
Did Google Predict Venezuela Earthquakes Before it Happened? & GTA VI’s Launch Plan Irks Gaming Purists
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Neal Freyman
Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.
Toby Howell
And I'm Toby Howell.
Neal Freyman
Today, how Google may have saved lives in the Venezuela earthquake.
Toby Howell
Then Apple is raising prices and it's blaming AI. It's Friday, June 26th. Let's ride.
Neal Freyman
The U.S. men's National Team closed out their group stage campaign with a last minute loss against Turkey last night. But no matter. After two previous victories, we're on to the round of 32 facing Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday night. Pretty unfair. We have to play both of them if you ask me. But as the other countries wrap up their group play today and tomorrow, I want to draw your attention to a bizarre situation unfolding on Saturday in Kansas City. There, Austria will play Algeria in a game nobody wants to win, basically through a quirk in the tournament. The team that wins this game will likely have to play the juggernaut Spain in the next round, while the loser will face a less formidable opponent. So we may be about to watch a World cup game in which you are disincentivized to score. Could be thrilling television.
Toby Howell
The World cup has run into this problem before. The infamous example came back in 1982 when West Germany and Austria and entered their final group match knowing that a one goal German win would send both teams through. Obviously Germany scored early and then both sides literally just casually passed the ball around in front of an increasingly angry crowd. The match became known as the disgrace of Hehon, which was the Spanish city where it occurred. And FIFA literally changed the rules after this. 44 years later, Algeria and Australia are in Austria. Excuse me for find themselves in a very similar situation. And I say Algeria because ironically Algeria was the team eliminated because of the disgrace of he honed in 1982. History doesn't repeat itself, but it certainly does.
Neal Freyman
So they could get payback by losing.
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Right?
Toby Howell
So then we might get a both teams trying to lose to each other, which would be not a disgrace actually. All right, now a word from our sponsor, ServiceNow. Neil, I feel like we're getting a lot of promises about AI taking over the work we hate doing, but lately it feels like I'm doing more work rather than getting any help.
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Neal Freyman
To put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com that's ServiceNow.com Two powerful earthquakes rocked Venezuela Wednesday evening, killing at least 235 people, while many thousands more are feared dead. The Twin cakes struck 39 seconds apart, the first magnitude 7.2 west of the capital of Caracas at 6pm local time, the next a 7.5 less than a minute later, just three miles away. Rapid back to back earthquakes is an unusual phenomenon known as a doublet and is particularly dangerous. The earthquakes were already the strongest hit the country in more than 100 years and they could end up being the deadliest and cause costliest in Venezuela's history, according to the U.S. geological Survey. President Trump, who ousted leader Nicolas Maduro at the start of the year, said the U.S. was quote, ready, willing and able to help and had instructed federal agencies to move quickly. We will be there for our new and great friends, he wrote on social media. After years of economic downturn, Venezuela will need all the resources it can get for recovery and many other countries, including Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Qatar have pledged help. Rescue efforts are ongoing this morning amid the rubble of collapsed buildings focused in the northern coastal state of La Guaya. This region is typically home to a population of 50000, but was bursting with even more people when the quakes hit because it was a national holiday on Wednesday and everyone was at the beach. Toby Lots of attention on rescue efforts now, but I want to focus on preparation because Google played a surprising role before the earthquake struck.
Toby Howell
Yeah, I did not know this but billions of Android phones are actually a global earthquake detection network. Every Android phone contains an accelerometer. It's the same sensor that kind of measures the physical Orient phone. When that accelerometer detects shaking consistent with an earthquake, it sends the data and location to Google and then Google broadcasts that likely earthquake alert to phones. More than 2 billion Android devices worldwide has this feature built in and users in Venezuela did receive warnings sometimes seconds before the quake actually hit, they were posting screenshots on social media. In total, about 4,4 million people got notified. And again, seconds matter in a situation like this because it can get you enough time to move away from windows to maybe stop driving or something like that. So it's just a fascinating aspect of the technology that most of us have in our pockets. It's actually a life saving technology when it comes to earthquakes.
