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If you think memory prices are high now, just wait.

A new report from Citrini Research forecasts that Nvidia’s next-generation Rubin AI platform will require more than 6 billion GB of Low-Power Double Data Rate memory (LPDDR) in 2027. LPDDR is the low-power memory used in devices like smartphones, tablets, and ultra-thin laptops.

If Citrini is correct, Nvidia could consume more LPDDR memory than Apple and Samsung combined. That could spell bad news for consumers looking to upgrade phones and other personal devices, especially as rising memory costs are already affecting prices across consumer electronics.

Rubin, named after astronomer Vera Rubin, is a big bet for Nvidia. The company says the chips are designed to meet generative AI’s growing demand for real-time reasoning and will be twice as fast as Blackwell, Nvidia’s current flagship AI platform.

Between Blackwell and Rubin, Nvidia has locked in $1 trillion in orders through the end of 2027, according to an announcement the company made in March. That’s great news for Nvidia and its investors. But for consumers already feeling the downstream effects of AI-driven demand, though, the timing could hardly be worse.

In order for a chatbot to become more intelligent, and thus more useful to the end-user, it needs to assimilate data continuously. This process is known as “training.” The problem is that many AI companies never explicitly ask for consent from data owners before scraping their webpages and adding the data to the corpora of the large language models (LLMs) that power AI chatbots.

But some of those data owners, also known as content creators or IP holders, are now fighting back. They are doing this by using tools known as “tarpits.” Their aim? To poison the chatbot’s underlying LLM and thus degrade the quality of its outputs, potentially causing end-user flight. Here’s what you need to know.

During the pandemic housing boom, housing demand surged rapidly amid ultralow interest rates, stimulus, and the remote work boom. Federal Reserve researchers estimate “new construction would have had to increase by roughly 300% to absorb the pandemic-era surge in demand.”

Unlike housing demand, housing stock isn’t as elastic and can’t quickly ramp up. As a result, the heightened demand drained the market of active inventory and caused home prices to overheat, with U.S. home prices in June 2022 sitting at a staggering 43.2% above March 2020 levels.

The run-up was even greater in some metro markets, including Naples, Florida (+73%); Austin, Texas (+73%); Punta Gorda, Florida (+71%); Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida (+70%); and North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida (+69%).

Among the nation’s 300 largest metro-area housing markets, these 15 markets have home prices this spring at least 10% below their local 2022 peak, according to ResiClub’s analysis of the Zillow Home Value Index:

1. Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, TX → -27.8% 
2. Punta Gorda, FL → -25.4% 
3. Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL → -18.9% 
4. North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, FL → -17.5% 
5. New Orleans-Metairie, LA → -13.8% 
6. Houma-Thibodaux, LA → -13.2% 
7. Boulder, CO → -11.8% 
8. Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ → -11.6% 
9. Naples-Marco Island, FL → -11.5% 
10. Lake Charles, LA → -11.4% 
11. San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX → -11.2% 
12. San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA → -11.0% 
13. Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO → -10.6% 
14. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX → -10.1% 
15. Boise City, ID → -10.1%

A handful of technology companies now claim that they can track and identify users of Starlink, the satellite internet communications service operated by SpaceX, according to a spate of new documents. These services not only raise privacy questions for Starlink consumers, but also a growing number of government agencies that deploy SpaceX’s service for internet and communications networks. 

Sales documents, highlighted recently by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, detail how software might be used to monitor terminals used to access the SpaceX internet service. At least two companies named by Haaretz, TechTarget and Rayzone, appear to be marketing tools that use a variety of data sources to surmise where Starlink terminals might be operating. The tools seem to be designed for government clients, per Haaretz, and aren’t designed to access or exploit any SpaceX system directly. Fast Company was also able to identify a website for a third company, Shoghi, advertising Starlink user identification services for government clients. 

SpaceX and a series of resellers who sell Starlink to U.S. government agencies did not respond to Fast Company’s request for comment. Rayzone, one of the companies listed in the Haaretz story, tells Fast Company that it operates out of the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s Defense Export Control Agency and that “export of our products or technologies is subject to the required governmental approvals, in addition to our own strict internal compliance procedures.” The company said it would not comment on any media reports or its capabilities, and added that its products “are designed to assist governmental agencies in addressing terrorism and criminal activity.” 

There’s an old joke among economists that goes like this: “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.”

I didn’t say it was a funny joke. But when labor economist Robert Solow originally wrote those words in 1987, they were certainly true.

Personal computers, corporate mainframes, and the first vestiges of the modern internet were all anyone could talk about. 

Yet productivity wasn’t budging. These whizzy technologies, in short, weren’t earning anyone any money. The phenomenon became known as Solow’s Paradox.

Of course, we all know how that story ended. By the mid-1990s, productivity was on a tear, and tech was making lots of people fabulously wealthy. And (despite a subsequent crash and recovery), tech is now the linchpin of the modern economy.

Today, AI is following a similar path. And new data suggests that a similarly massive productivity–and wealth–tipping point may be just around the corner.

The University of Chicago has announced a new initiative to provide financial support for students to attend the college for free. 

Starting in fall 2027, UChicago will offer free tuition for undergraduate students from families with an annual income less than $250,000. The private institution will also provide free tuition, fees, housing, and dining to students from families making less than $125,000. 

“At a time when many families are uncertain about what the cost of college means for them, we created this initiative to radically expand and simplify our support for students,” said James G. Nondorf, the school’s dean of admissions and financial aid, in a statement. “This initiative will increase predictability and allow students and their families to focus on what’s important: their love of learning, and preparation for meaningful and rewarding lives after graduation.”

Pinterest’s newest ad starts with two young women doomscrolling in the dark. It’s a familiar nightly ritual for millions. As one of them slumps on the bed in a Reels-induced semicoma, the other gets an idea and opens... you guessed it, Pinterest. Suddenly, an energetic dance track fills the room, and the two are inspired to get their best ’fits together for a night out. It ends with the tagline, “The best thing you can find online is a reason to go offline."

When the business model for every other social platform revolves around your attention and time spent as their primary product for brand advertising dollars, this may feel like a counterintuitive strategy. 

“If you listen to Gen Z about why they come, they say... ‘Pinterest is where I can figure out who I want to be, not who the internet tells me I’m supposed to be,’” says Pinterest CMO Claudine Cheever. “That sentiment resonates with a much broader audience. The opportunity with the brand campaign was to take a much more pointed, clear stance on that the internet should be there to help you, and it should be about time well spent, not a lot of time spent.”

Of course the real motivation is to pitch time on Pinterest as quality over quantity, not just to users but also brand partners. Cheever says 96% of user searches on Pinterest are unbranded, which means people are looking for inspiration, and brands have an opportunity to supply it. 

And it’s working. On May 4, Pinterest reported that revenue for Q1 2026 was up 18% year on year to $1.008 billion, and global monthly active users up 11% to 631 million