Wednesday, March 25, 2026

Amazon's Spring Sale Started Today -- Will Last Seven Days -- March 25, 2026

Locator: 50322AMAZON. 

You don't have to have a Prime membership to take advantage of the Amazon Spring Sale.  

AI prompt: what percent of Amazon's retail business comes from Prime members vs non-Prime members. With all the perks one gets with Amazon Prime, it's amazing all the folks that buy from Amazon who are not Prime members.

Reply:

Amazon Prime: 180 million Americans.

Apple: installed base of more than 2.5 billion active devices, an increase of 150 million installed active devices from a year earlier.

Covid Cicada -- A New Variant -- March 25, 2026

Locator: 50321COVID. 

Link here

Link here

Variants and genomic surveillance. Link here

Now today being reported in some media outlets:

MacBook Neo -- March 25, 2026

Locator: 50320NEO. 

Tag: Apple AAPL MacBook Neo 

Clearing Out The X-Files -- March 25, 2026

Locator: 50319TECH. 

Note: Apple is tracked here. For the first time ever, I've added an operating system to the page. 

Apple

Apple deal with Google gives Apple full access to Gemini inside its own data centers. It also gives Apple the ablity to distill that system into smaller models for its own use. Link here.

The wave of accelerated deployment of AI infrastructure will only intensify the memory hunger of the entire AI ecosystem.

Apple's AI endgame: why waiting for Siri could make it a winner -- Jonny Evans, Computerworld, link here.
While rivals chased hype, Apple built the platform. IOS 27 may be the payoff. 

IOS 27, link here. 

iOS 27 is a mobile operating system planned for release by Apple Inc. in 2026. It is scheduled to be unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2026 and officially rolled out to users in September of the same year. 
The iPhone 18 series will come pre-installed with this system. iOS 27 will debut a new Siri chatbot, internally codenamed 'Campos.' This chatbot is built on the Google Gemini 2.5 Pro model and supports intelligent conversations through voice and text input. 
In iOS 27, Siri's functionality will be further enhanced, featuring continuous multi-turn conversation capabilities and deep integration into the Health app and the system. 
The development focus of this system is described as a 'Snow Leopard-style update,' emphasizing underlying performance optimization and stability improvements, while also providing software adaptation for the rumored foldable iPhone.

Apple sales:

Oracle:

Only Oracle has two representatives on the newly formed President's Council of Advisors on Science & Technology. Link here.

The initial members of the newly formed President's Council of Advisors (link here). Note who isn't mentioned:

  • Marc Andreesen, Mosaic;
  • Sergey Brin, Google;
  • Safra Catz, Oracle;
  • Michael Dell,
  • Jacob DeWitte, co-founder and CEO of Oklo;
  • Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase (crypto);
  • Larry Ellison, Oracle;
  • David Friedberg, link;
  • Jensen Huang, Nvidia;
  • John Martinis, quantum computing, Google Quantum AI Lab;
  • Bob Mumgaard, fusion energy;
  • Lisa Su, AMD, 
  • Mark Zuckerberg, META

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NCAA Women's Basketball

UVA is the first "Four Team" to ever make the "Sweet 16."

Link here.  

UVA Cavaliers, 21-11 (10) beat Iowa Hawkeyes 27-6 (2).

Two overtimes. In the second overtime:

  • Cavaliers: 18 points
  • Hawkeyes: 10 points

Extended highlightsYouTube, link here.

My Favorite Chart -- MMFs -- For Data Through February 28, 2026

Locator: 50318MMFS. 

My favorite chart. MMFs. 

Data updated March 16, 2026.

Link here

After the big jump in January, 2020, Covid-19) it appears that Schwab had the biggest jump (on a percentage basis), around April, 2023. Falling the most at that time, again on a percentage basis, appeared to be Morgan Stanley but I could be very, very wrong. The graph is very hard to read.  

Zooming in, one can see that mutual fund assets hit a new record: