The Post has produced 850 basic reports using AI, but is more interested in using it to aid more ambitious journalism.
Source: The Washington Post’s robot reporter has published 850 articles in the past year – Digiday
Heavyweight smartphone manufacturers like Apple and Samsung are using biometric capabilities like facial recognition as a selling point for their devices. But new research projects biometrics will be ubiquitous on smartphones in just a few years.
Source: Like It or Not, Smartphones with Biometrics Will Soon Be the Norm – eMarketer
Apple resorts to incrementalism at a time when we need new metaphors from which to build the smartphone’s ecosystem.
Source: What’s Really Missing From The iPhone X? A New Metaphor For Computing
I looked up through the skylight over my desk. Yep. That iPhone sky looked way better than the garbage regular sky that I could see through my garbage human eyes.
This enhancement of reality is what each video-streamed Apple event sells, more than any particular iPhone or set-top box. If advertising once told us that “Things go better with Coke,” this event — a jewel box for Apple’s products and the people who use them — says that “Things look better with Apple.”
Source: At the Apple Keynote, Selling Us a Better Vision of Ourselves – The New York Times
Smartphones have altered the texture of everyday life, digesting many longstanding spaces and rituals, and transforming others beyond recognition.
Source: A Sociology of the Smartphone
We were expecting Rosie from “The Jetsons” or maybe C3PO. Why did we end up with Alexa?
Source: These Are Not the Robots We Were Promised – The New York Times
Posing as ordinary citizens on Facebook and building “warlists” of Twitter accounts, suspected Russian agents intervened last year in the American democratic process.
Source: The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election – The New York Times
With the new iPhone and ARKit, Apple will bring augmented reality to the masses. What that will mean for the masses is still unclear.
In the past year, digital video viewing is on the rise for both free and paid content. And more teens are willing to pay for digital content, with 63% saying they purchased digital video in the past year, up from just 45% in 2016.
How AI is changing education will be clear in the coming years as these systems ease into classrooms and office spaces everywhere.
Source: How AI will Completely Transform Education | Digital Trends
THAT TWINGE OF worry. That occasional, sudden-onset widening-gyre sensation. It’s hard not to experience a bit of anxiety at the world’s recent technological upheavals—the endless stream of hacks, leaks, and cyberattacks; the whiplash advances in artificial intelligence and automation; the constant fear and loathing stoked by @socialmedia; and the Hieronymus Bosch spectacle that is democracy in the age of flying monkeys and fake news.
Who cares about my friends? I’m missing the news!
Source: We Can’t Stop Checking the News Either. Welcome to the New FOMO | WIRED
At about 9pm on Tuesday, August 22 a hacker swapped his or her own SIM card with mine, presumably by calling T-Mobile. This, in turn, shut off network services to my phone and, moments later, allowed the hacker to change most of my Gmail passwords, my Facebook password, and text on my behalf. All of the two-factor notifications went, by default, to my phone number so I received none of them and in about two minutes I was locked out of my digital life.
Source: I was hacked | TechCrunch
“Ok, Google, buy me nice things.”
Source: Walmart (WMT) and Google (GOOG) enter the voice-shopping market to challenge Amazon — Quartz
In the latest episode of “Behind the Numbers,” senior analyst Patricia Orsini and senior director of forecasting Monica Peart discuss whether brand advertisers have been spooked by concerns about brand safety online.
Source: Listen In: Are Brand Advertisers Rethinking Their Use of Digital? – eMarketer
Millennials now make up the second-largest generation group in the U.S. They also now have disposable incomes, making them attractive to marketers and brands who are so eager to reach them, as this group is highly engaged, using multiple platforms for many hours on a daily basis.
Source: Millennials on Millennials: Lots of Love, Lack of Loyalty
Drones. Shared refrigerators. Hydroponic garages. And never setting foot in a grocery store again.
Source: A Wild Vision Of The Future Run By Amazon And Whole Foods
Streaming and esports have been intertwined through their history. As the esports industry evolves to more resemble traditional sports, companies are starting to invest in exclusive streaming partnerships.
Source: How streaming is taking esports to the big leagues | VentureBeat | Esports | by Damian Alonzo
“There used to be an immediacy to the web,” says Anil Dash. “It was something you made.”
Source: Glitch: The Sleeper Coding Community Used By Facebook And Slack
Google wants to get more people building in VR–and to do so, it’s turning to a tried-and-true approach from the real world.
