Apple's announcement that "more personalized Siri" features of Apple Intelligence [1]would be delayed until "the coming year" [2]reveals a troubling departure from the company's hard-earned reputation for reliability , long-time commentator John Gruber writes. Unlike other Apple Intelligence features that were demonstrated to media in June, the personalized Siri features -- promising personal context awareness, onscreen awareness, and in-app actions -- were never shown working to anyone outside Apple. Yet Apple prominently featured these capabilities in the WWDC keynote and even created TV commercials ( [3]now pulled ) touting these functions to sell iPhone 16.

This represents a dangerous shift toward the pre-Jobs-return Apple that promised vaporware it couldn't deliver. Gruber writes. Apple has squandered its credibility, built meticulously over decades through consistently shipping what they promised, he writes. Gruber's post cites the following excerpt from [4]a 2011 story :

> Apple doesn't often fail, and when it does, it isn't a pretty sight at 1 Infinite Loop. In the summer of 2008, when Apple launched the first version of its iPhone that worked on third-generation mobile networks, it also debuted MobileMe, an e-mail system that was supposed to provide the seamless synchronization features that corporate users love about their BlackBerry smartphones. MobileMe was a dud. Users complained about lost e-mails, and syncing was spotty at best. Though reviewers gushed over the new iPhone, they panned the MobileMe service.

>

> Steve Jobs doesn't tolerate duds. Shortly after the launch event, he summoned the MobileMe team, gathering them in the Town Hall auditorium in Building 4 of Apple's campus, the venue the company uses for intimate product unveilings for journalists. According to a participant in the meeting, Jobs walked in, clad in his trademark black mock turtleneck and blue jeans, clasped his hands together, and asked a simple question: "Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" Having received a satisfactory answer, he continued, "So why the fuck doesn't it do that?"

>

> For the next half-hour Jobs berated the group. "You've tarnished Apple's reputation," he told them. "You should hate each other for having let each other down." The public humiliation particularly infuriated Jobs.

Gruber adds:

> Tim Cook should have already held a meeting like that to address and rectify this Siri and Apple Intelligence debacle. If such a meeting hasn't yet occurred or doesn't happen soon, then, I fear, that's all she wrote. The ride is over. When mediocrity, excuses, and bullshit take root, they take over. A culture of excellence, accountability, and integrity cannot abide the acceptance of any of those things, and will quickly collapse upon itself with the acceptance of all three.



[1] https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/07/1833202/apple-delays-more-personalized-siri-apple-intelligence-features

[2] https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/something_is_rotten_in_the_state_of_cupertino

[3] https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/03/10/1936216/apple-pulls-iphone-16-ad-showing-off-more-personal-siri

[4] https://fortune.com/article/inside-apple/

Mozilla has warned that the U.S. Department of Justice's proposed remedies in its antitrust case against Google would [1]harm independent browsers and reduce competition in the browser market . The DOJ and several state attorneys general last week filed revised proposed remedies in the U.S. v. Google search case that would prohibit all search payments to browser developers, a move Mozilla says would disproportionately impact smaller players.

"These proposed remedies prohibiting search payments to small and independent browsers miss the bigger picture -- and the people who will suffer most are everyday internet users," said Mark Surman, President of Mozilla. Unlike Apple and Microsoft, which generate revenue from hardware and operating systems, Mozilla relies primarily on search revenue to fund browser development. Mozilla argues that cutting these payments would not solve search dominance but would instead strengthen the position of tech giants.

Mozilla also warned that the proposal threatens its ability to maintain Gecko, one of only three major browser engines alongside Google's Chromium and Apple's WebKit. "If we lose our ability to maintain Gecko, it's game over for an open, independent web," Surman said, noting that even Microsoft abandoned its browser engine in 2019. "If Mozilla is unable to sustain our browser engine, it would severely impact browser engine competition and mean the death of the open web as we know it -- essentially, creating a web where dominant players like Google and Apple, have even more control, not less."

Firefox serves 27 million monthly active users in the U.S. and nearly 205 million globally.



