Biden Revokes Trump-era bans on TikTok and WeChat

The executive order calls for the Secretary of Commerce to evaluate the apps and block those that pose a security risk.

Nespresso celebra 15 anos no país com retorno do “Cafezinho do Brasil”

nespresso-cafezinho-brasil

A Nespresso resgata uma de suas grandes homenagens ao mercado de cafés brasileiro relançando, por tempo limitado, o “Cafezinho do Brasil”. A variedade é composta por Arábicas do Cerrado Mineiro e do Espírito Santo, e realçada pelo adocicado Bourbon de Carmo de Minas e de Poços de Caldas, e estará disponível a partir deste mês, em …

Leia Nespresso celebra 15 anos no país com retorno do “Cafezinho do Brasil” na íntegra no B9.

Peloton’s Stylish Post-Lockdown Ad Asserts the Value of Exercising at Home

The nearly 14-month lockdown came with its phases, from the booming popularity of Animal Crossing to the meteoric rise of TikTok. Peloton certainly saw its own share of success in 2020 as temporarily reduced access to gyms led to a wave of interest in working out at home, boosting sales by 172%. But with the…

British Publisher Guardian Media Group CEO Annette Thomas Resigns After a Year

Guardian Media Group CEO Annette Thomas will step down after a year in the role, the British publisher said today. Thomas, who joined in March 2020, will leave at the end of June. Keith Underwood, chief financial and operating officer, will act as the interim chief executive officer. Thomas had previously served as the chief…

Nielsen Also Lowballed Local TV Ratings During Covid-19, Audit Finds

A month after Nielsen confirmed that it had undercounted national television audiences by up to 6% during the Covid-19 pandemic, a third-party auditing firm has found that similar pandemic defects affected local television audience metrics. The Media Rating Council, the nonprofit organization that audits Nielsen ratings, conducted an analysis of local television ratings across Nielsen’s…

Joe Biden enfim revoga banimento do WeChat e do TikTok nos EUA

joe-biden

Demorou 5 meses, mas Joe Biden finalmente reverteu uma das últimas ordens executivas polêmicas de seu antecessor Donald Trump. O atual presidente dos Estados Unidos assinou nesta quarta uma nova ordem que desfaz o banimento do TikTok e do WeChat no país, encerrando em tese uma novela de nove meses em torno do destino das …

Leia Joe Biden enfim revoga banimento do WeChat e do TikTok nos EUA na íntegra no B9.

Grant Applications for the #YouTubeBlack Voices Fund Class of 2022 Will Open June 21

YouTube will officially open grant applications June 21 for the #YouTubeBlack Voices Fund Class of 2022, and the Google-owned video site also teamed up with 1500 Sound Academy on a musical component. Over 132 creator and artists teams across six countries participated in the inaugural Black Voices Creator Fund incubator camps, learning from industry experts…

IPG’s Climate Action Plan Sets an Emissions Reduction Target

Interpublic Group (IPG) is implementing what it calls an “ambitious climate action plan” to battle climate change. Philippe Krakowsky, chief executive officer at IPG, said in a statement that this shift towards sustainable transformation is imperative for the company to advance its ESG goals. “The steps we are taking today represent a significant move forward…

A Year Out From Layoffs, OpenX Is Eyeing Growth and Identity Changes

If 2020 was about surviving the economic downturn of the pandemic, then 2021 is all about growth and identity for ad tech. Besieged by layoffs early in the pandemic after marketers turned off ad spend, ad tech is hot again as buyers have since been investing heavily in digital media. One company, supply-side platform OpenX,…

YouTube Shorts: How to Record Clips at Different Speeds

YouTube Shorts is YouTube’s version of Instagram Reels or TikTok. The feature allows users to share short, vertical videos that can be viewed in the Shorts section of the YouTube mobile application. When you record a Short within the YouTube app, you have the option to change the recording speed to record your clip in…

Re:Humanism. Using AI to question anthropocentrism

Two weeks ago, I was in Rome to see the Quadriennale d’arte (entrance is free and that’s the most positive comment I’m prepared to write about the show) and Re:Humanism, an exhibition that explored the relationships between art and artificial intelligence.

