TLDR 2018-09-18

iOS 12 released 📱, SpaceX announces mystery passenger 🚀, and more...

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Big Tech & Startups

Apple Releases iOS 12 With Faster Performance, Memoji, Siri Shortcuts, Screen Time, Revamped Maps App, ARKit 2.0, and More (5 minute read)

Apple has released iOS 12, which features significant performance improvements over iOS 11 (it is 40% faster for launching apps and up to 70% faster for launching the camera). It has a new Screen Time feature, which tells you exactly how much time you spend on your phone or tablet, and which apps you're spending it on. Unlike iOS 11, it groups notifications together by app instead of sending floods of notifications from any one app. The iBooks, Apple News, Stocks, and Voice Memos apps have all been redesigned, and the Messages app now has Memojis (custom animated Animoji avatars). Maybe the most exciting part is ARKit 2, which will allow developers to build AR experiences that are shared by multiple users.

Stripe built a payments powerhouse by focusing on e-commerce. Now it's following its customers into bricks and mortar. (3 minute read)

Popular online payments service Stripe is now offering brick and mortar stores a way to collect payments, charging a 2.7% + 5 cents fee on each payment collected with Stripe Terminal (an in person payment platform). Warby Parker and Glossier are already planning to use the solution, and Stripe believes that its technology will be a key differentiator. Cofounder John Collison says "The question we started asking ourselves was, 'Can we make the offline world as simple as the online word?' and we think it's very much possible."

Amazon plans to release at least 8 new Alexa-powered devices, including a microwave, an amplifier, and an in-car gadget (2 minute read)

Amazon is planning to release 8 new Alexa powered devices before the end of the year including a microwave oven, amplifier, receiver, subwoofer, and an in-car gadget. Some of these devices are expected to be announced at an event later this month. Amazon is doubling down on Alexa, with Jeff Bezos saying "We want customers to be able to use Alexa wherever they are. There are now tens of thousands of developers across more than 150 countries building new devices using the Alexa Voice Service, and the number of Alexa-enabled devices has more than tripled in the past year."
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Science & Futuristic Technology

Elon Musk reveals updated design for future SpaceX Mars rocket (3 minute read)

Elon Musk gave an update on SpaceX's Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), which will be able to take up to 100 tons of payload all the way to Mars. It can also be used to send the Big Falcon Spaceship (BFS), which can hold up to 100 passengers comfortably, to Mars. Musk thinks the BFR could make its first flight to Mars in 2022, and the first manned trip to Mars could happen as early as 2024. There are diagrams of the rockets inside.

A.I. and robotics will create almost 60 million more jobs than they destroy by 2022, report says (3 minute read)

A World Economic Forum report based on a survey of executives at 300 global companies across a variety of industries found that while automation and AI would replace 75 million jobs by 2025, it will also create 133 million new jobs. Machines are expected to perform about 42% of all current tasks in the workplace by 2022, compared to only 29% now, and the nature of the jobs human do may change. In fact full-time, permanent employment may potentially fall, as companies move towards temporary workers, freelancers and specialist contractors. It's worth noting that in the report, nearly half of all companies expect their full-time workforce to shrink over the next several years.

Wharton's top professor says America should shorten the work day by 2 hours (3 minute read)

Adam Grant, a Wharton Business School professor, says that instead of the typical 9-to-5, our work days should end two hours earlier at 3pm. Grant says "We can be as productive and creative in 6 focused hours as in 8 unfocused hours." In an experiment done by a Swedish nursing home, switching to a 6 hour work day improved both productivity and worker health. Grant has previously voiced support for shortening work hours, tweeting "Productivity is less about time management and more about attention management" in response to a successful study about a four day work week.

#dearMoon (2 minute Youtube video)

Yusaku Maezawa, billionaire Japanese entrepreneur and art collector, will be SpaceX's first passenger in its trip around the Moon. He will bring artists (a film director, a painter, a dancer, a novelist, a musician, a fashion designer, a sculptor, a photographer, and an architect) to the moon in order to create new space-inspired art. This is the announcement for the space-inspired art project.
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