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For many high-impact runners, it fels like Mom and Dad are fighting. Strava, the popular fitness-tracking app, is suing the fitness wearable giant Garmin over alleged patent infringement and breach of conduct. The lawsuit, filed Sept. 30 in a Colorado district court, alleges that Garmin is infringing on two patents segments and heatmaps and also broke a written agreement between the two companies, as first reported by DC Rainmaker. For many athletes, Strava and Garmin go together like Oakley sunglasses and On Running shoes. A trend report published last year by Strava showed that Garmins Forerunner was among the most popular smartwatches for its users. If you didn’t track your run on Garmin and upload it to Strava, did it even happen? Now with a number of big races coming up, including the Chicago and New York City marathons, athletes are not taking the recent news well. When Garmin is going to stop uploading data to Strava on November 1st and thats literally the date of your marathon youve been training for a big PR for, one running influencer posted on TikTok. “Have you see the news that Mom and Dad are fighting?” ultra-runner Andy Glaze said in another video. “I’m sitting here with my thousand-dollar watch and my $80 app and thinking, can we just get a family meeting and start getting along again?” Already, some are taking sides and pledging their loyalties to one or the other, or joking about giving up on running altogether now that they may not be able to easily track their runs and post for their followings to see. On Thursday, Matt Salazar, Stravas chief product officer, took to Reddit to defend the companys lawsuit. Setting the record straight he shared that Garmin was requiring their logo be displayed alongside all activity posts or they will cut off access permitting Garmin activities to be uploaded to Strava. “We consider this blatant advertising. These new guidelines actively degrade your user experience on Strava,” Salazar wrote. The post, however, was met with widespread criticism, with the most upvoted replies calling Stravas stance hypocritical at best. So how do I get rid of the Strava logo when I want to share my data on social media? one Reddit user asked. As a premium (paid) Strava member I want to be clear that Strava’s only of use to me if works with Garmin, another wrote. The moment Strava no longer syncs with Garmin connect is the last time I open Strava. Fast Company has reached out to Garmin and Strava for comment. So what happens now? Likely nothing. Its in neither companys interest to stop the steady flow of data from Garmin to Strava, as the online backlash to the news of the lawsuit has shown. For those planning to simply switch to another smartwatch, like Suunto, in case the integration between the two companies does end, bad news: The Finnish brand has launched its own lawsuit against Garmin for patent infringement. Maybe its a sign to go back to when every 5K didnt need to be posted on social media.
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E-Commerce
Skyscanner, a leading global travel booking site, released its 2026 Travel Trends report on Thursday. And the forecast for the year ahead includes trips down the supermarket aisle, literary-inspired itineraries, in-flight beauty routines, and some surprising trending destinations (looking at you, New Haven). If travel in 2025 was about collective experiences, the new travel mindset for 2026 is clearits no longer solely about community connections, its about prioritizing travelers’ individual interests and passions. The report also looked at the role AI is likely to play in travel search and planning in 2026: 54% of travelers said they felt confident using AI to plan their trips in 2025’s survey, up from 47% in 2024. Skyscanner, a search engine for flights, car rentals, and hotels, based its global survey on data from 22,000 travelers. Below are 7 travel trends to look out for in 2026, according to the report. Vending machines over fancy restaurants For one, travelers are redefining food tourism beyond hard-to-get restaurant reservations. Instead, they’re visiting local supermarkets and convenience stores, trying Tokyo’s vending machines and 7-Eleven Slurpees, and picking up loaves of Icelands geothermal baked bread. 55% of U.S. travelers say they often, or always, visit local supermarkets when abroad. “Glowmads” In 2026, beauty travel will shape where people go and how they explore a destinationin the form of in-flight skincare routines, shopping for local beauty products at global destinations, and visiting retail shops from cult-favorites. 32% of travelers said they do beauty-related activities while traveling because they want to experience local beauty culture. In 2026, 32% of Gen Z plan to seek out beauty treatments and skincare stores while travelingcompared to just 8% of baby boomers. A room with a mountain view Travelers are heading up into the mountains year-round, not just for the ski season, in destinations such as the Dolomites, Nepal, and the Canadian Rockies. Some 80% of travelers polled said they are considering or planning a mountain escape for summer or fall next year. On Skyscanner’s platform, searches for room with a mountain view are up 103% year-over-year globally. Finding friends overseas People are longing for real-time connection with friends and in dating. 53% of travelers have gone, or considered going, overseas specifically to meet new people. Meanwhile, 42% said they are more open to meeting others when theyre traveling, and 29% said its because they feel freer to be themselves. And those travelers are looking to connect on a deep level: 28% said they want to meet people from different cultures/backgrounds, 18% want to make meaningful friendships, and 14% want to explore new destinations with a local. Literary travels People are traveling for destination reading retreats, to destination bookshops and libraries, and to travel the route of a beloved literary character. 55% of travelers said they have booked, or would consider, a trip inspired by literature. Multigenerational trips With more 20-somethings living at home, Gen Z and millennials are embracing multigenerational travel. In the past two years, 52% of Gen Z adults have traveled with their parents, while 25% of millennials have traveled with their children and parents. Hotel retreats More travelers are choosing where to go based on hotels, making the destination about where they stay: 56% of travelers picked a destination based purely on accommodation, including 65% of Gen Z, 70% of millennials, and 38% of baby boomers. Hottest destinations for 2026 Skyscanner also included a list of top 10 trending destinations for 2026, based on year-over-year increases in search: Limon, Costa Rica: +289% Jaipur, India: +107% Bodrum, Turkey: +85% Madeira, Portugal: +78% Vail, Colorado: +78% Zadar, Croatia: +72% Olbia, Italy: +64% New Haven, Connecticut: +39% Bilbao, Spain: +37% Mykonos, Greece: +32% Lesser-known leisure destinations are capturing the attention of U.S. travelers in 2026, said Lourdes Losada, Skyscanner’s director of Americas. Vacationers turn their attention to seaside escapes and gateways to natural landscapes. Many of the trending destinations reflect a desire for unique scenery and memorable, luxurious experiences, from the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica to the mountain vistas of Colorado and beach clubs of Mykonos.
