An Elon Musk-backed nonprofit is teaching AI to play Grand Theft Auto V and other titles. Here’s why.
Thanks to advanced new machine learning techniques, artificial intelligences are better at performing human tasks than ever. AIs can tell you what’s in your photos, beat you at chess, design typefaces, dream up entirely new cities, and even tweet like Donald Trump–often better than the average person.
The voice interfaces of the future may be embedded in the products and appliances all around us.
One of the central problems facing designers of any voice-controlled smart hub, from Amazon Echo to Google Home, is how to convince people to put these odd devices front and center in their homes–where they’re more likely to be heard and used. GE thinks it has a decent solution: Build a voice assistant right into the one thing every room needs: The lights.
Aeromorphs, a new way to design inflatable materials, could also change the way we build furniture and design fashion.
Robotics aren’t the only way to design objects that transform: Just look at a balloon, the airbag in your car, or one of those crazy Lamzacs. Filling something with air is a useful way of transforming an object–provided you can do so precisely.
The Great Animal Orchestra is the second best thing to marching into a National Forest with a blindfold on.
When we think of the slow death of the natural world, we usually think of it in purely visual terms: polar bears starving to death in Arctic springtime and rainforests on fire. But if you want to truly feel the effects of climate change and man’s impact on nature, you need to close your eyes, and listen. Not for the sounds, but for the silence.
Once you understand what this machine is doing, you’ll understand many of modern computer science’s fundamentals.
Scattering grains of sand across a stone is one of the oldest and most primitive computing methods there is. Called geomancy, it is a divination technique that has been used for over a 1,000 years to try to predict the future by running simple algorithms on the accidental patterns the stones formed.
New research shows the country isn’t divided into states as much as it is divided into megalopolises.
The 2016 Elections made many Americans feel, at least philosophically, that the distances that separate us are wider than ever before. Spatially, though, the web that knits us all together is getting tighter by the year, as the megaregions in which we live–clusters of interconnected cities–get bigger and closer together.
Browse the world’s radio stations, just by spinning a globe.
Ever since the first commercial station–Pittsburgh’s KDKA–began broadcasting on November 2, 1920, radio has functioned as a powerful cross-pollinating medium, capable of bringing new culture and ideas across even the most impenetrable borders. And in the internet age, a radio signal can reach clear to the opposite side of the Earth, if only you know where to look.
Sam Labs’ DIY Hot Wheels are the perfect foot in the door for the neonate coder.
Products that teach kids to code abound. From videogames to board games to robots to throwable smartballs, pretty much every notable new toy is all about tricking kids into inducting themselves into the basics of computer science. But then what? Where do kids go from there?
These algorithmically designed masks explore life, death, and rebirth while blurring the line between biology and manufacturing.
From the gold-plated visage of Tutankhamen to the plaster casts in vogue among dying Victorians in the 19th Century, cultures around the world have created death masks for millennia as a way to immortalize the dead. Now, Neri Oxman–MIT’s biologically-obsessed designer and architect is futuristically flipping death masks on her head with Vespers, three series of five death masks that abstractly explore the transition between life and death of five imaginary martyrs.
An AI bot called Gifted recommends presents based upon pictures of the recipient. Its suggestions can be a little hit or miss, though.
Finding a last minute Christmas gift can be hard, even if you know someone well. Gifted, a new SMS chatbot by developer Michael Jordan, leverages machine learning and artificial intelligence to try to make it easier, by recommending gifts based upon a person’s appearance. So how well does it work? Spoiler: Not too well, but if you’re especially hard up, it might kickstart some ideas. It certainly beats frantically buying presents on Christmas Eve at the local Gas ‘N’ Gulp.
Could redesigning the ballot system strengthen our democracy? It’s complicated.
The 2016 presidential election has raised all sorts of questions about the implementation of our election system. How can someone who lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, and lost nearly two- thirds of the economy, still become president? It has a lot to do with our electoral system–a system most democracies don’t embrace. But could the design of the ballot also be a problem? And if so, is there a better way?
Hug this tree in virtual reality, and you’ll be sucked into an experience that can only be described as mind-altering.
