Easily share access and see version history on mac and iOS
According to Adobe, in its blog post, shared about the collaboration:
“Starting today, we make collaborating with others when working together on Photoshop and Illustrator documents much easier with the new Invite to Edit feature. This is a huge time saver for teams working on shared projects. Plus, we introduce Preset Sync in Photoshop.”
The new update to Adobe using its invitation to Edit feature within Photoshop, Illustrator and Fresco, will allow users to edit unsynchronized edits among various platforms: desktop, iPhone, and iPhone (Fresco). That also means, collaborative work can more easily be edited as a shared cloud document, one at a time.
By saving your Photoshop (.PSD) or Illustrator files (.AI) as cloud documents, you can send invitations for others to edit. Also possible, you can edit filed that have been shared with you. Cloud documents can be accessible via assets.adobe.com as well as on the Creative Cloud desktop application.
Now you can sync your Photoshop presets wherever you use Photoshop. This includes brushes, swatches, gradients, patterns, styles and shapes. Preset Sync is shipping today in the desktop version on Mac and Windows, and synced brushes will be coming soon on the iPad version. You are now able to turn preset syncing on and off, and your preferences — the folder structure, the grouping and order of your presets are retained across devices. Any management you have done will be synced — set it and forget it!
Getting more buzz daily and sign-ups continue to accelerate
Clubhouse is a fast growing “new” social media sensation that is growing at an amazing rate. It is also constantly morphing in an endless kaleidoscopic experience that comes from an amazing new technology: the conference call.
Exploring the paradox that having no gifs, no photos, no memes, not even a string of text is now the most added social app with the biggest buzz is as good a starting point as any.
Imagine you are unable to text, unable to send or post a photo, unable to speak unless you are called up or invited to be on on stage, need to use your real name for sign-up and must adhere to the specified topics and protocols of each room.
Sounds restrictive right? But it is this very contrast with other forms of social media that seems, for many, liberating, even transcendent. Once you realize that you are in a room with, in some cases, 12 or so people on stage and thousands of people listening in the audience, its a bit like a panel discussion, but in a smaller rooms it’s like a small gang in Philly circled around an oil drum fire chatting (or conspiring as it were) while they rub their hands together to keep warm.
Next, imagine, in a few years, when apple’s “Animoji” capability is added, perhaps with a body, the ability to walk around with some scenic backgrounds and you have “Ready Player One” in real life.
Obviously gaming platforms approximate this but for non-gamers, as the tech sophistication advances, it becomes more viable and interesting. And it’s the enthusiasm from the public exploding for the speech only version of this that could be key in hastening the realization.
On the other hand, clubhouse users are raving about, while others are lamenting, the intense intimacy that comes with speaking to, or sometimes whispering in, each other’s ears. The ASMR version of a conference call. With an audience.
There are also music rooms and a music mode – a higher fidelity version of a room where singing playing instruments and more is possible. The idea is to eventually do concerts (possibly paid) and even live collaborations and more.
The phenomenal nature and accelerated adoption since the launch is is perhaps just as much a reaction to the chaos and collisions that are so ubiquitous on platforms like Twitter, Instagram and others, as it is a fascination with the “new-yet-old” options enabled by the Clubhouse technology.
Add to all the the perfect synchronicity of the first lockdown phase of the pandemic corresponding to the initial public launch in March, 2020 and you have a historic paradigm shift that may well carry forward for years or even decades. Adaptation to new ways of communicating as a necessity and a natural next step.
How to get your account set up and what’s what in the app
For a basic breakdown: the app is audio only. Once you are invited (or get on the waiting list and are let in by a sponsor) and ready to set up your account you will be prompted for the usual things, user name, real name, bio, phone number and so forth. You can also direct connect a live link Twitter and Instagram accounts, which is where the “DMs” have to happen since the app has no built in messaging.
Once is you will see there are “rooms” and “clubs”. Rooms are always available and can be joined or created by all members. If you join a “live” room you are, as default, put into the “audience” which has two sub-sections: the “followed by the speakers” section which gives you a kind of front row seat, and the “non-followed” regular audience. The audience members have no microphone button and cannot speak without it.
To become a speaker you can click on a “hand” symbol which activates “raise your hand” allowing any “moderator” (designated with a “green bean” asterisk icon) to invite you to the “stage”, which is where the speakers reside.
The moderators do have the power to interrupt a speaker or even kick a speaker back to the audience, thereby removing any speaking privileges.
The magic of the app is in this structure, clubhouse etiquette, and the ability to have multi-minds from all walks of life that, generally, choose a topic for the room and then, with the guidance of the moderators, get input from various speakers on stage.
“Clubs” are like permanent rooms that also have signed-up members (some have thousands or tens of thousands of them) and these often have scheduled sessions, weekly, daily or otherwise, in advance.
Zoom panels, product unveilings all to take place while you have no pants
This year CES2021 is scheduled from Monday January 11-14. It’s a bit later than usual due to lot and lots of strange things happening in the world, and, oh yes, cause they had to shrink it into a phone-sized screen, or at least a zoom-panel for your desktop.
