Security

What are these mysterious drones flying over the US?

Are we finally being invaded or is this another weather balloon situation? Since mid-November, residents have reported a vast amount of mysterious drone sightings throughout the US, and not even the Pentagon has claimed to know where they’re coming from.

However, on Saturday the Department of Homeland Security and FBI said that many of the drone sightings, especially on the East Coast, are simply misidentified manned aircraft, such as commercial airliners.

However, some of the craft have yet to be identified, leaving their origins up to speculation…

Flying phenomenon

The recent series of spectacles has captured the interest of the public, politicians, and military officials alike. Speculation and concerns have especially mounted in the last week, as a large number of drones have been spotted:

• They were initially seen flying along the Raritan River, which flows roughly 50 miles west of New York City and supplies water to the state's largest aquifer, Round Valley Reservoir.

• Soon after, sightings increased dramatically, with some seen over President-elect Donald Trump's golf course in Bedminster and close to a military research and manufacturing complex in New Jersey.

• A Coast Guard commanding officer informed Republican U.S. Representative Chris Smith that a dozen drones closely monitored a Guard lifeboat earlier this month.

As concerns grew exponentially, the White House, FBI, Pentagon, and FAA, along with other agencies, began investigating the occurrences but repeatedly stated that they were not a national security threat or the work of a foreign adversary.

So what are they?

Drone experts and some elected officials began to claim that many of the sightings were just manned aircraft that had been misidentified by the public. The FBI soon echoed this claim after a careful review of the resources available.

• Since November, the FBI has received more than 5,000 tips on drone sightings in five East Coast states, most notably New Jersey.

  • On Friday, drone activity even forced a runway to shut down in New York.

  • Flying “orbs” were also spotted in Minnesota, along with several other states in the Midwest.

• Observed mostly at night, several of these objects are said to be larger than ordinary commercial drones, with some even being as big as cars.

However, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas confirmed Wednesday that some of the craft are still unidentified and stated that the agency is keeping an eye on the situation and allocating more resources.

Drone discussions: Some elected officials (along with the public) are getting irate at the lack of answers, with Sen. Chuck Schumer saying he’s working to pass a bill that would give local law enforcement "more tools for drone detection".

Technology

Google and Apple debut new AI features

Here are the latest advancements for your phone’s AI servant. Late last week, the two tech behemoths released new updates to their software that should help you get the most out of your virtual assistants.

iPhone functionality

For iPhone, a whole host of things came with the new update. The most prolific is ChatGPT’s integration with Siri, which also features enhanced language understanding. But that’s not all:

• Image Playground, which allows you to create AI images in a variety of styles by utilizing ideas like locations, clothes, themes, and accessories to flesh them out.

  • It will work seamlessly in your Notes app and iMessage.

• Writing Tools enhancement, which allows users to make their writing more expressive by adding “dynamic action words or rewriting text in different styles”.

  • For example, you could ask Apple AI to rearrange a text in a poem format or make your writing more business-focused.

• Visual intelligence is a new feature that works similarly to Google Images, where you can learn about objects or places simply by pointing your camera at them.

Apple also came out with Genmoji, which allows iPhone users to create their own personalized emoji using prompts and photos from their library. The Notes app has also seen a variety of updates, like Image Wand and Magic Calculator.

The age of AI agents

Google created an AI agent, called Project Mariner, and upgraded its main AI technology to Gemini 2.0. Project Mariner is still a prototype and only available to a limited number of test users, but still pretty cool:

• Using Google’s in-house AI (Gemini 2.0), PM will complete tasks for you by taking control of your Chrome browser, moving the cursor for you, and navigating sites like a human would.

• Alongside PM, Google also announced its answer to Siri, called Project Astra.

  • While it's improving, The Verge reports Astra still lags behind the likes of Siri and Alexa and has trouble conversating like a normal human would.

Google also added a new research assistant that can write reports for you (if you pay) and debuted its coding assistant, named Jules.

Premium chatbot: AI agents are essentially chatbots that can perform more complex functions, and they’re the next big thing for Big Tech. Numerous companies, like Microsoft, Salesforce, and others, are developing their own AI agents and embracing the generative AI wave.

International

Tokyo allows a four-day workweek so people can… have more babies?

Who doesn’t want some extra time to procreate? In hopes its residents will “do the deed” more often, Tokyo is offering a four-day workweek in response to Japan’s strong decline in birth rate and extremely demanding work culture.