Neal Freyman
Right. And also about earthquakes. There's different types of waves that come with earthquakes. You have P waves first, which are travel the fastest but color, but cause smaller vibrations in the earth. Then S waves comes next and then L waves finally. Those are the most destructive. But often we can't detect P waves that you just wouldn't be able to tell it before the bigger ones come. And that's what Google's technology, this accelerometer in your phone can do. It's the same technology that when you flip your phone sideways or horizontally like it, it changes the screen. And that's exactly what they use for this. Earthquake detection technology obviously don't rely on one phone. They rely on the fact that there are billions of people and often millions of people in a certain location like Venezuela with Android phones. So they work together, they work together, they go to the server and the algorithm says, okay, it looks like a bunch. These phones are jostling in this same exact area and then they send out this alert as fast as they can.
Toby Howell
And it's sort of information arbitrage or at least like speed arbitrage because data travels at the speed of light, so they can get the alerts to phones faster than the waves can travel through the earth. So literally waves, P waves travel at 6km per second, which you know, is fast, but you know, data is literally the speed of light. So that's why you can get this second advantage on the earthquake. And this is a system that has been employed before. Back in 2024 there was a earthquake. A million Android users received alerts as well. In the US they actually have underground sensors buried as well to go along with the accelerometers that are in Google's phone. So it's a relatively new field, earthquake detection and earthquake notification, but it's growing more complex and this was one of the biggest examples of it potentially saving lives.
Neal Freyman
Yeah, there is no way to predict an earthqu that Google, every, every seismologist says we have no idea when an earthquake is coming. But if, if the earth starts to tremor a little bit, that is when we can get the word out a bunch of countries do have government run early earthquake warnings and Google takes pains to say look, there's not a replacement for those, it's a supplement. So in the United States, Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, these places that have a lot of seismic activity have these existing government run programs. So people in California might have an existing app called My Shake and so they might familiar with this that goes off before an alert in addition to the Android system because a lot of people also have iPhones. Venezuela, other countries with less fewer resources that maybe aren't as seismically active don't have these government programs, don't have as many resources. So that's where maybe an Android system could fill in the gap.
Toby Howell
But all eyes now turn to the rebuilding costs. As you know, you try to clean up after this estimates from the U.S. geological Survey put economic losses between 10 and 100 billion for Venezuela. That high end estimate is roughly the size of Venezuela's entire economy. So there is going to be a long road back. Moving on, it is Stock of the Week Dog of the Week time this segment where we pick one stock that is overreacting to last night's USA game and one stock that trusts Pochettino. I won the pre show Timothy Chalamet lookalike contest, so I'm up first. And since I'm feeling a bit pessimistic after last night's result, I'm starting with our dog of the week which is Apple. A week ago we were warned that Apple was going to raise its prices. That's its a company could no longer absorb soaring memory costs. Well, that day has come and the increases are significant. Its cheapest computer, the MacBook Neo, jumped $100. The MacBook Air 200 MacBook Pro 300. Increases also hit the iPad, HomePod and Apple TV. Tim Cook has called the memory shortages caused by AI a 100 year flood. I've never seen anything like it in any area over 40 years. Cook followed up. Parts of Apple's ecosystem did remain untouched. The iPhone did not get more expensive expensive. Neither did the AirPods or Apple Watch. Seems like Apple made the deliberate decision, at least for now, to protect its most popular products despite shortages affecting every part of its lineup. Still, the bottom line is prices are going up and it's not hard to point the finger at the AI buildout. The infrastructure boom is so big, with over $740 billion in spending committed by big tech this year, that it's pushing up prices across the economy. All these input pieces, memory storage, servers, everything is so in demand that things are just going to get pricier. Neal. Investors did not like seeing Apple capitulate here. Shares fell more than 6%, setting the stock to its worst day in over a year.
