James' World 2

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You know the holidays are here when Amazon, FedEx, and UPS delivery trucks flood the streets, dropping off packages of all shapes and sizes on doorsteps and in apartment lobbies. But this telltale sign of the holiday shopping season also means that porch pirates will be on the prowl, snatching up those packages faster than the Grinch on Christmas Eve.

In fact, 11 percent of Americans had at least one package stolen from their home in the previous year, according to a September 2021 Consumer Reports nationally representative survey (PDF) of 2,341 adults. Among that group, 64 percent had a package stolen at least twice in the previous year.

Our survey also found that a number of socio-demographic variables factor into whether you’re likely to have a package stolen. Package theft was more common in multifamily dwellings than single-family homes, as well as in urban areas (16 percent) than in suburban (9 percent) and rural areas (8 percent). It was also reported more frequently by younger individuals and lower-income households, with 21 percent of affected respondents making less than $30,000 per year and falling within the 18-to-29 age bracket, compared with 8 percent of those making $30,000+ per year and 9 percent of Americans 30 and older.

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Melissa Heikkilä via Lensa

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Buying a home in the colder months is often a smart move, but this year is a bugger. A new report from real-estate firm Redfin shows that on average, a record 2% of the homes for sale on the U.S. market were pulled from listings every week in the 12 weeks leading up to Nov. 20. For buyers and sellers alike, that might sound alarming. Here is what’s going on.

Why is this happening?

Redfin analyzed MLS data from 43 of the 50 most populated metropolitan areas in the country, determining sellers are delisting their properties because they’re not getting offers at their preferred price—or in some cases, no offers at all. The monthly mortgage payment on the median-asking-price home is also 40% higher right now than it was a year ago.

While there might have been a housing market frenzy last year, it looks like that has really slowed down. Home prices spiked during the height of the pandemic, leading to “pandemic boomtowns,” but those locations—like Sacramento, Calif. and Austin, Texas—are seeing the biggest declines in listings now.

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Photo: pryzmat (Shutterstock)

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HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

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Lensa AI’s popularity has had a notable impact on the App Store’s Top Charts. The photo and video editing app recently went viral over its new “magic avatars” feature, powered by the open-source Stable Diffusion model, allowing users to turn their selfies into styled portraits of themselves as sci-fi, anime, or fantasy characters, among other artistic renderings. Consumer demand for the app, and for AI edits more broadly, has now pushed numerous other “AI” apps into the U.S. App Store’s Top Charts. As of Monday, the top three spots on the U.S. App Store are all held by AI photo editors, and even more AI art apps are newly ranking in the Top 100.

The No. 1 spot on the U.S. App Store, however, continues to be held by Lensa AI, which saw 12.6 million global installs in the first 11 days of December, up 600% from the 1.8 million installs it saw during a similar time frame in November (November 20 through November 30), according to new data from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower. The U.S. accounted for 3.6 million of those new December installs, estimates indicate.

In fact, 8 out of the top 100 apps by downloads on the U.S. App Store were AI art apps during the December 1 through December 11 time frame, the firm’s analysis found.

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Image Credits: Lensa AI on Instagram

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PICTURE BOOKS

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You may have noticed a new trend taking over your Instagram feed. Your friends are turning themselves into digital art with the help of an artificial intelligence-generated app called Lensa.

Lensa AI is currently the top free app in Apple

App Store, though you’ll have to pay to use the AI artwork feature.

Lensa first launched as a photo editing tool in 2018, but last month the company released a new feature called “Magic Avatars.” These AI-generated digital self-portraits turn you into works of art in a variety of themes, from pop to fairy princesses, to anime.

You get a 7-day free trial. Subscription fees vary after that, with yearly unlimited access ranging from $14.99 to $49.99. To use the “Magic Avatar” tool, you’ll pay an additional $3.99 for 50 images.

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When the pandemic began, I didn’t place any bets on what the future would hold. But if I had, I would certainly be out a lot of money. One of my expectations was that pandemic-induced economic uncertainty would result in a baby bust. I had research on my side indicating that unemployment leads to reduced conceptions. Others made similar predictions—Brookings Institution researchers forecast in June 2020 that the pandemic would result in up to half a million fewer births in 2021. “Recessions mean fewer children,” they wrote.

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H. Armstrong Roberts / Getty; FPG / Getty

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In a press conference that Ars attended today, Department of Defense officials discussed the benefits of partnering with Google, Oracle, Microsoft, and Amazon to build the Pentagon’s new cloud computing network. The multi-cloud strategy was described as a necessary move to keep military personnel current as technology has progressed and officials’ familiarity with cloud technology has matured.

Air Force Lieutenant General Robert Skinner said that this Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract—worth $9 billion—would help quickly expand cloud capabilities across all defense departments. He described new accelerator capabilities like preconfigured templates and infrastructure as code that will make it so that even “people who don’t understand cloud can leverage cloud” technologies. Such capabilities could help troops on the ground easily access data gathered by unmanned aircraft or space communications satellites.

“JWCC is a multiple-award contract vehicle that will provide the DOD the opportunity to acquire commercial cloud capabilities and services directly from the commercial Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) at the speed of mission, at all classification levels, from headquarters to the tactical edge,” DOD’s press release said.

Until now, officials did not have direct access to cloud providers, and military personnel located around the world didn’t have cloud technology capable of providing access to files at all three classification levels: unclassified, secret, and top secret. With JWCC, that’s changed, and now the defense department expects to be able to pass on intelligence more quickly.

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