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Pope Francis, historys first Latin American pontiff who charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor but alienated conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change, died Monday. He was 88. Bells tolled in church towers across Rome after the announcement, which was read out by Cardinal Kevin Ferrell, the Vatican camerlengo, from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, where Francis lived. At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church, Ferrell said. Francis, who suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on February 14, 2025, for a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia. He spent 38 days there, the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy. But he emerged on Easter Sundayhis last public appearance, a day before his deathto bless thousands of people in St. Peters Square and treat them to a surprise popemobile romp through the piazza, drawing wild cheers and applause. Beforehand, he met briefly with U.S. Vice President JD Vance. Francis performed the blessing from the same loggia where he was introduced to the world on March 13, 2013 as the 266th pope. From his first greeting that nighta remarkably normal Buonasera (Good evening)to his embrace of refugees and the downtrodden, Francis signaled a very different tone for the papacy, stressing humility over hubris for a Catholic Church beset by scandal and accusations of indifference. After that rainy night, the Argentine-born Jorge Mario Bergoglio brought a breath of fresh air into a 2,000-year-old institution that had seen its influence wane during the troubled tenure of Pope Benedict XVI, whose surprise resignation led to Francis election. But Francis soon invited troubles of his own, and conservatives grew increasingly upset with his progressive bent, outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics and crackdown on traditionalists. His greatest test came in 2018 when he botched a notorious case of clergy sexual abuse in Chile, and the scandal that festered under his predecessors erupted anew on his watch. And then Francis, the crowd-loving, globe-trotting pope of the peripheries, navigated the unprecedented reality of leading a universal religion through the coronavirus pandemic from a locked-down Vatican City. He implored the world to use COVID-19 as an opportunity to rethink the economic and political framework that he said had turned rich against poor. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, Francis told an empty St. Peters Square in March 2020. But he also stressed the pandemic showed the need for all of us to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. At the Vatican on Monday, the mood was a mix of somber quiet among people who knew and worked for Francis, and the typical buzz of tourists visiting St. Peters Square on the day after Easter. While many initially didn’t know the news, some sensed something happening given the swarms of television crews. The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, wiped tears from his eyes as he met with journalists in the press room. The death now sets off a weekslong process of allowing the faithful to pay their final respects, first for Vatican officials in the Santa Marta chapel and then in St. Peters for the general public, followed by a funeral and a conclave to elect a new pope. Reforming the Vatican Francis was elected on a mandate to reform the Vatican bureaucracy and finances but went further in shaking up the church without changing its core doctrine. Who am I to judge? he replied when asked about a purportedly gay priest. The comment sent a message of welcome to the LGBTQ+ community and those who felt shunned by a church that had stressed sexual propriety over unconditional love. Being homosexual is not a crime, he told the Associated Press in 2023, urging an end to civil laws that criminalize it. Stressing mercy, Francis changed the churchs position on the death penalty, calling it inadmissible in all circumstances. He also declared the possession of nuclear weapons, not just their use, was immoral. In other firsts, he approved an agreement with China over bishop nominations that had vexed the Vatican for decades, met the Russian patriarch, and charted new relations with the Muslim world by visiting the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq. He reaffirmed the all-male, celibate priesthood and upheld the churchs opposition to abortion, equating it to hiring a hit man to solve a problem. Roles for women But he added women to important decision-making roles and allowed them to serve as lectors and acolytes in parishes. He let women vote alongside bishops in periodic Vatican meetings, following long-standing complaints that women do much of the churchs work but are barred from power. Sister Nathalie Becquart, whom Francis named to one of the highest Vatican jobs, said his legacy was a vision of a church where men and women existed in a relationship of reciprocity and respect. It was about shifting a pattern of dominationfrom human being to the creation, from men to womento a pattern of cooperation, said Becquart, the first woman to hold a voting position in a Vatican synod. The church as refuge While Francis did not allow women to be ordained, the voting reform was part of a revolutionary change in emphasizing what the church should be: a refuge for everyonetodos, todos, todos (everyone, everyone, everyone)not for the