- Will's Weekly Roundup
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- Will's Weekly Roundup
Will's Weekly Roundup is a weekly newsletter of curated tech, business, and startup news (and what I'm thinking about).
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Headlines
The tech and business headlines you missed (or need to see again)...
The US reached its $31.4T debt ceiling and will start 'extraordinary measures' to avoid defaulting. LINK
Google parent company Alphabet slashes jobs, pushing tech layoffs over 200,000 (155,000+ in 2022 and 55,000+ thus far in 2023). LINK, ANOTHER LINK
Tesla cuts their EV car prices by as much as 30%, indicating a major shift in the EV market. LINK
Twitter's daily revenue is down 40% YoY, with 500 advertisers having left. (LINK)
Airbus is testing its autonomous flight tech DragonFly on some of its planes that will automate landing, emergency diversion in cruise, and on-ground taxing. LINK
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says that GPT-4 (the updated version of ChatGTP-3) will not live up to the hype people are giving it. LINK
Twitter will release how their recommendation algorithm works within a month, according to Elon. LINK
Google introduces it’s latest text-to-image generative AI model “Muse” as it competes against Dall-E 2, Stable Diffusion, Imagen, and Pari. LINK
A demonstration of Boston Dynamics' humanoid robot illustrates its ability to assist in construction, not just perform repetitive tasks like parkour. LINK
Tesla allegedly staged self driving footage in a 2016 promo video, according to a Tesla engineer. LINK
Scientists gave a robot a sense of smell with locust antennae and AI. LINK
A woman receives the first-ever successful transplant of a living, 3D-printed ear. LINK
Ideas
Some ideas I'm thinking about...
2.9 billion people still have never used the Internet. LINK
There’s a list of 40 things that are considered totally normal in NYC, but not anywhere else. LINK
“Heavenbanning” is a new hypothetical practice of banning a user from a platform by causing everyone that they speak with to be replaced by AI models that constantly agree and praise them, but only from their own perspective. LINK
The USDA cracks down on loopholes in their strict definition of “certified organic,” allowing the label to be used only for products that meet certain standards for soil quality, animal-raising practices, pest and weed control, and use of additives. LINK
Slot machines are absurd: They made $9B in revenue in 2022, which was more than the North American box office ($7.5B). The slot machine in the LA airport alone surpassed $1B in lifetime revenue. LINK
There’s a Google Chrome extension that takes multiple Google Maps destinations and forms the shortest route. LINK
A job application written by ChatGPT fooled recruiters and beat more than 80% of human candidates to an interview. LINK
40% of global shipping involves moving fossil and other fuels (oil, gas, wood pellets) around. More renewables (solar, wind, nuclear, geo), means fewer ships. LINK
Xerox scanners used to have a bug that would silently replace numbers in the text of documents to make them compress better. LINK
The solution to Siri not giving you a direct response is adding (Chat)GTP-3 tech to the voice assistant. LINK
Air taxis are coming soon. Here’s a video inside the operations of one of the market leaders, Archer. LINK
Outside Interests
Applicants are 1.5% more likely to be granted asylum by a US judge the day after their city’s NFL team won. LINK
Texas universities block access to TikTok on-campus Wi-Fi networks. LINK
Trump is reportedly going to be unbanned from Twitter and Facebook soon. LINK
There’s a site where you can sell your worthless NFTs and harvest the losses. LINK
Before the industrial revolution, silver didn’t need to be polished, because there was less sulfur in the atmosphere (unless you lived near a volcano). LINK
China’s first population decline in 60 years sounds the demographic alarm. LINK
There’s a company (SnowFeet) making mini skis. LINK
Starbucks' updated “free coffee” rewards program now requires 2x the number of rewards points. LINK
70% of Gen Z watch TV with subtitles, and that's why Netflix is working extra hard on them. LINK, ANOTHER LINK
Visuals
Long-term effects of COVID on U.S. “consumer behavior.”
The overall performance of the largest U.S. airlines from 2020 to 2022.
The biggest billionaire losers of 2022.
Quotes
“If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.” ― Milton Berle
“The most powerful productivity tool ever invented is simply the word no.” ― Shane Parrish
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