Arvind's Newsletter

1.Disney’s Hotstar sets global streaming record:

A high-profile cricket match between neighbors India and Pakistan delivered a much-needed break for Disney’s Hotstar this past week, writes Manish of TechCrunch, which has lost over 20 million subscribers in the past three quarters and whose executives are anticipated to soon intensify the hunt to find a buyer for its India operations. A week back, Hotstar drew 35 million concurrent viewers to the cricket match, surpassing the recent record of 32 million viewers set by Viacom18’s JioCinema.

2.Nvidia and iPhone maker Foxconn to build 'AI factories' reports BBC.

Jensen HuanG of NVIDIA is going beyond his highly profitable GPUs to building whole ‘AI Factories’ now. NVIDIA and manufacturing powerhouse Foxconn have joined forces to build these AI powered factories, naturally run on Nvidia hardware and software, which they hope will revolutionise the manufacturing landscape bringing out electric cars, and training autonomous vehicles. “A new type of manufacturing has emerged – the production of Intelligence. And the data centres that produce it are AI factories,” said Huang.

3.Poverty has driven Nepalis to join the war in Ukraine as contract soldiers, fighting for both sides, reports New York Times.

Scores of young Nepali men have gone to fight, some lured by Russia’s promise of work, others to fight for Ukraine, raising the prospect of Nepalis fighting one another in a distant war.

4.Worried about a wider war in Middle East, with reports from Bloomberg

World leaders are worried. With no end in sight and potential escalation looming, the conflict between Israel and Gaza could arguably erupt into a wider wae in the days and weeks to come., reports Bloomberg.“To prevent a regional conflagration” is how German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock described the task this weekend in Cairo, where officials from nations including the US, UK, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan will meet.

Just outside Gaza, thousands of Israeli troops are massed for a ground invasion Tel Aviv has said is aimed at destroying Hamas, the Iran-backed militant group that authorities said killed about 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7. But tensions are rising elsewhere. Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia also backed by Iran, said it had begun targeting sites in Israel, and US outposts in Syria and Iraq have come under fire. A US destroyer intercepted missiles and drones it said were headed toward Israel, reportedly fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are also backed by Iran. In cities across the region, major protests are erupting, from Cairo to Tehran.

Biden’s visit may have shifted the course of the expected Gaza invasion, from “coordinated strikes from the air, sea and land,” to a more targeted assault aimed at limiting civilian casualties. The death toll in Gaza is already about 3,700, according to local authorities. Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant on Friday outlined a three-stage war, but the main thrust of Israeli troops could be further delayed under pressure from US and European governments seeking to buy time for secret talks to win the release of hundreds of hostages held by Hamas. It’s a perilous moment for the world.

5.The Economist explains,The science of love at first sight

BIOLOGISTS believe that love is fundamentally a biological rather than a cultural construct. That is because the capacity for love is found in all human cultures and similar behaviour is found in some other animals, such as prairie voles. In humans the purpose of all the cravings, craziness and desire is to focus attention on the raising of offspring. Children demand an unusual amount of nurturing, and two parents are better than one. Love is a signal that both partners are committed, and makes it more likely that this commitment will continue as long as is necessary for children to reach independence. But what does science have to say about the notion of love at first sight?

In recent years the ability to watch the brain in action has offered a wealth of insight into the mechanics of love. Researchers have shown that when a person falls in love a dozen different parts of the brain work together to release chemicals that trigger feelings of euphoria, bonding and excitement. (These include dopamine, oxytocin, adrenalin and vasopressin.) It has also been shown that the unconditional love between a mother and a child is associated with activity in different regions of the brain from those associated with sexual, pair-bonding love.

Passionate love is rooted in the reward circuitry of the brain—the same area that is active when humans feel a rush from cocaine. In fact, the cravings, motivations and withdrawals involved in love have a great deal in common with addiction. Its most intense forms tend to be associated with the early stages of a relationship, which then give way to a calmer attachment form of love one feels with a long-term partner. This has a slightly different chemistry but still involves the reward centres of the brain. What all this means is that one special person can become chemically rewarding to the brain of another. Love at first sight, then, is only possible if the mechanism for generating long-term attachment can be triggered quickly. There are signs that it can be. One line of evidence is that people are able to decide within a fraction of a second how attractive they find another person. This decision appears to be related to facial attractiveness, although men also favour women with a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7, no matter what their overall weight is. (This ratio may indicate a woman's reproductive health.)

Another piece of evidence in Cupid's favour comes from work by Ayala Malack-Pines, a psychologist at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, who found in a survey that a small fraction (11%) of people in long-term relationships said that they began with love at first sight. In other words, in some couples the initial favorable impressions of attractiveness triggered love which sustained a lengthy bond. It is also clear that some couples need to form their bonds over a longer period, and popular culture tells many tales of friends who become lovers. One might also speculate that if a person is looking for a partner with traits that cannot be quantified instantly, such as compassion, intellect or a good sense of humour, then it would be hard to form a relationship on the basis of love at first sight. Those more concerned only with visual appearances, though, might find this easier. So it appears that love at first sight exists, but is not a very common basis for long-term relationship.