The devices we use every day, like our phone and TV, can play an important role in our lives. But what if the tech we owned and used wasnt just there to help us communicate and be entertained, but also to actually improve our overall well-being? A new project from the Berlin-based Pong Design showcases a range of products designed specifically to improve both physical and mental health and even fight Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), also known as seasonal depression.The Personal Wellbeing project was born out of research of SAD and factors that affect both it and other aspects of our well-being. The devices created through the project arent just functional either. Theyre designed specifically for aesthetic appeal, with attention to the sensory experience and a generally minimalist look. In other words, they do away with the cold, boring tech packed into our homes these days, replacing it with a warm design language that helps make tech a little more approachable.The project actually encompasses four different products, each playing a different role in fighting SAD and elevating the tech in our home. The first is called the Daylight Lamp, and its essentially a light therapy tool thats battery-powered for portability and offers adjustable brightness. It has a tiltable panel that allows it to be more effective. Even beyond its use case as a tool to fight SAD, it functions as an ambient light that can be placed anywhere in the home.The next device is the Nebulizer. Its a pocket-sized device with a scaled-back face mask design that helps make it much more approachable than traditional nebulizers on the market. It has a battery indicator built into it to help ensure its always charged and a small window that lets you check the levels of nebulizing liquids.The third design is called the Massage Device, and its Pong Designs take on the portable massager. The Massage Device is essentially a hand-worn product that has an interchangeable strap, along with interchangeable pads that are made from cork to ensure comfort.Last but not least is the Meditation Speaker, which is a Bluetooth speaker with a few different modes for various use cases. Theres an ASMR mode, a meditation mode, and an active music mode, which can be selected through simply rotating the speaker grill itself. The design of the Meditation Speaker is inspired by hang drums, and the speaker can be combined with a natural-looking wooden stand to help integrate it with any home.Theres no word on when or if these products will be available for purchase, but were hoping the trend of building tech that can positively impact our health continues.To learn more about the Personal Wellbeing range, visit pong.design.

Psychology, personalisation and anti-pricingContinue reading on UX Collective

It just worksthe three stages of technological depoliticizationIt Just Works is propaganda: it hides the trail that products cut though our societies and the natural world to get tous.When it comes to technology, we are depoliticized: too often we talk about technology as something for which making decisions in groups (politics) is irrelevant. We think that technology is a little out of reach, that its structure doesnt concern us or is better arranged by someone else. Or, worst, we dont know that the technology in question evenexists.The phrase It Just Works is a propagandistic lullaby, from the diet-coke-button attitude that technology just appears at our doors and stores. From where? Whoknows?Exposure by Antony Gormley. Without politics, issues are like the figure here:hollow.In a wonderful article in the Russia Post, the authors discuss how the Putin regime depoliticizes topics in order to reduce scrutiny. The idea is to make certain topics no longer political issues, thereby sucking air away from the people who would otherwise pressure for change or even become centers of power outside your autocracy.Putin can more easily control an issue which lacks compelling people, debate andenergy:depoliticization. Its grip on society got tighter and tighter. People with democratic and liberal views who continued to be interested in and engage in politics were painted as demschiza, short for democratic schizophrenics.People free of democratic schizophrenia thus say, We are simple people, we dont get involved in big politics. The affable Vlad Vexler smartly summarizes the Putin project and depoliticization in the videobelow:https://medium.com/media/168daf0802677b580c3d2aa896ecda7d/hrefId like to draw a parallel to a similar trend, found in technology: there are areas of technology in which we tolerate normally morally objectionable issues (monopoly, restrictions on freedom, environmental damage etc.), either regarding them with apathy, not regarding the issues as issues, or not being aware that the thing exists atall.I dont know that much about technology, it justworks.Politics and depoliticizationPolitics is, according to Wikipedia, the set of activities that are associated with making decisions ingroups.There are of course other colloquial senses of this word: one is roughly equivalent to party political or partisanpertaining to political parties and their activities, the latter strongly so. For instance, when Gavin Newsom warned Trump not to make his visit to LA during the fires political, he meant, Dont use this tragedy to try to hurt my side and boost yourside.The other sense is equivalent to Machiavellian (describing a means of operation based on whatever works rather than virtue): in politics this means alliances, favors,leaks.When our friends at Russia Post talk about depoliticization, they dont mean that Putin is making his country less Machiavellian: they mean that he is preventing people from effectively discussing issues and forging change. While party politics is tiresome, it is partly a natural