News from the Edge

Business

Amazon Dives In: Amazon has thrown its weight behind Anthropic, the maker of Claude AI, with a hefty $2.75BN investment. This brings Amazon’s total investment into the startup to $4BN — its biggest outside investment to date. The move positions Amazon to compete more effectively in the AI market, enhances its cloud offerings, and provides customers with access to advanced AI models. Anthropic's focus on AI safety and ethics aligns with the growing importance of responsible AI development, and the collaboration may influence global discussions on AI governance and regulation. The investment is expected to accelerate AI research and development and further intensify competition among tech giants. (The tech giant has also signed on to a collaboration with Accenture, AWS and Anthropic to serve enterprise clients.)

A Perfect Storm: You may have heard of Fisker, the electric vehicle startup, but for all of the wrong reasons. Last month, Marques Brownlee gave the Fisker Ocean a scathing review, calling it “the worst car I’ve ever reviewed,” which led to an unfortunate viral back and forth with a Fisker employee. And that isn’t the worst of it, apparently the company lost track of millions in customer deposits and payments related to its flagship Ocean SUV; production is paused as the NHTSA investigates safety issues, and the NYSE delisted the stock. With time running out, as a convertible note is also looming, we’ll see if bankruptcy or an electric miracle are on the table.

Electric Dreams: If you weren’t one of the lucky ones who got your Fisker Ocean for free, don’t worry, there is a new kid on the block (at least in China). Xiaomi just launched its new electric SUV, which is priced competitively at $30k. The company received over 50k orders within the first 27 minutes of sales, and the car boasts a minimum range of 700km. Despite a crowded EV market in China, Xiaomi, plans to invest $10BN in its vehicle business over the next 10 years.

Beast Overload: MrBeast and Amazon have teamed up to create a new reality competition series on Prime Video featuring 1000 contestants vying for $5M. Speculation is that MrBeast was paid $100M and given total creative control, with a goal of proving that YouTube creators can thrive beyond the confines of the platform. MrBeast has a massive YouTube following (247M subscribers), and he has recently posted videos (advertisements) on Twitter. While his audience is aimed at the male youngens, his popularity with females and adults is growing. Admittedly, we won’t be watching; we’ll wait to hear the reviews from our readers and nephew.

Kim’s Judd-gment: Kim Kardashian finds herself in a legal battle with the Judd Foundation over alleged imitations of Donald Judd's furniture in her Los Angeles office. The dispute began when Kardashian showcased the controversial pieces (a $90,000 La Mansana Table 22 and a $9,000 Chair 84) in a video tour of her office, leading the foundation to demand the video's deletion, the furniture's destruction, and a public statement from the reality star. The foundation's lawyer criticizes the furniture's quality and emphasizes the desire to distance Judd's legacy from Kim K. As the case unfolds, the court will navigate the issues of artistic integrity, inspiration, and imitation in the world of high-end furniture design. We knew the Kardashians were fake, but we also know they can afford the originals. And we can’t wait for the internet sleuths to go after the rest of the items in their homes.

Everything is Local: Our overly divided country might be one result of the fact that local news is dying. The nonprofit, Documenters, is tackling this problem by paying volunteers to attend and document public meetings. What would ‘merica look like, if we possibly had an informed populace?

Technology

AI Oversight: The U.S. government has introduced new measures to ensure the responsible use of artificial intelligence within federal agencies. As part of this initiative, all agencies are required to appoint a chief AI officer (CAIO) to oversee AI implementation and establish AI governance boards to manage its usage. These efforts build upon the Biden administration's executive order on AI and aim to establish safety standards, recruit AI talent, and maintain transparency with the public regarding the government's use of AI.

AI Goes Astray: New York City's government-run chatbot, "MyCity," has been caught spreading misinformation about local laws and regulations. Introduced as a pilot program to assist business owners by providing instant access to official information, the chatbot has instead been disseminating incorrect and misleading advice, such as falsely claiming that NYC buildings are not required to accept Section 8 housing vouchers. Despite disclaimers about potential inaccuracies, the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation has acknowledged the issue but has yet to provide a detailed solution, raising concerns about the reliability of AI chatbots in providing authoritative information on critical matters. This is not the first instance of a chatbot gone astray. However, with NYC already suffering from its rude reputation (see the women getting punched in the face), we hope the affected businesses have some recourse.

Set Your Clocks Back: Climate change is causing more than just rising temperatures and sea levels; it's also messing with the very rotation of our planet. As polar ice melts due to global warming, mass is redistributed from the poles towards the equator, slowing down the Earth's spin like a figure skater extending their arms. While this effect is currently counteracted by processes in the Earth's core that are speeding up the rotation, the net result is a complex situation that may soon require a "negative leap second" to be added to our clocks. This unprecedented adjustment, which would shorten our days by a second, highlights the profound impact of human activities on our planet and could have significant implications for global computing systems and time-sensitive technologies.