While attempting to put a happy face on it all the exhibitors described it thusly: ”an all-digital experience connecting exhibitors, customers, thought leaders and media from around the world. The new format will allow participants to hear from technology innovators, see cutting-edge technologies and the latest product launches, and engage with global brands and startups from around the world.“
In all seriousness if you want to check out the new gadgets, trends and progress you can now attend without “borrowing” somebodies pass who had to leave a day or two early. Wuuhuu! An infinite virtual exhibit hall will be replacing the 3 million square feet of actual exhibition space, but the more than 100,000 attendees will not be renting rooms in Vegas.
Or getting room service on the company tab, or watching pay-per-view from same said tab. Which is all not great for Vegas – but there will be better news next year – we hope seriously and sincerely.
As for this year let’s try to get the hang of this whole virtual thing! There are almost 2,000 exhibits for 2021 CES, to see the in detail, check out CES exhibitor list.
We can recommend, for those who will not register as an official attendee to view the action on CNET’s livestream. They’ll be broadcasting all day on Monday, Jan. 11 and you can follow along for press conferences, product reveals, a CES keynote presentation and expert commentary from the editors and hosts.
Our Premium Plus exhibitors will showcase their latest innovations at the all-digital #CES2021.
Adobe has added some significant updates to Photoshop in the last 6 months. As a daily user in a digital publishing environment, we have been able to test and use many of the new features in a real-world setting.
By way of some general background. I was a user of the CS4 bundle up until 2013 when the Creative Cloud system first launched. At first the idea of paying a monthly subscription fee rather than upgrading only when “absolutely necessary” was not immediately a comforting proposition.
However, over time the improvements, along with the huge list of including software, in addition to Photoshop, won me over.
Adobe does face steep competition from Affinity Photo, which continues to have the “buy once-use-forever” model and also has free updates quite often.
We also use Affinity Photo and it is in many ways more user friendly than Photoshop – particularly if you are not already deep into the Adobe software UX.
At the same time, it appears that the competition has only done what competition is supposed to do: made both products better.
The world changed when the 99% of the labor disappeared from replacing photo backgrounds
That same competitive marketplace may even be the reason that, during the last year, Adobe’s upgrades have accelerated and become more than just ho-hum superficial changes: they are now mind-blowing, and that on a regular basis.
In our shop, it really started to get interesting with the upgrade to the “quick selection tool” in June 2020. A new button was added: “select subject” removed the need to painstakingly manually select a subject (such as a person or object) and the new “select and mask” option opens a fine adjustment window to fine tune the mask.
Very often no further adjustments are needed to separate a subject from the background and then begin background layering and various other typical uses for these features. Once again, the time of this upgrade seemed to coincide with competition: a web based platform (that also built a photoshop plug-in) called Remove BG gained some popularity in late 2019, apparently prompting Adobe to fight back.
“Beginning with Photoshop 21.2 (June 2020 release), Select Subject is now content-aware and applies new custom algorithms when it detects a person is in the image. When creating a selection on portrait images, treatment around hair area has been vastly improved to create a detailed selection of hair.”
— Adobe Support
And fight back they did. The new automated “select subject” system was pretty usable at first release. But the upgrades since then have been nothing less than astounding. Sometimes it seems like the performance of this new system gets better daily, as if stealth over-the-air upgrades are happening outside of the official ones. Probably not but the bottom line is this really reduces the time and effort to nearly zero.
Naturally, for complex or difficult photos, or for situations where an absolutely perfect high resolution separation (of, say, a very fluffy haired top model for a huge ad campaign etc.) the old, time consuming and labor intensive techniques would be required.
But for everyday digital news style creative collage applications and any situation where it just have to look realistic (or create a fantasy tableau) it is lightening fast and very very usable.
Neural and AI based updates have begun and will accelerate big-time in 2021
In October, 2020 Adobe introduced 8 new neural filters to the platform. In the video above you can see the general state of the filters around the time of the release. Without getting into granular detail in text, you can see the highlights and the carious methods of use in the video.
What I want to emphasize beyond the existence and fascinating implications for these new tools is the fact that they represent just a tiny hint at the potential for these and many more totally new functions and applications that are going to explode on the scene in 2021.
These kinds of new capabilities for photo manipulation software are likely to take years to be absorbed in to the workflow and toolkit of the millions of users across the globe. And, even as we “struggle” to learn how to benefit from the lack of expertise needed to achieve results heretofore either impossible or only realized with many hours of painstaking profession work, new even more mind-blowing upgrades are coming.
Some examples can be seen in the video below. Additionally there will be a new version of Photoshop available in 2021 to take advantage of the Apple Mac M1 chips and mac OS11 Big Sur.
These will accelerate even more the image manipulation and automated creation options within Photoshop and creative cloud. Honestly, it is now the user, with minimal effort, who will be using imagination and creativity, nearly in isolation, to create previous unimaginable images. Think = do. That’s where this is headed.
As antitrust suits loom, a digital tax appears as additional government option
Related to French “digital tax” hopes, and which may have future repercussions for other tech related regulation attempts, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have” signs on for the “Tech for Good Call”. Amazon has declined which Apple continues to negotiate, according to reports.
A list was released by the French government with signatures of 75 executives of tech companies who have signed up to the initiative so far. Notably, the list included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft President Brad Smith. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Apple’s Tim Cook were absent, however.