outgrowth of democracy; it too is compromised inRussia.That said, one might argue that some things are properly non-political, where politics might distortthings.In science, for example, politics bears on our decision of what to study, but we take pains to reduce the impact of irrelevant inputs like politics in our experiments. For example, in a double-blind experiment, neither the subject nor those who have contact with them know which is the real drug and which the sugarpill.There are some issues that we cant vote on, and that may harm us if we go against the facts. The most disastrous example is probably Lysenkoism, wherein one mans pseudoscience was elevated to state doctrine, yielding famine in the Soviet Union and laterChina.Stalin looks on as Lysenko speaks at the MoscowKremlin.The American and Western European equivalents of this delusion are pseudo-scientific racism in many forms, and the cartoonish idea that we humans should breed ourselves. These are tools of plain old xenophobia.In both cases, peoples politics (and prejudices) tried to go against reality, with unhappy consequences. This distinction is of course not simple: anyone who wants to have it their way will say this is how it is. They will say of how you want to have it, thats politics.Many of our public debates break down into two or more groups of people who regard themselves as comprehending reality (sometimes, but not always, claiming via biology, medicine, economics, physics, etc.) and regard everyone else as being hypnotized by politics.So, Isay:To the extent that something matters, we should care about it and make decisions about it as a group: this is politics.There are certain things that we cant change: fooling ourselves into thinking we can change them hurts us in nearly allcases.The first fight is, therefore, over which iswhich.TechnologyTo what extent should technology be depoliticized? Technology touches our morals whenwe:Manufacture it (mining, worker rights,etc.)Operate it (energy consumption, information rights/intellectual property, information structure and cultureetc.)Form organizations (usually companies) to do the above (finance, monopoly)And more.I direct most of my attention to a subset of the operate it focus, thinking about how using computers (particularly to create, organize and retrieve information) changes our consciousness.For me, its political. The computer screen is the retina of the minds eye, and we should act and advocate for freevision.For most of the people around me, its not. This is just a little surprising: people seem to care, advocate, and feel less agency when it comes to technology, compared to other fields: e.g. the environment, health, business.Im not hereto moan or finger wag: Im here to say, dear reader, Ive heard people like you sense and decry injustice before. As such: I give you technology, and I give you injustice.This injustice, however, is under layers of depoliticization telling us that matters of technology are primarily reflections of personal or business choices, or brute technological facts; or that theyre otherwise better handled by someone else. The most dangerous form of depoliticization is of course making us forget that thing in question exists altogether.So, thestages:As a fish inwaterWhen people dont know that the technology in question is even there, they are like a fish in water. The best example of this relationship is the Web. (The Web is a hypertext system, allowing users to publish, read and navigate among documents, and increasingly applications, online.)I regard the Web as significantly invisible and unnamed because, when people refer to the activity of going online and reading documents, they say I am going to go on the Internet.If you look at the ngram graph below, youll see how both terms take off in the 90s when these technologies properly entered the public imagination. The term Web peaked in 2011 (probably due to soporific discussion of the Web 2.0 concept): the term Internet has since superseded it.*1This is quite incorrect, as the Internet refers to the underlying system of data transmission (fiber-optic cables, routers, switches, etc.), not to the hypertext application running on top of it. When people say they saw something on the Internet, they do not mean that they received it via email or a secure shell (other Internet applications), they mean that they got it via the dominant information system on the Internet and in the world: theWeb.We are living Web lives, and every time we touch the Web it destroys information. Its links are visible only from one endpoint, meaning that the overall structure (i.e. a web) of information will always be invisible to us. But people rarely say theword.The Web is a monopoly, and monopolyalthough its open source and its standards are published by a non-profitalways stifles technological innovation. Note that there are alternatives: Gemini, Gopher and more, including the technology on which I am working. But why seek an alternative so something one rarely (or never) thinksabout?A screenshot of a Gopher Hole, a site onGopher.We thus do not apply the standards we would normally to other industries or fields: imagine if there were only one company that manufactures computers, or cars or lamps. The Webs monopoly is permitted in that, as my generation would say, it is not athing.Here, the depoliticization is complete: like, say, technological society after the creation of Freon in the 30s and before the discovery of the ozone hole in 1985, our destruction is total, because we dont know what weredoing.Aware but unconcernedOddly, the conceptual layer on which the Web operates (the Internet) is more well-known. In the public imagination there is a concept of a network (physical, connected by wires and fiber-optic cable) among computers through which we communicate: we know what it is, but it is a monopoly on the same level as the Web, and people rarely complain.Of course, the Internet Society is not profiteering through monopoly in the same way that a for-profit business could. But, as mentioned above, monopolies cost us in lost technological progress andfreedom.For example, while IBM had a similar level of dominance in the computer industry, many argue that this held back the development of the personal computer by years. (Not IBMs late-to-the-party PC brand, but computers for one person that can fit on adesk.)In the case of the Internet, it appears that people know that it exists and what it is, but feel as though the comparison of alternatives is for some reason not relevant.You may not know that, like the Web, the Internet has a set of obscure cousins; x.25, for example, still offers similar capabilities.