Yahoo, the Destroyer
How the historic company became known as a bumbling villain of internet culture
Source: Yahoo, the Destroyer
How Big Tech got so big: Hundreds of acquisitions
For decades Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google gobbled up their competition to become behemoths of the tech industry, which has drawn attention from Congressional leaders and other critics who claim they’ve stifled innovation in the industry.
Fake Famous on HBO
Fake Famous explores the meaning of fame and influence in the digital age through an innovative social experiment. Following three Los Angeles-based people with relatively small followings, the film explores the attempts made to turn them into famous influencers by purchasing fake followers and bots to “engage” with their social media accounts.
Source: Fake Famous
See also: What HBO’s Fake Famous Doesn’t Understand About Young People and Influencer Culture
Coinbase Makes Its Debut—and Bitcoin Arrives on Wall Street
Physicists are constantly rethinking how bubbles burst. It’s one of those nagging problems in physics, deceptively simple, like working out the forces that keep a bike upright . The problem is that while bubbles pop around us all the time, those pops occur in a fraction of a second, making the basic principles hard to glimpse.
Source: Coinbase Makes Its Debut—and Bitcoin Arrives on Wall Street
For Creators, Everything Is for Sale
A rash of new start-ups are making it easier for digital creators to monetize every aspect of their life — down to what they eat, who they hang out with and who they respond to on TikTok. Tens of millions of people around the globe consider themselves creators, and the creator economy represents the “fastest-growing type of small business,” according to a 2020 report by the venture capital firm SignalFire. But as the market gets more and more competitive — and the platforms and their algorithms remain unreliable — creators are devising new, hyper-specific revenue streams.
An artificial intelligence algorithm has created “new” Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana songs
We’ve heard AI-generated songs mimic the work of AC/DC, Metallica and more. Now artificial intelligence software has generated “new” Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana tracks, along with other artists and bands with members who died at the age of 27, to help raise awareness for the importance of mental health support amongst musicians and members of the music industry.
Source: An artificial intelligence algorithm has created “new” Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana songs
Is there a future for bitcoin? An investor and a skeptic make their cases
Professor Steve Hanke and investor Nic Carter on the two sides of the bitcoin debate
Source: Is there a future for bitcoin? An investor and a skeptic make their cases
Check Out These Cool New Features In Google Maps Brought To Reality By Artificial Intelligence
Google announces a series of updates in Google Maps using artificial intelligence ( AI ) that have been or are about to be released in the coming year.
Source: Check Out These Cool New Features In Google Maps Brought To Reality By Artificial Intelligence
NFTs Weren’t Supposed to End Like This
When we invented non-fungible tokens, we were trying to protect artists. But tech-world opportunism has struck again.
Trust in tech cratered all over the world last year
Trust in tech — including companies specializing in AI, VR, 5G and the internet of things — fell all around the world last year, the Edelman Trust Barometer found in a massive survey of 31,000 people in 27 countries.
Source: Exclusive: Trust in tech cratered all over the world last year
Clubhouse, the Shift to Spoken Social Media, and the Voices That Will Be Silenced
Real-time voice chatroom platforms must make people with speech impairments feel welcome. If inclusivity remains an unsolved problem, then millions of people will be silenced.
Source: Clubhouse, the Shift to Spoken Social Media, and the Voices That Will Be Silenced
OpenAI’s text-generating system GPT-3 is now spewing out 4.5 billion words a day
One of the biggest trends in machine learning right now is text generation. AI systems learn by absorbing billions of words scraped from the internet and generate text in response to a variety of prompts. It sounds simple, but these machines can be put to a wide array of tasks — from creating fiction, to writing bad code, to letting you chat with historical figures.
Source: OpenAI’s text-generating system GPT-3 is now spewing out 4.5 billion words a day
How Audio Pros ‘Upmix’ Vintage Tracks and Give Them New Life
Experts are using AI to pick apart classic recordings from the 50s and 60s, isolate the instruments, and stitch them back together in crisp, bold ways.
Source: How Audio Pros ‘Upmix’ Vintage Tracks and Give Them New Life
Robinhood app makes Wall Street feel like a game to win – instead of a place where you can lose your life savings in a New York minute
Wall Street has long been likened to a casino . Robinhood, an investment app that just filed plans for an initial public offering , makes the comparison more apt than ever . That’s because the power of the casino is the way it makes people feel like gambling their money away is a game.
Frictionless ‘stores of the future’ will land and expand
A new paradigm of physical retail, created and accelerated by the pandemic’s disruptive forces, is ready to emerge. In 2021, the “retail apocalypse” will reach a crescendo as many teetering legacy retailers close hundreds of locations.
Source: Frictionless ‘stores of the future’ will land and expand
Decoding emojis and defining ‘support’: Facebook’s rules for content revealed
They run to more than 300 pages, envisaging and exemplifying some of the most borderline and ethically challenging uses of the world’s biggest social network by its 2.8 billion monthly users. Secret Facebook guidelines seen by the Guardian show how the company controls its mainly outsourced moderators’ work down to the smallest detail, defining its rules so precisely that contractors are told which emojis constitute “praise” and which count as “condemnation”.
Source: Decoding emojis and defining ‘support’: Facebook’s rules for content revealed
With Fewer Ads on Streaming, Brands Make More Movies
As streaming video has gained in importance during the pandemic, advertisers have put more focus on Hollywood-level branded content as a way to reach viewers.
Source: With Fewer Ads on Streaming, Brands Make More Movies
The Pay TV Model Is Declining. The N.F.L. Is Still Banking on It.
In their agreements with the league, networks promoted their digital rights. But the structure of the deals allows consumers to watch most games without subscribing to a streaming service.
Another Big Step Toward Digitizing Our Lives
On Beeple, Nyan Cat and the latest tech phenom: the non-fungible token, or NFT.
Source: Another Big Step Toward Digitizing Our Lives
As ‘The Walking Dead’ comes to an end, AMC looks ahead to the company’s digital future
Cable programmer’s strategy is to work with as many streamers and ad tech platforms as possible.
Source: As ‘The Walking Dead’ comes to an end, AMC looks ahead to the company’s digital future