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Here’s what you need to know
Elon Musk doesn’t want you to see his newly-released deposition… The X owner repeatedly tried to seal his testimony in proceedings for a defamation lawsuit against him. Here are 5 highlights.
…And he vows to do a “full data dump” on Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes once X’s Brazil employees are in a “safe place.” Tensions continue to escalate over the judge’s investigation into the billionaire.
Pfizer wants the first FDA approval ever for an RSV vaccine for young adults… The pharma giant’s jab Abrysvo had positive results in a last-stage clinical trial for adults between 18-59.
…And Moderna had good news about a cancer vaccine. Stock rose on positive results from an early stage trial.
Optimism among U.S. small business owners hit its lowest level in over a decade. Owners are still worried about stubborn inflation and declining sales.
Everyone wants to be Nvidia
Google’s Cloud Next event involved a plethora of announcements, like how the company is partnering with Bayer to use AI to help overworked radiologists. Or how it’s bringing Gemini to corporate customers (more on that in this month’s AI in Focus — coming to you Saturday).
But it also announced that its Cloud TPU v5p, one of the few alternatives to Nvidia’s AI chips, is now available to developers. These little wonders have been hotly anticipated since December, and, though Google is still one of Nvidia’s biggest customers, the new chip would allow Google to bring a lot of that business in-house.
Not to be outdone, Intel had its own announcement yesterday, introducing its Gaudi 3 AI accelerator at the Intel Vision 2024 conference in Phoenix. Intel said Gaudi 3 is tackling the gap in hardware offerings in the AI market, where its customers are asking for choice — specifically amidst a shortage of Nvidia’s chips.
Being the one to beat in the AI hardware space is tricky, and if Nvidia has ears, they were burning yesterday.
Keep steel but fix the process
Think of the world’s dirtiest industries and you’re probably thinking along the lines of oil or meat… but the buildings we live in, the bridges we drive on, the cars we drive in, those all involve something pretty nasty. Steel.
Traditional steelmaking is a famously dirty process, but Quartz’s Britney Nguyen talks to host Gabriela Riccardi about the greener way to make the thing that makes all the things.
Check out the latest episode of the Quartz Obsession podcast, Green steel: Structural change.
🎧 Listen now on Spotify | Apple | Pandora
👓 Or, read the transcript
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⚠️ Target’s new self-checkout tech will warn you if you forgot to scan something
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⌚ Don’t treat watches like stocks, Rolex’s CEO says
Surprising discoveries
You can find the most popular middle names for your birth decade. But warning, a lot of them are popular in many decades.
The solar eclipse, as seen from space. The ISS astronauts delivered the goods.
The solar eclipse’s red dots, as seen from Earth. If you were in the path of totality, you may have seen these, and you may be demanding an explanation.
Actually, forget the solar eclipse: The moon probably turned itself inside out 4 billion years ago. That’s a lot more exciting than just one thing moving in front of another!
And if you think that’s exciting, can we interest you in… humans? There are at least 10 times in history where automation breakthroughs were actually just humans in disguise.
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Our best wishes for a productive day. Send any news, comments, eclipse stories, and better-than-eclipse-moon-turning-inside-out stories to [email protected]. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by William Gavin, Rocio Fabbro, Francisco Velasquez, and Susan Howson.