Apple introduces 'contingent pricing'; Tesla strike continues to grow

🚗 Tesla strike continues to grow, now making its way to Norway. Link

• Norwegian unions join Denmark in blocking Tesla vehicle shipments to Sweden over labor disputes.

• Tesla insists its workers have better rights than unionized employees, while Norway pushes for collective bargaining agreements.

• The strike is escalating in Europe, with Norway being the third country to act against Tesla, signaling a growing solidarity movement.

💸 Spotify CFO cashes in $9.4m in shares after value surges on news of job cuts. Link

• Spotify's CFO Paul Vogel sold shares worth $9.4m as the company's value increased following the announcement of job cuts.

• The company's shares rose by up to 8% after the layoff news, with two other executives also selling over $1.6m in shares.

• Spotify aims to cut costs amid profitability challenges, leading to a workforce reduction by nearly a fifth.

🚗 An electric car completed the world's first-ever drive from the North to the South Pole. Link

• Scottish adventurers Chris and Julie Ramsey completed a nine-month, 17,000-mile expedition from the Magnetic North Pole to the South Pole in a modified Nissan Ariya electric vehicle, marking the world's first such journey in an electric car.

• The electric vehicle's range was reduced to 150-200 miles due to modifications and cold conditions, but battery efficiency was maintained through innovative heating strategies.

• Throughout their journey, the Ramseys utilized wind and solar power for charging.

🍏 Apple introduces 'contingent pricing,' redefining App Store dynamics. Link

• Apple has introduced a pilot program allowing app developers to offer discounts to customers with multiple subscriptions.

• Developers can advertise these discounts on the App Store, in email links, and through external marketing campaigns.

• The program aims to make Apple's platform more appealing to developers and customers amidst upcoming EU regulations for third-party app stores.

🤖 Microsoft unveils Phi-2, a small language model that packs power. Link

• Microsoft Research has released "Phi-2," a 2.7 billion-parameter small language model, demonstrating advanced reasoning and language understanding capabilities, outperforming some larger models.

• Phi-2's development focused on high-quality training data and scaling techniques from the preceding 1.3 billion parameter model, Phi-1.5, which contributed to its enhanced performance and efficiency.

• Phi-2, with its reduced size, performs better than larger models like Mistral and Llama-2 on various benchmarks and is available in the Azure AI Studio for research purposes.

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