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WAR OF THE WORDLES
🧠 APPLE WAGES WORDLE WAR AGAINST NYT: Happy Global Emoji Day, where Apple just launched Emoji Game, a new daily brainteaser for Apple News+ subscribers — and it’s not just fun and games. This is tech versus legacy media battle playing out in the crossword section of the future… Apple taking on Wordle, Connections, and the entire puzzle empire the New York Times built.
Welcome to the future, folks, where The New York Times is a gaming company with a newspaper… I call it sudoku-subsidized journalism… don’t believe me?
—> 🎯 WORDLE: THE $1M BET THAT SAVED THE NYT: When the NYT bought Wordle in early 2022, it seemed like a quirky side hustle. Today? It’s the backbone of their digital strategy:
82.7% of NYT’s entire organic web traffic comes from the Wordle page. (Source: WordsRated – Impact of Wordle on NYT.)
Over 1 million people pay just for NYT Games — not news. (Source: New York Times Q1 2024 Earnings Report (via Sherwood)
—> 🎮 APPLE’S COUNTERMOVE: EMOJI GAME. Apple launched Emoji Game, its own twist on the puzzle craze: Players drag emoji to complete phrases like “Yearbook” (👻 + 🐟 = boo + school)… Available now via Apple News+ — and coming to Apple’s new Games app this fall
—> 🕹️ GAMING IS THE NEW FRONT PAGE: NYT isn’t alone in turning to puzzles. Netflix, LinkedIn, The Atlantic — even Apple — are all fighting for a piece of your daily game routine. Why? Because games build habits. And habits drive subscriptions. The Times bundles its puzzles with food recipes (NYT Cooking), live sports (The Athletic), and more — a strategy that helped boost digital-only subscribers to 11.06 million in Q1 2025.
Sources: The Verge · Apple Newsroom · Polygon · WordsRated · Sherwood News · Press Gazette.
—> MANIFESTATION MODE ACTIVATED: mtf wants a game one day… and a game show like Reeg had (my nickname as a kid was lil reeg after Regis [RIP])… but with subscription thingy Terminal for the biz world!!!!… while I go to Space! hahahahahaha
hello, future. it’s me, kev.
…and this is a dispatch from the digital frontier. It’s time to meet the future NOW — with the latest on markets, tech, and freedom. The day is 198. The year is 2025. The planet is Earth.
The planet has complete 54.25 percent of its orbit around the Sun. My name is Kevin Cirilli —> LinkedIn. Spotify. Sign-up to receive the future in your inbox here.
Back to the future...
SPACE
🪐 NOTABLE: MARS SELLS. A 54-pound Martian meteorite — the largest of its kind ever found on Earth — just sold at Sotheby’s for a record-breaking $5.3 million. Dubbed NWA-16788, the rock likely blasted off Mars after an asteroid strike and was discovered in Africa last year.
Source: ScienceAlert
QUANTUM // ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
🧠 ZUCK: WE’LL BUILD DATA CENTERS THE SIZE OF MANHATTAN: Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is racing to build AI superclusters so massive, one will stretch the size of Manhattan. In a Facebook post, he revealed the next one—Hyperion—will eventually run on 5 gigawatts of power. That’s enough juice to run millions of homes.
—> ⚡ WHAT’S A DATA CENTER? They’re giant buildings full of computers that run the internet—and now, artificial intelligence. The more AI we use, the more power we need. Enter Prometheus, Meta’s first mega-cluster, launching in 2026. Hyperion is next.
—> 🚀 WHY IT MATTERS: AI tools like chatbots and smart assistants all live inside data centers. And with demand exploding, tech giants are in an arms race to build faster, bigger, smarter infrastructure. Meta is spending $72 billion this year alone to keep up.
📡 Zuck called it “a major step toward superintelligence,” adding that Meta is “on track to be the first to bring a 1GW+ supercluster online,” citing analysis from SemiAnalysis.
Source: Zuck’s Facebook | TechRadar
HEALTH / IVF / GENETIC DISEASES
👶 🧬 BRITISH BABIES WITH 3 PARENTS DNA SAVED FROM RARE GENETIC DISEASES. Eight healthy babies were born in the UK using a cutting-edge science trick: DNA from three different people to stop life-threatening diseases before they start. It's banned in the U.S. — but it's already changing futures overseas.
—> 🔍 WAIT… HOW CAN A BABY HAVE 3 PEOPLE’S DNA? Most of your DNA comes from your biological mom and dad — but there’s a teeny-tiny bit hiding in something called mitochondria, which helps power your body. If a mom’s mitochondria are damaged, doctors can now swap them out using a donor’s healthy ones. Add mom’s DNA, dad’s DNA, and the donor mitochondria — boom: 3 DNA sources, 1 healthy baby.
—> ⚡ WHY MITOCHONDRIA MATTER: Think of mitochondria like tiny batteries inside your cells. If they don’t work, your body can’t make energy — and that can lead to muscle problems, brain damage, or worse. About 1 in 5,000 babies are born with these issues. This new trick helps stop it before it starts.
—> 🚫 WHY THE U.S. SAID “NO THANKS:” The U.K. and Australia allow it — but in the U.S. 3-parent IVF is banned (it was first ever performed in the USA back in 1996). Why? Ethical concerns about a person having three biological parents.
Sources: Reuters, NBC News, BBC.
Something tells us Washington will pay attention to this issue in the future…
ROBOTS
🤖 ROBOT METABOLISM IS HERE — THEY CAN EAT PARTS TO GROW + HEAL: Scientists at Columbia just created robots that can repair themselves, borrow limbs, and grow on the go.
These bots use special building blocks called Truss Links — tiny, moving LEGO-like pieces that snap together and act like bones, muscles, and joints. Break one? Just grab a new part and rebuild. One robot even found a support stick and suddenly got 66% faster. Yup — these robots upgrade themselves.
—> 🧬 WAIT... ROBOTS CAN METABOLIZE NOW?!: It’s not food like humans eat — but this is true robot metabolism. These bots use “parts” from their surroundings — or even other robots — to adapt, survive, and evolve. Think T-1000 from Terminator, but made with math and magnets. They’re learning to move through the world like living things.
—> 🚀 WHY YOU CARE: This could be the start of robots that build cities in space, fix satellites, or rescue people in disasters — without waiting for humans to help. They can self-heal, self-build, and maybe one day... self-replicate. This isn’t science fiction anymore. It’s the future.
Sources: Science Advances, TechXplore
With gratitude,
Kev
ABOUT mtf.tv’s meet the future: mtf.tv’s meet the future is a cutting-edge platform focused on addressing key challenges at the intersection of national security, technology, and business. With a mission to embrace freedom to meet the future’s challenges and opportunities, mtf.tv offers forward-thinking media offerings and forums.
mtf.tv’s meet the future founder Kevin Cirilli.