Neal Freyman
I like the way the Verge put it, like when it comes to prices, Apple is kind of a reverse canary in the coal mine. It's not necessarily the harbinger of a crisis. It's an indication that a crisis is already full blown. I mean, think about how standardized Apple prices are. You go into an Apple store, you go online, it's AirPods are 299. IMac is this. It's just the standard until they release a new model and then you figure out what that price is and then that's the price seemingly forever. So for Apple to raise prices like this, I mean, it's up to 25% too, is certainly an indication of where we are in what they're calling Ramageddon. It's not just Apple electronics. Prices are going up across the board because of what Elon Musk also chimed in and said. This is a. I've never seen anything like this price increase. Analysts from Gartner say, estimate that this year we're going to see hardware price increases ranging from about 10% to 20%. Laptops, PCs and smartphones.
Toby Howell
I think this was very strategic though. Obviously the input prices forced Apple's hand here, but the fact that they made Tim Cook do it, he's an outgoing CEO. He did not want to lay the responsibility of that unpopular decision at incoming CEO John Turner. So he kind of got it out of the way, taking the fall, if you will. But then the other purpose that it served is that Apple is equipping their devices to be more AI native going forward, they're putting more RAM into their iPhone to support their upgraded Siri. So rather than making those AI enabled products seem pricier, they're kind of blaming it on Cook and then blaming it on the memory shortage. So consumers are sort of warmed up to the idea that the iPhone might get more expensive. You probably have a $2,000 foldable iPhone coming as well. So I think it was a very strategic move by Apple to do this right now outside of their normal product cycle so they can prep consumers for what's coming.
Neal Freyman
I'm glad you brought up. I mean, it's been, we haven't brought it up on the show yet. This, it's been about 10 minutes, which it must be a record because there's a raging debate about whether AI will be inflationary or disinflationary among economists. Is a. Ise this revolution going to raise prices or is it going to lower prices in the long term? At least in the short term we're seeing evidence of AI inflation. All this data center build out you mentioned, $741 billion spent this year. They're all going after the same components. The same stuff that goes in your phone and your laptops also goes into a data center. And the fact that they're spending so much money on these components is raising prices not just for data center stuff, but for the stuff that goes on our desks and in our pocket. And at least in the short term, it seems like the inflationary predictions are going to be true because we're expecting companies through 2032 to spend $8 trillion on AI infrastructure, which is five times the market value of New York City property market. So this is just an insane amount of money going after a certain amount of components. So it looks like there might be inflation going forward for these particular devices. Now, in the long term it's a bigger question because in history shows us that when you have a technical revolution yet it's really expensive to build the infrastructure and that causes inflation in the short term. But over the long term, increased productivity means prices go down. Okay, my stock of the week is oil, which like Bilbo Baggins went there and back again yesterday. The international benchmark Brent crude erased all of its wartime gains, falling to below $73 a barrel for the first time since the war in Iran began in late February. Yes, usually stock of the week means price go up, but oil prices going down is unequivocally good news for the global economy, which was dealt the largest energy shock in decades when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, choking off 20% of the world's oil and natural gas supp supply. At their peak, oil prices shot up to $125 a barrel, causing all kinds of problems in East Asia and raising gas prices for American drivers. Because of higher fuel prices resulting from the war, US inflation has reached a three year high. But the worst appears to be over. With the US and Iran reaching a truce to stop the hostilities, the Strait of Hormuz is tentatively shakily back open for business, drenching the world in much needed oil. On Wednesday, 78 tankers sailed through the strait, representing 57% of traffic levels before the war. To While it wasn't pleasant at all, it looks like the global economy was able to absorb this once in a generation energy shock without too much permanent scarring.
