Across the country, Americans have seen their electricity bills spike this year. Energy prices have been rising faster than inflation, and are expected to just keep rising.
In two states in particular, this issue became a core tenant of the Democratic candidates governors races.
Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia both ran in part on a promise to keep electricity costs downand both won big on election night.
Voters in New Jersey and Virginia chose leaders ready to take on soaring energy costs and the powerful interests driving them higher, Evergreen Action executive director Lena Moffitt said in a statement.
Governors-elect Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger earned voters trust with common-sense plans to lower costs by fixing [electricity grid operator] PJMs broken system and expanding cheap, homegrown, faster-to-build clean energy, she added. In elections defined by the skyrocketing cost of living, voters made clear they want leaders who will actually do something about it.”
How New Jerseys new governor will tackle electricity prices
Rising electricity rates have hit New Jersey particularly hard. Residents there saw prices spike about 21% over this past year.
Sherrill, who won New Jersey with just over 56% of votes, pledged to declare a state of emergency on utility costs on her first day in office. She has also promised to freeze residents utility rates, build more cheaper and cleaner power, and push utility companies to be more transparent.
Sherrills state of emergency could be seen as a counter to the states of emergency that President Trump declared at the beginning of his second term.
Trumps move to declare a national energy emergency cited a need to boost oil and gas production, even though increased drilling doesnt necessarily translate to lower gas prices for consumers, and renewable power is the cheapest form of new energy to build.
Trump also promised to slash electricity bills for Americans during his run for the presidency, but so far into his term, energy price are up, and expected to keep climbing. Experts have blamed his actions like inhibiting renewables, canceling federal energy assistance, and enacting tariffs on energy imports.
For New Jersey, the governor declaring a state of emergency is a signal of her priorities.
Its put everyone on notice that I am no longer going to allow the can to be kicked down the road, she said on WNYC Thursday morning. It gives everyone a sense of urgency that this has got to be tackled, and it’s got to be tackled now.
That pledge has already resulted in utility companies saying theyll come to the table to negotiate, and spurred discussions among workers about programs that could help the electricity grid, she added. Sherrill also campaigned on developing plans for new nuclear capacity in New Jersey.
How Virginias new governor will tackle electricity prices
Virginia is home to the biggest data center market in the world, with more than 600 clustered around Washington, D.C., and Richmond. And though the states electricity prices havent risen as steeply as New Jerseys, theyve still risen about 6.7% over the last year.
As even more data centers are proposed and built, experts say energy prices are likely to increase to meet growing energy demands. Dominion Energy, the biggest electric utility in the state, is also looking to build more natural gas units to support those data centers.
That raises environmental concerns, and also price concerns. Natural gas is getting more expensive because the U.S. is exporting more and more of it to other countries.
Spanberger, who won Virginia with just over 57% of the votes, made an Affordable Virginia Plan a core part of her campaign. Along with housing and healthcare, the plan specifically calls out energy bills as an area shell focus on.
To do so, she says shell expand and support Virginias local electricity generationincluding its nation-leading offshore wind development.
She plans to incentivize more solar energy projects on rooftops, parking lots, former industrial sites, abandoned mines, schools, and public buildings, supported by battery storage. Shell also encourage the development of nuclear, geothermal, fusion, and hydrogen.
Spanberger has called out data centers specifically as well, saying shell make sure they pay their own way and their fair share of their new electricity and transmission needs.
Its not yet clear how exactly shell do that, and Dominion contests the idea that data centers are being subsidized by consumers; instead, the utility has blamed inflation for rising costs.
But Dominion is also currently seeking to raise rates even more to increase its profit margins. Depending on how that case pans out, Spanberger said during a debate that it may require action within the General Assembly to ensure that large utility users like data centers are paying their fair share for the energy that they consume.
Ive been writing professionally since 2002, and in that time, Ive experimented with lots of different strategies to keep myself on track. (Ive been a columnist at Fortune and Fast Company, and am now a contributing writer for The New York Times Opinion Section, in addition to cohosting Slates Money podcast, and Ive been an editor, reporter, and opinion writer for a number of other places.)
I also have, shall we say, a fragmented attention span, and my therapist likes to routinely bring up how many women my age have undiagnosed ADHD, which I now take as a not-so-subtle hint. So I need systems and routines maybe a bit more than the average person, and it has taken me a while to find the right ones.
