View time: 1 min 24
Level : Advanced
Author: natixis-ezine
Even in the age of Google Earth, people still buy globes. Here’s why they remain so alluring
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Advanced
By LAURIE KELLMAN Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — Find a globe in your local library or classroom and try this: Close the eyes, spin it and drop a finger randomly on its curved, glossy surface.
You’re likely to pinpoint a spot in the water, which covers 71% of the planet. Maybe you’ll alight on a place you’ve never heard of — or a spot that no longer exists after a war or because of climate change. Perhaps you’ll feel inspired to find out who lives there and what it’s like. Trace the path of totality ahead of Monday’s solar eclipse. Look carefully, and you’ll find the cartouche — the globemaker’s signature — and the antipode ( look it up ) of where you’re standing right now.
In the age of Google Earth, watches that triangulate and cars with built-in GPS, there’s something about a globe — a spherical representation of the world in miniature — that somehow endures.
London globemaker Peter Bellerby thinks the human yearning to “find our place in the cosmos” has helped globes survive their original purpose — navigation — and the internet. He says it’s part of the reason he went into debt making a globe for his father’s 80th birthday in 2008. The experience helped inspire his company, and 16 years later is keeping his team of about two dozen artists, cartographers and woodworkers employed. Continue reading
Who wouldn’t like prices to start falling? Careful what you wish for, economists say
Read time : 4 mins
Level : Intermediate
By PAUL WISEMAN AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans are in a sour mood about the economy for one main reason: Prices feel too high.
Maybe they’re not rising as fast as they had been, but average prices are still painfully above where they were three years ago. And they’re mostly heading higher still.
Consider a 2-liter bottle of soda: In February 2021, before inflation began heating up, it cost an average of $1.67 in supermarkets across America. Three years later? That bottle is going for $2.25 — a 35% increase.
Or egg prices. They soared in 2022, then fell back down. Yet they’re still 43% higher than they were three years ago.
Likewise, the average used-car price: It rocketed from roughly $23,000 in February 2021 to $31,000 in April 2022. By last month, the average was down to $26,752. But that’s still up 16% from February 2021. Continue reading
Google to purge billions of files containing personal data in settlement of Chrome privacy case
View time : 1 min 16
Level : Intermediate
Twenty years ago, Google transformed email with Gmail
View time: 2 min 44
Level : Advanced
Baltimore bridge collapse: Who will pay for the destroyed bridge, harmed businesses and lost lives?
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Advanced
By REBECCA BOONE and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press
The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland is a multi-layered tragedy: For the families and friends of those killed or presumed dead, it’s a profound and personal loss. For businesses that rely on the Port of Baltimore, it’s an economic nightmare.
And for the federal courts, it will soon become a balance of dollars and facts, with a network of insurance companies expected to foot at least some of the bill.
The disaster happened early Tuesday when a cargo ship lost power and rammed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. Eight people were on the highway bridge when it collapsed. Two were rescued. The bodies of two more were recovered, and four remain missing and are presumed dead.
The wreckage closed the Port of Baltimore, a major shipping port, potentially costing the area’s economy hundreds millions of dollars in lost labor income alone over the next month, according to the economic analysis company Implan. Continue reading
Warm winter brings early allergy season to much of the U.S. How to protect yourself, according to science.
View time : 1 min 04
Level : Intermediate
As Food Costs Rise, More and More Americans Are Looking To Their Yards To Save Money in 2024
Read time : 4 mins
Level : Intermediate
By Adriana Copaceanu | Wealth of Geeks undefined
Food prices across the board are predicted to increase by 1.3%, according to the latest consumer pricing analysis from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Restaurant dining will see the largest increase – an average of 4.7% and may go as high as 6.2%.
As food costs rise in 2024, even more pennies are squeezed from our monthly budgets. More and more Americans are turning to their own backyards to offset the cost of eating. Planting a garden can save you hundreds of dollars, and for some families, that adds up to thousands of dollars in savings annually.
New Gardener Success
A recent study from Axiom showed that 69.7% of people polled said they would plant more and expand their gardens in 2024. Continue reading
Game Changer: AI rises as video game industry navigates layoffs
View time: 2 min 44
Level : Advanced
Tired of AI doomsday tropes, Cohere CEO says his goal is technology that’s ‘additive to humanity’
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Advanced
By MATT O’BRIEN AP Technology Writer
Aidan Gomez can take some credit for the ‘T’ at the end of ChatGPT. He was part of a group of Google engineers who first introduced a new artificial intelligence model called a transformer.
That helped set a foundation for today’s generative AI boom that ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and others built upon. Gomez, one of eight co-authors of Google’s 2017 paper, was a 20-year-old intern at the time.
He’s now the CEO and co-founder of Cohere, a Toronto-based startup competing with other leading AI companies in supplying large language models and the chatbots they power to big businesses and organizations.
Gomez spoke about the future of generative AI with The Associated Press. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Continue reading