Curated Commons // Edition 155
Welcome to the 155th edition of Curated Commons! Thank you for subscribing, reading and sharing.
Feel free to share if you like the newsletter and want to give a shoutout. Thank you.
Your new car is spying on you
Rejoice, for most of us might not just be driving around a carbon-spewing machine, but also a data-harvesting one - Read here
Gold from e-waste
Interesting new approach to converting the ~7% of world’s gold that is currently sitting in unused electronics and converting it into jewelry - Read here
Obesity drugs that actually work are finally here. And that will impact the food industry
What’s good for consumers might not be good for companies, food industry edition. Nevertheless, it’s a big sign of the growing efficacy of these drugs that the financial services industry is taking note - Read here
And just in case you haven’t seen, this demand for the blockbuster obesity injection has made Danish company Novo Nordisk’s market cap exceed Denmark’s economic output - Read here
Can education go virtual?
There’s a new startup, and willing parents, attempting just that. With only a VR headset! - Read here ($)
Next big thing for music companies - ‘superfan’ monetization?
Why charge all fans equally when you can charge the superfans more? Goldman Sachs thinks there’s a sizeable market in that - Read here
There are other experiments too in place. Universal Music just signed a new agreement with French Streaming company Deezer to start giving differentiated payouts to artists based on identifying ‘noise’ - Read here ($)
“There’s only a finite pool of truly exceptional students”
24-year old interns that are paid $19,200 a month so companies can catch ‘em young! The war for talent sure is real, for some. - Read here ($)
A biohacking company is using a crypto city to test its gene therapies
How much of that sentence would have made sense a few years ago? - Read here
One truly good emerging use case for AI - make meetings tolerable, by not having to focus on them!
There’s hope yet for smart AI use cases! - Read here
Is there such a thing as ‘too dangerous’ tech?
Apparently, some of the big tech companies drew that line at facial recognition of unknown people - the ability to put a name to a stranger’s face. - Read here ($)
Is it time for a digital equivalent of “Do Not Resuscitate”?
People are apparently turning to chatbots that impersonate their loved ones as a means of coping with grief. Raises a whole host of questions - Read here
On a related, and lighter, note, check this Amazon Prime series called Upload.
Mediocrates - What happens when all of us rely too much on ChatGPT
A good satirical take! - Read here
Thank you for reading Curated Commons! If you liked what you read, please consider sharing it with your friends and colleagues. I also welcome any feedback you may have, so please don't hesitate to reach out to me on X (DMs open). Thanks again, and happy reading!