But I stumbled upon my biggest problem with developing a consistent writing practice by accident when I added a couple of components that focused not on the writing itself, but on idea generation and development. Like most professional writers, I take notes and carry a notebook everywhere, and my journalistic background has primed me to capture details and thoughts even when Im not on the clock. That said, there was not much consistency to it for a long time, and I didnt have a process for taking those notes and thoughts and fashioning them into something that might qualify as a good work product, or if I was being really ambitious, art.
The problem was that I was not giving myself enough raw creative material to work with, and would come up short when I needed to get something onto the page. The system I use now is a combination of physical note-taking, collation, and then review and organization once a month. I am fascinated by and have tried the Zettlekasten method, but its way too complicated for me.
A lightweight solution
My version is much more lightweight. My physical note-taking is the same, and I added morning pages right when I get up, which more than anything just allows me to clear my head of to-do list items and anxieties so I can think clearly about other things. The nature of my job(s) also means that I cant stay out of the news cycle or off social, though consuming less of both would certainly enhance my concentration, so I try to cordon it off in time blocks and get much of my writing done before I get sucked into whatever new chaos is brewing in the outside world.
Once a week, I add notes and references that I think I want to keep to a master file similar to Steven Johnsons Spark file and once a month, I set aside an hour or two on a Sunday to review it and break useful pieces into notes for discrete columns or fiction or wherever I think they belong. As a result, I never really have to sit down to a blank page. Theres always something in progress to work on and new ideas in the pipeline. I dont have to stare at a screen in an increasing state of despair and desperation until something finally emerges from my addled brain.
This specific system may not work for everybody, but what I think is generalizable is that its hard to keep up a writing practice if you let the well of creativity run dry. Its important to keep it full, even when youre not working on anything in particular.
Im teaching a Zoom workshop in December on how to make this process work for you and how to set up a creative practice in general, if youre interested in learning more about how to do this. (Registration and info are here.)
Im also interested in what other people do to make their creative practice sustainable, so suggestions and tips are welcome!
Last night, Zohran Mamdani defeated Andrew Cuomo to become the next mayor of New York City. Cue the online crashouts.
Leading the pack is Will & Grace star Debra Messing, who is now facing intense backlash for sharing dozens of posts smearing the Democratic candidate on Instagram in the run up to polls closing.
Messing took part in early voting last week, sharing in a post that she cast her ballot for Cuomo, who ran as an independent.
Before the race was called, Messing took to her Instagram Stories to share an onslaught of anti-Mamdani graphics and videos, many including blatant Islamophobia.
She reposted a video of one influencer calling Mamdani Osama bin Mamdani. Another featured a ballot on which the options were A Democrat and An Actual Communist Jihadist A literal Karl Marx-quoting, America-hating jihadist. Mamdani is not a communist but a democratic socialist.
Messing, who is Jewish and an advocate for Israel, also shared one meme saying Jews do not fly planes into buildings, as well as a Truth Social post from President Donald Trump saying that any Jewish person who votes for Mamdani is a stupid person.
Other posts that appeared on Messings Story came from conservative outlets such as CPAC, Breitbart, and Newsmax.
Her 100 plus Instagram Story crashout did not go unnoticed. The way my thread ended abruptly because this woman reached her 100 instagram stories a day limit by 1pm eastern, one X user wrote, citing Instagrams 100 Storiers per day limit. She said 431st of all, another quipped.
I think Zohran has actually broken her brain, one wrote. Fascinating albeit kinda scary to watch though.”
As Mamdani swept to victory Tuesday night, receiving 50.4% of the vote to become New York Citys new mayor, Messings meltdown is unlikely to be soon forgotten. I will personally make sure that Debra Messing’s Islamophobic crashout on Instagram is written into the history books, one wrote.
Fast Company has reached out to Messing for comment.
Messing is not alone in publicly voicing her displeasure with last nights result, much to the amusement of Mandani voters. Where the meltdowns at, i need the best rightwing meltdowns to laugh at, one X user posted.
Messings crashout is high up in the replies. Actor and comedian Michael Rapapaport also features on the list, with one calling his online reaction the greatest crash out in history.
