How to Give Tough Feedback That Helps People Grow

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How to Give Tough Feedback That Helps People Grow Over the years, I’ve asked hundreds of executive students what skills they believe are essential for leaders. “The ability to give tough feedback” comes up frequently. But what exactly is “tough feedback”? The phrase connotes bad news, like when you have to tell a team member that they’ve screwed up on something important. Tough also signifies the way we think we need to be when giving negative feedback: firm, resolute, and unyielding. Continued here

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Why Innovation Labs Fail, and How to Ensure Yours Doesn't Innovation labs go by different names — accelerators, business incubators, R&D hubs — and research suggests their numbers are growing. They can serve as a safe space for new ideas and experiments, but one study found that the vast majority of innovation labs don’t deliver on their promise. In this article the author explains three reasons these creative centers fail: lack of alignment with the business, lack of metrics to track success, and lack of balance on the team. The author offers advice on how companies can prevent these problems in their innovation labs. Continued here

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First-Mover Disadvantage In business today, it’s universally assumed that speed is good—that the fleet thrive while the laggards struggle just to survive. This belief is perhaps most strongly expressed in the concept of first-mover advantage. The company that leads the way into a new market, the thinking goes, locks in a competitive advantage that ensures superior sales and profits over the long term. It’s a nice theory, with a long pedigree. Unfortunately, the facts don’t support it. We recently completed an extensive study of the results turned in by market pioneers and followers, in both consumer and industrial segments, and we found that over the long haul, early movers are considerably less profitable than later entrants. Although pioneers do enjoy sustained revenue advantages, they also suffer from persistently high costs, which eventually overwhelm the sales gains. Continued here

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3 Ways to Grow Your Influence in a New Job Building relationships and learning how to influence downward, sideways, and upward is pivotal to your career success. When you land a new role or have just been promoted, it’s easy to focus on achieving a quick win at the expense of building relationships with your colleagues and direct reports. The best managers achieve both results and build strong relationships. Here’s how: Continued here

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How to Give Tough Feedback That Helps People Grow Over the years, I’ve asked hundreds of executive students what skills they believe are essential for leaders. “The ability to give tough feedback” comes up frequently. But what exactly is “tough feedback”? The phrase connotes bad news, like when you have to tell a team member that they’ve screwed up on something important. Tough also signifies the way we think we need to be when giving negative feedback: firm, resolute, and unyielding. Continued here

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When (and How) to Speak Up as an Ally Our friend Naomi is a white ally who works for a charitable organization. Her white male boss recently decided to establish a committee to address issues of diversity, inclusion, and racial equity. Naomi feared that if the mostly white leaders didn’t structure committee meetings carefully, they would exclude the voices of people of color. She read some antiracism resources on how to elicit diverse perspectives and shared some recommendations with her boss. He agreed with her suggestions and urged her to announce her ideas at the next all-company meeting. Continued here

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Why Your Startup Won't Last The global startup economy is worth $3 trillion today. Startups are no longer concentrated in hubs like Silicon Valley but instead spread across the globe. There are 25 startup ecosystems around the world, with an ecosystem value above $10 billion each. But even with support from various incubators and accelerators, the “unicorn” status (a privately held startup valued at over $1 billion) is not commonplace. Continued here

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Why You Should Build a "Career Portfolio" (Not a "Career Path") In my 20s, I got all kinds of flak for this. When I decided to guide hiking trips rather than join a consulting firm, my peers said that my resume made no sense. When I opted to defer graduate school to travel in India, my mentors questioned my seriousness and said my professional future could crash. Continued here

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Dealing with Grief at Work: Our Favorite Reads Exactly a year ago when India was struggling with a terrible second wave of Covid-19, my team in India spoke about how we’re coping with it all. Each member expressed varying degrees of anxiety, grief, and helplessness. We also spoke about the importance of self-care, and the small things that are helping us stay motivated. Continued here

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Looking for a Job? Play Career Bingo. When choosing to leave a job or transition into a new role, we often feel pressure to get it right. There are so many potential choices with a variety of possible career outcomes, that the gravity can keep us at a standstill. This may be especially true right now. Globally, workers are reassessing their goals and asking themselves, “Where to next?” As the workforce changes, many are also wondering, “How can I chart a path forward that aligns with my shifting priorities and expectations?”  Continued here

