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Markets: Investors took a wait-and-see approach on Wall Street to start the week ahead of a highly uncertain presidential election outcome. Expectations about the Federal Reserve’s upcoming interest rate cuts also played a role in Monday’s stock movements. One of the day’s biggest winners was Trump Media & Technology Group, which is owned by GOP nominee Donald Trump, though there was no obvious cause for the 12% increase.

Trash talker: The Dodgers toppled the Yankees in five games to win this year’s world series, and one player on the winning team isn’t afraid to say what he really thinks about the matchup. Dodgers relief pitcher Joe Kelly asserted that the Bronx Bombers didn’t deserve to be ranked near the top of the MLB’s playoff teams. “It was a complete mismatch,” Kelly said during a recent podcast interview. “All we knew is that we had to play regular Dodger baseball. … We didn’t have to do anything crazy and we were going to win the World Series.”

Make it count: Today is Election Day, and even before the final ballots are cast there’s already ample speculation on both sides of the aisle about the accuracy of the results. Philadelphia is at the center of this ongoing dispute, which has prompted election officials to stress that the men and women tasked with counting roughly 200,000 mail-in votes citywide are taking their job seriously. Even if it results in some delays, authorities say that a transparent and secure election this year could help combat conspiracy theories and misinformation in future races.

Moscow moves: An American citizen accused of entering Ukraine in 2022 for the purpose of helping the Russian military stage an invasion is now reportedly taking refuge in Moscow. According to recent reports, Daniel Martindale hopes to receive Russian citizenship. There was no immediate response from the U.S. embassy in Moscow. He continues to insist that his actions, which allegedly involved providing sensitive information about Ukrainian infrastructure to Russian officials, were only part of a plan to save the lives of Russian citizens.

Working it out: There’s been a push by workers and labor leaders around the world to redefine a typical work week. Iceland has been at the forefront of this trend, rolling out a new nationwide option that cuts the number of work days per week to four. More than half of all the country’s employees adopted this schedule between 2020 and 2022, and the results have spoken for themselves. Not only is Iceland’s rate of economic growth at a healthy 5% and near the top of all European nations, but its unemployment rate remains at an enviable 3.4%.

Smart home device shipments are booming, with smart lighting and shades leading the charge.

Like they did with Ring and Nest before it, Best Buy has hand-picked RYSE as the next innovator in this smart home category with a massive inventory rollout.

Through extensive retail distribution, and a growing number of deals in commercial real estate, RYSE is on the path towards making its brand synonymous with Smart Shades.

If you missed out on Ring and Nest and their billion-dollar acquisitions, this is your chance to secure your stake in the smart home market.

Invest in RYSE at $1.75/share.

Apple has been cultivating significant media buzz around its upcoming iOS 18.2 update. Some of the highly anticipated features have been unveiled through the beta version of the new software, but insiders say the full update could be released in less than a month.

What’s inside?

Most of the excitement about this update has surrounded the introduction of new artificial intelligence features, including:

• Image Playground
• ChatGPT-enabled Siri
• Genmoji

With a host of other features including writing and image editing tools, early AI adopters have been eagerly anticipating Apple’s full-fledged entry into this flourishing segment of the tech industry.

A couple of the significant non-AI updates included in iOS 18.2 are the reintroduction of a volume slider on the iPhone lock screen and, in the European Union, an option to delete the App Store from devices.

Still more to come

Mark Gurman, a tech journalist for Bloomberg, offered some insight into Apple’s expected timetable.

“The iOS 18.2 operating system update, which includes major improvements to Apple Intelligence and is likely to arrive on the earlier side of December, I’m told,” he recently wrote. “How early? The week of Dec. 2, barring any unexpected delays.”

That will likely come as a relief to the many consumers who bought the new iPhone 16 without the AI suite installed.

And the integrated chatbot is believed to be advanced enough to provide responses in the local English dialect across nations including Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

After that update is in the books, iPhone users will begin anticipating iOS 18.4. Gurman says it should arrive in April and will, among other things, allow Siri to “tap into people’s data and respond to queries based on the information on their screens.”

Even in sun-scorched deserts around the globe, solar energy collection efforts aren’t as efficient as environmentalists would prefer. But new technologies continue to refine the process, and one project currently underway in Iceland could revolutionize the way we harness the sun’s power.

Starting off small

Reykjavik Energy is working alongside two other organizations, Transition Labs and Space Solar, to put a 1,312-foot-wide satellite into medium-Earth orbit. From there, it would be programmed to send 30 megawatts of solar energy to Iceland. That’s enough to provide power to as many as 3,000 residences.

While that might sound impressive on its own, this is just the first step in what project organizers hope will become a global sustainable energy renaissance.

Here are the group’s goals for the next decade and beyond:

• By 2036, have six satellites orbiting the Earth
• Deliver a consistent 15-gigawatt stream of solar power
• The plant is expected to cost about $800 million

There are a lot of variables in play, but if things work out as planned this method could become a more cost-effective solution than comparatively inexpensive nuclear power production.

Don’t ditch coal just yet

The search for clean, renewable alternatives to fossil fuels has been ongoing for generations, and the project currently underway in Iceland could be the breakthrough researchers have been looking for. But that doesn’t mean it’s smooth sailing from here.

For starters, even the best-case scenario doesn’t call for all six satellites to start beaming energy to Earth for another dozen years.

Furthermore, early tests aren’t exactly knocking anyone’s socks off. So far, the energy-beaming method has only been able to deliver on a tiny milliwatt scale.

If things end up coming together, however, Iceland could soon provide a glimpse of the entire world’s future.

A strange series of events followed the launch of Netflix more than a quarter century ago. What began as a mail-based service to rival Blockbuster’s in-store video rental model has evolved to become the standard-bearer for our current era of streaming content.

And along the way, Netflix has ditched various services and features that no longer reflected its evolving mission.

Most recently, that played out with the company’s decision to pull most of its interactive programming.

What’s included in the purge?

According to reports, there are two dozen titles currently listed on Netflix’s menu of “Interactive Specials,” but 20 of them will be nixed at the beginning of next month.

The concept of interactive content sparked some attention when Netflix first rolled out “Puss In Book: Trapped In An Epic Tale” in 2017.

From there, new specials dropped from popular titles like “Carmen Sandiego” and “Boss Baby,” each of which allowed viewers to make decisions that impacted the outcome of the story.

Although the gimmick was interesting, most of these titles failed to gain a significant audience. Now, all but four — “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Vs. The Reverend,” “Ranveer Vs. Wild With Bear Grylls,” and “You Vs. Wild” — will soon be vanishing from the platform.

Is interactive content dead?

Just because most of these specials fizzled out on Netflix doesn’t mean that streaming services are giving up on the concept of letting audiences play an active role with their content.

One prominent example involves gaming, which has enjoyed varying degrees of success on platforms including Netflix and YouTube.

But when it comes to interactive content, Netflix spokesperson Chrissy Kelleher concluded: “The technology served its purpose but is now limiting as we focus on technological efforts in other areas.”

What's the difference between a teacher and a train?

A teacher tells you to spit out your gum but a train says, "Chew, chew!"