Mamdanis election makes him the first Muslim and Indian American mayor for the city and, at 34, youngest mayor in generations. He will take office on January 1, 2026.
I feel compelled to report that Debra Messing has not posted a single instagram story since the results were announced, one X user noted.
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French authorities have warned they may block access to Shein after it emerged that the online fast fashion giant had been selling sex dolls with a childlike appearance.
Frances consumer watchdog, the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control, said last week it had discovered the dolls on Sheins website, noting that their descriptions and categorization left little doubt as to their child-pornographic nature.
The agency has referred the case to public prosecutors, and Economy Minister Roland Lescure said on Monday he would seek to ban Shein from the French market if such incidents were to occur again.
This is provided for by law, he said. In cases involving terrorism, drug trafficking, or child pornographic materials, the government has the right to request that access to the French market be prohibited, Lescure told BFM TV.
The law authorizes French authorities to order online platforms to remove clearly illegal content such as child pornography within 24 hours. If they fail to comply, authorities can require internet service providers and search engines to block access and delist the site.
The watchdog said it has issued a formal notice urging the platform to take urgent corrective measures.
Shein said in a statement that it has banned all sex-doll products, and temporarily removed its adult products category for review. It added that it has launched an investigation to determine how these listings bypassed its screening measures.
The fight against child exploitation is non-negotiable for Shein,” said Executive Chairman Donald Tang said in the statement. These were marketplace listings from third-party sellers, but I take this personally. Trust is our foundation, and we will not allow anything that violates it.”
He noted that every related product has been removed and that “We are tracing the source and will take swift, decisive action against those responsible.
Meanwhile, a parliamentary fact-finding mission on the inspection of products imported into France announced it will summon Shein officials for questioning.
No economic actor can consider themselves above the law. A retailer who sold such an item would have had their store immediately closed by a prefectoral order. Shein must provide an explanation, said the mission rapporteur, Antoine Vermorel-Marques.
Under French law, the distribution via electronic communication networks of child-pornographic materials is punishable by up to seven years in prison and a 100,000 euro ($115,000) fine.
The watchdog also noted that Shein sells other pornographic products including adultlike sex dolls without effective age-filtering measures to prevent minors or sensitive audiences from accessing such pornographic content.
Shein was founded in China in 2012, and the low-cost online retailer is now based in Singapore. Reaching customers mainly through its app, it has enjoyed a meteoric rise to become a global leader in fast fashion, shipping to 150 countries. The company has faced criticism over its labor practices and environmental record.
Lescure’s comments came just days before Shein is due to open its first permanent physical store in Paris, located inside the BHV Marais department store in the heart of the French capital city. The opening has sparked controversy, with an online petition protesting Sheins arrival gathering more than 100,000 signatures.
Frederic Merlin, president of Societe des Grands Magasins, which owns BHV, called the sale of the dolls on Shein’s platform indecent and “unacceptable,” adding that “no product from Sheins international marketplace will be sold at the department store.
Meanwhile, the child-protection NGO MouvEnfants staged a protest at BHV. As long as these dolls are available somewhere in the world, the company will remain an accomplice to a system that enables sex crimes against children,” co-founder Arnaud Gallais said.
Samuel Petrequin, Associated Press
Three lower courts have ruled illegal President Donald Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose worldwide tariffs. Now the Supreme Court, with three justices Trump appointed and generally favorable to muscular presidential power, will have the final word.
In roughly two dozen emergency appeals, the justices have largely gone along with Trump in temporarily allowing parts of his aggressive second-term agenda to take effect while lawsuits play out.
But the case being argued Wednesday is the first in which the court will render a final decision on a Trump policy. The stakes are enormous, both politically and financially.
The Republican president has made tariffs a central piece of his economic and foreign policy and has said it would be a disaster if the Supreme Court rules against him.
Here are some things to know about the tariffs arguments at the Supreme Court:
Tariffs are taxes on imports
They are paid by companies that import finished products or parts, and the added cost can be passed on to consumers.
Through September, the government has reported collecting $195 billion in revenue generated from the tariffs.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose tariffs, but Trump has claimed extraordinary power to act without congressional approval by declaring national emergencies under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
In February, he invoked the law to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, saying that the illegal flow of immigrants and drugs across the U.S. border amounted to a national emergency and that the three countries needed to do more to stop it.
