KC DEBRIEF WEEK 22, FRIDAY 2024/05/30
DIGITAL TITANS
_Apple Vision Pro users will soon be able to immerse themselves within Marvel’s What If…? The animated show premiered on Disney+ in 2021, envisioning a Multiverse in which there are alternative outcomes for MCU storylines. The debut episode, for instance, imagined what would happen if “Captain Carter were the first Avenger?”Adapted for the headset, the game version of What if…?uses mixed reality to let players experience the twists and turns of the stories, previewed with a trailer.
ALSO
OpenAI appears to have closed its deal with Apple. Apple held talks with both Google and OpenAI about integrating their chatbots into iOS 18, according to Bloomberg, but it looks like OpenAI won out. The pair plan to announce the news at Apple’s developer conference, WWDC.The Information confirmed, per a source, that the deal has been secured, adding that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is concerned about how it could conflict with their partnership.
ALSO
Apple puts human creators front and center in its first iPad ad since the disastrous “Crush” spot earlier this month, which drew a rare apology from the tech giant. A new minute-long spot features actress Sofia Wylie running, jumping and dancing in a triptych of animated worlds. Wylie recorded her footage on a green screen, and three Hornet animators—Natalie Labarre, Jay & Jin and Eric Lane—then created animated scenes to match, using the iPad Pro and the new Apple Pencil Pro.
ALSO
Publishers and Advertisers Ask Tim Cook to Halt Apple 'Web Eraser' Tool. Creatives freaking out again over another Apple thing that may deeply impact their parlous economic models….
_WhatsApp boss has hit back at claims from Elon Musk that the messaging app "exports your user data every night." Posting on X, Mr Cathcart said the allegation was simply "not correct". He pointed to the fact WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, meaning they cannot be read by the company at all. Yann LeCun - artificial intelligence chief at parent company, Meta - has also weighed in, using more industrial language in his X post attacking Mr Musk's claims. On another Meta platform, Threads, Mr LeCun also levelled further criticisms at Mr Musk, accusing him of making contradictory and unrealistic claims about artificial intelligence and "spewing conspiracy theories" on his own social media platform. Mr Musk has a well-established reputation for getting himself into online rows, from submariners to sacked former employees. In this case, Mr Cathcart is right to say only the sender and recipient of a WhatsApp message can read its contents. In fact, the firm's commitment to encrypting messages is so significant that it previously said it would rather be blocked in the UK than weaken the encryption it uses. Mr Musk's vague language - simply saying that "user data" was being uploaded - could however be interpreted to refer to metadata, the extra bits of information sent alongside the actual message.
_Donald Trump has floated a possible advisory role for the tech billionaire Elon Musk if he were to retake the White House next year, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.The two men, who once had a tense relationship, have had several phone calls a month since March as Trump looks to court powerful donors and Musk seeks an outlet for his policy ideas, the newspaper said, citing several anonymous sources familiar with their conversations.
_Rights groups urge Meta shareholders to end pro-Palestinian content ‘censorship’. The action comes after nearly 200 Meta employees sign open letter to Mark Zuckerberg demanding end to alleged censorship.
_Nintendo reintroduces transgender character Vivian in new Mario remake
Nintendo has reintroduced Vivian, a transgender character, in the English version of their latest game. Originally featured in the Japanese release of “Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door,” Vivian's identity was altered in previous English localizations. The Nintendo Switch remake now acknowledges Vivian’s true identity.
Vivian, initially portrayed as a villain, works alongside her sisters, Marilyn and Beldam. However, due to constant bullying from Beldam, Vivian decides to leave her sisters and join Mario’s party. This narrative arc explores Vivian’s journey, highlighting her struggles and resilience. The decision to restore Vivian’s original backstory has been met with widespread approval. In the game, Vivian confides in Mario, saying, "Truth is, it took me a while to realize I was their sister… not their brother." This poignant moment underscores the challenges Vivian faces, making her character more relatable and authentic.
