AI is being touted as the future of weather forecasting—faster and more precise. But new research shows a major blind spot: it often fails at predicting extreme weather. Traditional physics-based models still do better. “They do perform well on a lot of tasks, but for very extreme events—that are the most important for society—they still struggle,” says Sebastian Engelke, a statistics professor at the University of Geneva and one of the authors of a new study in Science that pitted some of the leading AI weather models, including GraphCast and Pangu-Weather, against a database of recent extreme events. For record-breaking…
Author: Staff Writer
Elon Musk on Thursday sparred with an attorney for OpenAI during his third day of testimony in the contentious trial over the company’s pivot from nonprofit status to a for-profit venture valued at hundreds of billions of dollars.The trial centers on the 2015 birth of the ChatGPT maker as a nonprofit startup primarily funded by Musk. It pits the world’s richest person against Sam Altman, a fellow OpenAI co-founder he accuses of betraying promises to keep the company as a nonprofit dedicated to humanity’s benefit.Tempers have flared on both sides of the high-stakes trial, as the morning began with an…
For years, it was common for even the biggest tech companies to have annual capital expenditures, or capex, in the single- to low-double-digit-billion range. You might have heard a tech company say it planned to spend $9 billion, $15 billion, or even $25 billion on research, development, and other costs in the upcoming fiscal year. But lately, capital expenditures at the largest tech companies have been off the charts, with some companies now regularly forecasting single-year capex in the hundreds of billions. The driving factor for this is, of course, artificial intelligence (AI). Some of the biggest names in tech…
Hello again, and welcome back to Fast Company’s Plugged In. When last Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner was disrupted by a would-be assassin, an event intended to celebrate the First Amendment descended into chaos. After President Donald Trump and other administration officials were whisked to safety, it was unclear whether the festivities would resume. More than an hour later, White House Correspondents’ Association President Weijia Jiang returned to the dais to acknowledge that Trump had posted that the night was over but would be rescheduled. “This is a room full of reporters,” she said. “So I know you’ve all seen…
When Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe crossed the finish line at the London Marathon on April 26, an Adidas attendant was waiting on the sidelines to collect his shoes. The attendant wrote Sawe’s record-breaking time, 1:59.30, on the side of the shoes, waited for him to take some photos with them, and then whisked them off to Adidas’s archives in Herzogenaurach, Germany. In that moment, the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 became the fastest shoe in the world. Sabastian Sawe breaks the two-hour barrier and sets a record time of 1:59.30 at the 2026 London Marathon. [Photo: Adidas] Sawe was the…
The company that pulled onto the road nearly 16 years ago as UberCab increasingly seems less interested in driving than in what users do before and after summoning a ride through its app. The latest evidence of Uber’s shift toward becoming a broader services platform came at its Go-Get event this week in New York, where the company led with hotel keys instead of car keys. “I believe that Uber truly offers one service: We give you your time back,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said at the start of the company’s roughly 40-minute presentation. The features unveiled invited a new comparison…
“When are you looking to retire?” It may seem like a harmless question for a boss to pose to an employee, but for older workers, it can come with a coded message—it’s time for you to end your career. “There could be insinuations, like, ‘What are you looking to do after this?’ Or, ‘how long do you anticipate being here?’” says New York-based employment lawyer Mahir Nasir, who’s had multiple older clients come to him with scenarios of getting nudged towards retirement. He’s seen this play out in various ways. For instance, say an employee’s been working at a bank for…
The European Commission has now openly published a two-volume study examining “net wealth taxes,” “capital taxes,” and perhaps most alarming of all, “exit taxes.” They are no longer hiding the agenda behind slogans about “fairness” or “solidarity.” The report openly discusses how to tax wealth, how to monitor ownership, how to close compliance gaps, and how to prevent capital from escaping. This is precisely what I have warned was coming as governments across Europe enter the terminal phase of a sovereign debt crisis. The study was commissioned by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union and examines…
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. During the Pandemic Housing Boom, many publicly traded homebuilders achieved record profit margins as home prices soared and homebuyer demand ran red hot. Once the national housing demand boom fizzled out in the summer of 2022, many large homebuilders compressed their margins in order to do affordability adjustments where and when needed to maintain their sales pace. That includes giant homebuilder PulteGroup, which reported on Thursday that it compressed its Q1 2026 gross margin to 24.4%, compared with 27.5% in Q1 2025 and 24.7% in Q4 2025. While…
Britain’s retail sector has just posted the worst collapse in sales in more than 40 years, and this is precisely the type of economic deterioration our models have been warning would emerge across Europe into 2028. The Confederation of British Industry reported that its retail sales volume balance plunged to -68 in April from -52 in March, marking the lowest reading since the series began in 1983. An astonishing 77% of retailers reported declining sales while only 9% reported increases. This is the type of collapse normally associated with a major recession or sovereign crisis environment. The mainstream press continues…