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☆ At Elon Musk's Twitter, a leaked memo shows engineers are being told to work with 'maniacal' energy and pitch ideas to the tech billionaire directly
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Kali Hays | Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

In a note to staff, a director urged "maniacal" work and a willingness to suggest ideas to Musk. Engineers were also told to reach out to Musk directly with "cool product" pitches for the platform. Engineers now working for Elon Musk at Twitter are being urged to work hard and bring their ideas for the platform to him directly. The worst case scenario in pitching Musk is being "asked to stop work and work on something else." "Engineers/XFN partners who can get stuff done are the most important people at the company," the director added.

☆ How a hospitality startup founder hooked Google's VC firm to lead its $5.8 seed round with a 4-minute pitch
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Ellen Nguyen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Jason Shames founded Skipper in 2020 and raised $5.8 million in seed funding this August. Before raising an official seed round for the company, Shames received investments from family, friends, and Pear, an early-stage venture fund based in California. After the presentation, Shames told Insider, 70 lead firms reached out — including an investor at Gradient Ventures, Google's venture fund focused on early-stage companies primarily in the AI space. Wen-Wen LamIn August, Skipper announced a $5.8 million seed round led by GV. Shames knew Lam from his days running the travel company Jetaport.

☆ I'm a professional pumpkin carver whose creations resemble celebrities, famous artwork, and characters like Paddington. They take up to 20 hours to make and can costs thousands.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-29 | by ( Jenny Powers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Marc Evan started Maniac Pumpkin Carvers with his childhood friend after graduating from college. I run Maniac Pumpkin Carvers, which I started in 2008 with my childhood friend Chris Soria after graduating from college. We were really taking a nostalgic pastime like pumpkin carving that we did at home as kids and elevating it into an art form. Courtesy of Maniac Pumpkin CarversWord about us got out after Wired did an article on us in 2009. Courtesy of Maniac Pumpkin CarversThe farmers market Union Square Greenmarket in downtown Manhattan was home base for us for a very long time.

☆ For the first time in years, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are 'weak' and VCs are eager to back alternatives, they say.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

VCs see an opportunity to back the next big social network and take on existing giants. "Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, they're weak, and they're just losing that edge," one investor said. And there may be room for even more young social media companies to rise. For her, identity verification and responsible content moderation are non-negotiable in any new social platform that she backs. "There is a sense of decline for some of these large social media platforms," Lee said.

☆ Why is Mark Zuckerberg so obsessed with building the metaverse? It has a lot to do with Apple.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

It proved a huge blow to ad-dependant social platforms, Facebook top among them, which said it lost $10 billion because of the change. Zuckerberg insisted that "fortifying" Facebook's business against the likes of Apple is not the only reason he's investing heavily in building the metaverse. Zuckerberg sees four platforms in Facebook's futureRight now, the metaverse stack as Zuckerberg envisions it is based on "four major platforms" being developed. The first is Horizon Worlds, with user avatars making it more akin to a "social metaverse platform," he said. Zuckerberg seems keen to give Apple a taste of its own medicineBeyond trying to give his company a path away from being hit by the decisions of Apple, Zuckerberg also seems keen to give Apple a taste of its own medicine.

☆ How 32-year-old Katherine Homuth built the Y Combinator-backed startup behind the 'indestructible' Sheertex tights that are taking the hosiery industry by storm
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Homuth had to find a brand new fiber and build her own supply chain to create Sheertex tights. At least that's what SRTX founder and CEO Katherine Homuth, whose core product line is Sheertex tights, thought back in 2017. Before founding SRTX, Homuth had gained tons of supply chain experience starting another company in 2011 called ShopLocket, which focused on ecommerce sales support. It took another year-and-a-half, but by the end of 2019, Sheertex tights were finally as comfortable as Homuth had originally intended. These days, Homuth is focused on expanding SRTX's product line, so that the company is known for more than just making Sheertex tights.

☆ The new iPad Pro is Apple's best iPad, but it's overkill for most people
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Sofia Pitt | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Sofia PittI've been testing Apple's new 12.9-inch iPad Pro for the past several days. Unlike the entry-level iPad, the iPad Pro's price didn't increase from last year's model, the 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $799 and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,099. Here's what you need to know about Apple's new 12.9-inch iPad Pro. 2022 iPad Pro and iPad. iPad Pro Apple Pencil Hover experience.

☆ I got to play an exclusive demo of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Here's everything I learned about the newest games in the series.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( William Antonelli | Tech Reporter For Insider Reviews | Read More | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the newest entries in Nintendo's long-running RPG series, are set to release on November 18. And Nintendo is kicking off Pokémon's ninth generation with Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, both releasing on November 18, 2022. Here's a rundown of everything that I learned from that session, along with my first impressions of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: GameplayLet's start with the most important topic: What are Scarlet and Violet like to play? The games struggle to run smoothlyMy Pokémon Scarlet demo didn't play well.