*2You might counter that the Internet holds a position somewhat like that of the railways, wherein diversity of leadership and operating principle can lead to waste and corruption: surely, the more railways that are on the same track gauge the better, leading to more interoperability?This is challenging indeed. I say, however, that we need to make a trade-off: standardization and even centralization can be convenient, but when absolute, they strangleus.Let me put it this way: those arguing for railway centralization have good arguments; however, if you want to get somewhere, you can still take a car, plane or boat. When it comes to information transmission, what is the alternative to the Internet over wires owned by colossalISPs?Heroic people operate amateur networks: some via satellite, some local over WiFi, some run packet-switched radio. We owe a lot to these people, who maintain essentially the only alternative we have: its mostly Internet standards-based, with a little x.25, but its something.What I want, and what I think our society needs, is an alternative to the Internet that is as straightforward as choosing to take a car instead of a train. Dont mistake this for a breathless exaltation of the free market: I just dont think that the right number of viable alternatives when choosing an information network is1.Here the depoliticization is partial: we know the Internet is there, but are somehow happy for other people to shape its structure and operation, and dont care that we cant compare alternatives.Apathetic awarenessThe third attitude is a common posture toward our biggest tech companiesGoogle, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.which all control monopolies. My friends and colleagues often feel that it is immoral for such companies to maintain such monopolies and/or are frustrated by their offerings, but they often do not look into alternatives, or know about alternatives but dont trythem.Often, the alternatives are muchbetter:You can replace Google Search with Duck Duck Go or Ecosia, for example; the latter is somewhat troubling in that it aggregates other search engines results (such as Microsofts Bing) but is has a strong environmental stance, and even Microsofts pushback against Googles monopoly isuseful.You can replace Facebooks social networking features with tools like Mastodon or Microblog, or even just call or email yourfriends.For Microsofts Windows operating system, for consumer purposes, the GNU/Linux offerings are excellent, with great options for beginners. When someone tells you Linux is hard, ignore them: do your own research and make your own choices. For enterprise purposes, e.g. for those requiring support and uptime-guarantees, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is out there foryou.In place of Amazon, for books, one can use Better World Books, which donates to charity and prioritizes eco-friendliness.Unlike with the Internet and the Web (non-profit, open source standards) the above companies are colossal and usually profitable: it is in their interest that you stay apathetic and ignorant. Myths like Linux is hard, Google is the only good search engine and I need Amazon are worth a lot of money. I recommend, if you dont already, automatic and intense skepticism towards any claim in thisstyle.A screenshot from my computer: I use the popular user shell GNOME, which is straightforward, simple, and surprisingly macOS-like.Here, the depoliticization is miserable: we all know these companies exist, their products and services depress us, but weve got it in our heads that the people who run them are in charge somehow and theres nothing we can do aboutit.Its easy to finger-wag. I know how hard and time-consuming it is to research and change our habits. I know that even thinking about switching from these companies is daunting. I am lucky never to have developed a Windows habit, but am painfully kicking mine with Amazon, Facebook andGoogle.We cant give up the fight: our minds, communities and ecosystem will not survive otherwise.What should wedo?I had a conversation with two people at a networking event the other day. The subject turned to AI, and I asked what they thought of the criticisms against it. Even before I had finished my sentence, they both assumed that I was referring to AI taking peoples jobs (which is only one criticism) and answered in quickfire. One said AI wont take peoples jobs. and the other said AI is already taking peoples jobs and theres nothing we can do aboutit.This feeling is common in response to my above concerns about monopoly: theres nothing we can do, people are too lazy/ignorant/busy. This is a real charmer: to say in response to unethical monopoliesor as my acquaintance did in response to people losing their livelihoods to enrich AI supercorporations like Open AI and Googlethat people are too wretched to seize something better.Theres also something very unsettling about people cutting you off to give contradictory answers to half your question