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🤖 Robots, Retail, and Rotten Braincells

🤖 Robots, Retail, and Rotten Braincells

Amazon pays up, humanoids go open-source, and Costco keeps crushing expectations.

May 30, 2025

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👋 Good Morning. Amazon is paying up to license journalism, humanoid robots are coming for your office badge, and Costco’s earnings just flexed on Wall Street.

TL;DR: Friday’s feed = media meets AI, robots go open source, and Costco quietly crushes it.

What’s Merging Today:
• 🧠 Amazon strikes AI licensing deal with NYT
• 🤖 Hugging Face drops humanoid robots
• 💸 Costco beats Wall Street expectations
• 💡 Apple App Store hits $400B milestone
• 🧡 Tinder lets users filter by height

MERGE MINDBLOWERS

🧊 The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was -144°F in Antarctica. Your breath would crystallize instantly.
🕵️‍♂️ The CIA once tried to spy on the Kremlin with a cat implanted with a microphone. It failed when the cat got hit by a taxi.
📚 There's a word for the day you realize your parents are just people: “sonder.”
🧬 A small percentage of humans have a mutation that makes them immune to HIV.
🦑 Octopuses have three hearts and blue blood. When they swim, their hearts stop beating.

TODAY IN AI

Amazon inks AI licensing deal with NYT

Image Credit: REUTERS

Amazon and The New York Times have finalized a multi-year licensing agreement, giving Amazon rights to use NYT content to train its AI models and power Alexa features. The deal covers articles from the Times, The Athletic, and NYT Cooking—making it the first such AI-related licensing pact from the Times, which is currently in litigation against OpenAI and Microsoft.

🤖 Why it matters: This is a precedent-setter. As AI models continue to scrape the internet, original content creators are pushing back—and getting paid.

TODAY IN TECH

Hugging Face unveils open-source humanoid robots

Meet HopeJr, a full humanoid robot lowering the barrier to entry!
Capable of walking, manipulating many objects, open-source and costs under $3000 🤯
Designed by @therobotstudio and @huggingface 👇
— Remi Cadene (@RemiCadene)
9:07 AM • May 29, 2025

AI giant Hugging Face just launched two open-source robots: HopeJR, a full-size humanoid with 66 degrees of freedom, and Reachy Mini, a small tabletop robot. They're built for tinkering, priced affordably, and open to developer contributions. This is Hugging Face's push to democratize robotics like it did with machine learning.

🚀 Why it matters: This could be robotics’ Raspberry Pi moment—bringing physical AI development into homes, schools, and startups.

TODAY IN BUSINESS

Costco reports blowout Q3 earnings

Image Credit: Getty Images

Costco's Q3 revenue hit $63.21 billion, an 8% increase YoY, with net income surging to $1.9 billion. The retail giant saw comparable store sales rise 5.7%, continuing its trend of quietly outperforming rivals by sticking to low-margin, high-volume strategies. Despite market turbulence, Costco’s model proves resilient.

📈 Why it matters: In a world of shrinking wallets and AI hype, good old-fashioned bulk groceries still win.

MERGE TOOLS

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📬 Beehiiv
A comprehensive newsletter platform built for growth. Offers tools for content creation, audience segmentation, and monetization. Exclusive Offer: 30-day trial + 20% OFF for 3 months.
📰 The Sample
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🛠️ Want More? Check out our Top 50 AI Tools.

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