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
NFT mania is here, and so are the scammers
Artists are seeing their work showing up in NFTs they did not mint themselves
Jack Dorsey sells his first tweet ever as an NFT for over $2.9 million
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, sold his first tweet as an NFT, or nonfungible token , for over $2.9 million on Monday when bidding ended on the “Valuables” platform, which is run by Cent, a blockchain-powered social media network.
Source: Jack Dorsey sells his first tweet ever as an NFT for over $2.9 million
Want a vaccination appointment? It helps to know a Python programmer
Programmers have figured out ways to help family and friends gain an edge in getting vaccine appointments, but they also realize not everybody has that advantage.
Source: Want a vaccination appointment? It helps to know a Python programmer
Why Retro-Looking Games Get So Much Love
There’s a psychology behind our affection for retro gaming, and it’s only partly to do with nostalgia for the past.
They laughed, they cried, they killed monsters: How friendships thrived in video games during the pandemic
Combined with phone calls, texts and chat tools like Discord, video games from battle royal “Fortnite” to the immersive world of “Roblox” are giving people a way to share fun, escapist experiences with each other when their shared reality is darker. They also act as a conduit for discussing the harder topics, like depression. Whether it’s shooting aliens together in near silence or opening up about feelings of loss, playing games is serving a valuable purpose
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
‘The future of housing’: California desert to get America’s first 3D-printed neighborhood
The desert landscape of California’s Coachella valley will soon be home to the first US neighborhood comprised entirely of 3D-printed houses. Through a partnership between two California companies – Palari, a sustainable real estate development group, and Mighty Buildings, a construction technology company – a five acre parcel of land in Rancho Mirage will be transformed into a planned community of 15 3D-printed, eco-friendly homes claiming to be the first of its kind. “This will be the first on-the-ground actualization of our vision for the future of housing,” said Alexey Dubov, the co-founder and chief operating officer of Mighty Buildings.
Source: ‘The future of housing’: California desert to get America’s first 3D-printed neighborhood
Fear and self-loathing in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
“Where have you been all this time?” A wave of guilt washed over me as I read these words on the screen. Considering how 2020 dismantled our reality and created a new set of post-coronavirus social paradigms, the last thing I wanted was to explain myself to someone I thought would understand.
Source: Fear and self-loathing in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Facebook is making an augmented reality wristband that lets you control computers with your brain
Does it work the way Facebook claims? Too soon to tell. The product is still in research and development at the company’s internal Facebook Reality Labs, and I didn’t get to have a go. No word yet on when it will be released or how much it will cost, either.
Source: Facebook is making an augmented reality wristband that lets you control computers with your brain
Smaller independents and artists direct grew fastest in 2020
The share of Spotify streams accounted for by the majors and Merlin fell four percentage points in 2020 to 78%, down from a high of 85% in 2018. The recorded music market is one in which label market shares typically move at a near glacial pace. In comparison, this shift is nothing short of tectonic. What we are witnessing is not just the emergence of a new pattern of growth in the recorded music business but also the emergence of a new breed of record label.
Source: Smaller independents and artists direct grew fastest in 2020
Tim Berners-Lee: ‘We need social networks where bad things happen less’
Z oom being Zoom, Tim Berners-Lee’s name appears in my browser window about 20 seconds before his audio and video feed kick in – and for a brief moment, the prospect of talking online to the inventor of the world wide web seems so full of symbolism and significance that it threatens to take my breath away.
Source: Tim Berners-Lee: ‘We need social networks where bad things happen less’
The split at the heart of tech’s new labor movement
Tech’s burgeoning new labor movement has its own class divide — between a conventional organizing push among blue collar employees and an effort among white collar employees that’s based on a different set of concerns and goals. Why it matters: The tech industry rose to power and wealth largely union-free.
Wikipedia Is Finally Asking Big Tech to Pay Up
The Big Four all lean on the encyclopedia at no cost. With the launch of Wikimedia Enterprise, the volunteer project will change that—and possibly itself too.
$42 million, fake checks, and broken promises: How one teenager nearly forged his way into esports
Joshua Mullins told associates he was a multi-billionaire esports investor. In reality, he was a small-town kid with a passion for gaming and a knack for forgery.
Source: $42 million, fake checks, and broken promises: How one teenager nearly forged his way into esports
He got Facebook hooked on AI. Now he can’t fix its misinformation addiction
Everything the company does and chooses not to do flows from a single motivation: Zuckerberg’s relentless desire for growth. Quiñonero’s AI expertise supercharged that growth. His team got pigeonholed into targeting AI bias, as I learned in my reporting, because preventing such bias helps the company avoid proposed regulation that might, if passed, hamper that growth. Facebook leadership has also repeatedly weakened or halted many initiatives meant to clean up misinformation on the platform because doing so would undermine that growth.
Source: He got Facebook hooked on AI. Now he can’t fix its misinformation addiction
Who Is Making Sure the A.I. Machines Aren’t Racist?
When Google forced out two well-known artificial intelligence experts, a long-simmering research controversy burst into the open.
How to poison the data that Big Tech uses to surveil you
Every day, your life leaves a trail of digital breadcrumbs that tech giants use to track you. You send an email, order some food, stream a show. They get back valuable packets of data to build up their understanding of your preferences. That data is fed into machine-learning algorithms to target you with ads and recommendations. Google cashes your data in for over $120 billion a year of ad revenue.
Source: How to poison the data that Big Tech uses to surveil you
The reason virtual reality still hasn’t taken off
Virtual reality has existed for nearly two decades, but it still hasn’t proven to be “the future of technology” as most were expecting.
HBO Max will get a cheaper, ad-supported tier in June
This June, HBO Max will get a cheaper, ad-supported subscription plan, parent company AT&T told investors today. However, a specific price and launch date have not been announced.
