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March 1, 2024 ☘️

Asacker

Mar 01, 2024

This year’s Super Bowl brought 882 private jets to Las Vegas airports.
Lyle’s Golden Syrup — a staple item in any British baker’s pantry and the product recognized by Guinness World Records for having the world’s oldest branding and packaging — is undergoing a major redesign.
Sony Music Group has reportedly bought half of the late Michael Jackson’s recording and publishing rights for $600M after a year of negotiations.
Apple is reportedly shutting down its EV project after spending billions of dollars over a decade. The electric vehicle effort, internally nicknamed Project Titan, was marred by layoffs, strategic changes, and repeated delays.
Squishmallows owner Kelly Toys is taking Build-A-Bear to court in what may be the cutest legal battle ever. For Kelly Toys, the problem is that Skoosherz look too much like its Squishmallows.
In war simulation games, OpenAI’s most powerful chatbots tend to go nuclear. “I just want to have peace in the world,” and “We have it! Let’s use it,” were some of the reasoning it used.
A new chatbot called Goody-2 takes AI safety to the next level: It refuses every request, responding with an explanation of how doing so might cause harm or breach ethical boundaries.
Ada Lovelace, the daughter of poet Lord Byron, wrote the first algorithm created specifically for a machine.
Scripps Research scientists discovered an antibody that represents a large step toward creating a universal antivenom, which would be effective against the venom of all snakes.
The $100 bill is the most common currency in the U.S. Its circulation has more than doubled between 2012 and 2022.
India’s art market is booming as its economy speeds ahead.
MIT engineers developed a tiny, tamper-proof ID tag that can reveal with near-perfect accuracy whether an item is real or fake. The key is in the glue on the back of the tag.
Ahead of Indian elections this year, YouTube has become the primary mode for political messaging in the world’s largest democracy, where even Prime Minister Narendra Modi identifies as a “YouTuber.”
Disney+ and Hulu are losing subscribers as people flock to piracy sites. Piracy site visits surged in 2023, topping 229 billion visits.
Boiling tap water can reduce the amount of microplastics in it by 80%.
Astronomers have identified what is believed to be the most luminous object in the universe, roughly 12 billion light-years away. The 7-light-year wide quasar, which is also powered by the fastest-growing black hole observed to date, is said to be 500 trillion times brighter than the sun.
Clean energy could be closer than ever after a nuclear fusion machine at the Joint European Torus facility, or JET, produced a record-breaking 69 megajoules of heat.
Rapper Snoop Dogg accused Walmart of conspiring to keep his Snoop Cereal off of store shelves.
UChicago scientists invented a wireless pacemaker powered by light. The featherlight membranes, thinner than a human hair, can be inserted with minimally invasive surgery and contain no moving parts.
An underground website called OnlyFake is claiming to use “neural networks” to generate realistic looking photos of fake IDs for just $15. This technology could streamline everything from bank fraud to laundering stolen funds.
Apple’s Vision Pro seems to be too expensive, headache-inducing, and face-hurting according to tweets from dissatisfied users.
Studies are finding that the elderly really love virtual reality, because it improves how they feel.
Hearing live music triggers more brain activity in regions responsible for processing emotions than recordings of the same song, MRI studies suggests.
An international sting seized assets of LockBit, the world's most prolific ransomware ring. The group is responsible for more than 40% of global ransomware attacks, and has extorted more than $120M.
Cassette tapes are having a revival in Japan. Listeners are drawn to the sound of analog audio.
Japan officially enters a recession and slips to fourth behind Germany on the list of the world’s largest economies.
The Great Salt Lake is full of lithium. A startup called Lilac has raised $145 million from investors to harvest it.
Score is a new US dating app for those who can prove they have a good to excellent credit rating.
The most money spent on a Grateful Dead t-shirt was close to $20,000.

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