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Like many people, I logged endless hours playing Animal Crossing on my Nintendo Switch during the pandemic. But the next evolution of the Nintendo console could open up the door to playing third-party titles that the Switch has often missed out on, like Call of Duty.
The successor to the wildly popular Nintendo Switch, which has sold 129 million units, will have “closer alignment to gen8 platforms,” referring to Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One. That’s according to new, heavily redacted documents uncovered in the FTC’s antitrust investigation into Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard’s merger.
Many, including Eurogamer and Tom’s Guide, say it’s widely expected the company will announce the new console some time in 2024.
BREAKING NEWS
India’s foreign ministry rejected accusations that its “agents” were involved in the killing of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday said his country’s security agencies were pursuing “credible allegations” into the killing. Nijjar had been labeled a “terrorist” by his country of birth for supporting the formation of an independent Sikh homeland of Khalistan. Tensions between the two nations have been fraught recently, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declining to meet with Trudeau at the G20 Summit.
The U.S. military found a debris field Monday afternoon near the base where an F-35 fighter jet had gone missing after a U.S. Marine pilot ejected from it Sunday afternoon. The discovery comes amid a two-day-long search in which military personnel recruited the public’s assistance in finding the jet, going so far as to post on social media and work with the press to ask residents that might’ve seen the fighter jet to call a hotline they’d set up.
BUSINESS + FINANCE
Shares of British chip designer Arm are down about 18% from its intraday high last week after it went public in the largest IPO since 2021. The slump puts a potential damper on the reemergent IPO market ahead of two other high-profile IPOs scheduled for this week: grocery deliverer Instacart and marketing automation firm Klaviyo.
Oil prices hit another high for the year on Monday, sending shares of energy companies soaring. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said in an interview with Bloomberg that it “sure looks like” oil will surpass $100 per barrel, which would be the most expensive price for oil since August 2022.
TECH + INNOVATION
Generative AI startup Writer, used by firms like Spotify, Uber and Accenture, has raised $100 million to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise. But despite the crowded generative AI space, Writer CEO and cofounder May Habib told Forbes that enterprise customers are switching over to Writer because the quality of outputs generated by ChatGPT has deteriorated. Her startup’s revenue has increased by 10 times in the last two years and four times since the start of this year alone.
Elon Musk said users of X, formerly known as Twitter, may have to pay a monthly fee in what he described as an effort to keep bots off the platform. Musk has been working to monetize more of the site since he acquired it in October of last year, and even before his arrival to the company, X has been in need of revenue streams.
MONEY + POLITICS
Hunter Biden sued the IRS on Monday, alleging agents unlawfully disclosed confidential information about his taxes when giving interviews to the media about the ongoing investigation into him. The lawsuit comes days after the president’s son was indicted on three counts for separate allegations regarding his possession of a firearm while being a drug user and allegedly lying on his application for the gun.
Congress must pass a fiscal year 2024 budget by the end of September, but a coalition of hard-right Republicans said they would vote against the budget Republican leaders proposed Sunday, which could force a government shutdown. It’s the latest consequence of a deep ideological divide within the Republican Party, and a shutdown would almost certainly hurt the nation’s economy.
SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT
Pop singer Katy Perry, one of the best-selling music artists of all time, sold the rights to music she released between 2008 and 2020 to music rights company Litmus Music for a reported $225 million, the latest artist to give up the rights to their back catalog for a major payout. Forbes estimates Perry, 38, has a net worth of $38.5 million and ranked her among the highest-paid women in music between 2011 and 2019.
ABC will broadcast more Monday Night Football games this season than in almost two decades as the network struggles to fill its schedule without scripted originals like Grey’s Anatomy, Will Trent, 911 and Station 19 due to the Hollywood strikes. All games between October 2 and December 4—which were previously exclusive to ESPN—will air on both networks, which are owned by parent company Disney.
TRENDS + EXPLAINERS
Five U.S. prisoners were freed from Iran as part of an exchange with the U.S. government that includes the release of five Iranian prisoners imprisoned in the U.S. and unfreezing nearly $6 billion in Iranian assets. Negotiations between the U.S. and Iran have been ongoing for months, per ABC News, and President Joe Biden said “five innocent Americans who were imprisoned in Iran are finally coming home” after “many months of difficult and principled American diplomacy.”
DAILY COVER STORY
Do You Speak Droidish? The Pentagon Is Spending Millions On A Language For Drones
TOPLINE The Pentagon’s dream of autonomous drones executing military maneuvers in the heat of battle with little need for human involvement is closer than ever thanks to AI. There’s just one big problem: getting a swarm of drones from different manufacturers to talk to one another during warfare.
That’s where Droidish comes in.
“It lets R2-D2 talk to C-3PO,” Keven Gambold, Droidish’s mastermind and the CEO of government contractor Unmanned Experts, explained to Forbes, recalling the iconic robot duo from Star Wars.
Alongside the University of North Texas, Gambold has been experimenting with a language to help drones talk to each other since 2020, backed with over $7 million in Air Force contracts.
While Droidish is designed purely for “machine-to-machine discussions,” humans are needed to expand the language’s vocabulary as tasks get more sophisticated. Eventually, Gambold hopes the language will expand enough where any vehicle-to-vehicle system could use it to communicate, from self-driving cars to futuristic flying vehicles.
Cynics, though, say that removing most human participation from war maneuvers like these is an ethical quandary. What happens if autonomous systems target people they aren’t legally allowed to kill, like civilians, asks military drone expert Lucy Suchman.
The Air Force has been careful to position AI as a tool, not a weapon. Dr. Lee Seversky, a senior scientist for information superiority at the U.S. Air Force Research Lab, told Forbes that his department’s focus is on developing AI technologies to augment pilots.
“It allows us to pair what the machine is good at—to crunch numbers quickly, physics and models—with what the human is good at,” he said.
WHY IT MATTERS Spurred on by Ukraine’s extensive use of drones to defend against Russian invasion, and by fears of China’s advancing technological prowess, the Pentagon is spending big across research labs, academia and AI tech companies to ensure the U.S. is at the bleeding edge of next-generation drone warfare.
MORE Drones With ‘Most Advanced AI Ever’ Coming Soon To Your Local Police Department
FACTS AND COMMENTS
The IRS is hiring thousands of new workers after announcing its plans to ramp up enforcement on millionaires, complex partnerships and large corporations. IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said the hiring will help reverse a decade-long decline of audits for the wealthy:
3,700: The number of new employees the IRS is hiring in more than 250 locations
Approximately $80 billion: Additional funding for the IRS from the Inflation Reduction Act, which funded some of the new hires
$400,000: The IRS has said it will not increase audit rates for filers earning less than that
STRATEGY AND SUCCESS
While many employees want at least some flexibility to work from home, not everyone has the ability to. The information sector, as well as industries like finance, insurance, and professional and business services had the most remote work, according to Stanford researchers. Meanwhile, manufacturing, retail, transportation and warehousing, and hospitality and food services had the least. Black and Hispanic workers are more likely to be in jobs that don’t offer remote work, data shows.
VIDEO
QUIZ
In a new TikTok trend, users are asking men how often they think about a historic empire, and surprisingly some say they think about it daily or even more frequently. Which fallen empire does the trend that’s garnered more than a billion views reference?
A. Ottoman Empire
B. Byzantine Empire
C. Egyptian Empire
D. Roman Empire
Check your answer.
ACROSS THE NEWSROOM
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