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How the 'Just Do It' Rule Will Help You Be More Generous, Thoughtful, and Kind Even if being complimentary will interrupt your attention and focus. Continued here

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These Guys Are Stupid, and I'm Being Charitable Why do some organizations still solicit funds the way they did in the 1960s? You need to take a smarter marketing approach, or you'll waste money like they do. Continued here

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The Secret to Saving Time and Maximizing Your Productivity in Meetings This excerpt from the new book 'Come Up for Air' offers a proven technique for making the most of your meetings. Continued here

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10 Habits and Attitudes of Business Professionals Who Love What They Do The key to satisfying and fulfilling work is managing yourself and setting your own performance goals. Continued here

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Why the Co-Founder of Bonobos Thinks Being Vulnerable Is a Strength Bonobos Co-Founder Andy Dunn has a plan for changing the way we deal with mental health in the workplace. Continued here

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How to Effectively Communicate and Make Decisions as Co-Leaders Learn how to be flexible and make decisions together in this guide to co-leadership success. Continued here

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Customers Are Pushing Back on Price Increases. How Can Businesses Work With Suppliers to Ease Costs? By strategically aligning with vendors and manufacturers, retail businesses may be able to cut costs and resist price increases. The catch: It may involve tricky technological updates. Continued here

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10 Lessons Every Business Operator Should Know About Recessions Recessions are a normal part of the business cycle. Preparation is key. Continued here

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Are You Prepared to Be Interviewed by an AI? Human resources departments are increasingly turning to automated video interviews, and some even rely on AI to make decisions about who moves on to the next round. As a job seeker, how can you prepare for these interviews — particularly when your interviewer is just a screen? Evidence-based suggestions include understanding which type of automated video interview you’ll be encountering; going in with the knowledge that the technology is far from perfect or unbiased; and practicing being as human as possible — even when it feels awkward. Continued here

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Linking Executive Pay to Sustainability Goals Research shows that organizations that adopt a long-term incentive scheme for their executives display more “long-termist” behavior such as investing in innovation and stakeholder relationships. But while the efficacy of tying incentives to long-term outcomes is well established, many organizations are still dragging their feet and failing to incorporate such incentives into their executive’s pay packets. Five questions that can serve as a helpful starting point for companies to develop sustainable compensation programs. What is the goal? What ESG targets are material to the organizations performance? What weighting will sustainability-linked measured be given over what timeframe? What are the targets? And what disclosures will be made to the investing community and other stakeholders. Continued here

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Why Many Companies Get Layoffs Wrong From Microsoft to Google to Meta, many of the world’s biggest tech companies have been announcing layoffs recently. Their explanation is usually that they overhired and need to cut costs. But Harvard Business School professor Sandra Sucher, who has been studying layoffs for years, says companies often underestimate the downsides. Layoffs don’t just come with bad publicity, she explains. They also lead to loss of institutional knowledge, weakened engagement, higher turnover, and lower innovation as remaining employees fear risk-taking. And she says it can take years for companies to catch up. Sucher is a coauthor of the HBR article “What Companies Still Get Wrong About Layoffs.” Continued here

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When Cutting Costs, Don't Lose Sight of Long-Term Organizational Health After three years of adapting to disrupted business conditions due to the pandemic, the aftermath of inflation and fears of recession have leaders scrambling to get budgets in line with slower revenue growth. Riddled with the anxiety of making the wrong choices and having to deliver tough news, leaders are often prone to making short-sighted decisions when cutting costs. And when it comes to sustaining the intended outcomes of cut costs, most organizations are abysmal. Rather than grasping at straws or doing what seems “least painful,” these are the turbulent times when leaders must double down on protecting the long-term aspirations and culture of their organization. If you’re facing the need to tighten your belt, the authors present several ways to trim costs — without sacrificing the long-term health of the company. Continued here

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A new mission to see Titanic Four-hundred miles from St Johns, Newfoundland, in the choppy waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, a large industrial vessel swayed from side to side. Onboard, Stockton Rush expressed a vision for the future: "There will be a time when people will go to space for less cost and very regularly. I think the same thing is going to happen going under water." Continued here

