What: A parody of Apple’s iPhone X that cuts down to size all hype for this new tech.

Who: YouTuber Jacksfilms.

Why we care: Yesterday, Apple unveiled its latest device, the iPhoneX, in typically splashy Apple fashion. Lo and behold, coming soon to a pocket near you, is the glowing rectangle this YouTuber incisively labels “The $1,000 Emoji Machine.) Among the targets of his wrath are: the cost, the redundancy of some features, and the sinister overtones of others. (Seriously, who needs that facial recognition explainer that makes it look like the phone is projecting a laser light show in your eyeballs?) Overall, the video highlights how we may have veered further away from Steve Jobs’s original vision than anyone onstage at the Apple event yesterday realizes.

Related: Apple’s Very Best Superlatives

SoFi cofounder and CEO Mike Cagney does not try to hide from the fact that his first stint as a chief executive was a bust. “It was a humbling experience,” he says of the five years he spent at wealth management startup Finaplex. After stumbling in the role, he hired a manager lacking in domain expertise as his replacement, purposefully setting his successor up for failure. But the Shakespearean ploy failed: After a brief return to his place at the top, the board fired him. Today, Cagney looks on the episode as a “learning experience.”

It became clear this week that Cagney has yet more lessons to learn. He abruptly announced his resignation on Monday as allegations of misconduct engulfed SoFi, a lending startup worth over $4 billion. Employees say they witnessed sexual harassment, verbal harassment, sexual relationships between managers and lower-level staff, and an overall culture of fear and disrespect. Moreover, the bad behavior started at the top with Cagney himself, according to interviews with former employees. One former underwriter, who spoke with the New York Times, compared the office environment to that of a “frat house.”

Now the search is on for an experienced leader who can rewire SoFi’s culture and prepare the company to go public. They will need to clean up a mess that includes multiple lawsuits and a sprawling operation that spans lending, wealth management, life insurance, and a digital bank that the company acquired for nearly $100 million in February. Analysts say the transition will set back SoFi’s IPO plans by at least 12 months, if not longer.

Uber, which recently hired former Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi to take the reins from cofounder Travis Kalanick, is in the midst of a similar transition, after Kalanick’s boundary-pushing behavior tarnished the ride-hailing company’s reputation and imperiled its ability to raise capital. At SoFi, restoring the company’s brand will be of even greater urgency. Uber operates a transactional business, serving as the intermediary between riders and drivers. SoFi, in contrast, has differentiated itself from other online lenders by building strong relationships with consumers and positioning itself to cross-sell—offering mortgages to customers who have refinanced their student loans, for example. Becoming a member of the SoFi “club” brings privileges such as access to career services and social events.

“They’ve made this brand that they’re different, that they care about community,” says Peter Renton, founder of Lend Academy. “Those ties can be broken relatively easily if people feel betrayed. They’ve got some work to do when it comes to PR and trust, particularly for the female members of that community.”

At its launch in 2011, SoFi focused on refinancing student loans. Cagney soon added personal loans and mortgages to the mix, the growth fueled by his fundraising prowess and excellent timing (investors, hungry for yield, were eager to buy the debt of SoFi’s well-educated young professionals). Before long, the company was managing a multi-billion dollar loan book. Competitors like CommonBond and Earnest entered the fray, helping put a millennial-oriented version of fintech on the map.

Cagney did not stop there, adding new projects at a rate that both inspired and frustrated his employees. He mused about a dating app for SoFi’s 350,000 members, but never built one. He announced SoFi checking accounts and credit cards, but has not brought them to market. And he raised $1 billion in Series E funding from Softbank, with the intention of expanding overseas—first to Australia and Canada, and then to Asia in 2018—but has fallen behind schedule on those plans. “We believe we can build super sticky engagement,” he told Fast Company in May, by serving every financial need in a SoFi member’s life. But the company’s ability to execute on that vision remains unclear.

Behind the scenes, SoFi looked more like an old-school Wall Street trading floor than a forward-thinking technology company. Managers threw phones and kicked file cabinets, former employees say, while unleashing tirades of abuse. Teams often relied on a patchwork of Excel documents to manage operations and workflows, rather than scaleable back-end technology (Cagney’s wife, June Ou, serves as CTO).

Lack of discipline in manager conduct spilled over into how the business operated. SoFi’s 2016 Super Bowl TV spot, for example, blew the company’s marketing budget. In the first round of SoFi mortgages, some homes lacked appraisals.

Those issues may come back to haunt the company as it waits for a regulator response to its application for an industrial loan charter, which is a type of banking license. (Jack Dorsey’s Square, which lends to small businesses, also aspires to become an ILC bank.) Even before Cagney announced his intended departure, community bankers and their lobbyists were preparing to fight the application’s approval. They succeeded in blocking Walmart’s 2006 application, and they may prevail once again. “The benefits of mixing banking and commerce continue to be a grand illusion,” Camden Fine, president and CEO of the Independent Community Bankers of America, wrote in an American Banker op-ed last month.

Meanwhile, SoFi continues to grow. It funded $3.1 billion in loans last quarter, and posted an adjusted EBITDA of $61.6 million. Rival startup Earnest, in contrast, is looking for a buyer.

“Our guiding principle has always been, if it’s a gray area but it’s good for the consumer, it’s okay,” Cagney told me last spring.

If only he had applied the same principle to his own employees.

If you were paying attention to the pre-event scuttlebutt, Apple’s product launch on Tuesday carried few surprises when it came to specs, features, prices, and names. That removed much of the drama which Apple might have manufactured if it had kept its secrets secret. But as usual, much of the most intriguing aspects of the company’s new lineup weren’t going to be announced onstage anyhow. They’re things Apple isn’t going to tell us, either because they involve uncomfortable truths, unpredictable consumer reactions, and the sort of long-term plans that Apple doesn’t disclose.

Herewith, a few of the questions I had after I sat in the audience for Apple’s show and then got some hands-on time with the new stuff.

1. Will Anyone Prefer LCD Over OLED?

Android phones have had OLED displays for years; early ones looked weirdly, unnaturally vivid, but the current crop of models with screens manufactured by Samsung are pretty darn impressive. On the new iPhones, the difference between the subdued look of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus’s LCD screens and the intensity of the iPhone X’s OLED is striking. I’m guessing far more people will prefer the latter, but it wouldn’t shock me if there’s a certain picky type–the sort of person who wasn’t bothered in the past by the iPhone’s lack of OLED–who will continue to think that an LCD display has a more subtle, iPhone-esque quality.

2. What Are The Chances You’ll Smash A New iPhone By Dropping It?

All the new iPhones sport glass backs rather than aluminum ones, and Apple says that they have “the most durable glass ever in a smartphone, front and back.” The company doesn’t disclose whether that glass is Corning’s famously robust Gorilla Glass, and its phrasing leaves open the possibility that the iPhones’ glass is as durable as that of the most robust other phones on the market, but no more so. Speaking as someone who dropped a glass-backed Samsung Galaxy S8 onto a linoleum floor from only a few inches’ height and shattered it, I remain somewhat wary of phones whose backsides, as well as their fronts, are at risk of damage. Unless both sides really are close to indestructible.

