You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
6 minutes
Aggregate amount of sunshine Moscow recorded in the entire month of December, the lowest ever. [NPR]
$130,000
The Wall Street Journal has uncovered a paper trail linking President Donald Trump’s lawyer to a $130,000 payment to an adult film performer weeks ahead of the 2016 election. The lawyer, Michael Cohen, founded Essential Consultants LLC of Delaware on Oct. 17, according to corporate records cited by the Journal, then used its bank account to send $130,000 to the client-trust account of a lawyer representing Stephanie Clifford. The payment was in exchange for not publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with the president, the Journal reported. [The Wall Street Journal]
15 percent
Facebook is overhauling its News Feed, with publishers poised for a significant dent in traffic from the social network. Since October 2017, Chartbeat — which monitors traffic for websites — saw a decline in Facebook referrals to publishers of 15 percent. [Chartbeat Blog]
3.5mm
The unanimity of “hey, if you wanna hear stuff, put the universally accepted end of the headphones into this hole on the device” has come to an end, as the 3.5mm jack is being phased out everywhere. What’s next? Well, Lightning, USB-C, wireless headphones, a new 4.4mm Pentaconn connector and basically whatever jack any independent technology firm that thinks it should get to pick the new standard wants you to jam headphones in. The golden age is over. [The Verge]
$36 billion
The video game business saw revenues jump in 2017, rising 18 percent from 2016 to $36 billion. The increase is pretty much across the board, with hardware revenue up 19 percent and software revenue up 18 percent. [Venturebeat]
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