The Daily Valet. - 8/26/20, Wednesday

✔️ Are You Ready to Go?

August 26, 2020

Wednesday, August 26th Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

Pass the popcorn ... but I'm watching from home.

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today's edition is presented by

Today’s Big Story

Ready to Go to the Movies?

Tom Cruise thinks you should be ready ...

As each month during this pandemic stretches along, the topic of movies comes back around. Summer blockbusters were pushed back. Other films were brought to streaming platforms. Drive-ins popped up around the country.

Now there is talk of reopening theaters for business. And Tom Cruise is already campaigning to get people in the seats. On Tuesday, he tweeted a video of his recent trip to a Tenet screening.

The whole time, Cruise is wearing a mask. (However, it has vents. The CDC advises against face coverings with vents or valves because they do not prevent the person wearing the mask from potentially transmitting COVID-19 to others.)

As films tip-toe back into theaters, there's no getting around the fact that sitting in a closed indoor room with several strangers for two hours remains a serious health risk.

According to IndieWire, film publications such as The A.V. Club, Boston Globe, and RogerEbert.com will not review new movies such as Disney’s “The New Mutants” this week if studios won't make screening links available or offer socially-distanced press screenings to film critics.

If we take critics' thoughts and opinions into consideration to see a movie, shouldn't we take their advice when it comes to actually going to the movies?

↦ Dig Deeper: Is it safe to go to the theater right now? Vulture investigates and checks in with a public-health expert.

Jacob Blake Paralyzed From Waist Down

He needs ‘a miracle’ to walk again, attorney says

Jacob Blake, the Black man shot in the back by police in Wisconsin, is paralyzed from the waist down, his father and family's lawyers said Tuesday.

According to NBC News, he suffered multiple injuries, including a gunshot wound to one arm, damage to his kidney, liver and spinal cord. Doctors don't know if the condition is permanent. “It’s going to take a miracle for Jacob Blake Jr. to ever walk again,” attorney Ben Crump told reporters.

The shooting has sparked protests in Kenosha and other cities. Police in riot gear deployed tear gas and flash-bang grenades against demonstrators in Kenosha as protesters gathered outside the courthouse, where some shook a protective fence and threw water bottles and fireworks at officers lined up behind it. Something tells me this is only going to get bigger as the week goes on.

↦ FYI: Blake's mother called for peaceful protests and said her son would not be pleased with “the violence and the destruction.”

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Can Wearable Tech Keep Us Healthy?

Fitbit’s newest smartwatch is heavily slanted toward biometric measurements

Fitbit has detailed some fascinating early findings of its COVID-19 wearables study, which aims to find an algorithm to identify infections early. That it can detect half of coronavirus infections the day before symptoms appear, with 70% specificity is pretty impressive.

Then there are the current smartphone-based Exposure Notification Systems (like the one created jointly by Apple and Google) which support comprehensive contact-tracing efforts. But according to Tech Crunch, this pandemic is not what anyone had in mind when the Bluetooth standard was created, so the Bluetooth Special Interest Group is working to create a new specification that would allow wearable devices to work in tandem with smartphones to expand the reach of ENS tech.

On Tuesday, tech writer David Pogue spoke with the team behind the new Fitbit Sense, a $329 smartwatch dedicated to tracking your health. Pogue made a good point that the whole point of these tracking watches is that they make the invisible actually visible—which makes it great for an illness we're trying to avoid.

The Sense is loaded with sensors. They cover one third of its entire surface and include both a new skin-temperature system and a sensor that measures your physical stress level. Definitely sounds promising, right?

The Spice Race

Maybe we just need to feel something, anything

Have you noticed all the spiciness lately? I'm not talking about Fallwell. I mean everything's coming up hot lately.

On Tuesday, McDonald's announced it's debuting spicy chicken nuggets next month, the first time the chain has introduced a new McNugget flavor since it debuted in 1983. The nuggets—which have a tempura coating made with cayenne and chile peppers, per a press release—will also come with a new hot dipping sauce.

According to Thrillist, spicy chip brands are taking their Flamin’ Hot flavors and Takis lime-tinged heat and applying it to everything from mac 'n cheese and cupcakes to merch.

Even a new DTC ice cream brand is getting noticed for their flavors—Spicy PB Caramel, Thai Coco-Lime and Aztec Chocolate—which offer a shot of sweet heat thanks to an infusion of chiles, reports Forbes.

↦ Meanwhile: KFC has suspended the “It's Finger Lickin' Good” slogan amid the pandemic.

In Other News

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

The pumpkin spice rebellion

This underrated product

Underwater workouts

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