"The iPhone X has glass that won't break"
Me- "hold my beer"

— TracyinAustralia (@Feministnerd) September 13, 2017

3. Will Concerns About Face ID Blow Over?

The arrival of Touch ID in 2013’s iPhone 5s led to pundits talking about grisly scenarios involving bad guys chopping off iPhone owners’ fingers to gain access to their phones. Now the iPhone X’s Face ID is prompting concern about the possibility of police officers pointing an iPhone X at its owner’s face to get in. The worries that people have about new Apple products are often quickly forgotten—either because they they’re not actual problems, or rarely come into play in the real world, or are real but counterbalanced by a feature’s virtues—but we don’t yet know whether this Face ID angst will similarly turn out to be no big whoop once the technology is in the wild.

4. Will The Existence Of The iPhone X Make The iPhone 8 And 8 Plus Look Less Appealing?

I don’t think there’s any question that the X will be the phone most people would buy if price were no object. But I’ve heard people speculate that the fact it’s the new flagship will lead people to look at the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus as being second-class citizens in the lineup, thereby lessening their desirability. That’s not an irrational line of thinking, although it also seems like excitement over the arrival of the X could lead some people on less-than-unlimited budgets to buy the 8 or 8 Plus, which share many of its features.

Here is iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. Its feelings were hurt by all the iPhone X attention. #AppleEventpic.twitter.com/dL5Zk1lOh6

— Patrick Moorhead (@PatrickMoorhead) September 12, 2017

5. How Long Will The iPhone X Be In Short Supply?

The new top-of-the-line iPhone is arriving more than a month after the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, and Apple apparently won’t be able to crank them out in massive volume, at least at first. It’s not unusual for new Apple products to be scarce—I’ve still never seen AirPods in stock at an Apple retail store—but the iPhone X is really the flagship of Apple’s entire line of products, so the stakes are particularly high.

I'm told that iPhone X will be scarce for 6 months after launch. This will probably make people want it more.

— Mark Sullivan (@thesullivan) September 13, 2017

6. Will The iPhone X Take Meaningfully Better Photos Than The iPhone 8?

Apple’s comparison chart shows only two differences between the two models’ rear cameras: The X has optical stabilization and a slightly larger aperture on its telephoto lens. Both features are welcome, but I wonder if they’ll be enough to make the X the clear device of choice for the most serious iPhone photographers.

7. Is Wireless Charging About To Take Off?

Nokia built wireless charging into phones eons ago, and it didn’t help the company’s fortunes. Samsung does it now, and I don’t think many people consider it a major selling point. Even the Qi standard which Apple is embracing has been around forever without changing the world. There doesn’t seem to be anything spectacularly innovative about Apple’s approach to wireless charging, but maybe the technology arriving on the world’s highest-profile line of phones will mark the moment it got real (even though Apple is selling charging pads as an extra-cost accessory). Or maybe it’ll turn out that most people just don’t see plugging in a cable as that big a hassle.

8. Is Wireless Charging About To Take Off? Part II

During the event, Apple’s Phil Schiller talked about a world in which places such as coffee shops and hotel rooms have charging pads built into tables, letting you replenish your battery without providing your own charging equipment at all. That vision has been around for a long time without becoming reality. (Starbucks already took a stab at it, but it was more trouble than it was worth, since it required you to plug a dongle into your phone.) But again, it’s possible that the availability of wireless charging-ready iPhones will make a difference.

9. Will Apple’s Stated Battery Life Make Sense To People?

Instead of giving actual hours in estimates, the company is saying that the iPhone X runs up to two hours longer on a charge than the iPhone 7, and the 8 and 8 Plus run for about as long as the 7 and 7 Plus. Rationally, I understand the company’s thinking: People use phones so differently that the battery life they experience is anything but consistent—making precise figures meaningless–and if you currently own an iPhone, the main thing you want to know about battery life is whether a new iPhone will offer more life, less life, or about the same. Let’s see if Apple’s oblique way of addressing this issue sticks.

10. What Phones Will Be In Next Year’s iPhone Lineup (And Those Thereafter)?

Will there always be a standard iPhone, a Plus iPhone, and an X iPhone? (When Apple introduced the cheaper-and-more-colorful iPhone 5c, a lot of us thought that it was a new permanent tier, and were wrong—and we don’t yet know whether the current lineup’s iPhone SE is a similar one-off.)

11. Will The iPhone X Display And Form Factor Migrate Downward, And If So, When?

Is Apple’s aim to ditch LCD screens, home buttons, and Touch ID and replace them with edge-to-edge OLED, gestures, and Face ID on every iPhone model when it’s feasible from an economic and production-scale standpoint? Maybe. But I’m not sure whether even Apple knows when it can do that, which could mean that the two distinct types of iPhones could continue on for the foreseeable future.

12. When Will The Apple Watch Become Autonomous?

The first two generations of Apple Watch rely on an iPhone for connectivity. The new Series 3 comes in a version with built-in LTE wireless, which means it can make phone calls, stream music, receive messages, and perform other tasks without the help of a phone. But as Mashable’s Jack Morse points out, you still need an iPhone to set up an Apple Watch. I’m not sure whether it would be possible to borrow a friend’s iPhone once, set up your new Apple Watch, and then use it without further access to an iphone. But it’s clear that Apple isn’t yet marketing the Apple Watch as a truly standalone device—one that you might buy even if you’re otherwise not an Apple person. I hope the introduction of LTE is a step in that direction.

13. What’s The Long-term Apple TV Strategy?

My colleague Jared Newman recently argued that Apple needs to sell a cheaper version of its streaming-TV box to keep the platform vibrant and help line up the deals Apple needs to offer a live-TV service to compete with YouTube TV, DirecTV Now, and Sling TV. But the new Apple TV is moving in the opposite direction: It offers 4K, HDR, and more horsepower, at an even higher price. Apple doesn’t like to talk much about its future vision for its products, so we don’t necessarily know where it sees Apple TV being in a year or two, or how the new version might help it get there.

14. Will Apple TV’s Affordable 4K Movies Be A Game-Changer?

One of the few bits of news that Apple managed to keep under wraps until its event was that it would offer 4K and HDR content at the same price it’s charged for HD—and will even upgrade versions that people have already bought. That’s a major victory given that the studios have heretofore seen 4K as a way to extract a few more bucks from consumers’ wallets. If other purveyors of 4K are forced to match Apple’s pricing, it could boost the whole market in a way that might be reminiscent of what Apple once did by pricing iTunes music downloads at 99 cents.

Seems likely the complete silence on Mac, iMac Pro and HomePod mean another smallish event before year end. No? Maybe January?

