Google: Google Pay – 'La Familia'

Through simple payments, Google Pay enables you to do the things in life that mean the most to you. Kuch bada, aasaan banate hain (make the big things in life, easy to access).

Video of Goole Pay – ‘La Familia’.

Facebook says security breach affected about 50 million accounts


Facebook says it discovered a security breach earlier this week that affected almost 50 million accounts. The company says it has fixed the breach, which allowed hackers to take over people’s accounts.

The social-media network said in a statement Friday that it has told law enforcement authorities about the breach. Shares declined about 3 percent on the news.

There was a loophole in Facebook’s code for a feature called “View As” that let people see what their account looks like to someone else. The vulnerability allowed people to steal access tokens — digital keys that keep people logged into Facebook so they don’t need to re-enter passwords. Once logged in, the attackers could take control.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Dreamforce Unfazed as Protests and Stunts Crash the Conference

Tech companies in San Francisco are no strangers to controversy, and Salesforce was met with two different ones at Dreamforce, the company’s annual conference. On Sept. 25, the first day of the conference, attendees could look up to the sky and see a “#Failsforce” branded blimp floating above them. On the ground, a makeshift 14-foot…

How ‘Swarming’ Can Boost Writers’ Creativity and Prevent Burn Out

When it comes to workflow, most creative agencies function in a simple linear structure. Large-scale writing projects are divvied up between team members. A single employee is in charge of a single project end-to-end, with others usually giving only skin-deep or advisory feedback. Sure, it works. But the whole purpose of a creative agency is…

Bélgica processa Google por mostrar em detalhes imagens de satélite de suas bases militares

google

O Ministério da Defesa da Bélgica informou oficialmente que entrará com um processo contra o Google. A ação é referente às imagens de satélites de suas bases militares que aparecem na busca do site. O governo alega que já havia entrado em contato com a empresa, fazendo um pedido formal para que as imagens fossem, …

O post Bélgica processa Google por mostrar em detalhes imagens de satélite de suas bases militares apareceu primeiro em B9.

Modular Water Bottle Systems – Glasstic is Sustainable, Ultra-Convenient and Fully Customizable (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) Glasstic is a modular water bottle that answers to aesthetic ques through personalization and functionality through smart design. For one, the product is incredibly durable and shatterproof. It is…

Dreamforce Unfazed as Protests and Stunts Crash the Conference

Tech companies in San Francisco are no strangers to controversy, and Salesforce was met with two different ones at Dreamforce, the company’s annual conference. On Sept. 25, the first day of the conference, attendees could look up to the sky and see a “#Failsforce” branded blimp floating above them. On the ground, a makeshift 14-foot…

How Hackathons Can Help Brands Appear to Consumers’ Lizard Brain Need for a Challenge

Until recently, brand strategy centered on appealing to the lizard brain in us all, influencing our behavior to drive sales with well-known levers of manipulation: vanity, fear, pride, greed, the desire for love, safety, control and power. But brands and the consumers they court have evolved. It turns out both parties want more from this…

Global control, macho technology and the Krampus. Notes from the RIXC Open Fields conference

The RIXC Open Fields conference took place a couple of weeks ago in Riga, Latvia. Like each year, the event spurred conversations addressing the current and upcoming challenges of a society that is increasingly shaped by technology and science. This year’s edition specifically looked at ubiquitous surveillance and data privacy.


One of Dan Perjovschi’s drawings which is part of the Global Control and Censorship exhibition

The festival conference, titled GLOBAL CONTROL, investigated these issues from three main perspectives. The first, “hybrid war”, explored the rise of “post-truth” propaganda in media, its consequences on global politics and on individual nations. The second perspective dealt with the scale of surveillance and at its potential “depth” due to the development of immersive technologies. The third concerned “the next big privacy” issue and zoomed in on social media, the safety and future of the data we publish and the need to re-establish some kind of trust on/of social media.

