Hi there!
Hope you’ve been having a pleasant week thus far. We know it’s been an eventful one for cryptography nerds globally now that the Zodiac killer cipher has been finally cracked, just 50 years too late, sadly.
We’ve got some good reads for you this week, so lets jump right in.
Jean-Louis Gassée gives an intimate look into his employment at Apple 40 years ago, it’s work culture, both internally and relative to the rest of the world of tech, and the foresight and pitfalls of Jobs’ early on decisions in management. Interestingly enough, Gassée was also the man who tipped off John Sculley (then the CEO) of a possible coup Jobs was planning when the former was planning a Shanghai trip.
Claude Shannon, son of a local business man in Michigan, was a very unassuming innovator who defined the future of technology for one of the most implemented format of tech as we know it, communication. With his groundbreaking research titled “A Mathematical Theory of Communication,” he set the ground work for years to come, putting him in the leagues of an Einstein or a Feynman, without any of the associated notoriety.
From heavy regulation of the online porn industry to antitrust laws, to controversial tech labour issues, here’s a list of what the future of internet consumerism could look like.
Project Titan – Apple’s self-driving car venture gets a revival with its ‘next level’ battery technology. Apple is eyeing 2024 as its timeline and is promising groundbreaking battery tech, which Tesla is obviously downplaying. Turns out Elon Musk was looking to pitch Tesla to Apple for a tenth of its current price back during the Model 3’s ‘production hell’ (2017?). Tim cook refused to take the meeting.
From our own Canvs Editorial; Scarcity is a tool that almost never fails when trying to convince a consumer of any need gap, even if they need gap may not truly exist. In this article we talk about ‘Artificial Scarcity’ and it’s potential power in drawing people in to buying a product buy creating an aura of value and wonderment around it.
Researchers at Oxford may have found an answer, at least at lab-scale. The process is to turn carbon dioxide back into a fuel using something called the organic combustion method (OCM) This method trumps hydrogenation due to lesser electricity use and could truly catalyze a circular carbon economy if scaled up successfully.
A look at how collaborative design has come to be conflated with the concept that everyone is a designer, regardless of their core vocational abilities. This article helps set that record straight.
In the Internet era, porn is everywhere, but its owners are out of sight. MindGeek is the tech company which owns adult sites like Pornhub and Redtube but nowhere on their website will you find a trace of its actual operations. Mindgeek’s biggest owner, Bernard Bergemar is one of the most elusive executives you’ll come across (potentially more so than Issac Pearlmutter)
Capella-2 is a satellite from Capella Space that can take images of anything on the planet at any time. It uses Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology to detect the Earth’s surface, even through dense clouds, something NASA has been using since the 70s. The system works by sending radio signals towards Earth and interpreting the reflected signals. Anyone can request images from Capella at any time, be it government or private. The company already has contracts with government agencies. Incredibly so, this satellite can map images at a 50cm50cm resolution where most map at 5m5m.
Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker talks about the early years of animation, dating as far back as 1908 and their immense battle in creating good moving art, despite the constraints. He touches upon both the conceptual subject matter the artists took on in the early years of animation along with the technological feats overcome by them in delivering what are now considered evergreen artefacts of motion, design, music, prose and poetry. Watch this endearing video of Chuck Jones, a ‘golden age’ animator, talk about the eclectic skillsets an animator must draw from to produce something truly profound.
And that’s the lot! Thanks for checking out what we had to share with you this week. Catch up with you next Wednesday but before we go, have a safe and fun Christmas! Here are some killer celebrity chef recipes for mulled wine while we’re away.
