Business

Behind (potentially) one of the biggest breakthroughs of our generation

After years of development that many thought would take decades, Neuralink has made a generational breakthrough. 2024 is already shaping up to be pretty interesting, as Neuralink implanted the first brain chip in a human last week, and it could lead us into a whole different world.

Neuralink has been on everyone’s mind since Elon Musk posted on X, “The first human received an implant from @Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well. Initial results show promising neuron spike detection.” Which sounds like something right out of Terminator.

What do we know about the chip?

Since its founding in 2016, Neuralink has been developing a microchip implant that lets people to control a phone or a computer with their thoughts. The FDA gave it the green light to test on humans last May, and the company began recruiting participants in the fall.

Musk says Neuralink’s long term goals may help enhance user memory and cognitive abilities, restore a user's motor, sensory and visual functions as well as treat neurological disorders. The company’s first product, called Telepathy, is intended to help people with paralysis communicate by controlling devices remotely using brain activity. Musk said that “initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs.”

A what performs the surgery?

Neuralink has developed a surgical robot to implant a quarter-sized microchip into the “knob area” of the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain responsible for movement.

• The chip is meant to send neural signals to a phone or computer via Bluetooth, which could help someone with a motor disorder or a motor neuron disease move a cursor or type text messages.

• Neuralink says it also wants to help people with blindness by transmitting visual signals to their brain.

So, will we all have Neuralinks soon?

Not exactly. There isn’t much concrete evidence yet on Neuralink’s progress in the field, however, BCI researcher John Donoghue told Scientific American that he’s happy there’s promise of a commercial product that builds on research in the field.

Musk isn’t alone in wanting to create brain computer interface for the masses either:

• Synchron, a startup backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, has been testing its brain implant on patients since 2022.

• Researchers at Stanford University created a BCI that allowed a man with paralysis to imagine letters and transmit them to a computer screen.

• The Chinese government established its own BCI lab last year.

But Neuralink claims its devices can do more than its competitors’ can. According to Bloomberg, the company has turbocharged progress in a space that doesn’t see fast results.

If the product works as intended, the life of millions of people suffering from paralysis, stroke, Lou Gehrig’s disease, and hearing and vision loss could be vastly enhanced as the product improves.

Meanwhile, its notable progress already has investors looking for the next Neuralink. Yet again, Musk has reshaped an entire industry, and this one could be the most groundbreaking one yet.

Meta broke the biggest record of all

The company that started in Zuck’s dorm room turned two decades old on Sunday, and its celebrating with a record valuation. Well, not just a record valuation, Meta achieved the biggest single-day market cap gain in history.

Meta’s stock rose 20% on Saturday to a record $474.99, adding $197 billion to the Facebook and Instagram parent company’s valuation (which is now $1.22 trillion). It’s the most market value any US company has ever gained in a single day, according to Bloomberg.

How did they do it?

Meta released an astounding Q4 earnings report last week, showing the company tripled its profits compared to the same period the year before and recorded its fastest rate of revenue growth since 2021, which indicates a comeback for online advertising, per CNBC.

The company also stated that it will start paying out 50 cents/share quarterly dividends for the first time and is planning a $50 billion share buyback. Analysts say these are promising signs for investors to stick around, since it shows they have plenty of cash to spare and a reason for them to stay for the long haul.

That’s a nice raise: As the owner of about 350 million shares of Meta, Zuck added $28.1 billion to his net worth last Friday and stands to gain around $700 million each year from the dividend. Sheesh.

Quite the reversal

Exactly two years (and one day) before Meta recorded the biggest single-day market cap gain in history, the company recorded the largest single-day crash in stock market history.

Meta’s wipeout two years ago erased about $250 billion in value as Zuckerberg was trying to convince everyone the Metaverse was the new big thing.

The crash must’ve served as a wakeup call, because Zuck then announced “the year of efficiency”, which prompted some major changes: doubling Meta’s operating margin and reducing expenses by consolidating offices and laying off 22% of workers. Looks like things ended up working out for him.

Is this really the guy behind Bitcoin?

One of the defining lawsuits in all of crypto began this week. While it may be one of the most important cases regarding crypto, its probably concerning a man you’ve never heard of… Craig Wright.

Craig Wright is an Australian computer scientist and is on trial in the UK High Court over his claim that he is “Satoshi Nakamoto,” the inventor of bitcoin.

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? In 2008, someone going by the name Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper that laid the foundation for bitcoin. But, by 2011, Nakamoto, whose identity remained a secret, disappeared.

