November 8, 2023

what we've been watching...

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

life is a little heavy, so we’ll be even lighter than usual in our stories

Business

FIFA loses a Partner: FIFA had a 30 year relationship with one of the world’s most popular video games, but the partnership ended after this year’s Women’s World Cup. (The video game generated over $20BN sales, but FIFA was asking for more than double its annual $150M fee to continue the partnership.) This month Electronic Arts debuted EA Sports FC with not much changing except the name: EA still has partnerships with 700 teams, 19,000 players, 100 stadiums and 30 leagues, and reportedly over 6.8M people paid for pre-release access. EA hopes to focus on the mobile experience in the future, and we suspect FIFA will have to find its fees elsewhere (we hear bribery and kickbacks pay well).

EV Break Up: Rivian and Amazon have ended their exclusive EV delivery truck partnership, but it is a good thing, especially for the planet. Rivian and Amazon had an exclusive contract for four years, and now the EV vehicle maker can sell its trucks to new customers, and these vehicles are more profitable than its consumer models. Amazon need not worry, as it owns 17% of the EV company. As an Amazon spokesperson put it, “Rivian and Amazon share a mission to decarbonize last mile delivery and have been working together since 2019 to make that a reality.”

Sunken History: The Colombian president is on a race to recover the Spanish galleon San Jose from the sea floor, before he leaves office. The ship, which sank in 1708 during the War of the Spanish Succession, is believed to contain gold, silver, and jewels taken from South American mines valued at $20BN, and President Petro’s term ends in 2026. Unfortunately, Colombia is not the only entity claiming ownership over the bounty: Spain, Bolivia’s indigenous Qhara Qhara nation, and the salvage company that claims to have discovered the wreck in 1981. We’re not sure who will solve the dispute over the “holy grail of shipwrecks” but we certainly hope it doesn’t turn out to be another version of Gerardo’s vault.

Solar History: We just learned that a Canadian inventor, George Cove, invented household solar panels in 1905. Cove’s company Sun Electric Generator Corporation was based in NY, and his panels were popularized in the current media as “given two days’ sun… [the device] will store sufficient electrical energy to light an ordinary house for a week”. Unfortunately, at the time Standard Oil (run by John D Rockefeller) was known to squash competition with “unscrupulous” practices. Cove was kidnapped in 1909, which may or may not have been a publicity trick or an attempt to shut down his business. Edison’s electric lights were also just taking off, so energy competition was fierce in the early 1900s. But the author presents a “what if” solar power hadn’t disappeared in 1909, would we be in the fossil fuel predicament we are today?

Technology

Meme come to life: Remember NFTs? Remember the Bored Ape Yacht Club? We had happily forgotten about both, but apparently 2250 people went to ApeFest 2023 to celebrate the overpriced digital Apes. The creator, Yuga Labs, unfortunately, took the laser eye meme a little too far. Several attendees sought medical attention after experiencing severe eye and skin injuries from the UV stage lights. We hoped we’d never have to see them again either.

GPTs: In case you missed OpenAI’s first DevDay this week, the company made several interesting announcements. One of the more exciting is the ability for users to create their own GPTs (basically creating your own specialized model) without any coding, and then you’ll be able to put this model up on an App Store of sorts, if you so choose. These new GPTs are called agents (we don’t understand why they keep changing the names of everything, but alas). We have a feeling that the future of all apps might be agents, or at least have an agent built in, so hold on tight. Also, like many other large tech firms, OpenAI announced a Copyright Shield: if you get sued by a creator for using their IP off an OpenAI tool, OpenAI will foot your legal bills.

AI Gaming: AI is everywhere these days, and now it will be coming to your XBox. Xbox and Inworld AI have partnered up to “ccelerate game developer creativity, reduce complexity, and enhance player experiences.” (Inworld AI was valued at $500M in August 2023, becoming the best-funded start-up in AI Gaming, if you haven’t heard of them before.) The new partnership will at first focus on creating AI tools for game developers, so that creators can create extraordinary games. But effectively gamers have access to the tools as well: the AI engine creates dynamic stories and character actions that respond to each player’s choices (i.e. make non-playable characters (NPCs) more interactive and responsive).

Look Up: If you are like us, and you need an escape from the news, focus on the majesty of the James Webb Space Telescope, with the NY Times interactive experience explaining several of the Telescope’s first images and our changing understanding of the universe.

Culture

Condiment Collab: Heinz is getting innovative and hoping that we are lazy enough to not want to grab for pickles with our burgers, but instead try their new Pickle Ketchup. Pickles have definitely been a popular flavor (according to Heinz 73% of Americans enjoy the taste), but we’ll miss the crunch. If Padma and Tom taught us anything, it is that each dish needs an array of textures, not just flavors.

Pumpkin Spice: We thought pumpkin spice was the worst flavor that fall could throw at us, but Baskin-Robbins, said “hold my beer.” Get ready for flavor 32: Turkey Day Fixins’. And yes, it is inspired by the flavors of Thanksgiving dinner, but mercifully, only the sides. If ice cream isn’t your thing, DiGiorno has you covered with a pizza topped with Thanksgiving.

The Food Spot: Skechers is apparently taking a cue from the Costco playbook, and has opened a Food Court attached to a Sketchers shoe outlet. While you might not normally think fries with your sneakers, in California, on a lunch break off the freeway, why not? The Food Spot has been so busy that the location has exceeded 2,500 orders in a single day. And unlike Costco, you don’t need a membership to dine.

Leftover Sauce: Nostalgic for some leftover spaghetti sauce from your mom’s home kitchen? Now you can try Eminem’s Mom’s Spaghetti, which was originally referenced in Lose Yourself and then at its own Detroit restaurant in 2021. Jars are shipping nationwide for $13.

Dorm Cooking: We’ve seen a lot of TikToks about people trying unique recipes and cooking techniques attempting to make food in not-so-appetizing locations (like hotel rooms and using the coffee maker or toilet for unintended purposes). However, now at least, college students can rest easy, as Canadian Chef, Matty Matheson, and WeTransfer have teamed up to create a free, digital cookbook for novices. Download the cookbook, and cook along with Matty on his YouTube channel and learn the art of Peanut Butter Instant Noodles 😃.

Fantasy Gifts: The annual Neiman Marcus Christmas Book is out, and if you have $510k to spare, why not buy a Disney animation experience (Walt Disney Animation Studios will produce an animated short staring a character based on the recipient and you’ll get a tour of the Studios in Burbank), or for a measly $485k you can take a nine-day yachting adventure disguised as a treasure hunt through the islands of Indonesia. Too cheap? Go for the $1M customized Cadillac CELESTIQ.

— Lauren Eve Cantor

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