🎬Do you sell cars?

November 21, 2024

Good morning. If you plan on sending an emoji in your chats today, be aware that your recipient might have no idea what you’re trying to convey. A new survey from Preply found that more than 80% of people were confused by someone else’s use of an emoji.

And the three most confusing emojis are:

  1. 💅

  2. 💨

  3. 🙃

Half of you think that means "phew, escaped a fancy event". The other half thinks that means "just farted on my nails, hehe" and you're both right.

— Benying Ogar, Edna Akanni

CURRENCIES

*Currency exchange rates against the US dollar as of market close. Here’s what these numbers mean

Currencies: Bitcoin yesterday joined investors “to the moon” as it etched even closer to the 100k mark. Good for you, Odell.

AUTO
Jaguar is getting a luxury facelift

Unsplash

Jaguar’s new rebrand is generating hearty public discourse, and most of us don’t even own one. The company unveiled a modern design overhaul yesterday that bucks its longstanding old-money aesthetic as part of a huge marketing shift as it gears up to release a new electric fleet of cars in 2026.

Why the rebrand? Jaguar is in its doldrums. In 2022, it had lost about 45% of its market share from the previous year with sales tumbling down by 37%. The automaker only moved ~8,000 vehicles last year, compared to 350,000 each by BMW and Mercedes. Instead of continuing to compete (and lose) against those premium makers, Jaguar is relaunching itself as a high-end, luxury EV brand hoping to sit among the ranks of Bentley and Rolls-Royce.

What’s new? Design-wise, the ol’ growling Jag is gone, replaced by fresh logos and a sleek new typeface that left fans perplexed. But the real change will come on the lot. Jaguar will stop producing its only current model, the best-selling F-Pace SUV, at the end of this year and will replace it with three EV models. The company said that the new cars will cost roughly twice as much as previous ones.

Take it from the world’s richest man. In response to the ad posted on X which didn’t feature any cars, Elon Musk tweeted “Do you sell cars?”. Jaguar humorously replied, inviting Musk to join them in Miami to see the future of the brand.

Looking ahead…Jaguar will preview its concept car for the first time on Dec. 2 during Miami Art Week. - EA.

TEST YOURSELF
Chat GPT>Shakespeare?

DN Smith/iAI

Amateur readers can’t dependably differentiate between classic works of poetry written by literary icons like William Shakespeare and ChatGPT-3.5-created poems that are modeled after them, a study published in the journal Scientific Reports last Thursday discovered.

It gets even more intriguing: Those readers rated the AI-generated poems more highly, on average, than the human-written ones, and more often thought the AI poems were written by humans.

Take the test yourself to see if you can tell the difference between a famous human poet and a robot imitator.

SHOWER THOUGHTS

“The ‘ea’ in ‘tea’ is silent.”

NEWS
Round the continent

  • Mali’s civilian Prime Minister, Choguel Maiga was sacked yesterday following his criticism of the junta that has now been in power for three years.

  • A civil lawsuit has been filed against Venacio Mondlane, who was the opposition candidate in Mozambique’s recently contested elections. He lost to incumbent, Daniel Chapo.

  • The EU pledged on Tuesday to borrow $96 million to Cameroon to support its infrastructural growth and attract foreign investments.

  • The Nigerian military was able to fend off a terrorist attack on the country’s power grid installations. Fifty insurgents were killed.

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