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Good morning and welcome to Wednesday.
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⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today’s newsletter takes 4.69 minutes to read. (With the 360° view: +3.39 minutes.)
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👇📰 Quick Bits
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💳 Swiper, No More Swiping
Image: Sopa Images
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🎁 DONUT Headline: Mastercards, that is. The payments network is phasing out magnetic stripes on its cards starting in 2024. The phase-out will begin in Europe, and will reach the U.S. in 2027.
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From 2029 onward, no new Mastercard debit or credit cards will come with a magnetic stripe, and they’ll be gone completely by 2033.
📜 Swiping, A History (*Hermione voice*)… The Diners Club, Inc. unveiled the first universal credit card in 1950. By the end of the decade, other merchants and banks started issuing their own cards, including the first plastic credit card in 1959.
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The first magnetic stripe appeared in the early 1960s, an innovation largely credited to IBM. Pre-stripe, cashiers would take an imprint of the card and send the paper copy for reconciling and billing, a slow process that was open to human error.
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Fraud was also an issue: with no “payment successful” message, it was tough to tell whether a customer was actually good for the purchase. Credit card companies would circulate a list of bad account numbers each month, and the merchant would have to compare the customers’ cards against the list.
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The stripe allowed banks to encode card information onto magnetic tape laminated to the back. It paved the way for electronic payment terminals and chip cards, offering more security and real-time authorization while making it easier for businesses of all sizes to accept cards.
🔒 A new, more secure POS standard emerges… The EMV standard, to be exact (short for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa). Introduced in the 1990s, EMV cards use a smart chip instead of a mag stripe to store the data needed to process a transaction.
🔭 Zoom out: EMV chips were used for 73% of face-to-face card transactions in the U.S. last year.
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But tap-to-pay transactions grew more than 30% in 2020, according to Visa.
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And autonomous checkout tech is here – AKA, shop and just walk out. Amazon debuted its “Just Walk Out” technology, which uses a combination of computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning, in one of its full-sized grocery stores this past June.
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📺 If You Play It, They Will Watch
Image: Ron Vesely/Getty Images
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🎁 DONUT Headline: The first-ever ‘Field of Dreams’ Game was a resounding success, and the MLB has given it the go-ahead for round two next year.
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Last Thursday, the Chicago White Sox beat the New York Yankees in a 9-8 walk-off thriller Hollywood couldn’t have scripted better.
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FOX said the game drew the largest viewing audience for a regular-season baseball game in more than 15 years (5.87 million viewers; more than double the previous high this year). It also revealed ad sales revenue from the game totaled more than any other MLB contest this season.
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The game also drew 17.4 million views across all social platforms over two days – up 16% over the MLB on FOX All-Star Week performance.
Even before the numbers came in, the MLB announced two teams would return to Dyersville, Iowa in 2022 for the state’s second-ever game. On Monday, the league revealed the teams will be the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds.
🔭 Zoom out… Ratings for the Big Four U.S. sports leagues have all declined since the pandemic began. But that hasn’t slowed demand among TV networks, who still appear willing to spend big bucks for the exclusive right to air live sports.
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NFL: In March, the league finalized a new 11-year media rights agreement reportedly worth north of $100 billion, which would be the richest U.S. sports media deal in history.
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NBA: Early reports indicate the league is seeking a nine-year, $75 billion rights package starting in 2025-26 (up from its current nine-year, $24 billion deal).
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MLB: The league finalized a seven-year, $12.24 billion media rights deal in May that pays nearly $250 million more per year than its current agreement.
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NHL: Last month, the league completed a seven-year media rights deal reportedly worth $625 million per year (more than doubling its current deal worth ~$300 million annually).
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🍩 DONUT Holes
 Images: Bettman/AFP
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☝️The above is taken from an Axios photo essay comparing scenes from Afghanistan with scenes from the end of the Vietnam War.
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📢 The Taliban said yesterday it would honor women's rights and an independent media within the "frameworks" of Islamic law. What that means in practice is unclear. (From the Left | From the Right)
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🧾 Retail sales – a measure of purchases at stores, at restaurants, and online – fell 1.1% last month compared with June. Analysts expected a drop of ~0.3%, but excluding auto sales it was only 0.4%.
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🏅 Palantir bought $50 million in gold bars in August, the data analytics software company disclosed in its latest earnings statement.
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😷 The city of Chicago announced an indoor mask mandate for all individuals 2 years and older, regardless of vaccination status, beginning this Friday. (From the Left | From the Right) | The Biden administration plans to extend requirements for travelers to wear masks on airplanes, trains, and buses
and at airports and train stations through Jan. 18, three sources told Reuters. This was later confirmed by the TSA.
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🔥 The Hot Corner
💬 Heard Through the Grapevine… “Our result is a significant step forward in understanding what is required for it to work. To me, this is a Wright Brothers moment,” Omar A. Hurricane, Chief Scientist for the Inertial Confinement Fusion Program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, told CNBC after announcing a key achievement in fusion research on Tuesday. “It’s not practical, but we got off the ground for a moment.”