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Pakistan's lost city of 40,000 people A slight breeze cut through the balmy heat as I surveyed the ancient city around me. Millions of red bricks formed walkways and wells, with entire neighbourhoods sprawled out in a grid-like fashion. An ancient Buddhist stupa towered over the time-worn streets, with a large communal pool complete with a wide staircase below. Somehow, only a handful of other people were here – I practically had the place all to myself. I was about an hour outside of the dusty town of Larkana in southern Pakistan at the historical site of Mohenjo-daro. While today only ruins remain, 4,500 years ago this was not only one of the world's earliest cities, but a thriving metropolis featuring highly advanced infrastructures. Continued here

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Autism: Understanding my childhood habits No one knew I was autistic as a child but, looking back, there were a number of sensory clues. Apart from a tendency to repetitively stroke soft fabrics or run grains of sand through my fingers, I also found swirling and gentle rocking mesmerisingly soothing. When I was eventually diagnosed with autism much later in life – at the age of 60 – it gave me a new understanding of how and why I behave the way I do. That includes certain childhood behaviours, from fabric-stroking to the way I played with toys and insisted on specific foods. But it also raised questions, such as what might these preferences reveal about how children with autism experience the world? And how could we use this understanding to help children fulfil their potential, form friendships, and enjoy life? Continued here

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Why fabric fraud is so easy to hide In 2016, US retailer Target severed ties with textile manufacturer Welspun India after discovering that 750,000 sheets and pillowcases labelled Egyptian cotton were not 100% Egyptian after all. Egypt has long been known for producing long- and extra-long-staple cotton, a variety of the crop with especially long threads that results in softer and more durable fabric – so products labelled Egyptian typically command a higher price. But the year after the Welspun incident, the Cotton Egypt Association estimated that 90% of global supplies of Egyptian cotton in 2016 were fake. Continued here

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Did Philip II bring invasive fish to Spain? One dead carp. The king was displeased. For months he had waited in tender anticipation. But all that made it to Madrid was one deceased fish and three dozen live, but small, pike – out of more than 200 fish originally dispatched to him. Philip II wasn't asking for much. It was 1565 and the Spanish king who would later launch the Spanish Armada had other preoccupations – he merely dreamt of having his garden ponds stocked full of charming fish to dote on. He wanted fish like those in the water gardens he had seen on his travels in Central Europe. That's why he had recruited two "fish maestros" to help. Both from the Netherlands, they had signed up as the king's trusted emissaries. They knew all about fish. And swans, too. Continued here

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Funding flows will grow between Asia and the Middle East Philip Bahoshy is the founder and chief executive officer of MAGNiTT, a Dubai-based data analytics platform focused on emerging venture markets. The platform tracks investment activities in Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, and Turkey and will soon start covering Southeast Asia. MAGNiTT’s latest report documented a decline in the number of deals and the value of funding in emerging markets in 2022. It predicts more acquisitions in 2023, as startups seek alternatives to fundraising, interest in investments grows from Asia and the Middle East, and more deals abound in seed and series A investment rounds. Continued here

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South Africa's poorest are staying up all night for cheaper internet rates Anele Mudau, a 44-year-old butcher in Johannesburg, sleeps in the afternoon and wakes up at midnight to take online courses on financial literacy and help his two kids do research for their homework. His odd hours are not a lifestyle choice but a financial one. Mudau is taking advantage of the online “happy hours” offered by Vodacom: Between midnight and 5 a.m., internet access costs upward of 60% less per megabyte than during the day.  “It’s devouring my family life, my health,” Mudau told Rest of World, adding that he frequently has migraines from staying up late. Mudau says his migraines have become more frequent and worse due to straining himself to remain online at night. Continued here

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What does Pakistan's economic turmoil mean for its fledgling tech startup sector? At a time when startups in most parts of the world are dealing with a slowdown in venture capital funding, Pakistani entrepreneurs have a much greater challenge facing them. The world’s fifth-most populous nation is in the middle of a major crisis, with inflation soaring, the rupee plummeting, and a severe shortage of energy. Last week, Pakistan’s government ordered markets and malls in the country to close early every day to save energy, according to local media reporters. Continued here

