đ Up and at âem. Even if you canât reach. Yuki Kawamura, the NBAâs shortest current player, doesnât let a few inches stop him. Kawamura is the only player on the roster under 6 feet, coming in at 5 feet, 8 inches tall â almost a foot below the average height for the league. The Memphis Grizzlies player might be short in stature but not in humility: âItâs not like I can do any dunk shots,â he says.
đ§ On the pod:Can drivers take on the Uber-Lyft duopoly?
NEWS FLASH
â° Itâs 4:39pm somewhere: Americans are slamming their laptops shut a little earlier these days. The average workday ends at 4:39pm, 36 minutes earlier than two years ago when most logged off at 5:21pm, according to productivity software and workforce analytics company ActivTrakâs analysis of 200k employees across 777 companies. If youâre an exec about to go reprimand your team â wait a second. While the workday might look shorter, the data suggest overall productivity increased ~2%, with employees engaging in focused, 24-minute productivity spurts. Plus, more people are clocking in on the weekends, prioritizing flexibility over a traditional workweek.
đ Dun Dun: Wolf Games is a new gaming studio from co-founders Andrew Adashek, Noah Rosenberg, and Elliot Wolf, executive producer of âLaw & Orderâ and creator Dick Wolfâs son. The company recently raised $4m, and its first title, âPublic Eye,â takes place in a dystopia where law enforcement has enlisted the public to solve crimes. Players use an AI assistant to collect evidence, but thatâs not all. Wolf Games will also use AI to generate new daily cases, interview clips, and crime scene photos. TechCrunch tested the game and found it âsurprisingly OKâ for a mostly AI-generated tale.
â Thatâs a latte: The price of coffee is surging, leading to an increase in theft, with thieves swiping green coffee beans off trucks in the US. And yet, Business Insiderreports that business at La Cabra, a Danish high-end coffee chain, is booming â at least at its location across from OpenAIâs office in New York City, where it sells $9 pour-overs and $6 cardamom buns. The proximity of offices including Thrive Capital and Plaid â and a three-story REI store â has turned the shop into âan unofficial think tank for anyone in the mood for a latte with a side of world domination.â
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Need another reason to fear microplastics? They might be helping antibiotic-resistant superbugs breed, according to a new study. Microplastics serve as the perfect vessels for slimy biofilm, letting bacteria hitch rides and become more powerful.
Cloudy with a chance of millions: Thereâs an unlikely new position gaining traction at hedge funds â meteorologist. Hedge funds, tasked with predicting trends for weather-dependent agricultural commodities, hired 23% more weather experts in 2024 than in 2023 and paid top talent between $750k and $1m.
Manchester Unitedannounced plans for a 100k-capacity, $2.6B stadium to be built next to Old Trafford, the stadium the football club has used since 1910. Renderings depict three large tent poles that would be visible from 25 miles away.
FROM OUR FRIENDS AT MINDSTREAM
AI-powered gaming: Immersive, or kinda weird?
You might soon be the judge.
Sony is developing AI-powered video game characters using OpenAI models and the companyâs proprietary speech and facial animation tech.
This could mean being able to directly interact with your favorite characters mid-game using voice prompts. Could it also mean being judged by them for a bad move?
In the age of subscription-based â yet still somehow with ads â everything, itâs an odd twist to see a company move from fee to free.
Yet thatâs precisely what podcast app Pocket Casts has done with its web streaming and desktop apps.
Why?
Per Pocket Castsâ announcement, it believes that major platforms have shifted away from systems where anyone can create, share, and listen to content freely and toward those that limit distribution and use algorithms to control discovery.
Pocket Casts instead advocates for open access and organic discovery not driven by AI or algorithms.
Is it sustainable?
While web streaming is now free, there are still paid subscriptions for users who want additional features, including organization tools, storage space, and access to Slumber Studiosâ sleep content.
That may appeal to the people who want to ditch bloated apps that force ads and algorithms down their throats, as evidenced by the interest in Bluesky and decentralized Instagram alternatives like Pixelfed and Flashes.
To that end:
Pocket Castsâ web player is simple: It displays trending shows and curated collections, plus the option to search by name or categories â no pop-up ads or notifications trying to play music videos or hype featured artists.
Itâs also useful for people who want to share podcasts without requiring others to log into anything or create an account.
But also, How to Geekspeculates that Pocket Casts may have had to make its web player free to keep up.
Apple recently launched a free web app that works across platforms, Spotify is inking exclusive deals with top creators, and YouTube has surpassed both as the leading podcast platform.
Pocket Casts free web streaming may cost it subscribers who paid only for that option â but it could also pay off in new users who want something simpler, then become paid subscribers.
Sleepy-time podcasts actually do sound pretty appealing right now, don’t they?
Be a knockout: This agency founder and kickboxing champ shares three marketing tips she used to grow her local biz to seven figures.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
The world record for beating “Super Mario Bros.,”achieved by Niftski, a US gamer who has played the Nintendo game for years to whittle down his speedrun time.
âI cannot stress how important it is to obey the saying âpractice makes perfect.â I spend at least 90% of my time practicing and 10% of my time doing speedruns,â he said.
And yet, itâs still not as fast as the game could be played. The game uses framerules â cycles of 21 frames or 0.35 seconds â to check for level completion. Thus, the worldâs quickest player could achieve a time of 4 minutes and 54.265 seconds â a seemingly imperceptible 0.3 seconds faster than Niftskiâs already impressive time.
AROUND THE WEB
đ„ On this day: In 1991, the documentary Paris is Burningdebuted in New York City. The film explors drag culture throughout the city. đ± Thatâs interesting: The CRA scam has targeted every adult Canadian, stealing at least $34m over the past decade.
đ Opportunity: AI + video = a growth goldmine. Join this free Mindstream webinar for the playbook to turn views into leads and revenue.
đ§ How to:use the STAR method to succinctly answer questions in a job interview. đ± Aww:Stop, thief!
QUOTE OF NOTE
Doctors who work for health systems with satellite clinics in rural areas can spend hours on the road seeing patients, so now theyâre trying something different: holograms.
Itâs a level up from a typical video televisit, offering patients an experience thatâs closer to sitting in a clinic room with a doctor, perThe Wall Street Journal.
Doctors are beamed from a production studio to life-sized boxes in exam rooms using tech from startup Proto Hologram. The company, which expects to receive its HIPAA-compliant certification next month, recently lowered the price of a hologram box to $30k from $65k. Hospital systems are then on the hook to pay $5k annually for the software to power it.
Protoâs main business, though, is live events and corporate communications. So you might see a Jonas brother or MrBeast before your dermatologist.
SHOWER THOUGHT
You can tell if a business was founded prior to the internet because they use tricks to get their name to the front of the phone book (ex: A1 Storage, AAA Cleaning, etc.).SOURCE
Today’s email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman, with help from Kaylee Jenzen. Editing by: Ben âMore of a slowrunnerâ Berkley.
