It sounded like a dream until the reality of business kicked in. Now, Big Tech is ditching the perks and rediscovering a brutal truth
🛩️ Amelia Earhart mystery: Another team is trying to find out what ever happened to the famous pilot who disappeared 88 years ago. They’re heading to Nikumaroro, a remote island in the Pacific Ocean. Why now? A satellite image revealed something odd, called the “Taraia Object,” that could be part of her missing plane. Stay tuned.
Scam emails
Scam emails? So 2022. Phishers now are spinning up entire scam sites faster than you can microwave leftovers. Okta, a login security company, caught bad actors using v0 (a site-building AI tool by Vercel) to launch convincing login clones, including one of Okta’s own.
🎧 Share podcasts from your iPad: Listening to something good and want to send it to a friend? While the episode’s playing, tap the three-dot menu and choose Share Episode. At the top, select From Start or the exact time you want, like From 12:31. Now tap Done, pick how you want to share it and send.
$1.5 billion
That’s how much Figma could raise in its IPO, if Wall Street swipes right. That would match CoreWeave for biggest tech IPO of the year. Still a bit of a haircut, given that Adobe tried to buy it for $20 billion in 2022. Now it’s flaunting 91% margins like it’s back on the dating scene with a six-pack.
TSA gets it right: Gold Star families now have free PreCheck, plus a discount for military spouses, and TSA is adding expedited lanes in 10 cities. It’s part of their July 4th rollout that finally makes airport lines suck a little less to thank families for their service to our country.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Swipe in with three fingers on your iPad or iPhone from the side to copy/paste or undo/redo. It’s the gesture shortcut pros (and now you) use.
👨🏫 Artificial degree syndrome: Forget cramming Java syntax, universities are now teaching students how to think like machines (paywall link). AI is shaking computer science ed, and schools like Carnegie Mellon are pivoting hard. The new curriculum? Vibe coding.
It takes an AI village: X is getting more AI slop. It will now allow AI to write Community Notes, but only if humans give them a thumbs-up. You’ll see them labeled as AI-written. Bots are no longer just spreading misinformation, now they’re trying to clean it up, too.
Clean up your Chrome bookmarks: If your favorites bar is filling up, save space by removing the bookmark name. Right-click a bookmark, select Edit, delete the Name and hit Save. You’ll still see the icon. FYI: If you have multiple links to the same site, they’ll all look the same now. Just rename them.
AI-proof, for now: Turns out some white-collar gigs are harder to kill than expected. Looks like we’re gonna need tens of thousands more accountants, CEOs and financial advisers by 2030, even as AI keeps eating jobs like it’s at a buffet. AI also can’t replace CEOs because it hasn’t learned golf yet.
$500
That’s the fine for firing up your gas blower in D.C. That means if you leaf-blow your yard and your neighbor’s patience, you’re also blowing $500 per offense. Gas blowers roared onto the scene in the 1970s, and now they’re getting banned (like in California) for being noisy, dirty and possibly harmful. Need an upgrade? This electric blower ($49.49) has great reviews.
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📞 Press 1 to scream: This drives me nuts, and now we know it’s on purpose. The customer service endless holds. The loops. The “wrong department” reroutes. Turns out it’s not a glitch, it’s the point (paywall link). These systems are designed to wear you down until you give up and hang up. You’re not crazy. You’re just trapped in the admin-industrial complex.
Crypto tax panic: Crypto traders are freaking out after a huge spike in official letters from the IRS, some warnings, some with fines already baked in. Even people who’ve played by the rules say they’re getting flagged. If you’ve been diligently reporting your Fartcoin profits like a responsible adult, congrats: You’re now on the audit express.
Playing God: Now, this is nuts. British scientists just kicked off a mega-funded plan to build human DNA from scratch. The goal? A fully synthetic chromosome (just 2% of the genome) for now. Cue the ethical dilemma of gene creation and editing. Some say it’s lifesaving science, others say it’s biotech’s Jurassic Park moment.
30%
That’s how much of Salesforce’s workload AI is already doing. Marc Benioff says bots are now answering customer questions and writing code like it’s no big deal. You know, just casually replacing a third of the org chart before lunch. The high-end estimate of Salesforce’s work done by AI? Nearly half (paywall link).
AI’s voice is yours now: This is wild. People are starting to speak like AI, even when they don’t realize it. Words like “delve” and “meticulous” have surged in usage post-ChatGPT, and researchers say this is just the beginning. Our speech is getting more structured, polished and kinda robotic.
🛠️ Hacker turned pitch guy: A Missouri man hacked a gym, dropped his membership to $1 and emailed the owner, offering “cybersecurity consulting” after proving he broke in. He also posted their camera feed on social. Not the sharpest guy. He now has plenty of time to work out in prison.
1.6 million
Americans living with type 1 diabetes who just got a sliver of hope. Ten people (out of 12 in trials) are now insulin-free thanks to a single infusion from a new drug. If you’re still waiting for your miracle, science is catching up.
16th century
That’s when the word “bro” first popped up, short for “brother.” Fast-forward to today, mix in a little social media brain rot, and Gen Alpha has taken it further with “bruh.” It now means just about anything: a greeting, joy, frustration, you name it. Versatile? Absolutely. Clear? Not even close.