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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.
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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.
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E-Commerce
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.
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