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Last week, Congress released more than 23,000 pages of documents from the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epsteins estate to the public. Since then, the bombshell release has garnered commentary from the Trump administration, thousands of internet users, Saturday Night Live, and, now, merch sellers on Etsy. In recent years, a certain contingent of ultra-niche online merch sellers (and, most likely, dropshippers) have decided that any notable event is fodder for potential T-shirts, mugs, and bumper stickers. In recent months alone, sellers have profited off of merch designed to covertly signal anti-Trump messaging; merch promoting “Alligator Alcatraz,” the Trump administrations migrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades; and merch based on a series of New Jersey drone sightings that spawned conspiracy theories across the internet. Just days after the new Epstein documents were released, merch sellers on sites including Etsy and Amazon have already turned the disclosures into NSFW statements. Etsy and Amazon flooded with merch inspired by the Epstein emails Of all the information included in the documents revealed by Congress (including one message in which Epstein claimed that Trump knew about the girls), most merch sellers are focusing on a specific email exchange in March 2018 thats become a major subject of internet scrutiny. In the exchange, Epsteins brother, Mark Epstein, asks Epstein how hes doing. When Epstein responds that hes with Steve BannonTrumps former White House chief of staffMark Epstein follows up, Ask him if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba? Given that Bubba is a well-known nickname for former president Bill Clinton, netizens have begun speculating that the comment might refer to a sex act between Trump and Clinton. The comment even got some national airtime on Saturday as part of SNLs cold open on November 15. (Both Trump and Clinton have denied any knowledge of Epstein’s abuse or sex-trafficking operations and neither appears to have been explicitly implicated of wrongdoing in the emails.) Mark Epstein has since gone on record to multiple publications claiming that he was just jokingbut thats not stopping merch sellers from capitalizing on the theory. A look into the NSFW merch designs Out of the dozens of new Etsy and Amazon listings that have popped up since the files were released, one of the most common themes is a riff on the phrase Big beautiful bill, which Trump used to describe a major tax and spending law that he signed in July. In these merch items, however, the bill in question is Clinton. The items, many of which are not safe for work and potentially offensive, feature President Trump and former president Clinton along with a variety of suggestive phrases. (See here, here, here, and here for examples, but click at your own risk.) While most of the merch is fairly predictable, a few sellers have opted for more creative designsincluding one image of Trump and Clinton inspired by the iconic film Brokeback Mountain. Etsy and Amazon did not immediately respond to Fast Companys request for comment on whether its aware of an uptick of merch in this vein, and whether the merch fits within their terms for seller designs.
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E-Commerce
It’s not just executives or knowledge workers in offices who are using artificial intelligence. It’s being adopted in fields like healthcare, retail, hospitality, and food services, too. But frontline workers often aren’t prepared for AI adoption. In fact, many are completely unaware that it’s being implemented in their workplaces at all. Workplace management platform Deputy surveyed 1,500 frontline workers across the U.S., U.K., and Australia for its “2025 Better Together Survey: How AI and Human Connection Will Transform Frontline Work.” The survey found that nearly half of workplaces (48%) use AI. However, only 1 in 4 workers say they regularly interact with it. But, surprisingly, 10% don’t know if their workplace is even using the technology to begin with. That could be due to the fact that employers aren’t being totally transparent about whether their companies have adopted AI. Just 17% of shift workers say their employer was open about the company’s AI use. Likewise, only 15% say they were consulted about new AI tools in the workplaceeven though they want to bewith 63% of frontline workers saying that communication about AI is essential. “Employees are sending a clear message: They want to be part of the conversation about how AI is used and introduced in their organizations,” Dan Schawbel, managing partner at research and advisory firm Workplace Intelligence, said in a press release. “When workers feel informed and included, trust growsand thats what unlocks the full potential of AI. Empathy, transparency, and inclusion arent just soft skills; theyre the foundation of successful AI adoption,” he said. While AI’s role in the workplace isn’t always clear, what is clear is that the workers using it are having positive experiences with the technology. In fact, 96% of shift workers say they are happy with the technology’s role, which shows up in tasks like scheduling, in AI-powered kiosks for ordering, as well as streamlining administrative tasks, and more, in their workplace. Likewise, 94% say it makes their job easier. That’s likely why nearly 1 in 4 employees who were surveyed said they’d rather have more AI support than an extra week of PTO (23%) or even a promotion (24%). And that’s likely why workers want to be in the know when it comes to how their organization is using the technology: 27% say they desire more transparency and communication about the technology and how it’s being used. “New tech arrives. We’re supposed to just figure it out,” one food worker who took part in the survey said. In retail, the statistic is even higher, with 31% saying more communication is needed, likely because the technology is so visible to customers. “They put in self-checkout without even telling us why,” one retail worker explained. “Customers ask us questions we can’t answer.” Interestingly, while workers report positive experiences with AI, only 37% feel optimistic about the technology’s future at their workplace, which could point to how the technology is implementedoften with little communication. As another worker put it: Employees can’t integrate AI properly if it’s never been introduced to them, which leaves employees feeling the need to push back rather than use the tools to their advantage. “If you explain it, we’ll accept it,” that same worker said. “If you don’t, we’ll resist.”
