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While I focus on Technology, Innovation, and Publishing, because I have a platform, I also flag items that I think are important, which you might have missed, and try to include a bunch of resources & opportunities. I’d love to hear what you think of this newsletter.
Important Items
Russia Is Boosting Calls for ‘Civil War’ Over Texas Border Crisis
An all-encompassing Russian disinformation campaign is using everything from bots to lifestyle influencers to powerful state-run media to sow division in the United States.
https://www.wired.com/story/russia-disinformation-campaign-civil-war-texas-border/
SARS-CoV-2 is sowing the seeds for a dementia epidemic
MT @outbreakupdates Analysis from over a million post-COVID cases reveals a chilling 58% spike in the risk of new onset dementia. A ticking time bomb set to detonate particularly at the 12-month mark post-infection. For those hit hardest by COVID-19, the risk of descending into dementia skyrockets nearly eighteen-fold. Women stand on the frontline of this emerging crisis, disproportionately bearing the brunt of this cognitive degradation.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4716751
New Evidence Suggests Long COVID Could Be a Brain Injury
“A new study has found that these symptoms may be the result of a viral-borne brain injury that may cause cognitive.. health issues that persist for years.” “The brain deficits found in #LongCovid patients were equivalent to 20 years of brain aging”
Up-to-date scientific information on COVID
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/
Rampant COVID Poses New Challenges in the Fifth Year of the Pandemic
“The virus is rampant. We’re still in a pandemic. There’s a lot of complacency at the individual level, and more concerning to me is that at the government level…. stay home if you’re unwell but also seek medical care if you need to seek medical care. Get tested so that you can get the right treatment course. Wear masks when you’re in crowded places. If you’re going to be around older people, test yourself before you go; use a self-test—things such as that… Our concern is a variant that’s highly transmissible, that is more severe and that has significant immune escape, which [would mean that people would] really need to get revaccinated right away.”
Innovation
Human Brain Cells on a Chip Can Recognize Speech And Do Simple Math
Indiana U Brainoware is a brain organid hybrid bio-computer composed of human brain cell tissue integrated w an electronic chip able to perform speech recognition & math-related tasks
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-built-a-functional-computer-with-human-brain-tissue
Elon Musk’s Neuralink implants brain tech in human patient for the first time
ICYMI The company is developing a brain implant that aims to help patients with severe paralysis control external technologies using only neural signals. If the technology functions properly, patients with severe degenerative diseases like ALS could someday use the implant to communicate or access social media by moving cursors and typing with their minds.
NYU Tandon researchers fabricate the world’s first chip designed through conversations with an artificial-intelligence platform
Technology
Meet Your New Robot Co-Writer
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a46662053/robot-co-writer/
Microsoft in deal with Semafor to create news stories with aid of AI chatbot
https://www.ft.com/content/b521a662-a272-49a1-b76e-3deea4754b76
Small news publishers are making great strides with GenAI
HT @BoSacks Some use cases:
- interview transcription,
- story idea generation,
- assisting with new products (such as coming up with a name for a growth and development newsletter),
- AI-generated voice-over for social media video promos
- Take content we’ve already produced and repurpose it for special projects.
- Mark Talkington, editor-in-chief at The Palms Springs Post in CA, used GenAI to create a tool that could “cover” a Palm Springs Planning Commission meeting and generate a story on one of the agenda items.
- AI as a research assistant: For a newsroom that covers the electricity market, use AI to read and interpret reports, analyse data sets, keep track of public correspondence, and alert the reporters whenever there is something going on.
OpenAI is adding new watermarks to DALL-E 3
OpenAI says watermarks in image metadata are not perfect, but they help build trust of digital information.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/6/24063954/ai-watermarks-dalle3-openai-content-credentials
Apple releases ‘MGIE’, a revolutionary AI model for instruction-based image editing
How to keep your art out of AI generators
Some AI companies provide ways to opt images out of being used in training data, while tools like Glaze and Nightshade can interfere with AI models directly.
https://www.theverge.com/24063327/ai-art-protect-images-copyright-generators
Meta says you better disclose your AI fakes or it might just pull them
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/6/24062388/meta-ai-photo-watermark-facebook-instagram-threads
LinkedIn’s New AI Chatbot Wants to Help You Find Your Next Job
https://www.wired.com/story/linkedin-ai-chatbot-help-find-your-next-job/
Google’s Gemini Advanced
RT @ThadMcIlroy “For the first time since ChatGPT’s release, there is another company with an LLM that can compete with Open AI’s most advanced model.” Via @emollick
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/google-gemini-advanced-tasting-notes
Here’s the Thing AI Just Can’t Do
Google says its powerful new chatbot Gemini can supercharge your creativity. But who is really providing the creative spark?
