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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. Please let me know what you think.

Important Items

Order Your 4 Free At-⁠home COVID-⁠19 Tests

https://covidtests.gov

Groundbreaking Study: Anti-trans State Laws Increased Suicide Attempts By 72%

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/groundbreaking-study-anti-trans-state

Kidlit for Kamala Generates Momentum with Author Endorsements

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/96012-kidlit-for-kamala-generates-momentum-with-author-endorsements.html

Technology

What the Financial Times learned from experimenting with AI

The first lesson the team learned was humility, as it became clear that the value of content AI produces is only as good as the tool itself. The team spent six weeks training a large language model (LLM) and crafted a prompt for one summary. When they saw the underwhelming result, the newsletter team did not buy in. “It was the best kind of failure, we’ve learned a lot from it.”

https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/what-the-financial-times-learned-from-experimenting-with-ai/s2/a1176683/

Mark Zuckerberg: creators and publishers ‘overestimate the value’ of their work for training AI

“If they demanded that we don’t use their content, then we just wouldn’t use their content.”

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/25/24254042/mark-zuckerberg-creators-value-ai-meta

Fake AI “podcasters” are reviewing my book and it’s freaking me out

NotebookLM’s “Audio Summaries” show a more personable future for AI-generated content.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/09/fake-ai-podcasters-are-reviewing-my-book-and-its-freaking-me-out/

A step-by-step guide to how Google demolished publisher ads

Google has a 91% share of the global ad server market and banks the equivalent global earnings of all global publishers every three days

https://rickysutton.substack.com/p/a-step-by-step-guide-to-how-google

Google’s sky-high fees silenced our journalism, per Daily Mail exec

A siege of display ads left the publisher unable to cut ties without losing millions in ad revenue that funded its work.

https://open.substack.com/pub/rickysutton/p/googles-sky-high-fees-silenced-our

Pirates of the Digital Sea: Why Publishers Can’t Unite Against Theft of Their Online Content

https://creativelicensinginternational.com/licensing-brief/pirates-of-the-digital-sea-why-publishers-cant-unite-against-theft-of-their-online-content/

Meta is recreating influencers w AI

Zuckerberg live demo’d creators making an AI persona, which looks & talks like the creator,+ tries to respond to ques like the creator would. Dub Reels into languages, maintaining voice+changing mouth movements to match

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/25/24254190/meta-connect-2024-ai-auto-dubbing-lip-syncing

Meta’s Ray-Bans will now ‘remember’ things for you

The glasses can take a pic of what you’re looking at + later send your phone a notification. Scan QR codes & call phone numbers you’re looking at. It can already translate some languages from images

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/25/24253712/meta-rayban-ai-features-reminders-translation-transparent-style

Use Zoom’s AI Companion to Take Notes and Summarize Meetings

The videoconferencing app has an AI-powered agent built in. It can generate summaries, tell you who talked the most, and even gauge what the emotional tone of the meeting was.

https://www.wired.com/story/zoom-ai-companion-take-notes-summarize-meetings/

Gemini is making Gmail’s smart replies smarter

Automated responses in Gmail can now provide more detail and context for some users on iOS and Android.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/27/24255722/google-gemini-gmail-contextual-smart-replies-availability

Max is getting Google AI-generated closed captions

Warner Bros. Discovery partnering w Google Cloud to generate closed captioning for Max. Captions generated will have human QA oversight. It will reduce caption creation time 80% + cut costs up to 50%.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/24/24253107/warner-bros-discovery-caption-ai-google-cloud-closed-captioning

Google’s NotebookLM can help you dive deeper into YouTube videos

It can summarize and help you dig deeper into YouTube videos. The new capability works by analyzing the text in a YouTube video’s transcript, including autogenerated ones.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24255176/google-notebooklm-summarize-youtube-videos-ai

TikTok launchs a new tool to create Search Ads Campaigns

HT @neilperkin A number of studies have shown the growth of search behavior on Instagram + TikTok, particularly among younger audiences (ppl turning to these platforms for recommendations & answers)

https://marketing4ecommerce.net/en/tiktok-launchs-a-new-tool-to-create-search-ads-campaigns/

Due to AI fakes, the “deep doubt” era is here

As AI deepfakes sow doubt in legitimate media, anyone can claim something didn’t happen.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/due-to-ai-fakes-the-deep-doubt-era-is-here/

A deepfake caller pretending to be a Ukrainian official almost tricked a US senator

The caller, who looked and sounded just like Ukraine’s former foreign minister, asked ‘politically charged questions in relation to the upcoming election.’

