👋 Good morning. What’s playing through your headphones right now? Is it Taylor Swift? Or Bad Bunny? It very well might be: Spotify — which just turned 20 — released data from the last two decades of streaming, and Swift topped the list for the most streamed artist while Bad Bunny’s "Un Verano Sin Ti" was the most streamed album. The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” came out on top for the most played song, which is either about unrequited love or struggling with astigmatism, you decide.
NEWS FLASH
💸 Check your phone — your stocks just texted: Startup Astor raised $5m to give everyday investors financial advice. Astor connects to an investor’s portfolio and gives advice by text or voice through an AI chatbot. The startup — which has ~4k customers — charges $15 a month or $40 for an unlimited Pro plan. Since financial advice is highly regulated, any guidance dished out by Astor’s bots is fact-checked by human agents. The bigger perk: You can finally say you have a “money guy.”
📱 Give your thumbs a rest: Noscroll, a startup founded by former OpenSea CTO Nadav Hollander, made an AI bot to escape three very modern concepts: brainrot, doomscrolling, and rage bait. It’ll browse your feeds for you, then text you when it finds something relevant. Users can text a number to connect Noscroll to their X accounts, then tell the bot what they care — and don’t care — about. It pulls from X as well as other news and blog sources.
👽 Sorry, Mulder, no aliens: Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Smithsonian Institution have figured out what the “golden orb” at the bottom of the Gulf of Alaska is after over two years of study and DNA sequencing. It was the remains of a giant deep sea anemone. If you need more sea mysteries, fret not. NOAA physical scientist Sam Candio told Futurism, “We see weird stuff every dive.”
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
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Sometimes cheap meat is a good thing: Japanese conglomerate Ajinomoto is developing a plant-derived alternative to an expensive cell-culture protein in cultivated meat, possibly bringing us one step closer to accessible lab-grown meat.
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Does the EV industry have any charge left? Porsche thinks so — the automaker will start selling an all-electric Cayenne coupe this summer for $113k+.
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Go play outside: Norway is the latest country to consider banning children under 16 from social media. Australia was first, with similar laws in consideration in Denmark, France, the UK, and elsewhere.
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More Polymarket drama: On the heels of three politicians accused of betting on their own campaigns, a US soldier allegedly made $400k+ on Polymarket using classified info to bet on the capture of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.
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THE BIG IDEA
The inventor who made sneakers roll
For some, rollerskates ruled. For others, rollerblades were rad.
But for a certain age group, the only way to roll was Heelys — sneakers with retractable wheels in the heels.
For those, we can thank Roger Adams.
The late inventor spun a dark time into rolling footwear that inspired joy — and made him a millionaire, per The New York Times.
Even if you've never worn Heelys, you've likely seen kids — and adults — gliding along, wind in their hair.
Wheels of fortune
Born to roller rink owners and roller skating at nine months old, Adams' wheeled future was perhaps foretold. But after a brief stint in the skating industry, he would become a psychologist.
Years later, divorced and hating work, Adams took joyful inspiration from the roller skaters, skateboarders, and cyclists on a California boardwalk. A tinkerer, he took to a friend's garage, chopped the heel off a sneaker and jammed a rod with a skateboard bearing through it.
After several tweaks and falls, Heelys were born in 2000. They quickly sold out and became a pop culture craze.
- Wired praised Heelys as "the next step in personal mobility" in 2001.
- Initially designed for kids, adults also enjoyed them, with Usher and Shaquille O’Neal helping the buzz.
- In 2004, 697k pairs were sold and in 2006, the company went public.
- Despite doubts that the fad would last, by 2008, sales hit 7.6m.
- Malls and schools banned Heelys, citing safety concerns, though the company countered that they were safer than other activities.
- Adams sold $26m in stock in 2006, and left the company in 2009.
Let the good times roll, again
The nostalgia pendulum swung back for Heelys.
- Social media posts feature adults rediscovering their love for Heelys and a new generation rolling for the first time.
- White Castle, home of the slider, launched a branded pair last year.
- Priced around $70, they're still sold in over 30 countries.
While Adams has rolled on to greener pastures, his words inspire the tinkerer in us all. “Follow your dreams and roll the dice. There are plenty of doors that are shut; find a way to open one."
Now where are my old rollerblades?
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Would you pay $56 for a water bottle? We spoke with water sommeliers, dug into water quality reports, and compared contents to understand how some brands get away with charging so much.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Number of full-time jobs that will be created by the data center that JPMorganChase is building in the town of Orangeburg, New York, per New York Focus. In exchange for its "contribution" to the local economy, the financial giant is receiving $77m in government subsidies for the project.
To be fair, Steven Porath, executive director of the Rockland County Industrial Development Agency, which approved the project, did say it would generate temporary work for ~1.4k local contractors — but as far as what’ll remain after those jobs dry up? Likely noise and air pollution, and potentially higher utility bills.
AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: In 1981, Xerox introduced the first commercial computer mouse in the Xerox 8010 Star Information System.
🎶 That’s cool: Find out which samples artists used in their songs.
📰 Newsletter: Semafor Flagship keeps you in the know with the 10 most important stories each day.
🍠 That’s interesting: The difference between a yam and a sweet potato.
🐦 Aww: That’s a lot of birds.
SHOWER THOUGHT
A good round of applause shouldn't have everyone clapping at the same beat. SOURCE
Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah, Danny Jensen, and Singdhi Sokpo.
Editing by: Sara "Heel yeah" Friedman.
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