https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-the-thing-ai-just-cant-do/
Roblox releases real-time AI chat translator
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/5/24061495/roblox-generative-ai-chat-translator
Sony’s Crunchyroll Erasure Of Funimation Anime Libraries Is Inexcusable
Disney Ready for Big Bet on Apple Vision Pro
The Apple Vision Pro headset “is a platform that allows us to tell stories in a different way. This is just the start for these types of devices.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91021619/disney-apple-vision-pro-app
Amazon Adds Social Media Twist to Online Shopping With Consult-a-Friend and Inspire
HT @BISG To access the capability, users can select a product they’d like feedback on and tap the “Share” button. From there, they can toggle a “Ask for your friends’ votes” button. Friends will receive a message directing them to the Consult-a-Friend link on the Amazon Shopping app, where they can respond with a quick emoji reaction or share commentary. This builds on Amazon’s Inspire capability, an in-app shopping platform introduced earlier this year that provides more ways to discover new products and shop content created by influencers. Inspire allows users to share their favorite products with other shoppers with the new “Create” feature.
https://risnews.com/amazon-adds-social-media-twist-online-shopping-consult-friend-and-inspire
Amazon abandons $1.4 billion deal to buy Roomba maker iRobot
ICYMI iRobot CEO, who co-founded the company, is stepping down, and the company plans to lay off 350 people.
YouTube TV says it has more than 8 million subscribers
https://www.axios.com/2024/02/06/youtube-tv-subscribers-cable-satellite
Over Three Decades, Tech Obliterated Media
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/kara-swisher-burn-book-excerpt-silicon-valley-media.html
Techno-admin will ruin your life
It’s a pervasive phenomenon, whereby we customers are forced into infuriating, confusing, absurdly time-consuming and bleakly unrewarding tasks by a machine.
https://unherd.com/2024/02/techno-admin-will-ruin-your-life/
Digital Culture Scorecard
HT @neilperkin This scorecard is designed to help score your organisation and teams against the criteria that are most important to digital culture.
https://econsultancy.com/digital-culture-scorecard/
Publishing & Media
‘Reading is so sexy’: gen Z turns to physical books and libraries
Model Kaia Gerber launched a book club, Library Science. Gerber, the daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford, describes it as “a platform for sharing books, featuring new writers, hosting conversations with artists we admire – and continuing to build a community of people who are as excited about literature as I am.” “Books have always been the great love of my life,” she added. “Reading is so sexy.” Gerber isn’t alone. Last year in the UK 669m physical books were sold, the highest overall level ever recorded. Libraries are also reporting an uptick in gen Z users who favour their quiet over noisy coffee shops. In the UK in-person visits are up 71%.
Hachette Book Group Owner Restructuring
Hachette Book Group is owned by Hachette Livre, which is a subsidiary of Lagardère Group. Their owner Vivendi will be split into four groups, “each of which would be listed on the stock market.“ The fourth division, under the restructuring, will be a new company that groups “assets in publishing and distribution,” namely Lagardère and magazine-publisher Prisma Media.
15 Rules For Advertising Books
HT @samatlounge via @DavidGaughran
https://davidgaughran.com/book-advertising/
Everyone’s a sellout now
So you want to be an artist. Do you have to start a TikTok? This article says yes.
Author Platform Is Not a Requirement to Sell Your Novel or Children’s Book
https://janefriedman.com/author-platform-is-not-a-requirement-to-sell-your-novel-or-childrens-book/
Children’s Publishers on the Role of BookTok
Incorporating Accessibility into the Editorial Process
https://laurabrady.ca/blog/accessibility-and-editorial
Anime is huge – and here are the numbers to prove it
HT @FoSTorg For GenZ, anime is bigger than the NFL. 42% watch anime weekly. In the US, the audience of anime fans is more diverse than the national population. Fans of titles like Demon Slayer find the characters and stories more relatable.
https://www.polygon.com/c/2024/1/22/24034466/anime-viewer-survey-research
‘We didn’t expect this phenomenon to last’: France’s comic-book tradition is hitting new heights
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/06/france-comic-book-tradition-is-hitting-new-heights
Librarian Hides Phones in Books to Help People Escape Domestic Violence
Molly Riportella, head of adult services librarian at Westwood (MA) Public Library, started BiblioUnderground in 2020 to get burner phones and other resources to people struggling to get out of abusive relationships.