— Greg Pierce (@agiletortoise) September 13, 2017

15. What About HomePod?

WWDC’s biggest hardware announcement, Apple’s entry into the AI-infused smart-speaker race, went unmentioned at Tuesday’s event. Odds are that this isn’t because there’s nothing to say, but because there’s a lot to say, and Apple plans to reveal more (possibly at another press event) before HomePod ships later this year.

Got any answers to my questions, or questions of your own? Lemme know on Twitter.

Beloved product review sites The Wirecutter and The Sweethome–which were bought by the New York Times last year for about $30 million–are rebranding… slightly. The Times is dropping the “the” and collapsing both into “Wirecutter.” As its business surges, the brand is also getting a whole new logo and look, and in some cases, the Times says, product reviewers and journalists will start to work closer together.

In a press release, the Times said this was part of the company’s “strategy to become the go to source for figuring out what to buy across all categories of products and services.” Which is to say, the Times is seeing steady non-ad-related revenue from the Wirecutter—thanks to a thriving affiliate ads business, whereby it gets a commission for every product you click through to and buy—so it wants to make it a more streamlined brand that readers will turn to. 

The company says the site’s sales have increased 50% from a year earlier as it’s added a wider range of categories beyond its traditional focus on tech gadgets (the site was founded in 2011 by former Gizmodo editor Brian Lam). It’s still a small part of the Times‘ business, which is mostly based on subscriptions and ads and which generated $407 million last quarter.

Time was when The Wirecutter was an occasionalcolumnist at Fast Company (2014). (And, full disclosure, I wrote a few articles for The Sweethome when I was a freelance writer.) In 2015, the startup drove $150 million in e-commerce sales, Lam told Bloomberg. A swarm of other media companies have since jumped on the affiliate link bandwagon as they struggle to make up for sinking advertising revenue. Affiliate sales are now used by Time Inc., Conde Nast, Vox, Hearst, and The Washington Post (owned by Jeff Bezos, founder of the historically huge affiliate marketer Amazon).

Spending on affiliate marketing in the U.S.—the commissions that sites like Wirecutter get—has jumped nearly 17% in five years to $4.5 billion in 2016, according to a Forrester Research study.

In addition to Wirecutter coverage, the Times already uses affiliate links in its bestseller lists and reviews of restaurants, films, and theater, according to a memo to employees last year obtained by Politico. The continuing shift raises one question: How do you maintain journalistic objectivity when reviewing products, knowing that you’re also relying on the sale of those products to make money?

“We’re really looking and saying, ‘where are reader interests?’ And let’s pursue that regardless of revenue opportunity,” David Perpich, general manager of The Wirecutter, said at the Code Commerce conference this morning. You can watch him and BuzzFeed’s Ben Kaufman (of Quirky fame) discuss new revenue streams for media in this video.

A city of over 3 million people in western India, Pune is unique for having one of the most robust sewer systems in the country: While no city in India has a sewer system that reaches its entire population, Pune is just one of four, alongside Chennai, Surat, and Gurgaon, whose network of closed drains connects over 70% of the city. That, however, does not mean it’s effective. Around 64% of Pune’s sewage water goes untreated, and the contaminated fluids that leak into drinking water supplies exacerbate diseases like cholera and E. coli among the region’s residents.

In 2016, Pune was one of the nearly 100 Indian municipalities included in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Smart Cities Mission–a push to use technology and innovation (and private sector companies) to foster inclusive and sustainable growth. At World Water Week, held in Stockholm in late August of this year, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) announced a plan to use its smart city designation to tackle its sanitation quandary by launching a collaboration that will set Pune on the path toward becoming the world’s first “smart sanitation city.”

To do so, PMC has partnered with the Toilet Board Coalition (TBC), an alliance formed in 2014 of private companies like Unilever and Kimberly-Clark, and nonprofits like The World Bank and WaterAid, who have made it their mission to secure worldwide access to sanitation by 2030. The idea in Pune, TBC’s CEO Cheryl Hicks tells Fast Company, is to apply the smart city hallmarks of data collection and analysis toward the end of eradicating open defecation, and developing a network of smart, sustainable, and, to use Hicks’ word, “aspirational” community toilets.

“Earlier this year, the Toilet Board made the decision to really double down on our efforts in India,” Hicks says. Parallel to Modi’s Smart Cities Mission, the Indian government has, since 2014, been overseeing the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission, in an effort to end open defecation and boost access to sanitation systems nationwide. The TBC, Hicks says, saw an opportunity to support the campaign by bringing its array of partner companies and nonprofits in to bolster the efforts of smaller sanitation startups and initiatives.

Pune, in particular, is poised for innovation, says Prabhat Pani, project director for the Water Mission of the Tata Trusts, India’s oldest scientific organization and one of TBC’s partners on the ground in India. Earlier in 2017, Pune became one of the first three cities in India to be certified by the World Council on City Data, a network of municipalities committed to using open data to improve quality of life for their residents. Part of that certification involves appointing a “data officer” for the city, Pani tells Fast Company, and for that reason, the Tata Trusts recommended Pune to the TBC as a city already equipped with the data infrastructure to support smart sanitation efforts.

And Samagra, a company founded in 2011 to provide clean, accessible toilets to the urban poor, is based in Pune, and was among the handful of small startups to participate in the TBC’s accelerator program to grow sanitation companies in the developing world. They, along with large corporate partners like Unilever and LIXIL Corporation (the parent company of American Standard), will continue to build out and innovate around community toilets and waste collection systems.

Where the “smart” concept will emerge will be in how sensors are deployed across the sanitation system, and in how data collected by those sensors will be used to optimize use. “Some of the common features of smart cities have to do with transportation and mobility, and there’s really a use case here for sanitation, too,” Hicks says. “What if sensors could monitor optimal routes for waste transport around the city, and signal when toilets need to be cleaned or when waste management systems are full?” Digitizing the sanitation and collection process, Hicks says, would ensure that the toilets remain clean and hygienic, which in turn, she hopes, would boost usage among Pune’s residents, as would outfitting the toilets with Wifi to create a channel of communication with residents.

Perhaps nobody is more familiar than Hicks with the hurdles to be navigated in any discussion of sanitation. It is not a sexy industry, and the problems facing it and attached to it are so overwhelming as to be prohibitive of progress. But attaching the issue to the very buzzy concept of smart cities could go a long way toward bringing sanitation into the fold of modernity and sustainable development. At least, that’s the hope in Pune, though the city won’t know for sure if their strategy will succeed until they begin implementing it next year.

Paul McDonald, the CEO of Bodega, didn’t see the outrage coming, he explains in a blog post that just went live. “Today we announced Bodega, and while we were hoping for a big response, the reaction that we got this morning certainly wasn’t what we expected,” he says.