privileged few. Migrants, the poor, prisoners and outcasts were invited to his table far more than presidents or powerful CEOs. For Pope Francis, it was always to extend the arms of the church to embrace all people, not to exclude anyone, said Farrell, the camerlengo, taking charge after a pontiffs death or retirement. Francis demanded his bishops apply mercy and charity to their flocks, pressed the world to protect Gods creation from climate disaster, and challenged countries to welcome those fleeing war, poverty, and oppression. After visiting Mexico in 2016, Francis said of then-U.S. presidential canidate Donald Trump that anyone building a wall to keep migrants out is not Christian. While progressives were thrilled with Francis radical focus on Jesus message of mercy and inclusion, it troubled conservatives who feared he watered down Catholic teaching and threatened the very Christian identity of the West. Some even called him a heretic. A few cardinals openly challenged him. Francis usually responded with his typical answer to conflict: silence. He made it easier for married Catholics to get an annulment, allowed priests to absolve women who had had abortions and decreed that priests could bless same-sex couples. He opened debate on issues like homosexuality and divorce, giving pastors wiggle room to discern how to accompany their flocks, rather than handing them strict rules to apply. St. Francis of Assisi as a model Francis lived in the Vatican hotel instead of the Apostolic Palace, wore his old orthotic shoes and not the red loafers of the papacy, and rode in compact cars. It wasnt a gimmick. I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful, he told a Jesuit journal in 2013. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. If becoming the first Latin American and first Jesuit pope wasnt enough, Francis was also the first to name himself after St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th century friar known for personal simplicity, a message of peace, and care for nature and societys outcasts. Francis sought out the unemployed, the sick, the disabled and the homeless. He formally apologized to Indigenous peoples for the crimes of the church from colonial times onward. And he himself suffered: He had part of his colon removed in 2021, then needed more surgery in 2023 to repair a painful hernia and remove intestinal scar tissue. Starting in 2022 he regularly used a wheelchair or cane because of bad knees, and endured bouts of bronchitis. He went to societys fringes to minister with mercy: caressing the grossly deformed head of a man in St. Peters Square, kissing the tattoo of a Holocaust survivor, or inviting Argentinas garbage scavengers to join him onstage in Rio de Janeiro. We have always been marginalized, but Pope Francis always helped us, said Coqui Vargas, a transgender woman whose Roman community forged a unique relationship with Francis during the pandemic. His first trip as pope was to the island of Lampedusa, then the epicenter of Europes migration crisis. He consistently chose to visit poor countries where Christians were often persecuted minorities, rather than the centers of global Catholicism. Friend and fellow Argentine, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, said his concern for the poor and disenfranchised was based on the Beatitudesthe eight blessings Jesus delivered in the Sermon on the Mount for the meek, the merciful, the poor in spirit and others. Why are the Beatitudes the program of this pontificate? Because they were the basis of Jesus Christs own program, Sánchez said. Missteps on sexual abuse scandal But more than a year passed before Francis met with survivors of priestly sexual abuse, and victims groups initially questioned whether he really understood the scope of the problem. Francis did create a sex abuse commission to advise the church on best practices, but it lost its influence after a few years and its recommendation of a tribunal to judge bishops who covered up for predator priests went nowhere. And then came the greatest crisis of his papacy, when he discredited Chilean abuse victims in 2018 and stood by a controversial bishop linked to their abuser. Realizing his error, Francis invited the victims to the Vatican for a personal mea culpa and summoned the leadership of the Chilean church to resign en masse. As that crisis concluded, a new one erupted over ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington and a counselor to three popes. Francis had actually moved swiftly to sideline McCarrick amid an accusation he had molested a teenage altar boy in the 1970s. But Francis nevertheless was accused by the Vaticans one-time U.S. ambassador of having rehabilitated McCarrick early in his papacy. Francis eventually defrocked McCarrick after a Vatican investigation determined he sexually abused adults as well as minors. He changed church law to remove the pontifical secret surrounding abuse cases and enacted procedures to investigate bishops who abused or covered for their pedophile priests, seeking to end impunity for the hierarchy. He sincerely wanted to do something and he transmitted that, said Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean abuse survivor Francis discredited who later developed a close friendship with the pontiff. A change from Benedict The road to Francis 2013 election was paved by Pope Benedict XVIs decision to resign and retirethe first in 600 yearsand it created the unprecedented reality of two popes living