December 30, 2023
what we've been watching...
empowering you with insights and information from the edge of today’s headlines
Business
Mickey goes Public: January 1, 2024 is Public Domain Day — works from 1928 will enter the US public domain, so get ready for the arrival of Steamboat Willie and other classics like Lady Chatterly’s Lover, Peter Pan, and The House at Pooh Corner. You might have already seen John Oliver targeting Disney over the loss of its copyright since April of this year, but take note that Mickey Mouse isn’t public, just the original Steamboat version. (When Winnie the Pooh went public last year, it led to some comical results like the horror film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.) Disney actually had a hand in extending copyright protection to 95 years in the US, but was unable to extend it any further due to its recent battles with the State of Florida.
The Gray Lady goes undercover: While the gray Mickey may be public next week, The New York Times has decided to take issue with how its content is used, and is suing Microsoft and OpenAI for copyright infringement. AI companies trained their models by scraping the web and have often claimed a fair use defense, because it is “search” (see this interview with Satya Nadella). Recently, AI companies have been signing licensing arrangements with media companies to gain access to their archives (OpenAI and the AP, Apple potentially with Conde Nast). Supposedly, OpenAI and The NYT couldn’t agree on licensing terms, which led to the lawsuit. This case will set an interesting standard in the US, if it isn’t settled. Just as the Prince/Warhol ruling upended the art world’s definition of creativity (by allowing the Supreme Court to define it), we will see if the US courts rather than the regulators will define IP as it comes to training AI. Here, they may depend most on the fact that copyright law allows them to “consider whether the copying will harm the present or future market for the work copied.” This may also lead to a splintered internet, as global copyright regulations are already varied depending on AI transparency and training.
Technology
Designing for AI: We’ve seen a lot of hooplah over AI wearables, but we still aren’t sure why they’d replace a smartphone. But if anyone can convince us, it will be the team at LoveFrom, headed by former Apple’s Chief Design Officer Jony Ive. News continues to leak that Ive and his team have been meeting with OpenAI to develop a device and with $1BN in backing, and now reports that they have hired another soon-to-be-ex-Apple top designer: Tang Tan, VP of iPhone and Apple Watch design. We can’t wait, although we will wait for MKBHD’s review.
Grand Theft: In 2022, Rockstar Games was hacked, and clips and code from the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI game were released online, costing the company at least $5M. This month, one of the teenage hackers was sentenced to an indefinite hospital stay for his cyber crimes. While he was in custody for hacking NVIDIA, he was able to breach Rockstar’s internal Slack using an Amazon firestick, his hotel TV and a mobile phone (quite the MacGyver). Following the sentencing, more source code was released, but the internet was undefeated, as fans decided to remix the GTA6 trailer in every way imaginable ahead of its 2025 official release.
Where my girls at: Apparently, the tech world wasn’t diverse enough, so a tech conference organizer has been resorting to fabricating profiles of fake female speakers, who then cancel at the last minute, for years. Eduard Sizovs, the founder of Devternity, was called out just a few days before the annual event was supposed to start this year. His explanation that at least one of the profiles was a test that he forgot to take down, didn’t pass the smell test for several other, high level, male speakers, who then proceeded to drop out of the event. One of the fake speakers is an online influencer with over 115k followers, and some suspect that Sizovs himself is actually masquerading as her in order to boost his own credibility with women (from her fake reviews). While we guess one way to boost diversity is to fake it, women in tech do actually exist.
Smartphone on wheels: We would have thought Apple would have been first to launch a “smartphone on wheels,” but China’s Xiaomi has unveiled its first electric car, the SU7. The EV runs on the software that powers smart homes and cellphones, and the car claims to have a super electric motor that can accelerate faster than a Porsche (0-100km/h in 2.78 sec), and run on a single charge longer than a Tesla (500 miles). The car won’t be available for some time, and we don’t expect it to land in the US any time soon.