☆ Anti-Defamation League urges Adidas to sever ties with Ye's Yeezy
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Jessica Golden | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The Anti-Defamation League is urging Adidas to sever ties with Ye, calling out his recent hateful comments in a letter to Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted and Chair Thomas Rabe. In the interim, though, the retailer said it would "continue to co-manage the current product" from Ye's Yeezy brand, according to an Oct. 6 statement. In recent days, Ye's comments have escalated to include threatening and hateful comments about Jewish people. The ADL complied a list of what it deemed harmful recent comments by Ye. Morningstar analyst David Swartz estimates Yeezy sales for Adidas to be around $2 billion annually, potentially making up 10% of Adidas's total sales.

☆ Advice from pilots, flight attendants, and frequent travelers on what you should always pack when you travel
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-16 | by ( Jen Glantz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A flight attendant suggested asking yourself whether you need an item or just want to bring it. To help make the process less stressful, I asked a handful of experts, including pilots and frequent fliers, how they pack and which items they can't travel without. Tifsit Teferra, a Delta Air Lines flight attendant, said to be strategic with your carry-on luggage. Bring your own water bottleSarah Guerra, a former Delta flight attendant, suggests packing an empty portable water bottle if you get extra thirsty when you fly. "As a flight attendant, so many people would ask me for water because they ran through the airport or had to take a pill.

☆ Mark Zuckerberg's big reveal of his legs in the metaverse was actually 'animations created from motion capture,' Meta says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Britney Nguyen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Meta revealed legs for its avatars in its metaverse, Horizon World, at the annual Connect event. A Meta spokesperson clarified the legs were a preview made of "animations created from motion capture." It's not clear if Meta has a working demo of the feature and a release date wasn't specified. Zuckerberg said "legs are hard," because it's hard to accurately position body parts like legs in virtual reality, "which is why other virtual reality systems don't have them either." The event did include more concrete news: Zuckerberg announced the new $1499 Quest Pro virtual reality headset is launching October 25.

☆ Facebook's 'desperate' metaverse push to build features like avatar legs has Wall Street questioning the company's future
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Mark Zuckerberg made another pitch for his metaverse this week, failing to placate investors. One analyst called it a "desperate" and likely doomed attempt by the company to reinvent itself. But Neil Campling, an analyst and head of research at Mirabaud, summed it up in one word: "desperate." And the Quest Pro, while much more expensive than Quest 2, is "a very fine piece of engineering," he said. Some on Wall Street are also willing to give Facebook more of a chance to prove itself, despite the costs.

☆ Meta's 'desperate' metaverse push to build features like avatar legs has Wall Street questioning the company's future
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Mark Zuckerberg made another pitch for his metaverse this week, failing to placate investors. One analyst called it a "desperate" and likely doomed attempt by the company to reinvent itself. But Neil Campling, an analyst who is the head of research at Mirabaud, summed it up in one word: "desperate." And he said the Quest Pro, while much more expensive than Quest 2, was "a very fine piece of engineering." Some on Wall Street are also willing to give Meta more of a chance to prove itself, despite the costs.

☆ NASA astronauts returning from space station on SpaceX capsule delayed by weather
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Jackie Wattles | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The astronauts — NASA’s Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins, as well as Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti with the European Space Agency — were scheduled to depart from the space station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Thursday morning. Aerospace company SpaceX developed the Crew Dragon spacecraft under a $2.6 billion contract with NASA as part of the Commercial Crew Program. SpaceX renewed orbital human spaceflight capabilities from US soil in 2020 with the launch of its Demo-2 mission, which carried two NASA astronauts to the space station. The Crew-4 astronauts’ return to Earth comes less than a week after the Crew-5 astronauts arrived on a separate SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. Since SpaceX developed the Crew Dragon under a fixed-price commercial contract, however, it retains ownership over the vehicle.

☆ Meta’s newest VR headset is impressive. Here’s why you probably won’t buy it
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Rachel Metz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

CNN Business —Meta’s newest virtual-reality headset, the Meta Quest Pro, is a slick, powerful device. Buyers can pre-order the Quest Pro as of Tuesday, and it will ship out on October 25. Meta's latest VR headset, the Quest Pro, is aimed at business users and costs $1500. Updated hand controllersThe headset is also more of a mixed-reality headset than a VR headset, as it isn’t meant to block out all ambient light all the time. The Quest Pro headset has sensors that can track your eyes and facial expressions.

☆ 'The devices would have gotten us killed.' Microsoft's military smart goggles failed four of six elements during a recent test, internal Army report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Microsoft won a contract worth as much as $22 billion to build smart goggles for the US military. The device received a poor reception from soldiers in a recent test, according to an Army report. Microsoft's smart goggles for the US military failed most elements of a recent Army test and one tester remarked the device would be dangerous for soldiers to wear, according to excerpts from an Army report dictated to Insider. The device failed in four out of six evaluation events in a recent "operational demo," according to a Microsoft employee briefed about the event. The Army contract was considered a major milestone for Microsoft in particular and the augmented reality field in general.

