Female ballplayers get turn at bat
Kelsie Whitmore, a pitcher and outfielder for the Atlantic League’s Staten Island FerryHawks — a team in the same division as the Long Island Ducks — said video game MLB The Show's new story-based mode will show the world that women in baseball are “taking their skills to the next level is possible.” Credit: Getty Images / Al Bello
For female ballplayers, it’s game on.
The 2024 edition of baseball simulation game MLB The Show features Road to the Show: Women Pave Their Way, a story-based mode where gamers create playable female competitors.
Kelsie Whitmore, a pitcher and outfielder for the Atlantic League’s Staten Island FerryHawks — a team in the same division as the Long Island Ducks — shared her experiences with developers as they created the mode. Whitmore said the game will show the world that women not only play baseball but “taking their skills to the next level is possible.”
Girls and women are an important demographic for video games. In 2023, female gamers accounted for 46% of the gaming universe, up from 38% in 2006, according to data compiled by Statista.
Inflation (Taylor’s Version)
The British government has added vinyl records to its list of items it uses to calculate the inflation rate for the first time since 1992 because of “resurgence in their popularity.” The bestselling vinyl album last year was Taylor Swift’s “1989 (Taylor’s Version).” Credit: Getty Images / Peter Nicholls
Taylor Swift is putting her spin on inflation. The British Office for National Statistics, which tracks 744 items to compute the nation’s inflation rate, added vinyl records to its list for the first time since 1992 because of “resurgence in their popularity.” Leading the vinyl revival was Taylor Swift’s “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” the bestselling vinyl album in the U.K. (and the United States) last year.
New Copilot flight plan
Microsoft is set to unveil features for “advancing the new era of work with Copilot,” its artificial intelligence assistant, on March 21. Credit: Bloomberg / Gabby Jones
If you have Windows 11, there’s a recent addition to your taskbar: a button for Copilot, Microsoft’s A.I. assistant. But Microsoft wants Copilot to be used for more than general search questions. The tech giant will unveil features for “advancing the new era of work with Copilot” on Thursday[March 21]. The event includes the launch of new Surface laptops heavily intertwined with Copilot.
Apple beefs up iMessage security
Apple is upgrading the security of its iMessage app, aiming to fend off a looming future threat: advanced quantum computing attacks. The changes include an advanced type of encryption that could thwart attacks from quantum computers — still-nascent technology that performs calculations exponentially faster than traditional machines. The fear is that these computers could have the power to break through today’s tools for encrypting messages. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