How do you tell a first-person story about a tree? How do you give its wordless life a narrative, or explore its timeless inner world? Treehugger: Wahoma is an attempt to do just that for the giant sequoia. The exhibition, which launched recently at London’s Southbank Centre, mashes together virtual reality, data visualization, and installation art into one poignant, breathtaking experience, transporting participants through the nervous system of a 3,500-year-old redwood–one of the world’s largest living creatures, by volume.
Companies have anointed voice the OS of home automation. But as Mark Zuckerberg found out designing his own AI butler, voice doesn’t always cut it.
Some of us have husbands, or wives. Some of us have partners. Some of us have roommates. But most of us have an AI these days, whether it’s Siri on our iPhone, or Alexa piping in from an Echo in the kitchen.
Land Lines will match any squiggle you draw to a real place on the planet.
The planet is a gloriously varied place, where almost every pattern you can think of can be spotted from the sky–even, say, the letters of the alphabet. Google’s latest Chrome experiment, Land Lines, proves that any shape you draw already exists somewhere else on the planet, whether in the contour of the highway, the curlicue of some cape, or in the line of the waves beating the shore.
Boeing plans to freeze hiring and reduce travel and is considering temporary layoffs to save cash during a factory workers’ strike that began last week, the company told employees Monday.
The company said the moves, which include reduced spending on suppliers, were necessary because “our business is in a difficult period.”
Chief Financial Officer Brian West detailed 10 immediate cutbacks in a memo to employees. They include a freeze on hiring across all levels, pausing pay increases for managers and executives who get promoted, and stopping all travel that isn’t critical.
“We are also considering the difficult step of temporary furloughs for many employees, managers and executives in the coming weeks,” West said.
Boeing’s business is in a difficult spot, he said, adding: “This strike jeopardizes our recovery in a significant way.”
About 33,000 workers represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers began a strike early Friday. The walkout came after workers rejected an offer of a 25% increase in pay over four years. The union originally sought a pay hike of at least 40%.
Representatives of the company and the union are scheduled to meet Tuesday with federal mediators. The union has started to survey its members to learn what they want most in a new contract.
Striking workers are picketing at several locations around Washington state, Oregon and California.
Outside Boeing’s huge factory in Everett, Washington, Nancie Browning, a materials-management specialist at Boeing for more than 17 years, said last week’s offer was worse than the one that prompted a two-month strike in 2008. She said that without annual bonuses that workers have come to depend on, the proposed pay increase was more like 9%, not 25%.
“We just want a piece of the pie like everybody else,” she said. “Why should we work all this overtime and bust our backs while these guys (Boeing executives) are sitting sitting up in their suites just raking in the cash?”
The bonuses have emerged as a flash point for union members. Workers say they range from $3,000 to $5,000 a year.
Boeing says it is hard to calculate bonuses in a way that is fair to 33,000 people who perform different jobs. So instead, the company proposes to ditch the payouts and replace them with automatic contributions of $4,160 per year to each employee’s 401(k) retirement account.
Workers are bitter that in contract extensions over the past 16 years, Boeing ended its traditional pension plan and lowered health care benefits.
“We want our pension back,” said Jacob Bustad, a machinist with Boeing for 14 years who was also on the picket line in Everett. “We just keep losing and we never gain, while the people at the top just get more and more money. Boeing has done really good for me and my family, but these last years have been hard.”
Boeing has lost more than $25 billion since the start of 2019, and burned through $4.3 billion in the second quarter of 2024 alone as it stood poised to post another money-losing year. The strike will delay deliveries of new planes, which are an important source of cash for the company.
Stephanie Pope, the head of Boeing’s commercial-airplanes division, cited the company’s $60 billion in total debt in urging blue-collar workers to accept the contract offer last week. She called it the best offer Boeing had ever made — and endorsed by the union’s local president and negotiators.
But workers rejected the recommendation of their own leaders, which had not happenedsince 1995.
Additional cost-cutting moves spelled out in the chief financial officer’s memo included eliminating first- and business-class service for anyone on travel that is deemed critical, and stopping spending on outside consultants.
West also said Boeing plans to make “significant reductions in supplier expenditures” and will stop most supplier purchase orders related to the 737, 767 and 777 airplane models.
After the strike started, Moody’s put Boeing on review for a possible credit downgrade, and Fitch said a strike longer than two weeks would make a downgrade more likely. Both agencies rate Boeing debt one notch above non-investment or junk status.
Koenig reported from Dallas.
—David Koening and Lindsay Wasson, Associated Press
Drivers are more likely to engage in non-driving activities, such as checking their phones or eating a sandwich, when using partial automation systems, with some easily skirting rules set to limit distractions, new research showed on Tuesday.
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) conducted month-long studies with two such systems — Tesla’s Autopilot and Volvo’s Pilot Assist — to examine driver behavior when the technology was in use and how it evolved over time.
While launching and commercializing driverless taxis have been tougher than expected, major automakers are in a race to deploy technology that partially automates routine driving tasks to make it easier and safer for drivers, and generate revenue for the companies.
The rush has sparked concerns and litigation around the dangers of driver distraction and crashes involving such technology.
The studies show better safeguards are needed to ensure attentive driving, IIHS said in the report.
Partial automation — a level of “advanced driver assistance systems” — uses cameras, sensors and software to regulate the speed of the car based on other vehicles on the road and keep it in the center of the lane. Some enable lane changing automatically or when prompted.
Drivers, however, are required to continuously monitor the road and be ready to take over at any time, with most systems needing them to keep their hands on the wheel.
“These results are a good reminder of the way people learn,” said IIHS President David Harkey. “If you train them to think that paying attention means nudging the steering wheel every few seconds, then that’s exactly what they’ll do.”
“In both these studies, drivers adapted their behavior to engage in distracting activities,” Harkey said. “This demonstrates why partial automation systems need more robust safeguards to prevent misuse.”
The study with Tesla’s Autopilot used 14 people who drove over 12,000 miles (19,300 km) with the system, triggering 3,858 attention-related warnings. On average, drivers responded in about three seconds, usually by nudging the steering wheel, mostly preventing an escalation.
The study with Volvo’s Pilot Assist had 29 volunteers who were found to be distracted for 30% of the time while using the system — “exceedingly high” according to the authors.
—Abhirup Roy, Reuters
Now more than ever, marketing agencies must resort to nimble strategies to serve their clients in a fast-paced online world. But moving too quickly—while simultaneously trying to balance scale, efficiency, and quality—often leads to the cutting of corners. It was addressing this problem that led Critical Mass, a global design and marketing agency, to create ArtBot, a next-generation content orchestration platform that can deliver high-quality, hyper-personalized digital marketing at scale.
“There’s so much technology out there that leads to so many shortcuts,” says the company’s CEO Chris Gokiert. “Brands come to us for uncompromising design that looks fantastic and leaves an impression.”
ArtBot was a team effort, brought to life by a diverse pool of talent (including content producers, developers, data scientists, designers, studio artists, and creative technologists) who joined together on a singular mission. Building ArtBot—as well as the collaborative environment behind its creation—has earned Critical Mass a place among Fast Company’s list of the Best Workplaces for Innovators for 2024.
As is the case in many other industries, the barrier to entry for young jobseekers looking to break into creative fields is high. Internships, for example, might not be a financially feasible option for otherwise talented individuals who want real-life experience to see if this kind of work might be their true calling. Critical Mass sought ways to identify and engage with this often-overlooked group. “A lot of big thinkers in our industry have come from nontraditional backgrounds,” Gokiert says.
To help nurture a new generation of talent, the company created Trailhead, a talent-development program for students, recent graduates, and career changers that requires no formal experience—only a real passion. The program has already established relationships with HBCUs and organizations that support marginalized groups. It pairs participants with mentors, provides education, and even offers a level of involvement in campaigns for big-name clients, including Mars Inc. and the Clara Lionel Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by singer Rihanna.
“Individuals who participate in Trailhead gain real traction,” Gokiert says. “We have an almost 80% graduation rate into our staff over the long term.” He adds that graduates can be found throughout the organization, embedded in client teams or filling executive positions.
In a post-pandemic world where innovation can easily become trapped in silos, Critical Mass has adopted a proactive, people-centered approach to dismantling barriers that can often isolate teams and functions. “We want to eliminate haves and have-nots in our organization,” Gokiert says. “Just because you’re in one office should never mean you have less access.”
