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A software application called Interview Coder promises to help software developers succeed at technical job interviewsby surreptitiously feeding them answers to programming questions via AI. Interview Coder’s 21-year-old cofounder and CEO Roy Lee says he and Neel Shanmugam, the company’s cofounder and COO, created the tool partly as a protest against longstanding industry practices that require job candidates to solve programming puzzles during interviews. Lee, who until recently was a sophomore at Columbia University, says he spent hundreds of hours practicing such problemstime that could have been spent on actual coding projects. “This kind of killed a lot of my love for programming, just because I was forced to write code that just wasn’t fun,” he says. “I was forced to solve riddles instead of actually working on building real world projects, and I just grew to really dislike the system.” But protest or not, Lee says the project has proven lucrative, recently surpassing $3 million in annual recurring subscription revenuepresumably from customers more interested in cheating their way into a job than making a statement. The program, available for Windows and Mac, allows users to secretly take screenshots of programming puzzles presented during interviews, feeding the questions to AI for analysis and coded solutions. The software is designed to evade detection by anti-cheating measures in interview platforms. Controlled by keyboard shortcuts, it avoids the giveaway of mouse movements. Interview Coder can even be placed transparently atop the interview window, so users dont appear to shift their gaze while consulting AI-generated solutions and talking points. Lee recommends that users practice with the tool before deploying it in a real interview. Lee says he personally tested the software in real internship interviews and has posted videos online that appear to show him using Interview Coder during a challenge for Amazon. “We posted videos of me using it on Amazon, primarily, which is like the big boss interview that we took down,” he says. According to Lee, that led to takedown attempts by Amazon and disciplinary action from Columbia. He says the university initially placed him on probation over concerns that the tool could be used to cheat on class exams, then suspended him for a year for recording a disciplinary hearing and sharing related documents without permission. Lee says he’s unsure if hell return to school. He has published marked-up versions of Columbia documents related to the matter. The university declined to comment, citing federal privacy law, and Fast Company was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the documents. Amazon also declined to comment on Lee or his application but said, through spokesperson Margaret Callahan, that candidates are generally asked to acknowledge they wont use unauthorized aids like generative AI during interviews and assessments. For his part, Lee believes big tech interview processes should better reflect actual working conditions. “It doesn’t make sense to test someone on riddles and essentially give them an IQ test when they’re not going to be doing that at all,” he says. In his view, job candidates should be allowed to use any tools theyd have access to on the jobincluding AIduring interviews. Having an AI copilot during an interview isnt a completely far-fetched concept. Some technical interview platforms, like CoderPad and CodeSignal, already allow clients to enable AI assistants for candidates. But, says CodeSignal CEO Tigran Sloyan, that typically involves redesigning interview questions to suit AI usage and even revising job descriptions to reflect that AI proficiency is part of the job. He likens the transition to the introduction of digital calculators in schools, which eventually led to rethinking how math was taught and tested. It’s also critical, Sloyan adds, that companies provide the AI tools themselves rather than letting candidates bring their own. “Right now there is a gigantic menu of all sorts of different AI tools, some of which are very expensive to use, and there is a significant difference in what they can and cannot do,” he says. “So especially in the hiring process, when you want to give everybody a consistent and fair shot, the AI has to be embedded in the interview and assessment platform itself.” Sloyan also suggests Interview Coder may not be as stealthy as its creators claim. Beyond the technical countermeasures platforms like CodeSignal use to detect cheating, candidates might also give themselves away by awkwardly reading answers from a hidden windowbehavior that differs from natural brainstorming. “I would highly encourage candidates who are going through an assessment process with CodeSignal to think twice before using something like Interview Coder, because we flag it countless times, and the claim that it’s completely undetectable is not true,” he says. Lee acknowledges that, at least for now, his software might help people cheat into jobs they wouldnt otherwise landor get caught trying. “Sure, there will be some bad eggs that get caught or that just slip in,” he says. But Leewhos exploring other applications for screen-aware AI assistanceargues that Interview Coder is ultimately meant to make itself obsolete by pushing companies to modernize how they evaluate candidates. “The product is meant to kill itself,” he says. “And the day it kills itself is the day that every single company will hire significantly better engineers, and every engineer will be better because they’ll spend more time engineering instead of [solving programming puzzles.] It’ll just be a huge net positive for the developer community.”