In April, he imposed worldwide tariffs after declaring the United States longstanding trade deficits a national emergency.
Libertarian-backed businesses and states challenged the tariffs in federal court
Challengers to Trump’s actions won rulings from a specialized trade court, a district judge in Washington and a business-focused appeals court, also in the nation’s capital.
Those courts found that Trump could not justify tariffs under the emergency powers law, which doesn’t mention them. But they left the tariffs in place in the meantime.
The appeals court relied on major questions, a legal doctrine devised by the Supreme Court that requires Congress to speak clearly on issues of vast economic and political significance.
The major questions doctrine doomed several Biden policies
Conservative majorities struck down three of then-President Joe Biden’s initiatives related to the coronavirus pandemic. The court ended the Democrat’s pause on evictions, blocked a vaccine mandate for large businesses and prevented student loan forgiveness that would have totaled $500 billion over 10 years.
In comparison, the stakes in the tariff case are much higher. The taxes are estimated to generate $3 trillion over 10 years.
The challengers in the tariffs case have cited writings by the three Trump appointees, Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, in calling on the court to apply similar limitations on a signal Trump policy.
Barrett described a babysitter taking children on roller coasters and spending a night in a hotel based on a parent’s encouragement to make sure the kids have fun.
In the normal course, permission to spend money on fun authorizes a babysitter to take children to the local ice cream parlor or movie theater, not on a multiday excursion to an out-of-town amusement park, Barrett wrote in the student loans case. “If a parent were willing to greenlight a trip that big, we would expect much more clarity than a general instruction to make sure the kids have fun.
Kavanaugh, though, has suggested the court should not apply the same limiting standard to foreign policy and national security issues.
A dissenting appellate judge also wrote that Congress purposely gave presidents more latitude to act through the emergency powers law.
Some of the businesses that sued also are raising a separate legal argument in an appeal to conservative justices, saying that Congress could not constitutionally delegate its taxing power to the president.
The nondelegation principle has not been used in 90 years, since the Supreme Court struck down some New Deal legislation.
But Gorsuch authored a dissent in June that would have found the Federal Communications Commissions universal service fee an unconstitutional delegation. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas joined the dissent.
What happens when Congress, weary of the hard business of legislating and facing strong incentives to pass the buck, cedes its lawmaking power, clearly and unmistakably, to an executive that craves it? Gorsuch wrote.
The justices could act more quickly than usual in issuing a decision
The court only agreed to hear the case in September, scheduling arguments less than two months later. The quick turnaround, at least by Supreme Court standards, suggests that the court will try to act fast.
High-profile cases can take half a year or more to resolve, often because the majority and dissenting opinions go through rounds of revision.
But the court can act quickly when deadline pressure dictates. Most recently, the court ruled a week after hearing arguments in the TikTok case, unanimously upholding a law requiring the popular social media app to be banned unless it was sold by its Chinese parent company. Trump has intervened several times to keep the law from taking effect while negotiations continue with China.
Mark Sherman, Associated Press
TD Bank is getting ready to implement a number of branch closures across more than a dozen states on the East Coast. Those closures come at a time when the bank is increasingly shifting its focus to online banking. Heres what you need to know about TD Banks branch closures, including a list of closing locations.
Why is TD Bank closing some of its branches?
TD Bank is closing some of its branches as part of a broader plan to reduce or relocate 10% of its retail footprint.
“AtInvestor Day last month, TD shared plans to deliver a stronger, more scalable U.S. retail presence through significant store enhancements, tech-forward digital banking capabilities, and personalized, advice-led services,” a spokesperson told Fast Company when reached for comment. “We also regularly evaluate our network to ensure we’re serving our communities where they need us, which at times results in store closures or relocations to nearby neighborhoods.”
The bank added that it expects to open new locations in the impacted communities, but it did not offer specifics and said such openings would be subject to approval by regulators. “In the meantime, we’re committed to making these transitions as smooth as possible for clients and customers, serving them at more than 1,000 TD Bank locations or via whatever channel they choose.”
How many locations will close?
TD Bank is set to close 51 branches and one remote drive-through location by the end of January 2026.