McDonald goes on to address some of the issues laid out in our story about the company, which aims to install app-connected pantry boxes in apartments, offices, dorms, and gyms. First, he says he never intended to compete with actual bodegas or mom-and-pop stores. (Although he did tell me that his startup’s larger goal is to eliminate the need for any brick-and-mortar store at all, because these little pantries would be ubiquitous.)

And second, he concedes that he and his cofounder didn’t fully understand the implications of calling the company Bodega, a name that sparked an immediate social media backlash that continued throughout much of the day. From the post:

Is it possible we didn’t fully understand what the reaction to the name would be?

Yes, clearly. The name Bodega sparked a wave of criticism on social media far beyond what we ever imagined. When we first came up with the idea to call the company Bodega we recognized that there was a risk of it being interpreted as misappropriation. We did some homework — speaking to New Yorkers, branding people, and even running some survey work asking about the name and any potential offense it might cause. But it’s clear that we may not have been asking the right questions of the right people.

You can read the full post here.

It’s never a good time to go up against Apple. But Fitbit’s release of its first smartwatch, the $300 Ionic, in late August was especially rough timing. A new Apple Watch, the Series 3, was imminent, and this week it arrived with all the killer features pundits expected, including a $399 cellular LTE option (with $10 per month data plans). What’s more, the non-LTE Apple Watch starts at just $329, and the original Apple Watch, available with all of Apple’s software upgrades, is now discounted to just $249—cheaper than the Ionic and with way more apps.

So is Fitbit doomed? If it tries to compete with Apple as a smartwatch maker, perhaps. As Apple’s Tim Cook noted yesterday during its big event, its watches just beat Rolex to become the best-selling watchmaker in the world, with sales up 50% year-over-year this August.

Fitbit, meanwhile, has been struggling: It posted a $146.3 million loss for 2016 and recently reported that, despite healthy growth in Asia, its second-quarter revenues in the U.S. had shrunk by 55% to $199 million. Sales of Fitbits are way down, too. Last year, it sold 5.7 million activity trackers during the second quarter. This year that figure dwindled to 3.4 million.

But going up against Apple, Fitbit still has an edge for people who are really keen on fitness tracking, and especially on health monitoring.

It also provides a lot of those capabilities in bands that are smaller and far cheaper than the Apple Watch. Fitbit offers two bands, the Charge 2 and the very slim Alta HR, both starting at $150, that provide many of the same fitness features as the Apple Watch, along with basic smart watch features like call and calendar notifications. Both devices have a heart rate monitor, as well an altimeter for measuring altitude changes during exercise—a feature new to the Apple Watch Series 3.

They lack GPS, but the Charge 2 can grab that data from a smartphone if you bring it along on your run (admittedly not an ideal scenario). The Ionic does provide GPS and a new set of sensors that measure blood oxygen level (SpO2), opening up the possibility to diagnose conditions like sleep apnea, in which people briefly stop breathing during sleep. (The Apple Watch doesn’t have an SpO2 sensor.)

Related:Screw My iPhone, I Just Want The New Apple Watch

And while the Apple Watch has always included a heart monitor, Fitbit has arguably done more with the data. (Ninety-five percent of all National Institutes of Health-funded studies that include wearable devices use Fitbits.) At its keynote on Tuesday, Apple announced that it’s working with Stanford Health to see if it can detect a heart ailment called atrial fibrillation, or AFib. Fitbit is well into that research, too, in a study with Georgetown University. Early results show the tech should work, says Fitbit, even with its $150 bands.

In the spring, Fitbit also harnessed heart rate data to measure sleep, looking at fluctuations in heart rate to determine when a person is in different stages, such as REM or deep sleep.

The Big Edge

Battery life could be Fitbit’s killer app. The Ionic promises up to four days per charge (although GPS-dependent activities like running drop it to just 10 hours), and simpler trackers like the Alta HR can run for up to a week. That makes it easier to gather long-term, uninterrupted data. The new Apple Watch promises to only retain the 18-hour battery life of earlier models. It would be tempting to let it charge overnight, but you could miss out on sleep tracking.

Still, the Ionic is going to have a rough time. Though announced a couple weeks before the new Apple Watch, it won’t be available until several weeks later, in October–long after customers and the press have had time to ogle Apple’s new hardware and software. (The Series 3 Apple watch is available on September 22, and the discounted Series 1 is available now.)

At launch, the Ionic will feature just 11 apps, only four of them made by third parties such as Pandora and the Strava social exercise network–vs. thousands of apps for the Apple Watch. Fitbit is about to release a software development kit so more people can build its Java-based apps, and it claims to have a lot of interest from developers. But developers can reach far more people with Apple Watch apps, using well-established programming tools.

Developers also represent possible competitors. While Fitbit’s data science team toils on the technology to detect AFib, for instance, it’s competing not just against the Apple-Stanford effort but against any institution and programmer who might take up that challenge, or any other challenge, to harness any of the Apple Watch sensors in new ways. That’s been Apple’s killer advantage since it opened the App Store in 2008: Apple outsourced innovation to armies of clever developers whom it doesn’t have to pay. Fitbit won’t build a similar army overnight, if ever.

In fairness, the Ionic is more than just a big fitness tracker. About the same size as the Apple Watch models, it features a bright color LCD screen to display Fitbit apps like the new Fitbit Coach, with animated demonstrations of exercises for user-customized workouts. That screen opens up a comparable canvas for developers to display any type of fitness, utility, or entertainment apps.

Related:The Very Best Superlatives From Apple’s Biggest Event Ever

The Ionic’s 2.5 GB of onboard storage can hold about 300 songs, loaded from a computer or synced from a streaming service (currently only Pandora is supported) and played over wireless headsets, including Apple’s AirPods. Like the Apple Watch, the Ionic also has an NFC chip for wireless payments. Its new counterpart to Apple Pay, called Fitbit Pay, is building support with financial institutions like Bank of America, Capital One, and HSBC, as well as the major credit card providers.

In terms of utility, the Ionic pales next to the LTE-equipped Apple Watch. “The key announcement for Apple was cellular connectivity,” says Ramon Llamas, research manager for wearables at IDC, in an email. “While taking and making phone calls was the big value proposition, consider what such a connection can do (especially data) when the fitness and health apps Apple has been developing will really shine.”

Related:Can This Smartwatch Save Fitbit?

But Apple’s cellular-enabled watch is pricier: It starts at $99 more than the Ionic, along with a $10 monthly fee, based on plans AT&T and Verizon announced. (Sprint and especially T-Mobile, may come in lower when they announce details.) Not everyone considering a fitness tracker or even a smart watch will be up for that expense.

But they also might not be up for the narrower capabilities of the Ionic or the much narrower ones of the (albeit much cheaper) other Fitbit bands. If people commit to wearing something all day, they might want more than just a fitness tracker. And all the plethora of apps, with or without the benefit of a cellular connection, will make even the newly discounted version of the Apple Watch awfully compelling.

While Apple is ramping up its efforts in health data and fitness tracking, Fitbit’s experience and reputation gives it a slight edge there. One asset Fitbit has is a longstanding relationship with its outdoor-activity-focused fans, with 50 million registered device users. Positioning it as an upgrade for fitness fanatics might make the Ionic Fitbit’s “gateway drug,” capable of getting more of even us non-watch-wearers to start strapping on smartwatches. Then again, with competitive prices and tons of marketing and media buzz, Apple may not need any more of a gateway to hook buyers.

When Polaroid stopped making instant film cameras in 2007 and ceased instant-film production the following year, it was sad—but also, in the era of digital photography, perfectly understandable. Left with little other than a famous name it could license out, the company kept going bankrupt and being sold. But now–in a happy ending I would not have predicted–it’s returning to instant photography with a new camera called the OneStep 2 and color and black-and-white film for it.

Technically speaking, what’s happening is a rebranding of the Impossible Project, a startup that bought a Polaroid factory, continued to make film for old Polaroid cameras when Polaroid would not, and is controlled by the same family that acquired Polaroid itself last May. The new $100 OneStep 2 fulfills a promise Polaroid made way back in January 2010 to release a new OneStep and looks a lot like its famous 1977 predecessor. But it includes modern upgrades such as a rechargable battery (the original put the batteries in the film packs, a clever but eco-unfriendly move).

The merging of the Polaroid and Impossible Project brands also applies to film for classic Polaroid models such as the SX-70, which, at $19 for an eight-pack, is now several dollars cheaper than what Impossible charged in the past. (Film for the OneStep 2 is $16.) Impossible’s film isn’t as predictable as what Polaroid once made, and develops more slowly, so I hope the company continues to improve it.

Sadly, James Garner is no longer around to do commercials for the OneStep 2–but we’ll always have the ones that he and Mariette Hartley did for the original.

Last year, Mars, the world’s biggest chocolate maker and the corporate home to brands like M&Ms, Twix, and Snickers, pledged $1 billion to fight climate change through investments in renewable energy, sustainable food sourcing, and more. Beyond the two wind farms it currently operates in Scotland and Texas, the company also promised to add wind and solar farms to another nine countries by 2018 and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 27% by 2025, and 67% by 2050. Now, a couple of the company’s most popular mascots are getting in on it.

This week, just ahead of Climate Week, Mars’s M&Ms launched a new consumer campaign called “Fans of Wind” to spread the word and raise awareness around fighting climate change–and what the company itself is doing to fight it. M&Ms says it’s the first major food business to source all of its electricity for its U.S. operations from renewable sources, with wind farms in Mesquite Creek, Texas, and Moy, Scotland, that source enough wind power needed to make all of the M&M’s in the world. In 2016, M&Ms purchased enough wind energy to power the annual electricity use of 70,300 U.S. households. A wind turbine spinning for one second produces sufficient energy to make eight packs of plain or peanut M&Ms.

Berta de Pablos-Barbier, president of Mars Wrigley Confectionery U.S., says the new campaign is about showing that if a seemingly small piece of chocolate can make a difference in counteracting climate change, then each person has the power to make a difference. “We are making clear our commitment to sustainable energy,” Pablos-Barbier says. “We are leveraging our unique position as one of the world’s largest privately held, family-owned businesses, plus the power of our iconic brands like M&M’s, to do good for our consumers and for the planet.”

And before you can say “Hardcut: Cheetos,” it’s worth noting that the $1 billion investment and the wind farm energy sourcing are a significant, multiyear, financial investment. It’s one that, even though not perfect, is still an important step in what should be a wider commitment among global corporations to making the world’s energy consumption more sustainable.

The campaign site includes information on Mars’s commitment to renewable wind energy, details on the company’s broader climate change targets to reduce its total greenhouse gas emissions, information on how wind energy works, background on its wind projects, and more.

“Given the increasing urgency around climate change, it’s an issue everyone, even Red and Yellow, needs to get behind,” Pablos-Barbier says. “We believe the more consumers engage in dialogue about addressing climate change, renewable energy, and a healthy planet, the more the world will change.”

The department has issued a statement ordering every executive branch agency and department to identify within the next 30 days any Kaspersky products being used, make a plan to discontinue their use within 60 days, and cease using the Kaspersky products by the 90-day mark, reports TechCrunch. The reason? Homeland Security is worried about Kaspersky officials and their ties to Russian intelligence agencies. From the Homeland Security statement:

This action is based on the information security risks presented by the use of Kaspersky products on federal information systems. Kaspersky anti-virus products and solutions provide broad access to files and elevated privileges on the computers on which the software is installed, which can be exploited by malicious cyber actors to compromise those information systems. The Department is concerned about the ties between certain Kaspersky officials and Russian intelligence and other government agencies, and requirements under Russian law that allow Russian intelligence agencies to request or compel assistance from Kaspersky and to intercept communications transiting Russian networks. The risk that the Russian government, whether acting on its own or in collaboration with Kaspersky, could capitalize on access provided by Kaspersky products to compromise federal information and information systems directly implicates U.S. national security.

The hottest new tech of the iPhone X, Face ID, was also the laughing stock of the event’s keynote when it apparently failed to work the first time Apple demoed it on stage. The company was mocked relentlessly for this “failure” on social media and in the press–but it turns out Face ID worked exactly how it should have, as Yahoo’s David Pogue reports.

Apple reached out to him to confirm that the reason Face ID did not unlock the iPhone X for Apple software head Craig Federighi’s live demo was because the phone had already scanned other people’s faces as they were setting up the demo, didn’t recognize those faces because they weren’t set up for Face ID authentication, and thus disabled Face ID after too many false attempts at unlocking the phone with the unrecognized faces. As Pogue writes:

Tonight, I was able to contact Apple. After examining the logs of the demo iPhone X, they now know exactly what went down. Turns out my first theory in this story was wrong–but my first UPDATE theory above was correct: “People were handling the device for stage demo ahead of time,” says a rep, “and didn’t realize Face ID was trying to authenticate their face. After failing a number of times, because they weren’t Craig, the iPhone did what it was designed to do, which was to require his passcode.” In other words, “Face ID worked as it was designed to.”

Despite reports that Democratic leaders had reached a deal with President Trump over DACA, the president tweeted today that no deal has been reached yet. The reason? Any deal would have to include “massive border security” improvements to be made, according to Trump.

No deal was made last night on DACA. Massive border security would have to be agreed to in exchange for consent. Would be subject to vote.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2017

Oh, and in a follow-up tweet Trump also claims the infamous wall is now under construction, but in reality existing structures are just being repaired.

The WALL, which is already under construction in the form of new renovation of old and existing fences and walls, will continue to be built.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2017

As flooded roads have reopened in Houston after Harvey, it’s still hard to get around: The storm, which killed more than 70 people and damaged or destroyed at least 100,000 homes, also totaled hundreds of thousands of cars in a sprawling city where almost everyone drives. A new program will replace some of those cars with bikes.

“It’s a way for us to put a dent in some of the issues that are going to be facing Houston in the aftermath of the storm,” says Carter Stern, executive director of Houston Bike Share, which is helping coordinate bike donations through a program called Keep Houston Rolling.

After dealing with the most immediate needs–rescuing and sheltering people and providing food and healthcare–transportation is one of the next major challenges for the city.

An estimated half a million cars, and perhaps as many as a million, were destroyed in the flooding. Car owners have filed more than 160,000 insurance claims so far, which are still being processed. But around 15% of vehicle owners in Texas don’t have insurance (even though it is required by law), and many others lack coverage that includes flood damage. For low-wage workers who were forced to miss work because of the hurricane, and who may also now be homeless, buying a new car may not be an option. In the short term, even for those who have the money to rent a car, rental agencies are struggling to keep up with demand.

During the storm, though several of the bike share stations were out of service, 1,000 bikes were checked out. Others used bikes to deliver food to shelters or to volunteer in places that were inaccessible by car. As Stern watched this happening, he realized that bikes could also help in the aftermath, and began to reach out for support.

The project aims to help solve an immediate need. But as it exposes more people to biking–in a city with relatively limited public transportation and other options–it may also have some impact on local car culture and attitudes toward bikes. “When I go to city meetings or talk with the community, there’s a lot of skepticism around using a bike for utilitarian purposes, not just for fun,” Stern says. “But once you start using it to go to the store or go to work, you realize it’s healthy, it’s easy, it’s good, it’s relaxing.”

He doesn’t expect that people will necessarily choose not to buy a car when they have the means to do so again. But they may drive less. “I drive a big black SUV,” he says. “I love driving my car, I’m never going to get rid of it. But I ride my bike to work three to four days a week, and that’s great. I think viewing the mobility in a city less as a binary decision and more as giving people a healthy ecosystem of options–whether they want to ride their bike to work, ride their bike to the transit stop, drive their car and then ride their bike to lunch–whatever it is, giving people options.”

The skit poked fun at many of the concerns people have about circumventing the iPhone X’s new facial ID recognition system.

He’s a busy guy, but Cooper doesn’t worry too much about his work encroaching on his life. With a job that inspires and motivates him, the rest just sorts itself out.

Snapchat’s Lenses feature is one of those rare things that brings about pure joy. Over the years, Snap has made Lenses–which let users place animated elements atop camera phone images–more robust. Today it’s announcing a new feature, which will let users integrate animated Bitmoji into their snaps.

For the old (er, or uninitiated), Bitmoji are the insanely popular cartoon-like avatars the young’ins have been using for a few years. Ever since Snap acquired Bitmoji in 2016, users have been able to use the avatars in various ways throughout the app. Today Snap introduces both animation and augmented reality with “3D Bitmoji World Lenses.” What does that mean? Well it simply means that users can place animated Bitmoji scenes of themselves onto the image they are snapping. They can move the avatar around the screen to look like it’s in different places in the real world.

It’s interesting to note the timing of this announcement; earlier this week Apple showed off an upcoming iPhone X feature called “Animoji,” which uses Face ID’s scanning to graft cute animated emojis atop users’ face.

These are ways both Snap and Apple try to show their senses of humor and keep people entertained. Here’s a video showing what the new Botmoji Lenses feature is like:

I grossed a whopping $23,244 my first year out of college–a starting salary that might be manageable in some cities but proved pretty tight in New York. Needless to say, side hustling quickly became a necessary way of life for me in order to supplement my meager income. But while I found I could make decent money babysitting and slinging lattes, it soon became important to find side gigs that benefited my career, too, instead of just my bank account. Here are six ways you can do the same.

1. Build A Side Hustle On The Back Of Your Work Skills

The easiest, and most natural, option for padding a crappy salary is to leverage the skills you’re already developing in the office.

David Carlson, a 29-year-old Minneapolis-based finance manager, supplemented his early job as a staff accountant with a side gig as a spreadsheet consultant, improving financing and operation spreadsheets for small businesses. “My spreadsheet side hustle perfectly complemented my full-time job as an accountant,” says Carlson. “Having advanced technical skills is one of the ways you can differentiate yourself in finance and accounting.”

That’s true in various fields, though; anytime you pick up a specialized skill in your day job–from copywriting to proofreading to web design–you can usually deploy it on a freelance basis, too.

Related:How I Managed To Save Money On A $25,000 Salary In New York City

2. Ask Your Employer About Non-Competes

You might not be able to base a freelance operation around exactly the same work you do at your 9-to-5, though. Developing a side gig that complements your day job may be a dream scenario for you, but not necessarily for your employer. That’s why many organizations add “non-compete clauses” to their work contracts, which restrict employees from taking their talents outside the office. Even “at-will” employees, who work without formal contracts, may face company-wide policies that impose the same limits. So if you know you’ll likely be facing a less-than-generous salary, ask about any non-competes before accepting an offer.

I created my site, Broke Millennial, in 2013 while working in public relations. Fortunately, my agency at the time confirmed that it had no issues with my site or with freelance writing in general, since those created no conflicts of interest. Then I interviewed for a job at a different agency. My freelance financial writing is what drew them to me in the first place, but it proved to be a deal breaker as a prospective employee. When the offer came in, the hiring manager told me that not only would I have to cease all freelance writing, but I’d have to shutter my blog as well. I turned down the job.

Eventually, my side hustle did lead me to a new job, as the brand manager for a fintech startup. The new employer allowed me to keep freelancing, which helped develop my network, and in turn helped the company grow and gain exposure.

3. Pitch An Overtime Project That Lets You Prove What You Can Do

You may not even need to leave your office in order to pad that aggravatingly low salary of yours. Sometimes it just comes down to knowing which opportunities exist inside your own organization. Ask your boss about the ins and outs of your company’s protocol on overtime, and then pitch yourself for additional projects.

Don’t worry if they’re outside your department, either–in fact, looking for “stretch” assignments that take you outside your job description can help you move ahead in the company. Not only will you pick up some much-needed extra money this way, but you’ll also be able to demonstrate your ability to level up in your career and get promoted.

Related:How To Create Your Own Opportunities At Work

4. Pick Up A Customer Service Job (But Not Just Any)

Never discount the value of working in customer service–focused jobs while you’re working on developing your skill set in another field. Seasonal work (think Santa’s elves at the mall) and part-time jobs can not only help with your monthly budget fluctuations, but they also sharpen your emotional intelligence, customer interaction skills, and even managerial duties. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to work a gig that requires less mental exertion than your day job. (Just be wary of commission-based gigs like selling knives door-to-door.)

Cato Johnson, a 31-year-old Arizona-based consumer finance attorney, works as a bartender on the weekends. “Most people assume attorneys are making a six-figure salary straight out of law school,” says Johnson. “Sometimes that’s the case, but it hasn’t been for me.”