Escape Route: NASA reported that Saturn’s moon Enceladus has a key molecule that could sustain organic lifeforms. Data taken from the Cassini mission shows the presence of hydrogen cyanide, which is key to the origin of life as we know it. “Not only does Enceladus seem to meet the basic requirements for habitability, we now have an idea about how complex biomolecules could form there, and what sort of chemical pathways might be involved,” according to researchers at JPL. Unfortunately, if you are looking to relocate, the fastest a spaceship has made it to Saturn was over 3 years, while Cassini took over 6 years to get there, so pack a lot of warm clothing and reading material.
Phoning Home: NASA successfully beamed a 15-second, high-definition video of a cat named Taters from the Psyche spacecraft back to Earth using a new laser communications technology. The video was sent from over 19M miles away and demonstrated transmission speeds from deep space faster than typical broadband internet connections. Psyche is on its way to study the asteroid belt, but JPL tested its streaming strength (apparently shading Prime Video ahead of its announcement of an advertising tier).
Culture
Drive Thru Mayhem: We live in Los Angeles, so we’ve seen and waited in the extreme lines at the In-N-Out drive thrus, but we were shocked to hear about the drama in suburban Chicago when McD’s opened it Starbucks competitor CosMc’s. CosMc’s is a beverage focused, drive-thru only innovation, and opening weekend sported 2-hour waits (a few influencers literally ordered everything on the menu).
What we’ll be eating: We are not one for predictions, but according to the New York Times, 2024 will be the year of the snack and the soup. Since everyone seems to be on some form of weight loss drug, we would tend to agree. We are not so sure about the trend of drinking your dinner — with meal-flavored cocktails, but we will happily enlist a water sommelier.
Gwyneth goes Skiing: If you happen to be in London during the Christmas break, make sure to see Gwyneth Goes Skiing, the musical based on the 2-week trial from earlier this year. The tagline pulled us in: “She’s the Goop-founding, door-sliding, Shakespeare-in-loving, consciously-uncoupling Hollywood superstar. He’s a retired optometrist from Utah. In 2016, they went skiing. On the slopes of Deer Valley [Utah], their worlds collided, and so did they – literally. Ouch. Seven years later in 2023, they went to court.”
Urban Goggles: If Gwyneth inspired you to go skiing, or you have the itch but realize there is no snow, don’t worry, Urban Goggles are now a chic accessory to be worn off-slope and not just apres ski. Or shockingly, Meta seems to have found its pool of influencers and has gotten some buyers for its Rayban smart glasses, since you can record a TikTok without holding your phone.
Stealth Wealth: If you can’t get to London, but Gwyneth has inspired your fashion to go stealth wealth, Heritage Auctions is hosting an auction for the props from Succession. No word on the price of the ludicrously capacious bag.
Extreme Grocer: If you haven’t heard of Erewhon, just imagine the most expensive grocery store in the world, where LA’s hipsters go to be seen and not to shop or eat, and if you are lucky, you can exit the store without spending your rent check on a morning smoothie. If you didn’t think a supermarket could get more pretentious, Erewhon takes the gluten-free cake, with a collaboration with Balenciaga. The fashion house finally hosted its first LA runway show, and supplied its guests with a custom juice (which although colored black) tasted like apple juice. No worries, you can shop the store and the website for fashion, totes and juices if you can stomach a $1200 hoodie.
Edible Mascots: We understand that football has messed with the heads of its players, but apparently 2023 has also messed with the collective heads of its viewers and sponsors. Pop-tarts sponsored a bowl game in Orlando, and a Strawberry Pop-Tart was the Mascot. Not only did the game end with the Mascot being lowered into a giant toaster, but then the winning team proceeded to devour it. We guess everyone loves some free food.
Word of the Year: The various dictionaries have spoken, and have chosen their words for 2023: Merriam-Webster chose Authentic, Oxford chose Rizz (short for charisma), and we applaud both Dictionary.com and the Cambridge Dictionary for choosing Hallucinate.
— Lauren Eve Cantor
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