Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Chinese officials talk North Korea in Seoul. Top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi will brief South Korean leaders and president Moon Jae-in on the meeting between president Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un that took place in Beijing last week. The briefing comes ahead of the North’s upcoming summit with South Korea and the US.
Ninth India-Japan summit kicks off in Tokyo. In a combined effort to strengthen bilateral relations, Indian external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj will co-chair the three-day strategic dialogue with Japanese foreign minister Taro Kono.
The US and UK release economic data. The US market forecasts a 0.2% rise in February’s personal spending figures, cooling slightly after the bump from the National Tax Act the month prior. In the UK, analysts expect full-year 2017 growth of 1.7% (paywall).
While you were sleeping
SoftBank partnered with Saudi Arabia to tackle solar power. The kingdom’s sovereign-wealth fund and the Japanese conglomerate will use a $1 billion investment from the joint Saudi-SoftBank Vision Fund to undertake the world’s biggest solar power generation project, with the goal of providing 200 gigawatts of power by 2030 (paywall).
Facebook started responding to security concerns. The social network announced that it’s redesigning the settings on mobile devices to consolidate privacy options in one place, rather than send users to 20 different screens. Facebook claims the update was planned before the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
US growth ticked up. Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.9% rate in the last three months of 2017, a revision from the previously reported 2.5%. The adjustment was led by an upgrade to consumer spending, which saw its biggest gain in three years.
Daimler and BMW took on Uber and Didi. Germany’s luxury car giants announced plans for a collaboration meant to compete with major ride-sharing companies. The companies will pool their resources across taxi hailing, carpooling, and other app-based services… as soon as EU regulators approve.
New details in the Trump-Russia investigation were unveiled. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team released a document that reveals former Trump aide Rick Gates was in touch with a former Russian spy weeks before the 2016 election.
Quartz obsession interlude
Jacques Peretti on how “elite” became a bad word. “No one dare admit to being part of an elite: the tech aristocracy of Zuckerberg, Musk, and Bezos wear the democratic uniform of T-shirt and jeans….Following #Me Too, the elite coven of white male Hollywood producers has become a useful shorthand for exclusion and the abuse of power.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Silicon Valley is terrible at making sex toys. Nobody wants an app-controlled, data-capturing erotic product, but that’s what great software minds keep developing.
Italy has a racism problem. Despite its new black senator, xenophobia remains on the rise.
Job-seekers prefer blockchain to bitcoin. As cryptocurrency prices cool, people are becoming more interested in blockchain’s evolution.
Surprising discoveries
Baby name trends are reflecting changing gender norms in the US. More names are becoming genderless, while some remain firmly on one side of the fence.
Banks are spending billions on fossil fuels. Financing of tar sands and ultra-deepwater oil extraction topped $115 billion from the world’s biggest banks (paywall).
US billionaire Robert Mercer was a secret cop. The Trump supporter volunteered at a New Mexico police department, securing the right to carry concealed weapons in any state.
Playboy is saying goodbye to Facebook. The iconic men’s magazine is deleting its accounts amid the platform’s data scandal.
Slack wants to help you find your gender bias. The workplace communication platform is creating tools to analyze phrasing when speaking to men and women.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, cute baby names, and secret cops to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the day or download our apps for iPhone and Android. Today’s Daily Brief was written and edited by Susan Howson and Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz.