Today’s topics

• Tesla stock surges with promise of new models

• Is the Universe a digital simulation?

• California’s renewable energy progress

• FTC bans noncompete agreements

  and more…

U.S. stocks mostly saw gains on Wednesday, buoyed by a wave of corporate earnings reports. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite climbed in early morning trades, whereas the Dow Jones Industrial Average remained largely unchanged.

Tesla stock surges with plans for faster, affordable model rollouts. Tesla has committed to accelerating the release of its "more affordable" electric vehicle models, boosting its stock as it recovers from recent losses. This comes despite a 9% drop in first-quarter revenue following a significant decrease in sales.

US Federal Trade Commission bans noncompete agreements. On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission voted to prohibit noncompete agreements, which prevent employees from joining or establishing competing firms for a set duration. Noncompetes often restrict tech workers, the FTC reports that these restrictions currently affect about 30 million people, or approximately one in five workers.

President signed the TikTok ban. President Biden has signed legislation that might lead to a TikTok ban, yet his campaign intends to maintain a presence on the platform regardless.

Claude 3 Opus Wows Researchers with Its Intelligence and Self-Awareness

Anthropic's AI tool has outperformed GPT-4 in crucial benchmarks and has some unexpected features — it can reflect on its own existence and recognize when it's undergoing tests.

Adobe's AI upscaling magic: from blurry videos to stunning HD. Adobe researchers have introduced a new generative AI model, VideoGigaGAN, capable of upscaling blurry videos to as much as eight times their original resolution.

VisionPro No More? The Vision Pro headset, developed by Apple over eight years with billions invested, is quickly losing momentum in both interest and sales. Initially, it was anticipated that the company would launch a more affordable, lighter model of the Vision Pro in the latter half of next year to address the main criticisms of the device. However, industry analysts now suggest that Apple may not release any new headset next year.

Are We All Living in a ‘Matrix’?

University of Portsmouth scientist Melvin Vopson, who explores the theory that the universe might be a digital simulation, claims to have something previous thinkers didn't: evidence. However, significant testing and verification are still needed to consider these ideas plausible. While there is as much skepticism as support for this digital existence theory, Vopson's Second Law of Infodynamics might yet yield intriguing findings. Nonetheless, the age-old question initially raised by Plato remains unresolved.

Are you looking to get in front of 15,000+ readers? Sponsor this newsletter.

California Runs on 100% Renewable Energy for Over 9 Hours

Last Saturday, while 39 million Californians engaged in everyday activities, the entire state was powered exclusively by clean electricity, without fossil fuels, for over nine hours. This remarkable achievement was repeated on Sunday, with California operating entirely on renewable energy for more than eight hours.

Take your love to the next level. Share Increadible with your friends, partners, or colleagues and get cool gifts.