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How Scientists Are Using AI to Talk to Animals Portable sensors and artificial intelligence are helping researchers decode animal communication—and begin to talk back to nonhumans In the 1970s a young gorilla known as Koko drew worldwide attention with her ability to use human sign language. But skeptics maintain that Koko and other animals that “learned” to speak (including chimpanzees and dolphins) could not truly understand what they were “saying”—and that trying to make other species use human language, in which symbols represent things that may not be physically present, is futile. Continued here

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Scientists Made A New Kind Of Ice That Might Exist On Distant Moons Scientists have created a new type of ice that matches the density and structure of water, perhaps opening a door to studying water’s mysterious properties. “It might be liquid water frozen in time,” says Martin Chaplin, a specialist in water structure at London South Bank University, who was not involved in the work. “It could be very important.” Continued here

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We Can't Solve Our Climate Problems without Removing Their Main Cause: Fossil-Fuel Emissions “Realists” argue that climate plans need to accommodate oil and gas, but that only perpetuates the climate crisis Toward the end of 2022, I was a panelist at a session on climate change held by a major scientific society. Near the end of the session, a prominent scientist declared that we needed to be “realistic”: oil and gas weren’t going away anytime soon, and we had to accept that as we attempted to solve our climate crisis. Continued here

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Rainmaking Experiments Boom Amid Worsening Drought Scientists and companies are scrambling to find new ways to squeeze more rain from the skies as climate change intensifies drought As rain clouds swelled over Fort Stockton, Texas, last summer, a little yellow plane zipped through the sky. It was on a mission. Continued here

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Black Inventor Garrett Morgan Saved Countless Lives with Gas Mask and Improved Traffic Lights In 1916 he strapped on his “safety hood” and dragged rescuers to safety, but racism prevented him from being hailed as a hero  Just before midnight at the close of a hot summer day in 1916, a natural gas pocket exploded 120 feet beneath the waves of Lake Erie. It happened during work on Cleveland’s newest waterworks tunnel, a 10-foot-wide underwater artery designed to pull in water from about five miles out, beyond the city’s polluted shoreline. The blast left twisted conduit pipes littering the tunnel floor and tore up railroad tracks inside the corridor, with noxious smoke curling off the rubble. When the dust settled, 11 tunnel workers were dead. Continued here

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How Data Analytics Can Help Deliver Social Good The second of this year’s Beyond Business panels explored how data science innovations are bringing solutions to previously intractable social problems. Innovations in data science are finding uses beyond business settings to bring effective solutions to pressing social problems. In one novel exercise, analysis of data on sex trafficking provided insights on directing preventive and remedial resources to poorer areas from where victims are trapped, instead of an earlier focus on richer, urban areas where they are sold. In another instance, machine learning tools helped the Greek government to identify incoming COVID-19-infected travelers at nearly double the volume that conventional random tests would have achieved, thereby reducing the spread of the virus within its country. Analytics can also correct long-held misperceptions such as the role of media in shaping public opinion: TV broadcasts are far more pernicious than social media in peddling biased reports, another study using analytics found. Continued here

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Why Capital Investment in Equipment Doesn’t Hurt Employment A new study co-authored by Wharton’s Daniel G. Garrett shows that giving businesses tax breaks for investment in new equipment doesn’t lead them to replace workers with machines. A new paper by experts at Wharton and elsewhere has set to rest “widespread concerns” that increased capital investment in equipment is at the cost of worker employment. In the study of tax incentives that boost capital investment in equipment at U.S. firms between 1997 and 2011, the experts found that such investment resulted in matching employment growth, although it did not stimulate wage or productivity growth. Continued here

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Tolu Oyekan: A for-profit mindset for nonprofit success How can nonprofits accelerate their impact and move the needle on intractable problems? Looking to bring the urgency of a profit motive to every initiative, inclusive finance promoter Tolu Oyekan shows how scalable, data-driven solutions are expanding access to banking and financial services across Africa -- and shares the mindset that can help any business meet its goals with speed and precision. Continued here

