OpenAI’s Sora Is Here. How the New AI Video Generator Works. | Entrepreneur

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OpenAI has added a new Sora video generator to ChatGPT that can create videos from text, animate images, and convert existing videos to new styles.

OpenAI made Sora broadly available to the general public on Monday after a video announcement showing off what the AI could do.

Per OpenAI’s demo video, Sora starts with a text prompt, an image, or a video, which it then uses to generate videos in resolutions from 480p up to 1080p. It currently produces anywhere from 5 seconds to 20 seconds of video.

Sora can also generate different options for the same prompt. So if a user isn’t sure what they want their AI video to look like, they can ask Sora to generate one, two, or four variations of the same prompt to get more options.

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This Coffee and Garden Shop’s Strategies for Winning Customers | Entrepreneur

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Nestled in the heart of St. Louis, Missouri, Maypop is a coffee and garden shop known for its cozy charm and abundant greenery. People from all walks of life gather here to reconnect with nature and each other.

Julia Valleroy, Maypop’s administrative coordinator, was once one of those customers seeking a garden escape and a good cup of coffee. Now part of the team, Valleroy says Maypop’s dual business model still provides that warmth and magic for her and many others.

“You really don’t see [anything like Maypop] around here in the Midwest at all,” she says. “How many places can you go where you can get coffee and also buy some flowers for your front porch or a tropical houseplant that you’ve been dreaming of having?”

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Hawk Tuah’s crypto launch is the latest celebrity investment disaster | Mashable

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Bitcoin has just hit $100,000.

Buoyed by Donald Trump’s reelection and the promise of a pro-cryptocurrency administration, crypto investors are going all in on the digital currency. With the price of Bitcoin rising high, cryptocurrency is seemingly seeping back into the public consciousness after the crypto crashes of 2022.

And, it appears the memecoin fad is having a resurgence right now too. On the same day Bitcoin hit its new six-figure record high, the viral “Hawk Tuah” girl Hailey Welch launched her own cryptocurrency token $HAWK.

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OpenAI one step closer to the Pentagon thanks to partnership with defense startup | Mashable

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OpenAI has entered into its first major defense partnership, a deal that could see the AI giant making its way into the Pentagon.

The joint venture was recently announced by billion-dollar Anduril Industries, a defense startup owned by Oculus VR co-founder Palmer Lucky that sells sentry towers, communications jammers, military drones, and autonomous submarines. The “strategic partnership” will incorporate OpenAI’s AI models into Anduril systems to “rapidly synthesize time-sensitive data, reduce the burden on human operators, and improve situational awareness.” Anduril already supplies anti-drone tech to the U.S. government. It was recently chosen to develop and test unmanned fighter jets and awarded a $100 million contract with the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office.

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GM is struggling so much in China, it had to announce massive charges to fix its business | CNN Business

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China, once GM’s largest and most important market, has become its biggest problem.

General Motors told shareholders on Wednesday that it would record two non-cash charges totaling more than $5 billion on its joint venture in China, one related to the restructuring of the operation and another reflecting its reduced value.

GM expects the charge for restructuring costs to be $2.6 to $2.9 billion and the charge for reduced joint-venture value to be $2.7 billion.

The automaker’s shares were down 2.7% before the bell.

GM partners with SAIC Motors in China to build Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac vehicles.

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Coca-Cola is dramatically scaling back its plastic promises | CNN Business

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Coca-Cola is scaling back its packaging sustainability goals, igniting outrage from environmental activists.

The beverage company, which has long been criticized for being one of the world’s top producer of plastic pollutants, changed its “voluntary environmental goals” this week. It now aims to use 35% to 40% recycled material in its packaging by 2035 — a drastic reduction from its previous goal of 50% by 2030.

Coca-Cola explained in a press release that its “evolution is informed by learnings gathered through decades of work in sustainability, periodic assessment of progress and identified challenges.”

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Future wearable devices could draw power through your body using background 6G cellphone signals | Live Science

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Your body could become a battery for wearable devices, thanks to a breakthrough in harvesting waste energy from 6G wireless communication.

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that waste radio frequency (RF) energy given off by visible light communication (VLC), if used to deliver 6G, can be harvested with small, inexpensive copper coils and transmitted to power other devices via the human body. 6G is a future wireless communication technology that is currently in development and is set to be deployed before the end of the decade.

As outlined in a 2022 research paper, the crux of this mechanism lies with VLC — which transmits data through extremely fast flashes of visible light from sources such as LEDs. VLC is one method through which 6G signals might hypothetically be transmitted in the future. But LEDs also emit side-channel RF signals, as a form of leaked energy. The researchers found that this could be harvested by a coiled copper wire, whose energy recycling efficiency is boosted when touching human skin.

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PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ can be degraded with light, research says | Fast Company

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Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have earned the nickname “forever chemicals” from their extraordinary ability to stick around in the environment long after they’ve been used.

These synthetic compounds, commonly used in consumer products and industrial applications for their water- and grease-resistant properties, are now found practically everywhere in the environment.

While many chemicals will degrade relatively quickly after they’re disposed of, PFAS can stick around for up to 1,000 years. This durability is great for their use in firefighting foams, nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing, and even food packaging.

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12 strange reasons humans haven’t found alien life yet | Live Science

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One night about 60 years ago, physicist Enrico Fermi looked up into the sky and asked, “Where is everybody?”

He was talking about aliens.

Today, scientists know that there are millions, perhaps billions of planets in the universe that could sustain life. So, in the long history of everything, why hasn’t any of this life made it far enough into space to shake hands (or claws … or tentacles) with humans?

It could be that the universe is just too big to traverse. It could be that the aliens are deliberately ignoring us. It could even be that every growing civilization is irrevocably doomed to destroy itself (something to look forward to, fellow Earthlings).

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Give Your Employees Career Growth | Business News Daily

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Few people find joy in doing the same thing forever. And because full-time employment takes up more than one-fifth of employees’ time per week, most workers want a long-term career path that involves change and progress. This is just one reason you should work with your employees to create growth paths, and doing so will benefit your business, too. Learn why it’s important to establish these career paths and how to create career development opportunities for your team.

Why career development opportunities are important

Career development opportunities are important because they keep employees happy, and happy employees stick around longer. Lowering employee turnover is always a key small business goal, as it saves time and money on recruiting and training while preserving vital institutional knowledge that only veteran employees have.

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