Fossil Fuel Fiasco: When two climate reporters decided to decarbonize their Vermont home, they expected a breeze but instead found themselves in a whirlwind of complex decisions, financial hurdles, and surprise tree assassinations. From heat pumps to solar panels, their journey was a hilarious (and expensive) crash course in renewable energy reality. Despite many setbacks, they managed to inspire their community and prove that with enough determination (and tax credits), even the most fossil-fuel-addicted homes can kick the habit. The road to a green home may be paved with good intentions, but it's also littered with unexpected potholes.

What’s in a Name: What do Prozac, Compaq and Wi-Fi all have in common? They are all brand names created by Interbrand. Wi-Fi, however, has been misunderstood for years, as we too thought it was short for “wireless fidelity,” not a catchy name for IEEE 802.11. Interbrand wanted to play off the term high fidelity to suggest high-quality, cable free connections. Also of note, the term podcasts comes from the fact that they were first played on iPods.🤷🏻‍♀️

Don’t pass Go: If you’ve seen someone with their heads deep in a mobile phone recently, they might have been playing Monopoly Go (yes, we never heard of it either). The game, however, launched a year ago, has amassed over $2BN in revenue, 100M downloads, and 10M daily active users. Apparently, the studio behind the game spent $500M in marketing, more than what was spent on some of the biggest games like Spider-Man 2. On the flip side, the NY Times has become a gaming platform — adding digital subscribers and thriving while other local newspapers disappear, mostly due to Wordle, Connections and the Mini Crossword.

Culture

Saddle Up: You might have been celebrating Good Friday, but we were celebrating Beyoncé Day with the release of Act II: Cowboy Carter. (Even Elmo was confirmed to be all in.) While the album contains an impressive lineup of collaborations and remakes, and the first single made the singer the first black woman to top the Billboard country chart, we were intrigued by the cover art. Beyoncé sits side-saddle astride a white horse while holding an American flag. The image is reminiscent of presidential portraits, like those of George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Beyoncé’s horse is apparently named Chardonneigh, and is a Lipizzaner which is born black and turns white over time, which may speak to the artist’s experience of feeling unwelcome in the country music community. (We also learned that the term cowboy referred to black men, as white men were called cow hands.) Beyoncé took five years to create this album, and has instilled the sound and visuals with a lot of meaning, and we suspect the dissection of them will take about that long as well.

Beyoncé Water: If you haven’t had enough of Beyoncé filling your eyes and ears this weekend, consider quenching your thirst with her Lemon Perfect water. Initially developed by an assistant basketball coach for athletes, the drink instantly took off once Beyoncé was seen sipping it. The artist soon became an investor in the beverage as well. Each of the seven varieties contains half an organic lemon. The lemon-centric formula is reminiscent of the Master Cleanse, another alleged favorite of The Queen’s. So stock up on some cayenne pepper while you’re at it!

Prop Floats: The enduring mystery of Rose and Jack may yet be solved. The door from James Cameron’s 1997 Titanic, which kept Rose afloat after the sinking of the ship, went on auction recently. The Hollywood prop auction included other movie memorabilia including Forrest Gump’s chocolates, Indiana Jones’s whip, and the ax from The Shining. The “Hero Floating Wood Panel” sold for over $718k. No word on when or if the buyers will be testing the theory that Jack could have fit and floated on the door as well.

Sweet Sacrifice: You may have noticed over Easter that the bunnies were more hollow than usual: cocoa prices are soaring due to poor harvests (climate change), and chocolatiers are raising their prices, reducing product size, or promoting non-chocolate treats. But chocolate isn’t the only treat in danger — Trader Joe’s is raising the price of its bananas for the first time in 20 years (from 19¢ to 23¢). We may have to change our smoothie habit, and shift to peanut butter.

The Case for Marrying Rich: Spare a moment to read the New York Magazine article, “The Case for Marrying an Older Man,” that is if you can get through it without a few eye rolls. We have no issues with anyone dating or marrying anyone for that matter, but we happen to agree with the Twitter critics of the author: essentially, the author didn’t realize that the stretch she was making was marrying rich, not jumping an age gap. We would agree with: “the way this woman treats being rich & privileged and marrying someone who is even more rich & privileged than you as a life hack akin to meal prepping,” or “as an editor I can tell you, this editor hated this author.”

thanks for reading!

if someone sent this to you or you haven’t done so yet, please sign up below so you never miss an issue.

if you have any feedback or want to engage on any of the topics discussed, please feel free to reply to this email.

banner images created with Midjourney