[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/internet-policy/proposed-remedies-browsers/

An Australian man in his forties has become the first person in the world to [1]leave hospital with an artificial heart made of titanium . From a report:

> The device is used as a stopgap for people with heart failure who are waiting for a donor heart, and previous recipients of this type of artificial heart had remained in US hospitals while it was in place.

>

> The man lived with the device for more than three months until he underwent surgery to receive a donated human heart. The man is recovering well, according to a statement from St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, Australia, where the operations were conducted. The Australian is the sixth person globally to receive the device, known as BiVACOR, but the first to live with it for more than a month.



[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00782-0

Microsoft is preparing to launch an AI-powered Copilot for Gaming soon that will [1]guide Xbox players through games and act as an assistant to download and launch games. From a report:

> Copilot for Gaming, as Microsoft is branding it, will be available through the Xbox mobile app initially and is designed to work on a second screen as a companion or assistant.

>

> Microsoft is positioning Copilot for Gaming as a sidekick of sorts, one that will accompany you through games, offering up tips and guides and useful information about a game world. During a press briefing, Sonali Yadav, product manager for gaming AI, demonstrated several scenarios for what Copilot for Gaming could be used for. One involved a concept demo of Copilot assisting an Overwatch 2 player by coaching them on the mistakes they made when trying to push without teammates.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/news/628666/microsoft-xbox-copilot-for-gaming

A new statistical analysis has identified the films audiences "love to hate," with Battlefield Earth, Morbius, Grease 2, and Cats topping the list of cinema's most detested productions. The [1]study , published by data analyst Daniel Parris, examined review data from MovieLens to calculate both the percentage of one-star reviews and total disapproval magnitude for each release.

A common thread among these widely derided titles: many were adaptations of popular books or shows, or attempted to capitalize on once-beloved franchises. Adam Sandler leads the actors most frequently appearing in widely disliked films, followed by comedians and action stars who have starred in productions with high one-star review rates.

The research also reveals an industry trend toward increasing one-star reviews over time, with family-oriented fare and horror films receiving disproportionately negative ratings despite consistent box office profitability - suggesting studios have prioritized risk-averse, commercially viable projects over critical acclaim.



[1] https://www.statsignificant.com/p/which-movies-do-people-love-to-hate

Britain's competition watchdog has concluded that Apple and Google are [1]stifling competition in the UK mobile browser market , following an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The inquiry found Apple's iOS policies particularly restrictive, requiring all browsers to use its WebKit engine while giving Safari preferential access to features.

Apple's practice of pre-installing Safari as the default browser also reduces awareness of alternatives, despite allowing users to change defaults. Google faces similar criticism for pre-installing Chrome on most Android devices, though investigators noted both companies have recently taken steps to facilitate browser switching. The probe identified Apple's revenue-sharing arrangement with Google -- which pays a significant share of search revenue to be the default iPhone search engine -- as "significantly reducing their financial incentives to compete."



[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/final-report-into-mobile-browsers-and-cloud-gaming-published

Parents who are worried about their children being on Roblox [1]should not let them use it , the chief executive of the gigantic gaming platform has said. From a report:

> The site, which is the most popular in the UK among young gamers aged eight to 12, has been dogged by claims of some children being exposed to explicit or harmful content through its games, alongside multiple reported allegations of bullying and grooming.

>

> But its co-founder and CEO Dave Baszucki insisted that the company is vigilant in protecting its users and pointed out that "tens of millions" of people have "amazing experiences" on the site. When asked what his message is to parents who don't want their children on the platform, Mr Baszucki said: "My first message would be, if you're not comfortable, don't let your kids be on Roblox." [...] "That sounds a little counter-intuitive, but I would always trust parents to make their own decisions," he told BBC News in an exclusive interview.



[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yrjkl7dd6o

Netflix has deployed AI upscaling on the 1987-1993 sitcom "A Different World," [1]resulting in significant visual artifacts documented by technology commentator Scott Hanselman. The AI processing, intended to enhance the original 360p footage for modern displays, has generated distortions resembling "lava lamp effects" on actors' bodies, improperly rendered mouths, and misshapen background objects including posters and tennis rackets. This marks Netflix's second controversial AI implementation in recent months, following December's AI-powered dubbing and mouth morphing on "La Palma."