For nearly three years President Emmanuel Macron of France has attempted to convince tech giants to begin collaborating with governments to seek remedies for a list of global challenges. Examples are; fighting hate speech online, preserving privacy or paying a so-called “digital-tax”, presumably to offset negative economic effects of the overwhelming dominance of big tech.
Reuters reports that Macron’s advisers said on Monday that the president had asked tech companies to sign up to a new initiative called “Tech for Good Call” underlining principles for the post-COVID world. This development comes as “anti-big-tech” sentiment is increasing, particularly during the massive profit spike the giants are enjoying due to a devastating world-wide pandemic.
A general publicity based initiative could be leverage for negotiations to rein in tech giants
Also, according to Reuters, the “Tech for Good Call” includes a non-binding pledge to “contribute fairly to the taxes in countries where (they) operate”; refrain & prevent the dissemination of “child sexual abuse material, terrorist or extreme violence online contents”; and “support the ecological transition”, in addition to other things.
Though not legally binding, it is expected that the French will use this tentative agreement to in negotiations during upcoming global forums on regulating Big Tech.
In addition to antitrust suits underway in the US and Europe, the idea of a “digital tax” is being explored and attempted with France and Australia leading the way.
The building chorus for regulation against Google and Facebook stem from the extremely dominant position each holds online, with Google having near total control of search traffic and advertising, while Facebooks monopoly in social media concerns its use of that position to monetize private data through advertising.
Also, according to Reuters, the “Tech for Good Call” includes a non-binding pledge to “contribute fairly to the taxes in countries where (they) operate”; refrain & prevent the dissemination of “child sexual abuse material, terrorist or extreme violence online contents”; and “support the ecological transition”, in addition to other things.
Though not legally binding, it is expected that the French will use this tentative agreement to in negotiations during upcoming global forums on regulating Big Tech.
In addition to antitrust suits underway in the US and Europe, the idea of a “digital tax” is being explored and attempted with France and Australia leading the way.
The building chorus for regulation against Google and Facebook stem from the extremely dominant position each holds online, with Google having near total control of search traffic and advertising, while Facebooks monopoly in social media concerns its use of that position to monetize private data through advertising.
“The supportive chorus of elected officials is giving assurance to [the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)] and the [Federal Trade Commission (FTC)] that they have the political support they need to blunt [the companies’] efforts … to pressure the agencies to back off or water down their cases,” former FTC Chairman William Kovacic told WSJ.
Most articles on 5G since the Apple iPhone 12 launch event on October 13th have been looking in the rearview mirror to predict the future: 5G will “disappoint” due to the slow buildout, technical limitations of the format, and various issues with all the competing systems and carriers, and these arguments are casting doubt on the much touted potential.
This perspective misses the point on so many levels it’s difficult to know where to begin to unpack the myriad of misunderstandings.
Much of the technical discussion has been focused on the various flavors of 5G and the associated limitations and advantages of each. The fact that the fastest 5G, which goes by the sub-category moniker millimeter wave, is not instantly available everywhere for the 5G capable iPhones, and that they will not be in the hands of most consumers before next year, has been met with feigned shock and bewilderment.
And further, they highlight the confusion mounting over the various providers and the various flavors: 5G, 5G E, 5G UW or 5G+ as they are designated by “service indicators” on the iPhone 12 itself. Verizon Communications Inc., T-Mobile US Inc. and AT&T Inc. each have their own systems they have developed and are building out – looking for a piece of the 5G market, expected to be around $1.15 trillion by 2025.
First and foremost – since Apple and iPhone are the leader of all innovations in the marketplace – not necessarily by the sheer number of handsets sold, but by the focus on increasing technical and aesthetic quality and appealing to the top demographic, not to mention the majority of early adopters, it is precisely the fact that, until now, the iPhone 5G handset did not yet exist, and for that reason the buildout is not further along.
The fact that in real-world tests it is already performing at up to 7 times the fastest previously available connections, was coupled inevitably with the caveat; physical locations where these speeds can be accomplished are currently hard to find.
Due to the technical issues with this ultra-high speed version of 5G, the inability to travel more than very short distances and the lack of ability to penetrate obstacles or walls, the possibility to get these amazing speeds are, at present, more likely to be found in outdoor locations.
This is, admittedly, an odd conundrum, but you can be sure, with the upcoming massive increase in competition for ISP customers, it is one that will find at least some viable solutions very soon. There are many billions at stake for those that can find ways to improve this issue.
“Standing in front of a camera store in South of Market, I got 5G speeds reaching 2,160 megabits a second, which was 2,900 percent faster than 4G. Even where it was a tad slower — behind the Safeway parking lot in the Marina district — the 5G iPhone drew speeds of 668 megabits a second, which was 1,052 percent faster than 4G.”
– Brian X. Chen for the New York Times
The carriers have not had the market to build for and needed to be pushed by a huge influx of iPhone 12 owners. Then, meaning now, they will begin to compete with one another for that extremely lucrative group of users. And that rising competitive battle is not the only one looming on the horizon.
Regardless of the ultimate time frame of the build-out, there is an obvious and very meaningful conclusion that we can reach here: 1 year from now things will look very different in the options available for those who want to work and play with the help of a faster internet connection (meaning, obviously, everybody).