in the Vatican. Francis didnt shy from Benedicts potentially uncomfortable shadow. He embraced him as an elder statesman and adviser, coaxing him out of his cloistered retirement to participate in the public life of the church. Its like having your grandfather in the house, a wise grandfather, Francis said. Francis praised Benedict by saying he opened the door to others following suit, fueling speculation that Francis also might retire. But after Benedicts death on Dec. 31, 2022, he asserted that in principle the papacy is a job for life. Francis looser liturgical style and pastoral priorities made clear he and the German-born theologian came from very different religious traditions, and Francis directly overturned several decisions of his predecessor. He made sure Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero, a hero to the liberation theology movement in Latin America, was canonized after his case languished under Benedict over concerns about the credos Marxist bent. Francis reimposed restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass that Benedict had relaxed, arguing the spread of the Tridentine Rite was divisive. The move riled Francis traditionalist critics and opened sustained conflict between right-wing Catholics, particularly in the U.S., and the Argentine pope. Conservatives oppose Francis By then, conservatives had already turned away from Francis, betrayed after he opened debate on allowing remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments if they didnt get an annulmenta church ruling that their first marriage was invalid. We dont like this pope, headlined Italys conservative daily Il Foglio a few months into the papacy, reflecting the unease of the small but vocal traditionalist Catholic movement that was coddled under Benedict. Those same critics amplified their complaints after Francis approved church blessings for same-sex couples, and a controversial accord with China over nominating bishops. Its details were never released, but conservative critics bashed it as a sellout to communist China, while the Vatican defended it as the best deal it could get with Beijing. U.S. Cardina Raymond Burke, a figurehead in the anti-Francis opposition, said the church had become like a ship without a rudder. Burke waged his opposition campaign for years, starting when Francis fired him as the Vaticans supreme court justice and culminating with his vocal opposition to Francis 2023 synod on the churchs future. Twice, he joined other conservative cardinals in formally asking Francis to explain himself on doctrine issues reflecting a more progressive bent, including on the possibility of same-sex blessings and his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics. Francis eventually sanctioned Burke financially, accusing him of sowing disunity. It was one of several personnel moves he made in both the Vatican and around the world to shift the balance of power from doctrinaire leaders to more pastoral ones. Francis insisted his bishops and cardinals imbue themselves with the odor of their flock and minister to the faithful, voicing displeasure when they didnt. His 2014 Christmas address to the Vatican Curia was one of the greatest public papal reprimands ever: Standing in the marbled Apostolic Palace, Francis ticked off 15 ailments that he said can afflict his closest collaborators, including spiritual Alzheimers, lusting for power and the terrorism of gossip. Trying to eliminate corruption, Francis oversaw the reform of the scandal-marred Vatican bank and sought to wrestle Vatican bureaucrats into financial line, limiting their compensation and ability to receive gifts or award public contracts. He authorized Vatican police to raid his own secretariat of state and the Vaticans financial watchdog agency amid suspicions about a 350 million euro investment in a London real estate venture. After a 2 1/2-year trial, the Vatican tribunal convicted a once-powerful cardinal, Angelo Becciu, of embezzlement and returned mixed verdicts to nine others, acquitting one. The trial, though, proved to be a reputational boomerang for the Holy See, showing deficiencies in the Vaticans legal system, unseemly turf battles among monsignors, and how the pope had intervened on behalf of prosecutors. While earning praise for trying to turn the Vaticans finances around, Francis angered U.S. conservatives for his frequent excoriation of the global financial market that favors the rich over the poor. Economic justice was an important themes of his papacy, and he didnt hide it in his first meeting with journalists when he said he wanted a poor church that is for the poor. In his first major teaching document, The Joy of the Gospel, Francis denounced trickle-down economic theories as unproven and naive, based on a mentality where the powerful feed upon the powerless with no regard for ethics, the environment or even God. Money must serve, not rule! he said in urging political reforms. He elaborated on that in his major eco-encyclical Praised Be, denouncing the structurally perverse global economic system that he said exploited the poor and risked turning Earth into an immense pile of filth. Some U.S. conservatives branded Francis a Marxist. He jabbed back by saying he had many friends who were Marxists. Soccer, opera and prayer Born Dec. 