April 24, 2023

what we're excited about...

empowering you with insights and information from the edge of today’s headlines

Technology

Digital Resurrection: You may have heard that this weekend Twitter resurrected the accounts of some deceased celebrities, making them Twitter blue subscribers against their “will” and declaring that they had paid $8 and given their phone numbers post-humously. Or remember when Tupac was brought back to life via hologram for a final concert at Coachella? To possibly protect against such moves, celebrities have now been writing into their contracts how they want their likeness portrayed after their deaths. Now you can too. D.E.A.D (or digital employment after death) is an online platform that lets you “express your preferences on whether or not to allow yourself to be “resurrected” after death.” Add that to our to-do list on Legalzoom.

Digital Resurrection of the worst kind: Michael Schumacher, the champion Formula One driver, has been out of the public eye ever since a traumatic brain injury due to a skiing accident in 2013. His family has kept him isolated from the media and asked for privacy, and had been quite successful, until a German magazine published an AI-generated interview. The front cover of Die Aktuelle was deceptively titled "Michael Schumacher, the first interview.” Following complaints and threats of a lawsuit from the family, the magazine apologized and the editor was fired.

Race for Chips: During the supply chain crises of the pandemic, we all learned that semiconductor chips are in everything and hard to come by. With AI taking over the world, Microsoft doesn’t want to leave anything to chance and has announced that they will be producing their own chips in order to reduce their dependency on NVIDIA’s. Microsoft has also been working on its own ARM-based chips for several years, similar to Apple’s Silicon. (Apple already had a headstart with the production of its own chips which have been in production and in computers since 2020.) ARM, however, is throwing another wrench into the story. ARM, which was purchased by Softbank in 2016, was traditionally only a designer of chips which then licensed the designs to manufacturers and other technology companies. Now ARM is set to manufacture its own chips to get into the expected AI-driven demand race, and ahead of its expected IPO.

Election Payouts: You may have heard of the Fox $787.5M payout related to the Dominion defamation lawsuit, but another 2020 election fraud payout may have gone under your radar last week. Mike Lindell, of My Pillow fame, held a “Prove Me Wrong Challenge” for cybersleuths with a $5M reward, where he challenged them to prove that the 2020 election was not stolen. However, the contractual terms of the contest only meant that the cyber experts had to prove that the data was not from the 2020 election, and one such expert took the prize (although it had to be awarded reluctantly from an arbitration panel).

Business

King of Beers: Beer has been in the news for all of the wrong reasons, and all of the wrong American kind. While Americans are shooting cans for culture, Belgians are destroying beers for language. Miller High Life has been using the marketing slogan “Champagne of Beers” for years, and the French have had enough. “The Comité Champagne asked for the destruction of a shipment of 2,352 cans on the grounds that the century-old motto used by the American brewery infringes the protected designation of origin ‘Champagne.’” As a result, Belgian customs officers destroyed the cans on their way to Germany. We can’t say we blame them.

King of Drugs: In 2022, the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma (the makers of Oxycontin) reached a settlement over multiple opioid lawsuits which effectively shielded the individual family members from any liability. The bankruptcy of the firm and the settlement were controversial at the time, and the opioid crisis is still ongoing in this country. While the Sackler family had been major political and philanthropic spenders over the decades, we’ll add a little conspiracy to the bankruptcy. The judge who was in charge of the bankruptcy (which shielded the family) has retired and is now joining the firm which defended the Sacklers.

Queen of Mothers: Walmart has teamed up with a new spokeswoman to promote their new membership model. CardiB will be sharing motherhood hacks for its “Mother of All Savings Memberships” campaign. One of her first video tips: file your nails so not to scratch your newborn, but leave the pinky nail point to pick their noses? We can’t wait for Cardi’s other iconic hacks.

In Charity we Trust: Similar to the ownership structure of Patagonia, Mike Bloomberg has decided to give his company to charity when he steps down, removing any questions about succession (there goes the next real life installment, when are fingers were crossed for Alexander Skaarsgard). Bloomberg, who is worth an estimated $94.5 billion, most of which comes from his 88% ownership stake in Bloomberg LP, was once mayor of NYC and US presidential candidate, has “committed to giving the company away to Bloomberg Philanthropies when he dies, if not sooner.”

Culture

IKEA goes upscale: When we think of IKEA, our first thought is meatballs and the second is all the spare screws we’ve missed when attempting to puzzle together our furniture, but we’d have to get to about 10,000 on our list of recollections before we got to IKEA and fine art. However, the furniture giant has hired Annie Liebowitz, the iconic celebrity photographer, as its first Artist in Residence. Liebowitz has been tasked with traveling around the world, “capturing normal people doing normal things in normal homes.” Evidently, IKEA is taking aim at a study that people don’t believe that the media accurately reflects what real homes look like — I guess we’ve all learned to pick up our laundry before posting our pics on Airbnb.

Extra Spicy: If you are ready for a road trip and need some sustenance, Eater has the ultimate guide to California burritos.

KidSuper goes to Coachella: KidSuper, the multi-media and fashion brand, collaborated with UGG footwear for an installation at the 3-day music festival. The collab created “Feel House, a multi-sensory community experience dedicated to ‘making self-expression comfortable for all’ at the Villa Royale in Palm Springs,” and a series of limited edition shoes in the designer’s signature, playful style.

Van Gogh gets a rebrand: Actually, a keen-eyed chef noticed that a van Gogh still life had been titled with the wrong vegetable. Dutch chef Ernst de Witte wrote to the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam about “Red Cabbages and Onions” (1887) with extensive research, where he found that the onions were actually mislabeled and should be garlic. After months of review, the Museum concurred, the painting was renamed, and the chef created a new dish in the painting’s honor.

Real women use koozies: We’re not even sure if that is how you spell a koozy, and we weren’t sure if this was an SNL parody, but here is Sarah Sanders with the political spot targeting every cultural grievance rolled up into one without a lack of irony.

— Lauren Eve Cantor

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