_Discord wants to steer its app back to gaming, and it’s making some improvements to the app to help make that happen. This year, Discord will make some changes to the app that will let users reach their conversations faster, as well as improve the reliability of its voice, video, and streaming.In a message to users, Discord CEO Jason Citron says the company realized it needs to narrow its focus from “broadly being a community-centric chat app” to a service that “helps people deepen their friendships around games and shared interests.” The company wants to make it easier to connect before, during, or after playing a game. It also plans to bring more of Discord’s features to a broader range of devices, and has also some made visual updates as well, with tweaks to illustration styles, icons, and other elements.
PEOPLE, MEDIA, CULTURE
_When you picture the tech industry, you probably think of things that don’t exist in physical space, such as the apps and internet browser on your phone. But the infrastructure required to store all this information – the physical datacentres housed in business parks and city outskirts – consume massive amounts of energy. Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.This is a hugely environmentally destructive side to the tech industry. While it has played a big role in reaching net zero, giving us smart meters and efficient solar, it’s critical that we turn the spotlight on its environmental footprint. Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities. It is hardly news that the tech bubble’s self-glorification has obscured the uglier sides of this industry, from its proclivity for tax avoidance to its invasion of privacy and exploitation of our attention span. The industry’s environmental impact is a key issue, yet the companies that produce such models have stayed remarkably quiet about the amount of energy they consume – probably because they don’t want to spark our concern.
_The owner of the hit online game Wordle is legally challenging a geography-based spinoff called Worldle. In the filing, the New York Times, which purchased Wordle for a seven figure sum in 2022, accuses its near-namesake of "creating confusion" and attempting to capitalise on "the enormous goodwill” associated with its own brand. But the creator of Worldle, software developer Kory McDonald, is vowing to fight back on the grounds that there are many other games with similar titles. “There's a whole industry of [dot]LE games,” he told the BBC. “Wordle is about words, Worldle is about the world, Flaggle is about flags," he pointed out.
_‘Entire evenings of my life have been shaped by the internet’s review culture’: why we’re obsessed with rating systems. From movies to gyms to holidays, we all love handing out a star rating. Joel Golby explains why – and reviews his life over the past week. Humans are compelled to review. The five-star and 10-point rating systems just make implicit sense to us, each number having its own gravity and texture that can be transposed on to a gut-feeling or opinion. So, last night’s dinner: what was that? I had a sort of dal and paratha thing that I’d put at about 7/10 (it was nice, but 8 feels too much). Obviously Dune: Part Two was a five-star movie whereas Dunewas maybe only a four.But we are powerfully swayed by other people’s reviews, too. I am forever in some area of London, not knowing where I am or what I want to eat, squinting at Google Maps through raindrops, deciding whether I want to eat at the 4.4-rated pizza place or the 4.3-rated Vietnamese place. Entire evenings of my life have been shaped by the aggregated internet review culture of Rotten Tomatoes telling me one streaming-service film is slightly better than another. I have blindly bought fragrances, books and music just based on what 1,000 or so anonymous reviewers sort of rated each one out of five. The number out of five having an experience pipeline is an intrinsic part of our lives.These are all things, though. You know where you are with a thing. What’s harder to attribute a number value to are those ambient feelings and experiences that make up a week. There are a lot of hours in a week (168, I just checked), and a lot of minutes, too (10,800). Not all of those can be good and not all of them can be bad. Over the course of that time, how might you rate an entire week of your life? Well, there’s only one way to find out, I suppose.