Libraries: the best form of government
“Libraries are one institution where we use our resources to give each other what we need, use them to build something that simply helps all of us, because that’s the way it should be. That’s the way everything should be.”
https://www.jphilll.com/p/libraries-the-best-form-of-government
Target removes Black History Month book from shelves for misidentifying Civil Rights leaders
“The Civil Rights Magnetic Learning Activity” mismatched the names and photos of Carter G. Woodson, a historian and author, sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, who was an author and educator.
‘Do not sell:’ Jacksonville (FL) woman denied purchase of Black History books at local Target store
And there were repurcussions – They used it as an excuse to ban all the Black History Month titles: “Each book as they were rung up, they came up ‘do not sell’,” said Orr. The books, which covered figures like Barack Obama, Langston Hughes, Jackie Robinson, and more, all came back with the same message. After being told she would be unable to purchase the books, Orr asked to speak with a manager. “Every single book on all these different Black history figures, every single book had a misprint? It didn’t make sense,” said Orr. When we went into the Target Orr had visited the day prior, the Black History display she’d found the books on was gone.
Penguin Classics celebrates James Baldwin’s 100th birthday with new books and Hay Festival partnership
Vox, Dotdash Magazine Editors Talk Change
Town cars are over, transparency has replaced aspiration and diversity finally exists. Top editors talk about leading a style magazine in 2024.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/fashion/2024/02/07/fashion-magazine-editors-millennial/
Forbes Up for Sale Again by Investment Firm
Several potential buyers have taken a look at Forbes, including Axel Springer, which held some early-stage talks but ultimately passed.
https://puck.news/capitalist-tools/
News companies reverse course on hard subscriptions
https://www.axios.com/2024/02/06/great-subscription-news-reversal
Is the media prepared for an extinction-level event?
Ads are scarce, search and social traffic is dying, and readers are burned out. The future will require fundamentally rethinking the press’s relationship to its audience.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/is-the-media-prepared-for-an-extinction-level-event
Substack to Begin Helping Creators Sell Ads
https://www.axios.com/2024/02/06/substack-helping-creators-sell-ads
Missouri Secretary of State Candidate Promises to Burn Books
https://bookriot.com/missouri-secretary-of-state-candidate-promises-to-burn-books/
Philly Mayor requires all library social media posts and fliers be reviewed by their office before posting
MT @dhm The Philadelphia Mayor’s office told all 54 library branches they were no longer able to post on social media or put up fliers without their office reviewing them first. The reason for this new policy, the office told the Inquirer last week, is that a false rumor reached the mayor’s office. An important detail to add is: It had not been posted to social media by any city agency.
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/clout/cherelle-parker-media-policy-david-mccormick-20240126.html
A Bill in Virginia Would Ban Book Bans by School Boards
https://bookriot.com/a-bill-in-virginia-would-ban-book-bans-by-school-boards/
Resources & Opportunities
Join WMG’s 50th Anniversary Gala!
Muppets in Moscow
RT @WMG_NYC Join us for a captivating conversation with filmmaker Natasha Lance Rogoff & Sesame Street historian Betsy Loredo on Feb 21, 6-7 PM ET. Hear the unexpected challenges behind the creation and production of Muppets in Moscow! Free for WMG members; $15 for non-members. REGISTER.
https://www.womensmediagroup.org/event-5582660
Ask an Agent Anything
Are you interested in learning more from literary agents in cookbooks, fiction, and YA? Sign up for @WMG_NYC‘s virtual program 2/27 6-7:30pm ET. FREE for members, $15 for non-members.
https://www.womensmediagroup.org/event-5604398
Journalism Job Openings: The February List
More than 200 job listings from @RebeccaAguilar
https://rebeccaaguilar.wordpress.com/2024/02/01/journalism-job-openings-the-february-list/
Women writers from underrepresented groups
James Patterson Announces a New Bookstore Bonus Program
In honor of his new book, ‘The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians,’ up to 500 booksellers from ABA member stores across the country get $500 bonuses for a total donation of up to $250K. Nominate today!
https://www.bookweb.org/news/james-patterson-announces-new-bookstore-bonus-program-1630250
National Book Foundation Announces a New Funding Opportunity for Literary Arts Nonprofits
Via @nationalbook
New Funding Opportunity for Nonprofit Literary Publishers
Via @CLMPorg
Shakespeare & Co. Opening New UWS Location
Shakespeare & Co. is opening at 2736 Broadway at West 105th Street. This will be the store’s third NYC location and second Upper West Side spot. (No cafe or espresso book machine.)
https://ilovetheupperwestside.com/shakespeare-co-opening-new-uws-location/
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