[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/netflix-used-ai-upscale-a-different-world/

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch:

> Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei is worried that spies, likely from China, are getting their hands on costly "algorithmic secrets" from the U.S.'s top AI companies -- and he wants the U.S. government to step in. Speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations [1]event on Monday, Amodei said that China is known for its "large-scale industrial espionage" and that AI companies like Anthropic are almost certainly being targeted. "Many of these algorithmic secrets, there are [2]$100 million secrets that are a few lines of code ," he said. "And, you know, I'm sure that there are folks trying to steal them, and they may be succeeding."

>

> More help from the U.S. government to defend against this risk is "very important," Amodei added, without specifying exactly what kind of help would be required. Anthropic declined to comment to TechCrunch on the remarks specifically but referred to [3]Anthropic's recommendations to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) earlier this month. In the submission, Anthropic argues that the federal government should partner with AI industry leaders to beef up security at frontier AI labs, including by working with U.S. intelligence agencies and their allies.



[1] https://www.cfr.org/event/ceo-speaker-series-dario-amodei-anthropic

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/12/anthropic-ceo-says-spies-are-after-100m-ai-secrets-in-a-few-lines-of-code/

[3] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25559922-anthropic-response-to-ostp-rfi-march-2025/

Using the Summit supercomputer at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researchers have modeled a key component of nucleotide excision repair (NER) called the pre-incision complex (PInC), which plays a crucial role in DNA damage repair. Their study, [1]published in Nature Communications , provides new insights into how the PInC machinery orchestrates precise DNA excision, potentially leading to advancements in treating genetic disorders, preventing premature aging, and understanding conditions like xeroderma pigmentosum and Cockayne syndrome. Phys.Org reports:

> "Computationally, once you assemble the PInC, molecular dynamics simulations of the complex become relatively straightforward, especially on large supercomputers like Summit," [said lead investigator Ivaylo Ivanov, a chemistry professor at Georgia State University]. Nanoscale Molecular Dynamics, or NAMD, is a molecular dynamics code specifically designed for supercomputers and is used to simulate the movements and interactions of large biomolecular systems that contain millions of atoms. Using NAMD, the research team ran extensive simulations. The number-crunching power of the 200-petaflop Summit supercomputer -- capable of performing 200,000 trillion calculations per second -- was essential in unraveling the functional dynamics of the PInC complex on a timescale of microseconds. "The simulations showed us a lot about the complex nature of the PInC machinery. It showed us how these different components move together as modules and the subdivision of this complex into dynamic communities, which form the moving parts of this machine," Ivanov said.

>

> The findings are significant in that mutations in XPF and XPG can lead to severe human genetic disorders. They include xeroderma pigmentosum, which is a condition that makes people more susceptible to skin cancer, and Cockayne syndrome, which can affect human growth and development, lead to impaired hearing and vision, and speed up the aging process. "Simulations allow us to zero in on these important regions because mutations that interfere with the function of the NER complex often occur at community interfaces, which are the most dynamic regions of the machine," Ivanov said. "Now we have a much better understanding of how and from where these disorders manifest."



[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52860-y

Longtime Slashdot reader [1]UnknowingFool writes:

> Gamer's Nexus performed tests on the effect of removing legacy 32-bit PhysX on the newest generation of Nvidia cards with older games, and the [2]results are not good . With PhysX on, the latest generation Nvidia was slightly beaten by a GTX 580 (released 2010) on some games and handily beaten by a GTX 980 (2014) on some games.

>

> With the launch of the 5000 series, NVidia dropped 32-bit CUDA support going forward. Part of that change was dropping support for 32-bit PhysX. As a result, older titles that used it would perform poorly with 5000 series cards as it would default to CPU for calculations. Even the latest CPUs do not perform as well as 15-year-old GPUs when it comes to PhysX.