As is often the case with conferences that invite multiple perspectives and speakers with backgrounds as different as architecture, choreography, computing, photography and feminism (to name just a few), the discussions often showed the impact that the main topic under study can have on areas that might seem unrelated: telepathy, feminism, public transport, memory loss, real estate, mattresses that outsmart you, etc.

It’s been a fun and intellectually stimulating conference. I came back with a notebook full of quotes, references to artworks and comments scribbled during the conference. Here’s a short selections of the ones i found most interesting:


Dani Ploeger, frontline, 2016-17. Still from 360 video, edited by William J. Bates


Dani Ploeger, Patrol, 2017. Photo by Alexia Manzano via Furtherfield

Dani Ploeger presented a body of works that investigates the coexistence of digital consumer culture and firearms in everyday life. fronterlebnis (“front experience”, a literary genre which romanticized the war experience and the camaraderie of being ‘brothers-in-arms’) emerged from two journeys through Ukraine, during which he spent some time with soldiers on the frontline in the war in Donbass, and explored shopping malls, weapon stores, monuments and flea markets.

In 2017, the artist got himself a press card and travelled to the so-called ‘ATO zone’ (Anti-Terrorist Operation zone) to document Ukrainian army and volunteer forces on the frontline.

Dani Ploeger, Patrol, 2017

For Patrol, one of the works in the series, Ploeger recorded a firefight on the frontline in East-Ukraine with his smartphone. In his short film, soldiers are handling technologies from two different centuries. On the one hand, they use kalashnikovs and other mid-20th century firearms. On the other, they use their state-of-the-art digital devices to record and share the documentation of their exploits on the frontline. Ploeger’s video footage was later transferred to 16mm film, a medium that echoes the era of the weapon technologies represented.

Dani Ploeger, frontline, 2016-17

His Fronline installation is set in a white space filled with loud war soundscape produced in a movie studio. In the middle of the room, a VR headset shows uneventful video documentation of a frontline position in East-Ukraine where a group of (slightly out of shape) soldiers is sitting down waiting for something to happen, reminding us that the reality of war might be less action-packed and far more frustrating than we might think for wanna be Rambo.

Ploeger’s work points to the complicity between two types of technologies that are the object of much fetishization: communication devices and firearms. It also highlights wider issues around society’s continued masculinised and fetishised relationship to war.


One of Sterling’s slides shows an American troll as seen by Russians

Multicolor Revolutions, the title of the keynote given by Bruce Sterling on the opening night, also evoked war and digital media in Ukraine after the Euromaidan demonstrations. The science-fiction author talked about the extravagant palace that Viktor Yanukovych built in secret in the middle of a forest outside of Kiev, American trolls pictured by Russians, cyberwarfare and much more. One of the most fascinating comments he made was that, from what appeared on forums and other digital media, people who live far away from the place of a conflict tend to be far more excited about the escalation of violence than people living in close proximity of it. Sterling said he was particularly worried about the rich guys who live far away from the scene of war. They might never have touched a weapon but they have enough money to pay an army of people who can rage a very damaging war electronically. However, he concluded, the one thing he’s most concerned about is climate change. Wise words!

As a parenthesis, i was very interested in a comment made after Sterling’s keynote by Rasa Smite who was moderating the evening. She too is concerned about the rich guys, the ones who see themselves as the new Medici and who throw big money and their own idea of ‘good art’ at major art events. Sometimes they do it with taste, sometimes not. What is certain is that the budget of the events they bankroll dwarfs the one of public-funded festivals like RIXC Open Fields festival.

Sound artist Jasmine Guffond contributed to the conference with a performance/presentation of Listening Back, a research based project that sonifies online data surveillance as one browses online. Focused on tracking cookies, the plug-in for chrome and firefox translates data generated from cookies into (rather unpleasant) sound, providing sonic evidence of otherwise invisible monitoring and data gathering infrastructures.

I couldn’t find any trace of the plug-in online but i still thought it was worth mentioning because i believe sonification can play an important role in the understanding of the extent of data collection (and exploitation.)

Karen Palmer, The Future of Immersive Filmmaking

Dr. Ellen Pearlman is the director of the ThoughtWorks Arts Residency, a program in New Yorks that supports artists exploring new lines of inquiry intersecting technology and society. In her keynote, she introduced us to some of the artists who developed their work with them. I was particularly interested in RIOT by digital filmmaker Karen Palmer.

Inspired by unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, following the police killing of Michael Brown in 2014, RIOT is an emotionally responsive, live-action hybrid of film and game which uses facial recognition and A.I. technology to respond to your emotional state and alter the video story journey in real time. The objective is to get through a dangerous riot alive.

Palmer hopes that a new type of storytelling might shift people’s perspectives on social issues and raise more empathy towards multiple points of views.

Daniela Mitterberger and Tiziano Derme, The Savage Mind


Bad photo i took of one of the slides of Daniela Mitterberger and Tiziano Derme that showed The Krampus

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Krampus so i was delighted to see its cheerful little face appear in The Savage Mind, a project by Daniela Mitterberger and Tiziano Derme, co-Founders and directors at FutureRetrospectiveNarrative.

The Savage Mind uses digital architecture, data capturing technologies and VR to explore the relation between intangible cultural heritage, technology and the production of a speculative architecture. More specifically it focuses on the traditional Klaubauf ritual performed each winter in alpine villages in eastern Tyrol in Austria.

The project looks at how technology can translate the emotional data of a pagan ritual into new realms. It also explores how machines can help us reconsider the world of nature and play a role in the valorization of immaterial cultural heritage

Timo Toots, Memopol-2

In their joint presentation Privacy Experiments in Public and Artistic Spaces, Raivo Kelomees and Stacey Koosel, explored the parallels between Timo Toots‘ installation Memopol and the national ID card and public transport card currently used in Tallin, Estonia.

Estonia is notoriously well-ahead of other nations in terms of digitalization of its services. Memopol shows the drawbacks of this governmental policy. Visitors are invited to insert a national ID-card or passport into the Memopol machine which then starts collecting information about the visitor from (inter)national databases and the Internet. The data is then visualized on a large-scale display. In some cases, the amount of data gathered reaches disturbing dimensions: By logging in the government portal, citizen can see information from prescription drugs to high school exams, from tax reports to driving licenses. All recorded for unlimited time. This intrusion into private life doesn’t regard only Estonian citizens but each of us who use social network sites, public transport cards, loyalty shopping cards, etc.

One of the things that surprised me in Kelomees and Koosel’s presentation is that some of the inhabitants of Tallin protested AGAINST the city’s plan of offering free public transport to its citizens. Most people would think protesters were crazy but their discontent only showed that some people are well aware that privacy is the price to pay for free services nowadays.

An interesting paper mentioned during the conference was Heroic versus Collaborative AI for the Arts (PDF of the paper), by Mark d’Inverno and Jon McCormack. The text looks at the nature of the relationship between AI and Art and introduce two opposing concepts: that of “Heroic AI”, to describe the situation where the software takes on the role of the lone creative hero and “Collaborative AI” where the system supports, challenges and provokes the creative activity of humans. We then set out what we believe are the main challenges for AI research in understanding its potential relationship to art and art practice.

I’m going to end with a very disturbing business mentioned by Jens Hauser in his keynote “Ungreening Greenness”:

Not everyone complains about global warming in California. The drought is seen as a great business opportunity for a grass painting company called Green Canary. Its employees will be happy to come and paint your lawn whenever the grass is too pale. You can let that grass die and pretend that you’re rich enough not to be bothered by climate change.

The RIXC Open Fields conference, organized by RIXC the center for new media culture, is over but if you’re in Riga, don’t miss the accompanying exhibition: Global Control and Censorship. It’s at the National Libary of Latvia until 21 October 2018.