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was the eldest of five children of Italian immigrants. He credited his devout grandmother Rosa with teaching him how to pray. Weekends were spent listening to opera on the radio, going to Mass and attending matches of the familys beloved San Lorenzo soccer club. As pope, his love of soccer brought him a huge collection of jerseys from visitors. He said he received his religious calling at 17 while going to confession, recounting in a 2010 biography that, I dont know what it was, but it changed my life. . . . I realized that they were waiting for me. He entered the diocesan seminary but switched to the Jesuit order in 1958, attracted to its missionary tradition and militancy. Around this time, he suffered from pneumonia, which led to the removal of the upper part of his right lung. His frail health prevented him from becoming a missionary, and his less-than-robust lung capacity was perhaps responsible for his whisper of a voice and reluctance to sing at Mass. On Dec. 13, 1969, he was ordained a priest, and immediately began teaching. In 1973, he was named head of the Jesuits in Argentina, an appointment he later acknowledged was crazy given he was only 36. My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative, he admitted in his Civilta Cattolica interview. Life under Argentinas dictatorship His six-year tenure as provincial coincided with Argentinas murderous 1976-83 dictatorship, when the military launched a campaign against left-wing guerrillas and other regime opponents. Bergoglio didnt publicly confront the junta and was accused of effectively allowing two slum priests to be kidnapped and tortured by not publicly endorsing their work. He refused for decades to counter that version of events. Only in a 2010 authorized biography did he finally recount the behind-the-scenes lengths he used to save them, persuading the family priest of feared dictator Jorge Videla to call in sick so he could say Mass instead. Once in the junta leaders home, Bergoglio privately appealed for mercy. Both priests were eventually released, among the few to have survived prison. As pope, accounts began to emerge of the many peoplepriests, seminarians, and political dissidentswhom Bergoglio actually saved during the dirty war, letting them stay incognito at the seminary or helping them escape the country. Bergoglio went to Germany in 1986 to research a never-finished thesis. Returning to Argentina, he was stationed in Cordoba during a period he described as a time of great interior crisis. Out of favor with more progressive Jesuit leaders, he was eventually rescued from obscurity in 1992 by St. John Paul II, who named him an auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires. He became archbishop six years later, and was made a cardinal in 2001. He came close to becoming pope in 2005 when Benedict was elected, gaining the second-most votes in several rounds of balloting before bowing out. By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press ___ Associated Press writer Colleen Barry contributed from Milan. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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Behind the curtain of generative AI breakthroughs and GPU hype, a quieter transformation is taking place. Data center architecture and its prowess have become a fierce battleground as AI models expand in size and demand ever-greater compute power. Today, AIs performance, scalability and cost are all tied to the choice of network fabric. Broadcom, once known for its dominance in networking and semiconductors, is back on the rise as one of the most consequential players in AIs infrastructure revolution. Theres a shift happening in the market. Today, real AI innovation isnt just limited to models or the infrastructureits in what connects them, Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager of Broadcoms Core Switching Group, told Fast Company during the NTT Upgrade 2025 event. AI is not just about GPUs or compute anymore. Its about how data moves, power is managed, and how systems scale. Founded in 1991 as Broadcom Corporation, Broadcom began as a semiconductor company focused on wireless and broadband communication, operating from a modest Los Angeles garage. A major turning point occurred in 2015 when Avago Technologies acquired Broadcom for $37 billion, leading to Broadcom’s transformation into a global semiconductor and infrastructure technology leader. Avagos origins trace back to HP’s semiconductor division, linking Broadcoms current parent company to HPs semiconductor legacy. Through strategic acquisitions, including ServerWorks in 2001 and VMware in 2023, Broadcom expanded its reach, especially in the data center space. Its influence is vast, yet often underestimated. The companys reputation is driven by high-speed Ethernet chips like the Tomahawk series, which are crucial for high-bandwidth networking within data architectures. Now, the 60-year-old semiconductor giant isnt chasing headlines with ChatGPT-style theatrics. Instead, its embracing a less flashy but more foundational role: building the infrastructure for AI developers to scale the technology. Velaga and his team are quietly helping tech giants and hyperscalers (large-scale cloud service providers that offer extensive computing resources) rethink the architecture of their data centers through deeply integrated systemscodesigned chips, bespoke interconnects, and a commitment to Ethernet, even as others in the industry begin to move on. Currently, Nvidia dominates the data center network market with its GPU and Ethernet-integrated data center network platforms like Spectrum-X, which