Every year, a new crop of trend forecasts attempts to spell out where different industries are heading; for me, the most interesting is the state of design. While the predictions vary, a clear theme is emerging: The most important design story of 2026, according to our iF Design’s 2026 Trend Report, is not AI but how design and designers are responding to it. While generative tools make creation faster, cheaper, and more uniform, we’re seeing the most influential designers moving consciously in the opposite direction. Their best work creates meaning, embraces imperfection, and designs for communities. In other words, standout…
Author: Staff Writer
For the past two years, the dominant unit of AI work was the prompt. Write a better prompt, get a better answer. Learn the right phrasing, the right examples, the right constraints, the right tone. Prompt engineering became the first folk discipline of the generative AI era because it matched the first experience most people had with these systems: one human, one model, one request, one response. That phase is ending. A recent Business Insider piece describes the rise of “loop engineering”: the practice of designing loops that allow AI agents to keep working, checking, retrying, and coordinating instead of…
Gone are the days of surfing real estate listings far beyond their reach, many budget-minded Americans have instead begun scrolling foreclosures. Foreclosure listings received more than 26% more page views than the average listing in the first half of the year, according to a new report from Realtor.com. Interest in these listings is an indication of the challenges many buyers are facing, according to Joel Berner, senior economist at the Austin-based real estate site. “In a market where affordability is still the dominant challenge, foreclosures offer a path to a meaningful discount,” Berner said in a statement. Indeed, bargain hunters…
A prescription refill program that quietly launched in Utah earlier this year has kicked off a big medical debate: Is artificial intelligence ready to take over tasks that, until now, could only be performed by doctors? The program allows Utah residents to skip the doctor’s office and get their prescriptions refilled online by an AI chatbot called Doctronic. It’s a seemingly simple step toward making healthcare more convenient for patients and prescribers. But it’s also a precedent-shattering milestone that has set off alarm bells for doctors, lawyers, and public health experts. The pilot program has laid bare a host of questions about the role…
What skills will matter in an AI economy? Few things are certain, but one seems to be: that cross-disciplinary builders are becoming more valuable. As machines automate the routine part of expertise, what stays scarce is a skill set now captured by the E-shaped professional. Strategist Sarah DaVanzo first articulated the idea in the early 2010s: The most valuable people combine depth in one field (expertise), curiosity across others (exploration), real-world exposure (experience), and above all, the ability to build something that works (execution). If I-shaped professionals specialize and T-shaped ones bridge disciplines, E-shaped people add a final layer: They…
Microsoft announced yesterday it would lay off 4,800 staffers, including 1,600 roles that were eliminated from its Xbox division yesterday. An additional 1,600 roles will be eliminated at Xbox through the fiscal year. In an email to staffers, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said the company “bet on [subscription service] Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content” to progress, but that “they did not grow at the pace we expected.” In the email, Sharma also announced structural changes to the company. Xbox’s corporate vice president of product services Dave McCarthy would leave his role after eight years. Helen Chiang,…
ASIA: The major Asian stock markets had a negative day today: • NIKKEI 225 decreased 1,480.73 points or -2.12% to 68,256.96 • Shanghai decreased 51.003 points or -1.26% to 3,990.235 • Hang Seng decreased 119.43 points or -0.51% to 23,496.89 • ASX 200 decreased 27.10 points or -0.31% to 8,803.90 • SENSEX decreased 104.35 points or -0.13% to 78,180.72 • Nifty50 decreased 31.65 points or -0.13% to 24,398.70 The major Asian currency markets had a mixed day today: • AUDUSD decreased 0.00161 or -0.23% to 0.69393 • NZDUSD decreased 0.00136 or -0.24% to 0.56884 • USDJPY decreased 0.157 or -0.10%…
Wall Street banks have high hopes for SpaceX, but at the moment, shares of Elon Musk‘s rocket market appear to be earthbound. Many of the investment firms that underwrote SpaceX’s initial public offering issued their first research notes about the company Tuesday, and almost all recommended that investors buy the stock and forecast it to trade above $200 in the next 12 to 18 months. But after topping $200 in its first week of trading, the stock is trading around $152 per share, just above where it opened on June 12, its IPO day. Investors may be looking cautiously at the same factors…
Most people know John Oliver as the Emmy-winning host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight. But lately, he’s been popping up somewhere viewers never expected: daytime soap operas. After recent stints on General Hospital and Days of Our Lives, fans are calling for the comedian to make the jump from Primetime Emmys to Daytime Emmys. Oliver’s turn as a soap actor began back in March when, while discussing soap opera celebrity cameos on Last Week Tonight, he volunteered his acting services to any showrunner that would take him. “I have a genuine love for soap operas,” the late-night show host said.…
I have spoke with professional Iranian Americans who before this war began were very much against the religious government. They were very pround with Iran being in the World Cup, but at the same time, offended how the players were treated simply because they were Iranian. They were getting the feeling that all Iranians are to be distrusted, not just those who were religious Shia. This war against Iran is having a different result. Instead of toppling the regime and the people rising up, it is having a more unified impact as the people begin to see that perhaps the…