Welcome back to the Abstract! This week, we’re going to the movies. For 77 hours straight. At the end, we’ll know whether we are doomed to villainy or driven to heroism. These are the only two options! Then, you’re not going to believe this, but the global trade for exotic ornamental plants is a bit…
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss enjoying things in the AI industry and the TikTok ban. JOSEPH: I’m going to talk about Emanuel’s great piece CEO of AI Music Company Says People Don’t…
This week, Google shoved various capabilities from Gemini, its AI tool, into Workspaces for Business and Enterprise customers, including associated Gmail accounts. You might now see buttons for “Summarize this email,” which when clicked will provide a bullet point list of what the email (allegedly) says and, in email threads, peoples’ sentiment towards it in…
Mark Zuckerberg can see the finish line. He is so close to getting what he has wanted for years. The U.S. government is trying to give him the greatest gift he could possibly imagine: A TikTok ban. This would be U.S. intervention against the most credible competitor Meta has seen in years, and U.S. intervention…
One of my first cellphones was a Nokia 3310. I still miss it: Launched in 2000, it was a solid worry-stone of a phone with rubbery keys that I could text my friends on during class from under the desk without breaking eye contact with my math professor. I played Snake when I felt awkward…
With Meta’s recent speech policy changes regarding immigration, in which the company will allow people to call immigrants pieces of trash, Mark Zuckerberg is laying the narrative groundwork for President-elect Trump’s planned mass deportations of people from the United States. Multiple speech and content moderation experts 404 Media spoke to drew some parallels between these…
Zara Dar’s six-minute explainer video “So what are Integrals?” has a little over half a million views with 450 likes and an 87 percent positive “thumbs up” review rate. Commenters have said the video, which is a short introduction to one of the fundamental operations of calculus, is “educational,” “great,” and “just incredible.” “I have…
The Biden administration and the states of Illinois and Minnesota sued tractor and agricultural manufacturer John Deere Wednesday, arguing that the company’s anti consumer repair practices have driven up prices for farmers and have made it difficult for them to get repairs during critical planting and harvesting seasons. The lawsuit alleges that Deere has monopoly…
The Oscars of porn and the industry’s largest trade show will begin in one week, on January 22 at Virgin Hotels in Las Vegas. Inside, adult performers, producers, directors and crew will find out whether they’ve won the prestigious AVN Award in categories including “Best All-Girl Group Sex Scene” and “Best Big Butt Movie or…
We’ve got much more on what is happening inside Meta with the company’s recent speech policy changes. Jason runs us through it. After the break, Joseph explains how thousands of apps have been hijacked to steal your location data, possibly without the app developers’ knowledge. In the subscribers-only section, we talk about various stories intersecting…
