Intro

Good morning and welcome to the future 👋

Today’s update is 289 words, 1.4 minutes

Top News

‘Instagram Kids’ on hold: We recently reported that Facebook was facing increasing opposition to its plans to create ‘Instagram Kids’. On Monday, the company announced that it is pausing work on the project for the foreseeable future. NPR →

Humans vs AI 1-0: The long-running global battle to get AI recognized as an inventor of new patents has been dealt another blow, as the UK Court of Appeal rules that a patent can only be awarded to a real human being and not a machine. BBC →

Cryptocurrency crackdown: As the People’s Bank of China declares virtual currency-related activities illegal, Huobi, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has ceased opening new accounts in China and will retire all existing accounts in the country by December 31, 2021. CNBC →

Weird Stuff

Cryptocurrency hamster-style: If your cryptocurrency trading is not going as well as you’d like, maybe you should try a new approach to decision-making. With a very novel method, Mr Goxx the hamster and his human are outperforming Nasdaq and Bitcoin. Interesting Engineering →

Smart toilet: Bodily waste has long been recognized as a good indicator of our state of health. Now, innovators are working on a smart toilet that could become the ultimate health monitoring tool and an early warning system for emerging health problems. The Guardian →

Inspiration

Not just a passionate pitch: A recent video-based study on startup pitches to investors has shown that, while persuasive communication is important, it’s not a guarantee of future success. The report discusses how investors can control unconscious bias. VoxEU →