đ Hit it out of the park this weekend. But even if you do, it likely wonât be worth as much as Shohei Ohtaniâs 50th home run baseball, which sold at auction for a record-breaking $4.39m.
đ§On the pod:Remembering Febreze Scentstories, which looked like a CD player but played⌠fragrances?
NEWS FLASH
đ But how will the children bully one another and get inundated with targeted ads? Norway is upping its minimum age limit for social media use to 15, with its prime minister saying the nation must protect children from the âpower of the algorithms.â Itâll be a tough fight to win â the governmentâs existing limit is set at 13, yet research found that 72% of the nationâs 11-year-olds are already on social media. Apropos of nothing, âsukkâ means âsighâ in Norwegian.
đ¤ This newsletter is still produced by humans⌠but we canât say the same for one of Polandâs radio stations. OFF Radio Krakow laid off all its journalists and replaced them with AI-generated âpresenters.â While the radio station said the avatars are meant to reach young listeners on cultural and social issues, 15k+ people signed a petition opposing the change. The radio station maintains that the layoffs were unrelated to AI, but rather because listenership was âclose to zero.â
đ A bad week for McDonaldâs somehow got worse: The company is now facing a lawsuit related to a recent e. coli outbreak resulting in 49 illnesses, 10 hospitalizations, and one death across 10 states. One Colorado man who was hospitalized has filed suit, and his attorneys claim to have 10 more forthcoming plaintiffs. Meanwhile, McDonaldâs has pointed to slivered onions on its Quarter Pounder as a potential outbreak source and has stopped serving them in states where cases have been reported.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
The Yankees-Dodgers World Series is the hottest ticket in town, with an average resale price of ~$3.9k on the secondary market. Hoping to catch a game in New York? Too bad â the average ticket price is ~$4.9k.
Canât wait to watch someone try to suplex a bull: TKO Group, which owns WWE and UFC, went on a $3.25B acquisition spree, buying three sports businesses including Professional Bull Riders, the worldâs largest bull riding league.
Tesla stock jumped as much as 18% on Thursday after the company reported strong Q3 earnings â led in part by its Cybertruck generating a profit for the first time â and projected up to 30% growth in 2025 vehicle sales.
TOOLBOX
What better way to start your weekend than with a bevy of helpful links? Youâre welcome.
Want to break into the AI biz?Tune in for expert tips on building your first successful AI business from scratch.
Could your Nintendo Switch make you smarter? Maybe â or maybe the marketing behind Nintendo Brain Training is the real genius. Listen to find out.
The craft of telling a tale: is something youâre going to improve at with this expert tip about the âStory Curve,â which turns storytelling into a powerful marketing tactic.
THE BIG IDEA
How many robots can a restaurant have before itâs just a vending machine?
Humans are always delighted by the idea of getting food from machines â whether itâs the old automats of the 1900s or a replicator from âStar Trek.â
But whatâs the difference between a restaurant and what is functionally a vending machine? If itâs that a human cooks or serves the food, modern restaurants have already transcended that.
For instanceâŚ
⌠McDonaldâs makes you order on a screen and robot waiters are becoming ubiquitous (though itâs debatable if a table on wheels constitutes a ârobotâ), but thereâs so much more:
Sweetgreen just opened its eighth location using its automated âInfinite Kitchenâ tech, which can assemble 500 salads in an hour. (Humans still prepare all the ingredients and interact with customers.)
Walmart will open 20 robot-run restaurants in its stores after successful trial runs in Illinois and Georgia. The robot, ADAM, makes coffee and tea.
CaliExpress, which we visited earlier this year, has leaned into its âburgers cooked and served by robotsâ gimmick by humanizing its machine employees with names.
Asian countries are showing greater urgency in restaurant automation, perRestaurant Business. In Tokyo, E Vino Spaghettiâs automated pasta robot can make 90 meals in an hour.
Not only is the technology cool, but the demand for restaurants is outpacing the supply of workers; more than 30% of the population in China, Japan, and South Korea will be 65+ by 2050.
So, whatâs a vending machine and whatâs a restaurant?
The answer is probably that all food service will eventually fall somewhere on the vending machine-restaurant spectrum.
The box that the security guard in Terminator 2 got coffee from is a vending machine, but the deli from When Harry Met Sally is a restaurant.
Googleâs NotebookLM might not be labeled “experimentalâ anymore, but youâre about to be. Hereâs what you need to know about making it work for your business.
Be strategic: A great business idea with no strategy might mean no business at all, so donât do that. Listen up for expert tips on building a solid strategy to future-proof your business.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Wheelchairs broken by US airlines in a single month in 2023, per Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who uses a wheelchair after losing both legs in the Iraq War. âIf [my wheelchair] is broken, youâve broken my legs,â Duckworth said. âImagine if the American public saw that the airlines broke 892 pairs of legs in a single month.â
The US Department of Transportation announced this week that it had fined American Airlines $50m for numerous instances in which it allegedly mishandled wheelchairs or failed to appropriately assist wheelchair users. As an example, it released a video of an American Airlines employee dropping a wheelchair down a baggage ramp.
The department said it is also investigating incidents at other US airlines.
AROUND THE WEB
đ¨đŚ On this day: In 1861, 24 businessmen officially created the Toronto Stock Exchange, though its origins date back to 1852âs Association of Brokers.
