This week in Tech
Zuck’s bet: Meta invests [$72B][3] in AI
Duolingo will “gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle,” according to an all-hands email sent by cofounder and CEO Luis von Ahn announcing that the company will be “AI-first.” The email was posted on Duolingo’s LinkedIn account.
Nike (NKE.N), opens new tab was sued on Friday by purchasers of Nike-themed non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other cryptocurrency assets who said they suffered significant losses when the athletic wear company abruptly closed the business that created those assets.
Samsung surge: Giant invests in southern India.
Apple moving to make most iPhones for US in India rather than China, source says
Zuck’s bet: Meta invests $72B in AI
What we've also heard:
AI writes 30% of Big Tech’s code Up to 30% of code at Microsoft and Google is written by AI, according to their CEOs.
Google: AI can remove weeks of work Workers can save 122 hours a year using AI in admin tasks, according to Google.
Guess what dominated startup funding in April AI led the pack in U.S. venture funding for April. Also in the mix: fintech, batteries, and space. Worldwide, old-school taxi dispatching got a boost.
Robots in space Near Space Labs secured $20M to develop high-resolution imaging robots launched by helium balloons.
Japanese Billionaire Kicks Off Rolls Royce x Hermès Collaboration For His New Ride
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is the reason for the latest collaboration between Rolls Royce and Hermès. The luxurious new car will reflect the passion of the new owner, which Yusaku invisions as a land jet. His goal is to bring the luxury of private jet travel to the streets.
‘This magnificent expression of our pinnacle product represents a landmark for Rolls-Royce motor cars, bringing together two houses with more than three centuries’ combined experience and heritage,’ said Torsten Müller-ötvös, chief executive officer, Rolls-Royce motor cars. ‘It is the result of a deep, genuine collaboration between the houses of Rolls-Royce and Hermès, in which designers, materials specialists and skilled craftspeople worked side by side to create a truly one-of-a-kind phantom. It has been an extraordinary privilege to unite on such a creatively challenging, technically demanding commission and bring our client’s remarkable vision so beautifully to life.’
The care designed features a two-tone exterior referencing the green and cream glazes of antique Japanese oribe ware, of which Yusaku Maezawa is a collector. The color was created specifically for Yusaku who will apply it on his private jet too, pairing the two vehicles.
The interior colors has been finished in Hermès enea green leather.
Facebook - Earn Ad Revenue With Videos As Short As One Minute
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Hey creators! Now you can earn more money. Facebook announced more creators can now earn ad revenue as short as one minute. The social media giant is giving away $7 million in Free Facebook stars. Users can pay to creators on Facebook live as a form of tipping.
Virtual Make Up Testing At Google
This pandemic year lots of things are moving to virtual world and so does the makeup industry. Now Google is offering a virtual make up testing to its users. The company is collaborating with several cosmetic brands.
Online shopping is booming because of pandemic. With makeup it is not that easy. It’s hard to buy lipstick without trying on the color first. While some brands began testing this new virtual approach to make up testing before the health crisis, others are now full speed. Google is not enriching its search engine with augmented reality to allow you to try the product before buying. Google experience is collaborating with ModiFace and PerfectCorp with participation of brands like "L’Oreal, MAC and Charlotte Tilbury.
Tik Tok And Shopify Collaboration
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Nope, Tik Tok isn’t going anywhere. Instead, it is collaborating with Shopify to help its one million plus merchants advertise their products. Shopify merchant list is growing and so is Tik Tok’s user base. This partnership will allow merchants to sell products in the form of shoppable video ads. The best part you’ll be able to click and shop the product.
$200 Million Fund For TikTok's Biggest Stars
Some of the most successful TikTok video creators are now going to get paid. The social network adored by not just Gen Z but people over 40 has announced the fund of $00 million to pay its US based stars. The fund will increase in the future, according to fashion network.
"Our creators will be able to realize additional earnings that reflect the time, care, and dedication they put into creatively connecting with an audience that's inspired by their ideas," explained TikTok.