_AI LA LA LAND
//One of the headier promises of AI is that it will make the creation of goods cheaper. Little robots will automate away rote tasks, dramatically simplifying the production of digital and physical products. In this world, there is an abundance of products, and every industry becomes far more competitive. How can a startup survive in this environment? The answer is deceptively simple: Have good taste. Taste is the bone-deep feeling that you’ve made something good. It is a sense, inexplicable and ephemeral. But it’s also a tangible skill that’s increasingly essential. Taste is how a business differentiates itself when attention is scarce and choice is abundant. Knowing what to make is just as important as the ability to make it. There’s an even bigger challenge needed to build a lasting business: scaling your taste, not just into a single object, but into an organization that can build and distribute many products that reflect that taste. There are few companies that have successfully scaled taste better than MSCHF (pronounced “mischief”). Well, not exactly a company, as they explained to me when I visited their Brooklyn-based workshop set across the street from a skate park, but an “artist’s collective that happened to raise venture capital.” Or, according to their self-selected LinkedIn industry category, they are in the business of “Dairy Product Manufacturing.”The group releases a brand-new product every two weeks, each of which has little physical relationship to the previous drop. Their recent releases include edible AirPod-shaped candy, a perfume that smells like WD-40, and a collaboration with Crocs on a mid-calf boot. In the last five years they have released more than 100 products. Each drop is creative and rebellious, winking to the world that capitalism is a necessary joke. They do all of this with a team of 34 people, most of whom are generalists with no background in making physical goods.
//Two more media companies have signed licensing agreements with OpenAI, allowing their content to be used to train its AI models and be shared inside of ChatGPT. The Atlantic and Vox Media — The Verge’s parent company — both announced deals with OpenAI on Wednesday. OpenAI has been quickly signing partnerships across the media world as it seeks to license training data and avoid copyright lawsuits. It’s recently reached deals with News Corp (The Wall Street Journal, theNew York Post, and The Daily Telegraph), Axel Springer (Business Insider and Politico), DotDash Meredith (People, Better Homes & Gardens, Investopedia, Food & Wine, and InStyle), the Financial Times, and The Associated Press. The deals appear to range in price based on the number of publications included. News Corp’s deal with OpenAI is estimated to be worth $250 million over the next five years, according to the Journal, while the deal with the Financial Times is believed to be worth $5 to $10 million. Terms for the deals with The Atlantic and Vox Media weren’t disclosed.
_David Beckham has signed a deal to be a global ambassador for AliExpress, an online retail platform owned by Chinese technology giant Alibaba. The announcement comes as the Euros football tournament is due to kick off in Germany next month. The company did not reveal how much it is paying the former England captain. In March, AliExpress agreed an exclusive e-commerce platform partnership with European football's governing body UEFA. Under the deal, the football superstar turned entrepreneur will be the face of AliExpress' Score More promotion, which will run during games. “AliExpress is helping fans get even closer to UEFA EURO 2024 this summer, by offering them great prizes as the action takes place on the pitch,” David Beckham said. AliExpress joins other major Chinese firms that are sponsoring the Euros, including electric vehicle maker BYD and electronics giant Vivo. Since hanging up his football boots more than a decade ago, Beckham has been linked to a host of brands and major sporting events. According to the Sunday Times Rich List, Beckham and his wife Victoria, a former Spice Girl and fashion designer, have a combined fortune of £455m ($581.6m). After the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, the tournament is set to be the biggest sporting event of the year. A total of 2.7 million tickets were made available for the competition, which runs from 14 June to 14 July across 10 cities including Munich and Hamburg.
_At its create event, Canva stunned attendees with a rap performance highlighting new features from its redesign, geared particularly towards enterprise users. The act quickly went viral, drawing a flurry of amused reactions, some less flattering than others.Widely described as “cringe,” the routine was likened to Microsoft’s infamous 1995 event where Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer awkwardly danced to the Rolling Stones’ "Start Me Up." Others couldn’t help but draw parallels to Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s acclaimed musical known for its clever use of rap to narrate founding father Alexander Hamilton’s life story.
BRANDS
_“I would drag him to court” and “This marketing is genuinely genius” are just two of the polarizing comments on an ad posted to the Alexander Wang Instagram account. The New York-based luxury fashion brand has made headlines with an ‘unboxing’ style video featuring superstar lookalikes to promote its new Ricco bag.
MMMMM OF THE WEEK
_We had cellphones, then feature phones, then smartphones. Now, 'IntelliPhones' are coming.