From artificial intelligence to fatalities from music streaming to the effects of immigrants on elderly health care, the Planet Money newsletter rounds up some interesting new economic studies.
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A large study found that people taking GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic for diabetes were less likely to be diagnosed with substance use disorder.
(Image credit: Maria Fabrizio for NPR)
Quo (formerly OpenPhone) is a cloud-based business phone system designed for teams that want a modern, app-centric alternative to traditional VoIP or PBX setups.
It blends calling, texting, shared numbers, and AI-powered automation in a single workspace that feels more like a messaging app than a legacy phone console.
This company targets small and midsize businesses, startups, and distributed teams that need professional phone numbers, shared inboxes, and collaboration tools without investing in desk phones or complex hardware.
The service runs on desktop and mobile apps, keeping personal and business communication separate while giving teams a unified view of calls and messages.
A key differentiator is the Sona AI voice agent, which can answer calls 24/7, capture details, generate transcripts, and suggest follow-up actions, effectively acting as a virtual receptionist and note-taker.
When combined with integrations with tools like HubSpot and Salesforce, Quo aims to streamline how teams handle leads, support tickets, and client communication.
Quo: Plans and pricing(Image credit: Quo)Quo uses per-user, per-month pricing, with tiers that unlock additional AI capabilities, advanced analytics, and more robust integrations as you go up the ladder. This structure keeps it approachable for very small teams that just need core calling and texting, while still scaling for growing companies that want deeper reporting or CRM sync.
Higher-tier plans typically include features like advanced call tagging, more powerful Sona AI automation, and expanded integration options with CRMs and other business tools.
Transparent pricing and no required hardware purchases help keep the total cost of ownership predictable, especially compared with legacy on-premises phone systems that require separate maintenance and equipment.
Quo: Features(Image credit: Quo)Quo is built to be deployed quickly, often without IT involvement, which will appeal to small businesses and non-technical founders. Getting started typically involves creating an account, choosing or porting phone numbers, installing the desktop and mobile apps, and inviting team members to join.
Number porting, configuring shared inboxes, and setting up basic call routing rules can usually be completed from the admin dashboard, with guided steps and documentation to reduce friction.
Many customers highlight straightforward onboarding and the ability to get a working phone system live in a short amount of time, especially compared with traditional providers.
Quo: Ease of use(Image credit: Quo)Most users describe Quo’s interface as clean and modern, with a layout that resembles familiar messaging apps, lowering the learning curve. The shared conversation view helps new team members quickly understand context, and the separation between personal and business communication on mobile devices supports healthier work–life boundaries.
Features like conversation assignment, internal comments, and automated call summaries cut down on back-and-forth and reduce the need for external note-taking tools.
For teams, having calls and texts in one shared thread for each customer makes collaboration more intuitive than bouncing between email, chat, and a separate phone app.
Quo: Security and privacyQuo emphasizes secure communication and payment handling, particularly for organizations in regulated industries like healthcare.
Once a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement is in place, Quo can be configured to support compliant communication workflows, with safeguards that align with HIPAA’s Privacy and Security Rules.
For billing and payments, Quo relies on Stripe as a PCI Service Provider Level 1–certified processor, meaning credit card data is never stored on Quo’s servers and is transmitted using strong encryption.
The platform layers on protections like multi-factor authentication for sensitive account changes, regular security audits, and privacy policies that stress minimal data collection, purpose limitation, and user control over personal data.
Quo: SupportCustomers often praise Quo’s support team for being responsive, professional, and helpful during onboarding and troubleshooting. Small business users, in particular, note that setup questions and technical issues tend to be addressed promptly, which is important when the phone system is mission-critical.
Quo offers a support site and resource center with documentation on configuration, security, and compliance, though some users have reported issues with the in-dashboard AI assistant not functioning correctly in highly locked-down browser environments. This suggests that while core support quality is strong, the AI help experience may vary depending on security settings and browser constraints.
Quo: The competitionQuo competes with a crowded field of cloud-based communication platforms, including RingCentral, Nextiva, and GoTo Connect, as well as more lightweight app-based services.
Many of these rivals offer robust call routing, analytics, and integrations, but may lean more heavily on traditional PBX paradigms or require more complex configuration.
Where Quo stands out is its focus on an app-first, messaging-like experience and its AI-driven Sona agent, which aims to capture and categorize every call without manual intervention.
However, some power users and larger enterprises may still prefer competitors with more mature contact-center features or deeper native analytics if those advanced capabilities matter more than a streamlined interface.
Quo: Final verdictQuo is a compelling choice for small and midsize teams that value simplicity, collaboration, and AI assistance as much as traditional phone features.
Its shared inbox model, Sona AI agent, and CRM integrations make it especially attractive for sales, support, and real estate teams that live and die by fast, context-rich customer communication.
There are some trade-offs: users with locked-down environments may encounter quirks with the AI support assistant, and organizations needing advanced contact center tooling may find more specialized options elsewhere.
But for most growing businesses that want an easy-to-manage phone system that feels like a modern messaging app—and that also captures and organizes every interaction—Quo earns a strong recommendation.
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The original GreedFall was something of a balm for people starving for a particular flavor of sub-BioWare action role-playing games (RPGs) - games about reading lore codices and speaking to party members about their unresolved family drama.
Review infoPlatform reviewed: PS5
Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Release date: March 12, 2026
True to form for veteran “Temu versions of bigger RPGs” developer Spiders, it played like an earnest if haphazard version of The Witcher 2. GreedFall: The Dying World - no longer named GreedFall 2 to clarify its position as a prequel to the original - instead attempts to channel the spirit of classic late 90s or early 00s PC games as it becomes a real-time-with-pause tactical RPG.
The other big shift is in your perspective: the original game cast you as a member of a noble house from a Europe-inspired industrialised nation, as it’s in the middle of colonising a new world of feather-wearing, magic-infused natives with a culture built out of thoughtlessly mashed together indigenous stereotypes.
Presumably in response to criticism of their poorly handled parable of the colonisation of North America, Spiders has taken the bafflingly ill-advised decision to make it all an allegory for the transatlantic slave trade instead.
Troubled waters(Image credit: Nacon)In The Dying World, you play as a member of a tribe indigenous to the fantasy island of Teer Fradee who is quickly ripped from their home by soldiers and shipped to the mainland in a prison ship. It’s a bold opening for a developer that doesn’t have a great track record for handling this sort of thing with any degree of sensitivity or consideration.
Luckily, creative cowardice wins out, and you are immediately sprung from prison by a woman who is really very sorry about her job being to help ships bring back captured natives for cultish human experimentation. The rest of the game feels very much like a tour of apologism, as we find out that it’s actually only a few bad apples - and not the entire colonial apparatus - that has a penchant for human slavery and torture.
It’s a shame how familiar things are, how quickly the player character becomes second fiddle to more traditional RPG stories starring your roster of deeply uninteresting party members. There is no opportunity for righteous fury at what all of these people have been doing to your homeland. You can’t go on a revenge rampage. You can’t assassinate business leaders.
You just stumble along, being helpful and small while hoping someone in a position of power feels enough remorse to assist you in rescuing other captured natives or find a way home. The best you can hope for is for some official to possibly consider, maybe one day, looking into the whole slavery business.
(Image credit: Nacon)The lack of player agency can sometimes reach comical levels; you would think a party member becoming a captain of her own massive ship would be a solid ticket back home for the island natives. Raising it as a possibility makes the rest of the party act as if you’re being completely unreasonable to demand such an expensive and time-consuming diversion. It makes far more sense to help everyone else with whatever lingering lifelong mission they’ve been on first.
It’s a bizarre decision for the studio to double down on the biggest weakness of the original game and flub the blank slate they had given themselves. There’s a game about a cool pirate lady going on adventures that they could have made, away from the baggage of the bad ideas they’d had. They’ve ended up with the worst of both worlds, lacking the conviction to focus on the indigenous storyline but also tarnishing the attempt to make a fun RPG about finding lost treasure and killing inexplicable packs of rabid monkeys in the countryside.
The trying world(Image credit: Nacon)The combat is also a step back. With GreedFall and Steelrising, it felt like Spiders had finally settled into a comfortable place with its attempts at real-time, vaguely soulslike combat. Here, it has looked at the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 and the rest of the computer role-playing game (CRPG) revival, and tried something more tactical - ending up with a system very close to Dragon Age: Origins.
Exploration is done via a traditional third-person camera, but at the press of a button, the camera pulls out to an almost isometric view, and time freezes - allowing you to get a handle on the details of each foe, queue up individual actions for each party member, and position them for defensive or offensive purposes.
