AI

If data-driven storytelling were only about data, then every original show on Netflix or Prime Video should be a smash hit. But Netflix, Prime Video, and every other original production done by the “data rich” tech organizations have about the same production-to-hit ratio as professionally programmed old-fashioned, “data poor” networks. How can this be? Shouldn’t the data-driven programmers be better at predicting what stories will best fit an audience? What actor or actress will resonate? What music will work better? What story arc? Or at least knowing what an audience might be more likely to want? Continue Reading →

At one of the pre-Grammy parties I attended, I was asked about controversy surrounding the way the Recording Academy (the organization that produces the Grammys) categorizes music for the show. This led to some very interesting questions: Who (or what) will be eligible to win a Grammy in 2030? What will the categories evolve into? Will music need to be recorded at all? Continue Reading →

Weather forecasting is tough. Very tough. It requires immense amounts of data and it is computationally intensive. But Google has published a paper that suggests that AI can use simple radar data to "nowcast" the weather with remarkable short-term accuracy. Continue Reading →

CES® has always been synonymous with new TVs. While the show has expanded to cover every imaginable kind of consumer technology, everyone always asks me about TVs. This year, the TV story is 8K (screens that are 7680 × 4320 pixels). There is no content available in 8K. That said, every major manufacturer is showing Continue Reading →

The CES® 2020 show floor is officially open, and there's no more exciting place to be in the world right now than Las Vegas. Continue Reading →

Ready to put your face on someone else's TikTok video? ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, has built a face-swapping feature that may be incorporated into TikTok, as well as Douyin. Continue Reading →

Have you ever met an “Artificial?” Samsung plans to introduce us to one on next week at CES 2020. At the moment, there is very little information about what Neon is or might be. Samsung has an uninformative twitter account @neondotlife, a teaser website neon.life and not much else. Continue Reading →

This past week, I sat with my friends to count our blessings and rejoice in the season of winter festivals. It will not surprise you to learn that we had some unexpected guests including the President of the United States. Not in person, of course, but he was “in the house.” I won’t bore you with the general split. You already know everything you need to know about the topic and what each side believes. But here’s what I didn’t know. The people who are most influenced by sockpuppeted, bot-influenced, social media-infused, AI-generated, deepfaked content are the ones who are the most certain that they are not influenced at all. Continue Reading →

Here's some fun stuff you can do on your year-end holiday vacation: learn to use AI to read and understand your documents or email messages. It’s so easy that anyone can do it. Continue Reading →

While I was out at a meeting, my meticulously neat wife armed herself with a feather duster, donned protective pink rubber gloves, and viciously, mercilessly straightened, organized, and dusted the desk in my home office. My desk was clean, but the results were suboptimal. Continue Reading →