promise to drive AI training to new heights. As of 2025, Nvidia commands an estimated 25% share of the entire data center segment, and a dominant 98% share in data center GPU shipments. However, according to Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, the companys strength in custom AI processors and Ethernet networking products is fueling its growth. Broadcom expects to capture a significant portion of the expanding market, projecting its serviceable addressable market (SAM) for AI processors and networking chips to reach $6090 billion by fiscal 2027, given the company maintains its current market share of approximately 55% to 70% in the AI chip segment. While Nvidia offers both InfiniBand and Ethernet in its data center portfolio, Broadcoms Velaga contends that Ethernet is poised to become the backbone of tomorrows AI infrastructure, and the company is investing heavily to innovate the technology further. Were seeing hyperscalers including Meta and others, really leaning into Ethernet for AI infrastructure. Unlike alternatives like Infiniband, Ethernet is inherently designed to handle data failures, recalibrate quickly, and maintain performance for AI models even under real-world conditions like heat and congestion, Velaga told Fast Company during the event. Ethernet is built for all these use cases, and beats infiniband. What is Ethernet and Why Now? Ethernet is a foundational networking technology that enables wired communication between devices in data centers. It transmits data through physical cables like twisted pair or fiber optics, connecting servers, storage, and networking equipment. In modern data centers, Ethernet link speeds have scaled from 1 Gbps to 400 Gbpswith 800 Gbps already on the horizon, to handle the massive data throughput demanded by AI workloads. Moreover, the technology facilitates high-speed data transfer between GPUs and storage, enabling efficient AI training and the creation of distributed GPU clusters. Broadcoms argument is simple: Ethernet, the backbone of the internet for decades, is finally ready for its AI prime time. Ethernets openness, flexibility, and multivendor support give tech giants like Meta and Google the freedom to innovate without being boxed in by a proprietary stack. Ethernet lets you scale horizontally across thousands of GPUs. Copper has always been the cheaper and more reliable option compared to optics. For a while, people tried cramming as many racks as possible into data centers utilizing copper networking, but that approach just isnt sustainable, Velaga said. Now, were seeing a shift toward optics to meet higher power and bandwidth demands. Now, with our current and upcoming chipsets that integrate copackaged photonics, were very well positioned for helping enterprises with future workloads. Another alternative, InfiniBand designed for environments that demand ultrafast data transfer and minimal latencysuch as HPC clusters and advanced data centers. Known for its high throughput (up to 400 Gbps) and ultralow latency (as low as one microsecond), its currently a popular choice for mission-critical workloads requiring rapid, reliable communication. However, InfiniBand operates on the assumption of a flawless environmentand according to Velaga, thats precisely the problem. He explained that modern data centers and GPU clusters exist in far-from-perfect conditions. As organizations scale their AI infrastructure, they quickly run into challenges like heat, signal degradation, and system noise. In the real world, systems arent perfect, he said. Theres noise, heat, jitter. InfiniBand assumes everything is lossless. Ethernet was built to deal with reality. Tomahawk5 vs. Spectrum-X: A Battle of Philosophies NVIDIAs SpectrumX isnt just Ethernetits NVIDIAs customized version of it. The company markets SpectrumX as a purpose-built platform for AI, combining proprietary clustering with claimed performance and efficiency gains: 1.61.7 times higher network throughput, 2.5 times better bandwidth for collective operations, and 1.7 times improved power-performance, leading to a lower total cost of ownership for distributed AI training. By April 2025, SpectrumX had been adopted by major tech players including Dell, HPE, Lenovo, and leading hyperscalers. But Velaga argues that real flexibility and reliability come from open-standard Ethernet, where any GPU can plug in without locking users into a single vendors ecosystem. NVIDIAs market approach, he says, is contradictory to Ethernets core principles: openness, interoperability, and customer choice. When someone says their Ethernet is better than others, they probably dont fully understand what Ethernet is, he asserts. The beauty ofEthernet is you can connect any GPU from any vendor using our switches, and it just works. Thats interoperability. Solutions that lock you into one vendors world are not scalable. Currently, Broadcoms main competitors to Nvidias Spectrum-X are its Tomahawk5 and Jericho3-AI switch ASICs. Tomahawk5 is a high-throughput Ethernet switch designed for hyperscale and AI data centers, featuring advanced congestion management to reduce latency and supporting interoperability with any vendors data center infrastructure, helping customers avoid vendor lock-in. Likewise, Jericho3-AI is purpose-built for AI and machine learning workloads, enabling near-lossless Ethernet performance across large-scale clusters, similar to the performance claims made by Nvidias Spectrum-X. Id challenge NVIDIA and others any