>

> The best performance on the 5080 was to turn PhysX off however that would remove many effects like smoke, breaking glass, and rubble from scenes. The second-best option was to pair a 5000 series with an older card like a 980 to handle the PhysX computations.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~UnknowingFool

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4w_aObRzCc

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:

> Researchers at Harvard University led the study, and it included nearly 58,000 adults in Japan who were followed for up to a year using a database of medical records from routine checkups. Researchers found that when people switched from being nondrinkers to drinkers during the study, they [1]saw a drop in their "bad" cholesterol -- aka low-density lipoprotein cholesterol or LDL. Meanwhile, their "good" cholesterol -- aka high-density lipoprotein cholesterol or HDL -- went up when they began imbibing. HDL levels went up so much, that it actually beat out improvements typically seen with medications, the researchers noted.

>

> On the other hand, drinkers who stopped drinking during the study saw the opposite effect: Upon giving up booze, their bad cholesterol went up and their good cholesterol went down. The cholesterol changes scaled with the changes in drinking. That is, for people who started drinking, the more they started drinking, the lower their LDL fell and higher their HDL rose. In the newly abstaining group, those who drank the most before quitting saw the biggest changes in their lipid levels.

>

> Specifically, people who went from drinking zero drinks to 1.5 drinks per day or less saw their bad LDL cholesterol fall 0.85 mg/dL and their good HDL cholesterol go up 0.58 mg/dL compared to nondrinkers who never started drinking. For those that went from zero to 1.5 to three drinks per day, their bad LDL dropped 4.4 mg/dL and their good HDL rose 2.49 mg/dL. For people who started drinking three or more drinks per day, their LDL fell 7.44 mg/dL and HDL rose 6.12 mg/dL. For people who quit after drinking 1.5 drinks per day or less, their LDL rose 1.10 mg/dL and their HDL fell by 1.25 mg/dL. Quitting after drinking 1.5 to three drinks per day, led to a rise in LDL of 3.71 mg/dL and a drop in HDL of 3.35. Giving up three or more drinks per day led to an LDL increase of 6.53 mg/dL and a drop in HDL of 5.65.

The study has been [2]published in JAMA Network Open .



[1] https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/03/large-study-shows-drinking-alcohol-is-good-for-your-cholesterol-levels/

[2] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2831319

Google says its new open-source AI model, Gemma 3, [1]achieves nearly the same performance as DeepSeek AI's R1 while using just one Nvidia H100 GPU, compared to an estimated 32 for R1. ZDNet reports:

> Using "Elo" scores, a common measurement system used to rank chess and athletes, Google claims Gemma 3 comes within 98% of the score of DeepSeek's R1, 1338 versus 1363 for R1. That means R1 is superior to Gemma 3. However, based on Google's estimate, the search giant claims that it would take 32 of Nvidia's mainstream "H100" GPU chips to achieve R1's score, whereas Gemma 3 uses only one H100 GPU.

>

> Google's balance of compute and Elo score is a "sweet spot," the company claims. In a [2]blog post , Google bills the new program as "the most capable model you can run on a single GPU or TPU," referring to the company's custom AI chip, the "tensor processing unit." "Gemma 3 delivers state-of-the-art performance for its size, outperforming Llama-405B, DeepSeek-V3, and o3-mini in preliminary human preference evaluations on LMArena's leaderboard," the blog post relates, referring to the Elo scores. "This helps you to create engaging user experiences that can fit on a single GPU or TPU host."

>

> Google's model also tops Meta's Llama 3's Elo score, which it estimates would require 16 GPUs. (Note that the numbers of H100 chips used by the competition are Google's estimate; DeepSeek AI has only disclosed an example of using 1,814 of Nvidia's less-powerful H800 GPUs to server answers with R1.) More detailed information is provided in a developer [3]blog post on HuggingFace, where the Gemma 3 repository is offered.



[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-claims-gemma-3-reaches-98-of-deepseeks-accuracy-using-only-one-gpu/

[2] https://blog.google/technology/developers/gemma-3/

[3] https://huggingface.co/blog/gemma3

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) is [1]acquiring Nianticâ(TM)s gaming division for $3.5 billion through its subsidiary Savvy Games Group. Niantic's titles include the hit mobile game Pokemon Go, Monster Hunter Now and Pikmin Bloom. "Despite launching almost a decade ago, Pokemon Go is still amongst the highest-grossing mobile games in the world, with 30 million monthly players," notes the BBC. From the report:

> Scopely is one of the biggest names in mobile gaming, with its most successful title, Monopoly Go, being downloaded more than 50 million times and generating more than $3 billion in revenue. Pokemon itself is jointly owned by Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures, which licensed the brand to Niantic so it could develop the game.

