Technology * Innovation * Publishing Newsletter #304
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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
A new rule in Georgia could allow local election boards to refuse to certify results
Metric Media, which runs a network of ~1,300 “pink slime” news sites, received $14M+ from four PACs and four nonprofits in 2021–2022
Innovation
How AI could help us talk to animals
Human-animal communication may be in for a big leap: A random forest ML model shows that African savannah elephants have unique names for each other and opens the door to deep learning models that could enable interspecies communication.
https://www.vox.com/videos/364124/ai-talk-communicate-animals-machine-learning
Technology
Audible is testing an AI-powered search feature
Select U.S. customers can interact with “Maven,” Audible’s new personal recommendation expert that surfaces title suggestions based on users’ specific requests. A user can use natural language to enter queries, and Maven will respond by providing tailored recommendations pulled from Audible’s catalog of nearly one million titles. For instance, “I’m looking for an uplifting fiction novel with a female protagonist.”
https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/07/audible-ai-powered-search-feature/
WPP and Nvidia Partner to Make 3D Ads Using Gen AI
Ad giant WPP has partnered with Nvidia to leverage generative AI for creating 3D landscapes and products. Through this collaboration, WPP can transform simple text prompts into detailed 3D environments. Major brands like Coca-Cola and Ford are already using these new AI-powered tools to generate ads more quickly, accurately, and efficiently. Nvidia has enhanced its generative AI with features like retrieval augmentation to ensure brand guidelines are maintained in the AI outputs.
https://www.adweek.com/agencies/wpp-and-nvidia-partner-to-make-3d-ads-using-gen-ai/
How we’re using AI at emap
HT @BoSacks Digital publisher emap has launched LLM search on two websites, www.nursingtimes.net and www.lgcplus.com. Customers can ask their own questions. AI generated questions are inserted into all articles to encourage users to explore topics further. Customers get a summary answer to their questions, with cited links to the articles the AI based the reply on. The AI engine suggests related questions to explore and links to articles for the customer to go beyond and learn more about the topic.
https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/how-were-using-ai-at-emap-24251
How we’re using AI at Newsquest
HT @BoSacks This UK web publisher has created > 10,000 articles with the aid of AI. The types of content AI write include press-release-based content, community updates, event listings, and other similar content that, while necessary, do not require investigative skills or human insight. By completing these tasks more quickly, the AI-assisted journalists using the tool free up traditional journalists to engage more deeply with more complex, impactful stories that better utilise their skills and experience. In practice, AI-assisted journalists provide the tool with verified information to help draft an article, with the AI working as a hyper-efficient copywriter. Journalists place all the reliable and checked information, and the AI acts as a copywriter, transforming the verified notes into a draft article. After the AI writes this draft, journalists review it to ensure it is accurate and well-written.
https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/how-were-using-ai-at-newsquest-24249
UK Creators’ Rights Alliance Warns Against Unlicensed AI Use
The UK Creator’s Rights Alliance, representing more than 500,000 UK creators, published an open letter to big tech firms forbidding the unauthorized use of content. The letter outlines seven demands creatives have about the use of their work, such as transparency on the use of training data, authorization, and remuneration. It is meant to put further pressure on AI companies and the new UK Labour government, which may reconsider the mostly liberal approach to AI regulation pursued by the previous administration.
AI startup raises $25M, inks deals with major media companies
Axel Springer and a handful of major news companies say they plan to license their content to ProRata.ai, a new generative AI startup.
https://www.axios.com/2024/08/06/news-outlets-ink-deals-with-new-ai-startup-prorataai
Generative AI Has a ‘Shoplifting’ Problem. This Startup CEO Has a Plan to Fix It
Bill Gross’ ProRata, which has struck deals with partners like Time and Universal Music Group, has a strategy for making AI powerhouses pay for content.
https://www.wired.com/story/bill-gross-prorata-generative-ai-business/
AI music startups say copyright violation is just rock and roll
AI-Music generation startups Suno and Udio have hit back at music labels and called them out for stifling innovation and competition in the industry. Both companies are being sued for copyright infringement after training their data on the songs of a wide variety of artists. They argue that this falls under fair use and is perfectly legal, while artists have sounded the alarm over what they perceive as theft of their work.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/2/24211842/ai-music-riaa-copyright-lawsuit-suno-udio-fair-use
‘A magazine made by humans’: Atlantic writers push back on AI
Staffers at the Atlantic are demanding the company ensure their jobs after a deal with OpenAI. “The Atlantic is made by humans.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/08/02/atlantic-writers-protest-ai/
Gartner Predicts 30% of Generative AI Projects Will Be Abandoned After Proof of Concept By End of 2025
Gartner released a report that shows AI’s questionable ROI, predicting that 30% of GenAI projects will be abandoned after the proof-of-concept stage.