As can be seen from the chart above (source: fastmetrics) in early 2020 the US ranked 13th in desktop download speed while mobile speeds ranked even worse coming in at #33 (various sources have US at #10 for fixed broadband). Liechtenstein is nearly 4x faster, on average, than the US. Also note that the highest average is one-tenth to one-twentieth of the eventual “ideal conditions” speeds of 5G.
The future of connectivity can only get better and faster from here. And with the power of Apple, the iPhone 12 and that huge affluent user base the improvements will begin soon and quickly accelerate to a fever-pitch by next year’s iPhone launch. (Will they call it the iPhone 13?)..
As you might be aware, a new documentary is on the top ten most watched list on Netflix and is getting a lot of attention. The Social Dilemma is a well made documentary, directed by Jeff Orlowski, that aims to reveal the problems, very very big problems that have arisen, mainly in the past decade in the way social media and internet platforms generally, are operating and prospering.
While that may sound harmless at first blush, it’s the sheer scale; trillions of dollars, and the lack of any product or service, other than to advertisers, that begs the question: at what expense to humanity?
This is a big, important subject and is one that is extremely difficult to cram into an “entertaining” documentary. Here, an attempt is made to tackle that difficulty in two main ways.
First there are many on-camera interviews with almost exclusively former and current Silicon Valley insiders, many of whom where partially responsible for the very systems and methods that are being called into question here, and second, the two inter-twined semi-fictional dramatic elements, clearly meant to help viewers that may lose interest in discussions of algorithms, machine learning and corrupt business models.
Choosing insiders is not an oversight but by design
The choice of such a long list of high level tech insiders as interviewees is important and meaningful. The very fact that people, most of whom profited and made careers out of building these systems and platforms, are willing, now, to passionately speak out about them, and agree that they are horrific mistakes that have the potential to destroy not just people’s lives but humanity and the planet itself, speaks volumes.
While there are many other scholars, journalists and witnesses that could, and should, have their ideas and opinions heard, it is the extreme fact that insiders are willing to address these problems so candidly and so passionately, that helps this to be a mind-blowing and impossible to ignore documentary film.
Companies like Google and Facebook are some of the wealthiest and most successful of all time. They have relatively few employees. They just have this giant computer that rakes in money, right? Now, what are they being paid for? That’s a really important question.
-Jaron Lanier, founding father of virtual reality, computer scientist
The film must be seen, and the information absorbed, to understand the true importance, but, in a nut-shell, what is becoming more obvious by the minute is that the combination of massive power based on worldwide near-monopoly status, and a business model that has no contribution to make or product to sell, has allowed these platforms to amass trillion dollar fortunes in a lethal mix that must be stopped at all costs.
”The first fifty years of Silicon Valley the industry made products, hardware, software, sold them to customers, nice, simple business. For the last ten years the biggest companies in Silicon Valley have been in the business of selling their users”.
-Roger McNamee, Early Facebook investor and Venture Capitalist
Critics fail to see the film’s urgency and instead nitpick it as an imperfect entertainment product
There are layers of irony in the fact that the weaknesses decried by many critical articles written about this film are the same ones that the film is pointing to, and a major force, one that propelled these online platforms to positions of virtually unlimited power in the first place: human weaknesses and short attention spans.
”The classic saying is: “if you’re not paying for the product, then, you are the product”
-Classic Silicon Valley truism
The interviews are powerful and the quotes and alternately chilling and illuminating. So much so that it is actually difficult to absorb all at once. Many reviewers chose to simplify this reality by boiling the many serious quotes down to “dystopian” cliché, as if the end of the world is a topic for a cartoon movie review. Others harped on the weakness of the acted-out semi-fictional stories as not being the optimum way to get the real data and facts across.
The two narrative threads portrayed by actors revolve around an imaginary semi-suburban mixed family and their interactions with technology platforms and social media and a fictional visualization of the “back end” of the software systems used by the giant platforms (Facebook, Google, etc).
This back end software is elevated to a “triple-android” character, portrayed by Vincent Kartheiser, of Madmen fame, as sort of automaton-triplets that embody the actions of the software, AI and the integrated instructions, presumably from Zuckerberg himself (or the equivalent at Google or other platforms. (character name is, revealingly, “AI”)
This is a new kind of marketplace now. It’s a marketplace that never existed before. And it’s a marketplace that trades exclusively in “human futures”. Just like there are markets that trade in pork belly futures or oil futures. We now have markets that trade in human futures at scale. And those markets have produced the trillions of dollars that have made the internet companies the richest companies in the history of humanity”
-Shoshanna Zuboff PhD., Harvard Business School Professor, emeritus and author of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”
While these filmic-devices are not ideal or particularly precise in showing the problems with the entire complex system, they are, nevertheless, a good choice to find a way for the statements of the interviewees to be dramatized. They can help people who are not technical analysts to viscerally grasp the deep and serious problems being discussed. Without these elements the film’s audience would be, almost certainly, far smaller. This fact was not appreciated by many reviewers, however.
”Many people call this ‘surveillance capitalism’. Capitalism profiting off of the infinite tracking of everywhere everyone goes, by large technology companies whose business model is to make sure that advertisers are as successful as possible”
-Tristan Harris, Google’s former design ethicist and co-founder of The Center for Humane Technology
One reviewer even mistook the fictional anthropomorphic portrayal of software algorithms and artificial intelligence, all three by the same actor, as a real “unnamed” social platform and that these characters were supposed to be employees of the “unnamed” platform!
