January 10, 2024

what we've been watching...

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

Business

Crypto is back (momentarily): This week, we were all waiting for the SEC's decision on whether they would approve a Bitcoin-related ETF. On Tuesday, the SEC's Twitter account announced its approval, but it turned out to be a hoax. The account had been hacked, and the SEC had to clarify that it had been compromised. Initially, Bitcoin's value jumped about 3% to a high of $47,901, but then it fell back down. The ETF is still likely to be approved by the SEC, and the decision is expected on Wednesday. However, this news might already be factored into the cryptocurrency's price, as it has been on the rise for the past three months. We'll see if Bitcoin follows Wall Street's "sell the news" trend or if the crypto enthusiasts have other ideas.

Boeing Crash: We were flying on January 6th, and “luckily” we weren’t paying attention to the news, because it was January 6th, and we weren’t on a 737Max. However, if the rest weren’t true, and the door of our plane flew off, our first instinct would not have been to open up Robinhood and sell puts on Boeing. Apparently, this Wallstreetbets thread is a hypothetical, and Matt Levine says it is not insider trading, with some caveats.

War of the Roses: Imagine if the TV show Succession ended with Cousin Gregg taking the throne. A real-life drama at Hermés is taking succession battles to a new level. The childless descendant of Hermés' founder is planning to formally adopt his former gardener and leave him half of his €12BN fortune. Nicholas Puech, who is believed to own about 6% of the luxury brand, had initially set up and agreed to fund a charitable foundation called the Isocrates Foundation, which supports investigative journalism. However, this plan is currently tied up in a legal battle, mainly due to restrictions on adult adoption in Switzerland.

Technology

Meta Opens Up: 2023 was the year of the Twitter exodus, and while we still haven’t found a replacement, several social media alternatives have sprung up in the hopes of attracting the users and ad dollars. In the midst of the turmoil, Meta (formerly Facebook) slowly gained its reputation back — or at least we learned to think of their platforms as the lesser of two evils (with the launch of Twitter competitor Threads). Meta also went one step further and for the first time, opened its walled garden — “allowed content posted on one of its apps to be interoperable with a social network it didn’t own or control.” Meta allowed Threads users to post to Mastodon, as both platforms use a protocol called ActivityPub. This isn’t Meta’s only foray into the collective: Meta’s AI model is open sourced. We aren’t sure if this will put more pressure on Apple to open its wall, or if we’ll all be building together using one collective mind, or maybe it’s a play ahead of the anti-trust battles to make big tech look more open?

ET Phone Home: A team of scientists who normally attempt to connect with extraterrestrial life decided to focus their attentions closer to home, and had a 20-minute “conversation” with a humpback whale. The Whale-SETI team played recorded whale sounds using an underwater speaker to a whale named Twain, and the whale matched the call and tone of the sounds while circling the boat. The scientists hope that by studying non-human communication, they might be able to unlock patterns or filters if they encounter alien communication. While the elaborate game of “marco-polo” was definitely a giant leap forward, we’ll bet the whale was waiting for an apology (see this year’s Orca attacks).

What’s in Matt’s Bag: Matt Mullenweg is the founder of Wordpress and its parent company, Automattic. Matt has been a proponent of remote work before most of us had any idea what the term even meant. Because his company is spread all over the world in distributed teams, Matt is a frequent traveler (and a heavy tech user.) If you are looking for suggestions of what to pack for your next plugged in vacation, have a look in Matt’s bag.

Block or Crash: 13-year old Willis Gibson became the first person to beat Tetris, getting to level 157 and causing the screen to glitch and then crash. Gibson was able to reach the kill screen in only 38 minutes, and immediately exclaimed “I can’t feel my fingers!” Tetris was created in 1985, and added to Nintendo in 1989, but until a few years ago, human players had only made it to level 29. Although Gibson’s official score was 999,999 (maxing out the screen), he claims a score of over 6.8M, and who are we to judge?

CES is back and weird: AI is all the rage at this year’s CES, with new smart devices, AI companions, and AI integrations dropping at breakneck speeds. We are fans of Rabbit’s Large Action Model (a new AI OS that integrates all of your apps, rather than your knowledge, although we suspect Apple will negate the need for its hardware device once it launches its AI), and we don’t understand Tropicana’s marketing trick of removing the letters AI from its logo to show it’s natural. We’d love to try out the new transparent TV, just for kicks. Even Walmart is getting into the game, partnering with Microsoft to “make the shopping process easier.”

Autonomous Vehicles: Modern cars are already essentially computers, so automakers are trying to make interacting with your vehicle even more intuitive or Terminator-like, depending on your perspective. Volkswagen announced this week that it will be integrating ChatGPT into its new cars in order to be more helpful: “Enriching conversations, clearing up questions, interacting in intuitive language, receiving vehicle-specific information, and much more – purely hands-free.” Luckily, for now it is only slated to work with the voice assistant, but in the future, it could integrate with more functions.

Culture

Creepy Crawlies: When we are buying moisturizers, our top concern is how it makes our skin feel, but just reading the reviews of this new body butter gave us the wrong kind of feels. Sephora started selling a Delicia Drench body butter made by Sol de Janeiro this month, and customers immediately took to Reddit to claim that the scent attracted spiders! While the brand and entomologists have been attempting to dissuade consumers of its unusual appeal, we’ll stick with the unscented variety.

Some like it Soy: There are some bottle shapes in the US that are unmistakeable in their design and elegance — the original Coca Cola and Kikkoman’s Soy Sauce bottle. Kikkoman is celebrating its 50th anniversary (and has apparently sold over 400M bottles since inception). The bottle is so unique that it has a place at the MoMA, and its specialty editions often fetch upwards of $300. Next time you see a not-so-standard red-topped bottle on the shelf of the supermarket, take note, as you might be pouring from a work of art.

Some like it Nacho: Love the taste of Doritos Nacho Cheese, but you’d rather drink it than eat it? No worries, now you can try Empirical x Doritos Nacho Cheese Spirit, a bold and vacuum distilled spirit that “tastes just like the real thing.”

Some like it Red: We’ve heard of people camping out at BestBuy ahead of Black Friday, or Apple for iPhone drops, but did you happen to notice the lines at Target this week? Target unveiled its Stanley x Starbuck’s limited edition Quencher tumbler, and the women were all over it. Stanley’s Quencher was originally targeted to outdoorsman, but found new life a cult following on TikTok when women started selling to other women. (The hashtag #stanleytumbler has over 1BN views on the social media platform.) The cups originally sold for $50, and can be found on eBay for over $329. We’ll continue to show our age, and stick to our Hydroflasks.

Some like it Purple: Purple Rain is the newest, iconic album (and movie) to be adapted into a Broadway musical. The soundtrack spent 24 weeks on the Billboard 200 in 1984, so we can’t imagine it getting any better. But of course, we’ll be there and in our heels and shoulder pads.

Some like it Loud: If you happen to be following the culture wars against the presidents of the Ivy League, you may have stumbled upon Bill Ackman, a very wealthy investor who also likes to make his opinion known. Ackman is also married to a former MIT Professor, who unfortunately has come under scrutiny for her own plagiarism. But if that hasn’t deterred you from reading any further, the FT wasn’t a fan of Ackman’s tactics, so they created a quiz “Bill Ackman or American Psycho?” We’re rooting for Christian Bale at this point. If you prefer the video takedown by the awesome Molly White, Wikipedia editor, have a watch.

Some like it Calvin: who wore it better? Jeremy Allen White or Marky Mark?

— Lauren Eve Cantor

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