TikTok is owned by China's ByteDance. The app could separate from its parent company and become an independent operation in order to avoid the risk of being banned by Washington, which suspects it of spying for the Chinese government.
Drest App and Christian Louboutin Team Up. Win The Challenge Hand-Picked by Louboutin Himself
The world’s first luxury interactive styling app Drest teams up with Christian Louboutin to promote new Nudes collection. The game invites you to play dress up and try on Christian Louboutin’s Spring/ Summer 2020 Nudes collection.
If you download the app and enter the challenge, it will be viewed by Louboutin himself and if you’re lucky, 10 people will be selected to win 2,500 Drest dollars.
“I was excited when Lucy [Yeomans] came to me to share her new project. It is very much in ‘l’air du temps’ and an interesting and cool way to give a wide and young audience an engaging experience with fashion,” said Louboutin.
“I am very glad to be part of this new adventure, especially with a collection which has been so very dear to me for the last 7 or 8 years, advocating inclusiveness and diversity: The Nudes.”
Drest CEO Lucy Yeomans said, “Our aim at Drest is to democratise the luxury fashion experience, and through this partnership, we are excited to be able to give people everywhere access to one of the world’s most desired and recognisable brands.”
TikTok Examined
TikTok’s popularity rose in the time of Covid-19 pandemic. China’s owned App allows users to create short lip-synced videos. While all of it is fun and games, The European Data Protection Board decided to access the App, after an EU lawmaker expressed concert in regards to App’s data collection methods and privacy risks.
Celebrities TikTok to follow
Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Leaves Board And Asks For Black Replacement
“it is long overdue to do the right thing.”
The co-founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian leaves the board and asks for his successor to be black.
Just recently Ohanian blasted the company for allowing racism to thrive on his popular blog platform.
On Friday Alexis, who is married to tennis star Serena William tweeted,
“It is long overdue to do the right thing. I am doing this for me, for my family and for my country. I am saying this as a father who needs to answer his black daughter when she asks, ‘What did you do.’”
Alexis Ohanian and tennis star Serena Williams have a 2-year-old daughter together. Ohanian also added that he will use his gains from Reddit to serve black community.
Rag & Bone Invests in New Technology after laying off 70 employees
Today’s consumer expects more than yesterday’s tech.
BounceX accurately recognizes and markets to the actual person behind every visit in real-time. Rag & Bone company found is useful. In fact, the company reports that it is able to identify 40% of its site traffic and send personalized triggered emails to push shoppers down the conversion tunnel.
“BounceX’s key benefit is identification, which means we can re-market to shoppers in a relevant, personal, and timely way. Our volume of connections with our shoppers has gone way up because of the identification that BounceX brings to our online business,” explained Aaron Detrick, VP of digital at Rag & Bone.
“It helps us identify shoppers at a much higher rate and re-market to them with a higher volume of relevant digital touch points—drastically accelerating our digital and direct-to-consumer growth.”
Rag & Bone was forced to lay off approximately 70 employees last month due to Covid-19.
TESLAFY ME
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Most people know the name Nikola Tesla, but few know much about his place in modern science and technology. The Croatian scientist, who came to America with just the clothes on his back and briefly worked with Edison, was devoted solely to discovery and relished the role of a showman or marketeer. Which is why Tesla, the man who designed the alternating-current (AC) electric system, which is the predominant electrical system used across the world today, and generated ideas that transformed daily life and created multiple fortunes, himself died nearly penniless. Tesla's vision was for a world free of pollution and climate problems, with energy available in abundance, free for all.
Slovenian direct Janja Glogovac’s new film TESLAFY ME, released on November 5th, features William Terbo (NASA Engineer, Tesla’s great-nephew), Branko Terzič (Senior Fellow, Global Energy Center), Leonardo DiCaprio (actor, environmentalist), Marina Abramovic (artist, writer, filmmaker) and Gramatik (composer, producer, DJ)
This film shows how Nikola Tesla kicked off the industrial revolution by pioneering the ideas behind electric energy and wireless communication. Though generally uncredited for his inventions, his ideas continue to shape our future. Gentleman, society figure, and engineer see how his personal life influenced his discoveries, and how scientists are still finding new uses for his technology to solve global issues.