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E-Commerce
When you open Microsoft Excel to review quarterly results or check Waze to optimize your route to the office, youre tapping into technologies born not in corporate boardrooms, but in university labs. Thinking of innovation, our minds often jump to the titans of tech: Jobs, Musk, Altman, Gates, Bezos. But behind everyday tech innovations and healthcare breakthroughs are academic researchers whose work catalyzed billion-dollar industries. The unsung heroes of the lab and lecture hall have laid the groundwork for some of the most transformative technologies of our time. A few make celebrity status as Nobel prize winners, but the glory of most academics is poorly understood for its formative early impact on products now essential to our livescivic, commercial, and medical. As we gather for the World Changing Ideas Summit on November 19 in Washington, DC, cohosted by Fast Company and Johns Hopkins University, we shine a spotlight on those whose curiosity-driven research has sparked breakthroughs that quietly shaped the world around us. ACADEMICS AND THE INNOVATION ECONOMY Here are four ways academic researchers have quietly shaped America’s innovation economy and impacted daily life. 1. GPS: The backbone of modern logistics You have probably tried to optimize your driving time and cherished every minute saved from your commute. Google Maps has over 2.2 billion monthly active users, and 71% of U.S. smartphone users rely on it weekly. At the root of this technology is the global positioning system (GPS), whose origins trace back to 1957. When Sputnik launched, two young physicists at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)William Guier and George Weiffenbachdriven by the national urgency of the Cold War and scientific curiosity, used the Doppler shift of Sputniks radio signals to determine its orbit. They and others at APL soon realized the inverse was also true. Their breakthrough inspired the worlds first global satellite navigation system, sponsored by DARPA and the U.S. Navy. This innovation, aimed at solving national security challenges for the U.S. government, became the foundation for modern GPS, revolutionizing navigation and telecommunications for military, government, and civilian applicationsfrom global defense operations to everyday delivery routes. 2. Spreadsheets: A new language for business According to a survey, 84% of office workers use Microsoft Excel daily. Thank you, Bill Gates, right? Not so fast. The spreadsheet was not actually born in the Seattle tech scene; that credit goes to Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, students at Harvard and MIT. VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet software, was thought of as a magic blackboard, revolutionizing business modeling. The two werent aiming for market disruption, but simply trying to make homework easier. Bricklin was frustrated by tediously recalculating financial models by hand; Frankston, an experienced coder, helped bring it to life. VisiCalc launched in 1979 from a shared belief that computers should empower people. Their work was nurtured in university settings, supported by federal research grants and computing infrastructure. What began as an academic collaboration became the backbone of how we financially model todayfrom managing family budgets to forecasting industry trends. One could argue that this technology catalyzed our data-driven economy. 3. Self-driving cars: Autonomy realized Science fiction has arrived! Thats what I was thinking as I stepped into my first self-driven Jaguar in San Francisco, courtesy of Waymo. Waymo alone operates over 1,500 robotaxis across major U.S. cities, with plans to expand to 3,500 vehicles by 2026. The roots of this revolution trace back to Sebastian Thrun, a German-born scientist, whose childhood love of robotics and desire to reduce traffic fatalities led him to Stanford. There, he directed the Artificial Intelligence Lab and spearheaded a team that won the DARPA Grand Challenge, a competition funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. That success caught Googles attention and ultimately led to the creation of Waymo and a multi-billion-dollar industry. 4. Cancer detection: Learning what to look for Cologuard has been used over 16 million times. detecting more than 623,000 cancers and precancers, with 80% caught in the early stages. This technology started with the journey of Bert Vogelstein, a Johns Hopkins oncology researcher fixated on a simple scientific question: Why do some cells become cancerous? At Johns Hopkins, supported by sustained federal funding from agencies like the National Institutes of Health, Vogelstein, Ken Kinzler, and colleagues spent decades unraveling the genetic mutations behind tumor development. Their work led to the discovery of p53, a key tumor suppressor gene, and laid the foundation for our modern understanding of cancer as a genetic disease. Researchers insights into cancer cell origins enabled industry to develop methods for detecting disease. Today, we rely on genetic tests for early cancer detection, prenatal screenings, and personalized medicine. IT TAKES THREE PARTS So how do ideas from a university lab end up in your pocket or your car? Its a well-tested recipe. American innovation thrives on a three-part formula: federal investment, university research capabilities, and private sector development. Federal funding fuels foundational science, long before theres a market. Universities cultivate talent and ideas, allowing researchers to follow where the science leads rather than what a corporate budget dictates. Once science shows promise, the private sector tailors the science toward specific applications and scales those ideas into products and companies. Since 1980, federally funded academic research has resulted in over 17,000 startups and $1.9 trillion in economic output. But as global competition intensifies, the U.S. must double down on its research ecosystem. This tripartite innovation ecosystem is not just a source of economic strength. Its a reflection of our American values: open inquiry, public good, and the belief that big ideas can come from anywhere. This three-pronged approach unleashed a century of American technological leadership. At a time when federal research funding is being severely cut, we are wise to remember its central role in our economyand its promise for American leadership throughout this century. Christy Wyskiel is senior advisor to the president for innovation and entrepreneurhip, and executive director of Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures.
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E-Commerce
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