in defense of the thing making them money for less effort than before. This is the depoliticization deal: you get money and convenience, and in return you shut up and dont criticize.I disagree with the idea that people wont seize something better. I sense an overall feeling of injustice and unease. The recent annoyance at Twitter and Facebook is small but useful. If we take action, it could be like Hunter S. Thompson said of San Francisco in the 60s, You could strike sparks anywhere.https://medium.com/media/27dda291ebc9b2bea8769394a81266a0/hrefIndeed, we can and have taken unethical actions and organizations to task: drunk driving used to be common-practice, tobacco companies held publicly that nicotine was not addictive, and, as mentioned above, IBM used to stultify the computer industry with its monopoly: nomore.Of course, everyone cant be interested in everything: its right that each person cares about different things. But I think that some subjects are important enough for us to help everyone to know a few pieces of information.We should think about and teach technology not as either a bore to learn in order to be employable or a regrettable brain-rot dispenser, but as a political fight between those who wish to use technology to control and/or extract profit, and those who want to shape it into a tool offreedom.Moreover, weshould:Know about the technology we use and how itworksSet up new organizations to build technology the rightwayPressure companies tochangeBuy from a smaller company where possible to save it from monopoly competition, especially if it is moreethicalJoin and participate in the organizations that set monopoly standards, like the Internet Society and the World Wide Web ConsortiumSynthesisGiven enough eyeballs, all bugs areshallow. LinusLawLinus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, is saying that free/open source software can be as good or higher quality than proprietary softwaredespite the fact that many (but not all) of its creators are volunteersbecause its openness allows huge numbers of people to participate, and use scale of numbers rather than time (or even skill) to spot and fix issues with the software.I propose similar action towards our tech companies. We must learn, pressure and participate ourselves. Enough of us, pushing as hard as we can, can do for technology what we did for the ozonelayer.In his book Literary Machines (1981), Nelson splits people into groups according to how they relate to technology (apologies for the pricklynames):Technoids, who naturally embrace technology and who are drawn to creating it more by the thrill of technical problem-solving than by making the worldbetter.Fluffies, who naturally shun technology, and are alienated by colossal, inflexible systems and care most about achieving socialchange.Today things are broadly the same, except for the fact that the Fluffies have mostly given up and embraced technology. You could say that, today, the mottos of these groupsare:Technoids: Act fast and breakthings.Fluffies:*3 It justworks.Nelson descried a third group, Systems Humanists, who use an attachment to problem-solving (like the Technoids) to solve social problems (like the Fluffies). I call you to join our number, to get political, and to say our motto: The purpose of computers is human freedom.*1 Note that the Web was already in use to refer to something other than the technology were talking about, unlike the Internet.*2 Indeed, there appears not to be a common term for the category of network that includes the Internet and x.25: I recommend the term CNAS (computer network of arbitrary scale).*3 Only those who have given up and now use computers.It Just WorksThe Three Stages of Technological Depoliticization was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

China's DeepSeek AI has already caught the eye of a data protection watchdog, shortly after it went viral and became the top-rated free app on Apple's App Store in the US and other regions. As TechCrunch reports, Garante, or the Italian Data Protection Authority, has written DeepSeek to ask for information about the AI chatbot due to the "possible risk for the data of millions of people in Italy." The watchdog is in charge of monitoring the application of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules in the country.In an announcement about the information request on its website, Garante said it contacted both the Hangzhou and the Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence offices to ask them what kind of personal data the AI chatbot collects. It also asked them to clarify their purposes for the data they collect and whether the information they gather is stored on servers physically located in China. In its privacy policy, DeepSeek admitted that it transfers personal information of the country where the user lives and that it keeps them "in secure servers located in the People's Republic of China." However, it said that the service will "do so in accordance with the requirements of applicable data protection laws."In addition, Garante is asking DeepSeek what type of information is used to train its AI system. And, in case web scraping is involved, it wants the service to clarify how both registered and non-registered users are informed about the processing of their data. Notably, Bloomberg has published a report that Microsoft and OpenAI are already investigating whether DeepSeek took OpenAI data and possibly used it for training. Apparently, a group of users exfiltrated a large amount of data using OpenAI's API back in the fall of 2024, and Microsoft's security researchers reportedly believe that they have a connection to DeepSeek.The chatbot service now has 20 days to respond to Garante's request. In the US, Reuters said authorities have started looking into the national security implications of the China-based AI chatbot.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/chinas-deepseek-ai-hit-by-information-request-from-italys-data-protection-watchdog-133025226.html?src=rss