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E-Commerce
Ask the most bullish representatives of big AI companies, and theyll tell you that robotic colleagues and house staff are just around the corner. A massive market for robotic aids, powered by AI brains, could contribute huge sums to the bottom line of tech firms. Elon Musk predicted earlier this year that they could produce $30 trillion in revenue for his companies alone. Picture what those robots are, and your minds eye likely conjures an image of a humanoid robot: Two arms, two legs, a head, all in human-like proportions. Thats what the biggest players in the sector like Tesla, Figure and Unitree see, too: Distinctly human-shaped cutting-edge hardware. Yet the fixation on making robots look human could, perhaps, lead the tech sector into trouble, reckons Jonathan Aitken, a robotics researcher at the University of Sheffield. This makes them harder to design and build well, especially with the kind of robustness and efficiency required to perform tasks in the environment, he says. Aitken points out that the human hand has some 27 degrees of freedom, making it a significantly complex system, which is both lightweight, yet powerful and with significant redundancy in movement. Teslas Optimus robot doesnt include all those degrees, paring it down instead to 22 different degrees of freedom. But it still relies on a huge number of parts, working in tandem. Tendons are tricky It’s little surprise, then, that The Information reports Tesla, which aimed to produce thousands of the robots by this summer, quietly scrapped that goal when they realized that making hands that can grip, move, and manipulate objects at the level of dexterity required, was too tricky. The hand-based holdup is just the start of Teslas travails with its Optimus robots, as Fast Company has previously reported. But its not unique to Musks company. Smaller connections like human-sized digits on humanoid robots that come into frequent use can also wear and tear more easily than larger joints, powered by actuators, the robotic equivalent of muscle: pumps that turn power into movement, and connected by planetary roller screws, which have been described as the expensive secret behind humanoid robots. Tendons are tricky, says Scott Walter, one of the worlds leading experts on robot design and the chief technical advisor for Visual Components, a manufacturing production design company. They are likely having creep elongation over time and abrasion issues that hinder long term reliability, he says. It’s not just the weaker elements of the robotic joints, like tendons, that would face abrasion issues, he says. The regular rubbing can damage contact surfaces, made from aluminum. But even the actuators at a humanoid hand-sized scale can be tiny and finicky in terms of maintenance. Only a handful of manufacturers, many of them based in China, can produce actuators at the scale and standard needed for such frequent use. Better than human It all begs the question of why tech firms are building robots that look like humanshands and allin the first place. Aitken says theres no good reason why a robot needs to resemble a human, adding that the better question is what a robot would look like if designed specifically for the tasks it was expected to carry out. However, one way that humanoid robots may be an impovement on their more mundane-looking alternatives is in how they interact with the environment weve built up over centuries. The easiest robot to adapt into the world are humanoid robots because we built the world for us, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last year. Its not just in terms of what happens when robots get let loose in the world. Its also how they are trained to interact with that environment. We also have the most amount of data to train these robots than other types of robots because we have the same physique, said Huang, whose company is developing the GR00T operating system for robots. The humanoid form is ideal for general purpose robotics, especially as a drop-in replacement for human tasks, Walter says. But for special or narrow applications, different form factors make sense. Others agree that humanoids arent always up to the job. The humanoid form factor is somewhat of a red herring, says Aaron Dollar, professor of mechanical engineering and computer science at Yale University. Yes, it makes for a more complex system that introduces a lot of additional challenges over simpler form-factors. But we haven’t figured out how to reliably do practical dexterous manipulation in simpler systems, either. Its unsurprising, then, that Tesla is struggling with Optimus. Optics versus utility Aitken suggests that the reason Musk has chosen a humanoid design has more to do with optics than utility. Undoubtedly Optimus is driven by the sci-fi view of what a humanoid robot is, given the sleek lines and frame. But there’s no need for it to look in this way as it’s just an aestheticarguably though, people may find it more acceptable in this form as it fits the public perception of a robot. However, humanity has been more welcoming of change than we perhaps would think in the last century or more: Weve hopped into planes and cars that would have looked out of place or unusual and gotten used to it, just as we have to mobile checkouts and other odd-looking tech thats come our way. Non-humanoid robots could be just another example where we adapt. It’s for that reasonthe belief that humanoid robots will soon be encroaching into our lives, and interacting with people, and need to seem non-threatening. Aitken points out that from an object manipulation, payload carrying capacity, and stability perspective a quadruped robot with an arm attached to the top of it may well be a better option than a humanoid. The question is whether this would seem more threatening, he says. I do think that people may well find the look of it a little more challenging.