Following the success of ArtBot, Critical Mass is looking to extend its automation efforts to upgrade the content-orchestration tools that help generate smart content. To build this next-gen toolkit, company leaders are forming cross-functional teams that incubate ideas, develop prototypes, and provide real-world testing. Once a tool becomes scalable, it is shared throughout the company and with clients.
Deeply embedded into its culture is the practice of bringing together diverse teams to engage in old-fashioned brainstorming sessions. “It may sound old school, but we have a strong phone-a-friend policy,” Gokiert says. “There is always someone within reach who can connect team members with the right resources or expertise.” The way Gokiert sees it, breaking down walls that often hinder innovation is critical to successfully launching new products: “When you bring all of our creative skills to bear, you can release—all of a sudden—this superpower.”
For all the debate about just how rich former President Donald Trump is, one thing is clear: His ownership stake in Trump Media & Technology Group makes him a billionaire.
The company behind the Truth Social platform is worth more than $3.5 billion on Wall Street, and Trump owns more than half of it. So far, Trump and other insiders in the company known as TMTG have been unable to cash in because a “lock-up agreement” has prevented them from selling any of their shares since TMTG began trading publicly in March.
Trump’s lock-up deal looks set to expire later this week. But if he sells, Trump risks sending a negative signal to other shareholders and prompting them to dump their shares. For now, Trump says he’s not selling.
Here’s a look at what the end of the lock-up could mean and what Truth Social actually does:
Trump on Thursday will be free to start selling his shares of TMTG as long as they don’t close below $12 before then. They closed Friday at nearly $18.
Trump entered into the lock-up agreement in March, when TMTG merged with a shell company named Digital World Acquisition Corp. and took its place on the Nasdaq stock market.
Trump does not run TMTG. Its CEO is Devin Nunes, the former Republican U.S. Representative from California. But Trump is the biggest draw for its Truth Social network, posting his “truths” on the social-media platform.
Trump owned 57.3% of all the company’s shares, as of Aug. 15. Based on the company’s total market value of nearly $3.6 billion coming into the week, that made Trump’s stake worth a little more than $2 billion.
Trump launched Truth Social, in February 2022, after he was banned from major sites such as Facebook and the platform formerly known as Twitter following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He’s since been reinstated to both — and endorsed by X owner Elon Musk — but he still mostly posts on his own platform.
While the platform sought to capitalize on the outrage over Trump’s social media bans to attract a broad audience, Truth Social, much like fellow right-leaning social media platforms Gettr and Parler, has not been able to move much beyond an echo chamber of conservative political commentary.
Truth Social is marketed as the antidote to mainstream social media apps, which Trump and his supporters say discriminate against their views and limit free expression, said Roxana Muenster, a doctoral student at Cornell University who studies the far-right and digital communication. Its audience, she added, is mainly Trump’s MAGA base. “There is also a lot of hate speech and extremism on the platform due to their lax approach to content moderation.”
As part of an agreement that runs until February 2025, Trump has agreed to wait six hours after posting on Truth Social before he can post any “non-political communications” on other social media platforms
However, this is at the former president’s sole discretion, and as the company notes in a regulatory filing, as “a candidate for president, most or all of President Trump’s social media posts may be deemed by him to be politically related.”
The company said in a recent regulatory filing that it relies on advertising for all of its revenue. That revenue is miniscule — it took in just $836,900 in its most recent quarter, down 30% from $1.2 million a year earlier. For the three-month period that ended June 30, the company posted a loss of $16.4 million. About half of that was legal expenses related to its merger with Digital World.
In its latest quarter, Trump Media said it also incurred $3.1 million of technology consulting and software licensing expenses, mainly related to its software licensing agreement to power its new TV streaming service called Truth+.
Unlike more mainstream social media platforms, Truth Social does not release information about certain measures of performance, such as signups and average revenue per user. This can make it more challenging for investors to determine how the company’s business is doing.
Poorly, for the most part. After sitting above $60 in March, it tumbled toward $16 before perking up a bit on Friday and closing at $17.97.
