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Crypto Gains May Be Fueling the Labor Shortage, by Isabelle Lee
“The gains from cryptocurrency trading may be fueling the persistent labor shortage in the US as Americans across the income spectrum gave up full-time jobs to take their chances on risky digital assets, a new study shows.”
“One finding showed that around 11% said they or someone they know have resigned from their jobs due to the financial freedom afforded by digital asset trading. The survey comes as the total market cap for digital assets just hit $3 trillion for the first time on record, roughly the size of the entire UK economy.”
“‘This data implies that crypto investments may have provided life-changing levels of income for some, while the wealthier owners of crypto use it more as another form of asset diversification rather than a source of income,’ the study said.”
“Data also showed that of those who invested in crypto, 23% said they did so as a short-term investment, 28% for the long term, 16% did it because it was simple and easy, while 12% said it was their hedge to any economic downturn.”
At a Four-Day NFT Conference in New York, Start-Up Wunderkinds and Art-World Elite Mingle, by Shanti Escalante-De Mattei
“The four-day NFT.NYC conference that took place in New York last week brought together speakers to talk abut a range of subjects like gamefication, decentralized finances, fashion, and, of course, the metaverse. But it was the spinoff events that people really came for: the collector dinners, the Rare Pepe gallery, and the countless parties that may not have been an official part of the conference but were no less highly anticipated.”
“At these events, hedge fund managers mingled with start-up wunderkinds making six figures. One thing they had in common: they love trading in pictures of apes and ducks that now count among the most sought-after NFTs. Meanwhile, pop icons roamed the crowds or, at least, entertained at them.”
“Amanda Cassatt, the cofounder of Serotonin and host of Wednesday’s party, explained that these parties are emblematic of a larger tectonic shift effecting the art and entertainment worlds right now.”
Microsoft Launches Loop, an Office App for Helping Workers Stay On Top of Projects
“Microsoft said Tuesday at its online-only Ignite conference that it will release a new Office application called Loop that people can use to collaborate on projects.”
“The loop consists of three elements:
Component. Multiple people can read and contribute to these short documents at once. Drawing on the Fluid Framework technology that Microsoft does first talked about In 2019, loop components may appear in many Microsoft applications. They’re coming to OneNote, Outlook and Teams first this month. Components stay up to date across different applications, so people don’t have to worry about sharing the latest version of a file.
Microsoft developed ready-to-use Loop components to vote on ideas and track the status of projects, and the company said a Loop component was built from the Dynamics 365 cloud service to track sales opportunities The customer record gone is as strong as can be. Third-party developers will also be able to build loop components.
Pages. These are full-on documents in which people can type text, enter responses, and find relevant loop components, links, and documents. The user interface shows other users’ cursors to understand what people are doing in the document at a given moment, similar to the redesigned whiteboard digital brainstorming app in Office.
Workstation. These are areas where people can check progress and record feedback on shared initiatives as a contingency hub for project management. People can access multiple pages from one workspace.”
Immersive Cooling Tech Could Help Bitcoin Mining Go Green by 2030, by Keira Wright
“Immersive cooling technology may help with the transition to zero-emission Bitcoin (BTC) mining, Hass McCook, a member of the Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC), told Cointelegraph.”
“Immersive cooling involves submerging Bitcoin mining ASICs into a specialized cooling fluid, which absorbs and recycles heat from the data center. This method of Bitcoin mining increases productivity.”
“Earlier this month, Bitcoin mining company Riot Blockchain announced it would be developing 200 megawatts of immersion-cooled Bitcoin mining infrastructure at its Whinstone Facility. Based on the company’s preliminary immersion-cooling test results, it expects the hash rate to increase by 25% and ASIC performance to increase by up to 50%.”
“‘Bitcoin will be 100% green by 2024,’ he added, ‘No other system will be more green.”’
“Immersive cooling can reduce the need to replace equipment and the amount of energy required to cool rigs while mining BTC. While that mitigates the environmental impact of mining, it does it in an attractive way for miners, said McCook.”
“Bitcoin is edging closer toward a sustainable future. According to recent findings from the Bitcoin Mining Council, the North American members surveyed are currently utilizing electricity with a 65.9% sustainable power mix.”
This Program Can Give AI a Sense of Ethics—Sometimes, by Will Knight
“A new program called Delphi, developed by researchers at the University of Washington and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Ai2) in Seattle, aims to teach AI about human values—an increasingly important task as AI is used more often and in more ways.”
“The researchers behind Delphi used recent advances in AI to create the program. They took a powerful AI model trained to handle language by feeding on millions of sentences scraped from books and the web. Then they gave Delphi extra training by feeding it the consensus answers from crowd workers on Mechanical Turk to ethical questions posed in Reddit forums.”