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E-Commerce
In the midst of the current government shutdown, thousands of flights across the U.S. have been delayed or cancelled. With no clear end to the shutdown in sight, its time to revive a tried-and-true tool thats dependably delivered soul-crushing news to fliers for more than a decade: the Misery Map. The Misery Map is a live tool that tracks weather across the U.S., tallies the number of delays and cancellations at every major airport in the country across 17 city hubs, and graphs popular flight destinations with the chances that upcoming flights will actually make it on time. Operated by the flight tracking website Flight Aware, the map has been delivering a no-nonsense picture of how bad your day at the airport will be since 2013and if the last few days are anything to go by, you should probably just bookmark it now. Why is air travel so bad right now? During a government shutdown, air travel is one of the services to feel an immediate impact. Thats because, during a shutdown, air traffic controllers are considered essential workers, but not quite essential enough to receive a paycheckmeaning they have to keep showing up to work with only the promise of future retroactive pay. Back in 2019 during a partial government shutdown, rampant air traffic control and TSA agent absences were one key factor that pressured the government to reopen. And now, just nine days into the current shutdown, those absences are already putting a strain on air travel infrastructure. Over the last several days, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered a reduction in the number of flights in and out of Orlando International Airport in Florida and Newark Liberty International Airport due to low staffing. On the afternoon of October 6, Hollywood Burbank Airports control tower shut down entirely due to a lack of air controllers, forcing pilots to follow procedures typically used at small airports with no control tower. According to data from Flight Aware, total daily flight delays and cancellations averaged around 5,000 between October 6 and October 8. The FAA told NBC News on October 8 that delays have been reported at airports in Boston; Burbank, California; Chicago; Denver; Houston; Las Vegas; Nashville, Tennessee; Philadelphia; and Phoenix. As long as the government shutdown continues, delays are expected to become more common. How to use the Misery Map For anyone with an upcoming flight, the current uncertain state of air travel means that an already stressful travel day might get exponentially worse. Thats where Misery Map comes in. The beauty of the Misery Map is in its simplicity. According to this tool, a flight can only have two states of being: on time or misery. Flights in the on time category are noted in green, whereas “miserable” flights are recorded in red. Each of the maps 17 hubs includes a circular graph thats divided into red and green chunks based on how many of its flights have proceeded according to plan for that day. At a quick glance, the map dilutes the complicated flight landscape to help travelers understand their odds of a pain-free travel experience at any given time. For those looking for more details, the Misery Map includes several other helpful features. By hovering over any given city, fliers can see how other flights have fared on popular routes that day. Routes indicated in green have seen a majority of on-time flights, while those in red have already seen delays. A play button in the lower left side of the screen even lets users watch a mutli-day timelapse of the tracker to understand how flight conditions have evolved based on the day, time, and weather conditions. Travelers can also search for a specific departing flight for more details on its flight path and average delay times. We can all agree that flight delays are miserablebut at least there’s a way to see that you’re not the only one dealing with travel woes. After all, misery loves company. [Screenshot: FlightAware]
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E-Commerce
When a winter storm took out the grid across Texas in 2021, Matt Popovits and his family didnt have power for four days, and didnt have heat in the record cold. We spent the night huddled up lying on the floor in our living room next to our gas fireplace, just desperately trying to stay warm, he says. And I remember looking at my wife and saying, We can never let this happen again. They started researching whole-house generators, but the cost, at around $15,000, was prohibitive. Last year, another storm took out the familys power again for several days. They relied on a small generator, but it didnt work well. Now theyve turned to a new solution: a battery backup system that they didnt have to buy. The system was installed by Base Power, a Texas-based startup thats trying to reinvent the power company. The two-year-old companywhich announced this week that it raised $1 billion in a Series C round of funding, from sources like Addition, Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, an othersowns a fleet of large batteries that it installs at homesboth to help homeowners and to provide critical support for the electric grid. [Photo: Base] A new type of power company Instead of buying the batteries, homeowners pay an installation fee and a $19 monthly rental fee. Then they also choose Base Power as their electric company. The total monthly cost is often less than customers previously paid on their utility bill. Base Power can charge low fees because of the second part of its business model: it uses the batteries to sell power to the grid when utilities need it. The startups