A stock’s price is supposed to rise and fall with its prospects for making money, but critics say TMTG’s stock has instead tended to move with investors’ expectations for Trump’s re-election chances. It’s also been incredibly volatile, diving and soaring through pulse-raising swings day to day if not hour to hour. The stock has had 15 days since the start of April where it’s jumped or dropped more than 10%.
At a press conference on Friday, he suggested it may be because of fears that he would sell his own shares. “It’s different if I leave,” he said.
The stock market works on supply and demand, and if many shares of any stock were suddenly to become available because a shareholder wanted to sell, that would likely hurt its price.
Beyond that, though, Trump is a huge draw for TMTG’s stock himself. A stock is generally worth whatever the latest and the next buyer will pay for it. Investors would likely be less willing to pay higher prices for TMTG stock if its main draw were selling his own shares of the company.
At the Friday press conference, he said he would not sell when the lock-up lifts. He said he does not need the money.
“No, I’m not selling,” he said. “No, I love it. I use it as a method of getting out my word.”
That caused a mini-rally for the stock of 11.8%.
Yes. Major investors who own more than 10% of a company must report their sales of its stock to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission within two business days.
When there will be a lot of selling, companies often arrange for a follow-on offering, an organized sale where underwriters can find buyers for the shares rather than just dumping them into the market, according to Jay Ritter, an expert on initial public offerings at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business.
“With founders or large shareholders, such as Donald Trump, it is common for them to sell a modest fraction of their shares in order to diversify,” Ritter said. “It is unusual for them to sell a large fraction of shares as soon as they can.”
No, says Ritter, who believes TMTG’s stock price is too high relative to how much money the company is making and looks set to make.
Ritter said the stock could drop more than 80%. “Because of this probable large percentage decline, existing shareholders have a greater incentive than usual to sell now rather than wait,” he said.
That could push other big shareholders, such as CEO Nunes, “to sell a lot of their shares quickly, whether or not Donald Trump sells any of his shares.”
—Stan Choe and Barbara Ortutay, AP Business Writers
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Most housing markets across the country are softening. As strained affordability suppresses housing demand, and homes sit on the market longer, active inventory in most housing markets is rising year-over-year.
We’re also starting to see a softening in home price growth in more markets. According to the Zillow Home Value Index, U.S. home prices fell 0.03% month-over-month between July 2024 and August 2024. From a historical perspective, that is fairly soft for this time of year. Historically speaking, July to August has averaged a 0.4% month-over-month increase since 2000.
This aggregated national housing market softening is regionally concentrated.
Some regional housing markets in states such as Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Louisiana, where inventory has risen above pre-pandemic 2019 levels, are experiencing mild home price corrections. During the seasonally strong spring period, many of these markets in correction mode were showing very low or flat price increases. However, now that we’re past the seasonally strong period, some of those Southwest and Southeast markets are beginning to post outright month-over-month declines. Meanwhile, tight resale markets in places like Southern California, the Northeast, and the Midwest—where prices are still up a solid amount year-over-year—appear to be nearly done posting gains for the 2024 calendar year.
Markets that experience a negative month-over-month decline between the seasonally stronger July-to-August window usually see further declines from September to December.
As month-over-month U.S. home price growth is softening, so is national year-over-year home price growth.
According to the Zillow Home Value Index, U.S. home prices are up 2.5% year-over-year between August 2023 and August 2024. Back in March 2024, that year-over-year national home price growth rate was 4.6%.
Why are home prices softening the most around the Gulf, according to regional home price data?
Many of these Southeast and Southwest experienced even greater home price growth during the pandemic housing boom, which stretched fundamentals too far beyond local incomes. Once pandemic-fueled migration slowed, and rates spiked, it became an issue in places like Austin and Tampa.
Unlike many Sun Belt housing markets, many Northeast and Midwest markets have lower levels of homebuilding. As new supply becomes available in Southwest and Southeast markets, and builders use affordability adjustments like mortgage rate buydowns to move it, it has created a cooling effect in the resale market. The Northeast and Midwest don’t have that same level of new supply, so resale/existing homes are pretty much the only game in town.
