🌏 Microsoft’s iPhone rules

Plus: Google is dominating ChatGPT

A Microsoft booth is seen during the 2024 World AI Conference & High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance at Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center on July 6, 2024 in Shanghai, China.
A Microsoft booth is seen during the 2024 World AI Conference & High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance at Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center on July 6, 2024 in Shanghai, China.
Image: VCG/VCG (Getty Images)

Good morning, Quartz readers!


Here’s what you need to know

Boeing plans to plead guilty for conspiring to defraud federal regulators. The beleaguered company will need to pay over $243 million for two deadly crashes involving its jetliners.

Eli Lilly wants to tackle digestive drugs next. The pharma giant is buying the drug-maker Morphic for roughly $3.2 billion to help make inflammatory bowel disease medications.

Advertisement

Microsoft thinks iPhones are the way to cybersecurity nirvana. The tech giant wants its staff in China to abandon Androids for the Apple-branded phones.

Advertisement

Wind is America’s biggest power source. For the first time ever, wind is overtaking coal as the nation’s leading electricity provider.

Advertisement

Nearly 1,400 flights were canceled because of Hurricane Beryl. The destructive storm made landfall in Texas on July 8.


Google is keeping its crown from ChatGPT

Just as online search engines took our curiosities from the shelves of libraries and onto computer screens, ChatGPT has indisputably reshaped how people across the globe seek answers to their questions.

Advertisement

Since its debut in 2022, OpenAI’s generative artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT has popularized AI. Similar chatbots from different companies were born: Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s CoPilot. Anyone who’s anyone in Silicon Valley has either invested in, developed, or integrated AI in their work.

But it appears that ChatGPT won’t be dethroning “classic” internet search engines — namely their king, Google Search — anytime soon. While analysts worried that generative AI would be Google Search’s undoing, quite the opposite has been true. Quartz’s Laura Bratton has more.

Advertisement

A modest $370,000 for their troubles

At least that’s what members of the legal team who quashed Elon Musk’s hopes of a $56 billion payday want from the eccentric CEO — per hour.

Advertisement

Should the 37 legal professionals — who represented a Tesla stockholder’s 2018 case against Musk — have their new (pricier) demands met, they’d get legal fees worth a cumulative $7.2 billion from the EV company. The legal team argued that they deserve such a large sum because of the “massive” returns Tesla and Musk have reaped over the years. A final ruling has yet to be determined, but once it is, Musk will only have a month to appeal it. Quartz’s Will Gavin has the story.


More from Quartz

👋 Hertz has a thing for Delta’s executives

🔔 Paramount Global and Skydance finally struck a deal 

🔫 Ammo vending machines are coming to grocery stores in the South

Target won’t take personal checks anymore

🤼 A massive family brawl on a Ryanair flight forced an emergency landing

🐔 The USDA recalled over 2,000 lbs of frozen chicken

🥪 Arby’s has a plan to nab inflation-weary customers


Surprising discoveries

A NASA crew that went to Mars (in Texas) is free. The four-person team finally emerged from the Houston-based spacecraft after more than a year inside of a 1,700 square foot simulation.

Advertisement

There are two world UFO days. The day to celebrate flying alien objects is recognized on June 24 and July 2.

The U.S. berry market is worth almost $9 billion. Hopefully your strawberries are worth it, because berries cost 40% more than they did five years ago. 

Advertisement

The feds are coming for off-brand Viagra sellers. A Florida vape shop mislabeled a bunch of the little blue pills.

Women are more than twice as likely as men to wear sunscreen. A lot of them are 75-year-olds who probably regret wearing baby oil in the 1980s.

Advertisement

The next intergenerational culture war is over socks. Hanes is selling a lot more above-the-ankle socks that have fallen into favor with younger generations, and trendy Quartz reporters like Laura Bratton and Francisco Velasquez can attest to the fad.


Did you know we have two premium weekend emails, too? One gives you analysis on the week’s news, and one provides the best reads from Quartz and elsewhere to get your week started right. Become a member or give membership as a gift!

Advertisement

Our best wishes on a safe start to the second week in July. Send any news, comments, UFO sightings, and above-the-ankle socks to talk@qz.com. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Francisco Velasquez and Laura Bratton.