Unpausing keeps you in the tactical view, letting you monitor how things play out and decide when you need to pause again and adapt to the battle as it unfolds. Not that you’ll ever be really surprised by anything.
Most encounters play out the same way; the same way they do in most CRPGs - sending out a tank to draw enemy attention away from your preferred assortment of spell casters, archers and thieves who all chip away at enemy defences or hit them with afflictions or cast favourable buffs on the tank. Sometimes there’ll be an explosive barrel.
It works fine. The studio has done a genuinely commendable job at mapping this sort of thing onto a console controller - you never feel like you’re struggling against the absence of a scroll wheel or a keyboard. You might find yourself struggling to stay engaged in your third, drawn-out battle against a dozen rabid monkeys in a row - as you find yourself pausing and pausing to carry out the same tried and tested tactics you’ve been relying on for 20 hours.
Outside of a few standout bosses, the game rarely throws you a curveball or forces you to think outside of the box.
(Image credit: Nacon)Fortunately, The Dying World features some robust difficulty and control options - letting you do everything from making it so that a single badly timed or placed spell can result in wiping out your own party or turning the game into a third-person autobattler with infinite health.
If the combat ever starts to feel like a slog, you can essentially make it play itself while you enjoy exploring the world or furthering the narrative. Or if you prefer to turn it into something like a 90s computer classic, you could play the entire thing like it’s a real-time strategy with a fixed isometric camera as you click your way around the environment.
As a Spiders fan in general, this is ultimately a deeply frustrating experience. There’s a lot to be appreciated here. The towns and cities of the continent are a densely packed delight to explore, once you’re finally given the freedom to do so.
There’s a calming quality to being able to sit back and consider your options as you look down on the battlefield. But there’s only so long you can spend clicking on the same combination of skill icons in battles that all overstay their welcome. Only so many times you can grimace as the writing constantly trips over itself.
It’s heart breaking to say, given the effort involved - and knowing there’s a strong likelihood this could be Spiders’ swansong - but this is a world they should have let this world die in peace.
Should I play GreedFall: The Dying World?Play it if...You enjoy comparing trousers
While GreedFall: The Dying World's encounters leave much to be desired, preparing for them is deeply satisfying if you're the type of person who likes pouring over the statistical details of every item of clothing equipped on your party members. There's a steady trickle of loot to sort through, and all of it is reflected visually, so you'll be agonizing between form and function.
You like looking at cobblestones and trees
The world might be dying, but it's very nice to look at. It takes too long to reach the point where you can freely explore the towns of the continent, but once you do, you'll find they're oozing with detail and atmosphere. Each nation feels genuinely distinct in terms of architecture and personality, while feeling grounded in the same world.
You like well thought-out fantasy settings
Focusing on the already poorly conceived and broadly drawn native culture of the original is a perplexing, unforced error. What could have been a course correction only leads to more missteps, as every hour sees some plot beat or piece of dialogue that will make any player who is culturally or historically sensitive suck air through their teeth and tug at their collar.
You are hoping to show off your tactical genius
GreedFall: The Dying World's more complex combat ends up feeling like a tedious slog rather than a true test of your intelligence. Most builds don't feel particularly unique or interesting, offering nothing you haven't seen a thousand times already. All you can really do is shovel in some artificial difficulty in the form of damage modifiers or friendly fire, which grates very quickly.
The game lets you change a variety of aspects of combat to taste, from friendly or enemy damage levels to when the game pauses automatically or how the camera reacts in certain contexts.
You can determine how much autonomy your party members have during a fight. There are three presets available, which offer different ways to experience and engage with combat, from minimal to exact.
Subtitle options are limited to one background and three sizes, but there are no colourblind settings. Commendably, they have included something that every video game should release with - an Infinite Health toggle switch in the options menu.
How I reviewed GreedFall: The Dying WorldI played through the main storyline and the major companion quests of Greedfall: The Dying World for over 40 hours on a stock PlayStation 5 hooked up to a 50” OLED TV. The HDR really shows off the wide range of deep, rich browns and reds that make up the towns and forests you’ll be spending your time in.
I played using the Quality Mode, which caps the FPS at 30 frames per second (fps) - which I found had little impact on the tactical combat. The Performance Mode caps at 60, but the significant reduction in resolution makes the detailed environments appear fuzzy and cluttered.
First reviewed March 2026
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