Author: arthursheikin@gmail.com

[ad_1] “The Diary of a CEO” star Steven Bartlett isn’t just talking about AI on his show — he’s using the tech to make new podcasts hosted by a virtual version of himself.His podcast production company, FlightStory Studio, has been experimenting with AI tools like Runway to make podcasts and recently used them to launch “100 CEOs with Steven Bartlett.” The animated show gives prominent CEOs like Richard Branson and Elon Musk the narrative, documentary-style treatment.Bartlett wrote the script, and then FlightStory Studio used AI for the rest. That included cloning his voice to make an AI host, creating the storyboard, and…

[ad_1] Smart contact lens startup Xpanceo announced earlier this month that it has raised $250 million in Series A funding, valuing the company at $1.35 billion.In the coming years, the Dubai-based startup envisions contact lenses that could offer augmented reality, night vision, and zoom, health tracking through tear fluid, and other features.”The initial idea was to merge all the screens you have into one limitless screen,” and to arm wearers with “new abilities,” said cofounder and managing partner Roman Axelrod, a 35-year-old serial entrepreneur. He said the company’s unicorn status is a sign it’s on the right path.Physicist Valentyn Volkov…

[ad_1] Outdoor Voices is going founder mode — literally.The apparel brand Tyler Haney founded in 2013 said Monday that it was bringing the entrepreneur back after a controversial five-year separation. Haney said in a video posted to the brand’s Instagram on Monday that she’d been working on a new collection with the brand for about the last nine months.”I’m so excited to step back into this role as founder, as an owner, and as a partner,” she said in the video.As of Monday, the brand had deleted all other content aside from the video from its Instagram page.Haney and OV…

[ad_1] European banks have seen strong performance, with the STOXX Europe 600 Banks Index gaining 41% year-to-date, outpacing the broad-based STOXX Europe 600 Index by 30%. This year’s gains have resulted in a multi-year trading range breakout for the iShares MSCI European Financials ETF (EUFN) , which we see as a long-term tailwind suggesting banks should be a continued source of outperformance in Europe. In February, EUFN was able to decisively clear its 2011, 2014, and 2018 highs in a bullish secular shift. The monthly MACD is positive and expanding to the upside, unaffected by the decline into the April…

[ad_1] Daniel Liss, co-founder of the social network Dispo and the dating app Teaser AI, is convinced he’s onto the next big thing: steelmaking.  It all started, incongruously, with a few op-eds he wrote for TechCrunch about anti-trust enforcement in social media. The commentaries apparently caught the attention of some folks in Washington, D.C., Liss told TechCrunch, and resulted in him being invited to guest judge a war game capstone exercise in spring 2023 hosted by the National War College. The war game was very au courant, running a scenario in which the U.S. and China fought for supremacy over…

[ad_1] Well-liked stocks such as Roblox could move sharply higher on the back of their upcoming earnings reports. Second-quarter earnings season is impressing Wall Street. According to FactSet, 80% of S & P 500 companies that have reported so far have posted a positive earnings and revenue surprise for the period, which is above the five-year average of 78%. The S & P 500 index is also notably reporting a net profit margin above 12% for the fifth consecutive quarter, and analysts believe net profit margins for the index will improve in the second half of the year. CNBC Pro…

[ad_1] Two particular lines in Elon Musk’s posts about Tesla’s new chip deal highlight just how far his “founder mode” approach extends. In this case, right down to his stated terms of Tesla’s manufacturing agreement with Samsung.In a $16.5 billion deal, Samsung will produce Tesla’s new AI6 chip from the manufacturing plant it is building in Taylor, Texas, which is expected to open in 2026.Located outside of Austin, Samsung’s plant is close to where Musk moved in 2020, and where his company Tesla later moved in 2021. In an X post, Musk wrote that he would personally monitor the plant’s…

[ad_1] Google on Monday announced an update to its Chrome web browser that will introduce AI-generated store reviews to U.S. shoppers with the aim of helping to determine the best places to make a purchase. The feature, which will be available by clicking an icon just to the left of the web address in the browser, will display a pop-up that informs consumers about the store’s reputation for things like product quality, shopping, pricing, customer service, and returns. The feature, which is currently available only in English, will generate the summaries based on reviews from partners, including Bazaarvoice, Bizrate Insights,…

[ad_1] The US economy may have successfully steered clear of a dire outcome many observers were warning of just a few months ago. That’s according to analysts at Bank of America, who said they believe the US economy could be more on track for a cyclical boom rather than an episode of stagflation, a nightmare situation in which inflation rises while economic growth slows.Stagflation is commonly thought of as even worse than a typical recession, as policymakers are prevented from cutting interest rates to boost the economy.For a while, that scenario was one of the biggest fears on investors’ minds as they…

[ad_1] (This is The Best Stocks in the Market , brought to you by Josh Brown and Sean Russo of Ritholtz Wealth Management.) Josh — It’s quite possible that 2025 will be remembered as the year where defensive utilities became growth stocks. As Sean explains below, this sector is the second best performing group of stocks in the entire S & P 500 this year. This is remarkable when you consider that this is not a “risk-off” year in which investors reach for stocks that should hold up well in a downturn. It’s a risk-on year so far and defensive…