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What Creepy Video Game Sounds Do to Your Brain If you want to know what it sounds like to root around in someone’s chest cavity without the bloody mess, a grapefruit will do just fine. Tear, compress, and squish it in your hands. With a little tuning on the audio side, the sour fruit is now a gag-worthy imitation of a gurgling death. Sound designers in video games have mastered the art of turning mundane noises into art of the grossest kind. Cracking apart a walnut becomes the sound of bones snapping. Nickelodeon green goo splashed onto the floor is a dead ringer for blood, vomit, and spilled guts, while using a plunger to slurp through that same mess conjures up any number of wet, squelching scenarios. Occasionally, a developer might even opt to make music with a human skull. For genres like horror, hitting the right note—especially for nasty effects—is key to marrying sound with visual to create a spooky atmosphere. A developer can’t just toss a player into a dark room and hope it’s scary. They’ve got to sell it.  Continued here

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The Antibiotic Resistance Crisis Has a Troubling Twist A report released today by the United Nations says that we’ve neglected a major component of the superbug problem: the environment. It serves as a reservoir for bacterial genes that create antimicrobial resistance, and it receives farm run-off and pharmaceutical effluent that let new resistance emerge. “The same drivers that cause environment degradation are worsening the antimicrobial resistance problem,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, known as UNEP, said in a statement. “The impacts of antimicrobial resistance could destroy our health and food systems.” Continued here

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This Mini Treadmill Is a Couch Potato's Dream If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED If your TikTok FYP is anything like mine, you've been seeing a bunch of fit girlies walking on mini treadmills at their desk. I'm here to tell you they've got it right. The Egofit Walker Pro is my work-from-home savior. With it, I've gone from a few, ahem, hundred steps in a normal day—bedroom to kitchen to office is not exactly a half marathon—to 14,000 or more.  Continued here

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The OnePlus 11 Is a Speed Demon of a Smartphone If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Samsung and Apple have flagship smartphones that start at $800, but pay a little extra and you can get even more of a flagship phone (flagshippier?) with the words “Ultra” or “Pro” attached at the end. OnePlus used to follow the same strategy, but it's changing things up this year with its new OnePlus 11 5G. Instead of making you pay more for the mark, there won't be a OnePlus 11 “Pro” at all. The standard flagship should have everything you need and more, right? It's like the company took Marty DiBergi's question from This is Spinal Tap to heart.  Continued here

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How to Watch Google's AI Search Event Google is expected to announce artificial intelligence integrations for the company's search engine on February 8 at 8:30 am Eastern. It's free to watch live on YouTube. "We're starting with AI-powered features in Search that distill complex info into easy-to-digest formats, so you can see the big picture, then explore more," Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote on Twitter in the lead-up to the event. Despite recent layoffs, the company remains an assertive force in Silicon Valley. The viral success of other generative AI models, specifically OpenAI's ChatGPT, put pressure on the company to expedite its experimental research for public use. Continued here

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7 Great Valentine's Day Deals on Vibrators and Suction Toys Valentine's day, V-Day, Lupercalia: No matter what you call it, mid-February is a time for love. Or at least that's what all the greeting cards tell us. I choose to take it literally; this is a time of year to celebrate yourself and your body, as well as your emotional and sexual intimacy. Whether you're coupled, throupled, or flying solo, we have some great deals on sex toys that will make this year's Valentine's Day one to remember. Looking for more deals? We've got a bigger roundup with more categories here. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-Year Subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. Continued here

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Microsoft Taps ChatGPT to Boost Bing—and Beat Google Microsoft's search engine, Bing, is getting an AI refresh. At the company's campus in Redmond, Washington, today, executives unveiled a new version of Bing incorporating technology behind startup OpenAI's viral chatbot ChatGPT. The updates will see Bing results include smooth, written responses to queries that summarize information found on the web, and the addition of a new chatbot interface for complex queries.  Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, claimed the new features signal a paradigm shift for search. "In fact, a new race starts today," he said. Nadella is right: Google announced on Monday that it will roll out its own rival chatbot, a product called Bard, although it will not initially be part of Google Search. Continued here

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ChatGPT Has Been Sucked Into India's Culture Wars Mahesh Vikram Hegde’s Twitter account posts a constant stream of praise for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. A tweet pinned to the top of Hegde’s feed in honor of Modi’s birthday calls him “the leader who brought back India’s lost glory.” Hegde’s bio begins, “Blessed to be followed by PM Narendra Modi.” On January 7, the account tweeted a screenshot from ChatGPT to its more than 185,000 followers; the tweet appeared to show the AI-powered chatbot making a joke about the Hindu deity Krishna. Continued here

