Media
Who's who: Ai Weiwei - Cherwell
On the 3rd of April 2011, the inhabitants of Chaoyang district in northern Beijing woke up to a strange spectacle. A team of twenty policemen, dressed in plainclothes but armed to the teeth, were placing cordons around an empty building. Power to the neighbourhood had been cut off. In breathless darkness, the residents watched as officers advanced through the doorway, returning minutes later with laptops and a hard drive. Miles away in the Beijing Capital Airport, the building's owner--a towering, shaggy-haired man in his fifties--was being forced, handcuffed, into the back of a squad car.
The Morning After: Disney will raise its price to $8 per month
After surpassing its own projections for Disney in year one -- and facing unprecedented issues for its theatrical and theme park businesses -- Disney is leaning even harder into streaming. During a presentation for investors on Thursday, it pitched a seemingly unending list of content that will all become a part of its streaming services sooner or later. Multiple streaming spinoffs from The Mandalorian, the return of Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader and a film featuring C-3PO and R2-D2 were just part of the list for Star Wars alone. Meanwhile, the Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 4 starts with Wandavision on Disney in January and won't slow down for the rest of the year. There's one small catch for viewers: Disney also announced the price of Disney is going up.
Why IT Departments Need to Consider Deepfakes - InformationWeek
Deepfakes (aka synthetic media) can spread misinformation and disinformation very effectively. The 2020 US election is just one example, but the use of deepfakes isn't limited to politics. In fact, representatives from a big brand company recently asked Avivah Litan, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner Research, what they could do if deepfakes were used to undermine the reputation of the brand or CEO. Unfortunately, her reply was "nothing," because there's no way they can stop the social sharing of content. "[T]he companies that have to solve this problem are the social media networks in terms of spreading deepfakes around the world," said Litan.
The Biggest Companies are Integrating Chatbots into Their Interface and Why You Should Too!
Chatbots are not a new development in the tech world, but over the course of the last few years they have exploded in popularity, going from simple scripts to complex Artificial Intelligence tools that will change the way we see and interact with the internet, both as individuals, and as large corporations and organizations. With industry leaders such as Facebook introducing chatbot services that have been used to create almost 300,000 individual bots, it is clear that chatbots are taking off in a big way, and the decision to incorporate them should be a no-brainer for any business looking to excel in the digital sphere. Keen to build off the excitement of new developments in the chatbot industry, Domino's Pizza introduced Dom the Pizza Bot. In a partnership with Facebook Messenger, potential customers are able to message Dom and request food with as little as a single word or all-encompassing emoji. This bot has captured the hearts of thousands of pizza-lovers with it's irreverent responses, and given a heart and soul to Domino's Pizza.