BY KEVIN N. CIRILLI
Substack | LinkedIn | Instagram | X: @kevcirilli
THE FUTURE STARTS NOW - - > BILL GATES GOES NUCLEAR IN WYOMING… The world’s sixth richest human told Margaret Brennan on CBS Face The Nation that he’s betting big on nuclear power. Gates says his new start-up TerraPowerLLC broke ground last week in Wyoming after a coal plant shut down.
QUOTABLE: “I put in over a billion, and I’ll put in billions more,” Gates on CBS. Watch here.
HOW IT PLAYED: Bloomberg: Bill Gates Says He's Ready to Put Billions Into Nuclear Power… BusinessInsider: Bill Gates says nuclear power has 'impressive' bipartisan support… Yahoo: Bill Gates says there's "impressive" support for nuclear power amid new Wyoming plant…
THIS IS A DISPATCH FROM THE DIGITAL FRONTIER — you’re survival guide for the future. The day is number 167 of the year 2024. The planet is Earth. My name is Kevin Cirilli. Back to the future…
APPLE INTELLIGENCE…
APPLE’S ENTRANCE INTO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE might not come until 2025, according to Bloomy… and WIRED is reporting that it might not work on hundreds of millions of iPhones… but who cares… markets don’t…
PUT SIMPLY: CNBC put it best: “Apple’s AI killer is (wait for it) the iPhone. Apple has now leapfrogged leaders Microsoft and Google in the high-stakes AI race by promising the first killer use of AI - a true personal assistant, in the form of.... the iPhone.”
PROVEN TRACK RECORD: Apple has a proven track record of using its iPhone to drive widespread adaptation of new technologies… case-in-point: mobile payments. It was only a decade ago when we all first started paying for our lattes on our iPhones. Just think of what will happen with AI on our phones… or don’t… if it freaks you out…
MARKET MOVES, via investing.com’s Vahid Karaahmetovic:
“‘AI stands for Apple Intelligence:’ Analysts at wealth management firm D.A. Davidson upgraded Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock from Neutral to Buy this week after the iPhone maker introduced its much-anticipated AI strategy.”
DARK TIMES, via WSJ’s Katherine Blunt, who dives head first into the underbelly of influencer culture: “The Influencer Is a Young Teenage Girl. The Audience Is 92% Adult Men.”
ROBOT JOURNALISTS? Global audiences suspicious of AI-powered newsrooms, report finds, via Reuters’ Sheila Dang:
“Global concerns about the use of AI in news production and misinformation are growing, a report published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found, posing fresh challenges to newsrooms already struggling to engage audiences. The institute's annual Digital News Report published on Monday, which this year is based on surveys of nearly 100,000 people across 47 countries, offers a picture of the hurdles news media faces in lifting revenue and sustaining business.”
Speaking of robots…
ROBOT ROUND-UP:
Robots Take on More Food Processing Tasks, via Food Processing’s Andy Hanacek.
Robots In Charlotte Are A Wave Of The Future, via Charlotte 103.7’s Debbie Nance.
Chinese Company Develops Robots with Facial Expressions, via Voice of America’s Gregory Stachel.
Real Photographer Beats Out Robots in AI Art Competition, via Hyperallergic’s Rhea Nayyar.
This pet dragon is more than mythical creature, it's caregiver robot, via Interesting Engineering’s Prabhat Ranjan Mishra.
ShareLAUNCH PAD: Here’s who’s blasting off into space this week:
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) | June 18 - 19… Launch: This is the first of five launches for the U.S. headquartered company that will blast off in Mahia, New Zealand. Rocket Lab will be sending up satellites to bolster IoT connectivity for the company Kinéis — a French backed company that has secured investment from France’s equivalent of NASA. More here.
SpaceX Falcon 9 | June 18 - 19… Launch: Postponed launch will take some more Starlink V2 satellites up into space to improve Starlink connectivity. Where: SLC-4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.
ON-AIR: Breathe in… breathe out…Washington DC // 52aqi… San Francisco // 24 aqi… NYC // 30aqi… CHI // 38aqi… LA // 56aqi… MIA // 23aqi… Shanghai // 60aqi… Beijing // 90aqi… Cairo // 78.
[Note: The air quality index is scaled from 0 to 500, with 0 being the freshest air and 500 being the most toxic. Source: airnow.gov.]
…and the award for WORST AIR IN THE WORLD this week goes to: Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, where aqi measured at 170.
POLITICS OF THE FUTURE:
2028 WATCH - - > Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on NBC’s Meet The Press, asked by host Peter Alexander if he’d consider a presidential bid in 2028: “I’m focused on getting President Biden re-elected. But I will say this, this country is hungry after that for a new generation… I’m looking forward after President Biden is re-elected to a new generation leading this country.”
OUCHIE, via Washington Examiner: Clyburn leaves major name off list of future Democratic leaders — before correcting himself
RANK CHOICE VOTING - - > mtf.tv’s meet the future fellowship program was proud to host a screening of award-winning filmmaker AJ Schnack’s latest nonpartisan film Majority Rules. The film premiered at DC/DOX Film Festival over the weekend in Washington D.C., diving head first into the issue of rank choice voting. Spotted: Sen. Lisa Murkowski… Rep. Mary Peltola… AJ Schnack… Winston Lord… Nick Troiano… Karen Tumulty… Linda Douglass… The Hon. John R. Phillips… Dan Meyers… Kevin N. Cirilli… Gabriel Lerner, author of Democracy Notes on Substack… Betsy Fischer Martin… Jonathan Martin… Not spotted: Sarah Palin.
WILD FIRE EVACUATIONS IN CALIFORNIA, via AXIOS: Los Angeles County's 1st major fire of 2024 prompts evacuations, via Rebecca Falconer:
Los Angeles County authorities urged people to be vigilant over a fast-moving wildfire burning across a mountainous area that prompted the evacuation of about 1,200 campers over the weekend.
SPACE WEATHER: Here’s what’s happening in our neck of the galaxy… Have you heard about AR3712?
Meet AR3712, a sun storm that just last week was the size of planet Earth and now — in just a week — is five times the size of our world.
FLASH FORWARD, via CNN: A massive solar storm hits Mars, revealing a risk for future astronauts on the red planet.
NASA says: NASA Funds Study of Proposals to Investigate Space Weather Systems.
VIEW THE SUN STORM here.
Have a good tomorrow, today :)
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