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. Please let me know what you think.
Important Items
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The MAGA Plan to End Free Weather Reports
There’s much more in this crazy document, here’s just one example: Project 2025 would all but dissolve the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/07/noaa-project-2025-weather/678987/
Elena Kagan Endorses High Court Ethics Enforcement Mechanism
Justice Elena Kagan proposed Chief Justice John Roberts appoint a panel of judges to enforce the US Supreme Court’s code of conduct.
Women for Harris Call
I participated in an energizing call Thursday night w 200,000 white women. We raised $11M. Now all the women are getting together. Don’t miss out!
https://events.democrats.org/event/653900/
White Dudes for Harris Call
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfv8CbvFVggb-D6bQ1-oPUNULwk6f1qzkjufYGIWFiCQ0Z8RA/viewform
Technology
New Senate bill seeks to protect artists’ and journalists’ content from AI use
The bill is designed to give content owners, such as journalists, newspapers, artists, songwriters, and others the ability to protect their work, while also setting the terms of use for their content, including compensation. It also gives them the right to sue platforms that use their content without their permission or have tampered with content provenance information.
SearchGPT Is OpenAI’s Direct Assault on Google
The company behind ChatGPT is expanding into search, and leaning heavily on its relationships with publishers.
https://www.wired.com/story/searchgpt-openai-search-engine-generative-ai/
Reddit blocks search engines and AI bots—except those that pay
https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/24/24205244/reddit-blocking-search-engine-crawlers-ai-bot-google
Runway’s AI video generator trained on thousands of scraped YouTube videos
https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/25/24206120/runway-ai-video-generator-scraped-youtube-videos-report
Anthropic’s crawler is ignoring websites’ anti-AI scraping policies
Generative AI boosts individual creativity at the cost of collective diversity, study finds
This finding raises concerns about the potential homogenization of creative content if generative AI becomes widely adopted.
Part 2: 5 Ways AI Can Transform How Publishing Sells Books
Adobe rolls out more generative AI features to Illustrator and Photoshop
New shape filling and pattern generating tools are available in Illustrator, powered by Adobe’s latest Firefly Vector AI model.
Pixel 9’s ‘Add Me’ feature puts you in a group photo even when you’re not there
The feature, seemingly called “Add Me,” appears in a leaked ad. The ad shows someone using a Pixel 9 to take a picture of two friends in front of a van. After snapping a shot, the photographer trades spots with her two friends, allowing her to get a picture in front of the van — only the Pixel’s display shows the phantom-like image of the two friends standing beside her. Her friend snaps a photo, and boom, she appears in the picture as if she were there the entire time.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/26/24206969/google-pixel-9-add-me-group-photos-leak
Meet Odyssey — AI video that’s ‘fit for Hollywood’
https://www.tomsguide.com/ai/meet-odyssey-ai-video-thats-fit-for-hollywood
YouTube Music tests AI playlists tailored to what you want to hear
https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/15/24199202/youtube-music-ai-playlists-test-hum-to-search
Will K-pop’s AI experiment pay off?
On K-pop discussion pages, fans are torn over the issue of using AI, with some saying more regulations need to be in place before the technology becomes normalized. Others were more open to it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4ngr3r0914o
Google Now Defaults to Not Indexing Your Content
HT @ThadMcIlroy
https://www.vincentschmalbach.com/google-now-defaults-to-not-indexing-your-content/
Woefully Insufficient Publisher Policies on Author AI Use Put Research Integrity at Risk
Video Game Performers Are Going on Strike Over AI
The union representing the voice and motion-capture actors who work in video games authorized the strike after talks with gaming companies stalled over the use of AI.
https://www.wired.com/story/video-game-voice-actors-are-going-on-strike-over-ai/
The first Miss AI has been crowned — and she’s a Moroccan lifestyle influencer
Seems bizarre – an AI beauty contest.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/11/style/miss-ai-pageant-winner-kenza-layli
AI is confusing — here’s your cheat sheet
If you can’t tell the difference between AGI and RAG, don’t worry! We’re here for you.
https://www.theverge.com/24201441/ai-terminology-explained-humans
AI’s ‘Oppenheimer moment’: autonomous weapons enter the battlefield
We Need to Control AI Agents Now
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/07/ai-agents-safety-risks/678864/
Are you being exploited by AI-powered surveillance pricing?
