Curated Commons // Edition 29
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the Twenty Ninth edition of Curated Commons. Let’s dive right in.
A blast from the ANSI art/Warez past
Something every true nerd will reminisce about - a fascinating documentary on the lost ANSI art and the Internet subcultures of the 90s. Hacking/Phreaking/BBS… and more. True digital art! Do watch. Also learnt that some art groups from the 90s ANSI scene still release packs to this day!
On a related note, another very good documentary on Silicon Valley with lot of familiar names from today’s tech scene - General Magic is also available on-demand on Vimeo - https://vimeo.com/ondemand/generalmagic
From the advertiser’s pocket, to the big tech companies
Google, Facebook, and Amazon have, in 2020, cornered over 50% of all advertising revenues in the US. They increased their share of the U.S. digital-ad market from ~80% in 2019 to ~90% in 2020. - https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-covid-19-supercharged-the-advertising-triopoly-of-google-facebook-and-amazon-11616163738
While at it, interesting read from Ben Evans on whether Amazon makes more money from ads than AWS - https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/3/14/do-amazon-ads-bring-in-more-cash-than-aws
How secure & safe is your car?
In 2021, car safety is not just about ability to withstand crashes and save lives, it is also about not letting hackers mess with your car’s electronics, or worse crash your car. Most modern cars apparently come with ~100Mn lines of code. A modern passenger jet - 15 Mn lines of code.
While on this topic, don’t forget new vectors of attack leveraging machine vision!
How bad is streaming for the environment?
New set of numbers coming in on this oft-debated topic.
For the first time, Netflix has revealed specific details about its carbon footprint. Using a tool called DIMPACT, developed by researchers at the University of Bristol, Netflix claims that one hour of streaming on its platform in 2020 used less than 100gCO2e (a hundred grams of carbon dioxide equivalent) – that’s less than driving an average car a quarter of a mile.
The future of how we train, and entertain, ourselves
Foam swords, a PR2 robot, and a VR headset.
We love a free market, China edition
Chinese surveillance tools makes law enforcement authorities elsewhere giddy with excitement. But China also has problems if anyone else other than their authorities get into surveillance. They are now going after shady use of facial recognition tech by private companies.
And while on China, hard to miss the irony of even China banning apps by its own companies. Or rather companies that don’t see it eye to eye. Chinese authorities have pulled an Alibaba browser app from Chinese app stores.
The rise of Amazon-native brands
Lot of commentary in recent days on Amazon’s private label business. But this one is a fascinating deep-dive into its marketplace and how small unknown brands are rapidly building big businesses, and also flipping them. So much so that it even has private equity firms interested in a new asset class - Amazon Listings. - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/style/amazon-brand-flippers.html
Amazon also is seeing some strong new brands turning their back to it. Shopify can be good for some, but what of others? Interesting read - https://www.economist.com/special-report/2021/03/11/the-rise-of-the-rebel-brands
Interesting read on a bookstore in the US that prices its books higher than that of Amazon - https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/a-kansas-bookshops-fight-with-amazon-is-about-more-than-the-price-of-books
A paid version of Wikipiedia is finally round the corner, for businesses
Wikipedia Enterprise is now here.
How to repossess tech devices
Android phones
Cars
Do you sleep stream?
A Twitch streamer is streaming live non-stop. For every new subscriber her gets, 10 seconds get added to the clock that ends the stream. It’s been going on, and on - https://www.twitch.tv/ludwig
When you buy a piece of connected hardware who decides how long you get to use it?
For good or for bad, we are in an age of everything having a sensor, and an associated subscription service. An expensive printer that is used in crafting has now come with a new rule (withdrawn after an uproar) that you can’t use the cutter without any active subscription plan. While the plan may have been withdrawn, the question remains - till how long are hardware vendors expected to support connected devices. And if you feel that’s a dumb question since it is hardware we are talking of, then should they even be connected in the first place?
Breakout year for video streaming
Lots of stats around how 2020 has been a breakout year for video streaming. One big number - there are now a billion+ global subscriptions to video streaming services. And while at it, global box office sales declined 72% in 2020.
Catch ‘em young, hedge fund style
There’s too much money flowing in to Singapore, and not enough people to manage it, apparently.
More good reads:
A mysterious hacking group has apparently ended up using not 1 or 2, but over 11 zero-day vulnerabilities in 2020! - https://therecord.media/a-mysterious-hacking-group-used-11-different-zero-days-in-2020/
The London police sure has interesting priorities. They have a warning not to use Sci-hub - https://news.sky.com/story/police-warn-students-and-universities-against-using-the-pirate-bay-of-science-12250407
India already has over 2,600km of plastic-tar roads. Fascinating use of plastics - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210302-could-plastic-roads-make-for-a-smoother-ride
Great set of interviews by Ben Thompson on moderation in infrastructure with CEOs of Stripe, Google Cloud, Cloudflare and the President of Microsoft. - https://stratechery.com/2021/interviews-with-patrick-collison-brad-smith-thomas-kurian-and-matthew-prince-on-moderation-in-infrastructure/
Our future is wonderful - “NYC man sells fart for $85, cashing in on NFT craze” - https://nypost.com/2021/03/18/nyc-man-sells-fart-for-85-cashing-in-on-nft-craze/
Our future is wonderful, in a nice way as well. Fascinating tech from Facebook on wrist-based interaction - https://tech.fb.com/inside-facebook-reality-labs-wrist-based-interaction-for-the-next-computing-platform/
How Chess.com became a streaming giant - https://www.protocol.com/chess-streaming-twitch-hikaru-botez
The Internet is wonderful
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