software tracks electricity prices, charging the batteries when the cost of power is low, and selling it back for a profit that it can share with homeowners. Base CEO Zach_Dell [Photo: Base] We don’t sell batteries, we sell power, says Base Power founder Zach Dell. We install the battery on your home. We own it. We operate it. When the grid’s up and running, we use it to support the grid. When the grid’s down, you get it to back up your home. The customer gets all the benefits of the power backup without the high upfront cost. And we get to deploy this really efficient asset class of distributed batteries. Dell started thinking about the need for utilities to change while working in private equity at Blackstone and as an investor at the VC firm Thrive Capital. I identified that there was a paradigm shift happening in the industry, he says. The last five decades of energy have been defined by coal and natural gas. And the next five decades are likely to be defined by solar and storage. As an investor, he watched tech companies go after slow-moving industries and quickly take market share. It occurred to me that the energy industry was really the last great part of the economy that had gone undisrupted, Dell says. If you look at electric utilities and the businesses in that category, theyre big, and not necessarily innovative, and not focused on technology and R&D. So the idea was okay, lets go build the category-defining, technology-driven energy company around this paradigm shift. [Photo: Base] A different approach to battery storage Most batteries on the grid today are utility-scalepacked in shipping containers in fields that often sit next to a solar or wind farm. Like renewable projects, they face long delays waiting for interconnection approval. Because theyre typically far from the cities that need the power, they also face challenges with congestion on the grids outdated wires. Distributed batteries allow you to circumvent the two constraints, says Dell. You dont have to wait in the interconnection queue, because you deploy the batteries where interconnection already exists. And the deployment are co-located with the load, so you dont have those transmission constraints. Other home batteries already exist, but the company wanted to offer something different. First, most home batteries are out of reach for many consumers. The home batteries on the market today are very expensive, very premium, he says. Theyre literally made of glass. They cost $20,000 and they look like an iPhone strapped to the wall. Instead of a premium product, the company decided to offer something utilitarian. Unlike other sleek home batteries, it looks more like an air conditioning unit. At 25 kilowatt-hours of storage, it has around twice as much power as some other home batteries, enough to fully power a house. Some homeowners, like the Popovits family, get two units. While they’ve only had it installed for the month and the power hasn’t gone out in the neighborhood yet, they’ve run the system in test mode. “It really does run everything,” Popvits says. “It runs your air conditioner, which is a really big deal.” Over the year and a half that the company has been installing the units, Dell says that other customers have used the batteries in thousands of outages. In some parts of Texas, it’s common for the power to go out once or twice a month. [Photo: Base] A fast way to supply power to the grid Using batteries as virtual power plants is increasingly seen as a critical tool to support electric grids. In California, two large utilities recently ran a massive test with customers who signed up to let their Tesla Powerwalls and Sunrun batteries send power to the grid; together, thousands of homes delivered 535 megawatts of electricity as proof of how the system could work when the grid is under strain. In some cases, utilities are helping pay for distributed batteries. California’s PG&E offers some customers in wildfire zones free or low-cost batteries. In Minnesota, Xcel Energy plans to deploy a network of large batteries at businesses (the companies will be paid for the use of their space, but won’t use the power directly). Some other companies also try to make it as easy as possible for customers to get home battery systems. In Texas, Sonnen and Solrite offer no-money-down batteries, though customers have to commit to 25 years; Base Power has a three-year contract. Base Power’s low-friction approach could help virtual power plants grow much more quicklyand add capacity to the grid far faster than building standard solar farms or gas power plants. The company is now making plans to expand outside of Texas. “We are in an unprecedented time of electricity demand, and we need more supply,” Dell says. The company can add supply to the grid faster and more cost-effectively than any other approach, he argues. “We’re deploying hundreds of megawatts a quarter now,” he says. “Hopefully we’ll be doing hundreds of megawatts a month.” We need to rise to the occasion and meet this massive demand.” So far, the company has installed batteries in around 5,000 homes, and has more demand from homeowners than it can currently meet. “When I did my homework and I discovered that I could lower my energy bills and have power generation when I was in an outage or a storm, it just kind of seemed like a no-brainer for me,” says Popovits, who learned about the company from a friend who also has a system installed. “The lights stay on, my bills go down, and my overall cost to get whole-house generation is just really, really small.”
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E-Commerce
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