Source

Transavia Airlines: #GoMorning

At the end of the summer holidays, 2/3 of the French population are already dreaming of their next break. What they find hardest is having to start reaching for the alarm clock again. Based on that very observation and to give the most courageous a real chance of heading off once more, Transavia decided to surprise the earliest of early birds with return tickets across Europe for just €5.

Getting the message across to all those super-early risers meant communicating at the crack of dawn. #GoMorning, a 30-minute campaign broadcast from 5:30am to 6:00am across TV, radio and digital channels, and publicised via advertising hoardings in both Paris and Lyon.

Video of #GoMorning – Transavia (English Version)

China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth

New directives betray a mounting anxiety among Chinese leaders that the country could be facing a worsening slump as the trade war with the United States intensifies.

Smokers welcome! Circle K sees business in shrinking market


Cigarettes aren’t extinguished yet, and one of America’s biggest convenience-store chains wants to squeeze what it can from that shrinking market.

Alimentation Couche-Tard, the Canadian owner of Circle K stores, launched a “Tobacco Club” earlier this year in the U.S. that offers discounts on Marlboro packs and other products to more than 4 million patrons who sign in with their mobile number. The company also expanded distribution of its own cigarette label to recently acquired chains, giving more customers a lower-priced alternative as the cost to light up climbs with tax increases on tobacco.

The number of cigarette smokers has been dwindling in the U.S., and many retailers — including Couche-Tard — have their eyes on the burgeoning market for legal cannabis products. Yet, the convenience-store giant still wants to boost its share among the thinning ranks of the tobacco crowd, who are potential clients for high-margin products such as sandwiches. The booming market for products such as e-cigarettes also helps.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

This New Tool Makes Eye-Tracking Tech More Accessible to Web Designers

When it comes to understanding how exactly people browse the web, the eyes don’t lie. At least that’s the premise of an increasingly popular practice among web designers and advertisers: the use of biometric technology to track and test consumer’s eyes as they roam around a screen. Proponents say these devices, which range from infrared…

Lemlift: Winter Look

Video of Lemlift: Winter Look

Air France: Lucie Chatbot

6 months after Louis, a first chatbot relating to baggage, Lucie was born with an ambitious goal: to book your perfect trip through a conversational experience. Knowing that 2/3 social media users do not have a specific destination in mind, Lucie offers a fun and innovative conversational experience to everyone. Addressing millennials, we defined a playful tone and witty visual language living on one full edit and three specific cut-downs for media targeting. Reaching travelers from France, Canada, US and UK, Lucie brings fun and rich content through an innovative touchpoint to support sales: social conversational commerce.

Video of Lucie vous souffle votre prochaine destination

Hubside: The Fishing Game

Video of Hubside: The Fishing Game

Colours That Leave A Mark

We propose a campaign almost as unique as the challenge it entails.

We would choose 3 club supporters to climb the Aneto, the highest peak in Huesca and the Pyrenees, and the second highest in the Spanish peninsula. An ascent to the 3,400 meters in which we would do an interview with the SD Huesca fans.

Asking if they are having a hard time climbing, what do they imagine when they reach the top, what do they think when they need to give their best …
With the launch campaign we reaffirm that reaching the top costs. But Kelme and Huesca SD have come to stay and that is going to be legendary.

Video of KELME SPORTS – TEAM SHIRTS SD HUESCA 18/19 (EN)

Ketel One combines brunch and potting sheds at Harvey Nichols

Guests can pick their own fresh herbs to add to their Bloody Mary, accompanied by a classic brunch menu.

MediaMonks CEO: 'My life changed utterly in the last few weeks'

Victor Knapp shares his new ambitions with the backing of Martin Sorrell and public money.

For voice 'robots' to succeed, they need to become human

For brands and consumers to really start benefiting from voice-enabled devices, we need tech that will upgrade simple voice assistants into true personal companions.