TESLAFY ME is available on iTunes and all major VOD platforms.
““The civilization we are living in today stands on Nikola Tesla’s discoveries and patents. The fact that most of people connect Nikola Tesla’s name only with a car, but using his work every day and taking it for granted, made me think more and more about that subject. After finding out also about injustice that happened to him in his life, I said I have to make people aware about Nikola Tesla and his work. I wanted to do a documentary to inspire people to start researching by themselves about Nikola Tesla, because I know that in understanding of his work there is also a key for our future. He was the father of renewable energy and all of his work was to prevent a big problem we are facing today - climate change. He was observing nature and its laws and made his discoveries upon that..and that was the most inspiring influence for making this documentary film.” ”
Google Maybe Acquiring Fitbit - The Future of Wearables
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Yes, Fitbit may become Google’s first step into the wearables world . The 12-year old fitness tracker company may become a part of Google’s strategy to compete with Apple Watch. Outside of the US, Apple remains the top-seller of smartwatches.
Made in China: Mobile App Turns Users into Movie Stars
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Zao's mobile app, which changes users’s selfies to movie stars, broke download records in the Chinese App Store in a few days. In Russia, ZAO is not yet available.
One selfie and now you are the hero with Leo DiCaprio in the Titanic, Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory anything you want.. Zao offers users a selection of popular films, TV shows, shows, video games, so you can try yourself in different roles.
How it works? You take a selfie, choose which movie or show you want to “get into,” and the Deepfake-based application processes the image for eight seconds and integrates you, for example, into Titanic.
The quality of the image is still suffering, but the developers promise to solve the problem. Perhaps this will happen very soon, because only a few days after its appearance, Zao became wildly popular! While users enthusiastically post their "star" frames on the social network, a scandal began to flare up around the new application. It turns out that the initial terms of the user agreement stated that the rights to content created using Zao pass to the developer of the Momo application. Many saw this as a threat to the personal data of users, so this item disappeared. Plus, if a user deletes his video from the application library, the service will destroy it on servers as well. It’s impossible to check, so we can only hope they tell the truth
At the same time, Tencent which owns the Chinese messenger WeChat is still banned from publishing links to videos and gifs created in Zao in its services. Why? The fact is that the application uses Deepfake - a scandalous technology, with the help of which they often create fake porn with the participation of stars. Tencent experts fear the spread of misinformation, so they imposed a ban. Meanwhile, the number of references to Zao in the Chinese analogue of Twitter (Weibo) has exceeded 8 million, and the fascination with the new application is spreading at the speed of a virus.
FaceApp Now Owns More Than 150 Million People's Faces And Names
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The world has gone crazy over the latest app that let’s you see what you will look like when you get into senior years of your life and it’s no joke. The app collected over 150 million of peoples faces and names, and that information is now on the cloud. It’s all fun and games but bottom line is once it’s on the cloud none of us have control all of it.
Everyone is on the app, from celebrities to friends and family.
Former Rackspace manager Rob La Gesse mentioned today:
To make FaceApp actually work, you have to give it permissions to access your photos - ALL of them. But it also gains access to Siri and Search .... Oh, and it has access to refreshing in the background - so even when you are not using it, it is using you.
Rob La Gesse
Is This The End Of Steve Jobs Era?
Jon Ive to leave Apple later this year
“After nearly 30 years and countless projects, I am most proud of the lasting work we have done to create a design team, process and culture at Apple that is without peer. Today it is stronger, more vibrant and more talented than at any point in Apple’s history,” said Ive. “The team will certainly thrive under the excellent leadership of Evans, Alan and Jeff, who have been among my closest collaborators. I have the utmost confidence in my designer colleagues at Apple, who remain my closest friends, and I look forward to working with them for many years to come.”
Throughout the time, two names in particular have been credited with driving Apple’s success, Steve Jobs and Jon Ive. Jobs returned to lead Apple in 1997, bringing along his right-hand man, Ive, who is known for minimalistic, sleek designs.