All of this confusion is directly related and lies at the heart of the eponymous dilemma being addressed. If the interview subjects, many of whom have become extremely rich from their contributions, are terrified of the evil power of these systems and platforms, what can be done to stop them from getting even bigger and more powerful and eventually destroying us all?
What chance of understanding and solving the problem to the rest of us have?
”How much of your life can we get you to give to us? We often talked about, at Facebook, this idea, of being able to just “dial that” as needed. And we talked about, you know, Mark (Zuckerberg) have those dials… “let’s dial up the ads a little bit”, dial up the monetization, just slightly… At all these companies there’s that level of precision”
-Tim Kendall, Facebook / former director of monetization, Pinterest / former president, CEO / Moment
Such a question sounds almost like a joke to anyone who has not followed and investigated the rise of these behemoths and the “legal” and yet criminal behaviors they perpetrate on a global scale, amplified by computing and financial powers that would have been unimaginable even 2 decades ago.
Therein lies the rub.
The beginning of the end of malignant big tech structures or of us?
The only criticism that stands out to this reviewer is that the message of doom was portrayed as an open question with not much in the way of suggestions for solution, or ways forward other than “delete your social media accounts”.
”there are times when there is a national interest, there are times when the interests of people, of users, is actually more important than the profits of somebody who is already a billionaire”
-Roger McNamee, Early Facebook investor and Venture Capitalist
While that, in and of itself, is a start, the reality is that governments around the world, particularly in Europe and Australia have convicted the giants of criminal behavior on multiple occasions and there are many pending anti-trust actions, not to mention grass roots support for radical change to laws and regulations as a response to the truly destructive nature of these platforms.
“These markets undermine democracy and they undermine freedom and they should be outlawed. This is not a radical proposal. There are other markets that we outlaw. We outlaw markets in human organs. We outlaw markets in human slaves. Because they have inevitable destructive consequences.”
-Shoshanna Zuboff PhD., Harvard Business School Professor, emeritus and author of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”
In an odd way the truth of even the most hyperbolic statements is what makes it so hard to keep people engaged. If these platforms and, in particular the dangerous and destructive business models that they are allowed to operate under, are not replaced or at least broken up, this could represent an even larger threat to humanity than climate change or nuclear war, so where do we start to dismantle them?
”We could tax data collection and processing. The same way that you, for example, pay your water bill, by monitoring the amount of water that you use. You tax these companies on the data assets that they have. It gives them a fiscal reason to not acquire every piece of data on the planet.”
-Joe Toscano, Google / Former experience design consultant and author of “Automating Humanity”
This is where interviewing and asking some very distinguished people who were, in part, responsible for building these systems, falls apart. Why should they be expected to have a solution for a problem that they, admittedly, were a part of creating?
”What I see are a bunch of people who are trapped, by a business model, and economic incentive and shareholder pressure that makes it almost impossible to do something else.
-Tristan Harris, Google’s former design ethicist and co-founder of The Center for Humane Technology
The answer is, of course, that they should not be expected to be the ones with the solutions – though their support of finding solutions and tackling the problems is very valuable, indeed. This is why this film deserves not criticism as an imperfect entertainment vehicle, but rather support and recommendation, as an important beginning in recognizing the threat posed by these business models; to mental health, economic prosperity and political stability of all nations.
”Whether it is to be utopia or oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment…”
Plenty of reasons for Pessimism but Huge Sudden Changes are where we’ll find the greatest Opportunities
The film clip above, featuring the Steven Spielberg directed film based on the sci-fi book by Ernest Clines, is built on a fairly familiar and, lately, believable premise. In the year 2045 (or sooner from the looks of things) all our human foibles and follies have devastated the world landscape, both physically and economically. Global warming has taken a toll and disasters we now know so well, such as pandemic outbreaks and economic catastrophes, are recent history and shape the reality at hand.
The story takes place in the world of young virtual reality explorers. And from there the plot is a pretty standard fantasy exploration of the potentials and drama that this backdrop produces.
This and other dystopian works of fiction are suddenly ringing true in a new way, and on different levels, since the world has been on lock-down as we battle the novel coronavirus. There is a feeling of a world on the verge of collapse, with an unknown and very uncertain future, and talk of an economic malaise with almost no historical precedent about to unfold, if you accept worst case scenarios.
Yet, using wild flights of imagination and optimism there are hidden bright spots and silver linings that might arise, not accounted for in this film or other works of dystopian art.
“Ready Player One” promo still image / Warner Bros.
An Idea so Big and Radical it is Hard to Wrap our Heads Around it no matter how hard we try
Click to buy “Ready Player One” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all independent local bookstores. Also on Amazon
What if the twin terrors of the covid-19 Pandemic and the possible economic collapse that may follow are actually a kind of gift to the world and humanity? What if this is the mother of all opportunities, like some wildly fantastic movie plot, where the wake up call from the cosmos comes at exactly the perfect moment to, well, wake us all up?
It’s easy to forget that, before we all became consumed in pandemic survival mode, there were already enormous changes and challenges afoot, a they were not small potatoes.