Creating copulation

Japan has enacted a number of policies to support families in response to its falling birthrate in recent years, but nothing really seems to get people out of work and in the bed:

• The aging country has tried tax breaks, extended parental leave, and financial incentives like child allowances.

• The government has also supported work-life balance measures like flexible work schedules and a ban on excessive overtime.

• Japan even created a government-made dating app… yikes.

To help things on the financial side and make it easier for families to have more children, Japan has also increased access to reproductive treatments and reduced the cost of education. But, even that hasn’t helped. Enter: the four-day workweek.

Baby boom (or bust)

Japan holds the title of “world’s oldest population” for a reason, and Tokyo officials aren’t having it. The nation is also on its 16th consecutive year of population decline and struggling to add more people to its workforce. Even worse…

• For the first time since at least 1899, Japan is predicted to birth fewer than 700,000 babies this year.

• According to Japan's health ministry, the country's birth rate dropped to 1.2 births per woman last year.

  • In general, for a population to be stable, that rate must be at least 2.1.

Beginning in April, over 160,000 government employees in Japan will be granted an additional day off each week, at their discretion. Tokyo aims to use this measure to introduce more flexibility into the country's notoriously demanding work culture.

Ideally, it will be the opposite of South Korea: The country has the lowest birthrate in the world at 0.72 in 2023 and is spending over $320 million to solve its loneliness epidemic and reverse men’s vasectomies.

Grab Bag

American adults are struggling with math and reading

Now it’s not just kids that are doing poorly, but their parents. Nice. The proficiency in reading and mathematics of American adults is declining, according to a test that evaluates adult literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving abilities in 31 developed nations.

In addition, the gap between the most and least proficient Americans is growing in their ability to handle everyday tasks, like finding information from a website or simply reading a thermometer.

Back to the drawing board

The Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC, found out:

• The percentage of Americans with a literacy rating of 1 out of 5 (the worst score) or lower increased from 19% in 2017 to 28%.

  • Additionally, 34% of adults received a score at the lowest numeracy level, up from 29% six years earlier.

This indicates that only around 25% of Americans can accurately determine information based solely on a basic text, and over 33% may find it difficult to do activities requiring more than basic math skills.

In comparison: Some scholars attribute the decline in average literacy (which fell in 20 nations) and numeracy (which fell in 10) scores to more people spending time on their phones instead of reading. Still, the United States continues to do poorly in comparison to other nations, ranking below the global average in math and in the middle of the pack in literacy.

This company just hit $1 trillion in market cap

After posting impressive earnings this quarter, Broadcom hit $1T. The chip company discreetly hit a $1 trillion market cap on Friday, worming its way to the big kids table with the likes of Nvidia, Apple, and Amazon amid the massive AI boom.

Nice to meet you, Broadcom

The chip supplier is essentially just Nvidia but without as much clout. Broadcom is a global supplier of semiconductor chips and is well-established in both software and hardware. However, its thriving semiconductor division is what has helped it hit the $1 trillion mark:

• Since Thursday, the company’s stock is up 35%, which is likely to keep pace with Nvidia (meaning it’ll keep growing).

  • The market for semiconductor chips is predicted to reach $90 billion in the next three years.

• The company anticipates a fiscal Q1 revenue of $14.6 billion.

According to Broadcom, it is working with two large "hyperscaler" clients, or businesses that need massive data centers (for their AI needs), which will only add more momentum for them to keep growing.

There is a downside: As the need for AI chips keeps growing, companies like Nvidia and Broadcom are reaping the benefits. But that also means more tech companies are likely to start producing them internally.

Fast Facts

Toy Takeover: Hot Wheels are the best-selling toy in the world, according to market research firm Circana. Every second, around 22.5 of the toys are sold, totaling to over 709 million a year.

Lawyer-link: Luigi Mangione, the suspected shooter of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, hired Friedman Agnifilo as his lawyer. Agnifilo is married to Marc Agnifilo, the lawyer representing Sean “Diddy” Combs against sex trafficking charges. Crazy world. 

Search Surge: What did people “research” the most this year? Find out by looking through Wikipedia’s 50 most popular pages of 2024.

Mass Migration: The annual net migration in the US from 2021 to 2023 reached 2.4 million, the highest in history, even surpassing the busiest years at Ellis Island. It's the highest rate of new immigrants arriving since the 1850s.

Storm Surge: A storm in the French enclave of Mayotte in the southwest Indian Ocean killed at least a few hundred people. It was the worst cyclone to hit Mayotte in almost a century.