Proximity

China’s digital yuan is a warning to the world

Aug 25, 2021 | ,

China’s system is not  even the most advanced CBDC in the world. Both Cambodia, with the “Bakong”, and the Bahamas, with the “Sand Dollar”, have more comprehensive CBDCs rolled out at a wider scale, according to a report by accounting firm PwC. China, however, is the first major advanced economy to start implementing a digital currency at any scale, and its ambitions seem to far exceed those of the established players in the field.

Source: China’s digital yuan is a warning to the world

This AI Can Spot an Art Forgery

Aug 25, 2021 |

Is it possible to establish the authenticity of a work of art amid conflicting expert opinions and incomplete evidence? Scientific measurements can establish a painting’s age and reveal subsurface detail, but they can’t directly identify its creator. That requires subtle judgments of style and technique, which, it might seem, only art experts could provide. In fact, this task is well suited to computer analysis, particularly by neural networks—computer algorithms that excel at examining patterns. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs), designed to analyze images, have been used to good advantage in a wide range of applications, including recognizing faces and helping to pilot self-driving cars. Why not also use them to authenticate art?

Source: This AI Can Spot an Art Forgery

Big tech blue collar workers cling to hope for return to work soon

Aug 23, 2021 | ,

Many service workers at Silicon Valley tech campuses aren’t sure whether the delta variant will delay their returns even longer or even jeopardize their jobs entirely if in-office work becomes less critical than it once was. As many white-collar workers have settled into a work-from-home routine, blue-collar workers are struggling even more for answers after more than a year of unpredictability.

Source: Big tech blue collar workers cling to hope for return to work soon

Should Doxing Be Illegal?

Aug 23, 2021 | ,

 Slang for doc-dropping, doxing is the process of making someone’s address, contact information, identity, or other information public, usually in order to intimidate, harass, or incite public outrage. The term dates back to the mid-2000s, but doxing has since become a well-known harassment tactic. There aren’t clear statistics on how many people have been doxed, but a 2021 report from the Anti-Defamation League estimates 9 percent of Americans have experienced doxing. 

Source: Should Doxing Be Illegal? – The Markup

The Case Against Music Curation

Aug 20, 2021 | ,

We are now deep into a decade of lifestyle curation. Our news feeds on Facebook, the movies we catalog on Netflix, the playlists we make and then loop over and over on Apple Music; the need to personalize everything we do, and everything we consume, is meant to remove unnecessary friction from our lives. It’s meant to make things as seamless as possible. Through brainy algorithms and constant curation, singles like “Essence” benefit from that sort of tireless indexing. Eventually, they exist everywhere. But what if that way no longer serves us?

Source: The Case Against Music Curation

Organizers Of A GoFundMe To Help Queer And Trans Afghans Say The Platform Won’t Allow Them To Access The Money

Aug 20, 2021 | ,

Organizers of a GoFundMe fundraiser to help queer and trans individuals in Afghanistan have been barred from withdrawing the money they raised, they said, leaving vulnerable Afghans in peril amid the Taliban’s takeover of the country and raising questions about the popular fundraising platform’s policies.

Source: Organizers Of A GoFundMe To Help Queer And Trans Afghans Say The Platform Won’t Allow Them To Access The Money

Do you ever think … that maybe the virtual-reality office is stupid?

Aug 20, 2021 | , , , ,

“Facebook launches VR remote work app, calling it a step to the ‘metaverse’” — NBC News headline, Aug. 19, 2021

 

“Do you ever think …” a voice said from what sounded like Greg’s right. Greg turned his cartoon avatar to look in the direction of the voice, “ … that maybe the Metaverse is a stupid waste of everyone’s time?

Source: Opinion | Do you ever think … that maybe the virtual-reality office is stupid?

The rise of 3D-printed houses

Aug 19, 2021 |

Not only does 3d-printing allow greater versatility and faster construction, it also promises lower cost and in a more environmentally friendly approach than is possible at present. That may make it a useful answer to two challenges now facing the world: a shortage of housing and climate change. About 1.6bn people—more than 20% of Earth’s population—lack adequate accommodation. And the construction industry is responsible for 11% of the world’s man-made carbon-dioxide emissions

Source: The rise of 3D-printed houses

The New WikiLeaks

Aug 19, 2021 | ,

Distributed Denial of Secrets, or DDoSecrets, had been a thorn in the side of secretive governments, corrupt corporations, and powerful law firms since its founding in late 2018. In June 2020, in a release known as BlueLeaks, the group published 269 gigabytes of law enforcement data, which exposed police malfeasance and surveillance overreach across the United States. DDoSecrets also published incriminating records from overseas tax shelters, from the social media site Gab, and from a Christian crowdfunding site often used by the far right. The group has affected autocrats as well, exposing the Russian government’s plans in Ukraine and mapping out the Myanmar junta’s business dealings.

Source: The New WikiLeaks

Why no one really knows how bad Facebook’s vaccine misinformation problem is

Aug 18, 2021 |

Is Facebook “killing people” by enabling the spread of Covid-19 misinformation, as President Joe Biden said a few weeks ago ? Or is the social media company efficiently purging Covid-19 misinformation from its platform and showing millions of people information about where to get vaccinated, as the company argued a day later in its response to the president?