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The torches designed for Milano Cortina 2026, next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Italy, were made in service of the flame. Named Essential, the reusable, ultra-minimalist torch has a flared, open-top design meant to show viewers how the flame is generated because what’s important isn’t the torch, but the flame, Italian architect and engineer Carlo Ratti tells Fast Company. The design is meant to showcase the flame in motion. The open-top design is crucial to how the flame comes to life, explains Ratti, who designed the torch with his eponymous firm, Studio Carlo Ratti Associati. The torches were developed by Eni and Versalis, both official supporters of the Games, and the Italian manufacturer Cavagna Group engineered their production. Each torch has an air intake near the upper cone that allows oxygen to mix with bio-gas, generating a warmer, more natural yellow flameone that aligns with the Olympic spirit far better than the cold, blue flame of many torches, he says, adding that it was tested in wind tunnels and real-time trials. When the torch is in motion, that same openness helps produce what we call the ‘flag flame,’ a dynamic, horizontal flame that trails behind the torchbearer while running, Ratti says. [Photo: Courtesy of Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics] The 2026 Games bills itself as the most widespread ever, since it’s the first Olympic Winter Games to be named for two cities, Milan and Cortina, and will be held across multiple regions in northern Italy. That’s a geographically big Olympics, but the design of the Essential torches communicates an opposite message of minimalism, of doing more with less. The torches are lightweight, about 2 pounds each without their fuel canisters, which can be refilled and reused as many as 10 times. That reduces the overall number of torches that need to be produced for the 63-day Olympic Torch Relay, which begins this November 26, ahead of the Opening Ceremony on February 6, 2026. The torches’ burners run on fuel made from renewable materials like cooking oil, and they’re made with recycled aluminum and brass alloy coated with a reflective, iridescent finish in two huesa turquoise blue for the Olympic Games and a lustrous bronze for the Paralympics. [Photo: Courtesy of Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics] The accoutrements of the modern Olympic Games give host cities the chance to show off their culture, industries, and style. That’s a unique opportunity to showcase a state’s heritage on a global stage, such as the Paris 2024 medals, which included pieces of the Eiffel Tower. But it also puts a magnifying glass on design mishapssuch as those same medals having to be replaced due to deterioration. For northern Italy, the Games are a chance to show off Milan’s status as a world leader in design. The torches were unveiled at both the Triennale di Milano, an art and design museum in Milan, and the Italian Pavilion in Expo 2025 Osaka in Japan. Raffaella Pani, director of brand, identity, and the “Look of the Games” for Milano Cortina 2026, says the torches are named Essential because they make the most of the bare minimum, allowing the flame to steal the show. This same minimalist approach is setting the stage for the rest of the Games’s aesthetics. If we consider Italian design, in line with our Italian spirit and wanting our brand to be vibrant, dynamic, and contemporary, we can expect future design elements, such as medals and the podium, to also reflect this aspect, she says.
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Barclays Center in Brooklyn is abuzz as the Brooklyn Netss Jalen Wilson catches the ball, readies himself, and releases a contested three. The ball arcs high above the Knicks defenders outstretched arms and swishes through the net. As the stadium erupts, Bryan Velazquez throws a fist in the air. Even though he is blind, he knows that his team just scored. He felt it on his fingertips.Velazquez, who works as an outreach coordinator at Omnium Circus, is using a new kind of haptic device that translates live game action into vibrations. Developed by Seattle-based startup OneCourt, the laptop-size device consists of a silicone relief map displaying a basketball court with the Brooklyn Nets logo at the center, and comes with hundreds of motors that vibrate to indicate the position of the ball on the court.People who are blind or low vision can lay their hands flat on the device and feel the ball move back and forth, while an earpiece provides live updates on the score and various play outcomes like shot made, shot missed, out of bounds, or foul.[Photo: BSE Global]Every major sports league tracks the position of its players and the ball in real time using advanced optical and sensor-based systems like Hawk-Eye. OneCourts technology taps into that data over 5G and translates it into trackable vibrations that move across the surface of the device.These vibrationsthink of as them as auditory pixelsvary based on the type of play unfolding on the court. When a player shoots, the corresponding location of the shot on the tablet vibrates more strongly. If the player scores, the motors underneath the hoop pulse vividly. If the player misses, the motors sigh one long, seemingly disappointed vibration. I really hope a lot of sports franchises roll this out, says Velazquez, who was invited to give tangible feedback about his time in the arena by the nonprofit organization called Visions.