June 30, 2023

what we've been watching...

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

we’ll be off next week due to the Independence Day holiday

Technology

Gravitational Waves: Astronomers have found evidence of gravitational waves rippling through the universe. For the best explanation, watch Astrophysicist Katie Mack. Astronomers predict that supermassive black holes at the center of distant galaxies have collided and are warping spacetime, and we are detecting these collisions from the disruptions their gravitational waves are causing in our observation of pulsars (or pulsing stars). Or as Mack put it: “The Earth is a ship on a cosmic sea. Every once in a while, we’re hit by a wave, and we know something went by. But now, for the first time, we can start to see the choppiness of the entire ocean, and we’re learning what else lives in our sea.” 🤯🤯

Mars Simulation: Hoping to escape the US for a year? NASA just locked four people into its Mars simulation for a year-long experiment. The 3D printed Mars Dune Alpha habitat will house four volunteers for 378 days, located at Johnson Space Center in Texas. The aim is to study human living conditions on a simulated Martian environment, and there is expected to be four teams isolated over a one year period. If you want to hear about a previous simulation and how human volunteers reacted, listen to the Habitat, where six volunteers were sequestered in Hawaii in a similar experiment.

Social Commerce: TikTok, the social media platform, will be opening up its open e-commerce shop in the US later this year. The new store will put TikTok in direct competition with Amazon, Shein and Temu. The platform expects to purchase its own inventory directly from Chinese manufacturers and sell to the US market over its app. In the Chinese version of the app, e-commerce sales are already significant, and surpassed Alibaba’s Tmall earlier this year, but Chineses consumers are used to “super apps” where social media and commerce intersect. Many users turned away from Instagram due to its over-saturation of ads; we’ll see if TikTok can keep its momentum.

Flying Taxis: Promises kept. Joby Aviation has finally received clearance from the FAA to begin flight tests on air taxis. The vehicle takes off and lands like a helicopter, and is expected to begin service in 2025, although at first, it will most likely be used for logistics and deliveries, with its first customer being the US Air Force. (Joby also has permission to offer travel between JFK airport and NYC, cutting the taxi ride down to just seven minutes.) Where do we hail?

Alternative Energy: You may have heard of (or may be stuck in) the heat dome traveling over the southern United States. We were struck by the fact that we hadn’t heard about any rolling blackouts or hits to the electricity grid. Shockingly, solar energy has been keeping the oil-heavy state of Texas afloat with air conditioning. Traditional coal and gas-fired plants have actually failed during the massive heatwave, but they haven’t made the national news, as solar farms have been able to pick up the slack, to the legislators dismay. (Governor Abbott has been known to blame renewable energy for the failure of Texas’s grid in the past.) Texas hasn’t fixed its grid, but it has doubled its solar facilities in the past year. And for the first time, wind and solar generated more power than coal in the US overall for the first five months of 2023. Coal still “accounted for 55 percent of power sector emissions in 2022, according to EPA,” but the nation’s power structure continues to transform.  

Home Streaming: Want a smart tv that includes an interface with Zoom calls, streaming services, exercise classes and tracks your movements like the Facebook portal? If you live in the UK, you can buy Sky Live. In the US, we think you’ll be able to do something like this with an update to an Apple TV and iPhone, at some point? Feels a little big brother-y to us, but we are old school. Let us know if you’ve tried it.

Law and Order

End of Term: We try to remain apolitical, so won’t go into all of the decisions that the court released this week (or the fact that they just agreed to take up the issue of whether people accused of domestic violence can own firearms or that a few justices still haven’t filed their financial disclosures, but we digress). We will, however, point out that Chief Justice John Roberts ended the final opinion of the term with a plea to respect the integrity of court, saying “it has become a disturbing feature of some recent opinions to criticize the decisions with which they disagree.” 🤦🏻‍♀️

Banning politicians: Brazil’s highest elections court voted to ban former President Bolsonaro from running for office until 2030 for undermining the country’s democracy by making false claims about its voting system. While the ruling may be appealed to the country’s Supreme Court, Bolsonaro is being held accountable for inciting a riot at the presidential palace after he lost re-election. Bolsonaro is also under investigation for other alleged criminal activities related to disinformation and procuring fake vaccine cards. Score one for democracy.

Culture

Meta Metaverse: Apparently, there are at least two versions of the new Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse in theaters. The animated sequel is about different variations of the superhero across different dimensions, and fans started to notice subtle changes in dialogue and scenes. “The idea of multiple versions of a movie about multiple versions of Spider-Man is deliciously meta.” While the studio hasn’t confirmed the alternate versions, Sony did confirm that they did send out updated versions because of poor audio, yet some of the actors have hinted at the twist, with no word on motive.

Robots with wigs: We grew up in Florida, so we learned a lot of our US presidential history from Disney’s animatronic Hall of Presidents. (If you haven’t been subjected to it or subjected your children to the 25-minute robotic play, this is usually the part of the sugar rush where you attempt to sleep or re-learn something you forgot in elementary school.) However, in 2016, there was an interesting conspiracy theory which has finally been almost confirmed: Trump’s animatronic robot was actually Hillary’s hastily repurposed with a wig.

Ice Cubes: While the world continues to heat up, we’ll continue to enjoy the trend of the fancy ice cubes. Beverage makers have taken notice, however, and have decided that we shouldn’t have to drink watered down concoctions. Miller Lite, for instance, is making mini-ice beers (or a beer cubes tray) in the shape of mini beer cans that you can fill with Miller Lite and drop into your cold brew to keep the watered down taste of the beer from being watered down from actual water.

Musical Avatar: While Spotify sends us annual wrap-ups and unique playlists, Bang & Olufsen has decided to create personalized avatars based on our listening habits. The “See Yourself In Sound” campaign connects with a user’s Spotify account and designs a unique dancing 3D avatar to “celebrate the power of music as a tool for self-expression.” Enjoy!

— Lauren Eve Cantor

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