Nvidia Caught Stealing Mind-Boggling Quantity of YouTube Videos to Train AI
Nvidia has been caught using full YouTube videos and episodes of Netflix TV shows as training data. Leaks of internal Slack messages revealed the practice. The videos are meant to be used for the training of their Cosmos deep learning model, a self-driving car algorithm, a “digital human” AI avatar product, and its 3D world-building tool called Omniverse. YouTube’s CEO stated in April that scraping from the platform without consent is a clear violation of its terms of service.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/nvidia-caught-scraping-youtube-ai
Zoom Is Going After Google and Microsoft With AI-Driven Docs
Zoom is trying to create an “everything workplace” app in a crowded market.
https://www.wired.com/story/zoom-is-going-after-google-and-microsoft-with-ai-driven-docs/
AI recipes tested
‘One of the most disgusting meals I’ve ever eaten’ Numerous authors found recipes/wording directly copied by AI cookbooks. Beware as it gets better: the speed of AI in adapting recipes & creating books cannot be matched by human writers
NBCUniversal & Instacart Launched Partnership for Olympics Viewers to Order Food
The TV ad was surrounded by a frame with items, there was an offer for a first order discount, and a QR code leading to landing page. The consumer could buy with a single click or add items to their cart. Items were then delivered in 30 min to an hour.
https://www.adweek.com/convergent-tv/exclusive-nbcuniversal-instacart-virtual-concessions/
U.S. Sues TikTok Over Child Privacy Violations
The Justice Department said TikTok illegally collected children’s data and knowingly allowed users under the age of 13 to create accounts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/02/technology/tiktok-doj-child-privacy.html
Google illegally maintains monopoly over internet search, judge rules
HT @benedictevans Google pays Apple $20B/yr to be default in Safari, mostly as a rev share from Google’s ads. A judge ruled this is illegal + is a huge barrier to entry to new search engine models, that cannot overcome the weight of the default choice
Amazon is pushing local delivery into rural America
HT @benedictevans UPS estimates that Amazon’s own delivery will be about 40% of US small parcel volume in 2024.
Publishing & Media
How to Know When a Book Cover Is Killing Your Sales
https://insights.bookbub.com/know-when-book-cover-killing-your-sales/
10 of the Best Books on Writing and Publishing
https://bookriot.com/books-on-writing-and-publishing/
The European Accessibility Act is Coming!
Via @BISG: The EAA starts in June 2025, which requires all eBooks sold in the EU to W3C WCAG 2.1 + EPUB Accessibility 1.1 guidelines, accompanied by metadata that accurately & thoroughly represents the accessible features
https://www.bisg.org/news/have-you-heard-the-eaa-is-coming
Read more about the accessible EPUB updates in the latest InDesign release
RT @LauraB7
https://inclusivepublishing.org/news-and-events/news/indesign-19-5-epub-export-updates/
Open Road Launches Geo-Targeting Service to Fight Book Bans
In an effort to help consumers find and read books that have been banned in their localities, Open Road Integrated Media has started a new marketing service, the Free Voices Geo-Targeting initiative, focusing on 10 states where bans are most prevalent.
Harriett’s Bookshop owner Jeannine A. Cook purchases her Philadelphia building
Inaugural Inside Literary Prize Empowers Incarcerated Readers
The award — a collaboration between Freedom Reads, the National Book Foundation, and the Center for Justice Innovation — is judged by more than 200 incarcerated individuals from 12 prisons. Imani Perry’s ‘South to America’ was named the inaugural winner at an August 1 ceremony.
Ziff Davis Acquires CNET in $100 Million Deal
Ziff Davis is buying CNET, an early pioneer of online tech coverage, from Red Ventures, in a deal said to be worth $100 million.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/06/business/media/cnet-ziff-davis.html
Future to Shutter Two TV Trade Publications
Broadcasting + Cable, founded in 1931, will soon print its final issue. Sibling title Multichannel News, founded in 1980, is also folding.
United Airlines is sunsetting the print component of its magazine Hemispheres
Washington State University Press Set to Be Shut Down
The press will reportedly close at the end of the year after university officials opted to eliminate its $300,000 annual budget. The news comes months after the nearly century-old press partnered with Whitworth University to launch a new academic imprint.
How To Explain Book Bans to Those Who Want To Understand
https://bookriot.com/how-to-explain-book-bans/
Utah Bans 13 Books From Public Schools Statewide
The law, which went into effect July 1, applied retroactively, meaning that every school needed to submit to the Utah State Board of Education the titles that had been deemed against the law in their district. Now, any time a public or charter school removes a book deemed “sensitive material,” they must notify the State Board of Education. If that book now meets the threshold of removals, all schools will be notified and expected to dispose of it. On August 2, the Utah State Board of Education released its first official list of books that all public schools need to remove from shelves. They are:
- Blankets by Craig Thompson (2003)
- A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas (2018)
- A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas (2016)
- A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas (2021)
- A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (2015)
- A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas (2017)
- Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas (2016)
- Fallout by Ellen Hopkins (2010)
- Forever by Judy Blume (1975)
- Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur (2014)
- Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood (2003)
- Tilt by Ellen Hopkins (2012)
- What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K. Arnold (2017)
https://bookriot.com/utah-book-ban/
Resources & Opportunities
Pitch Calls and Freelance Opportunities
Via @job_writers
https://x.com/job_writers/status/1820880262382940281
Black Creatives Virtual Marketing Workshop
MT @diversebooks 🚨 Don’t miss this virtual workshop from @BookBub! Learn how to use BookBub’s marketing tools to boost new release sales at every stage of your book launch. 20 slots are open for self-pubbed/indie authors who identify as part of the African diaspora!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfyHvGyNKpB4L7bX1tZIeulWd90s0UhGEeOB2saSpKUbiF_2w/viewform
Grant for Journalists Studying Science Misinformation
RT @pulitzercenter The Pulitzer Center is seeking applications for in-depth and investigative stories related to science misinformation, science denial, and the spread of pseudoscience. This opportunity is open to all newsroom staff and independent journalists. Apply today!
https://pulitzercenter.org/grants-fellowships/opportunities-journalists/science-misinformation
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