Toby Howell
Yeah, how did they escape? Basically a Lot of different factors came into play. Countries started releasing their strategic petroleum reserves. They had the rainy day fund, and they tapped into that for sure. Saudi Arabia kind of came in clutch, too. They started doing pipeline shipments. That again, isn't enough to replace the oil going through the Strait of Hormuz, but it was 5 million barrels, barrels per day. That's a third of the Hormuz's normal traffic. The US Military did start to escort some ships through. They, they managed to get 500 ships carrying 250 million barrels of oil through the Gulf, which is again, not nothing. And then also there just wasn't quite a strong demand right now. That's a big component as well. Specifically, over in China, there wasn't a massive increase. If that had. If China put too much pressure on the global oil markets, we might be talking about this in a very different way right now. So it wasn't just one thing. It was just a bunch of little things that helped paper over the crack that was, you know, the Strait of Hormuz being closed.
Neal Freyman
All right, so you got this vacation come up. You have a road trip. It's almost July 4th next weekend. You're thinking, okay, great. Oil prices are going down. Gas prices are also going to come down because they've been so high recently. Not quite so. Oil is down about 36%, but gas prices are down just about 12.5% from their peak. So what is going on? Why aren't gas stations lowering their prices in conjunction with oil? It's because of this phenomenon known as rockets and feathers. Well, gas prices go up very quickly like a rocket, but they come down like a feather. So it's going to take some time for the price at the pump to come down. President Trump is not happy. Actually. He's taking out a page out of President Biden's book by blaming major oil companies, saying, you have to lower prices. Look, the oil. Oil prices are down to $73 a barrel from before the war, but your gas prices are still much higher. He ordered the DOJ to investigate these oil companies. Chevron CFO gave a interview to CNBC saying, look, President, we're doing all we can to bring down prices. Just doesn't come down as quickly as you want.
Toby Howell
It kind of feels like a moment in the race where, like, the leader is celebrating right before the finish line and someone might come from behind and nab them at the end. Because US crude inventories are still at their lowest level since 1984. We really drained, you know, the tanks, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, so If something flares up again in the Strait of Hormuz, we don't have that cushion anymore.
Neal Freyman
So literally no gas left in the tank.
Toby Howell
Right? That was a much better metaphor right there. Son of a gun. Okay, no gas left in the tank, so don't celebrate too early. There still might not be the end of this crisis playing out. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with a story about Grand Theft Auto right after this. Neil it feels like every week there's a new AI model making headlines and
Neal Freyman
somehow I'm expected to keep up with all them fair.
Toby Howell
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To learn more and start building with M3, visit Minimax IO. That's Minimax IO Neil, check out my card.
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Toby Howell
for 10% off Gamers have been waiting over a decade for Rockstar to finally release Grand Theft Auto 6 over 13 years to finally taste that sweet sens of sliding the disc into their gaming console. But they might not get that moment ever. Now, don't panic. There is a release date for the off delayed game Nov. 19. But there's no physical disk. When you order the most anticipated video game of all time for 79.99, you get a box with a download code inside. This won't be all that new to gamers. Digital game sales have long since overtaken physical copies. A lot of new consoles don't even have slots for disks anymore. But for a game whose previous edition sold over 225 million copies, this so called code in a box model is being tested at the very highest levels of hype. Why go digital? There's clear upsides, from instant downloads to easier updates. But consumers aren't the biggest fans because you don't actually own the game, you can't loan it to a friend. And if your hardware hits the fritz, you might lose your game too. You know, after all this anticipation and all this build up up, would you be let down if your actual game box came with nothing in it?
Neal Freyman
Personally, I would not care because if I was waiting 12 years for something, you could serve it to me on a steaming pile of doo doo and I'd play. Just to put this in perspective, how monumental of a development cycle this was. It took less time and was cheaper to build the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world in Dubai, than GTA 6. So the Burj Khalifa Tall took cost about $1.5 billion. Took six years to build. Well, GTA 6 took 12 years since its earliest development and some estimates, we don't know for sure. Some estimates put this cost of development in the $2 to $3 billion range. Insider called that the the stakes for this are among the highest of any product release this decade. And I don't think that's hyperbole.