Global warming and climate related disasters were beginning to take center stage in political and social thought. Greta Thunberg was Time’s Person of the Year, and, for the first time, climate deniers (generally paid shills for the oil industry) were no longer being taken seriously.
All that now seems like a distant memory, but what has changed? A lot and also nothing. The threat of global warming and the urgency to stop carbon emissions and begin a transition to sustainable energy is no less pressing, regardless of our current preoccupation with stopping the pandemic.
Skys around the world have turned blue and clear while traffic is a fraction of the previous norm
Though many have warned the pollution and carbon burning will resume with a vengeance, once the quarantines are lifted, there is nevertheless a psychological effect of seeing and experiencing the beauty of clean air and reduced traffic that is fascinating. Eerily similar to scenes in the film 12 Monkeys, wild animals roam freely in urban centers.
Like a good omen or an invitation to positive change, the idea that nature can bounce back so quickly could be seen as a clarion call to change. Of course, a year from now we could see a world where fossil fuels are even more entrenched, due to economic desperation, where societies take great strides backwards in the ability to communicate and all the problems from the past and present accelerate into a final snowball bound for hell.
But what if something else happens?
What if the drastic measures, like the world wide lock-downs, and the economic stimulus actions attempting to stave off the potential economic catastrophe, indicate the potential for entire nations and even the entire world to work together in times of great need?
Virtual and Enhanced Communication as Tool for Crisis Adaptation
One of the interesting and unforgettable earmarks of the current crisis lifestyle is the switch in our lives from “real” lives to internet lives and virtual meetings and events. TV shows are staging networked broadcasts using FaceTime and Zoom, with the various actors and talking heads streaming from their private quarantine stations. We communicate with each other privately using the same technologies and non-contact methods.
What if this foreshadows a revolutionary change in how we use technology to improve our lives, accelerate communication, increase productivity and prevent the future from being an ecological disaster of biblical proportions?
What if all of us learning to adapt to a life with less unnecessary travel, while at the same time studying and inventing solutions for those problems is exactly what we need to be doing? What if we all need to collaborate on ways to stop the spread of disease, certainly, but also need to find ways to seamlessly transition to solving the bigger underlying pre-existing issues in order to save ourselves and our planet?
What if we were all forced to stay inside and use our computers to communicate. And what if we were forced to learn new “jobs” and ways to survive financially? And what if we could engage people around the world to work from home solving the real problems facing humanity, instead of flying and driving around, burning carbon, chasing the latest greed-driven suicide gold rush?
Ideas like universal basic income will not be optional when 50% of the world is unemployed. But if the income generated by the robots and the energy produced by solar, wind and other clean, sustainable energy sources are available and not in the hands of corrupt politicians, Bezos and Zuckerberg, and the fossil fuel companies, then why not?
These kinds of “radical” solutions will have all sorts of political and greed-driven opposition, of that you can be sure. But, as with the coronavirus, when faced with an insurmountable obstacle, like a rapidly spreading deadly virus that does not spare victims just because they have money or power, things change fast. Really fast.
I have always said, climate change deniers will stop trying to convince people it’s a hoax once Miami and New York are underwater. In a different way, we are already there. What we are living through is like a test run and a wake up call that can help us to prepare for the real and necessary changes to come.
Having the Future Thrust Upon you is not as bad If you Look Forward to Change
So why not make the most of it? Many people are. Reading books, particularly serious books for learning new ideas and thinking outside the box, are having an online sales boom. People are using the time and freedom to set their own schedule and goals, and considering career paths and constructive engagement in ways they might have never otherwise even considered.
In this scene from the original “Matrix” film the writers sub-consciously show us the horrors of the future – but instead what they show is a symbolic representation of the present and the past. Humans are imprisoned for life in “farms” and live only to produce energy – the food fed to babies locked in pods is a sticky black goop said to be the liquified remains of the dead, but is, clearly just a very familiar substance already enslaving us all: crude oil.
Perhaps, looking back from a better future made possible by this pandemic, we can see a reality where the greatest obstacles to change were the addiction to failed behaviors, failed infrastructures and suicidal greed that was considered “normal” in a dying world. If a larger force makes those things impossible or less viable then it should be welcomed with open arms.
There is an existing world infrastructure based on fossil fuels and greed that has been artificially propped up by political and economic forces for far too long. Now that entire system is collapsing on itself. The coronavirus is just a pin prick to the bubble of stupidity and greed that has been there all along.
Those of us that can see and imagine a future, not built around and based on that failed system, will have the opportunity to use our computers and virtual communication systems, primitive as they are at this stage, to communicate with one another and discuss ways to find a new beginning. That new beginning is already starting with blue skys and clean air across the world. Leaders not motivated by greed and yet wielding power like Elon Musk are putting enormous energy into solving the carbon burning dilemma and replacing it as quickly as possible with sustainable energy.
The economic upheaval to come must be seen as an opportunity to replace the old structures with new and better solutions. The recent extreme acts of the government show at least a willingness to try things never before attempted. Many will not work. Meanwhile, enormous, radical change is no longer a science fiction dream but an unavoidable reality.