The branch closures will affect locations in 13 states and Washington, D.C. The news of the upcoming planned closures comes after the company already closed dozens of branches across 10 states and Washington, D.C., earlier this year, as Fast Company previously reported.
At TD Banks investor conference in September, CEO Leo Salom said the bank was reimagining its retail distribution model.
“[Increasingly] clients expect greater personalization, and an elevated, more seamless omni-channel experience,” Salom said. “And to that end, we are accelerating investments in digital and mobile capabilities across sales, onboarding and servicing.
Salom continued that TD Banks goal was to increase digital acquisition to 50% of total sales, enhance digital adoption to 70%, and drive digital self-serve above 90%.
Greater digital banking usage means fewer stores are required.
TD Bank is part of Toronto’s TD Bank Group. The company has 2,151 retail locations in North America, according to its Q3 2025 earnings report, including 1,100 branches in the United States.
It’s unclear how many jobs will be impacted by the closures. TD Bank says its U.S. retail operations employ almost 29,000 people.
Shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE: TD) are up more than 51% year to date.
Which TD Bank branches are closing?
In this latest round of closures, TD Bank is expected to close 51 branches across 12 states and Washington, D.C. A number of local media outlets, including the Philadelphia Business Journal, had reported earlier on the closures, including listing some individual locations.
The full list of planned TD Bank branch closures appears below. The bank confirmed the locations with Fast Company.
Connecticut
123 East Main Street, Plainville, CT, 06062
826 Wolcott Road, Wolcott, CT, 06716
60 Redding Road, Redding, CT, 06829
Washington, D.C.
2000 K Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20006
Florida
2000 K Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 20006
255 Alhambra Circle, Coral Gables, FL, 33134
1500 NE Miami Gardens Drive, North Miami Beach, FL, 33179
2208 66th Street, St Petersburg, FL, 33710
3125 W New Haven Avenue, Melbourne, FL, 32904
1000 S.E. Highway, Crystal River, FL, 34429
1 US 27 North, 621 East, Lake Placid, FL, 33852
Massachusetts
175 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA, 01915
153 Meadow Street, Chicopee, MA, 01013
1708 Falmouth Road, Centerville, MA, 02632
45 Central Street, Lowell, MA, 01852
99 West Street, Pittsfield, MA, 01201
79 Lynnfield Street, Peabody, MA, 01960
242 Main Street, Wareham, MA 02571 (remote drive thru)
Maryland
8661 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD, 20910
Maine
32 Goding Avenue, Lincoln Plaza, Lincoln, ME, 04457
835 Main Street, P.O. Box 266, Westbrook, ME, 04092
217 High Street, Ellsworth, ME, 04605
North Carolina
201 Wren Drive, Hendersonville, NC, 28792
New Hampshire
184 Route 101, Bedford, NH, 03110
2561 Main Street, North Conway, NH, 03860
New Jersey
385 White Horse Pike, Atco, NJ, 08004
177 Columbia Turnpike, Florham Park, NJ, 07932
571 East Bay Avenue, Manahawkin, NJ, 08050
232 Richmond Avenue, Point Pleasant, NJ, 08742
418 Belmont Avenue, Haledon, NJ, 07508
230 Forsgate Drive, Jamesburg, NJ, 08831
1100 Lake Street, Ramsey, NJ, 07446
4057 Asbury Avenue, Tinton Falls, NJ, 07753
New York
655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, 10010
391 Jericho Turnpike, Jericho, NY, 11853
1144 Walt Whitman Road, Melville, NY, 11747
620 Route 25A, Mount Sinai, NY, 11766
576 Second Avenue, New York, NY, 10016
14 Main Street, Hudson Falls, NY, 12839
482-484 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11217
Pennsylvania
399 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106
200 Lancaster Avenue, Devon, PA, 19333
9996 Haldeman Avenue, Philadelphia, PA, 19115
1064 Second St. Pike, Richboro, PA, 18954
131 East McDade Boulevard, Folsom, PA, 19033
South Carolina
260 Columbia Avenue, Chapin, SC, 29036
2003 N. Oak Street, Myrtle Beach, SC, 29577
5041 Calhoun Memorial Hwy., Easley, SC, 29640
307 North Main Street, Marion, SC, 29571
Virginia
6566 Little River Turnpike, Alexandria, VA, 22003
6260 Old Dominion Drive, McLean, VA, 22101
Vermont
27 East Allen Street, Winooski, VT, 05404
21 Elm Street, Woodstock, VT, 05091
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Zillow economists use an economic model they call the Zillow Market Heat Index to gauge the competitiveness of housing markets across the country. This model looks at key indicatorsincluding home price changes, inventory levels, and days on marketto generate a score showing whether a market favors sellers or buyers.
