Things To Do In SW Florida

As I entered Shoreline Amphitheater on Wednesday, I thought I was attending Google IO – the company’s annual developers conference. But after listening to CEO Sundar Pichai and several other Google executives speak about new products and services, the event felt like it should be renamed Google AI.

Indeed, the first 75 minutes of the two-hour event was focused on how artificial intelligence and specifically generative AI (GAI), is not only the main ingredient of Google Bard, the company’s new conversational, AI chat service, but soon integrated into all its services including search, photos, maps and Google docs.  But even the device part of the event focused largely on AI, which is central to the new hardware products they unveiled at the event. Google announced a $499 Pixel 7A phone, a Pixel Tablet starting at $499 and the $1,799 Pixel Fold, the company’s first foldable smart phone.

Good position to compete

While it’s hard to predict how any company or product will do when it comes to a new paradigm shift like GAI, Google is in a good position to compete because it’s already the No. 1 search engine, and as Google executives emphasized during the event, search is a great starting point for AI queries. Google is in the process of retooling search to not only give links but to enhance them with short articles, called AI Snapshots, that it creates on the fly to answer user questions, including questions users pose in conversational language. In a presentation, Google Vice President of Engineering Cathy Edwards demonstrated how a parent could ask Google to recommend a national park for a vacation with kids and a dog and get written answer in addition to search results and planning resources for the vacation. read more

James Royal | (TNS) Bankrate

Are you on the hunt for money that may have been misplaced or left entirely forgotten? You or a relative may have money left in an old bank account, a 401(k) from an old employer or even a hidden cache of money in an IRA, annuity or pension. This scenario can happen if a relative dies and the heirs don’t successfully locate all accounts. Often, the unclaimed money ends up being sent to a state office.

Surprisingly, 1 in 10 Americans has unclaimed property, according to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA). More than $4 billion is returned to owners each year, the organization says.

Here’s how you can find unclaimed money and where to look for it — all for free!

What is unclaimed money?

Unclaimed money is money that oftentimes has simply been forgotten about, in one way or another, and tends to wind up being held at a state agency until it is rightfully claimed. Accounts may be considered unclaimed or abandoned in as short as a year — called the dormancy period — if they’ve been unused or the institution has been unable to contact the account owner. read more

The battle between Walt Disney Co. and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the fate of the former Reedy Creek Improvement District continues to heat up, but what does that mean for park guests? Orlando Sentinel reporters Katie Rice and Skyler Swisher have been covering this story since the beginning. They condense 14 months of developments into a 25-minute episode discussing what led us here, where the district stands now, are park guests feeling the impact of the turmoil and what’s next for Disney World.

• How Reedy Creek Improvement District came about (1:45)
• The dissolution of Reedy Creek (4:34)
• New board is not like the old board (7:25)
• The big plot twist nobody saw coming (9:55)
• Disney files federal lawsuit; Board countersues (12:32)
• Inside DeSantis’ mind (17:02)
• How will it impact future of Disney World? (20:32)
• Will this issue quietly go away? (23:50)