Hi! It seems that high rollers hit a bit of a low point in Las Vegas last year — the Nevada Gaming Control Board revealed that blackjack players alone lost $1 billion on the Strip in 2022. Today we’re exploring:
Soaring
If airport check-in queues were a little longer than you’d anticipated this Memorial Day weekend, you certainly weren’t alone. The TSA announced it screened nearly 9.8 million travelers nationwide, surpassing 2019’s figure by ~300,000. Air travel traffic across the long weekend reached dizzying heights, with Friday alone seeing 2.74 million passengers, the highest daily volume since the 2019 Thanksgiving weekend.
Notably, there were fewer cancellations and delays this year. FlightAware data revealed that airlines canceled only 699 flights, roughly down 75% from the holiday weekend in 2022. In addition, fewer than a fifth of all flights arrived late — good news for both beleaguered airlines and passengers with holiday plans.
Flying
Last year's chaotic summer travel season, characterized by rolling waves of cancellations and various other frustrations, has left a lasting impression on holiday seekers. This year's Memorial Day weekend has served as a crucial test, then, for the start of the 2023 summer season, and the industry passed with flying colors. American Airlines, which faced challenges during the recovery period, didn’t cancel a single flight between Wednesday and Saturday and only scrapped a total of 34 regional flights across the whole weekend.
As people continue to play catch up on the travel they missed during the pandemic, this holiday weekend could hopefully signal the start of a clear-sky summer for potential jet setters.
Having Problems
HP reported disappointing sales figures yesterday, as the company continues to suffer from the post-pandemic PC demand slump. Quarterly revenue sits at $12.9bn, down 22% from the same time in 2022, with the personal systems division hit hardest, falling 29% year-over-year. However, there is some room for optimism as PC inventories wane and the upcoming back-to-school and holiday season hold promise for a potential rebound.
Originally founded in 1939 in a garage, that’s since been commemorated with a plaque as "the birthplace of Silicon Valley," HP was established by two childhood friends, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. At the time, printers were largely limited to industrial-sized printing presses, and Palo Alto was mostly known for its fruitful orchards rather than its bustling tech scene. And whilst the company played a pivotal role in making home computers and printers more accessible and affordable for the average consumer, HP is now struggling to keep pace with the rapid technological revolution it helped shape.
Printing money?
In 2015, the company split its mature personal systems and printer divisions from its enterprise side, separating devices like notebooks, desktops, and printers from segments related to servers, storage, and consulting. The personal systems and printer arm became HP Inc., with the former doing much of the heavy lifting sales-wise, contributing 70% to the annual revenue figure for 2022.
Like almost every other company in the tech space, HP is now placing much of its future focus on AI. CEO Enrique Lores is already touting potential products using the technology, such as PCs that can apparently build spreadsheets and analyze data in record time (sign us up).
A bigger splash
The Little Mermaid swam pretty strong over the Memorial Day weekend, netting a cool $95.4m in 3 days and some $117.5m for the full 4-day period, marking the holiday’s 5th biggest opening of all time.
Despite some controversy — and vast disparity between how the film’s being received by critics and consumers, like the Mario movie before it — The Little Mermaid has made a splash in theaters thus far, especially for a Disney live-action remake.
(Back) under the sea
Disney has been bringing its cartoons to life with remakes and reimaginations for almost 3 decades, though it was Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland in 2010 that really got the House of Mouse’s live-action remake machine whirring, producing 13 films in the years since.
Not all of those revisits have been welcomed warmly, though. Indeed, just 4 of Disney’s 17 “live-action reimaginings” that got full theatrical releases have crossed the $100 million mark for domestic first weekend takings, a threshold that 18 Marvel movies have met since 2008. While The Little Mermaid’s $95m haul places it fifth in the remake rankings and beats recent offerings like Cruella and the second Maleficent installment, which debuted with just $21.5m and $37m, respectively, it’s some way down from the roaring success of The Lion King in 2019, by far Disney’s biggest live-action revisit.
And, with 14 more remakes reportedly lined up, it seems that Disney movie makers aren’t ready to call cut on live-action revamps just yet.
• Take caution when swimming in one of the 309,000 public pools this summer as the national lifeguard shortage continues into its 3rd year.
• Exploring the rising popularity of 24hr+ YouTube videos which can rack up millions of views.
• It took top AI execs and researchers just 22 words to warn about the existential threat the technology poses, drawing comparisons to pandemics and nuclear wars.
• The Succession season finale is estimated to have drawn 2.9m viewers on Sunday night.
• How grilling got a lot more expensive this Memorial Day weekend.
• Charting the world’s aging population into the next century.
Off the charts: Which meats are Americans reportedly swapping in for beef, substitutions that mirror previous recessions? [Answer below].