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For context: Fusion, the opposite reaction to nuclear fission, is when two atoms slam together to form a heavier atom and release energy. It’s the way the sun makes energy.
🔢 Stat of the Day… Swiss researchers spent 108 days calculating pi to a new record accuracy of 62.8 trillion digits.
📖 Worth Your Time… Read this letter from a female college student in Kabul, Afghanistan.
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
🗳️ The Election to Recall Gov. Newsom
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Image: RealClearPolitics
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🎁 DONUT Headline: Recent polling shows the election to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom is heating up; meanwhile, a pair of voters filed a federal lawsuit claiming the state recall process is unconstitutional.
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Gov. Newsom's chances of being recalled are just about dead-even, according to RealClearPolitics' aggregate polling average over the past month.
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The contest, which occurs September 14, marks the second recall election for governor in state history. The other took place in 2003, when Governor Gray Davis (D) was recalled and Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) became governor.
✉️ How does it work?... All 22 million registered voters in California are set to receive a ballot by mail featuring just two questions – 1) should Gov. Newsom be recalled? and 2) which of the 46 candidates - not including Newsom - should be the new governor. In-person voting will also be available on the day of the election.
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If more than half of voters choose "No" on the first question, Newsom will remain in office. If a majority votes "Yes," Newsom will be replaced by the candidate who receives the highest number of votes in the second question.
Image: RCP
☝️ Meet the candidates... According to public polling, the current frontrunner to replace Newsom is Republican Larry Elder, host of the nationally syndicated “Larry Elder Show” on talk radio. Other notable candidates include:
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2018 Republican nominee for governor John Cox
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Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer
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State Representative Kevin Kiley
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Former Olympian and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner
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Former congressman Doug Ose
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YouTube star Kevin Paffrath (who rose to prominence after being the only Democrat listed in a KABC/SurveyUSA poll)
The state GOP decided not to endorse any of the candidates so as not to discourage supporters of a Newsom recall who are passionate about a different candidate.
🌅 On the horizon... Two California voters filed a federal lawsuit late Monday challenging the legality of the state's recall election system.
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The plaintiffs argue the process violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution by allowing sitting governors to be replaced by candidates who have received fewer votes (which appears likely should Newsom be replaced).
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They seek a court order either prohibiting the recall election or adding Newsom's name to the replacement candidate list in the ballot's second question.
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📣🗣💬 This Week's Poll Question
Yesterday, we wrote about when you can expect to purchase a fully self-driving vehicle for yourself – TL;DR: probably don’t hold your breath. But commercially, Waymo is operating an autonomous taxi service in Phoenix as you read this, and Lyft is launching a partnership with Argo AI and Ford to allow riders in Miami to hail autonomous vehicles before the end of the year.
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Our question to you: If available in your area at this very moment, would you feel comfortable riding in an self-driving taxi powered by Waymo or Argo AI?
Yes
No
Unsure
+Note: Results and the most thoughtful responses will be featured in tomorrow’s newsletter.
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🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
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🤸♂️ Jump Around
Image: YouTube
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🎁 DONUT Headline: Robotics company Boston Dynamics released a new video of its Atlas robot doing parkour.
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Although Atlas robots had previously shown their physical ability to complete parkour, the skills showcased in the new video represent a different milestone: Atlas can now navigate a parkour course by adapting its behavior to what it sees.
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In other words, Atlas robots are now more independent athletes, meaning engineers don’t have to pre-program jumping motions for the scenarios the robots will encounter on a given course.
Initially unveiled in 2013, the five-foot-tall, 190-pound robots are slated to eventually carry out search and rescue tasks.
Keep reading.
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🤗 Daily Dose of Positive
💇♀️ A Very Hairy Solution
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Images: Matter of Trust
“Get a Haircut, Save a Beach” reads Lisa Gautier’s shirt. As founder and president of Matter of Trust, Lisa has dedicated her career to creating eco-friendly and sustainable solutions for her home of San Francisco and beyond.
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Over the past twenty years, she's pioneered the movement for hair mats – which are mats made of both human hair and animal furs.
Human and animal hair follicles are able to absorb up to nine times their weight in oil and waste. Using these mats in oceans to clean up oil spills have proven just as effective as synthetic solutions – and better for the overall environment.
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More than 40,000 hair salons have already donated clippings to the cause.
Keep reading.
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
🦷 Bite Mode, Activated
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Which animal has the most powerful bite in the world?
A) Hippo
B) Saltwater crocodile
C) Spotted hyena
D) Lion
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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🍩 Share The DONUT
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Simply:
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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D) Saltwater crocodile
In 2012, researchers compared 23 crocodilian species by persuading the reptiles to bite a metal sandwich on a pole. This "bite force transducer" measured how much pressure was applied across a pair of plates by the upper and lower jaw.
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The largest saltwater crocodiles delivered a force of 3,700 PSI, more than 3.5 times that of the previous record-holder, the spotted hyena.
+Worth noting: Researchers estimate a great white shark's bite force to be 4,000 PSI, but it's never been measured in field tests.
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty."
–Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
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