DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ A world in three islands on the Mediterranean
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( Pavlo Fedykovych | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +16 min

CNN —In the middle of the Mediterranean Sea lies a small country made up of three inhabited islands and irresistible allure. Across its three inhabited islands – Malta, Gozo and Comino – you’ll find every sun-soaked aspect of the perfect vacation. The solution: Marsaskala, towards the southeastern tip of Malta island. Mellieħa Bay and St. Paul’s BayBugibba is a classic seaside resort town in St. Paul's Bay. The population is a modest two people, there are no cars, and no signs of globalization – just the untouched Mediterranean.

☆ Cacti, wild coffee and false bananas: Scientists sketch out the menus of the future
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-23 | by ( Anmar Frangoul | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

While the shortage has more or less abated, it did highlight the fragile nature of our food system and the huge importance of food security. "Between 702 and 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021," The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report said. In June 2022, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, listed several sources of food that could play a big role in future diets. They include seaweed; cacti like the prickly pear; a type of wild coffee able to cope with far warmer temperatures than Arabica coffee; and enset, also known as the false banana. A fruit tree may also be perennial, he noted, "but it only produces its fruit at a certain time of year — so you either need to consume it then or you need to store it."

☆ Quito: Ecuador’s underrated capital city was the first to become a UNESCO site
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Sandra Macgregor | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for the Ecuadorian capital of Quito. Singular churchesInside the Spanish colonial church of San Francisco in the city center of Quito. The museum even puts on a variety of shows, including a karaoke night of traditional Ecuadorian song. It’s especially busy at lunchtime when it fills to capacity with locals looking to indulge in affordable traditional Ecuadorian cuisine. Guided toursMetropolitan Touring’s “Live Quito Like a Local” walking tour is great for visitors with only a day or two to explore Quito.

☆ I drove the $180,000 Lucid Air and experienced the stunningly fast, screen-filled future of luxury cars
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( Tim Levin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

I drove the Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance, a $180,000 electric car. The Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance. The Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance. The Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance. The Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance.

☆ Take a look at this sleek $3.7 million yacht that has 3 bedrooms and is perfect for Ibiza parties
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Yachting has long been a favorite pursuit of the rich and famous. Take a look inside the Princess Yachts S62, one of the vessels that was on display. From top business leaders and royals, to sports stars and Hollywood celebrities, yachting has long been a favorite pastime of the rich and famous. Whether it's Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' $500 million megayacht or Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie's $300 million aquarium-equipped superyacht, the boats are bigger and flashier than ever. Take a look inside one of the yachts that was on display.

☆ Stunning photos of the night sky in one of the darkest places on Earth will make you want to visit New Zealand ASAP
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Rebecca Strong | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve is especially great for star gazing. But in one of the darkest places on Earth — the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve in New Zealand — that's not an issue. Aoraki is the second-largest dark sky reserve in the world, ranking at a level 2 on the nine-level Bortle Dark-Sky Scale for light pollution. The Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve is located in southern New Zealand. Igor HoogerwerfAccording to Jason Menard, an executive at Mackenzie Tourism, The Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve is one of the best places to view the Milky Way — and that's pretty evident in this photo.

☆ This PTA Mom From Escambia County Is Suing Her School District For Banning Books - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Michelle Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

in bright-red Escambia County, Fla., knows that coming out as a public face in the fight against book banning could make her life difficult, but she’s made peace with it. “I don’t want my business to suffer,” the optometrist and mother of elementary school-age girls told me. I’m not one to keep my mouth shut.”Durtschi is part of a groundbreaking lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, against the Escambia County School District and Escambia County School Board for their sweeping school library censorship. In addition to Durtschi and another Escambia County parent, the plaintiffs include the free expression organization PEN America, Penguin Random House and a group of authors of children’s and young adult books. The suit seeks to have Escambia’s book restrictions declared unconstitutional for targeting specific viewpoints and for infringing on the rights of students to receive information.

☆ A 46-bedroom Texas mansion that nobody wanted, sat abandoned for decades, and nearly got bought 20 times finally has tenants
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Jordan Pandy | Dennis Green | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A 63,000-square-foot mansion near Houston, Texas, has sat vacant for more than 20 years. Owner Jim Youngblood tried to sell the vacant home more than 20 times, but every deal fell through. In 2007, Youngblood, a partner at a local leasing and property management company, bought the abandoned mansion for $525,000. ("Everybody has these grand ideas," Youngblood told Realtor.com in 2016, "but they don't have any money.") "I held onto it for several years and had it under contract over 20 times," Youngblood told the Houston Chronicle, "but nobody could get it closed."

☆ Video Shows Google's 'Magic Window' for Meetings in Action
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

YouTuber Marques Brownlee filmed what it's like to use Google's 3D video chat device. Google unveiled the tech, dubbed "Project Starline," back in 2021 with pictures showing the "magic window" for meetings. Brownlee's video actually shows what it's like to use Google's latest prototype for the technology. The video by Brownlee actually shows what it's like to use the technology — Google has previously shown images and animations. "The magic of this is twofold — it's the display and the computing happening," he said in the video.

☆ How to see the Da Vinci glow
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Madeline Holcombe | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Gaze up into the sky next week, and you might catch a glimpse of the Da Vinci glow. It’s a phenomenon that can happen around sunset when a crescent moon is on the horizon, but the outline of a full moon is visible. The Da Vinci glow is a common occurrence, and easy to see, said Christine Shupla, the science engagement manager at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. What caused that ghostly full moon effect, sometimes called “the old moon in the new moon’s arms,” was an ancient question illuminated by Leonardo da Vinci, according to NASA. Anyone with a view of the moon will be able see the Da Vinci glow, but the conditions need to be just right for it to happen, Shupla said.

☆ Amazon's 100 drone deliveries puts Prime Air far behind Alphabet's Wing and Walmart partner Zipline
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Katie Tarasov | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +14 min

Wing CEO Adam Woodworth shows the Alphabet company's delivery drone to CNBC's Katie Tarasov on April 25, 2023, in Hollister, California. Walmart said it made more than 6,000 drone deliveries across seven states in 2022 with DroneUp, Zipline and a third partner, Flytrex. Amazon's VP of Prime Air David Carbon showcased the current MK27-2 drone in Westborough, Massachusetts, on Nov. 10, 2022. Prime Air drones, along with most other delivery drones, operate with a number of federal exemptions that greatly restrict where and how they can fly. Prime Air drones are not expected to exceed 58 decibels, according to an FAA assessment, about the noise level of an outdoor air conditioning unit.

☆ Opinion: The banned Russian landmine with a deceptively poetic name
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Opinion Sasha Dovzhyk | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

A great deal of eeriness is due to the highly explosive Russian “petals.” “Petal” — or, “lepestok,” in Russian — is the poetic name of an internationally banned Russian-made anti-personnel landmine. The Russian wish for Ukraine appears to be death: to render Ukrainian land uninhabitable, to maim and kill those who live on it. But as one learns from Kataev’s tale, the Russian petals travel far and know no borders. In November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that 200,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) of Ukrainian land were contaminated with unexploded mines and shells. The rusted remains of a tank in Sviatohirsk, Donetsk region, pictured during a PEN Ukraine trip in April 2023.

☆ Harry, Meghan in 'near catastrophic' paparazzi car chase, spokesperson says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The incident occurred after they left the Ms. Foundation for Women on Tuesday night where Meghan was honoured for her work. "Last night, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Ms Ragland were involved in a near catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi," the couple's spokesperson said in a statement. The couple's spokesperson said the chase could have been fatal and involved paparazzi driving on the sidewalk, running red lights, and driving while taking pictures. Pictures that have appeared on social media show Harry, Meghan and her mother sitting in the back of a New York taxi. The spokesperson said these were "a small glimpse at the defense and decoys required to end the harassment".

