Facebook’s Declining Youth Numbers; Hertz Orders 100,000 Teslas; Pre-Release Intel Chip Edges Past Mac M-1 Max; Cardboard Shortage-Really?

Facebook is getting slammed by numerous line employees for the ongoing scandal around the platform’s inability to block (or refusal by top execs to stop) the organizing and ginning up of the January 6th insurrection. Many are outraged that the company has put their rather huge profits ahead of safety. Another leak points to why Zuck and co. may have done so. Theverge.com reports that teen use of Facebook in the US is down 13% since 2019, and is projected to drop another 45% the next 2 years! Young adults 20 to 30 are expected to drop by 4% over that time frame. According to internal documents, the social network is concerned about losing an entire generation. The part the top execs don’t seem to grasp is that the young people highly value truth and honesty….they are very idealistic, and plugged in…and many are probably leaving DUE to the platform’s refusing to block Stop the Steal and other inflammatory posts. The kids increasingly see Facebook as something for people in their 40’s, 50’s and up…not for them. All the misinformation and posts that keep older people angry and engaged are actually driving away the younger generation. It is unlikely that the planned name change will do anything to stop that. They really need to change their ways…and fast.

Good news and bad news at Tesla. First the good…or really great news. Hertz has ordered 100,000 Teslas, the biggest EV purchase ever. According to Bloomberg, that rings up the cash register to the tune of about $4.2 billion for the EV maker. The cost of the order indicates that Hertz is paying sticker price, and not getting a discount…rental car firms usually get a nice discount for fleet orders from car makers. Model 3’s will be available to rent in major USSS markets and parts of Europe by early November. 

On the down side, ‘issues’ have forced Tesla to pull its latest full self-driving beta. One of those is a ‘regression’ with left turns. Testers have posted about phantom forward collision warnings, too. Elon Musk says they are rolling back from version 10.3 to 10.2 temporarily. He Tweeted ‘Please note, this is to be expected with beta software. It is impossible to test all hardware configs in all conditions with internal QA, hence public beta.’

The past year, Apple’s M1 chip has embarrassed Intel’s chips with their speed and power. That era may over for a bit. Zdnet.com says that a pre-release version of Intel’s Alder Lake chip beats Apple’s latest M1 Max chip by a slim margin. The Intel chip bested the Apple one in both single-core and multi-core benchmarks. The Intel single-core score was 1851, while Apple’s was 1785. Multi-core it was 13256 to 12753. Both Intel and Apple blew past AMD’s top chip by a big margin, though. The Alder Lake CPU chips should be available by the end of the year in Windows machines.

After the Great Toilet Paper shortage, then computer chips and other shortages of numerous items, here’s one we didn’t see coming….a cardboard shortage! Relax…the biggest buyer of cardboard, Amazon, is first in line, and you will get your packages! Arstechnica.com reports that many of the mills that produce cardboard around the world were down due to the pandemic for periods of time. Now, they are scrambling to make up orders. Adding to the issue…the power outage in Texas last winter closed plants that produce plastic from oil, and some shippers had to switch to cardboard instead. What you can expect is smaller shippers that don’t have Amazon’s clout may have delays in getting your stuff, or may have to use some interesting alternative packaging!