Wright doesn’t have many supporters

The Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a group of crypto and tech funds, brought the lawsuit against Wright to prove that he isn’t who he says he is, and thus, has no claim to the technology. The alliance hopes to stop Wright from claiming that others’ use of bitcoin software infringes on his intellectual property.

Why does this trial matter?

This case is a preliminary issue trial, meaning that the verdict will affect many other cases involving Wright and the plethora of bitcoin developers he’s suing, including Kraken and Coinbase.

If the court ends up finding that Wright isn’t Nakamoto, bitcoin can continue to exist as is now. But if it finds that he is, Wright could potentially make it illegal for developers to use bitcoin without his go ahead, which would upend the whole industry.

• The threat of legal action could scare off developers and possibly end bitcoin as we know it, according to experts.

COPA alleges that the white paper Wright put forward as evidence that he’s Nakamoto is fake. Yesterday, COPA’s lawyer called Wright’s statements a “brazen lie” and alleged that he used ChatGPT to falsify documents. Wright offered to settle last month, but COPA denied his offer.

Hey everyone,

We recently put together a FREE E-book to help you navigate the complex media landscape. Step by step, we outline how you can take control of your consumption of information in an objective and rational manner.

If this sounds like something you may like, click the link below for no cost.

We also offer a 75-page full version of the E-book that offers an even more comprehensive look into how you can take advantage of the information around us, for only $2.50.

Grab Bag

Colleges are bringing back SAT and ACT requirements

Apparently, colleges stopped using the ACT and SAT as requirements for admission. But now, they’re back to using them. Dartmouth will once again require possible students to submit SAT or ACT scores, the school said this week. They became the first Ivy League school to bring back the policy.

In case you didn’t know (we’re in the same boat), more than 600 institutions left SAT/ACT requirements behind during the pandemic. The majority of four-year universities are still test-optional.

Why change back?

Dartmouth is going back to the old ways after new studies found that standardized test scores predict college performance better than high-school grades do. The research says:

• The average college GPA for students who got a 4.0 in high school was only 0.1 points higher than for students who got a 3.2 in high school.

• Higher SAT/ACT scores have a much stronger correlation with post-college success than the high-school GPA does.

Going forward… Dartmouth’s decision could influence other top universities to follow suit. Georgetown and MIT have already switched back within the past couple of years, and MIT admitted the most diverse class in its history after reinstating the testing requirement, the dean of admissions told the New York Times.

Taylor Swift is suing over her jet and carbon emissions being tracked

I know everyone is probably tired of Taylor Swift news (myself included), but here we go. Attorneys for Taylor Swift have threatened legal action against a 20-year-old college student who has been tracking her and other notable celebrities private jet flights.

Jack Sweeney, the man behind various flight-tracking social media accounts, received a cease-and-desist letter from Swift’s lawyers in December, the Washington Post said Tuesday. The letter claimed his accounts caused “direct and irreparable harm” to Swift.

Swifties look away

Scrutiny of Swift’s movements has hit all-time highs in the past few weeks:

• Both fans and the Japanese Embassy (I’m serious) have questioned whether she can make it to Las Vegas from Tokyo (where she’s performing this weekend) to see her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, play in the Super Bowl on Sunday.

• With all her jetting around, Swift has faced criticism for the carbon emissions caused by her private jet, which primarily gained traction because of Sweeney’s flight tracking.

According to The Associated Press, Swift’s trip from Tokyo to Las Vegas alone could release more than 200,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. Swift has also been criticized in the past for her jet use, as she was cited as the “biggest CO2 polluter of the year” in 2022, and consistently ranks among the top celebrities in terms of carbon emissions.

What does Sweeney say about all this? He told the Washington Post that all the flight data is publicly available and only points to cities she might be in… exactly like her concert schedules.

Fast Facts

Sharp Smile: Researchers used a drone to capture what they believe is the first image ever of a baby great white shark.

Airplane Anomaly: Bolts were missing from an Alaska Airlines-operated Boeing plane before the whole door plug incident in January, government regulators said in a preliminary report.

Hedge Hoarders: Ecologists found that England has so many hedgerows that if they were lined up, they would stretch around the globe 10 times.

Fraudulent Firing: Gina Carano sued Lucasfilm and Disney over her firing from The Mandalorian, and X is helping to cover the bill since she was allegedly cut for her posts on the platform.

Car Caution: Toyota urged the owners of 50,000 older vehicles in the US to get repairs over a potentially deadly airbag problem.

If you enjoyed our newsletter even a little bit, please don’t hesitate to share, it would mean a lot! 😄 Also, if you’d like more snippets and critical analysis of the media please follow our X (Twitter) down below!