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Driving the Curiously Discreet Rolls-Royce Spectre EV A few years before Charles Rolls met his future business partner, Henry Royce, he went on the record about the potential of electric propulsion. Yep, back in 1900, electrification was very much on the cards, and one half of what would become the world’s pioneering automotive luxury brand was fully on board with the idea—until the oil business did its nefarious thing and steered the new-fangled motor industry toward petrol.  To be clear, the lead acid batteries in those days were huge and not especially efficient, and Rolls had his doubts about the infrastructure that would be required. That remains an issue 120 years later, depending on where in the world you happen to be, but it’s one that most likely won’t trouble the owner of a new Rolls-Royce Spectre. Because, as Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös tells WIRED, the average Rolls client has seven cars in their garage. In a life enviably awash in luxury, being able to flit between the Ferrari, Range Rover, or electric Rolls-Royce is merely one of the day’s less taxing decisions. A car to fit every occasion, then.  Continued here

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Data Privacy Is Now a Must-Hit US State of the Union Topic The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, enacted in 2018, provides far from perfect data privacy protection, but it stands in stark contrast to the legislative dearth in the United States where there is currently no comprehensive federal data privacy law on the books. In his second State of the Union address this evening, though, US President Joe Biden devoted more attention than ever to the need for such a measure.  With political control of the US Congress now split, Biden asserted that a data privacy law is something that could garner bipartisan support. It's an idea that has been gaining traction in recent years, and Biden's mention of data privacy issues in his State of the Union sets a precedent that the topic should be of real concern to US presidents and the public. Continued here

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NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory to finally answer the epic question: "Are we alone?" There are a few questions that humanity has always pondered, yet scarcely could satisfactorily answer until the proper scientific advances came along. Questions like: are questions that have been with us since time immemorial, and yet, in the 20th and now 21st centuries, are finally getting comprehensive answers thanks to incredible advances in physics and astronomy. However, perhaps the biggest question of all — that of “Are we alone in the Universe?” — remains a mystery. Continued here

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How to fix your money trauma It’s no surprise that the values, advice, and experiences we encounter as children shape how we relate to other people later in life. But less obvious is how our early experiences shape our relationship with money. Like other relationships, the ways we interact with money — whether it be spending, saving, or investing — can be highly emotionally charged, sometimes to such an extent that we lose the ability to make smart financial decisions. Continued here

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Inside the brains of aging dogs Hana aced her memory test. After viewing the contents of three identical boxes arrayed in an arc on the back deck of her home, the 3-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel had to remember which box held a treat — a task she quickly learned after just a few trials. Hana and her human companion, Masami Shimizu-Albergine of Bainbridge Island, Washington, are helping scientists to learn something too: when dog smarts reach their peak and how they decline with age. Continued here

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The "maritime Indiana Jones" who salvages shipwrecks now wants to tow icebergs Excerpted from Chasing Icebergs: How Frozen Freshwater Can Save the Planet by Matthew Birkhold. Published by Pegasus Books, 2023. Nick Sloane may just be the visionary we need if iceberg towing is to become a reality. His desire to find a solution for the water crisis in Cape Town has convinced him the risk of seeming laughable is worth the reward of collecting these freshwater jewels. Luckily, he is also one of the smartest and bravest people sailing the oceans today.  Continued here

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What childhood “money story” is shaping your financial behaviors? It’s no secret that the values, advice, and experiences we encounter as children shape how we relate to other people later in life. But less obvious is how our early experiences shape our relationship with money. Like other relationships, the ways we interact with money — whether it be spending, saving, or investing — can be highly emotionally charged, sometimes to the extent that we lose our control to make smart financial decisions. That’s why it’s important to understand where you come from before plotting where you’re going when it comes to personal finance. Doing so will not only help you plan for financial success, but it will also give you the tools to help your children develop a healthy and positive relationship with money. Continued here

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Some earthquakes last for seconds, others for minutes — and a few for decades Earthquakes are terrifying, even if they are usually brief. Within a few seconds they can wreak widespread destruction, causing great structural damage, shifting landmasses, and triggering tsunamis. Not all earthquakes are so short-lived, either. Earthquakes can last for minutes and even longer. Some slow-slip events, which may be related to earthquakes, can even last decades. What causes an earthquake to last so long?  Continued here