Source: HBO Max will get a cheaper, ad-supported tier in June
Meet the Climate Change Activists of TikTok
When Louis Levanti woke up one morning last September, climate change wasn’t on his mind. “I was never huge into researching climate change, but I was aware that it is real.” So when the 24-year-old TikTok creator, who lives with his parents on Long Island, opened his phone and saw something about a clock being unveiled, he wasn’t initially interested. “I rolled my eyes thinking it had something to do with the stock market.” The Climate Clock, in Union Square in New York City, counts down how much time we have left to act before climate change is irreversible.
Cisco found cryptomining activity within 69% of customers
More than two-thirds of Cisco customers in 2020 were affected by cryptomining, according to new research. Cisco released its “Threat Trends: DNS Security” report Thursday, which analyzed malicious DNS activity and threats that occurred between January and December of last year.
Source: Cisco found cryptomining activity within 69% of customers
Split Screen: How Different Are Americans’ Facebook Feeds?
Facebook’s recommendation algorithm shows different news, groups, and hashtags to different users. But who sees what? Split Screen attempts to answer that question with real world data from paid panelists as part of The Markup’s Citizen Browser project .
Source: Split Screen: How Different Are Americans’ Facebook Feeds? – The Markup
Facebook’s New AI Teaches Itself to See With Less Human Help
Image recognition may be more easily integrated into enterprise and commercial settings if it can learn more without expensive human input.
Google’s scrapping third-party cookies – but invasive targeted advertising will live on
Google has announced plans to stop using tracking cookies on its Chrome browser by 2022, replacing them with a group profiling system in a move the company says will plot “ a course towards a more privacy-friendly web ”. The change is significant.
Source: Google’s scrapping third-party cookies – but invasive targeted advertising will live on
Sony Animation’s Next Hero Team Is a K-Pop Group
Get ready for a kaleidoscopic monster hunting adventure. They’re also demon hunters. Singing demon hunters. So…where do we sign up? Sony Pictures Animation has revealed that The Lego Ninjago Movie ’s Maggie Kang and Wish Dragon ’s Chris Appelhans will direct K-Pop: Demon Hunters , which is, well, exactly what it says it is.
How to Tell Which Emails Quietly Track You
Everyone sends emails now: political parties, your book club, freelance journalists , the social networks you’re signed up to, your parents, that online store that you only bought one item from a decade ago, and many, many more. What do a lot of those email senders have in common?
The great divide: business leaders are split on long-term remote working
Companies including Spotify, Twitter, and Goldman Sachs have taken different stances on remote work. A survey showed that 61% of respondents prefer a fully remote environment.
Apple to Launch Mixed Reality Headset in Mid 2022 and Augmented Reality Glasses by 2025
Apple plans to release a mixed reality headset “in mid-2022,” followed by augmented reality glasses type by 2025, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today in a research note with TF International Securities, obtained by MacRumors. “We predict that Apple’s MR/AR product roadmap includes three phases: helmet type by 2022, glasses type by 2025, and contact lens type by 2030–2040,” wrote Kuo.
Source: Kuo: Apple to Launch Mixed Reality Headset in Mid 2022 and Augmented Reality Glasses by 2025
The NBA will pay a key role in Snap’s quest for 50% revenue growth
For this different All-Star Game, the NBA is relying on Snapchat to engage its Generation Z users it wants to keep interested in the sport. “It’s one of our most unique relationships in the sense that the NBA can touch every corner of our platform,” Anmol Malhotra, head of sports partnerships at Snapchat, told CNBC. “They do a good job with that 360 focus and can amplify casual fans, hardcore and non-sports fans’ experience around their league.”
Source: The NBA will pay a key role in Snap’s quest for 50% revenue growth
NASA names Perseverance rover landing site on Mars after Seattle sci-fi pioneer Octavia E. Butler
An image sent back to Earth by NASA’s Perseverance rover shows the tread tracks left behind by its first drive on Mars on March 4. (NASA / JPL-Caltech) Fifteen years after her death, Seattle science-fiction author Octavia E. Butler has joined an exclusive pantheon of space luminaries memorialized on Mars.
Source: NASA names Perseverance rover landing site on Mars after Seattle sci-fi pioneer Octavia E. Butler
Why millennials love Gucci
Gucci nearly doubled its sales in 2018 — and consumers under 35 accounted for 55% of those sales. Gucci’s creative director, Alessandro Michele, led the brand in a millennial and teen -friendly direction by showcasing pop-culture references and fresh designs.
Source: Why millennials love Gucci
The Real Lesson of the Texas Power Debacle
Both forms of infrastructure—a state-run electrical grid and the 5G and “internet of things” future to which we are rapidly hurtling—share three attributes. First, their construction reflects a lack of imagination about the danger that can quickly coalesce when seemingly remote threat scenarios become real. Second, compounding a lack of analytic imagination is an absence of preparedness. Third, for both the Texas electrical grid and the emerging internet, public policy protections are either meager or completely absent
‘Drunk’ robot vacuums spark complaints from owners
Owners of Roomba robot vacuums have complained the devices appear “drunk” following a software update.
Spotify Removes Hundreds of K-pop Songs
The streaming giant chose not to renew Korean distributor’s global license, ghosting songs by Sistar, IU, Monsta X, and Epik High
Audio chatrooms like Clubhouse have become the hot new media by tapping into the age-old appeal of the human voice
Google “What is Clubhouse?” and you’ll find a flurry of articles written in the past few weeks about this fast-growing social network. It’s not yet a year old, and much of the buzz stems from the fact that Clubhouse is invite-only, bringing with it an element of exclusivity.
Why the future of work will look like a video game
Work should be about the human experience of information. You’ll hardly find a better place where this occurs than in a video game.