☆ Biden's Education Department just released its 'strongest-ever' plan to ensure student-loan borrowers don't graduate with unaffordable debt
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The Education Department released its new proposal for a strengthened gainful employment rule. The rule would place safeguards for borrowers to ensure they don't take on more student debt than they can afford. "Ever since the Trump Administration illegally repealed the 2014 Gainful Employment rule, students have been left unprotected from predatory higher ed profiteers," Ament said. The gainful employment rule has drawn criticism from for-profit schools in the past who have argued that they were being targeted by the strengthened regulations. Democratic lawmakers have previously pushed for a strengthened gainful employment rule.

☆ These retailers are most at risk for a margin squeeze this earnings season thanks to cautious consumers, heavy promotions
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Gabrielle Fonrouge | In Gabrielle-Fonrouge | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

The price worries could suggest trouble for retailers that are relying on promotions to win over cost-conscious customers. Retailers that largely sell apparel, shoes or home goods are most likely to see squeezed margins due to promotions this earnings season, according to analysts and research. In a Thursday research note, UBS analysts reported softline promotions increased to 17% in April, a 2 percentage point jump year-over-year. Softline retailers are those that sell "soft" goods such as apparel. "This is likely a bad sign for Softline retailers' 1Q23 gross margins."

☆ How Wall Street pros traded 7 of our Club stocks, including Salesforce, in the first quarter
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | In Kevinstankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Lots of Club holdings, including Nvidia (NVDA) and Alphabet (GOOGL), were among the stocks traded by some of Wall Street's biggest investors and money managers in the first quarter. That firm, Jeffrey Ubben's Inclusive Capital, had owned 1.63 million Salesforce shares at the end of December, worth nearly $217 million at the time. Jeff Smith's Starboard Value also sold some Salesforce shares in Q1, leaving the firm with 2.5 million shares at the end of March. Mason Morfit's ValueAct Capital amplified its Salesforce stake in the first quarter, ending with 3.5 million shares, up from just 560,221 shares at the end of 2022. Loeb's Third Point amassed 4.75 million shares of Alphabet, worth $492.7 million at the end of the first quarter.

☆ Elon Musk was just subpoenaed by the US Virgin Islands in its Jeffrey Epstein lawsuit against JPMorgan
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Grace Kay | Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk was subpoenaed as part of a lawsuit against JPMorgan over its ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Elon Musk was subpoenaed by the US Virgin Islands in its lawsuit against JPMorgan over the bank's ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The US Virgin Islands offered only a glimpse into why it was pursuing answers from Musk. The lawyers are asking for the judge to approve their request to subpoena Musk over email as a result. For its part, JPMorgan has hit back that it was inaction by the US Virgin Islands that enabled Epstein.

☆ Zelenskyy proposed bombing a Russian pipeline and using long-range missiles to hit targets outside Ukraine's borders, leaked documents show
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Intelligence documents leaked last month offered a glimpse into Ukraine's wartime strategy. Among the Ukrainian's secret plans: occupy Russian villages and bomb an oil pipeline. Among the extreme strategies Zelenskyy considered: occupying Russian villages, bombing an oil pipeline that transfers Russian oil to Hungary, and firing long-range missiles at targets beyond the Russian border. In another meeting, the Ukrainian leader lamented, "Ukraine does not have long-range missiles capable of reaching Russian troop deployments in Russia nor anything with which to attack them." Representatives for the Pentagon and Ukraine's Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

☆ AI 'digital workers' are cutting tasks that used to take a month down to 10 minutes in New Mexico. Employees love it.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

A number of birthing centers, Indian Health Service clinics, and Indian Health Service hospitals also use the "baby bot" process. Together, the bots and automation are expected to save more than 100,000 human worker hours each year, the New Mexico Human Services Department told Insider. The New Mexico Human Services Department has also been expanding its use of automation into other areas. In New Mexico, "digital workers" are programmed to execute a range of tasks and are assigned times in which to complete them. The "brainy bot" process also uses IBM AI technology, and it's run on a Salesforce platform, she said.

