Uber Makes a Splash: Book Your Dream Boat Ride in Greece Today

Uber is getting into boats. Yes, you heard that right. Boats. The ride-hailing company announced at its Go-GET product event in New York City that it’s launching boat travel in Greece. So now you can book a boat ride through the Uber app and pretend you’re a millionaire on vacation.

The boating option will start off in Mykonos, where up to eight people can cruise around the island like they own the place. And who knows, maybe Uber will add more locations in Greece later on so you can live out your millionaire fantasies in other places too.

Uber has actually dabbled in boats before. They had a “Boat to Work” program in San Francisco back in 2013 (because who doesn’t want to commute to work like James Bond?) and there’s an Uber Boat in London for commuters. But the Mykonos option is different because it’s a private charter just for you and your guests. Fancy!

Rapid Rundown

• 🛥️ Uber launches boat travel in Greece, starting with Mykonos, offering private charters for up to eight people.

• 🌊 Live out your millionaire fantasies by booking a boat ride through the Uber app.

Virgin Orbit’s Bankruptcy Leads to Potential Sale of Assets to Stratolaunch

The bankrupt rocket company, Virgin Orbit might have found a buyer for some of its assets. Stratolaunch, a hypersonic flight company, has put in a $17 million bid for some of Virgin Orbit’s assets, including the modified Boeing 747 aircraft “Cosmic Girl.” This is called a stalking horse bid.

Virgin Orbit had developed a system to send small payloads to orbit using Cosmic Girl and LauncherOne. Unfortunately, they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 4 after failing to secure funding. But Stratolaunch’s bid doesn’t stop other bidders from submitting bids for all or some of the assets. The deadline to submit bids is May 19 and an auction is scheduled for May 22.

Stratolaunch was founded in 2011 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and has since pivoted to hypersonic testing. They’ve even developed Roc, the world’s largest aircraft, and a small, reusable vehicle called Talon-A which could be used as a hypersonic test bed.

Rapid Rundown

• 🛬 Virgin Orbit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after failing to secure funding.

• 🚀 Stratolaunch submitted a $17 million stalking horse bid for Virgin Orbit’s assets, including “Cosmic Girl.”

Twitter loses $40 million in ad revenue due to crowd-sourced fact-checks

Twitter just lost another $40 million in ad revenue. Why? Well, two major advertisers received crowd-sourced fact-checks on their ads. It’s all part of Twitter’s Community Notes system. Elon Musk is a big supporter of it because it increases accuracy on Twitter.

Volunteers can submit notes to add context or correction to tweets, including ads. If volunteers and an algorithm find the note helpful, Twitter adds it to the tweet. Musk said the Community Notes were correct and advised the advertisers to provide facts contradicting the note.

He didn’t say which advertisers withdrew their spending though. The $40 million loss is just a small part of Twitter’s overall decline in ad revenue. Musk said Twitter expected to generate $3 billion this year, down from the expected $4.5 billion if 2023 had been normal.

Rapid Rundown

• 💸 Twitter lost $40 million in ad revenue due to crowd-sourced fact-checks on ads.

• 📝 Elon Musk supports the Community Notes system, which increases accuracy on the platform.

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