Higher scores point to hotter, seller-friendly metro housing markets. Lower scores signal cooler markets where buyers hold more negotiating power.
According to Zillow:
Score of 70 or higher = strong seller’s market
Score from 55 to 69 = seller’s market
Score from 44 to 55 = neutral market
Score from 28 to 44 = buyer’s market
Score of 27 or below = strong buyer’s market
Within the ResiClub Terminalour data and analytics platform designed for housing sector executives, professionals, and investorsResiClub PRO members can access this index output along with roughly 70+ other metrics.
For todays issue, weve included a screenshot showing a metro-level view of the Zillow Market Heat Index for every September reading since 2019. (The ability to change dates is one of the features in the ResiClub Terminal that helps housing stakeholders better analyze the housing market.)
What the index looked like in September 2019:
What the index looked like in September 2020:
What the index looked like in September 2021:
What the index looked like in September 2022:
What the index looked like in September 2023:
What the index looked like in September 2024:
What the index looked like in September 2025:
Do I agree with Zillows assessment?
Directionally, I believe Zillow has correctly identified many regional housing markets where buyers have gained the most powerparticularly around the Gulfas well as markets where sellers have maintained (relatively speaking) somewhat of a grip, including large portions of the Northeast and Midwest.
Based on my personal housing analysis, I consider Southwest Florida the weakest/softest chunk of the U.S. housing market this year. Not too far behind are pockets of Texas and Coloradowhich have also seen a bigger build-up in resale inventory and unsold new-build spec inventory over the past three years.
In my view, many West Coast markets were softer this year than Zillows analysis suggestsin particular the areas that have recently seen big jumps in active inventory for salewhile some areas in the Midwest are a little tighter than Zillow suggests.
One more thought: The Zillow Market Heat Index should not be the only metric housing stakeholders look at when assessing market temperature. At a minimum, Id also recommend looking at the speed of active inventory change, active inventory now versus the same month in 2019, year-over-year home price change, and seasonally adjusted month-over-month home price change. All of those metrics can be found in the ResiClub Terminal down to the ZIP Code level.
There’s a new AI companion in town. Just don’t call it that.
Launching today, Stream Ring is a wearable device that lets you capture your thoughts, brainstorm ideas, prepare for an interview, orif you’re the company CTO’s 7-year-old childsimply learn about dinosaurs.
The ring, which comes in silver ($249) and gold ($299), with a black resin contour on the inside, is available to preorder now, with shipping to begin in summer 2026. It only listens when you press and hold on its miniature touchpad, a bit like a walkie-talkie. You wear it on your index finger, raise it to your lips when you want to save that brilliant idea you just had, or find a quick recipe for Japanese eggplants, and press to record.
[Image: Sandbar]
The ring confirms it’s listening with a gentle haptic vibration, then transcribes your thoughts onto an accompanying app. Unlike the much-reviled Friend AI pendant, which types answers to your query on its app, Stream Ring talks back into your earbuds, while also saving its answer into the app. The ultimate goal? To help you bridge the gap between your thoughts and your words.
[Photo: Sandbar]
A more intimate information-ecosystem?
Stream Ring was designed by Sandbar, a New York-based startup that calls itself an interface company”an intentionally vague description that is intended not box in its founders’ ambitions. It was cofounded by Mina Fahmi (CEO) and Kirak Hong (CTO), who first met at CTRL-Labs, the neural band startup that was later acquired by Meta.
Kirak Hong and Mina Fahmi [Photo: Sandbar]
Fahmi defines an interface as the point where two disparate things become one. “When we say ‘interface company,’ we mean that we will do whatever it takes to bridge gaps,” he says. In the case of Stream Ring, that gap in question is the one preventing people from fully expressing themselves.
The challenge could stem from UX friction: it takes a lot of work to dig up your phone in the middle of a dog walk, and pull up your voice memos app to record your fleeting thought. It could also stem from social norms: would you really pull out a phone in the middle of a buzzing coffee shop to record a deeply private matter?
The way Sandbar has packaged the experience into a ring could solve for both of these pain points. During a recent demo at Sandbar offices, in Manhattan, I was seduced by the immediacy of the interaction: bringing a hand to our mouth is a natural gesture that many of us do without even realizing it. And the act of covering your mouth with your hand promises built-in intimacy. The bigger question right now, as it pertains to AI, is: who will this benefit?
[Photo: Sandbar]
The AI hardware crisis
AI hardware is having a bit of an existential moment. After years of promises about tech that would quietly live in the background of our lives, most of the products that tried to make AI feel ever-present have either stumbled or disappeared.
The Humane AI Pin was hypped as a screenless smartphone replacement before it flopped under the weight of its own ambition and a $699 price tag. The Friend pendant, which billed itself as a minimalist companion for capturing spontaneous thoughts, has been criticized for being more gimmick than breakthrough. The question hanging over all of this is whether AI wearables can justify their existence beyond novelty, or whether these AI gadgets are still searching for the problem theyre meant to solve.
Whether Stream Ring ends up sitting inside this shaky ecosystem or at the edge of it will largely depend on how it’s perceived by the general public. That the founders are shying away from calling it an AI companion suggests they know how fraught the term can be. Instead of foisting yet another AI-powered device onto a tech-hungry audience, they are marketing themselves to the curious, introspective, creative types who like to live an examined life.
As someone who keeps obsessive notes about story ideas and various characters I meet on the subway, I can see the appeal of a device that eliminates the friction that comes with most note-taking apps. I also appreciate the ring’s ability to meet me where I am, which is usually somewhere, listening to music. If a hought bubbles up mid-song, pressing on the ring’s touchpad will pause the music, and capture my voice, before resuming the music. I can also hit pause, skip a track, and control the volume all with a few very intuitive gestures on the touchpad.
If Stream’s AI goes off track, or says something I need clarified immediately, I can also interrupt it mid-sentence. “We find that really changes the dynamic from one of a companion or an assistant to something that is an extension of you that’s fully in your control,” says Fahmi.
[Photo: Sandbar]
Stream ring as an extension of yourself
A large part of the ring’s promise comes from the AI’s voice itself. Unlike Siri or Alexa, which let you select from a predetermined number of voices, Stream Ring models its voice on your own voice by creating a voice doppelgänger of sorts. After reading a linguistics passage that covers a wide range of sounds and sound combinations found in English, I was startled to hear an oddly familiar voice talk back at me. The experience felt like talking to my alter-egoa version of me that felt, as Stream Ring put it to me when I asked what it thought of being my voice twin, “like being my echo.”
“We found that it’s best for the voice to be either identical, or 80% similar, and we shoot for 80% similar,” Fahmi told me. (Most people who have tested the ring so far choose to keep the inner voice.)
The effect, though disconcerting at first, is meant to emulate self-talk, which should facilitate self-discovery. “I think when you’re building a computer, it’s easy to say, let’s just connect humans to computers better,” says Hong. “That’s one way to think about it and that’s part of our mission, but the bigger part of our journey, I believe, is when you start to talk with yourself. I hope we get to know ourselves better.”
While scrolling through previous notes he took on the Stream app, for example, Hong was surprised to learn how much he talks about gardening. “I get to know what I really care about,” he says.
[Photo: Sandbar]
The future of Stream
Fahmi and Hong launched Sandbar in 2023. Two years in the making, the ring first began as a prototype roughly the size of matchbox. It had a mic, a button, and a “very poorly wired computer inside,” says Fahmi with a laugh. The next iteration looked like an adjustable ring that you could press to tighten around your finger, but it was still too bulky. The current version is much more elegant, though it remains quite visibly a “smart ring” that you probably couldn’t disguise as jewelry.
For now, the device works best online, though offline features are in the pipeline. The version that I tested has general knowledge pulled from the internet, but no deep knowledge or internet lookup abilities that would allow anyone to go into a rabbit hole about, say, black holes. On the flip side, it is 100% accurate and it does not hallucinate.
