Thync Before You Act – A New Wearable Device Made for 'The Donald'
If you thought people looked foolish wearing Google Glass, wait until you see one of your coworkers sticking a white piece of plastic on her forehead, hooked around her ear. I learned about Thync, a $300 electric gizmo, reading Geoffrey Fowler’s Wall Street Journal column Tuesday.
Fowler tested it, so I don’t have to, but I just know I’ll be seeing this piece of wearable tech around town among the gadgerati I sometimes hang out with. Thync’s unique selling proposition is vibes, uncommonly known as transdermal electrical neuromodulation. Translation—it’s a low-grade form of shock therapy. The company says they’ve tested the device over years of research with their neuroscientists and engineers to give us Calm vibes or Energy vibes.
You’ll have to go to Fowler’s story to view a graphic of how this dildo for the brain actually functions, but Folwer describes the Energy vibe this way: “The sensation is like drinking an espresso, accompanied by a tingle of prickly heat behind the ear.” He compares the hour-long Calm vibe to having a glass of wine.
Like everything else related to wearable tech and the Internet of Things, the company is well funded by Silicon Valley venture capital firms, which are apparently looking for the next Fitbit. And why not? Brain fitness. I know a few people who could benefit from Thync if it works as promised.
Let’s start by getting the company to give one to Donald Trump, set it permanently on the Calm setting, and turn up the juice.
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Number of the Day: $132,900
The cap on Social Security payroll taxes will rise to $132,900 next year, an increase of 3.5 percent. (Earnings up to that level are subject to the Social Security tax.) The increase will affect about 11.6 million workers, Politico reports. Beneficiaries are also getting a boost, with a 2.8 percent cost-of-living increase coming in 2019.
Photo of the Day: Kanye West at the White House
This is 2018: Kanye West visited President Trump at the White House Thursday and made a rambling 10-minute statement that aired on TV news networks. West’s lunch with the president was supposed to focus on clemency, crime in his hometown of Chicago and economic investment in urban areas, but his Oval Office rant veered into the bizarre. And since this is the world we live in, we’ll also point out that West apparently became “the first person to ever publicly say 'mother-f***er' in the Oval Office.”
Trump called Kanye’s monologue “pretty impressive.”
“That was bonkers,” MSNBC’s Ali Velshi said afterward.
Again, this is 2018.
Chart of the Day: GDP Growth Before and After the Tax Bill
President Trump and the rest of the GOP are celebrating the recent burst in economic growth in the wake of the tax cuts, with the president claiming that it’s unprecedented and defies what the experts were predicting just a year ago. But Rex Nutting of MarketWatch points out that elevated growth rates over a few quarters have been seen plenty of times in recent years, and the extra growth generated by the Republican tax cuts was predicted by most economists, including those at the Congressional Budget Office, whose revised projections are shown below.
Are States Ready for the Next Downturn?
The Great Recession hit state budgets hard, but nearly half are now prepared to weather the next modest downturn. Moody’s Analytics says that 23 states have enough reserves to meet budget shortfalls in a moderate economic contraction, up from just 16 last year, Bloomberg reports. Another 10 states are close. The map below shows which states are within 1 percent of their funding needs for their rainy day funds (in green) and which states are falling short.
Chart of the Day: Evolving Price of the F-35
The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act signed in August included 77 F-35 Lightning II jets for the Defense Department, but Congress decided to bump up that number in the defense spending bill finalized this week, for a total of 93 in the next fiscal year – 16 more than requested by the Pentagon. Here’s a look from Forbes at the evolving per unit cost of the stealth jet, which is expected to eventually fall to roughly $80 million when full-rate production begins in the next few years.