The latest update Apple rolled out for the iPhone allows T-Mobile customers a select few, for now to be able to send text messages even in locations where they have no coverage. iOS 18.3 adds support for SpaceX and T-Mobile's direct-to-cell satellite service, which is currently being trialed after the companies opened signups for beta testing in December. As Bloomberg notes, the service used to be only compatible with certain Android phones, including Samsung models like the Z Fold and S24 along with select devices running Android 15. Meanwhile, Apple already has a partnership with Globalstar that provides users with texting capabilities when they're out of coverage.Users who've signed up to participate in the fledgling service's beta trials have reportedly started receiving texts. "You can now stay connected with texting via satellite from virtually anywhere," the message reads, according to Bloomberg. And for iPhone users, it asks them to "update to iOS 18.3" to "start experiencing coverage beyond." Once they do download the update, they'll see a toggle in their cellular data settings to activate the capability.At the moment, the direct-to-cell service only offers text messaging. If a beta tester finds themselves in rural areas and other locations that typically don't have coverage, they'll be able to use Starlink's satellite network to send a text. In the future, the plan is to add voice and data connectivity to give people more options in far-flung locations.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/apple-enables-support-for-t-mobile-and-starlink-satellite-network-on-the-iphone-130022775.html?src=rss

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A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked a push from President Donald Trump to pause federal funding while his administration conducts an across-the-board ideological review to uproot progressive initiatives.The order capped the most chaotic day for the U.S. government since Trump returned to office, with uncertainty over a crucial financial lifeline causing panic and confusion among states, schools, and organizations that rely on trillions of dollars from Washington.U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan blocked the funding freeze only minutes before it was scheduled to take effect. The administrative stay, prompted by a lawsuit brought by nonprofit groups that receive federal money, lasts until Monday afternoon. Another court hearing is scheduled that morning to consider the issue.The White House did not immediately comment on the order, which leaves unresolved a potential constitutional clash over control of taxpayer money. Democrats who have struggled to gain a foothold during Trumps second term unleashed on the Republican president, describing his actions as capricious and illegal.Administration officials said the decision to halt loans and grants was necessary to ensure that spending complies with Trumps recent blitz of executive orders. The Republican president wants to increase fossil fuel production, remove protections for transgender people and end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.But a vaguely worded memo issued by the Office of Management and Budget, combined with incomplete answers from the White House throughout the day, left lawmakers, public officials and average Americans struggling to figure out what programs would be affected by the pause. Even temporary interruptions in funding could cause layoffs or delays in public services.This sort of came out of the blue, said David Smith, a spokesperson for the Shawnee Mission School District in Kansas, one of countless districts that receive federal funding. Now theyre trying to figure out what it means based on zero information.Democrats argued that the president had no right to unilaterally stop spending money appropriated by Congress. Just minutes after AliKhan made her ruling, Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia filed their own lawsuit seeking to block and permanently prevent the administration from cutting off federal funding.There is no question this policy is reckless, dangerous, illegal and unconstitutional, New York Attorney General Letitia James said.AliKhan, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, questioned how much the details of the funding freeze had been nailed down as she issued her order.It seems like the federal government currently doesnt actually know the full extent of the programs that are going to be subject to the pause, she said.Jessica Morton, an attorney for the National Council of Nonprofits, which brought the suit, said the group has tens of thousands of members around the country who could be affected.Our client members have reported being extremely concerned about having to shutter if theres even a brief pause, Morton said.Justice Department attorney Daniel Schwei argued that the freeze shouldnt be put on hold because the plaintiffs hadnt specified anyone who would immediately lose funding if it does go into effect.Trump administration officials said programs that provide direct assistance to Americans would not be affected, such as Medicare, Social Security, student loans and food stamps. But they sometimes struggled to provide a clear picture.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially would not say whether Medicaid was exempted from the freeze, but the administration later clarified that it was.Although Trump had promised to turn Washington upside down if elected to a second term, the effects of his effort to pause funding were being felt far from the nations capital. Organizations like Meals on Wheels, which receives federal money to deliver food to the elderly, were worried about getting cut off.The lack of clarity and uncertainty right now is creating chaos, spokeswoman Jenny Young said. She added that seniors may panic not knowing where their next meals will come from.The National Science Foundation postponed this weeks panels for reviewing grant applications. Officials in Prichard, Alabama, feared they wouldnt receive infrastructure funding to fix their leaking drinking water system. Republican leaders in Louisiana said they were seeking clarity to ensure nothing was jeopardizing financial stability of the state.Trumps actions would wreak havoc in red and blue communities everywhere, said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. We are talking about our small towns, our cities, our school districts.The full scope of the administrations review was spelled out in a 51-page spreadsheet sent to federal agencies and viewed by The Associated Press. Each line was a different government initiative, from pool safety to tribal workforce development to special education.Officials were directed to answer a series of yes or no questions for every item on the list, including does this program promote gender ideology? or does this program promote or support in any way abortion? Responses are due by Feb. 7.Trillions of dollars are potentially under review. Grants that have been awarded but not spent are also supposed to be halted if they might violate one of Trumps executive orders.The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve, wrote Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, in a memo distributed Monday.Vaeth wrote that each agency must complete a comprehensive analysis of all of their Federal financial assistance programs to identify programs, projects, and activities that may be implicated by any of the Presidents executive orders. He also wrote that the pause should be implemented to the extent permissible under applicable law.The pause on grants and loans was scheduled to take effect at 5 p.m. EST, just one day after agencies were informed of the decision.Leavitt, who held her first White House briefing on Tuesday, said the administration was trying to be good stewards of public money by making sure that there was no more funding for transgenderism and wokeness.She denied that Trump was deliberately challenging Congress to establish his dominance over the federal budget.Hes just trying to ensure that the tax money going out the door in this very bankrupt city actually aligns with the will and the priorities of the American people, she said.The attempt to implement a funding pause is the latest example of how Trump is harnessing his power over the federal system to advance his conservative goals. Unlike during his first term, when Trump and many members of his inner circle were unfamiliar with Washington, this time hes reaching deep into the bureaucracy.For example, federal employees are being asked to report their colleagues if they try to continue diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.They are pushing the presidents agenda from the bottom up, said Paul Light, an expert on the federal government and professor emeritus of public service at New York University.He also said there are risks in Trumps approach, especially with so many voters reliant on Washington.You cant just hassle, hassle, hassle, Light said. Youve got to deliver.Fears about interruption in government services were exacerbated as states reported problems with the Medicaid funding portal, where officials request reimbursement for providing healthcare to poor residents.Democrats condemned the Trump administration, connecting the issue to the funding pause.But Leavitt said the portal would be back online soon.We have confirmed no payments have been affected they are still being processed and sent, she posted on social media. The White House did not provide an explanation for the problem.Associated Press writers JoNel Aleccia, Moriah Balingit, Collin Binkley, Matthew Daly, Lisa Mascaro, Adithi Ramakrishnan, Amanda Seitz, Michael Sisak and Tammy Weber contributed to this report.Chris Megerian and Lindsay Whitehurst, Associated Press

The tech industry has long been infatuated with metaphors relating to the original space race. Its favorite one is moon shot, a term it applies to any undertaking of atypical ambition. But Chinese startup DeepSeeks release of a reasoning AI model that may be a peer of OpenAIs GPT-o1despite having been created on the cheap, without access to Nvidias best chipshas everyone reaching back to 1957s original Sputnik moment as a point of comparison.It somehow took most people a week to pay attention to DeepSeeks R1, which the company released on January 20. Once they did, it spawned an insta-frenzy whose shockwaves ranged from the technological to the geopolitical. They include a stock market beating for Nvidia and other chipmakers, new questions about whether vast resources actually provide an edge in AI after all, and shock that the Biden administrations bans on shipping the most powerful U.S.