The Stream Ring’s “personality” was designed to be curious, compassionate, and concise. Unlike most current LLMs, which are prone to flattery, Stream was designed to sound like you are bouncing off a thought you just had in your head versus talking to a person you just met.
Naturally, then, every Stream Ring might behave a little differently, based on the information it gleans from its user. Fahmi says his ring sometimes pushes back on what he says, but it mostly sounds like him, “because it’s sharing my experience.” By contrast, when he was listening to the way an investor’s ring responded back to him, he found the ring was “way sharper with him.”
It’s still too early to tell if people will embrace interacting with AI with the fervor investors expect. (Sandbar has raised $13 million in venture capital so far.) If I were writing a dystopia, I would envision a world in which, comforted by the shield of an AI entity that doesn’t judge or ghost you, humans retreat into tech bubbles and forget to talk to one another. A utopia, meanwhile, might find people, recently endowed with the self-knowledge of an expanded mind, taking life by the horns.
The hope, of course, is that more people resonate with the latter category than the former, though more likely than not, reality will oscillate between the two. When asked if the device might encourage isolation and an over-reliance on technology, Hong says that, as a father of two, he wants to make an AI product that is safe, useful, but also meaningful to his kids. “My son loves talking [to his ring] about dinosaurs, but that doesn’t mean he never comes back to me and talks about the dinosaurs he’s just learned,” he says. “He still loves the eye contact.”
Like every company in the world, Pantone thinks you really need AI help to do your job. Unlike most companies, however, the people who created the esperanto of color matching might have actually developed something useful. Today, Pantone is announcing a generative AI model that can automatically create a color palette. It was trained in-house on six decades of proprietary color research papers and articles, which is now available in Pantone Connect’s extension for Adobe apps.
I don’t know if designers will be into the idea of chatting with an AI to find their new product’s color palette, but according to Pantone, many are eagerly waiting for such a helper. “We observed that palettes are critical to designers and that creating palettes is a pain point for many designers in that it is, you know, time-consuming,” says Ora Solomon, Pantone’s VP of Product and Engineering. “There isn’t like a one-stop shop for inspiration.
[Image: Pantone]
The system works like any other chat-based AI: Write a prompt with whatever you have in mind and you will get a color palette ready to go, along with a rationale that explains the palette and links to support the AI suggestion. Once you have this document, which looks like an executive summary with a line of color swatches on the top, you can refine it with further prompts just like you do with most chat-based AIs.
The genesis of the new Pantone Palette Generator was a practical alignment of corporate strategy and customer needs, Solomon tells me. “Pantone is owned by a parent company called Veralto. Veralto has a technology strategic partnership with Microsoft,” Solomon explains, setting the stage for the collaboration.
[Image: Pantone]
A first step
Solomon says that they developed the tool around a chat experience because it seemed like the easiest, most popular way to interact with AI. “Chat-based assistants are becoming increasingly Be it in regular workflows, be it in just overall everyday life,” she says.
The most significant aspect of the tool is not the interface, which looks exactly like any other LLM chat system, but the information that powers that LLM. “One thing I want to call out about these palettes is that these are essentially Pantone curated palettes,” Solomon says. “They are based on extensive, many years worth of research, of trend forecasting, of articles on data that our Pantone Color Institute has developed really since our inception.
While Pantone trained the model using Microsoft’s tech stack, they only used their own data. “We have not gone to third-party sources for this,” Solomon says. “It was really important to us that the palettes that we generate are truly informed and based on our own data.
[Image: Pantone]
Solomon says that the Pantone model will be updated regularly as new research and articles come out. The next update, in fact, will happen when the famous Pantones Color of the Year comes out next month.
This closed-data approach has already prompted a specific reaction from designers who experienced the tool at last weeks Adobe MAX, she says. “What particularly resonated was the fact that it is based on Pantone data and Pantone research,” she says. “And one particular user called it, ‘oh, so it’s ethical AI,’ which I thought was a very interesting reaction.
As a beta, Solomon says this is just the beginning for the Palette Generator. “We will continue iterating on it based on how we see usage and what feedback we get from our users, she says. So go try it and see. The generator is now available to all Pantone Connect users, including those on the free tier.
