What to watch for today
The US tweaks its ISIL strategy. Retired US general John Allen is traveling to Turkey to discuss the country’s role in the fight against the Islamic State extremist group, with a NATO visit to follow. Despite US-led airstrikes, it looks like ISIL will capture Kobani (paywall).
Elon Musk unveils the D. The Tesla CEO tweeted last week alluding to a new model in the electric-car company’s portfolio. Analysts say it could either be an all-wheel drive version of the Model S or a demo of Tesla’s self-driving vehicle research.
Carl Icahn sends Tim Cook an open letter. ”Believe it will be interesting” said the activist investor, who owns over $4 billion in Apple stock.
How did a major Apple supplier go bankrupt? GT Advanced Technologies, which was supposed to produce sapphire screens for iPhones, will explain how it ended up going bust instead.
Data, data everywhere. US initial jobless claims, German export data, and Australian and Greek unemployment numbers are all due. And the Bank of England will decide whether or not to raise its benchmark interest rate of 0.5%, though that seems unlikely just yet (paywall).
While you were sleeping
Stock markets jumped for joy. The Dow Jones Industrial Index had its best day of 2014—recovering from an equally large drop the day before—after the US Federal Reserve signaled it would keep rates low a while longer; Australian and Asian markets also posted gains. The IMF, on the other hand, didn’t like that idea.
Brazil politics make strange bedfellows. The Brazilian Socialist Party, which failed to secure a place in the runoff elections later this month, threw its weight behind pro-business challenger Aecio Neves in his attempt to unseat incumbent president Dilma Rousseff.
PC sales may have bottomed out. Lower prices on laptops and a market saturated with tablets and smartphones have eased the rate at which PC demand is falling globally, and have even led to sales growth in the US, according to market research firms Gartner and IDC. Gartner said third-quarter shipments to the US grew 4.2% (paywall) versus the previous year, and IDC said they rose 4.3%.
Australian jobs took an unexpected dive. The number of employed people fell by 29,700 in September, compared with a Bloomberg survey that projected a rise of 15,500. The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ also revised the rise in August jobs sharply downwards, to 32,100 from a rather unbelievable 121,000.
The US recorded its first Ebola death. A Liberian man who was diagnosed after flying to the US has died in Dallas , despite being treated with an experimental drug, bringing the Ebola death toll to 3,879. The US will begin screening people at several major airports as early as this weekend.
Apple set the date for its next unveiling. The company is expected to introduce new iPads, perhaps along with a new Macbook. The iPads, naturally, may have already leaked.
Quartz obsession interlude
Heather Timmons on the economic surprises of the Hong Kong protests. “Beijing’s ban on tour groups, put in place days after the protests started, was expected to hit tourism hard… Instead, the reverse seems to have happened. Tourist arrivals during the Golden Week were 1,159,952, the Hong Kong Tourism Board told Quartz—a 4.83% increase from last year’s Golden Week holiday, as mainland tourists poured into the city to shop, and in some cases check out the protests.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Flying cars would be noisy, ugly, and dangerous. And that’s coming from Elon Musk.
You should own your data. The man who invented the web doesn’t like big corporations storing our personal information.
Kazakhstan could be the next Ukraine. The former Soviet republic is an enticing target for Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Amazon’s warehouse workers are modern-day coal miners. Security checks are no different than spending time in a mine elevator.
Free will is at least partly an illusion. It can be easily manipulated with brain implants.
Surprising discoveries
Google’s newest autonomous vehicle is a camel. Google Maps Street Views now include 360° shots of the Arabian desert, thanks to a dromedary named Raffia.
British trees are getting garlic injections. A compound called allicin helps battle deadly arboreal diseases.
We now know exactly how much sleep you need: 7.8 hours for men and 7.6 hours for women.
Why sew clothes when you could weld them? The US Navy is testing ultrasonic welding to improve its parkas.
No air conditioning? No beer. Vietnam wants restaurants selling beer to be chilled, but Asia’s biggest beer drinking nation is unconvinced.
If you’re asking for a raise, might as well go all the way. An US bank employee emailed his CEO asking for salary increases for everyone.
Click here for more surprising discoveries on Quartz.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, al fresco Vietnamese drinking spots, and camel-mountable cameras to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day.