Things To Do In SW Florida

Landlubbers living in the 21st Century now can take a good look around the Titanic, thanks to a virtual-reality experience inside an International Drive attraction.

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition has introduced an add-on VR activity to its walk-through display with relics and reproductions tied to the ship that famously sank in 1912.

At the I-Drive attraction, visitors wear a headset to look up, down and around at a re-creation of what passengers would have seen while on board. That can include newfangled-for-the-times tile flooring or a passing iceberg.

“It’s like a 360 view, so everywhere you look, you can see something,” says Ross Mumford, general manager of Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition. “You get to really see what we don’t have any film for because this is such a great, accurate depiction of the ship.”

The 12-minute presentation includes glimpses at the gangway doors, first-class lounge, Turkish baths, grand staircase and below deck into the third-class common area. Viewers also go up into the crow’s nest – the lookouts’ point of view – and into the lifeboats. read more

By MAE ANDERSON, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The Iran war has effectively halted oil tanker movement in the key Strait of Hormuz. But it’s also disrupting the wider global supply chain beyond oil, affecting everything from pharmaceuticals from India, semiconductors from Asia and oil-derived products like fertilizers that come from the Middle East.

Cargo ships are stuck in the Gulf or making a much longer detour around the southern tip of Africa. Planes carrying air cargo out of the Middle East are grounded. And the longer the war drags on, the more likely that there will be shortages and price increases on a wide range of goods.

“This is really causing some major impacts within the global supply chain,” said Patrick Penfield, professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University. “As this conflict keeps progressing, you’ll start to see some shortages, you’ll see some major price increases.”

Stalled at sea

Clarksons Research, which tracks shipping data, estimates that about 3,200 ships, or about 4% of global ship tonnage, are idle inside the Persian Gulf, but that includes about 1,231 that likely only operate within the Gulf. About 500 ships, or 1% of global tonnage, are currently “waiting” outside the Gulf in ports off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and Oman, according to the firm. read more

By Karen Bennett, Bankrate.com

Saving money in the current economic environment likely feels overwhelming. And the data supports how much of a struggle it is — only 46% of U.S. adults have enough emergency savings to cover three months of expenses, according to Bankrate’s Emergency Savings Report. With 24% having no emergency savings at all, finding ways to cut expenses and build savings has become essential for financial security.

Related Articles

• 
  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says at consumer protection trial that he resisted censoring platforms

• 
  Google settles with Epic Games with offer to lower its app store commissions

• 
  White House formally nominates Warsh to be Federal Reserve chair

• 
  Orange County tourist-tax collections continue record tear

• 
  Lawsuit alleges Google’s Gemini guided man to consider ‘mass casualty’ event before suicide

The challenge isn’t just about earning more — it’s also about saving smarter. Even small changes to your spending habits can add up to significant savings over time. Whether you’re building your first emergency fund or trying to reach a specific savings goal, these proven strategies can help you keep more money in your pocket. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN, AP Technology Writer

Anthropic’s moral stand on U.S. military use of artificial intelligence is reshaping the competition between leading AI companies but also exposing a growing awareness that maybe chatbots just aren’t capable enough for acts of war.

Anthropic’s chatbot Claude, for the first time, outpaced rival ChatGPT in phone app downloads in the United States this week, a signal of growing interest from consumers siding with Anthropic in its standoff with the Pentagon, according to market research firm Sensor Tower.

The Trump administration on Friday ordered government agencies to stop using Claude and designated it a supply chain risk after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to bend his company’s ethical safeguards preventing the technology from being applied to autonomous weapons and domestic mass surveillance. Anthropic has said it will challenge the Pentagon in court once it receives formal notice of the penalties.

And while many military and human rights experts have applauded Amodei for standing up for ethical principles, some are also frustrated by years of AI industry marketing that persuaded the government to apply the technology to high-stakes tasks. read more

By LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. Justice Department lawyer told jurors at a civil antitrust trial Tuesday that the concert industry is broken because Ticketmaster and its parent Live Nation Entertainment have monopolized the market, driving up prices for consumers, but the companies say the government’s wrong.

David Dahlquist, an attorney with the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said in his opening statement that the United States and 39 states are counting on the Manhattan federal jury to end the monopoly and reward artists and consumers with a competitive marketplace that will leave them with more money.

“This case is about power, the power of a monopolist to control competition,” he said. “Today, the concert ticket industry is broken.”

David Marriott, arguing on behalf of the companies, disputed the government’s claims.

“We’ll let the numbers do the talking,” he said. “We do not have monopoly power.”

Judge Arun Subramanian has told jurors that evidence will be presented over the next six weeks before they’ll be left to decide whether Live Nation and Ticketmaster broke antitrust laws. read more