England during the first decade of the Brady-Belichick era, and participated in three Super Bowl championships. The NFL Coach of the Year as head coach of the Tennessee Titans in 2021, Vrabel was let go after 2023.
Mike Macdonald is in his second season as head coach of the Seahawks. Just 38, he has the chance to be one of the youngest coaches to win the Big Game if his team comes out on top in Super Bowl LX. Regarded as a defensive savant, he was a longtime assistant for John Harbaugh with the Ravens, and also spent a season as Jim Harbaughs defensive coordinator at the University of Michigan. He then went back to the Ravens as their defensive coordinator before earning the head coaching job in Seattle.
Other star players in the game
Patriots veteran wide receiver Stefon Diggs has made four Pro Bowls in his career, all with New Englands division rival, the Buffalo Bills. He is perhaps most well-known for catching the Minneapolis Miracle to defeat the New Orleans Saints as a member of the Vikings in the 2018 NFL Playoffs. Diggs is currently in a romantic relationship with rapper Cardi B. The two welcomed a baby boy in November 2025. Diggs is also facing felony strangulation and misdemeanor assault charges stemming from an incident with his former private chef in December.
On the defensive side of the ball, New Englands stars are defensive tackles Milton Williamsa big money free agent signing from last years Super Bowl champion Eaglesand Christian Barmorewho like Diggs is also currently facing assault chargesas well as third year cornerback Christian Gonzaleza two-time All-Pro who intercepted Jarrett Stidhams pass in the AFC Championship game to all but seal the win.
Seattle wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba led the NFL in receiving yards this season as a 23-year-old. He burst onto the scene as part of a stacked Ohio State team a few years before entering the league. Hes flanked by Super Bowl LVI MVP Cooper Kupp, who left the Rams after eight seasons last offseason to join the Seahawks.
The Seahawks have the leagues top scoring defense, allowing opponents just 17.2 points per game. The lineup features three second team All-Pro selections. Linebacker Ernest Jones, veteran defensive tackle Leonard Williams, and young superstar cornerback Devon Witherspoon all received those honors from the league, while 33-year-old defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence is also having a career resurgence, making the Pro Bowl.
Who owns the teams?
Under Robert Krafts ownership, the Patriots have been the most successful team in the NFL. A former season-ticket holder, Kraft bought the team, kept it in New England amidst challenges to move the franchise, and oversaw the entirety of the Brady-Belichick dynasty. This is the 12th Super Bowl appearance for the Patriots under Krafts ownership. The teams Big Game record going into SB LX is 6-5.
Micrsoft co-founder Paul Allens sister, Jody Allen, has been the de facto owner of the Seahawks since Pauls death in 2018. Reports emerged last week that Allen is looking to sell the team after the Super Bowl, but the ownership group refuted those reports.
Why people are talking about the announcer
One of his generations most popular announcers, 59-year-old Mike Tirico will make his Super Bowl play-by-play debut. He has hosted Super Bowl pregame and postgame coverage, as well as serving as NBCs Olympics host, but will have his first opportunity to call the Big Game on Sunday. Former NFL wide receiver Cris Collinsworth is no stranger to calling the Super Bowl, as hell have his sixth opportunity to do Super Bowl color commentary.
What about halftime?
Fresh off his Album of the Year Grammy win, international sensation Bad Bunny will perform at halftime. Selection of the 31-year-old native Puerto Rican sparked some controversy within the MAGA crowd as he’s a vocal opponent of Donald Trump and performs in Spanish. He has nearly 84 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
Who is favored to win?
The Seahawks are approximately 4.5 point favorites, meaning that sportsbooks expect Seattle to win by four or five points. For a modern Super Bowl, thats a fairly big line. Nobody has been favored by more than that in a Super Bowl in over a decade, per Sportsoddshistory.com.
What’s at stake?
If Seattle wins, it will be the franchises second Super Bowl, and will avenge the loss in Super Bowl XLIX back in 2015, when the Patriots denied the Seahawks from winning two in a row. For New England, a win would mean an NFL record seventh Super Bowl, all coming within the last 25 years.
It looks like a standard shipping container. But a metal box at a London factory is aimed at solving one of the shipping industrys biggest challenges: how to cut CO2 emissions on cargo ships.
The tech, from a startup called Seabound, can capture as much as 95% of the CO2 emissions from the exhaust on ship. The company is now preparing to install a set of the containers on a cargo ship in its first commercial deployment after years of development and pilot tests.