☆ Opinion | When One Almond Gulps 3.2 Gallons of Water
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-13 | by ( Nicholas Kristof | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

RIO VERDE FOOTHILLS, Ariz. When interviewing people in their homes here, I didn’t have the heart to ask them if I could use the bathroom. All this is because water has become scarce here this year, after the city of Scottsdale cut off this area from water it had supplied; it said it needed to conserve water for its own residents. The resulting crisis in these foothills outside Phoenix offers a glimpse of what more Americans may face unless we reconfigure how we manage water. This is a crisis across the West, for the West was built on cheap water that is now running out from underpricing and overuse just as climate change is amplifying droughts.

[1/2] Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump reacts after arriving at Aberdeen International Airport in Aberdeen, Scotland, Britain May 1, 2023. "That was a rigged election," Trump said, adding that anyone who thought otherwise was "stupid." Trump and Collins frequently spoke over each other with Collins challenging a number of the former president's false claims. "It was classic Trump - it was Donald Trump from 2015 right up until now: the Big Lie, the outrageous style, demeaning individuals, mocking them," said Rothenberg, senior editor at the Inside Elections newsletter. New Hampshire is an early nominating state that could prove critical in Trump's bid to win the November 2024 election.

☆ Sofia Richie and new husband Elliot Grainge just bought a $27 million mansion. Take a look inside.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Gabbi Shaw | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Sofia Richie and Elliot Grainge just purchased a $26.9 million home in Brentwood, California. The video also shows the formal dining room, multiple living and sitting rooms, the master bedroom, and the open entryway. The property, as Kelly explained in the comments of his TikTok video, is actually two lots. The Agency represented Richie and Grainge as they bought the home from entertainment-industry executive Jeremy Zimmer, according to the New York Post. Elliot Grainge and Sofia Richie.

☆ We got an inside look at a presentation showing the future of Microsoft's $20 billion health-tech acquisition. It revealed how new AI models could transform how we go to the doctor.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Blake Dodge | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Microsoft bought Nuance in 2022 for nearly $20 billion to expand its reach in healthcare. CHICAGO — In 2022, Microsoft bought Nuance for nearly $20 billion to supercharge its growth in the healthcare industry. It's the first tool in Nuance's pipeline to combine the company's own AI models with that of OpenAI, ChatGPT's creator and a deep Microsoft partner. Even back in 2015, enthusiasm for the idea was palpable, Peter Durlach, Nuance's chief strategy officer, told Insider in April. In a conference presentation, Andrea Barrett, a physician assistant and Nuance consultant, demonstrates products using generative AI.

☆ These maps show how far China's freight railways are stretching across Asia
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

BEIJING — In the last two years, China has announced the opening of new freight train lines, while cross-border railways have become a feature in President Xi Jinping's meetings with regional leaders. Here's a look at where the rail lines are being built across the Asian continent. In the last six months, China also opened freight train lines to Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, according to state media. Those freight lines are in addition to China's relatively older rail network through central Asia — connecting Yiwu in eastern China to London. While it's difficult to verify how operational all the rail lines are, official reports offer a glimpse at how China's Belt and Road ambitions are panning out.

☆ 'Ordinals' could signal the beginning of a new generation for Bitcoin. Here's what investors need to know
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

"In a way, Bitcoin Ordinals add more diversity and utility to the Bitcoin network, which could elevate the Bitcoin network utility to that of other blockchains, such as Ethereum." There's one population in crypto, however, who have long believed the Bitcoin network could and must do more than that. Binance cited Bitcoin network congestion on Sunday as the reason for pausing withdrawals, and bitcoin dropped 7% between then and Monday. "Congestion, or lots of demand for the block space, is not just good, it's a critical thing for the future of Bitcoin," Miller added. A sneak peek Ordinals and spikes in transaction fees are just a glimpse of what may be on the horizon.

Search resuls for: "Glimpse"

25 mentions found