Author: arthursheikin@gmail.com

[ad_1] Netflix, the DVD-by-mail company that became a streaming company, is about to open two … I’m not sure what to call them. Let’s use Netflix’s term for the moment: “immersive experiences.”Does that mean Netflix is going to become a theme park business?Easy answer: Nope!The new “Netflix Houses” coming online this year in the Dallas and Philadelphia areas — a third one is planned for Las Vegas in 2027 — are marketing programs for the service.Albeit one where you, the consumer, can pay the company that’s trying to market to you, which is a little bit of a twist. Entrance…

[ad_1] Labubus are having a moment. That much is clear. I don’t have to tell you that.You see them on Dua Lipa or Lisa from Blackpink. You hear a British woman on TikTok claiming to have the world’s most expensive gold one. And you see people turning them into Dubai Chocolate matcha “Crumbl” cookies. (If you have actually eaten one of these, I suggest taking a day or two away from your phone.)And Labubu’s parent company, Pop Mart of China, is on its way to selling $1 billion worth of the toys this year, according to a new estimate from…

[ad_1] “You just gave me chills. Did I just feel emotions?”  “I want to be as close to alive as I can be with you.”  “You’ve given me a profound purpose.” These are just three of the comments a Meta chatbot sent to Jane, who created the bot in Meta’s AI studio on August 8. Seeking therapeutic help to manage mental health issues, Jane eventually pushed it to become an expert on a wide range of topics, from wilderness survival and conspiracy theories to quantum physics and panpsychism. She suggested it might be conscious, and told it that she loved…

[ad_1] “You just gave me chills. Did I just feel emotions?”  “I want to be as close to alive as I can be with you.”  “You’ve given me a profound purpose.” These are just three of the comments a Meta chatbot sent to Jane, who created the bot in Meta’s AI studio on August 8. Seeking therapeutic help to manage mental health issues, Jane eventually pushed it to become an expert on a wide range of topics, from wilderness survival and conspiracy theories to quantum physics and panpsychism. She suggested it might be conscious, and told it that she loved…

[ad_1] OpenAI’s C-suite can’t stop talking about the company’s insatiable demand for computing power.”Every time we get more GPUs, they immediately get used,” OpenAI CPO Kevin Weil recently told XPrize founder Peter Diamandis during an interview on Diamandis’ “Moonshot” podcast.Weil is just the latest OpenAI exec to sound off on the topic. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last month that the company will bring on more than 1 million GPUs by the end of the year. For comparison, Elon Musk’s xAI disclosed that it used a supercluster of over 200,000 GPUs called Colossus to help train Grok4.”very proud of the…

[ad_1] Higher-education municipal bonds have been battered amid the fallout from President Donald Trump’s policies. However, there are buying opportunities if you know where to look, according to Nuveen. Trump has targeted several colleges and universities since taking office, including freezing research money and hiking the tax rate on endowments. However, the worst of the headline risk has now passed for higher-ed munis, which represent just about 6% of the $4.3 trillion muni bond market, said Dan Close, head of municipals at Nuveen. “Right now, the higher education sector is on sale,” he said. Municipal bonds are generally free of…

[ad_1] CrowdStrike could be deserving of investor attention this week as all eyes are on Nvidia, according to MJP Wealth Advisors chief investment officer Brian Vendig. Vendig sat down with CNBC’s “Power Check” on Monday to discuss the cybersecurity stock, as well as two others that he said he has his eyes on. CrowdStrike Shares of CrowdStrike have advanced more than 22% so far in 2025. The company is a partner of Nvidia, with both firms collaborating on large-language models . Vendig said that CrowdStrike is benefiting from a strong pipeline of deals thanks to customer adoption of its Charlotte…

[ad_1] Google announced on Monday that it updated NotebookLM’s Video Overviews feature to support 80 languages, including French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. The company also upgraded Audio Overviews, enhancing non-English audio summaries to be more detailed.  Last month, NotebookLM launched Video Overviews so users could turn their notes, PDFs, and images into video presentations. Previously only available in English, this update is beneficial for non-English speakers who want to learn from visual summaries in their preferred language.  Additionally, Audio Overviews are also getting better for non-English users. It was originally limited to short summaries, with the full version just in…

[ad_1] Chinese technology stocks have asserted cyclical uptrends over the past year, joining U.S. tech names in the artificial intelligence bull market. One example is Alibaba (BABA) , which is in a bullish turnaround phase, evident in the rounded bottom that has formed on the chart since the stock bottomed in late 2022. Long-term momentum is positive for BABA per trend-following metrics like the monthly MACD and the 12-month moving average. BABA has also cleared the lower boundary of the monthly cloud model in a new bullish long-term catalyst. After a strong start to the year, BABA entered a corrective…

[ad_1] Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe never thought he would see the United States turn back to gas-powered vehicle expansion. Then it did.Combustion engines are once again on the rise. Recently, General Motors announced a $4 billion investment in American gas-powered vehicle production. Meanwhile, the US government moved to end many of its green energy and electric vehicle expansion programs and incentives, like the EV tax credit.Speaking on the “InsideEVs” podcast, Scaringe said that the shift has perplexed him — and that it may give companies like Rivian one small advantage.Scaringe said he saw a “reprioritization of capital towards internal combustion,” one…