day on both interoperability and performance. Broadcoms Ethernet offerings are miles ahead of Spectrum-X or any proprietary offerings out there, Velaga told Fast Company. Strategic Partnerships and Silicon Ambitions Amidst the Rise of AI Broadcom is creating custom silicon for AI leaders like Alphabet, Meta, OpenAI, and Apple, designing ASIC chips tailored to optimize bandwidth, memory efficiency, and power draw for AI workloads in data centers and AI architectures. The company also provides key technologies such as high-bandwidth Ethernet switches, PCIe connectivity, and optical interconnects, all essential for scaling AI clusters. Velaga emphasized that these innovations enable clients to achieve superior data movement, processing speed, and energy efficiency, far surpassing off-the-shelf solutions. Our goal is to help customers differentiate themselves, Velaga said. We provide the tools they need to build what works best for themwithout dictating the approach. They want flexible, cost-effective networking solutions to optimize their data centers and accelerators. With our Ethernet portfolio, ASICs, and silicon innovations, we are empowering large-scale GPU clusters to perform efficiently and at scale, essential for advancing AI. He added that Broadcom’s flexible approach positions the company as a key collaborative partner, an advantage likely to grow as AI infrastructure evolves. Despite his confidence, Velaga admits there are risks. AI investment is surging now, but what if the momentum stalls? Everyones asking how long this wave will last. From my perspective, it feels like a real paradigm shift, he said. LLMs are changing how companies analyze data, make decisions, and engage with customers. Theres a lot at stake in this cycle. What keeps him up at night isnt hypeits execution. We have to keep delivering innovation and scale so our customers stay confident in Broadcoms ecosystem. And so far, the signals are strong. Our customers arent pulling back, theyre doubling down. Were ready to lead. Whether the boom continues or levels off, Broadcom is betting that the demand for fast, open data movement will only intensify. If Velagas vision is right, tomorrows AI data centers will be stitched together with open Ethernet, copackaged optics, and modular designs. We want to be the connective tissue of AI, he said. Its not the flashy partbut its the part that makes everything else work.
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Instagram has begun testing AI-powered technology designed to proactively identify accounts it suspects belong to teenseven if the user has listed an adult birthdateand place them under special “Teen Account” settings. This move is part of Metas broader effort to strengthen parental controls following criticism over the impact its platforms have on young users. “The digital world continues to evolve and we have to evolve with it,” Instagram said in a press release. “Thats why it’s important that we work together with parents to make sure as many teens as possible have the protective settings that come with Teen Account.” Instagram will also begin sending notifications to parents, offering guidance on how to talk to teens about “the importance of providing the correct age online.” The company noted it collaborated with experts, including a pediatric psychologist, to develop the advice. Teen-focused accounts, introduced by Instagram last year, come with built-in restrictions on who can contact teens, what content they can see, and limits on their time spent on the app. These changes come after 41 states and Washington, D.C., filed lawsuits against Meta in 2023, alleging that the company knowingly designed features on Facebook and Instagram that could harm teens and other young users. So far, the company reports it has enrolled at least 54 million teens into its teen account settings.
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A typical electric bike starts at $1,000and can top $10,000 or more. Even a cheap, low-quality model might cost $500. But a new attachment is designed to turn any bike into an e-bike for as little as $100. Clip, a Brooklyn-based startup, initially launched a higher-end version of the tech a few years ago, focused on commuters in the U.S. and Europe. Somnath Ray, one of the companys cofounders, had started riding his bike a couple of miles each day to work, and realized that switching to an e-bike would make him more likely to keep up the habit. But it wasnt safe to leave an expensive e-bike parked on the street. He also didnt want to get rid of the bicycle he already owned. The idea was: What if we could have something we could attach to the bike without any tools, within seconds? he says. When you get to work, youd carry the attachment inside. On the weekends, you could leave it off and ride your bike without it. [Photo: Clip] The Clip, with versions that now cost $499 and $599, is cheaper than most electric bikes. But the company wanted to make another option that was even more affordable. The new tech, called the Bolt, is aimed at global markets including India and consumers who otherwise likely couldn’t buy an e-bike. We want to make it really affordable for people who essentially use the bicycle as a lifeline, says Ray. Both Clip and Bolt use the same basic architecture: a friction-drive motor that attaches to the front wheel of a bike, with a roller that pushes the wheel to help boost your speed up hills or around cars. Pushing a button attached to your handlebars