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Good morning and welcome to Wednesday.
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⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today’s newsletter takes 3.86 minutes to read. (With the 360° view: +3.43 minutes.)
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."
–Beverly Sills (1929-2007)
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👇📰 Quick Bits
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📱 Google Unleashes the New Pixel
 Image: Chris Welch/The Verge
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🎁 Not to be outdone by Apple’s “Unleashed” event on Monday, Google unveiled the full details of its new Pixel 6 ($599) and Pixel 6 Pro ($899) phones yesterday, the first to run on its in-house Tensor chip instead of Qualcomm’s processor.
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The chip promises to “really transform what we can do on the phone with machine learning and AI,” according to Google’s hardware boss Rick Osterloh.
📱 Pixel understood the assignment... It includes proprietary software features like “Magic Eraser,” which allows you to remove items from photos (AI fills in the gaps), and “Face Unblur,” which removes blurring from a moving subject and results in more accurate skin tone features. Plus a whole host of other stuff involving Live Translate and voice dictation.
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The phones also feature Android 12, the latest version of the software, which Google calls the biggest design change in its history.
🌐 Zoom out: Historically, smartphones have relied on third-party suppliers Qualcomm Inc. and, to a lesser degree, MediaTek for their processors, leading to a relative lack of differentiation.
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Prior to the launch of the iPhone 4, Apple announced they would make their own in-house. Designing processors is quite an undertaking, but it allows smartphone manufacturers to create proprietary feature sets to further differentiate their offerings.
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For instance – Google’s Android operating system runs on more than 3 billion devices around the world, and none of them will have all the software features of a Pixel 6.
📝 Bottom line: Google still has to prove it can sell the Pixel to a broader audience. The 6's proprietary software features, new operating system, and comparatively affordable price points may help advance the company’s case.
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♻️ Plastics Begone
 Image: Suns
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🎁 The NBA’s Phoenix Suns and WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury have partnered with material sciences company Footprint to eliminate all single-use plastics from their home stadium.
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The financial terms of the deal, which includes stadium naming rights, were not disclosed. Footprint was reportedly seeking a minimum ten-year agreement worth $9 million annually.
🥤 A brand new look… Fans attending the Suns’ first game of the season at the Footprint Center tonight will be served with plant-based replacements for disposable items like plates, cups, food trays, and utensils.
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Additionally, Footprint has replaced all garbage cans in the arena with recycling and compost containers and plans to implement other sustainability-focused practices over time.
🏟️ Zoom out: The sports industry in recent years has seen a handful of similar deals combining stadium naming rights with climate-focused initiatives.
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Amazon purchased the naming rights to Seattle’s downtown NHL/WNBA arena last August for a reported $300-400 million. The new Climate Pledge Arena plans to run entirely on renewable energy and become the first carbon-neutral arena in the world.
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Soon after, Ball Corp. acquired the rights to Denver’s NBA/NHL stadium partially to grow awareness and adoption of the company's recyclable aluminum products. (It's now appropriately called 'Ball Arena.')
📝 Bottom line: Companies are increasingly using sports – a reliable driver of TV ratings and in-person attendance – as a vehicle to promote their message of sustainability to the public.
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🍩 DONUT Holes…
 Image: Moon World Resorts
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☝️A $5-billion Moon-themed resort with an “active lunar colony” and moon-themed nightclub is coming to Vegas.
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🎤 The Recording Academy released its full inclusion rider on Tuesday in an effort to make the staffing of the annual Grammy Awards ceremony more diverse.
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🦍 Gorillas, a German on-demand grocery delivery company, closed a $1 billion Series C; the round values the company at $2.1 billion and is the largest private fundraise ever in its sector.
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🏛️ Democratic lawmakers are scaling back their plan that would require banks to submit more account information to the IRS, raising the key reporting threshold from $600 to $10,000 (as we alluded to in our past coverage).
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🏘️ Zillow will pause home buying through Zillow Offers for the rest of 2021 so it can work through a backlog of already-purchased homes; the company cites a shortage of labor and materials. (P.S., you’ve probably already seen the viral TikTok from September accusing Zillow of manipulating home prices).
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🇭🇹 The Haitian gang that kidnapped 16 Americans and one Canadian over the weekend is demanding $1M in ransom for each captive. (What are we talking about ?)
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🪙 The first bitcoin futures ETF rose more than 4% in its trading debut yesterday; the price of bitcoin is now within 1% of its all-time high. (Background on the story.)