Re:Humanism is an art prize for artists whose work critically investigates the impacts that AI technologies are having on culture, aesthetics and society. This year’s edition of the event subtitled “Re: define the boundaries”, looked at how we can overcome an anthropocentrism that prevents us from questioning traditional ideas about what constitutes life, consciousness and intelligence. The artists in the exhibition shift these boundaries by playing with machine learning, robotics and computer vision of course but also by challenging the idea of a presumed hierarchy that places our species over everything (everyone?) else. Be it organic or algorithmic.

There were 10 artworks exhibited in a clinical and impersonal setting. As if AI were all about tech and had no connection with life. Some of the works were fairly interesting though. With Three Thousand Tigers being the real gem in the show.


Irene Fenara, Three Thousand Tigers (detail), 2020, exhibition view. Courtesy of the artist and UNA Galleria. Photo by Sebastiano Luciano for Re:Humanism


Irene Fenara, Three Thousand Tigers (detail), 2020, exhibition view. Courtesy of the artist and UNA Galleria. Photo by Sebastiano Luciano for Re:Humanism


Irene Fenara, Three Thousand Tigers (detail), 2020


Irene Fenara, Three Thousand Tigers, 1017, 2020. Photo: Andreas Manini

According to the WWF, there are more tigers in captivity in the United States than in the wild around the world. An estimated 3,900 tigers remain in the wild. Yet, the images of the endangered feline are everywhere we look: on sweatshirts, on cereal boxes, in cartoons, on the logo of restaurants, of sports teams, etc. And on tv of course.

Irene Fenara fed 3000 images of tigers to an algorithm that started generating more images of the endangered feline. Such meager dataset makes it difficult -if not impossible- for a generative algorithm to identify and create new tigers. The algorithm only managed to preserve some characteristics of the original animal. Mostly abstract patterns that evoke the fur of the formidable cat. The artist then had the patterns turned into carpets in India (where most tigers in the wild live.)

Three Thousand Tigers establishes parallels between biodiversity erosion and the kind of digital deterioration that happens when files lose quality with each upgrade of computers and software.

Irene Fenara goes even further in an interview with ATP Diary: “On the one hand I was interested in the analogy with animal skins that are used as carpets. On the other, I wanted to underline that weaving works a bit like an algorithm. The weave and warp of the fabric move in a similar way to the sequences of computing code.”

One of the main reasons why I liked this work so much is its quiet demonstration that, in spite of technology developers’ promises, AI cannot solve all the problems related to environmental degradation. Another reason for my enthusiasm is its tactile, organic dimension. You don’t need to throw sensors and screens at visitors to make valid comments about AI technology.


Numero Cromatico, Epitaphs for the Human Artist, 2021. Photo by Sebastiano Luciano for Re:Humanism


Numero Cromatico, Epitaphs for the Human Artist, 2021. Photo by Sebastiano Luciano for Re:Humanism

In Epitaphs for the Human Artist, a neural network was trained using poetic words and expressions often found in epitaphs, the short texts honouring a deceased person. You can guess what happened next: the system generated its own obituaries. Often abstruse and without referent nor emotion, the formulas only highlight the clichés of the genre.

The work hints at the upcoming obsolescence of writers and other human creators within a society that is increasingly delegating cognitive tasks to machines.

Egor Kraft, Chinese Ink, 2019


Egor Kraft, Chinese Ink, 2019. Photo by Sebastiano Luciano for Re:Humanism

Chinese Ink displays real-time outputs of an AI system on electronic ink screens. The system, trained on a dataset of nearly a thousand blots of Chinese ink splashed onto calligraphic paper, generates a dozen of similar images per second. They are as inimitable and seemingly as random as the original set. Their succession on the displays also recalls the effect of ink spreading on blotting paper.

Kraft’s focus is less on the iconographic subjects than on the properties and materials used in traditional Chinese ink painting techniques. Electronic ink displays and developments in machine learning are fields China is mastering. Just like the country excelled at traditional calligraphy. The experiment thus invites the public to reflect upon how ancient crafts, visual languages or artforms survive and change with the advancement of technological progress.