Source: Why no one really knows how bad Facebook’s vaccine misinformation problem is

Twitter’s decentralized social network project finally has a leader

Aug 17, 2021 | ,

Bluesky , the Twitter-funded effort to create a decentralized social network standard , has finally found a project lead — the creator of Happening, Jay Graber . Bluesky and Graber have also begun hiring for the project’s first developers, meaning the slowly gestating project might finally become a bit less “blue sky” and a bit more real.

Source: Twitter’s decentralized social network project finally has a leader

How Has Social Media Impacted Our Mental Health?

Aug 17, 2021 | , ,

The general consensus among the terminally online would seem to be that the internet is a miserable place just barely made tolerable by the idiots and well-meaning naifs whose screw-ups at least provide something to ridicule. But is there a scientific basis for this generalized feeling? How has social media actually impacted mental health, per the research? For this week’s Giz Asks, we reached out to a number of experts to find out.

Source: How Has Social Media Impacted Our Mental Health?

Movie Theaters in Some Cities Now Check for Vaccine Proof, Raising Fears About Release Delays

Aug 16, 2021 |

Movie theaters in a handful of cities around the country will soon be checking for proof of vaccination — creating one more obstacle to the full return of moviegoing. In New York, the requirement goes into effect on Tuesday. Joe Masher, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York, said he worried about the logistics of enforcing the rule.

Source: Movie Theaters in Some Cities Now Check for Vaccine Proof, Raising Fears About Release Delays

Why Is the Internet Up in Arms About a Font?

Aug 14, 2021 | ,

On Thursday, Twitter updated the design of its app and website. Some users were baffled by a change to the “follow” and “unfollow” buttons that could lead one to mix them up. Others took issue with the new Twitter font, Chirp. While the social network boasted that Chirp is designed to be more accessible and amplify “the fun and irreverence of a Tweet,” many tweets complained that not only is it harder to read, users are complaining of headaches .

Source: Why Is the Internet Up in Arms About a Font?

An ode to my dead, decaying Animal Crossing island

Aug 13, 2021 | , ,

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Where last year I was all about growing plants and facilitating life, this year my video game lockdown obsession has been flesh-eating monsters. Bit of a departure from Animal Crossing, I’ll grant you, but I’ve really gone all in with the whole rotting corpse vibe. 

Instead of joyfully handing villagers dumbbells or weird outfits, I’ve been playing Telltale’s Walking Dead games, scavenging for cans of food between shotgun shots to zombie faces. I’ve been deep-diving into the pop culture annals for zombie content, from Evil Dead to The Last of Us — and even a dab of Plants vs. Zombies, which is a little too telling, if you ask me.

We are certainly in a very different headspace in the year 2021. 

Source: An ode to my dead, decaying Animal Crossing island

What Do TV’s Richest Characters Read? Gladwell, Nietzsche and Sally Rooney, Apparently

Aug 12, 2021 |

The rich kids on HBO Max’s “Gossip Girl” continuation look a little different than they did in the original series: they take Ubers instead of private cars, they actually think Dumbo is cool and, as many have wrote about, are a lot more woke — a fact made even more clear by the characters’ reading choices

Source: What Do TV’s Richest Characters Read? Gladwell, Nietzsche and Sally Rooney, Apparently

Hit songs rely on increasing “harmonic surprise” to hook listeners, study finds

Aug 11, 2021 |

A study of "harmonic surprise"—points where the music deviates from listener expectations—in popular music over several decades found that Childish Gambino's "This Is America" had the most contrastive harmonic surprise.

A study of “harmonic surprise”—points where the music deviates from listener expectations—in popular music over several decades found that Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” had the most contrastive harmonic surprise. Hip-hop artist Childish Gambino (aka actor Donald Glover ) made a splash in 2018 with the release of his Grammy-winning hit single, ” This Is America .” With its stark, sudden shifts between choral melodies in major chords and menacing percussive elements drawn from the trap subgenre , the song constantly defies the listener’s expectations throughout.

Source: Hit songs rely on increasing “harmonic surprise” to hook listeners, study finds

Why is tech illustration stuck on repeat?

Aug 11, 2021 | ,

You may not have heard of “Corporate Memphis,” but you’ve almost certainly seen it. The illustration style can be found in the trendiest direct-to-consumer subway ads, within the app you use to split restaurant tabs or on the 404 page that attempts to counter your frustration with cutesiness. In fact, Corporate Memphis has become so synonymous with tech marketing that some illustrators simply know it as the “tech aesthetic.”

But Corporate Memphis has also become a victim of its own success. The once-whimsical, fresh style now feels safe and antiseptic. More conspicuous iterations of it get roasted online, if they get noticed at all; one popular tweet asks, “Why does every website landing page look like this now?” Illustrators are just as often tired of Corporate Memphis, but tech companies continue to commission it.

Source: Why is tech illustration stuck on repeat?

Fake COVID-19 vaccination cards worry college officials

Aug 11, 2021 | ,

Both faculty and students at dozens of schools interviewed by The Associated Press say they are concerned about how easy it is to get fake vaccine cards. Across the internet, a cottage industry has sprung up to accommodate people who say they won’t get vaccinated for either personal or religious reasons. An Instagram account with the username “vaccinationcards” sells laminated COVID-19 vaccination cards for $25 each. A user on the encrypted messaging app, Telegram, offers “COVID-19 Vaccine Cards Certificates,” for as much as $200 apiece.

Source: Fake COVID-19 vaccination cards worry college officials