>

> Ed Wu, who leads the Pokemon Go team at Niantic, said in a blog post he believed the move was "a positive step" for the game's future. "Pokemon Go is more than just a game to me, it's my life's work," he said. "I won't say that Pokemon Go will remain the same, because it has always been a work in progress. But how we create and evolve it will remain unchanged, and I hope that we can make the experience even better."



[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz61yxv6evjo

According to The Verge, Sonos has [1]abandoned its plans to release a streaming video player this year . From the report:

> The news was announced by the company's leadership during an all-hands call today. That product, codenamed Pinewood, was set to be Sonos' next major hardware launch. It was already deep into development and has spent months in beta testing. But now the team behind it will be reassigned to other projects as interim CEO Tom Conrad reprioritizes the company's future roadmap and continues what he hopes will be a turnaround [2]from a bruising 2024 . He told employees that a push into video from Sonos is off the table "for now." [...]

>

> Pinewood was designed to offer many of the same streaming video apps as other devices on the market along with deep universal search and content aggregation. But as I reported last month, Sonos also intended for it to double as an HDMI switcher and support passthrough functionality for gaming consoles, 4K Blu-ray players, and more. The box was also set to allow new configurations of surround sound systems using Sonos' many speakers.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/tech/628297/sonos-pinewood-streaming-box-canceled

[2] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/09/23/155253/how-sonos-botched-an-app-and-infuriated-its-customers

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the EFF:

> EFF is deeply saddened to learn of the [1]passing of Mark Klein , a bona fide hero who risked civil liability and criminal prosecution to help expose a massive spying program that violated the rights of millions of Americans. Mark didn't set out to change the world. For 22 years, he was a telecommunications technician for AT&T, most of that in San Francisco. But he always had a strong sense of right and wrong and a commitment to privacy. When the New York Times reported in late 2005 that the NSA was engaging in spying inside the U.S., Mark realized that he had witnessed how it was happening. He also realized that the President was not telling Americans the truth about the program. And, though newly retired, he knew that he had to do something. He showed up at EFF's front door in [2]early 2006 with a simple question: "Do you folks care about privacy?"

>

> We did. And what Mark told us changed everything. Through his work, Mark had learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) had installed a secret, secure room at AT&T's central office in San Francisco, called Room 641A. Mark was assigned to connect circuits carrying Internet data to optical "splitters" that sat just outside of the secret NSA room but were hardwired into it. Those splitters -- as well as similar ones in cities around the U.S. -- made a copy of all data going through those circuits and delivered it into the secret room. Mark not only saw how it works, he had the [3]documents to prove it . He brought us over a hundred pages of authenticated AT&T schematic diagrams and tables. Mark also shared this information with major media outlets, numerous Congressional staffers, and at least two senators personally. One, Senator Chris Dodd, took the floor of the Senate to acknowledge Mark as the great American hero he was.



[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/03/memoriam-mark-klein-att-whistleblower-about-nsa-mass-spying

[2] https://slashdot.org/story/06/05/18/1626248/the-att-whistleblowers-evidence

[3] https://slashdot.org/story/06/05/22/132206/wired-releases-full-text-of-att-nsa-document

Intel has [1]appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO in an effort to turn around the struggling chipmaker, following the resignation of Pat Gelsinger. CNBC reports:

> Tan was previously CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which makes software used by all the major chip designers, including Intel. He was an Intel board member but departed last year, citing other commitments. Tan replaces interim co-CEOs David Zinsner and MJ Holthaus, who took over in December when former Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger was ousted. Tan is also rejoining Intel's board. [...] Intel shares rose over 12% in extended trading on Wednesday.



[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/12/intel-appoints-lip-bu-tan-as-new-ceo-stock-up-11percent.html

New submitter [1]CInder123 shares a report from TechSpot:

> Apple is undertaking one of the most significant software overhauls in its history, aiming to revamp the user interface across iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices. This ambitious update, set for release later this year, will [2]fundamentally transform the look and feel of Apple's operating systems , enhancing consistency and the user experience.