Johnson, who has knocked $86,000 in student loans down to $5,000 in four years, puts nearly $2,000 a month toward his loans and maxes out his 401(k) contributions, which, after living expenses, leaves minimal discretionary income. Enter his part-time bartending gig.

“I wanted my side hustle to be something that I enjoyed, rather than merely being a second job,” says Johnson. “Being a bartender and dealing with people face-to-face has definitely forced me to brush up on my people skills, which can come in handy when dealing with clients, coworkers, executives, and other attorneys,” explains Johnson. And since recruiters and hiring managers say that emotional intelligence and other people-based skills are becoming ever more valuable, finding a side job that lets you brush them up isn’t a bad idea.

5. Volunteer In Exchange For Free Classes

Like many a 20-something New Yorker, I’ve paid for improv classes. But I met one woman in one of those class who told me about a loophole she’d discovered. She offered to handle social media and basic administrative work for the founders of the troupe in exchange for free classes. Improv training isn’t just for the comedic or theatrically inclined; MBA programs and major companies now offer improv-based workshops to help people improve their public speaking and listening skills, which always come in handy in the workplace.

Offering to volunteer in exchange for classes can work well in a variety of places, including in the fitness world. Sometimes there are even formal programs based around this type of trade-off. Modo Yoga, in Brooklyn, offers free yoga to “financially challenged” members of its community who are willing to work in its Energy Exchange program.

6. Barter Your Skills, Then Convert Leads Into Freelance Clients

Bartering is the pinnacle of hustle moves, especially for people who are just starting out and might not feel comfortable selling their services on the side right away. Just think: What do you need, and what can you provide in exchange for what others need?

For example, I work with a personal trainer who knows I work in personal finance. My trainer is struggling to get her financial life together, so she’s interested in bartering her services (training) with me, in exchange for help developing and implementing a financial plan. I realize that deciding to work with her may not convert into a long-term paid relationship for me, but she can recommend me to people in her network.

And in addition to leading directly toward paying clients, bartering gives you another great opportunity that can benefit your career: the chance to develop the skill of negotiating–which couldn’t be more critical for improving your crappy salary in the long-term.

Erin Lowry is a personal finance expert, speaker, and the author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together, an essential roadmap for going from flat-broke to financial badass.

Once you know what you’re listening for, it’s easy to identify Rostam Batmanglij’s fingerprints on a song. The former keyboardist for the alt-rock band Vampire Weekend is now a producer who has worked with artists including Solange, Frank Ocean, and Kid Cudi. Batmanglij infuses his penchant for uncommon chord progressions and classical music into every album he touches.

The result is fully realized, often startling pop, from Carly Rae Jepsen’s heady single “Warm Blood” to the eerie instrumental theme song for Netflix’s sci-fi show The OA. On September 15, Batmanglij is releasing his first solo album, Half-Light. Here’s how he uses collaboration as a tool to unleash creativity, in himself and in others.

Make Downtime Productive

When he’s producing an album, Batmanglij often invites the artist to meet at his Los Angeles home. The cozy surroundings keep things relaxed, but Batmanglij is ready to work at a moment’s notice: The microphones in his home studio are always turned on and ready to record an instrument within 30 seconds.

Blurring the lines between brainstorming and recording, says Batmanglij, is an effective way to ward off writer’s block and self-consciousness. “I like to be able to work quickly, to capture the spark of an idea before it goes out,” he says.

That sometimes means acting on creative impulses even if there’s no studio nearby. Batmanglij recalls one afternoon sitting in his living room with Haim lead guitarist Danielle Haim when they got an idea for an early version of what would become the bluesy “Kept Me Crying,” which appears on the group’s latest album, Something to Tell You. Not wanting to interrupt the moment, they recorded the riffs and lyrics on their iPhones. Two days later, in the more formal studio setting, they were able to tap into their original flow.

Be Ready To Shift Roles

In addition to playing lead guitar and producing all three Vampire Weekend albums, Batmanglij also played the keyboard, banjo, and drums, among other instruments. Once he left the band, he temporarily set those instruments aside.

But last year, Batmanglij ran into Solange and one of her producers, Raphael Saadiq, at a café in Los Angeles. Saadiq said something to Batmanglij that stuck with him: To produce your best work, “you have to be able to shoot from any place on the court.”

When Solange later asked Batmanglij to collaborate, he recognized it as an opportunity to revisit the instrumental fluencies he’d picked up during his Vampire Weekend days and expand his repertoire beyond pop and alt-rock. Batmanglij played the piano, organ, and shaker on Solange’s 2016 track “F.U.B.U.,” which is part of her critically acclaimed album A Seat at the Table.

Don’t Make People Too Comfortable

When Frank Ocean brought Batmanglij a rough, early version of “Ivy,” an R&B track from his 2016 album Blonde, Batmanglij had an idea for the instrumentation that was more guitar-driven than Ocean was accustomed to. He isolated the vocal track, plugged in a guitar, and played a new, more atypical chord progression for Ocean, who was convinced.

The distorted, dreamy electric guitar helped turn “Ivy” into a standout ballad. “Artistically I want us to go somewhere that neither of us has been before,” says Batmanglij. “You’ve got to feel a little uncomfortable to push to that place.”

Keep Something For Yourself

Despite Batmanglij’s success working with other musicians, he recognizes that some creative efforts require solitude. Half-Light represents years of personal material that Batmanglij wrote between Vampire Weekend gigs.

The project also allowed him to experience an artist-producer collaboration from the other side; Wet’s Kelly Zutrau and Dirty Projectors’ Angel Deradoorian both provided vocals and co-wrote songs. In the past year, Batmanglij has started performing shows under the name Rostam and incorporating a string quartet and dancers in some numbers.

“It’s about building off of one another’s energy,” he says. “There’s a joy I get from collaborating with other artists, and there’s a joy I get from making songs on my own.”

The New York Jets have been one of the most inconsistent teams in the NFL over the last decade, but help is on the way from the college ranks. No, not a stud quarterback or defensive lineman, but a crop of undergraduate and graduate students who have been studying the Jets and training to help the team solve some of its most pressing business and marketing problems.

This is thanks to a brand-new partnership between the Jets and the NYU School of Professional Studies (NYUSPS) through which a hand-selected group of the university’s students will take a Jets-themed course every semester taught by NYU faculty working alongside team executives. Students will also have access to a Jets-oriented innovation lab geared toward generating new sports, media, or entertainment ideas through an accelerator, hackathons, and/or demo days, that could be implemented by the NFL team.

While it would tempting to think of the partnership as a purely academic exercise–albeit one that could help NYU students land internships or even staff jobs with the Jets–Glat is quick to reject that notion. “We’re interested in real-life applications, business executions, new fan engagement opportunities, and new offerings for our fans,” he said. “This is not meant to be theoretical. This is meant to be something that is actualized.”

That’s why, Glat continued, the first course will task NYUSPS students with optimizing the Jets’ mobile app, coming up with potential improvements to the fan-facing tool within a year. “It’s not just something that’s talked about,” he said. “It’s going to be done.”