-designed chips to China didnt prevent that countrys researchers from making a possibly epoch-shifting breakthrough with the stuff they had on hand.DeepSeeks abrupt impact has undeniable similarities to the panic set off more than 67 years ago when the U.S.S.R. successfully put a satellite into orbit before the U.S. did. But as former Reddit CEO Yishan Wong pointed out in a post this week, the parallels are shallow. For one thing, the Soviets worked in deep secrecy. By contrast, DeepSeek is publishing code and research relating to its techniques for creating AI that does more with less. That gives the entire world the opportunity to quickly build upon what the company has created, potentially accelerating AIs use everywhere rather than preserving a daunting competitive advantage for one company or country.To be sure, the sudden commodification of AI could have profound implications for the handful of powerful U.S. companies that have hitherto propelled the technology forward. But while the details and timing of such an inflection point were unpredictable, its inevitability was not. For example, an internal Google document leaked in early 2023 was titled We Have No Moat and Neither Does OpenAI. Or, as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella put it when I talked to him later that year, As far as Im concerned, early leads in technology dont matter.DeepSeeks R1and other AI technologies modeled upon its approachmay well force AIs incumbent giants to reassess everything about their future. Yet thats hardly an end game for the industry as weve known it. Artificial intelligence isnt anywhere near hitting an insurmountable wall that prevents further progress, and its tough to imagine that companies with access to vast resources wont be able to unlock some advances that those operating under greater constraints cannot.Most importantly, the dizzying improvements weve seen in LLMs over the past few years have yet to be matched by the real-world AI in applications we use. As generative AIs novelty wears off, tools such as Microsofts Copilot look like rougher and rougher drafts of something that needs further ingenuity to live up to its potential. The work of hooking up AI to all the processes we use to get stuff done has barely begun, and a lot of money stands to be made by the companies who get it done.Thats the underyling fact behind the industrys obsession with so-called agentic AIa slightly annoying buzzword that encompasses forms of the technology that can perform complex tasks without constant human oversight. There are some decent early stabs at the idea out there, such as Asanas AI teammates, which already shoulder some of the grunt work of wrangling tasks in the project-management app. But those examples are outnumbered by instances of agentic AI that mostly prove the technology isnt ready to do much on its own.Last week, for example, OpenAI released Operator, a research preview available to users of its $200/month ChatGPT Pro tier. Operator can type into a web browser and control a mouse pointer, a theoretical first step toward letting it handle all the tasks we humans perform on the web. Over at Platformer, Casey Newton reported on his hands-on experience with the service, which included asking it to perform tasks such as writing a high school lesson plan for The Great Gatsby. It took minutes to achieve results that were no better than what the non-agentic ChatGPT came up with almost instantly. And when Newton tried to use Operator to order groceriessomething a stock chatbot cant doit turned out that the current version of Operator is pretty hopeless at the job, too. In December, I got a demo of Googles experimental agentic AI, Project Mariner, that also involved grocery ordering and was too glacially slow to look like progress. That Operator and Mariner arent yet ready to handle a humble task such as buying a gallon of milk isnt evidence that theyre exercises in futilityjust that the goal of making AI usefully agentic remains largely aspirational, even at OpenAI and Google.DeepSeek and other feats of LLM optimization yet to come wont get in the way of further development of agentic AI. Indeed, theyll surely help by making the underlying infrastructure more accessible to more people with good ideas. Even then, the U.S.s AI kingpins will maintain some distinct advantages, from the money and engineering talent they can throw at tomorrows challenges to their ability to market new products to big, established customer bases. Maybe DeepSeek-R1s arrival marks a turning point for these companies. But only a failure of imagination would doom them to irrelevance.Youve been reading Plugged In,Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if youre reading it on FastCompany.comyou cancheck out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Wednesday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me athmccracken@fastcompany.comwith your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. Im also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads.More top tech stories from Fast CompanyEverything wrong with the AI landscape in 2025, hilariously captured in this SNL sketchIn a recent Saturday Night Live sketch, Bowen Yang and Timothe Chalamet managed to highlight several glaring flaws with the current technology.Read MoreWhat people on TikTok are really talking about when they say cute winter bootsThe trend has nothing to do with footwear but is instead an example of algospeak, or the use of coded language to avoid filters and censorship.Read MoreBookshop.org is launching e-books to help local bookstores compete with Amazons KindleThe challenger brand to Amazons hegemony has big plans to build further, starting with a new e-book initiative.Read MoreThese 5 trends show where music and streaming are headed in 2025Data firm Luminates music streaming data shows where the industry is headed in 2025from 2024s big year for pop to growth in international subscribers.Read MoreWhy did DeepSeek tell me its made by Microsoft?The Chinese-language model has shocked and awed the American stock market. But my chat with it indicates there are many reasons to be skeptical.Read MoreYour guide to avoiding job scams in 2025Youve probably felt the thrill that comes with receiving a job offer. You read the congratulatory email, begin to imagine life in your new role, then quickly fill out all the required HR paperwork and receive the necessary equipment. And if all is well, you start preparing for your first day. But whatRead More

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