“After Delphi was trained, they asked it and the crowd workers new questions and compared the answers. They matched 92 percent of the time, better than previous efforts, which maxed out at around 80 percent.”
“‘We believe that making neural models more morally and ethically aware should be a top priority,’ says Choi. ‘Not to give advice to humans but to behave in a more morally acceptable way when interacting with humans.”’
I Found My Stolen Honda Civic Using a Bluetooth Tracker. It’s the Latest Controversial Weapon Against Theft, by Heather Kelly
“In April of this year, one month after my car was stolen, Apple released the $29 AirTag, bringing an even more effective Bluetooth tracking technology to a much wider audience. Similar products from Samsung and smaller brands such as Chipolo are testing the limits of how far people will go to get back their stolen property and what they consider justice.”
“‘The technology has unintended consequences. It basically gives the owner the ability to become a mini surveillance operation,’ said Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at the American University Washington College of Law.”
“‘Everybody’s had something like this stolen from them and wished they had gotten it back, had some agency in that scenario, had something they could do,’ said Dan Guido, a technology CEO in Brooklyn who got his electric scooter back using AirTags. ‘It feels empowering and feels accessible, that’s what’s attractive about it.”’
“Immediately after their release, privacy experts raised concerns about AirTags being used for stalking. The company soon tweaked its anti-stalking features, making AirTags somewhat less useful for theft. The disk-shaped tag will now let out a beeping noise in less than a day if separated from its owner, and if a person has an iOS device, a push alert will let them know someone else’s AirTag is with them. If a person uses an Android device, however, they won’t get any kind of alert. Unhappy that it might give a heads-up to potential thieves, some AirTag owners are trying to muffle the speaker or are sharing tips on how to remove it completely.”
“‘There are some people savvy enough to retrieve their property, but we don’t recommend that at all,’ said Officer Robert Rueca, spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department. ‘You don’t know what people are willing to do.”’
Willie Mays' First NFT to Feature Diploma, Benefit Say Hey Foundation, by Tim Kurkjian
“Mays' diploma is being made public for the first time in the 90-year-old's first NFT (nonfungible token), which will be released Sunday, it was announced. Mays' 90th Birthday Celebrity Drop is going live -- with Oct. 24 being a nod to Mays' jersey number -- on the marketplace Nifty Gateway.”
“‘I didn't really understand how these computer tokens worked at first,’ Mays told ESPN. ‘I had to get them explained to me. I'm used to tokens you can hold in your hand. But I guess people collect them the way they do trading cards. And those cards are worth a lot of money now. And I figure anything like that, that people can enjoy and that help me support the kids, is something worth doing.”’
“All proceeds from the release will be donated to Mays' Say Hey Foundation, which establishes baseball programs for underprivileged youth in Alabama, as well as the restoration of youth baseball facilities at Rickwood Field, the home of the Negro Leagues' Birmingham Barons, for whom Mays played from 1948 to 1950.”
“‘I think that whatever you do, you do your very best at it. I took cleaning and pressing seriously -- I got pretty good at it,’ Mays said. ‘I just want every kid to get the chance to do their best at whatever they decide to do. I decided to do baseball.”’
What Are NFTs? Here’s What You Need to Know About Non-Fungible Tokens, by Annie Nova
“NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, are unique assets that can’t be replaced with something else, and are verified and stored using blockchain technology. They can include everything from music to a website domain, but the current craze is really around digital artwork.”
“The market exceeded $10 billion in transaction volume in the third quarter of 2021, according to DappRadar, a company that tracks data on crypto-based applications.”
“And many people who’ve seen their cryptos skyrocket in value have had few ways to spend them until now. It’s not as easy, for example, to buy a house or car with bitcoin or ethereum.”
‘“There’s been this crazy demand, and now all of a sudden there’s something to buy,’ Schachter said.”
Continuous Scrolling for Mobile Brings Google Search Into The Modern Age, by Michael Perrigo
“Earlier this year, the company launched a redesign for its core service that helped spotlight information, made it easier to read with bolder, larger text, more white space, and color, and all-around just made it more “Googley”. Additionally, it gave everything from the search bar, the search icon, and so on a more rounded-off look to match its new logo.”
“Apparently, a googol is such a large number that our minds couldn’t possibly comprehend it. Nothing on earth – not even grains of sand, or drops of water in the ocean come close to that number (except maybe chess move possibilities), and a googolplex is much larger! When you put it into perspective, Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful means that it has or hopes to have a googolplex of data, and stopping you page by page is no longer sufficient. That’s both reassuring and terrifying all at once, wouldn’t you say?”