How to Stop Elon Musk From Training His AI On Your Data
X is now automatically opting-in users for training Grok. It only takes a second to turn it off.
https://gizmodo.com/how-to-stop-elon-musk-from-training-his-ai-on-your-data-2000479425
Robot cats, dogs and birds are being deployed amid an ‘epidemic of loneliness’
New York state has sent out thousands of robots in a bid to keep older adults engaged
The Next Wave: Fractionalized Employees
By the always sage @rishad.
https://open.substack.com/pub/rishad/p/the-next-wave-fractionalized-employees
Publishing & Media
The Reading Revolution: How The Literary Sphere Took Over
Book clubs have reached cult status among celebrities & designers, covers have their own social followings & independent publishers are booming. How the literary world became 2024’s biggest trend.
https://www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/culture/a61609793/reading-revolution-books/
Spotify Adds 1,000 Audiobooks from 100 Publishers Distributed by Ingram
Spotify CEO expects profit growth to continue amid investments in audiobooks
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/23/spotify-stock-profit-growth-audiobooks
Why you should buy physical copies of your favorite books
HT @KathMSchmidt Ebooks are great, but nothing beats a physical copy of your favorite read.
https://www.popsci.com/diy/why-you-should-buy-books/
The New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century is Moving Units
According to Circana, the top 10 books on the list saw an average sales boost of 113% last week. Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald saw a sales boost of more than 600%, likely as it was one of the most under-known books at the top of the list.
https://bookriot.com/the-new-york-times-best-books-of-the-21st-century-is-moving-units/
A new generation of authors is finally making book merch interesting
Sable Yong’s debut book comes with some unusual marketing merchandise—a perfume to match.
Colin Kaepernick Launches AI-Based Self-Publishing Platform
Mushrooming Newsletters: Almost All Independent Publishers Now Send Them
HT @BoSacks 95% of publishers producing newsletters this year—up from 81% in 2022. Events are next—at 60% vs 34% in 2021. Less than 50% now use podcasts, and print media and digital marketing services do not even hit 25%
More than a third of UK adults have given up reading for pleasure, study finds
Social media distraction, lack of time and difficulty focusing are factors in the decline of leisure reading
Hugo awards disqualifies hundreds of ‘fake votes’ cast for finalist
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/hugo-awards-disqualifies-hundreds-of-fake-votes-cast-for-finalist
LexisNexis Offers Nexis+ AI for Enhanced Corporate Research
LexisNexis has launched a new generative AI–powered platform that aims to accelerate data-intensive research by leveraging the company’s existing library of over 20,000 licensed sources.
NBF’s Book Rich Environments Program Hits Two Million Book Donations
The National Book Foundation program, launched in 2017, has distributed more than two million free books to young people and families in public housing communities across the United States.
Brooklyn Book Festival Announces Lineup, BoBi Award Winner Roz Chast
The Brooklyn Book Festival has announced the author lineup for its 2024 edition, slated for September 22–30. Additionally, cartoonist Roz Chast has been named as recipient of the 2024 Best of Brooklyn Award.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/newsbrief/index.html?record=4840
The Guardian moves closer to being a reader-supported business as it launches new cooking app
HT @BoSacks
The Ongoing Censorship of High School Advanced Placement Courses
https://bookriot.com/the-ongoing-censorship-of-high-school-advanced-placement-courses/
Resources & Opportunities
WMG Small Group Gatherings!
Sign up quick for @WMG_NYC‘s members-only small group gatherings. They’re really special, as you get to meet other members in small groups.
https://www.womensmediagroup.org/events
Call for WMG Mentors!
WMG has had 30-minute mentors in the Summer for our CUNY fellows for a long time. I started year-round mentoring of WMG scholarship winners a few years ago, and this year we’re adding peer mentoring. WMG Members: Sign up TODAY!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSesVa6W4d_jPUHmpU1gMRHIO393qNkWf66oxbm6urSkP1bQRA/viewform
Some literary journals opening for submissions in August
https://x.com/laughingyeti/status/1817242202759946309
Adopt a Library
MT @diversebooks Announcing WNDB’s newest initiative! 📚 WNDB is launching our Adopt a Library initiative, which will provide $10,000 in books and materials to a U.S. school in need of a library — or a school library that requires serious updating.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezGSxEjClSRCar4z_ZZ23-ydoE504xkpPTcn-OEHl_mlfPlw/viewform
Margins Bookselling Month
https://www.thewordfordiversity.org/marginsbookstores
CreativeMornings: New York is Creative
A free event in Brooklyn or livestreaming.
https://creativemornings.com/talks/pma2nU2f7Da2Dr7ToWOg7Q==
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