Wednesday, July 2
Headlines
Sebastien Bozon/AFP via Getty Images
Apple is reportedly considering using OpenAI or Anthropic to power Siri. Per Bloomberg, the move would sideline Apple’s in-house models in a “monumental reversal” of its AI strategy. Nothing has been decided, but Apple has talked with both companies and asked them to train models that could run on Apple’s cloud infrastructure for testing, Bloomberg reported. Tapping a competitor to power a new version of Siri would be an admission by Apple that it’s falling behind in the AI race. The company is reportedly still developing in-house models, so it may decide to continue powering Siri’s AI capabilities on its own.
US manufacturing contracted again. In June, factory activity in the US shrank for the fourth straight month, according to the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index. Experts say the contraction is due to a perfect storm of declining demand and employment with rising prices—likely a reaction to tariffs. One company told Bloomberg Economics that its customers don’t want to make manufacturing commitments in the wake of so much economic uncertainty. “Everyone is on pause,” said another.
Grammarly is expanding into email. The software that tells you if you’re using a semicolon correctly (you aren’t) is buying the email efficiency app Superhuman as part of an effort to build an AI-powered productivity suite, Reuters reported. Grammarly, which was valued at $13 billion in 2021 and raised $1 billion this year, checks its users’ writing for spelling and grammar mistakes and can suggest changes with generative AI. Superhuman, meanwhile, says it boosts productivity by enabling users to read and write emails much faster. According to Reuters, Grammarly’s acquisition and overall expansion into productivity puts it into direct competition with Salesforce and various startups using AI to enhance work rate.—AE
Robert Reich
If we had a strong, bold opposition party that rose to what the time demands
Friends,
Congress is on track to pass the largest and most regressive piece of legislation in American history.
Last week, I shared with you a letter to Democrats from someone purporting to be Liz Cheney (as I noted in a later version, it turned out not to be from her but most likely from Dr. Pru Lee), essentially telling Democrats to get off their asses.
Regardless of the author’s identity, the letter conveyed an urgency and boldness more responsive to the current authoritarian crisis than anything coming from today’s business-as-usual Democrats, who seem to know how to act only in a campaign season.
At A Glance
Mark your calendar for July stargazing.
The physics behind ice cube shapes.
Power naps may spark “aha” moments.
Ranking the most expensive states to raise a child.
Humanitarian efforts fueled by used hotel soap.
Why strawberries and cream are a Wimbledon staple.
Cheapest European destinations for an Aperol Spritz.
… and the rise of the pickle juice martini. (w/recipe)
Clickbait: These Japanese hotels are run by robot receptionists.
In The NEWS
Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Jury deliberations underway in Sean "Diddy" Combs' wide-ranging sex crimes trial, with the jury flagging for the judge that one juror was having difficulty following the judge's instructions (More)
> The US revokes visas of members of British rap punk duo Bob Vylan after the group lead the Glastonbury Festival crowd in "death to IDF" chants (More)
> Three-time NFL All-Pro Jalen Ramsey traded by the Miami Dolphins to the Pittsburgh Steelers for fellow three-time All-Pro Minkah Fitzpatrick (More) | WNBA to expand to 18 teams by 2030, with new franchises in Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia (More)
Science & Technology
> Meta formally announces Superintelligence Labs, focusing on AI models that rival human intelligence (More) | Meta explained (1440 Topics) | Microsoft researchers say new AI tool correctly diagnoses diseases at an 85% rate, four times higher than experienced doctors (More)
> Genetic ancestry linked to risk of contracting severe cases of dengue fever; findings partially explain the wide variability in cases, disease kills around 20,000 people annually (More)
> Researchers discover switching on a single dormant gene enables mice to regrow ear tissue; discovery may lead to treatments for a variety of degenerative diseases (More)
Business & Markets
> US stock markets close up (S&P 500 +0.5%, Dow +0.6%, Nasdaq +0.5%) (More) | DOJ lets Hewlett Packard Enterprise buy Juniper Networks for $14B, boosting both tech firms’ shares (More) | Home Depot to buy building-products distributor GMS for about $4.3B in bid to attract more home-building professionals (More)
> Joby Aviation shares climb 11.8% after delivering first flying air taxi to the UAE, with plans for 2026 regional launch (More) | Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund's annual profits fall 60% due partly to high interest rates and inflation (More)
> Robinhood to offer tokenized US stocks and exchange-traded funds in Europe, sending shares to record high (More) | Oracle shares up 4% after revealing $30B in cloud deals (More)
Politics & World Affairs
> Bryan Kohberger to plead guilty to fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students in 2022; hearing scheduled for tomorrow (More) | Police identify 20-year-old suspect in the ambush and killing of two firefighters in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Sunday; police have not publicly identified a motive as of this writing (More)
> Senate debates amendments to President Donald Trump's domestic policy bill in hourslong process known as vote-a-rama (More) | See previous write-up (More)
> Department of Health and Human Services finds Harvard University in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act over allegations of antisemitism (More) | Trump signs executive order ending US sanctions on Syria (More) | Justice Department sues Los Angeles over sanctuary city policy (More)
SOURCE: 1440 NEWS
A Teenage Dream
Don Catelli Potent Percussion GMB
.jpg)
When I was 14, I heard a song off the above album POTENT PERCUSSION, and immediately knew that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life... play percussion in a band like this.