Let’s embrace the dream and face the future with the wildly optimistic idea that changes for the future do not have to be dystopian. They can be Utopian. Why should we settle for anything less?
Please click on photo to buy “Blowout” and at the same time you can help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores. Also available on Amazon
Same song and dance? First all the negative predictions and then….
In the 80s and 90s there was an almost unanimous consensus that Apple was inferior to Microsoft and that Bill Gates was a genius for choosing to forgo building hardware and creating an empire on selling operating system software and a suite of office applications.
The choice and steadfast refusal by Steve Jobs to change the basic idea that Apple would build and back all aspects of the product and experience has, practically to this day, been seen as, at best, short sighted.
Ironically, the current wave of products for 2019: iPhone 11 Pro and Max, the Mac Pro with Pro Display XDR, the new MacBook Pros and Air and new iPads, AirPods Pro (still more to come) are all getting “better than expected” reviews and sales (at least the products that are available to date).
Although this is not an usual pattern. Like a blockbuster movie (Lion King?), as often as the negative reviews come flooding in, so the performance of the actual product shines in virtually inverse proportion to the dire predictions of the pundits and “experts”.
But this year, for Apple, it goes beyond that knee-jerk pattern. This year the chickens have truly come home to roost.
At this very moment millions are upgrading to iOS 13+ (don’t worry, the bugs will be ironed out soon enough) and next we will see iPad OS and Mac OS Catalina.
Just because these are all “free” upgrades, don’t be fooled by the price. The beauty of a complete ecosystem is that the benefits of one entity within the system (such as system software) accrue in great measure to all others.
And this year the interdependent innovations are nothing short of spectacular. Just take any individual device, service or function and the accelerated improvement virtually explodes in your face.
MacBook Pro 16 inch
Buy another iPhone? Is that really necessary? Only for a better camera?
The iPhone 11 Pro? “Just” has a great camera? Really? Well yes, it’s 3 cameras, 3 lenses and looks like a TV news camera from the 60s. But it is the combination of the evolution of the processing software, the “deep fusion”, machine learning within the photos app, also interwoven through iCloud and proprietary internal components, that make features like that unbelievable night mode possible, and make it possible to shoot 60fps 4K videos with all three cameras simultaneously (wait, say that again?) and all of this is just the tip of an iceberg that can only be rendered if you happen to be the company that also designs and builds its own chips (A13 Bionic with neural engine).
But wait, that is just the headline, under the hood, all of these improvements and upgrades are echoed and mirrored in every apple produced stand-alone software application, every third party developer product quick enough to ride the waves that the new system and processor makes possible, every app, every add-on all the interconnected functionality, on and on and on.
The buyers sense value – not just window dressing and hyped up bells and whistles but a complete ecosystem that was always better but now threatens to evolve at a pace that will be as mind-blowing as the original iPhone was just 12 years ago.
Because it’s the sum of the entire system – a “feature” that can not be marketed or even listed on a stat sheet – that is the most powerful force that will draw in users and surprise the nay-sayers again and again.
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All across the device galaxy the upgrades are more than incremental, they are transcendental
Take the iPad – particularly the iPad Pro, Not only will it take a quantum leap forward with added iPad OS features that push it into laptop-like functionality, but all the lame comparisons with the Surface are completely meaningless once you factor in the “Sidecar” function within Mac OS Catalina, not to mention the constantly evolving interconnected software (example: Photoshop and Affinity Photo both now on iPad). Sidecar allows the iPad to be used as an external, extra screen, or, if you have a recent Mac, for example a MacBook Pro or an iMac or a Mac Mini, and you are within 10 meters of it, you can use a mouse or Apple Pencil and you, literally, have a tiny mac in the form of an iPad Laptop.
So, in essence, you have a mostly iPad touch system device with all the special uses that implies, and yet, with iPad OS you also have the option to use it as a touch screen Laptop or, using Sidecar, you can switch to an actual Mac with all the associated functions and capabilities. And, yes, did I mention that if you already have an iPad and a Mac this has a cost of $0 for the double upgrade?
During the coming months features of this type (benefits of the eco-system) will expand and improve and, yes, next year there will be yet another quantum leap. I am writing this on an iPad Pro from 2015 and it has improved in functionality constantly for the last 4 years, and that’s before this huge step forward coming in the next 30 days. Added cost, zero. A product that improves for years after you buy it for free? Only Tesla is even attempting to match such a business ethos.
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Hardware, Chips and Components, Software, Services, Os’s All Evolving in Concert
It will take a series of articles to go into any kind of depth at all regarding how the machine learning and AI within the Apple ecosystem is evolving with amazing speed, how the various hardware design improvements are being optimized for just those uses. How a system which not only has constantly upgraded operating systems, but a growing and deepening array or application software (also “free”) all benefitting from each other.
“Buy any part, piece or product and you are pulled into a vortex of virtuous and redundant improvements, which obliterate cost comparisons.”
– D.L.
What this all adds up to is “just” better performance, functionality and expanded feature sets (as well as entirely new capabilities) across the entire constellation of devices, applications and services. Buy any part, piece or product and you are pulled into a vortex of virtuous and redundant improvements, which obliterate cost comparisons. Could this be the reason the most expensive iPhone is, once again, leading in sales volume? Why are people buying an iPhone 11 Pro Max with 256 GB? Why, indeed.