>

> The updates are part of iOS 19 and iPadOS 19, codenamed "Luck," and macOS 16, dubbed "Cheer," according to [3]Bloomberg's Mark Gurman . He cited sources who requested anonymity since the project has yet to be officially announced. These major upgrades will introduce a new design language while simplifying navigation and controls. Apple's push for consistency across platforms aims to create a seamless user experience when switching between devices. Currently, applications, icons, and window styles vary significantly across macOS, iOS, and visionOS, leading to a disjointed experience.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~CInder123

[2] https://www.techspot.com/news/107091-apple-set-unveil-boldest-software-redesign-years-across.html

[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-10/apple-readies-dramatic-design-overhauls-for-ios-19-ipados-19-and-macos-16?srnd=undefined&sref=p6BhGudo

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:

> On Wednesday, Google DeepMind [1]announced two new AI models designed to control robots: Gemini Robotics and Gemini Robotics-ER. The company claims these models will help robots of many shapes and sizes understand and interact with the physical world more effectively and delicately than previous systems, paving the way for applications such as humanoid robot assistants. [...] Google's new models build upon its Gemini 2.0 large language model foundation, adding capabilities specifically for robotic applications. Gemini Robotics includes what Google calls "vision-language-action" (VLA) abilities, allowing it to process visual information, understand language commands, and generate physical movements. By contrast, Gemini Robotics-ER focuses on "embodied reasoning" with enhanced spatial understanding, letting roboticists connect it to their existing robot control systems. For example, with Gemini Robotics, you can ask a robot to "pick up the banana and put it in the basket," and it will use a camera view of the scene to recognize the banana, guiding a robotic arm to perform the action successfully. Or you might say, "fold an origami fox," and it will use its knowledge of origami and how to fold paper carefully to perform the task.

>

> In 2023, we covered Google's RT-2, which represented a notable step toward more generalized robotic capabilities by using Internet data to help robots understand language commands and adapt to new scenarios, then doubling performance on unseen tasks compared to its predecessor. Two years later, Gemini Robotics appears to have made another substantial leap forward, not just in understanding what to do but in executing complex physical manipulations that RT-2 explicitly couldn't handle. While RT-2 was limited to repurposing physical movements it had already practiced, Gemini Robotics reportedly demonstrates significantly enhanced dexterity that [2]enables previously impossible tasks like origami folding and packing snacks into Zip-loc bags . This shift from robots that just understand commands to robots that can perform delicate physical tasks suggests DeepMind may have started solving one of robotics' biggest challenges: getting robots to turn their "knowledge" into careful, precise movements in the real world.

DeepMind claims Gemini Robotics "more than doubles performance on a comprehensive generalization benchmark compared to other state-of-the-art vision-language-action models."

Google is advancing this effort through a partnership with Apptronik to develop next-generation humanoid robots powered by Gemini 2.0. Availability timelines or specific commercial applications for the new AI models were not made available.



[1] https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/gemini-robotics-brings-ai-into-the-physical-world/

[2] https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/googles-origami-folding-ai-brain-may-power-new-wave-of-humanoid-robots/

The abstract of [1]a paper published on National Bureau of Economic Research:

> We document that, after remaining almost constant for almost 30 years, real labor productivity at U.S. restaurants surged over 15% during the COVID pandemic. This surge has persisted even as many conditions have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Using mobile phone data tracking visits and spending at more than 100,000 individual limited service restaurants across the country, we explore the potential sources of the surge.

>

> It cannot be explained by economies of scale, expanding market power, or a direct result of COVID-sourced demand fluctuations. The restaurants' productivity growth rates are strongly correlated, however, with reductions in the amount of time their customers spend in the establishments, particularly with a rising share of customers spending 10 minutes or less. The frequency of such 'take-out' customers rose considerably during COVID, even at fast food restaurants, and never went back down. The magnitude of the restaurant-level relationship between productivity and customer dwell time, if applied to the aggregate decrease in dwell time, can explain almost all of the aggregate productivity increase in our sample.



[1] https://www.nber.org/papers/w33555