Things To Do In SW Florida

Elon Musk’s Neuralink has selected Miami as a clinical trial site for its brain-computer interface.

Musk’s Neuralink makes devices that link the human brain to computers, focusing on giving people with quadriplegia or paralysis the ability to control computers and devices with their thoughts. The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Miami will be the second U.S. site to participate in research known as the PRIME Study.

Neuralink is already conducting clinical trials at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Ariz. The company announced its first brain implant one year ago and announced earlier this month that a third person had received an implant. Patients who received the implants have been playing video games and online chess by simply thinking about steering left or right.

For the PRIME Study, Neuralink scientists and a multidisciplinary team of neurosurgeons, neuroscientists and biomedical engineers at The Miami Project and the Miller School of Medicine will implant the device in local participants. read more

Bob Snow, an entrepreneur who had a vision to revitalize a stretch of downtown Orlando in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 82.

Snow’s enterprises began with Church Street Station, an entertainment and dining complex that opened in summer 1974. It eventually drew millions of tourists annually — frequently by the busloads — with themed businesses named Rosie O’Grady’s Good Time Emporium, Cheyenne Saloon, Apple Annie’s Courtyard, Lili Marlene’s Aviator’s Pub and Phineas Phogg’s Balloon Works.

The vibe was pre-World World I with country-western and Dixieland music tossed in, too. And there were disco and rock and roll options.  It also was famed for Nickel Beer Night.

“It was singers and dancers and red-hot girls and jugglers and bagpipe players, and about 25 buses on a Saturday night,” Snow told the Orlando Sentinel in 2014.

Snow’s Church Street Exchange building was constructed in 1988.

His background included military service and gigs as a professional trumpet player. He had opened the Seville Quarter entertainment complex in Pensacola in the 1960s. read more

If you recently got a text from an unknown number warning you about unpaid SunPass tolls, officials want you to know it was probably a scam.

“Smishing,” or SMS phishing, is when fraudsters try to obtain your personal information through a text message. According to the Federal Trade Commission, the text might include a dollar amount for how much you supposedly owe, as well as a link.

Clicking the link will take you to a page to enter your bank account or credit card information.

“SunPass wants to remind customers to be careful of text messages or other communications that demand immediate payment for unpaid toll balances,“ the Florida Department of Transportation, which runs the electronic toll collection system, wrote in an advisory on its website. “These messages often pressure customers to make a quick payment to avoid late fees and include a link to a fake website to collect personal information.”

If you receive one of the messages, the transportation department says not to click the link. Instead, log in to your account on sunpass.com to check your balance. SunPass only contacts customers through customerservice@sunpass.com, noreply@sunpass.com or via text at 786727. read more

By Anna-Louise Jackson, Bankrate.com

It’s now the norm for Americans to file their taxes online — the IRS reports that more than 90% of individual tax returns were e-filed in 2023, the most recent data available. Even most professional tax preparers are required to electronically file returns on behalf of their clients.

By KELVIN CHAN

LONDON (AP) — Should I stay or should I go — from Meta’s social media platforms?

That’s what some Facebook, Instagram and Threads users are wondering after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement this month that the company is relaxing rules on harmful content such as hate speech and abandoning its fact checking program and replacing it with crowdsourced notes.

The changes have renewed interest among some users about deleting their Meta social media accounts. If you want to stop using platforms owned by Meta, here are some pointers:

Save your data

Before deleting your Facebook account, you should download a copy of all your personal information, which includes details about your activity on the platform, things you’ve shared and data that the company has collected about you.

You’ll have to go to your settings or the accounts center — the master control panel for all your Meta accounts — where you can choose to download everything or just items such as your profile, posts, messages, comments and reactions, and list of friends, even the ads you’ve clicked on and IP addresses you’ve used to connect to Facebook. read more