Toby Howell
The Burj Khalifa being easier to build than a video game is crazy. But again, let's go back to why the heck that they're not doing a physical disk here at all. Some of the reasons too is just that leaks have been a massive issue for this. And if you only have access to the game when the servers unlock it, hypothetically cracks down on leaks. Also, when it takes that much money and that much time to develop a game, it's going to be very large. And some people are like, I don't Even know if GTA seems 6 could fit on existing PlayStation and Xbox discs. That's how big it is. That being said, your device now is going to have to eat that memory as well. It Is ironic too, because it relates back to our, our previous story. The Xbox has seen their price hiked multiple times over the past few months because of the memory shortage. So I'm sure Xbox is X are going, come on Rockstar. Like you're given one of the biggest games in history to us now right when we're having a memory crunch. But, but gamers are a little bit split on this. I was asking one of our coworkers who games and she's like, for games that I really care about, like Legend of Zelda, I want to get a physical copy. One, for archival purposes, I want to have this. I want to be able to pass this down. And then two, I just don't, I won't lose it. Like she says, I'll just leave it on my shelf. Versus digital. You never know what can happen. Maybe your, your device, you know, goes dead and like you don't have the game anymore. So definitely not the most popular decision amongst gamers.
Neal Freyman
So this thing is actually coming out, which is crazy. It seems like it's been forever. This is originally scheduled for the fall of 2025, then it was delayed till May 2026, but now we have a date, November 19th. It's going to be available for pre download or Pre purchase on November 12th. So you can have it ready to go on November 19th. This has been a long time coming, coming.
Toby Howell
Let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. Remember when Apple spent years trying and ultimately failing to build a car? Well, it turns out some of the people behind that project never got transportation out of their system. One of Apple's top former designers, Julian Heinig, just launched a company called Amble. And its first product looks like what would happen if Apple designed a golf cart. It's an open air electric buggy with no doors, barely any buttons, a cork steering wheel that tops out at 40 miles an hour. People who have seen one in person have likened it to a moon rover. The target market is not golfers. Despite looking sort of like a golf cart, each model costs $25,000. But their first production line is completely sold out, with the initial customers being almost entirely luxury hotels. Neil Haynig's thesis is that there's a transportation gap between a Tesla and an E bike, one that Amble can Amble into.
Neal Freyman
I know most people can't. I can't see what it looks like right now, but it looks like something you would use to get around Jurassic Park. Though I'm not sure. With a top speed of 40 miles per hour, you would be able to to outrun the T. Rex that the Verge. But it, well, it's cross between a Rivian and a Land Rover, shrunk to adorable dimensions. And it feels like there is a need here based on the demand from these hotels where golfers golf carts are ugly. And when you think about, when you think we don't really think about it because we're just use it to get around. But if you're a higher end resort, you're shuttling people, you want to give off this air of luxury and you're using, you know, a standard golf cart. It looks like this, this industry, this particular vehicle, this, this short range mobility is ripe for disruption.
Toby Howell
It's definitely one of those things that sounds really dumb on the surface, but then you start digging into the use cases, getting around communities. Again. Most people use golf carts, but the thesis is that golf carts are suited for grass. They're not necessarily built for moving to pavement and well, I guess they're kind of built for moving to pavement. They're mainly just ugly and they're mainly just slow. So. So why don't you beef it up, make it a little bit more roadworthy, make it a little easier on the eyes and maybe it can start to fill in those micro mobility situations that you don't think about but definitely do exist.
Neal Freyman
Imagine rolling up to the buffet in the Villages with one of these.
Toby Howell
That's what I'm talking about.