[Photo: Seabound]
The shipping industry is one of the last hard-to-abate sectors, says 30-year-old CEO Alisha Fredriksson, who cofounded the company in 2021 after working as a consultant and seeing the need for a new solution in the space. Clean fuels like green methanol and green ammonia exist, but only in limited amounts. Were still in very scarce supply of these fuels, and they’re projected to be 2-3x more expensive than the conventional fuels, she says. And the industry faces competition from other industries that can typically pay more for them.
Cargo ships also last for decades, and ships in use now cant easily switch to new fuels. As the industry slowly transitionsand in some cases begins to use other low-emission technology like wind powerthe startup is working on the pollution problem of the tens of thousands of ships that are already on the ocean. Cargo ships emitted 973 million metric tons of CO2 in 2024, around 2.5% of global emissions.
[Photo: Seabound]
Turning ship pollution into solid rock
Inside the companys modular containers, there are millions of marble-size pellets of calcium hydroxide, also known as lime. The box sits near the engine and connects to the ships exhaust. As the exhaust flows through the lime, the CO2 reacts with the material to make limestone. Each pellet slightly changes color, from white to off-white, as it captures carbon and soot from the exhaust. One container can capture roughly a days worth of pollution as the ship travels, and to cover a full route, multiple modules are connected together.
[Photo: Seabound]
Once the ship reaches port, a standard crane offloads the containers of calcium carbonate, effectively a fancy box of rocks, says Fredriksson. The limestone can be sold as a building material. Or, the company can reverse the reactionpulling the CO2 back outso that it can be sequestered or used to make fuels or chemicals. In that scenario, the lime can be loaded back into the containers and sent back onto a ship to capture more CO2.
Seabound’s first customer, Heidelberg Materials, will begin using the tech on a cement ship later this year. As the ship travels along the coast of Norway, the containers will capture CO2. Then the company will use the limestone in its kiln to make cement. (Heidelberg’s kilns also capture CO2, some of which will be permanently stored.)
The startup’s basic carbon capture process, called calcium looping, is also in use by some direct air capture companies like Heirloom, which uses trays of crushed rocks to pull CO2 from the atmosphere. But by hooking up directly to an exhaust pipe, Seabound can capture CO2 more efficiently. Waste heat from the ships engines also helps the process work faster.
Unlike expensive carbon capture technology at industrial facilities, the technology is simple enough that it can be relatively low-cost when it scales up, Fredriksson says. The company has calculated that it can also be one to two orders of magnitude cheaper than some other technology in development for carbon capture on ships.
The total process does create some emissions before it’s in use, as the lime is made and transported. But Seabound plans to work with lower-carbon “green lime.” Initially, though the tech can capture 95% of the CO2 as it comes from the exhaust stack, the total capture efficiency of the whole process will be closer to 80%. Over time, it’s feasible for the process to cut emissions by 90%.
[Photo: Seabound]
Cleaning up today’s ships
The startup, which has raised around 8.5 million ($11.6 million) in combined equity and grat funding from shipping companies and climate tech VCs, is working first with customers in Europe, where strict regulations are pushing the industry to quickly cut emissions. In the European Union, shipping is now fully subject to the EU’s emissions trading scheme, and a separate policy is ramping up fines for the emissions from fuel burned by ships. Shipping companies are also facing pressure from large customers, like Ikea, that have ambitious climate targets.
Seabound plans to focus on shorter routes that stay within Europe, setting up operations at the ports where ships refuel. Later, it plans to expand to Asia. Though global policy progess was delayed in 2025, after the International Maritime Organization postponed a planned global carbon price for shipping under pressure from the Trump administration, the IMO will be reconsidering the proposal later this year.
There are around 60,000 cargo ships in use now globally. Adding the tech to all of them would obviously be a heavy lift, though the industry has made other changes in the past, including adding sulfur scrubbers that capture other pollution.
There’s an argument that the new technology poses a moral hazardcompanies might be slower to adopt zero-emission tech if they can use CO capture instead. But Fredriksson says that given the slow pace of alternative fuels and other solutions, carbon capture is necessary.
“We started Seabound about four years ago now,” she says. “I think the future fuels feel just as far into the future as they did when I started the company.” If alternative fuels do become widely available, she says, the carbon capture tech could still be used to capture that exhaust. “Then we could do carbon negative shipping,” she says.