That partnership helped turn Apple from near bankruptcy into a behemoth of industry, even before Jobs passed away in 2011.
Ive's departure signals that he'll continue working with Apple for years to come. His new design firm will have Apple as a primary client. And not to worry, we will still Apple products on store shelves with Ive’s fingerprints all over even if he no longer has an Apple employee badge.
image via Vogue.UK 2018
Sir Jonathan Paul "Jony" Ive, KBE, HonFREng, RDI (born 27 February 1967) is a British industrial designer who was the outgoing Chief Design Officer (CDO) of Apple and served as the Chancellor of the Royal College of Art in London. He joined Apple in 1992. Following ten years of service designing Apple products, he was promoted to Senior Vice President of design; Ive has designed the iMac, Power Mac G4 Cube, iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and parts of Apple's user interface, iOS.
Blockchain For Authenticity Of High-Priced Goods?
Will we be able to receive digital proof of authenticity for LVMH products and be able to trace them?
LVMH - owner of the iconic Louis Vuitton label is in talks to launch a blockchain for proving the authenticity of high-priced goods.
The cryptographic platform, under the Code-named AURA, is expected to go live in May or June with Louis Vuitton and Parfums Christian Dior. AURA was developed by JPMorgan and has been built using a permissioned version of the ethereum blockchain called Quorum which focuses on data privacy.
LVMH controls over 60 luxury brands such as Dior, Dom PÃrignon and Hublot.
AURA will not be an app, it will run behind the brands using it. So if you are a customer of a luxury brand, you are not going to see AURA; you are going to see the Louis Vuitton app or the app of another luxury brand. AURA could conceivably identify an individual handbag and trace the whole journey of its lifecycle from an alligator farm to the store where it was sold for the first time, and then the multiple owners that have owned and sold it.
New Apple Series The Morning Show With Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston
The series has an all-star cast.
Although Apple lost Steve Jobs who was a master of the product announcement in his signature black turtleneck, it still got stage presence: Namely, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and other Hollywood celebrities who pitched Apple’s much anticipated video streaming service Monday in the theater named after the late Apple co-founder.
Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., campus today was something altogether different. Celebrities like J.J. Abrams, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell walked onto Apple’s stage to present paid subscriptions for news, video games and an entertainment service.
Apple made it clear they are not a gadget maker. Weather it’s the music you listen to, the TV you watch or the news you read to the games you play Apple is here to stay.
As CEO Tim Cook put it, Apple is now about “services that deliver incredible content and experiences directly to you whenever and wherever you are.”
The announcement sent Apple’s stock sliding, from a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion (it was the first company ever to cross that milestone) down to below $700 billion earlier this year.
Apple also announced its much-anticipated reunion of Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, revealing the first footage from their new TV series Monday.
Actresses appeared at Apple’s special event to introduce The Morning Show as a series that would examine the people and politics of the morning news world.
“Through the prism of those under-slept, over-adrenalized people in front of and behind the camera, we take an honest look at the complex relationships between women and men in the workplace, and we engage in the conversation people are a little too afraid to have unless they’re behind closed doors,” Aniston said.
by Giulia Juliet Belkin
Giulia Juliet Belkin is the founder of Joliegazette, Mama, Techie, Dreamer, Believer, Achiever.
China Reaches Far Side of the Moon
BEIJING China reaches a milestone in space exploration today as it lands a vehicle on the far side of the moon for the first time in history, the country’s space agency announced.
The landing probe is named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology Chang’e-4. China is ambitious to join and even lead the space race.
In 2013 China landed rover on the moon , joining the United States and the Soviet Union as the only nations to have carried out a “soft landing” there, but the Chang’e-4 is the first to touch down on the side of the moon that faces away from the Earth.
The mission “has opened a new chapter in humanity’s exploration of the moon,” the China National Space Administration said in an announcement on its website. The agency said the spacecraft landed at 10:26 a.m. Beijing time at its target on the far side of the moon.