In the Sunshine State, there's an additional cooling factor: Florida's condo market is dealing with the aftereffects of regulations passed following the Surfside condo collapse in 2021.
Since the early days of the modern internet, the creation and consumption of digital content has been steadily rising. Unsurprisingly, this has led to an increased focus on content syndication in the B2B marketing space, as companies seek to maximize the distribution and impact of their content across various channels and platforms to increase awareness, bolster lead generation, and improve ROI.
However, while the growth of content hasn’t slowed, our relationship to the broader digital ecosystem as both consumers and businesses has evolved rapidly, making the development of effective and compliant content syndication strategies significantly more challenging and complex.
More specifically, beyond coping with an overcrowded marketplace, B2B marketers must adapt to address increasing concerns around data privacy from users and regulatory institutions. And this is by no means an easy feat, particularly in 2024, as much of our industry has become distracted by an expanding array of shiny objects, whether it’s the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), Google’s eventual decision on cookie deprecation, or advanced automation and personalization tools.
Put simply, while advancing technologies may be useful towards navigating the current climate, what marketers should really be demanding from their providers is adherence to a new standard of absolute transparency, and one that ensures both constant compliance and the elimination of opaque syndication practices.
To fully appreciate the urgent need for transparency in content syndication, it’s important to understand that it is a multifaceted issue and corresponds to a variety of challenges facing B2B marketers today.
Among the most obvious of these hurdles are those related to the evolving climate around data privacy. In recent years, heightened global concerns have led to the introduction of new laws and requirements. This includes Europe’s General Data Protections Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), both of which have already placed limitations on how businesses collect and utilize audience data and will only continue to drive stricter and more broadly enforced compliance initiatives.
However, regulatory institutions aren’t the only ones cracking down on data privacy. Even in the absence of stricter legal requirements, there is still the need to address consumer expectations, which have already dramatically reshaped how businesses capture and leverage user data at scale.
For example, demands for enhanced data protections have led to the development of Google’s Privacy Sandbox, an initiative focused on preventing the strategic tracking of user activity. Most notably, the company recently intended to eliminate third-party cookies from its Chrome browser, forcing marketers to rely on obtaining explicit consent before collecting data. And even though this move was recently abandoned, Google will move forward with letting users choose whether to accept cookies. It’s worth noting, however, that Chrome currently hosts more than 65% of online activity globally, and research has shown that 70% of users will block tracking when given the choice.
Transparency in content syndication isn’t just about following the rules to protect users or meet compliance requirements. It’s about helping marketers ensure their content is well placed and leads are high quality. This is especially crucial as audiences become harder to reach within an overcrowded digital ecosystem. The reality is, while syndication providers have long operated in a “black box” perpetuating these opaque practices, this is no longer tenable.
Calling for a new transparency standard and framework for content syndication is so much more than a short-term fix to the immediate challenges facing today’s market; it’s an essential task for any brand or agency looking to bring their capabilities and marketing strategies into alignment with the modern era in a more permanent and sustainable way.
Consider the rising importance of data management and analysis in effective account-based marketing (ABM) strategies. At the end of the day, the main purpose of a multi-channel approach with content syndication is to reach new audiences and improve ROI, which in today’s market requires the ability to access and intelligently evaluate all relevant data. However, to be sure that all information is both accurate and obtained in compliance with regulations, marketers need full transparency from outside content syndication and lead generation providers regarding the tactics they use to capture, process, and evaluate audience data.
On compliance more specifically, businesses across industries continue to struggle with their own processes around data privacy and security, never mind those associated with the providers they rely on to distribute their content. Research published in 2023 reveals that nearly 75% of companies believe they could do better at protecting their data. Ensuring the security of consumer data is no longer an option but a requirement for any business hoping to thrive in today’s increasingly digital ecosystem.
Ensuring transparency in content syndication isn’t just a legal requirement—it’s about ethical responsibility. Brands and agencies alike are calling for it and that is why one of my first actions as CEO is to establish new transparency standards, as respecting the values and preferences of audiences is more crucial than ever before. Frankly, the only alternative would be placing blind trust in whoever promises the most attractive results and putting your brand’s image as well as its regulatory posture at serious risk in the process.
Keith Turco is the CEO of Madison Logic.