[Photo: BSE Global]An untapped marketHistorically, watching sports has been a visual affair. You follow athletes around a racetrack. You watch a tennis ball fly across the court. But an estimated six million Americans today live with low visiona chronic visual impairment that cannot be corrected with glasses, contacts, or medical treatments. One million Americans are legally blind. It is an untapped market, says Jorge Hernandez, senior technology manager at the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, who went blind at age 20.Hernandez, like several other blind or low-vision people interviewed for this article, usually listens to sports through the live radio broadcast, but he says haptic devices like OneCourts are one more tool in the toolbox that will make the world more accessible to people with disabilities. We are normal individuals that live a normal life, and if you make [sports] accessible to us, guess what, we will come.In the U.S., ADA standards stipulate that public accommodations like stadiums and theaters must ensure that people with disabilities receive effective communication through auxiliary aids or services like braille, sign language interpreters, and assistive listening devices.But according to Matthew Dietz, an expert on accessibility law from Nova Southeastern University, these standards can only evolve at the speed of technological innovation. If sighted people see the ball around the field or a tennis court, so should the Blind, he said in an email. But then again, I would still prefer Phil Rizzuto calling the game.[Photo: BSE Global]The tipping point of innovationOneCourt is part of a growing number of startups innovating in the space. Others include the Dublin-based Field of Vision, and the French startup Touch2See. The latter has developed a tablet featuring a tactile layout of a soccer field. A moving cursor represents the position of the ball and guides your fingers on the fielda bit like an Ouija board. The Touch2See device also vibrates to signal when players are passing, shooting, or dunking. Both Touch2See and OneCourt were inspired by a viral videopotentially the same oneof a fan at a soccer match guiding the hands of their blind friend over the cardboard model of the pitch.Many of these companies are currently competing for big contracts, suggesting a growing interest from stadiums and leagues to provide accessible experiences for their fans. The Touch2See tablet made its international debut at the Paris Olympics and has since become available at the Cagliari Calcio club in Italy, FC Porto in Portugal, and many others. The company is eyeing FIFA 2026 next. Football [soccer] is what we want to master, Touch2Sees sales director, John Brimacombe, told me in an interview last year.In the meantime, OneCourts technology is quickly gaining ground in the U.S. The startups haptic devices first became available at a Portland Trailblazers game in 2024. They have since become available at Sacramento Kings games and Phoenix Suns home games.Ticketmaster has sponsored every partnership including at Barclays. Our unique role in this partnership has helped build a model to quickly scale purposeful innovations from coast-to-coast, says Marla Ostroff, managing director at Ticketmaster North America. Its a key step toward a more inclusive future.Beond basketballThe Brooklyn Nets and the Barclays Center are the first East Coast sports team and arena to provide so-called tactile broadcasting at home games, for free. Having the ability for all different kinds of fans to experience the game is really meaningful for me, and this technology fit in with that perfectly, says Keia Cole, chief digital officer at BSE, the company that owns the Brooklyn Nets, the New York Liberty, and Barclays Center.The Nets piloted the devices at the end of the NBA season, but Cole says they are planning to bring them back next season. For now, they are only available at NBA games, but they are hoping to expand to New York Liberty games, as well. WNBA uses a different kind of tracking system that OneCourt isnt currently geared up for, but OneCourts COO, Antyush Bollini, says that the company started with the technology that is more widely available (Hawk-Eye) and ultimately plans on expanding to all levels of sport. Its only a matter of time before someday, its in Collegiate, and its in Little League games, and its in your rec center.And its not just basketball. OneCourt has already tested its haptic devices at tennis games, baseball, and American football matches. French2See works with soccer, basketball, rugby, and various Paralympic sports like goalball and wheelchair rugby. Both OneCourt and Touch2See tablets come with a peel-off, interchangeable surface that enables teams to seamlessly switch between different sports.According to OneCourts CEO, Jerred Mace, any sport that is less about style (like martial arts) and more about the athletes location (like in swimming or racing) could be a fit. We definitely have ambitions to get into every stadium across different sports, whether thats MBA, WMBA, NFL, NHL, or tennis, he says. At the end of the day, we view this as a new standard in accessibility.Mace came up with the idea for OneCourt while at the University of Washington. As a child, he experienced such far-sightedness that his doctor thought he wouldnt be able to drive. His vision ended up improving through surgeries, but the 24-year-old still remembers being judged for his looks and the goggles he had to wear. His experience, combined with a history of disability in his family, has helped him gain deep understanding for people with disabilities.Down the line, Mace wants everyone to be able to experience sportsincluding fans who want to follow a game from the comfort of their own home. Velazquez, one of the blind fans who experienced the device at the Nets game last week, told me he wouldnt necessarily use it at home. I like [the device] for the live experience, he says. But he was noticeably thrilled at the prospect of the technology being made available at more stadiums. His hand shot up when asked if he wanted to speak to a reporter, and his first impressions were summarized by a very spirited amazing!Mike Cush, chief program officer at Visions, was equally bullish. Im not easily impressed by technology, he told me after trialing the device at Barclays. But this is a game changer.
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