activates the extra power. But while Clip is designed to quickly go on and come off, Bolt stays in place. Only Bolts battery gets lifted out so it can be taken inside to charge (the battery charges within 30 minutes, and has a range of around 18 miles, depending on how often you push the button as you ride; if you need to go farther, you can carry an extra battery). In pilots, the company is now testing the system in cities like Bangalore and Kolkata. Consumers pay $100, around 8,000 rupees, which is about a third of the price of a typical e-bike in India. The battery is available via a subscription of $5 a month, so that consumers don’t have to pay for the cost of an expensive battery upfront. The startup will also sell the equipment to rideshare operators in the U.S. and Europe who want to upgrade their bikes, but dont have the budget to buy a new fleet of electric bikes. (They’ll pay $250 for each system, including the battery.) At a later point, it’s likely to also be available directly to U.S. consumers. Making the attachments, as opposed to complete electric bikes, is also better for the environment, since it takes fewer resources. The company is manufacturing the Bolt in a zero-emissions factory in Kolkata, with local assembly in India, Europe, and the U.S. It will also recycle and recondition batteries. There are already a billion bikes out in the world, says Ray. There’s absolutely no need to replace them all with e-bikes. We can put them all back into circulation at a fairly minimal manufacturing footprint.
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Pariss youngest neighborhood was built over the last two decades atop a former rail yard and a new station on the Paris Metro Line 14. Clichy-Batignolles, in the 17th arrondissement, is roughly split into thirds, with two developed areas hugging the massive, resplendent Martin Luther King Park. The quarters quiet, mostly car-free streets are fronted by stores, cafes, and schools. These businesses and institutions occupy the ground floors of apartment and office buildings designed in an astonishing array of shapes, materials and textures. Some structures are gently curved, others are sharply angular; some are covered in stucco, others in bamboo. Each unique building is narrow and daintily proportioned, its diverse neighbors near at hand. The neighborhoods invisible attributes are just as impressive. Clichy-Batignolles 3,400 homes are 50% mixed-income social housing, 20% rent controlled, and 30% market rate condos. The buildings tap into a geothermal energy source for their heating needs, and solar panels for their electricity. Garbage and recycling are carried out via a system of pneumatic tubes. In the United States, we might use the term transit-oriented development to describe this neighborhood. But anyone remotely familiar with the types of places to which this term is typically applied would recognize it as a poor fit for Clichy-Batignolles. This place is categorically different from any contemporary urban development project in the U.S. Its one of the finest examples of an emerging set of urban planning best practices percolating in Europe. You can call these neighborhoods ecodistricts. [Photo: courtesy of the author] In a new book, Building for People, architect Michael Eliason introduces Americans to the principles behind this new urban development paradigm. He acknowledges the inadequacy of the term, ecodistricts, just like transit-oriented development before it, and the difficulty of communicating what these neighborhoods are really like to an American audience. Much about modern urban development, and especially district-scale development, in other countries is a complete unknown to even practicing professionals on this side of the Atlantic, Eliason writes in the book. We have long lacked the syntax to even talk about many of these concepts. [Photo: courtesy of the author] What is an ecodistrict, really? Eliasons attempt to spread the word about this new vision for city-building is a logical next step from his advocacy of single-stair architecture, another hard-to-explain concept that has profound implications for the built environment. For years, Eliason has been telling anyone who will listen that single-stair buildings, rather than the dual-stairwell structures mandated by U.S. building codes, could make apartments cheaper, roomier, and homier. Now, the consciousness raising part of that mission has largely been accomplished. Eliason and a few other devoted advocates have convinced dozens of cities and states across the country to adopt new building codes that legalize this type of housing, most recently Los Angeles and Austin. Among a certain subset of policy nerds, single-stair architecture has become a household term. With his new book, Eliason is widening the aperture of his advocacy to encompass not only buildings, but neighborhoods. Ecodistricts like Clichy-Batignolles embody the urban design concepts that single-stair architecture makes possible, particularly when combined with car-free streets, generous green space, and economically diverse communities. [Photo: courtesy of the author] Ive always been fascinated by these larger scale developments that they’re building in China or Europe, and how theyre vastly different from the transit-oriented development we do in the U.S., Eliason tells Fast Company. Im trying to unlock some of the reasons why. One way to understand an ecodistrict is as a 15-minute city built from the ground up, according