Brief - The Hustle

Digits: Bible apps, ‘The Crown’ thieves, and AI racers

Written by Jacob Cohen | Feb 28, 2022 2:36:44 PM

1) The KJV Bible app is quite popular right now, having been downloaded 5m times in January on Android. Interestingly, it appears to be owned by a Hong Kong gaming company. Also interesting: The YouVersion Bible app, which started out of an Oklahoma megachurch, has ~500m downloads.

2) Here’s some royal tea: At least 200 items from the set of The Crown’s 5th season — worth some $200k — were stolen from their storage vehicles recently. Among the items were a replica 1897 Fabergé egg, gold candelabras, and a 10-piece silver table set.

3) Despite all the talk of remote work and digital nomads, Americans are actually moving around less than ever. A study found that Americans looking to move are 45% less likely to do so than Americans were in the 1970s.

4) Here’s a pretty logical equation: the longer the movie, the higher the production costs. For films with a lot of visual effects, an additional 30 minutes of screen time could spike costs by 25%. And films do seem to be getting longer.

5) Sony’s AI unit engineered a program that beat one of the globe’s top Gran Turismo Sport players. How did they train it? By having it train on ~1k PlayStation 4 consoles, of course. It took ~4 hours to be as good as your average Joe, and a couple days to beat Takuma Miyazono, a top racer.