Facebook, Google and Apple make the headlines, but there are many inspiring startups to dissipate the sense of techno-dreadA quarter of a century ago, the Canadian author Douglas Coupland published his third novel. Microserfs was the tale of a group of young Microsoft employees who decide to exit the realm of Bill Gates in Washington state and chase a dream of their own in California places that, back then, sounded like the epitome of futuristic magic: Palo Alto, Menlo Park. As well as prescient flashes of the world to come – “Beware of the corporate invasion of private memory,” warned one of its protagonists – what always stuck with me was its air of techno-optimism, perfectly crystallised right at the end, when the central character’s mother has a stroke and is rescued from silence by a set-up attached to an Apple Macintosh. She communicates via such staccato sentences as “I am here”, and “I feel U”; the novel’s closing pages capture her and her family marvelling at the fact that she has become “part woman/part machine, emanating blue Macintosh light”.The book was published in 1995, when computers suddenly offered an ever-expanding window on to the world. Many of us had no doubt that the leap from old to new represented nothing but progress. By the start of this decade social media platforms were being hailed as a means of individual and collective emancipation. But where has this faith in the future gone? Related: The rise of technology in care: how will it affect... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2018-12-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Angel City Press in Los Angeles has long published local authors. In a bold move, its founders are now giving the press to the city’s public library. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2024-02-28 15:49:05 UTC ]
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At the 4th annual Black woman–owned online convention, which celebrates sci-fi, fantasy, and comics artists each Black History Month, panelists discussed topics including book banning, incorporating real-world issues into children’s books, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-02-27 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Fans who were girls in the era of Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Twilight are now the women who have powered the success of Barbie and the Eras Tour. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2024-02-18 19:51:27 UTC ]
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Silicon Valley’s top pundit dishes on her memoir Burn Book, immature billionaires, and whether she’s actually mean. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2024-02-15 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Frustrations over the most critical development in digital media shared at flagship industry conference. Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2024-01-31 05:01:00 UTC ]
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Children's author, educator, and free speech champion Robie Harris, best known for her stories about young children's powerful emotions and her frequently challenged and banned books on human sexuality, including 'It's Perfectly Normal,' died on January 6 at 83. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-18 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Engadget readers like yourself are probably more tech savvy than the average person. That means you may get roped into helping older family members with email woes, new phone setups, or deciphering if a message is legit or a phishing scam. In my family, I’ve become my mother’s unofficial IT... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-01-15 14:00:13 UTC ]
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Amazon-owned online audiobook and podcast service Audible is laying off about 5% of its workforce Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2024-01-11 22:47:05 UTC ]
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Riding a rising tide of successful streaming adaptations that have updated the iconic comics brand—including last December's Hindi-language musical comedy film, 'The Archies'—the future of Archie Comics has never been brighter. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-10 05:00:00 UTC ]
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The online publishing service has been criticised for the way it has allowed extremist propaganda to flourish on the siteIt’s funny how naive smart people can be sometimes. Take the founders of Substack, a US-based online platform that enables writers to send digital newsletters directly to... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-06 16:00:14 UTC ]
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As with the printing press and the dotcom boom, initial frenzy and speculation obscures the lasting legacy of new technologies“Innovation,” wrote the economist William Janeway in his seminal book Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy, “begins with discovery and culminates in speculation.”... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-12-30 16:00:37 UTC ]
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As part of our year-end story package, we tasked ChatGPT with writing a guest post about the future of generative AI. The prompt asked for a 1,200 word article (a number it undercut by quite a margin) that explored both the potential negative and positive outcomes of the technology. We then... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-12-28 16:00:10 UTC ]
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How the digital media industry had to come to grips with growing privacy requirements. Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2023-12-22 05:01:00 UTC ]
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The final episode of Digiday’s Oral History of Ad Tech discusses how the digital media industry has moved faster than those charged to keep it in check, with Ana Milicevic of Sparrow Advisers sharing her insights. In this episode, she discusses how the blurred lines between data management... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2023-12-22 05:01:00 UTC ]
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As a precocious teen looking to improve my college application, I sat in on a business studies class. I figured taking two extra A-Levels at night school alongside those I took during the day would make me irresistible to admissions tutors. The class I watched examined if it was worth a large... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-12-18 15:30:52 UTC ]
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John Chrastka, founder and executive director of EveryLibrary, the nation’s only political action committee dedicated to supporting libraries, stepped up for the library community in 2023. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-12-15 05:00:00 UTC ]
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There are few better placed to critique and narrate the history of the digital media landscape, never mind the sub-sector of ad tech, than Ari Paparo. Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2023-12-11 05:01:00 UTC ]
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Depending on what you buy and where you shop, many online purchases should arrive before December 25th, so if you're still working through your gift list, it might not be too late. Even if you're just looking for deals in general, there are plenty out there. Despite the fact that the official... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-12-08 17:45:42 UTC ]
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This week on The Maris Review, Naomi Alderman joins Maris Kreizman live at the Strand Bookstore in New York City to discuss The Future, out now from Simon & Schuster. Subscribe and download the episode, wherever you get your podcasts. * from the episode: Maris Kreizman: You really captured... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-12-07 09:06:54 UTC ]
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