More NFT madness rounds out the news this week. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a tough week. But, it’s Thursday, and I’m on with Mark Starling, Seth, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week, Disaster Girl mints NFT gold, Amazon raises rank-and-file employee pay, Apple sales defy Wall Street expectations. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.
WOMAN IN ‘DISASTER GIRL’ MEME BANKS $450 THOU
Yeah. Will, you work too hard. Will, you’re in the wrong business. And…it’s true. The woman who was featured in the ‘Disaster Girl’ meme featured above has created the meme as an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) on the Ethereum network and has sold it for a cool $450 thousand dollars. Yeah, this meme has probably been passed around the Internet billions of times gratis, but some fool willingly paid all of this money because she minted it as an NFT. The woman, Zoe Roth, who’s now 21, but was 4 years old when the picture was taken; held a 24-hour auction for the picture and collected $458,000 or 180ETH. Thanks to Ethereum, she’ll earn a 10% royalty each time the image is resold. She’s going to split the dough with her family.
In other NFT madness, the world’s first NFT home was listed for sale on Zillow for $1.2 million. The 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 1800 square foot home in Thousand Oaks, California has a pool in the backyard, and is over priced for that many square feet. Californian Zillowers are saying they expect more for 1.2 mil.
AMAZON ANNOUNCES $1 BILLION SALARY INCREASE
That’s right. Yesterday, Amazon announced that 500,000 of its 1.3 million strong workforce will be receiving a pay increase between 50 cents to $3 per hour. The news comes as Amazon has gone gangbusters over the past year as Amazon trucks have become a permanent fixture on American neighborhood streets. Additionally, they are hiring tens of thousands of other personnel across the country. The pay increase is making news because tomorrow…is Amazon’s quarterly earnings call. I’m expecting ginormous numbers!
APPLE BUYS BACK STOCK AFTER PHENOMENAL QUARTER
If you’re an Apple investor like I am, enjoy the cigar you lit using a dollar bill. Apple reported sales of $89.6 billion, billion with a B, yesterday. These numbers are ridiculous. Apple’s sales were driven by sales of the iPhone 12, followed by Mac sales. What’s notable however is that Apple is warning investors to expect a $3 to $4 billion decline in sales later in the year because of a chip shortage. The chip shortage is expected to affect iPads and Mac primarily, but is also affecting other companies such as Ford. Apple says 5G and more people getting vaxxed are driving demand for their products.
SUPER BUG AFFECTS MAC SYSTEMS UPGRADE NOW
It’s been a few weeks since we reported a new vulnerability affecting Apple M1 based systems. This week, Apple announced a security update to fix a vulnerability in all MacOS systems. The culprit is a small piece of code which will allow an unsigned program to install itself on MacOS. The exploit bypasses Apple’s Gatekeeper and File Quarantine checks. The update is available now and all users are encouraged to install it.