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Thinking about posting your family updates online this holiday season? Some things are safer kept offline. Here’s what you need to know.
Tags: family, holiday season
If it’s one thing you can bet on, there’s always newer, better and faster tech begging you to open your wallet. With that said, you probably haven’t heard about BlueBird yet from AST SmartMobile out of Texas. They’re working with AT&T to launch the world’s first space-based cellular broadband network.
“God of management”: That’s what Japan calls Panasonic’s founder Kōnosuke Matsushita, who died in 1989 at the age of 94. Now, he’s been resurrected as an AI clone. The University of Tokyo trained the bot using his writings and over 3,000 voice recordings. Panasonic says they’re going to use the AI clone to make future business decisions. His life story is interesting; he was cleaning stores at just 9 years old. Here’s a link if you want to learn more about him.
No kids allowed: Australia just banned kids under the age of 16 from using social media sites and platforms. Social media companies will have to enforce age verification within a year or face massive fines (up to $33 million!). It’s all about protecting kids’ mental health. I’m really interested in seeing what happens.
🤖 Thought leader or bot leader? You know all those LinkedIn posts sharing tips to maximize your #grindset? Yep, most of them — 54%, to be exact — are AI-generated. A study found these posts are getting longer, too, with their word counts jumping an average of 107% since ChatGPT arrived. No wonder our eyes glaze over while reading them.
AI becomes way too human: A startup called Altera lets its AI-powered agents run wild in Minecraft. What happened? The bots made friends, created jobs, debated taxes and spread the parody religion Pastafarianism, all with zero direct human input. “A Minecraft Movie” is coming out in April 2025, and it’s going to be a blockbuster. (Now, that was a good one!)
The bread broke up with margarine for a butter lover: Researchers have created a “lick-able” VR device that uses electric currents to simulate up to nine flavors. The tech is still in its early stages but will be available for gaming, TV shows, and even shopping. You know it’s just a matter of time before the porn industry taps into this tech. 🙄
💎 Diamonds are data’s BFF: Chinese researchers created a diamond optical disc with the same storage as 2,000 Blu-ray discs. That’s ideal for big data projects like AI and means your info can be stored for millions of years without degrading. It makes you wonder what future data explorers might say about us.
💨 5G holds 6G’s beer: The next-gen 6G tech just set a new record, blazing speeds 45 times faster than those for 5G. But that’s nothing; eventually, 6G could reach speeds 13,400 times faster than 5G. That’ll make using 5G like driving a Ferrari a steady 30 mph. Expect to see 6G starting around 2030, and it’ll likely use satellite tech, not cell towers.
Need a break from football? Netflix’s new docuseries “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey” revisits the infamous 1996 murder mystery. It includes interviews with JonBenét’s father and unpacks the embarrassingly bad investigation, media circus and, of course, the ransom note. Watch the trailer here.
Un-bell-ievable: The FCC is slapping Chinese video doorbell maker Eken with a $735,000 fine. Sold by big names like Amazon and Walmart, Eken’s doorbells exposed users’ IP addresses and Wi-Fi network names and gave others unauthorized access to videos.