So, the genius idea to charge people every year or two for another bug filled monstrosity of an operating system is truly genius if you only care about money for nothing (hello windows and android universe).
If, on the other hand, you care about improved user experience, satisfaction and productivity, and have the increased creative and technological capabilities of the new cyborg army (that is the new human race) as job 1, well, to paraphrase a certain former President, it’s the eco-system, stupid.
We are at points of transition in the worlds of vehicles and entertainment. On both fronts, the past few years have given us unprecedented change. For vehicles, the now practical concept of self-driving cars opens up the possibility of getting around without a human operator behind the wheel. Meanwhile, for entertainment, the rise of streaming services and cord cutting has changed the way we consume media on a mobile basis.
These two evolutions may seem unconnected right now. However, both concepts are still in their infancy. Given recent history, entertainment companies are currently dead set on finding the latest platform to create and distribute their content on, and self-driving vehicles have seemingly limitless potential. It is clear that these two innovative concepts will intersect, potentially in the near future.
With no one operating a car, traveling becomes an experience of little beyond being a passenger. Whether it is doing a daily commute or taking a cross-country road trip, “driving” no longer requires attention and awareness. Being in a car becomes a slot of time where people are essentially trapped in the confines of a small space with no responsibilities. It is the perfect time for catching up on news, entertainment, or communication.
While it might be easy to imagine people in self-driving cars perpetually staring at their smart phones or laptops, there is the possibility that entertainment companies could collaborate with vehicle manufacturers to change the very design of vehicles and make car-riding a transmedia experience.
A Completely new Lifestyle built around Time in Transit
What this would look like is unclear, but one can imagine a car surrounded in screens—on the backs of seats, propped on dashboards, and even over some of the windows, making entertainment accessibly (maybe even unavoidably) built into a vehicle’s architecture. Many companies are gearing up for the potential. Finnish company FlexSound is pioneering “augmented audio” devices that can produce movie theater quality audio by imbedding transducers into car seats and headrests, allowing the occupant to feel the sound directly, for example.
The potential does not stop there, though. Consuming media exclusively in a car offers a very particular experience, one that companies could capitalize on with originality. Virtual reality simulations are one of the latest breakthroughs in entertainment tech. Currently, virtual reality occupies a vague area somewhere between film and video games. Despite its growing popularity, VR is yet to find an exact home in the day-to-day lives of consumers.
Perhaps self-driving cars can provide that stable home for VR. With the help of technology, media equipped vehicles could change the very landscape that one is driving through everyday. With screens disguised as windshields, a boring commute could become an adventure through some of the world’s most interesting places. Perhaps the commute could even be through different worlds. Hypothetically, by hooking your Tesla up with a Disney or Warner Brothers package, you could find yourself driving across a Star Wars planet, Gotham City, or some other fictional place every single day.
Who will lead in the Contest to provide Entertainment Solutions for a Newly Liberated Population?
Of course, VR could offer more than just moving through these places. There could be narratives involved. During your drive across Gotham City, the Joker could pop out of an alley, or you could find yourself in a car chase with the Batmobile. On the other hand, your car could become a Disney World ride, and driving your kids to school could become a Millennium Falcon or Buzz Lightyear adventure that involves shooting down enemy ships in a distant galaxy.
The possibilities are endless. Of course, it will all be a façade, but so is every form of visual entertainment. Ever since Thomas Edison created the Kinetoscope in 1897 to produce the first motion pictures, we have been happily living in a world filled with enthralling illusions.
The future of entertainment is unclear, but self-driving cars merging with media outlets is one distant idea that has already crossed the minds of industry executives. If self-driving cars become more popular over the next decade, it is possible that we will see this conglomeration / convergence take effect. Perhaps Uber and Lyft will do away with their drivers and start producing movies instead. Or maybe they will team up with Netflix, Amazon, or Apple+ to have a constant stream of content. Or maybe instead of Ubers and Lyfts altogether, we will get around in Disney Taxis or join in on Universal Studios Carpools. Again, the possibilities are endless. What’s your take?
First is was the FaceApp that added years to your face with its app filter, in the FaceApp Challenge – with questionable issues regarding the origins (Russia) and terms of service agreement.
Now, from a more reassuring source, namely researchers in the US, including some from the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, we have the opportunity to see our selfies (and celebrity snaps) transformed into pseudo-classical portrait styles.
The web site upload system, currently down due to massive demand, uses GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) results from 45,000 images in the art history archives to create a new photo based on the original plus the relevant data instructions from the scan.
“With AI Portraits Ars anyone is able to use GAN models to generate a new painting, where facial lines are completely redesigned.
The model decides for itself which style to use for the portrait. Details of the face and background contribute to direct the model towards a style.
In style transfer, there is usually a strong alteration of colors, but the features of the photo remain unchanged. AI Portraits Ars creates new forms, beyond altering the style of an existing photo.”
AI Portraits Ars Web Site
As can be seen from the montage above (and the version with names added below) the results are often flattering in an odd ancient sort of way. Also, some, such a Keanu Reeves, are obvious (?) whereas others you might never guess!
So below the results and thanks for playing!
The AI Portraits web site should be back up shortly, assuming the rush to try it out eventually slows!