to Carlos Moreno, an urban planner in Paris who helped theorize both concepts. Whereas 15-minute cities can describe traditional or modern neighborhoods, when we evoke this notion of the ecodistrict, were talking about new urban developments, he says. At the same time, the ecodistrict, with these three elementsneighborhood, sustainability, and mixityis perfectly aligned with the 15-minute city. Still, these abstract terms can only convey so much information. For Americans, perhaps its easiest to begin with what these neighborhoods are not. Bulky dual-stair apartment buildings, the classic five-over-ones favored by American building codes and derided by Eliason, typically have a wide footprint on the land. Buildings that can take up an entire city block ensure theres little architectural variation in the cityscape. They tend to translate to minimal diversity in households or tenure, since the building design lends itself to one-bedroom rentals. With such wide structures, theres probably little rom on the property for green space; often, the only outdoor space is built atop the concrete parking podium. TODshort for ‘transit-oriented development’in the U.S. is still incredibly auto centric, Eliason says. Not only is there often far too much parking in these buildings, but theyre also situated on heavily trafficked arterial boulevards that make walking unpleasant and unsafe. We are pretty good at connecting development to transit, Eliason says, but I think in a lot of instances we’re not really thinking beyond that. [Photo: courtesy of the author] Beyond Transit-Oriented Development It wasnt until I had the chance to visit Clichy-Batignolles in person that the implications of this urban development paradigm really clicked for me. On a purely qualitative level, the neighborhood feels different from any place Ive been in the U.S., particularly any newly built neighborhood. The car-free and low-traffic streets make it easy and safe for anyone to walk to the park, the metro station, the shops, and office buildings, or the schools and daycares dotting the neighborhood. Though all of the buildings were constructed recently, their architectural variety, and their relatively narrow footprints make for a visually stimulating cityscape. [Photo: courtesy of the author] There were other unusual design features, to my American eyes. I noticed that balconies on these single-stair apartment buildings are ubiquitous. Instead of being bracketed onto the facade, as they often appear to be on American apartment buildings, these private outdoor spaces are embedded in the building envelope as a conscious element of the overall design. Part of what makes Clichy-Batignolles so architecturally invigorating is that it sits among traditional Haussmannian neighborhoods in the center of Paris, and the historic faubourgian suburban neighborhoods that ring the city, Moreno explains. This is the signature of the ecodistrict, he adds, a modern architecture of sustainability. [Photo: courtesy of the author] The American challenge Call it an ecodistrict, a 15-minute city, or an urbanist fever dream. Whatever it is, Americans are missing out. Eliasons book describes similar such places in Germany, Austria, and Sweden, along with a few under construction ecodistricts in Canada. A couple of developments in the States are beginning to approach this ideal. Eliason highlights Culdesac, the car-free community in Tempe, Arizona, for showing that pedestrianized interior streets can work in the U.S. The recently completed Mission Rock development in San Francisco employs car-free streets at a larger scale, and does a better job integrating eye-catching architecture, park space, and a diverse mixture of land uses and residents. But these examples are precious few, and they pale in comparison to Clichy-Batignolles. We have this idea around urbanism in the U.S. that cars have to go everywhere, Eliason says. Freed from that notion, the amount of open and public space there is to work with increases dramatically. Another thing the U.S. struggles with in new development is the mixity that Moreno views as essential to both ecodistricts and 15-minute cities: the mixed-income housing, the schools, the eldercare, the public spaces. The danger with ecodistricts is that they only respect the first two points, the neighborhood and sustainability, without the social mixity, Moreno says. Otherwise, this is the ecodistrict in a gentrified way. Eliason laments how in the U.S., the notion of the 15-minute city is generally understood in terms of being walking distance to stores and coffee shops. As with TOD, weve managed to absorb this urban planning best practice in only the most superficial sense. We’re so entrenched in the consumer aspect of 15-minute cities that we can’t even talk about those other things, he says. Its high time to start that conversation. As cities and states launch social housing initiatives, and the federal government considers increasing development on public lands, its all the more important for Americans to be aware of what world-class urban development can look like. Our newest neighborhoods dont have to be super-sized versions of the ones built in the 1950s. The ecodistrict and the 15-minute city can offer a new framework for city-building, an antidote to mindless sprawl. Or, these urban design principles can remain a foreign delicacy, a way of living to appreciate on vacation, but never here at home.
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