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OnePlus 11 comes to the US with killer $699 price tag After the OnePlus 11's debut in China last month, the phone is finally making it to US shores. Preorders open today, and it ships on February 16. The phone's US price is $100 lower than last year's release, which may help it out in the currently terrible smartphone economy. The OnePlus 11 starts at $699, or $100 less than the base model Galaxy S23 that was announced just last week and $200 less than the OnePlus 10. Continued here

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Google and Mozilla are working on iOS browsers that break current App Store rules Companies like Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft have versions of their web browsers on Apple's iOS and iPadOS App Stores, but these versions come with a big caveat: The App Store rules require them to use Safari's WebKit rendering engine rather than the engines those browsers use in other operating systems. Continued here

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Musk says he saved Twitter from bankruptcy, but it still has big money problems Elon Musk says Twitter has stabilized its finances after being close to bankruptcy, but the company still faces money problems and at least seven lawsuits alleging it stopped paying bills after Musk bought the social network. A new report says an attempt to boost Twitter Blue subscription revenue isn't paying off much yet, and a plan to charge for API access has angered users and developers. Continued here

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OnePlus unveils its first mechanical keyboard: Mac layout, custom switches OnePlus is finally ready to detail its first mechanical keyboard. No, we didn't need another company to start making mechanical keyboards. But if you're looking for a new Bluetooth keyboard that plays particularly well with Macs, has a compact layout, and a rotary knob that looks stylish and functional, OnePlus will have one more choice for you come April. Continued here

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Creation of largest US lithium mine draws closer despite protest over land use Construction will reportedly soon begin on a mine that’s expected to become the United States’ largest source of lithium. This mine is viewed as critical to Joe Biden’s $2 trillion clean energy plan by powering the nation’s increased production of electric vehicles. Continued here

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Microsoft announces AI-powered Bing search and Edge browser Fresh off news of an extended partnership last month, Microsoft has announced a new version of its Bing search engine and Edge browser that will integrate ChatGPT-style AI language model technology from OpenAI. These new integrations will allow people to see search results with AI annotations side by side and also chat with an AI model similar to ChatGPT. Microsoft says a limited preview of the new Bing will be available online today. Continued here

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Google will soon default to blurring explicit image search results Google has debuted a new default SafeSearch setting, somewhere between "on" and "off," that automatically blurs explicit images in search results for most people. Continued here

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Report: Sonos' next flagship speaker will be the spatial audio-focused Era 300 Sonos will release a new flagship speaker "in the coming months," according to a report Monday from The Verge. The publication said this will be called the Era 300 and that Sonos is prioritizing the device's spatial audio capabilities. Continued here

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OnePlus takes on the iPad with the OnePlus Pad Android tablets are on their way back, and one of Android's biggest manufacturers (we're talking about OnePlus parent company BBK) is bringing an Android tablet to the US for the first time. Say hello to the OnePlus Pad, an 11.61-inch tablet with an optional keyboard and stylus. We don't know how much it costs, so don't ask. There's also no hard release date, but preorders start in April. Continued here

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Lost and found: Codebreakers decipher 50+ letters of Mary, Queen of Scots An international team of code-breakers has successfully cracked the cipher of over 50 mysterious letters unearthed in French archives. The team discovered that the letters had been written by Mary, Queen of Scots, to trusted allies during her imprisonment in England by Queen Elizabeth I (her cousin)—and most were previously unknown to historians. The team described in a new paper published in the journal Cryptologia how they broke Mary's cipher, then decoded and translated several of the letters. The publication coincides with the anniversary of Mary's execution on February 8, 1587. Continued here