Yuguang Zhang, (Non-)Human: The Moving Bedsheet, 2020. Photo by Sebastiano Luciano for Re:Humanism

Yuguang Zhang, (Non-)Human: The Moving Bedsheet, 2020


Yuguang Zhang, (Non-)Human: The Moving Bedsheet, 2020

Yuguang Zhang’s kinetic AI installation (Non-)Human: The Moving Bedsheet invites AI to enter our most intimate moments and objects. Using a dataset of images of the poses he had adopted during sleep, the artist trained a neural network to generate further movements and then transmit them directly onto bedsheets. The work suggests a world where the human manifests itself in non-human forms. There’s something disturbing and invasive about a non-human entity that probes and imitates the unconscious gestures we make when we are asleep.

More images from the show:


Carola Bonfili, The Flute Singing, 2021


Mariagrazia Pontorno, Super Hu.Fo* Voynich, 2021, exhibition view. Photo by Sebastiano Luciano for Re:Humanism


Entangled Others Studio and Sofia Crespo, Beneath the Neural Waves 2.0, 2021


Entangled Others Studio and Sofia Crespo, Beneath the Neural Waves 2.0, 2021, exhibition view. Photo by Sebastiano Luciano for Re:Humanism


Elizabeth Christoforetti and Romy El Sayah, Body as Building


Elizabeth Christoforetti and Romy El Sayah, Body as Building, exhibition view. Photo by Sebastiano Luciano for Re:Humanism

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Ainda como patrocinadora da Copa América, Mastercard só não vai exibir a marca na competição

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A Mastercard anunciou que não vai mais exibir sua marca durante a Copa América 2021. Na prática, é só isso mesmo: a empresa continua como patrocinadora da competição, porém não realizará ações envolvendo o evento, como a exibição de placas com seu nome no campo de futebol, por exemplo. “Após análise criteriosa, decidimos por não …

Leia Ainda como patrocinadora da Copa América, Mastercard só não vai exibir a marca na competição na íntegra no B9.

Campanha “Meu Melhor Defeito” questiona agências e marcas em favor do aumento de empregados LGBTI+

meumelhordefeito2

Depois de uma primeira versão em 2018 focada em incentivar os jovens talentos a proporcionar mudanças no mercado, a campanha “Meu Melhor Defeito” retorna em 2021 disposta a colocar em pauta a empregabilidade do público LGBTI+. A ação do coletivo Papel & Caneta foi iniciada na última terça (9) com um filme que busca incentivar …

Leia Campanha “Meu Melhor Defeito” questiona agências e marcas em favor do aumento de empregados LGBTI+ na íntegra no B9.

WarnerMedia First Media Company to Join Comscore’s Addressable TV Measurement Trial

Comscore has signed the first media company to participate in its national addressable TV programmer measurement trials: WarnerMedia. Under the agreement, which began in late 2020, WarnerMedia is the first to test Comscore’s program, which allows publishers to execute and measure their national linear addressable inventory across multiple MVPD and connected TV providers for the…

Influencers deliver ROI as marketers embrace them as business partners

Pandemic created an environment to ‘superpower’ the use of creators

Pereira O'Dell promotes two women to agency presidents

Mona Gonzalez and Natalie Nymark will oversee the East and West regions of the U.S., respectively.

Grove Collaborative Names New CMO as It Looks to Drive Awareness

Sustainable consumer goods company Grove Collaborative has named Jennie Perry its new chief marketing officer as the $1.32 billion online startup aims to reach more shoppers keen on lowering their ecological footprint. In addition to overseeing marketing strategy, Perry will lead creative, communications, brand strategy and consumer insights. She reports to cofounder and CEO Stuart…

Corona Employs AR to Show How Plastic Is Destroying Oceans and Beaches

In its desire to become net zero, AB InBev’s Mexican beer label Corona has been recovering plastic released into the ocean and beaches, and to mark World Oceans Week, it released an augmented reality (AR) experience to challenge consumers to reduce their own personal plastic footprint. “Plastic Reality” users will be able to estimate their…

UK Media Agencies Sign Up for Carbon Reduction Charter

In recent years the advertising and media sector has begun to wake up to its own contribution to the impact it makes on the environment, with networks such as WPP and Havas among others outlining their pledges to becoming net zero. Now, IPA, the U.K.’s agency membership body, has initiated a Media Charter that aims…

Yelp Wants to Help Dad Finish That Deck for Father’s Day

Business directory and crowdsourced review forum Yelp will help some lucky dads celebrate Father’s Day by kicking in up to $2,000 to help them finish the decks they started building. Dads can use the platform’s free Request a Quote feature to find an area business that best suits their deck needs, and then submit the…