+Bonus: What does Mars sound like ?
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🔥 The Hot Corner
💬 Heard Through the Grapevine…"It represents by far the largest civil penalty the Civil Rights Division has ever recovered in the 35-year history of the Immigration and Nationality Act's anti-discrimination provision." –Kristin Clarke, assistant U.S. attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, on a call with reporters.
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Facebook will pay up to $14.25M to settle an employment discrimination lawsuit, the Justice Department and Labor Department announced Tuesday.
🔢 Stat of the Day: Michael J. Fox has raised more than $1B for Parkinson's research over the last two decades.
📖 Worth Your Time… We Went to Vegas to Wring Joy From Heartbreak
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
⚖️ SCOTUS Takes On Qualified Immunity
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 Image: Emily Elconin/Bloomberg
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🎁 On Monday, the Supreme Court threw out two excessive-force lawsuits filed against police in Oklahoma and California, ruling that the officers involved were entitled to a form of legal protection known as qualified immunity.
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Case #1: The Supreme Court overturned a ruling that found an officer in California who placed his knee on a prone suspect could be sued.
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Case #2: The Court overturned a ruling that two police officers in Oklahoma could be sued because their actions before a fatal shooting escalated the potential for violence.
Both cases resulted in brief, unsigned opinions with no public dissent from any of the Justices.
📜 What’s qualified immunity ?... It’s a doctrine first recognized by the Supreme Court in 1967 that says police officers and other government officials can’t be sued for misconduct in civil court unless they’ve violated “clearly established” rights under the law.
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According to Court precedent, qualified immunity protects "all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law." In practice, it requires a plaintiff to show that an officer's action was virtually identical to conduct ruled impermissible in a previous lawsuit.
Critics of qualified immunity say this legal standard is unreasonably difficult to meet given the complexity of law enforcement encounters, while proponents argue the doctrine is necessary to allow officials to make split-second decisions under stressful circumstances without undue hesitation.
🏛️ Zoom out: Following last year’s police murder of George Floyd, congressional Democrats proposed getting rid of qualified immunity as part of a broader overhaul of police conduct.
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The issue proved to be a sticking point in talks with Republicans and was eventually dropped from the agenda. Even so, the two parties ended bipartisan police reform negotiations last month without coming to a deal.
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📣🗣💬 This Week's Poll Question
A 36-member, bipartisan commission tasked with studying potential changes to the Supreme Court released a draft report of its final review last week.
In your opinion, should Congress make any changes to the Supreme Court ?
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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🪙 Bitcoin Mining…
 GIF: YouTube
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🎁 North Vancouver last week announced it will be the world’s first city to be heated almost entirely by bitcoin mining.
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⚡ Why it matters: Bitcoin mining currently consumes about 104 terawatt-hours of electricity each year, according to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance.
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That’s more annual use than the entirety of Finland (pop. 5.5 million) and represents over 0.5 percent of all electricity consumption worldwide.
🚦 Giving the ‘green’ light… North Vancouver’s energy utility company teamed up with Canadian crypto miner MintGreen to produce renewable energy for the city via "Digital Boilers," Mintgreen's proprietary tech.
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It can recover more than 96% of the electricity used for bitcoin mining in the form of heat energy, which the city then plans to deliver to 100 commercial and residential buildings.
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🤗 Daily Dose of Positive
🌊🏠🌊 Whatever Floats Your … House
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 Image: CBC News
💭 Imagine this... You’re enjoying a beautiful Canadian Thanksgiving day in the province of Newfoundland when you go sit by your favorite lake to enjoy the view.
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As you’re taking in the sights, all of a sudden you see it.
A two-story house is gliding across the water, pulled along by little tug boats. It belongs to a woman named Daniele Penney, who dreamed of owning this exact house ever since childhood.
Here's some context: When she found out the owners were planning to tear the house down and rebuild in its place, Daniele and her boyfriend quickly formulated a plan to transport the home to their nearby waterfront property.
You gotta see it.
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
🎭 You're The Best Around
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Who is the only person to win four Best Actor/Actress Oscars ?
A) Daniel Day Lewis
B) Frances McDormand
C) Jack Nicholson
D) Katharine Hepburn
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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D) Katharine Hepburn
Hepburn is the only person in history with four Best Actor/Actress awards.
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Moreover, only two people – Daniel Day Lewis & Frances McDormand – have even won three such awards.
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