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The Real Obstacle to Nuclear Power This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.       Kairos Power’s new test facility is on a parched site a few miles south of the Albuquerque, New Mexico, airport. Around it, desert stretches toward hazy mountains on the horizon. The building looks like a factory or a warehouse; nothing about it betrays the moonshot exercise happening within. There, digital readouts count down the minutes, T-minus style, until power begins flowing to a test unit simulating the blistering heat of a new kind of nuclear reactor. In this test run, electricity, not uranium, will furnish the energy; graphite-encased fuel pebbles, each about the size of a golf ball, will be dummies containing no radioactive material. But everything else will be true to life, including the molten fluoride salt that will flow through the device to cool it. If all goes according to plan, the system—never tried before—will control and regulate a simulated chain reaction. When I glance at a countdown clock behind the receptionist during a visit last May, it says 31 days, 8 hours, 9 minutes, and 22 seconds until the experiment begins. Continued here

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Trumpism Without Trump Who’s afraid of Donald Trump? Not Nikki Haley, who is reportedly on the verge of announcing a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Not Ron DeSantis, whose own run seems certain, and who has been agitating the former president to no end. Not Mike Pompeo, who has published the sort of memoir that usually foretells a candidacy, and which criticizes Trump. Trump is furious about these challenges, especially DeSantis’s. He railed last week against the Florida governor, calling a prospective campaign “very disloyal” and alleging that DeSantis had tearfully “begged” Trump for his endorsement in his first run for governor, in 2018. “It’s not about loyalty,” Trump said. “To me it is; it’s always about loyalty. But for a lot of people, it’s not about that.” The sudden abundance of challengers is richly ironic. Trump, who doesn’t care at all about his party, has improbably remade the GOP in his own image—yet also seems to be losing his personal appeal to its voters. Continued here

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A Football Memoir, With Tears A new book by the former coach of the Giants offers a human counterbalance to the heroics and chest-thumping of the Super Bowl. Toward the end of Tom Coughlin’s new memoir about Super Bowl XLII, when his New York Giants defeated the previously unbeaten New England Patriots in arguably the greatest upset in pro-football history, he recalls the immediate aftermath of that 17–14 victory. “The moments afterward are kind of a blur,” he writes. “The confetti rains down, you raise the Lombardi trophy at a midfield podium, and for the next few hours it’s like you’re in a dream world, being taken from one place to the next, carried along by your happiness. It took forever to get to the locker room; I never actually got the opportunity to give that one speech to all the guys where I could say, We are world champions.” Continued here

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White Supremacy Is a Script In South Africa, a broken culture of law enforcement has extended long past the formal end of apartheid. Many news stories have noted that the first five officers charged in Tyre Nichols’s killing are Black, as if this fact is strange—as if it undermines the idea that racism is essential to understanding police brutality. Some American commentators seem to think that issues of race must be absent when white people are not physically present. Continued here

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This Is What Netflix Thinks Your Family Is The streaming service’s restrictive new rules on password sharing among relatives reveal the industry’s pernicious bias. Netflix just unveiled (and then partially withdrew) details of a new password-sharing policy, which allows members of the same “household” to share an account. Besides being, in reality, more an anti-password-sharing policy, this revised version comes with two very large assumptions: that there is a commonly understood, universal meaning of household, and that software can determine who is and is not a member of your household. Continued here

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'Magic Mike’s Last Dance' Is Wish Fulfillment at Its Sexiest Poor, poor Mike “Magic Mike” Lane. Channing Tatum’s stripper-god character, bearer of less-than-zero-percent body fat, has satisfied countless women with his gyrating—and yet true romance has been elusive. That sweet, low-key relationship he began with his colleague’s sister in Magic Mike? It’s a failed engagement by the sequel, Magic Mike XXL. That charming photographer he wooed in XXL? Nowhere to be found when the latest film, Magic Mike’s Last Dance, begins. Lost and jaded and struggling to pay the bills, Mike is more alone now than ever before. Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Mike doesn’t know what he really wants. Good thing Steven Soderbergh does. The director, returning to the franchise after handing the reins to Gregory Jacobs for XXL, tells a downtempo love story between Mike and the impossibly wealthy Maxandra “Max” Mendoza (played by a magnetic Salma Hayek Pinault). A portrait of a mature courtship, Last Dance shifts tonal gears from the buoyant road-trip comedy XXL just as that film swerved away from the first Magic Mike, an incisive study of the Great Recession. Mike and Max’s relationship—in which she whisks him off to London so he can direct an all-male revue at the theater she owns—is the stuff of romance novels, but that’s the point: Last Dance is all wish fulfillment, seductive and surreal. Continued here