đ Donât get too comfortable, you never know when someone is coming for your crown. Moo Deng, the viral mini hippo in Thailand, has some new competition: The Edinburgh Zoo introduced Haggis, its newborn pygmy hippo, with an X post reading, âMoo Deng? Who deng?â Shots fired.
đ§ On the pod: This yearâs hot holiday shopping trend is massive TVs.
NEWS FLASH
đ Heads up, your toiletries are dropping from the sky: Amazon began making drone deliveries in Phoenix, Arizona. Customers can order ~50k products weighing 5 pounds or less from Amazonâs drone-deliverable section and receive items within an hour. Amazonâs MK30 drone â which can fly twice as far as its predecessor and is 50% quieter â is approved by the Federal Aviation Administration to fly outside of its operatorâs visual line of sight. For now, drone deliveries will be available during daylight hours and âfavorableâ weather conditions.
đĽ AI âwatchedâ every Tom Hanks movie: Here, a movie about a couple from their teens to their 80s, used AI to de-age stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. Visual-effects company Metaphysic trained its models on the actorsâ previous movies, collecting data to generate new faces instantly, whereas CGI would have taken hundreds of artists, months of work, and tens of millions of dollars, perThe New York Times. Hereâs budget was ~$50m. Metaphysic also worked on Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Alien: Romulus to reproduce the faces of late actors Richard Carter, who died in 2019, and Ian Holm, who died in 2020.
đŚ You need some good news: So meet Beni the llama and Captain Jack the alpaca, Portland International Airportâs newest ambassadors. The pair live at Mountain Peaks Therapy, a farm, but participate in the airportâs animal therapy program to ease travelersâ stress. Many airports have similar programs, mostly using dogs, though more unusual animals have included pigs and mini horses. For llamas and alpacas to become certified, they must be able to tolerate being touched by several people. Mountain Peaks Therapy co-owner Shannon Joy estimates that applies to around one in 15 llamas and one in 75 alpacas, so these two are pretty special.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Oasis fans have lost $449 on average to scammers since the band announced its reunion tour in August. Lloyds Banking Group said 90% of the scams started on social media and that 70% of all reported ticket fraud between Aug. 27 and Sep. 25 was Oasis-related.
ByteDance, TikTokâs parent company, grew its revenue to $73B in the first half of 2024, despite a looming US ban â close behind Metaâs $75.5B.
The Boeing machinists strikeended with a tentative agreement Monday night. Workers will get a 43% pay increase over four years, plus other benefits, moving average annual pay from ~$76k to $119k+. The strike cost the US economy an estimated $9.6B+.
PROJECTS MADE SIMPLE
The best way to do less work?
âLetâs get a rundown on this important project youâve been working on.â
Donât panic â that was practice.
But the next time we inquire, please donât be huffing and bluffing. Just pull up this project management doc, where weâve already tidied up targets and tasks for everyoneâs convenience. Wow.
A simple, three-part PM template for:
Preplanning
Getting shit done
Analyzing afterward
Another freebie by us, for increased organization.
Job seekers already have to worry about ghost jobs, but a new oddity is on the rise: AI interviewers.
Graphic designer Paloma Canseco posted to LinkedIn about a recent phone interview with a âvirtual recruiter.â
It asked several questions in a natural-sounding voice, even responding to her answers, before she hung up, not wanting to work for a company that would use AI to screen candidates.
So thatâs a thing now?
Itâs been a thing. Several companies already use AI recruitment software, including Chipotle, which calls its recruiter âAva Cado,â per CNBC.
But where and how theyâre using AI in the recruitment process varies. Some companies only use bots to schedule interviews, collect info, or answer prospective applicantsâ questions, while others are using AI to conduct interviews in real time.
There may be some benefits:
Apriora claims its AI interviewer speeds up the hiring process and gives recruiters more time with the right candidates.
Candidates who might have been dismissed by a human based on cover letters or CVs may succeed in AI screenings.
AI could be more impartial than humans, who may rely on gut feelings or personal biases.
But itâs important to rememberâŚ
⌠that AI can still contain bias depending on its training data.
HireVue launched an AI assessment service in 2014 that analyzed job seekersâ expressions, including perceived enthusiasm, and speech to generate an employability score, which some experts worry could negatively impact non-native English speakers or nervous applicants.
In 2018, Amazon stopped using an AI hiring tool because it preferred men due to training data that featured a majority of male employees.
Still, one expert told CNBC that AI recruiters will rapidly become the new norm â meaning candidates like Canseco may soon not have the option to just hang up.
AI is going to Disney: Hereâs how the new Office of Technology Enablement unit will integrate AI and mixed reality into Disneyâs film, TV, and theme park divisions.
Would you pay $8k for a new Zoom background? Some entrepreneurs and creators would. Dive into the booming business of looking good on Zoom.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Daily active users Reddit has added in the last 12 months, up 47% YoY, per Sherwood News. Thatâs interesting because Reddit isnât the hot new social media darling, but a nearly 20-year-old platform. Reddit also reported its first-ever profit following its IPO earlier this year.
Why are people so keen on Reddit? Well, itâs one big forum where users â logged in or not â can find info and community surrounding any and every topic. In an age of AI slop and clickbait, Reddit remains useful for people who want advice or reviews from actual human beings with real, relevant experience.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman noted that in 2024, âRedditâ was the sixth-most Googled word in the US, indicating how often people specifically search for answers on the platform.
AROUND THE WEB
đş On this day: In 1947, âMeet the Pressâ debuted on TV.