Neal Freyman
You'd be the coolest person there. All right. Finally, Taylor Swift is marrying Travis Kelce over July 4th weekend and the celebrations will take place at Madison Square Garden. Thanks to some sleuthing by the New York Times. It sure looks like the home of the world champion Knicks will be the venue for America's version of a royal mar marriage. The biggest pop star of her generation with a three time super bowl champion football player. While there's been no official announcement, the tea leaves all point to an MSG wedding. The Times found that a permit was filed with New York City to close the streets around the arena from July 2 to midday July 4. Several Chiefs players have already booked hotel rooms in Times Square and Amtrak police officers have been told to expect a Swift wedding that weekend. It should be another massive A list celebration in a city that's been partying in the streets for a month straight already. Toby, I personally hate this, but then again I'm not marrying T. Swift so I have no say in the matter.
Toby Howell
So I was polling my Swift friends and saying what do you think about this? And most of them are In a little bit of denial. That was the general consensus on social media because they can't quite wrap their head around that Taylor Swift would want to get married in Madison Square Garden. But then the argument I heard from them is if we think she's getting married there, that probably means she's not, because she's the queen of deception, she's the queen of Easter eggs. And we're probably thinking exactly what she wants us to be thinking right now. And she's leading us on a breadcrumb trail that. That seems a little bit like Coke to me, but that is potentially one reading here. It is fascinating though, that this is probably America's royal wedding, which is just a little sad, but also very fun to think about that a singer marrying a football player is our version of the royal wedding. And when you put it in that regard, then, yeah, make it the biggest spectacle possible. Put it in Madison Square Garden.
Neal Freyman
Well, actually, when you think of the logistical considerations, it starts to make sense versus an open air. Because think about what is a better venue for getting a bunch of celebrities in surreptitiously than Madison Square Garden. I mean, it's probably a tier, as we saw from the Knicks playoff run. It's an enclosed environment. You're going to be shut out from the outside world and people taking pictures of you like a open air wedding would. So. And also, I mean, there's a stage that she's probably going to perform at and a bunch of her friends, her musicians want to perform at during her wedding. So when you actually think about just the nuts and bolts of what someone at her level of fame would need in a wedding in terms of privacy and security, it starts to make a little sense. Even if it's not the most romantic
Toby Howell
venue, this would be cap off a generational run for New York this summer. I mean, we have the World cup, we have the fact that the Knicks made the playoff run. Add in a Taylor Swift wedding on top of that, New York City might explode. That is just truly a generational run that you might never see again.
Neal Freyman
All right, that is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Friday and an even better weekend. Weekend. To share your thoughts on the episode or anything else, send an email to Morning Brew Daily at Morning Broadcom or DM us on Instagram at Ambie Daily Show. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our supervising producer. Raymond Lu is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia Lake. Technical direction by Nina Miller Hair and Makeup's invite for Taylor's wedding must have gotten lost in the mail. Devin Emery is our president and our shows are production of Morning Brew.
Toby Howell
Great show today, Neil. I wish you all well.
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Hosts: Neal Freyman & Toby Howell
This episode covers:
The show is energetic, witty, and brisk, with both hosts providing sharp commentary and context to the week’s biggest business and tech headlines.
Venezuelan Tragedy:
Google’s Earthquake Alerts:
Apple Raises Prices—Blames AI:
Wider Industry Impact:
Oil Price Dive Post-Gulf Crisis:
Why Aren’t Gas Prices Falling as Fast?
Future Risks:
Shocking Launch Plan:
Why the Change?
Gamer Backlash:
Release Details:
Amble—The Luxury “Not-Golf Cart” (23:01–25:10)
Taylor Swift–Travis Kelce Rumored Madison Square Garden Wedding (25:11–27:54)
This episode intertwined breaking news, economic trends, and culture, showing how technology (from smartphones to blockbuster video games) is changing daily life, costs, and even disaster survival. The witty banter between Neal and Toby keeps things fresh, with sharp analysis for anyone interested in business, tech, or modern culture.