I had been studying percussion since I was ten years old and was playing in the school band while at the same time taking private lessons from a soldier who was in the band at Fort Belvoir. I would meet him at the high school once a week after school where we had access to the band room.
My percussion instructor told me that I had natural talent and invited me to come to the Atlantic City Board Walk to play in a JAZZ BAND with him during the summer. At 14, I assumed that he was telling me the truth, but my parents refused to let me go.
As I look back on the incident, my parents were correct to say no for two reasons:
First - this man may have been a child predator
Two - I could have been negatively influence by the environment if he had been telling the truth
That summer, instead of going to Atlantic City, I got with three other guys my age and we stole cars, boats, and broke into houses. We were caught towards the end of the summer but instead of going to jail, my father accepted a job with the State Department, and my police record was destroyed.
I spent the next four years, going to high school in Cairo, Egypt and traveling through Europe during the summer months, because American high school students were not allowed to work in Cairo.
It is funny how life has a way of changing right in front of you, and one does not realize it until much later in life.
.jpg)
Strange signals detected from Antarctic ice seem to defy laws of physics
Scientists are trying to solve a decade-long mystery by determining the identity of anomalous signals detected from below ice in Antarctica.
The strange radio waves emerged during a search for another unusual phenomenon: high-energy cosmic particles known as neutrinos. Arriving at Earth from the far reaches of the cosmos, neutrinos are often called “ghostly” because they are extremely volatile, or vaporous, and can go through any kind of matter without changing.
Over the past decade, researchers have conducted multiple experiments using vast expanses of water and ice that are designed to search for neutrinos, which could shed light on mysterious cosmic rays, the most highly energetic particles in the universe. One of these projects was NASA’s Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna, or ANITA, experiment, which flew balloons carrying instruments above Antarctica between 2006 and 2016.
Tuesday, July 1
The Big THINK
Tolkien’s Middle-earth wasn’t a place. It was a time in (English) history.
The fellowship’s journey through Middle-earth mirrors the modernization of the English countryside.
Headlines
Mikhail Makarov/Getty Images
Senators voted on a slew of amendments to the “Big, beautiful bill.” The Senate pulled an all-nighter to hold a vote-a-rama—a marathon voting session that’s probably less fun than it sounds—to slog through proposed amendments to the tax bill full of GOP priorities the president hopes to have on his desk by July 4. Lawmakers grappled with many thorny political issues, like Medicaid cuts and clean energy tax credits, as Republicans tried to inch toward a vote on the bill while keeping enough members of their own party on board to pass it without support from any Democrats. To do that, the Republicans can only lose three votes, and two members of the party have already vowed to oppose it. If the Senate version passes, it’ll go back to the House, which will have to sign off on any changes from the version passed there.
Canada scraps tech tax that caused Trump to call off trade talks. One day before it was set to start collecting its new digital services tax—which would have impacted both domestic and foreign tech companies—Canada rescinded it in an effort to get trade talks with the US back on track. The move to kill the tax came after President Trump said last week that he was halting all trade discussions with Canada because of it. The tax would have put a 3% levy on the revenue companies make from digital services for Canadian users that exceeds C$20 million each year. But the stakes of the trade talks are even higher: About 75% of Canadian exports go to the US, while Canada is the biggest buyer of US goods, per Bloomberg.
Home Depot targets pro market with $4.3 billion acquisition. Looking to expand its customer base to homebuilding professionals alongside all the ambitious dads, Home Depot is buying building products distributor GMS for $4.3 billion. A Home Depot subsidiary will buy up shares in GMS in a deal that values it at $5.5 billion that it expects to be completed by early next year, which GMS agreed to despite a competing $5 billion bid. It’s the second recent big purchase for the retailer as it inserts itself deeper into the building materials supply chain in search of new revenue now that the Covid home improvement boom has ended.—AR
Robert Reich
The real crisis we are living through
Friends,
During a three-hour interview with the podcaster Joe Rogan some months ago, Elon Musk revealed the core of the ideology animating the richest person in the world.
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,” Musk said, adding that liberals and progressives are “exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”
Musk pointed to California’s move to provide medical insurance even to undocumented people who qualify for its low-income Medi-Cal program.
“We’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on,” Musk continued. Empathy has been “weaponized.”
Musk is now officially out of Trump world but his DOGE lives on. It has already destroyed almost every empathic part of the U.S. government.
At A Glance
Desert farm, icy spiral among June's best science photos.
The science behind Agatha Christie's poisons.
American pride falls to new low at 58%.
Fireworks: Today's 1440 Science and Technology newsletter unpacks the holiday explosives. Email comes out at 8:30 am ET—sign up here to receive!Explore an interactive world map of 30,000 plant species.
Browse through photos of Wild West mining towns.
Should we ban left turns at intersections?
A quest to learn the origins of tarot cards.
Ranking the 21st century's best feuds.
Clickbait: When coworkers pry, stress levels rise.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)