☆ Elon Musk touts big plans for Tesla's Optimus robot, but some experts doubt it's the next big thing
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Eight experts told Insider they have doubts about Elon Musk's promises for Tesla's Optimus bot. Several experts said Tesla's AI Day demonstration doesn't stand out from other companies' projects. This year, at Tesla's second annual AI Day a prototype of the Optimus bot walked slowly onto the stage and waved to the audience. The Optimus bot did stand out in one way, according to several experts — its hands. Animesh Garg, a professor of AI Robotics at the University of Toronto, called the bot's hands "impressive."

School-age kids added violent lyrics to the “Barney & Friends” theme song. “Parents admit to a cordial dislike of the saccharine saurian, and no self-respecting second-grader will admit to liking Barney.”Barney on "Barney And Friends" in 1992. In a phone interview last week, West (who appears in the docuseries) reflected on the success of “Barney & Friends” and offered a few theories on why Barney proved to be such a lightning rod. My agent recommended me to Dennis DeShazer, who was one of the producers of “Barney & Friends.” I auditioned with a lot of other folks. Barney voice actor Bob West.

☆ The era of Big Tech moonshots is over. Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are pulling back on ambitious, risky long-term projects after many of them failed.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-29 | by ( Hugh Langley | Eugene Kim | Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have scaled back their ambitious "moonshot" projects. Moonshots like Google X and Amazon Grand Challenge allowed tech firms to build innovative projects. Before Amazon, Parviz led a similar team at Google called Google X. Page and Brin championed X projects they loved, helping them gain funding and headcount within the unit. Parviz, who created the once-hyped-up Google Glass, left Google X in 2014 to start Amazon's Grand Challenge.

☆ Meta is using AI to generate videos from just a few words
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-29 | by ( Rachel Metz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Now, Meta researchers are taking AI a step further: they’re using it to concoct videos from a text prompt. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted on Facebook on Thursday about the research, called Make-A-Video, with a 20-second clip that compiled several text prompts that Meta researchers used and the resulting (very short) videos. Even so, it demonstrates a fresh direction AI research is taking as systems become increasingly good at generating images from words. If the technology is eventually released widely, though, it will raise many of the same concerns sparked by text-to-image systems, such as that it could be used to spread misinformation via video. As with massive, popular AI systems that generate images from text, the researchers pointed out that their text-to-image AI model was trained on internet data — which means it learned “and likely exaggerated social biases, including harmful ones,” the researches wrote.

Perkins loans that aren't held by the US government do not qualify for Biden's new student-loan forgiveness. To qualify for up to $20,000 in forgiveness, you must consolidate your loans into Direct loans. This may not be the best option for everyone, since some Perkins loans are forgiven after five years. Unlike federal student loans, some Perkins loans are serviced by the school you attended, but the federal government pays for interest accrued while you're still in school. studentaid.govOnly consolidate loans that are not Direct loans.

Some FFEL loans are federally-backed student loans held by private student loan servicers, and others are held by the US government. Student loan expert Sonia Lewis of the Student Loan Doctor explains, "FFEL loans are federally-backed loans that were funded by a private company." Those loans already qualify for student-loan forgiveness; if your FFEL loans have been on pause during the pandemic, they're eligible for forgiveness. If your FFEL loans are privately held, you'll need to consolidate them into Direct loans that are owned by the government to qualify for forgiveness. How to fill out a Direct loan consolidation applicationThe first step is to fill out a Direct loan consolidation application at studentaid.gov.

☆ NASA tries fueling moon rocket in test, but leak reoccurs
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s new moon rocket sprouted another fuel leak Wednesday as engineers tested the plumbing ahead of a launch attempt as early as next week. Engineers halted the flow and warmed the lines in hopes of plugging the leak, and proceeded with the test. Wednesday’s leak came close to the limit, but the launch team managed to get the leak down to acceptable levels as the test continued. Besides replacing seals, NASA altered the fueling process, easing more slowly into the loading of the super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen. NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is more powerful than the Saturn V rocket that sent Apollo astronauts to the moon during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

☆ Elon Musk's Starlink is planning to install its satellite internet service on some US school buses as part of a pilot program
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

SpaceX is piloting a program to provide Starlink to school buses in some rural communities. On Tuesday, SpaceX sent a letter to the FCC urging it to approve funding for WiFi on school buses. In August, the FCC denied SpaceX a $866 million subsidy to provide its service in remote areas. Musk's company only just received approval from the FCC to use the Starlink for vehicles in motion in June. The service is designed to deliver high-speed internet of up to 200 Mbps to customers in rural areas and higher latitudes.

☆ NASA astronaut, Russian cosmonauts launch to space
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Jackie Wattles | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The spacecraft took off from the famed Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Russian cosmonauts — Dmitri Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev.— on what is expected to be a six-month stay on the International Space Station. When Rubio and his Russian counterparts make it to the space station, they’ll be tag-teaming with astronauts from the United States, Russia and Europe. The fact that Rubio is traveling to space on a Russian Soyuz capsule is notable. That was answered in July when NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, confirmed that sharing seats on rocket rides to the space station would continue. Russian cosmonauts are now expected to fly on SpaceX capsules in addition to NASA astronauts sharing seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

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