trends

Deepfake tech is being used to create fictitious faces, cats, and Airbnbs

Feb 22, 2019 | , ,

A new crop of websites shows the disturbing potential of deepfake technology. The sites present pictures of faces, cats and buildings that are completely fake but look incredibly real. One of the site’s creators says even people without computer programming experience can use freely available tools to create fake pictures in a couple of hours. The Uber engineer behind another one of the sites says he made the site to “raise public awareness” about the new AI technology.

Source: Deepfake tech is being used to create fictitious faces, cats, and Airbnbs – Business Insider

Moore’s Law is dying. Here’s how AI is bringing it back to life!

Feb 21, 2019 | ,

Moore’s Law, one of the fundamental laws indicating the exponential progress in the tech industry, especially electronic engineering, has been slowing down lately (since 2005, to be more precise), and has led many in this sector to believe this law to no longer hold true. That was, until Artificial Intelligence joined the arena! Since then, the game changed, and Moore’s law is slowly being revived.

Source: Moore’s Law is dying. Here’s how AI is bringing it back to life!

We’re Finally Learning the Lesson of Y2K — and It’s Too Late

Feb 21, 2019 | , , ,

Armed with this confidence, in the years since Y2K, we have created more and more complex networks and systems to enhance, guide, or even take over many facets of our daily lives. Whereas in 1999, many aspects of our day-to-day living remained offline, today little is left untouched by computer systems, networks, and code: Talking to friends and family, reading a book, listening to music, buying clothes or food, driving a car, flying from place to place — all of these activities depend on the network. Increasingly, the network extends to devices that, in 1999, were not considered to have much technological potential: household appliances like refrigerators or thermostats.

Now, we’re discovering what a false sense of security we’ve created. Along with it should come the realization of just how little we understand about the programs that permeate our lives and the networks that link them. Unlike 20 years ago, we appear less and less capable of predicting what will go wrong, or of stopping it before it does.

Source: We’re Finally Learning the Lesson of Y2K — and It’s Too Late

The Anti-Network Effect 

Feb 21, 2019 | ,

Despite waves of privacy concerns, Facebook has a powerful grip on us all. The ubiquity of the platform and the time invested in building connections deters people from leaving and in turn deters would-be rivals from building alternative platforms. Their scale and success has us locked in. This success has an Achilles heel though — and it’s your mom.

Source: The Anti-Network Effect – NewCo Shift – Medium

A/B testing rules the web. That could be a serious problem

Feb 14, 2019 |


Testing out solutions is a core part of the design process, and on the web, that often happens in the form of A/B testing: Designers show one group of users design A, another group of users design B, and measure which gets closer to a desired outcome. And it’s not just layouts that get A/B tested–these experiments determine everything from the headlines we read to the colors we see. But as a new paper discusses, there can be ethical issues with A/B testing.

Source: A/B testing rules the web. That could be a serious problem

Tinder parent company Match Group acquires Hinge 

Feb 11, 2019 | ,

Right now, it looks like the near future will see every major dating app ending up in the same hands, just one of the many stories of industry consolidation we’re witnessing in what antitrust expert Tim Wu has called the second Gilded Age, which is maybe abstractly scary — but more tangibly so when you think about Facebook as the only company that could possibly stop it.

Source: Tinder parent company Match Group acquires Hinge – Vox

Are Scan-and-Go Stores the Future of Retail?

Feb 11, 2019 |

Cashierless stores, like Amazon Go, have great potential to shake up the brick-and-mortar landscape. According to GPShopper, 48% of US internet users believe scan-and-go technology would make shopping easier. And 43% would rather try scan-and-go than wait in a checkout line. Respondents said they’d be most interested in scanning groceries, home goods and fashion items.

Source: Are Scan-and-Go Stores the Future of Retail? – eMarketer Trends, Forecasts & Statistics

Podcasts: a Netflix Moment for Radio But Perhaps not the Future of Spotify

Feb 6, 2019 | ,

After many years stuck on the side lines, podcasts are now becoming sought after by everyone from radio companies, streaming services, newspaper publishers to TV companies and many, many more. Media brands of all forms see podcasts as a part of their future, a way to increase and diversify listening time (streaming services); fight back against streaming (radio); reach new audiences (news); and extend audience engagement (TV). To some degree podcasts can probably deliver on all those expectations, and while the creative possibilities are clear, the path ahead is not so straight forward:

Source: Podcasts: a Netflix Moment for Radio But Perhaps not the Future of Spotify | Music Industry Blog