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24255179/deepfake-call-ukraine-senator-cardin-dmytro-kuleba

China’s Plan to Make AI Watermarks Happen

New Chinese regulation attempts to define how AI content labeling should work and stamp out AI-generated disinformation.

https://www.wired.com/story/china-wants-to-make-ai-watermarks-happen/

Spotify’s AI playlist builder is now available in the US

Spotify is expanding an AI feature that creates customized playlists from your text descriptions to additional English-speaking regions.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/24/24252971/spotify-ai-playlist-builder-beta-available-us-canada

Microsoft’s Three Mile Island Deal Signals a Broader Nuclear Comeback

Microsoft’s deal to bring back a Three Mile Island nuclear reactor is just one part of Big Tech’s quid pro quo with nuclear power.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-ai-boom-is-raising-hopes-of-a-nuclear-comeback/

The BBC sound effects library is now completely free to access

https://sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk/search?cat=Machines

Publishing & Media

Over 30 Years, 40% of Publishing Jobs Disappeared. What Happened?

HT @BoSacks According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, the # of ppl employed in book publishing in the US plummeted from 91,100 in 1997 to 54,822 in 2023, a staggering 40% decrease.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/95996-over-30-years-40-of-publishing-jobs-disappeared-what-happened.html

NY ComicCon Preview

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/trade-shows-events/article/95992-nycc-2024-preview-program-highlights.html

EMAIL YOUR REPS: Don’t Ban Books in the United States

https://action.everylibrary.org/nationalaccess

The state of comics and censorship during Banned Books Week

https://www.tcj.com/the-state-of-comics-and-censorship/

How book-banning campaigns have changed the lives and education of librarians

https://www.fastcompany.com/91197714/how-book-banning-campaigns-have-changed-the-lives-and-education-of-librarians

US public schools banned over 10K books during 2023-2024 academic year

HT @publishingtrend PEN America found that book bans nearly tripled during the 2023-2024 academic year with over 10,000 books banned in public schools. The group previously documented 3,362 instances of book bans in the 2022–2023 school year. “With 10,000 school book bans and counting in the 2023-2024 school, we have to take stock of the harm censorship imposes on those most affected—the students. This Banned Book Week demands that we join together to turn the page on book bans by saying ‘No more.'”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/09/24/book-censorship-2024-preliminary-reports/75355464007/

ALA Releases Preliminary 2024 Book Ban Data

MT @UABookBans NEW preliminary book ban data from the American Library Association. From Jan 1-Aug 31, 2024, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedome reported 414 attempts to censor library materials/services & challenges to 1,128 unique titles and noted the effect of “soft censorship”

https://uniteagainstbookbans.org/ala-releases-preliminary-2024-book-ban-data/

The Right Doesn’t Need to Ban Books; Schools Are Doing It Themselves

The Chilling Effect Is Real: Educators’ stories about preemptive book bans show how schools are censoring themselves.

https://slate.com/life/2024/09/banned-books-week-schools-censorship.html

Resources & Opportunities

Fifty Fierce Years: Ms. Magazine’s Legacy of Change

Almost sold out! Let me know if you want to sponsor/buy a table.

It’s WMG’s 50th anniversary year & also the 50th anniversary of the founding of Ms. magazine! Join us for a MOMENTOUS celebratory luncheon! Open to WMG members and non-members. 10/30 12:30-2pm ET in-person at a NYC restaurant. Panelists include:

Suzanne Braun Levine: First editor of Ms. magazine, Peabody Award-winning producer, and author.
Marcia Ann Gillespie: Former editor-in-chief of Ms. and Essence, and advocate for gender and racial justice.
Letty Cottin Pogrebin: Ms. founding editor, author, and co-founder of key feminist organizations.
Molly Jong-Fast (Moderator): MSNBC Political Analyst and host of the “Fast Politics” podcast.

Sign up ASAP – it will sell out very shortly!

https://www.womensmediagroup.org/event-5872467

Be Our Guest at IMI Fest 2024

MT @radiotopia Are you an up-and-coming podcaster we should all know more about? Apply to be our guest at IMIFest24, for a weekend-long celebration of independent creators who make and share their work online.

https://www.radiotopia.fm/imifest2024

This American Life Fellowship

MT @ThisAmerLife We’re still taking applications for our next fellowship session. We’re looking for someone with great ideas and Pro Tools (or similar) skills to help us with all parts of making the show. It’s a paid position with benefits. Deadline to apply: Oct 1.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/fellowships

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