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Per week, taken by auto taxi service Waymo One in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix. It’s no surprise Uber and Lyft drivers say it’s hurting their earnings (paywall link). Waymo is also expanding to Atlanta and Austin early next year. I still won’t get in one.
Tags: autonomous vehicles, Link, Lyft, rideshare, service, Uber, Waymo
If it’s one thing you can bet on, there’s always newer, better and faster tech begging you to open your wallet. With that said, you probably haven’t heard about BlueBird yet from AST SmartMobile out of Texas. They’re working with AT&T to launch the world’s first space-based cellular broadband network.
“Moana” is now the No. 1 movie in streaming history: It just clocked over 1 billion hours of viewing time. The twist: It flopped in its 2016 box office release. Theories for its comeback range from its catchy songs to our love of island life (paywall link). A groaner for the kids: What is Moana’s cat called? Meowui.
25,000-mile project: Meta is building a $10 billion underwater fiber-optic cable to circle the globe. Why? To avoid geopolitical hotspots where subsea cables have been sabotaged in the past, like the Baltic Sea and Red Sea. Owning a global network cable gives Meta full control to prioritize traffic to its own products and services.
Criminal mastermind: A Florida mom stole from Target using a barcode trick at self-checkout. She then went full “genius” and posted the evidence on TikTok. When police shared a screenshot of the would-be thief, a tipster identified her as a social media influencer with over 356,000 followers. Her account even showed her in the very same outfit, picking out the stolen goods.
🚢 Google = The Titanic: That’s how The Wall Street Journal now describes the search engine, which is on the verge of sinking. Here’s why: AI tools like ChatGPT, Gen Z searches on TikTok and, of course, Google’s increasingly worse search results. I called this two years ago. It’s nice to see the WSJ catching up.
“God of management”: That’s what Japan calls Panasonic’s founder Kōnosuke Matsushita, who died in 1989 at the age of 94. Now, he’s been resurrected as an AI clone. The University of Tokyo trained the bot using his writings and over 3,000 voice recordings. Panasonic says they’re going to use the AI clone to make future business decisions. His life story is interesting; he was cleaning stores at just 9 years old. Here’s a link if you want to learn more about him.
No kids allowed: Australia just banned kids under the age of 16 from using social media sites and platforms. Social media companies will have to enforce age verification within a year or face massive fines (up to $33 million!). It’s all about protecting kids’ mental health. I’m really interested in seeing what happens.
🤖 Thought leader or bot leader? You know all those LinkedIn posts sharing tips to maximize your #grindset? Yep, most of them — 54%, to be exact — are AI-generated. A study found these posts are getting longer, too, with their word counts jumping an average of 107% since ChatGPT arrived. No wonder our eyes glaze over while reading them.
AI becomes way too human: A startup called Altera lets its AI-powered agents run wild in Minecraft. What happened? The bots made friends, created jobs, debated taxes and spread the parody religion Pastafarianism, all with zero direct human input. “A Minecraft Movie” is coming out in April 2025, and it’s going to be a blockbuster. (Now, that was a good one!)
The bread broke up with margarine for a butter lover: Researchers have created a “lick-able” VR device that uses electric currents to simulate up to nine flavors. The tech is still in its early stages but will be available for gaming, TV shows, and even shopping. You know it’s just a matter of time before the porn industry taps into this tech. 🙄
