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Technology News
Perplexity Dove Into Real-Time Election Tracking While Other AI Companies Held Back
Trump’s election win spells bad news for the auto industry
Yesterday, Donald Trump won a second presidential term from American voters. His first term was marked, among other things, by attempts to water down environmental laws and regulations aimed at the auto industry. And as a candidate in 2024, Trump has promised plenty of disruption to the sector through both trade policy and an abrogation of the government's commitment to fight climate change. Here are some of the more significant changes we think are coming.
Electric vehicle adoptionThe Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was one of President Joe Biden's signature policy achievements, part of a $450 billion climate package. One of its many sections revised the way we incentivize consumers to buy electric vehicles, with an update to the clean vehicle tax credit that requires final assembly in North America, as well as ever-increasing amounts of US-sourced battery components and minerals to be eligible.
But such policies are not loved by the Republican Party. During his first term, Trump repeatedly criticized EVs, saying that "all-electric is not going to work," and he vociferously attacked EVs during his campaign, telling supporters at his party's national convention in July that "I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one," referring to a current White House goal to reach 50 percent EV adoption by 2030, and calling the most significant climate legislation ever "the new green scam."
The Manosphere Won
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The PS5 Pro’s biggest problem is that the PS5 is already very good
In many ways, the timing of Sony's 2016 launch of the PS4 Pro couldn't have been better. The slightly upgraded version of 2013's PlayStation 4 came at a time when a wave of 4K TVs was just beginning to crest in the form of tens of millions of annual sales in the US.
Purchasing Sony's first-ever "mid-generation" console upgrade in 2016 didn't give original PS4 owners access to any new games, a fact that contributed to us calling the PS4 Pro "a questionable value proposition" when it launched. Still, many graphics-conscious console gamers were looking for an excuse to use the extra pixels and HDR colors on their new 4K TVs, and spending hundreds of dollars on a stopgap console years before the PS5 served that purpose well enough.
Fast-forward to today and the PS5 Pro faces an even weaker value proposition. The PS5, after all, has proven more than capable of creating excellent-looking games that take full advantage of the 4K TVs that are now practically standard in American homes. With 8K TVs still an extremely small market niche, there isn't anything akin to what Sony's Mike Somerset called "the most significant picture-quality increase probably since black and white went to color" when talking about 4K TV in 2016.
Donald Trump Defeats Kamala Harris in the 2024 Presidential Election
Extra 25% Off Nike Promo Code | November 2024
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Nintendo confirms Switch 2 will play original Switch games
As US states were busy counting votes to confirm who would be the next president Tuesday night, Nintendo's Japanese Twitter account was busy confirming a key backward-compatibility feature for the upcoming "Nintendo Switch successor," which is still only pre-announced, officially.
"At today's Corporate Management Policy Briefing, we announced that Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch," Nintendo posted in a social media update attributed to company President Shintaro Furukawa. "Nintendo Switch Online will be available on the successor to Nintendo Switch as well."
This is Furukawa. At today's Corporate Management Policy Briefing, we announced that Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch. Nintendo Switch Online will be available on the successor to Nintendo Switch as well. Further information about…
— 任天堂株式会社(企業広報・IR) (@NintendoCoLtd) November 6, 2024
In the full policy briefing referenced in that post, Nintendo adds that it "believe[s] that it is important for Nintendo’s future to make use of Nintendo Account and carry over the good relationship that we have built with the over 100 million annual playing users on Nintendo Switch to its successor." The company also makes the (perhaps obvious) clarification that "in addition to being able to play Nintendo Switch software they currently own, consumers will be able to choose their next purchase from a broad selection of titles released for Nintendo Switch [on its successor]."
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“Havard”-trained spa owner injected clients with bogus Botox, prosecutors say
A Massachusetts spa owner has been arrested for what prosecutors describe as a blundering scheme in which she conspicuously smuggled counterfeit Botox and skin fillers into the US, then peddled them to clients by falsely claiming to be a nurse with a degree from "Havard" [sic] and a license from the state's "Estate Board."
Nevertheless, the woman—Rebecca Fadanelli, 38, of Stoughton—allegedly performed over 2,700 illegal injections between 2021 and 2024, raking in over $900,000 with the scam.
According to an affidavit from a special agent with the Food and Drug Administration, Fadanelli was smuggling in counterfeit Botox and fillers from China and Brazil. Between November 2023 and March 2024, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized at least six parcels from China addressed to Fadanelli or her employees. The packages included various counterfeit injectable drugs, including products labeled as Botox and skin fillers Sculptra and Juvederm.
Anthropic’s Haiku 3.5 surprises experts with an “intelligence” price increase
On Monday, Anthropic launched the latest version of its smallest AI model, Claude 3.5 Haiku, in a way that marks a departure from typical AI model pricing trends—the new model costs four times more to run than its predecessor. The reason for the price increase is causing some pushback in the AI community: more smarts, according to Anthropic.
"During final testing, Haiku surpassed Claude 3 Opus, our previous flagship model, on many benchmarks—at a fraction of the cost," Anthropic wrote in a post on X. "As a result, we've increased pricing for Claude 3.5 Haiku to reflect its increase in intelligence."
"It's your budget model that's competing against other budget models, why would you make it less competitive," wrote one X user. "People wanting a 'too cheap to meter' solution will now look elsewhere."
RTO mandate was attempt at thwarting Grindr workers unionizing: US labor board
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is accusing Grindr of using a return-to-office (RTO) mandate as an attempt to block employee efforts to form a union.
On July 20, 2023, employees at the LGBTQ+ dating app announced plans to unionize. On August 3, 2023, Grindr told employees that they had two weeks to decide if they would start working in an office location two days per week or exit Grindr with six months of severance, per The New York Times, which reported that it saw the memo. Grindr also reportedly offered up to $15,000 for relocation expenses to its offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Washington, DC. Before the RTO mandate, Grindr allowed fully remote work.
Despite the announcement's timing, Grindr said in August 2023 that it had been working on an RTO mandate for months and that employees were notified of this in early summer 2023, per the NYT. On August 4, 2023, the Communications Workers of America Union, which Grindr employees were working to join, filed a complaint with the NLRB.