trends

Doctors on TikTok Try to Go Viral

Feb 1, 2020 | , ,

Although medical professionals have long taken to social media to share healthy messages or promote their work, TikTok poses a new set of challenges, even for the internet adept. Popular posts on the app tend to be short, musical and humorous, complicating the task of physicians hoping to share nuanced lessons on health issues like vaping, coronavirus, nutrition and things you shouldn’t dip in soy sauce. And some physicians who are using the platform to spread credible information have found themselves the targets of harassment.

Source: New York Times

The Fractured Future of Browser Privacy

Jan 31, 2020 | , ,

In the 1990s, web browsers like Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer competed bitterly to offer the snazziest new features and attract users. Today, the browser landscape looks totally different. For one thing, Chrome now dominates, controlling around two-thirds of the market on both desktop and mobile. Even more radical, though, is the recent competitive focus on privacy, a welcome change for anyone who’s gotten sick of creepy ad tracking and data mismanagement. But as browsers increasingly diverge in their approaches, it’s clear that not all privacy protections are created equal.

Source: Wired

AI can now design cities. Should we let it?

Jan 30, 2020 | , , ,

Seven years ago, MIT debuted a landmark project, which allowed everyday people to photograph and rate their streets like a Hot or Not for cities. It was a powerful showcase of how crowdsourcing opinions from citizens could help quantify a city’s appeal and, in theory, help urban designers plan better cities.

 

Less than a decade later, artificial intelligence is taking this idea so much further. FaceLift is a new AI system developed by Nokia Bell Labs Cambridge that allows scientists and urban planners to use a crowd’s aggregated sensibility to actually redesign the look of city streets. FaceLift AI can take any Google Street View scene and beautify it instantly—but at what cost?

Source: Fast Company

Upskilling and college education rates in 2040

Jan 29, 2020 | ,

Coding-based apprenticeships may be a recent development, but Terenzio predicts that in 20 years, more and more companies will adopt similar models. “I can see it in every industry: healthcare, medical billing, other kinds of jobs,” Terenzio says. Many workplace and higher education experts agree. We talked to six professionals whose work involves predicting the nature of education and upskilling in 2040 and what the workforce is likely to demand from employees. They all shared the consensus that change is the only certainty. Workers, employers, and education providers alike need to be agile, flexible, and prepared to adapt as technology continues to disrupt industries and change what jobs will and will not be available.

Source: Fast Company

BoJack Horseman’s finale signals the end of a Netflix era

Jan 29, 2020 | ,

When it premiered in 2014, it was one of Netflix’s earliest, best shows — and it would have failed in 2020. BoJack Horseman, one of Netflix’s longest-running shows, comes to an end this Friday. But it’s unclear if BoJack Horseman would have succeeded if it was ordered today. It’s a show that needed time to breathe, and that’s a luxury most shows don’t get on Netflix anymore. BoJack Horseman feels like the end of an era for Netflix, one that produced long-running series like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards. All three shows were ordered by Netflix between 2013 and 2014, an ambitious time for the company. This was a period when Netflix didn’t have a new series or movie every week. Netflix slowly started rolling out original series to its subscribers, designed to exist alongside and stand out from the plethora of licensed series already on the service.

Source: The Verge

Scroll makes hundreds of websites ad-free for $5 per month

Jan 29, 2020 | , , ,

A new subscription service called Scroll is offering ad-free access to hundreds of websites — not by blocking the ads, but by working with an expanding group of publishers to take the ads down in exchange for a slice of the subscription fee. Scroll launches today with support for a number of major websites and networks, including The Atlantic, BuzzFeed News, G/O Media (which includes websites like Gizmodo and Kotaku), and Vox Media, which — important disclosure here — includes The Verge

Source:  The Verge

Trump’s Digital Advantage Is Freaking Out Democratic Strategists

Jan 29, 2020 | , , ,

Experts in the explosively growing field of political digital technologies have developed an innovative terminology to describe what they do — a lexicon that is virtually incomprehensible to ordinary voters. This language provides an inkling of the extraordinarily arcane universe politics has entered:

Geofencing and other emerging digital technologies derive from microtargeting marketing initiatives that use consumer and other demographic data to identify the interests of specific voters or very small groups of like-minded individuals to influence their thoughts or actions. Microtargeting first had a significant impact on American politics in state level campaign work by Alec Gage, a Republican, and his firm TargetPoint in 2002.

Source:  The New York Times

 

Amazon vs. Walmart: Who’s Really Winning Online Grocery?

Jan 28, 2020 | ,

Consumer adoption of online grocery—led primarily by Amazon and Walmart—saw hockey-stick growth last year. As these two Goliaths vie for market control, conflicting reports have made it difficult to determine who has the momentum, and where consumers prefer to shop. Amazon currently holds the largest market share of online grocery. We estimate that Amazon’s US food and beverage sales amounted to $6.13 billion in 2019, or 23.7% of total US food and beverage ecommerce sales. However, a September 2019 survey conducted by The Retail Feedback Group found that 37% of US digital shoppers most recently purchased groceries from Walmart, compared with 29% who used Amazon.

Source: eMarketer

The mass Twitch exodus: Why streamers are leaving

Jan 27, 2020 | ,

A few years ago, if you were a streamer, you were on Twitch — simple as that. Outside of a few select content creators, everyone who wanted to be a streamer had to use Twitch’s platform. It was the only viable game in town. But over the last year, the streaming landscape has changed. Twitch still remains the largest streaming platform, but some of its biggest creators are signing exclusive contracts with platforms like Mixer, Caffeine, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming. Which leaves fans with a question: Why? The answer is a lot more complicated than you might think.

Source: Polygon

 

Google’s ads just look like search results now

Jan 24, 2020 | , ,

Last week, Google began rolling out a new look for its search results on desktop, which blurs the line between organic search results and the ads that sit above them. In what appears to be something of a purposeful dark pattern, the only thing differentiating ads and search results is a small black-and-white “Ad” icon next to the former. It’s been formatted to resemble the new favicons that now appear next to the search results you care about. Early data collected by Digiday suggests that the changes may already be causing people to click on more ads.

Source: The Verge

 

New Australian video series made for mobile

Sep 2, 2019 | , ,

Presented in a portrait ratio that takes up the entirety of the viewer’s smartphone, Content has been billed as “Australia’s first ever vertical video series”. It belongs to a small genre of narrative productions told entirely through screens, such as the feature film thrillers Searching and Unfriended, which unfold via laptop and smartphones.

Source:  The Guardian

Snap Deepens AR Push With Lens Studio Update, Including New Templates And Landmarkers

Aug 28, 2019 | , , , , ,

If there was any doubt before, Q3 2019 has made clear that Snap is betting heavily on Augmented Reality (AR). Earlier this month, Snap announced a $1B fundraise to invest in AR startups. A week later, the Snapchat parent company unveiled the third-generation of Spectacles, its AR sunglasses, which are now available for pre-order.  Snap is continuing its emphasis on the AR ecosystem in an announcement today: a major update to Lens Studio, the company’s desktop app for producing augmented reality “Lenses” on the Snapchat messaging platform.  The update includes 14 new Landmarker locations, six new templates, and an updated UX that highlights new offerings and provides step-by-step tutorialization for beginners.

Source: Forbes

Lambda School’s For-Profit Plan to Solve Student Debt

Aug 28, 2019 | ,

Lambda School is an online coding program that’s free until you finish and get a job. The central conceit is an income-share agreement (ISA): students pay nothing while attending the school and then pay a portion of their earnings once they’re employed. The concept, first proposed by economist Milton Friedman in the 1950s as a “human capital contract,” has been heralded by some as a market-based solution to student debt. Everyone is on the same page about the goal: finding a good-paying job.

Source: Wired