Teaming with the Jets is the latest in a string of NYUSPS’s partnerships with industry. Previously, it has offered courses that give students direct access to execs from Fox Sports, ROC Nation, the New York Mets, and espnW.

The dean said NYUSPS wanted to work with the Jets because the partnership blends well with the school’s mission of offering students an “experiential learning model.” And that mission, in fact, helped the team and the school design the partnership’s elements.

Part of that was helping the Jets develop better business practices, DiLorenzo said, that are meant to open doors to more diverse perspectives–something that is a key part of the school’s brand of education. “The Jets have always been about grit and welcoming fans from all walks of life,” he said, a similar element of the NYUSPS mission. “So the partnership was born.”

That philosophy no doubt appealed to the Jets, a team that while having been in the NFL for decades, has struggled to keep up with more star-studded and successful teams like the New York Giants, New England Patriots, Dallas Cowboys, and others.

And are students interested in taking part? Definitely, said DiLorenzo.

“We sent this out to our student population with very specific criteria of experience and academic success,” he said, “and we had students compete to see who could get into that class based on their portfolios and interviews.”

The school put out the call for applicants in July, and got more than 100 students vying for just 18 seats in the class that began last week.

“We didn’t have a lot of time to promote this,” DiLorenzo said, “but they came forward the minute that they saw this.

You may associate fall clothes shopping with going back to school, but research shows that August and September are also the months when adults tend to think about refreshing their professional wardrobes.

To help you update (or build) your professional closet, we’ve scoured the market to find workwear staples. We then tested them to make sure that they are well-made and will keep you looking polished from your first meeting to cocktail hour. And good news for those just starting out: Each item on this list is under $100, so you can afford to look professional on an entry-level salary.

I tested all the womenswear, and my colleague, staff writer Cale Weissman, tested all the menswear, then provided detailed notes. Here’s our list.

Menswear

Bonobos: Long, Wrinkle-Free Days

Daily Grind Shirt ($98) and Stretched Washed Chino ($98)

Everlane: Classic Shirts At Unbeatable Prices

Air Oxford ($58) and Slim Fit Poplin ($55)

Everlane stands out for its simplicity. Rather than offering a wide range of options, the brand’s designers curate a classic look, using high quality materials and manufacturing. The style is low-key and muted; they are designed to fit in rather than stand out. “Everlane has a quietness about its style that I’ve always appreciated,” Cale says.

Ministry of Supply: Workwear Of The Future

Future Forward Longsleeve Polo ($90) and Daystarter Band Collar Shirt ($95)

Ministry of Supply is known for experimenting with high-tech materials, many first invented by NASA. We picked two shirts from their collection that we felt could get you through any occasion that pops up in your week.

The Future Forward Longsleeve Polo, for instance, is made of a fabric called Phase Change Materials, which is temperature regulating. It’s a carefully designed to work in many contexts. It comes with buttoned sleeves and a starched collar, so it looks structured enough to be worn in a casual office, but it also easily goes into weekend activities. The Daystarter Band Collar Shirt is a slightly more formal alternative. It comes with a Nehru collar, which adds a stylish flair. While it has a crisp look, it is made from high-tech fabric that is moisture wicking and wrinkle resistant. Both shirts are machine washable.

Cale was impressed by how effectively these shirts managed perspiration. He wore them in the heat of the summer and even on the hottest days, there were never any sweat stains. “A minor miracle for me!” he says.

Related: These 6 Women’s “Work Uniforms” Will Make Your Mornings Easier

Womenswear

Modcloth: Feminine But Professional Work Frocks

So Sixties A-Line Dress ($79.99), Archival Arrival ($89.99), and Outline of Work Midi Dress ($64.99)

If your work closet consists largely of dresses, you can’t go wrong with Modcloth, which is known for its wide selection of frocks. The brand has hundreds of work-appropriate dresses to choose from. In the past, the brand was known for its slightly vintage flair. While some dresses have ’60s or mod flair, many look timeless. The best part is that the vast majority come in at under $100 and they come in a wide range of sizes, from XS to 3X.

We picked out three that would be a fun new seasonal addition to your wardrobe, but also would work in a range of contexts and take you between seasons. In the summer, I wore the Outline of Work dress with platform heels, but on a cooler day, I wore them with knee-high boots and a cardigan. I found that depending on how I styled it, it worked well both in a formal meeting as well as in a more casual setting, like going out for brunch on the weekend.

The Archival Arrival Dress has a secretary bow that gives it a formal edge, but it is made from a stretchy jersey material that makes it very comfortable to wear throughout the day. If you’re in the market for something a little more structured and formal, the So Sixties dress is a perfect fit. It comes in several bright colors, which will add some vibrancy to what might otherwise be a monochromatic fall closet, but thanks to the button at the waist and the pleated skirt, it manages to look formal enough for even the starchiest office.

Aritzia: Elegant Blouses Galore

Tadema ($75), Granados ($98), and Niccolo ($85)

One of my favorite transitional looks is a pair of tight fitting black trousers or jeans, plus an interesting blouse. Artizia is a great one-stop shop for beautiful blouses at reasonable prices. These long-sleeve shirts are great for fall days when it might be too warm for a sweater or blazer, but too chilly for a sundress.

I picked three blouses in muted colors that have interesting architectural flair. The Tadema, for instance, is made from a fluid fabric that comes with a bow that you can tie at the waist. The Granados has a high collar, plus puffed sleeves that give the shirt a nice drape. And the Niccolo has a nice secretary bow on the front that I like to wear long, rather than tied. They all come in beautiful fall colors like dark green and aubergine.

The great thing about all of these shirts is that even though they feel like silk, they are machine washable. They are also generally wrinkle-resistant. I wore them while driving around from interview to interview and the seatbelt didn’t crease them.

J.Crew: Staples With A Twist

No. 2 Pencil Skirt ($79.50), Stretch Perfect Bodysuit ($68), and Martie Slim Crop Pants ($79.50)

If you’re looking to load up on classic year-round items for your work uniform, J.Crew has several great options that are very well designed. The most interesting piece I discovered was the Stretch Perfect Bodysuit. On the surface, it’s the classic white tailored shirt that every woman needs in her closet. But button-down shirts often bunch up when you try to tuck them into your pants. J.Crew solved this problem by making the shirt part of a bodysuit. It looks perfect and unwrinkled when you wear it with jeans or trousers.

If it’s time to stock up on skirts and pants, J.Crew has a couple of key choices. The Martie trousers are carefully designed to look flattering, by flattening the stomach and defining the bottom. And the No.2 Pencil Skirt is made of cotton, but comes with two-way stretch, so it adapts to your body’s movements, rather than wrinkling when you sit down. Both of these come in a wide range of colors, including reds, blues, and hot pinks. These are great everyday clothes that will make getting ready in the morning easier.