Author: Taylor Lowery

The low-grade, ongoing drain of a workday that never quite ends is one type of exhaustion that doesn’t appear in any medical chart. The phone buzzes as you sit down to dinner after shutting down the laptop at six o’clock. Your manager is here. It’s a customer. It’s an urgent Slack notification. This has turned into the subdued background noise of contemporary work for millions of workers throughout Europe. Furthermore, European legislators are starting to acknowledge that it is not a personal discipline issue after years of treating it as such. TopicThe Right to Disconnect in EuropeConcept OriginEmerged as a…

Before a crisis was declared, the numbers were already dismal. Since the third quarter of 2017, when the market peaked at about 1.55 billion units annually, global smartphone sales have been declining. That amount dropped to 1.26 billion by 2025, an 18% decrease over almost ten years that was so gradual that many in the sector chose not to think about it. It was largely influenced by the market for used phones. Nowadays, refurbished devices are typically 30% less expensive than new models, and the majority continue to get software updates. Simply put, people no longer felt compelled to purchase…

There’s a moment, somewhere in the middle of a long day, when you realize you’ve checked your phone forty times without meaning to. Not for anything urgent. The pull of a glowing rectangle that has subtly taken over every free moment of contemporary life, simply out of habit. Silicon Valley built that habit, and now — with some apparent guilt and a great deal of financial ambition — it seems determined to undo it. OpenAI has discreetly reorganized a number of its engineering, product, and research teams under a single, audio-focused structure during the last two months. The Information reports…

Recently, the phrase “quiet at first, then louder” has become increasingly popular in economic circles. “Cortés Moment.” It alludes to Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés’ choice in 1519 to burn his own ships after arriving in Mexico, leaving his men with no choice but to advance. No turning back. No second thought. Just dedication to whatever comes next. The more you sit with the comparison, the more difficult it is to disagree with Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi’s description of the current state of America’s relationship with artificial intelligence. Information CategoryDetailsNameMark ZandiTitleChief Economist, Moody’s AnalyticsInstitutionMoody’s AnalyticsFieldMacroeconomics, Labor Markets, Financial RiskKey…

There is a scenario in which a self-driving car traveling at highway speed encounters an inevitable collision. This scenario is currently theoretical but is getting closer to reality every year. Some pedestrians have entered the road. It’s clear in the oncoming lane. The vehicle has about 200 milliseconds to take action. Additionally, an answer already exists somewhere in its code. It was written by someone. It was approved by someone. Furthermore, very few people who purchased that vehicle are aware of its contents. Beneath all the excitement surrounding autonomous vehicles lies a quiet, unsettling truth. For years, engineers at Tesla,…

When everyone leaves a crowded party at once, there’s a certain kind of silence. The table still has the drinks on it. The music continues to play. But the energy has drained out of the room so fast it leaves you wondering whether the party was ever as good as it felt. That is roughly what happened to Asia’s semiconductor markets this past week, and watching it unfold from the outside, it’s hard not to feel a strange mix of vindication and unease. The reasoning seemed sound for months. The world needed more artificial intelligence. More chips were required for…

Every surgeon is aware that there is a time during surgery when the hands must move with a certainty that the eyes are unable to fully provide. Beneath the skin, the anatomy remains hidden. Millimeters, sometimes even less, separate a tumor from a blood vessel. Surgeons used training, experience, and a sort of educated intuition to navigate this uncertainty for decades. Something is starting to alter that equation now. When you walk into some operating rooms these days, you might notice something strange: a surgeon wearing what appear to be futuristic ski goggles. That would be the Microsoft HoloLens, a…

Somewhere in a lab with white walls, a hum of machinery, and a researcher staring at a screen that shows neural pathways like fault lines on a map, the question of whether science can erase a traumatic memory is not being asked. The question is whether it ought to. Until you sit with it, that difference seems insignificant. Then it feels huge. The field of neuroscience has advanced quickly. Originally created to treat heart problems, beta-adrenergic blockers have demonstrated an unexpected capacity to lessen the emotional impact of upsetting memories without completely erasing them. For years, Parkinson’s patients have been…

The story of clean transportation has been straightforward for the majority of the past ten years: batteries win. Internal combustion engines began to appear truly outdated as electric vehicles proliferated on city streets and charging infrastructure spread across highways. Hydrogen fuel cell models are about 1,000 times less popular than battery-electric vehicles. For proponents of hydrogen who spent years arguing that their technology was the way of the future, that figure is shocking and even a little embarrassing. However, something is subtly changing. Not in a big way. Not through a viral announcement or a press conference. Just a methodical,…

On the final day of 2023, just before midnight, a doctor in the northern Rwandan mountains picked up his phone and sent a WhatsApp message. A woman who had recently given birth was his patient, and she was bleeding dangerously. It would take four hours to get to him via the roads. Instead, it took eighteen minutes for the white paper parachute that emerged from the dark sky. A tiny red box. a product for blood coagulation. Ten minutes later, the woman was still struggling, so there was actual blood. She made it out alive. You remember that story. It’s…