🤔 Wiser! #100: Apple v Epic | FTX Fallout | Elon's Lost It | Timex In The Metaverse | Generative AI | Mastodon
Epic Games are taking on the big Apple over their $20 billion AppStore cash cow. Meanwhile, Musk is losing it at Twitter. The fallout from FTX continues. And AI generative art is all the rage.
Hello Wiser! readers, here’s your reminder of the key stories you may have missed on Friday, plus new content and updates from over the weekend.
Alternatively, watch this 4 min video with all the headline stories.
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The top stories:
#1: The Battle For Taxing The Internet: Epic Games v Apple Round Two
Apple and Epic Games went back to Court yesterday for Round 2.
The case, which is about Apple’s online marketplace policies for transactions related to apps and services, aka Apple’s walled garden. The situation is being closely watched as US regulators continue to scrutinise big tech companies in their role as gatekeepers to the digital economy.
🔐 To read the full article in Wiser! go here (Note, you will need a premium subscription for Wiser!)
👉 New Content: The Future of Emerging Technology
NFTs, crypto, blockchain, the Metaverse. All emerging technologies that offer the potential to disrupt our digital lives. To find out a bit more on what’s happening and what’s coming next I spoke with Paul Armstrong, an emerging technology strategist who’s just written a book about it.
Paul Armstrong's Book is called "Disruptive Technologies" and you can find it here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Disruptive-T...
He also runs a conference called TBD (technology, behaviour, data). The conference is on Feb 23rd 2023 https://thetbdconference.com (tickets on sale now)
Here’s our conversation…
#2: Has Elon Lost The Plot At Twitter?
Since posting this on Friday with everything you need to know about the Twitter debacle. Musk has reinstated the banned President Trump and Kanye “Ye” West. But he’s not extended an invite to the former talk show host Alex Jones.
These are the banned Twitter accounts Elon Musk has reinstated. The most high profile, Donald Trump, has so far resisted returning.
Musk’s inner child tweeted this in response…
#3: Timex Launch An Immersive Experience In Fortnite
Timex is just the latest brand to create an immersive gaming experience to appeal to new generation of customers. Remember I told you about Walmart on Roblox just a couple of weeks ago.
For more on the Timex story, read this.
Talking of consumer brands in the Metaverse and web3. Today I loaded up the use cases for these six new brands to the Brand Strategies Collection.
The one to watch is Johnnie Walker.
They have multiple experiences with NFTs, selling to human primary emotions driven by both scarcity and status. Not only do consumers get limited edition and high end bottles of whiskey, the NFTs also unlock VIP benefits.
To find out more about the real life use-cases of consumer brands, read this.
#4: Fallout From The Collapse Of FTX
FTX was one of the big three cryptocurrency exchanges alongside Binance and Coinbase. It's founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was seen as the poster child for crypto in the web3 era.
So, it came as a shock to the crypto ecosystem that the poster child was less poster and more child.
But, here’s the thing. This is is less about weaknesses in crypto and more about weaknesses in centralised systems without guardrails.
To shout that this proves crypto is a scam when we’re still seeing the after effects of traditional (non-crypto) payments provider Wirecard.
For a comprehensive deep dive on what, how and why it happened, read this if you want the detail.
Listen to this excellent podcast from Matt Levin, a man who had previously confronted Sam Bankman-Fried about FTX being a ponzi scheme.
NFTs explained in under 5 minutes
#5: The European Unions Moves Closer To A Ban On Facial Recognition
I get the concerns about privacy, but I think the genie is already out of the bottle on this one.
Facial recognition is ubiquitous (anyone with a phone has it). And if you don't think Siri or Alexa is listening to what you're saying all the time, just say Alexa, Siri or Google and see which devices respond.
Last week, the British govt put out details of how it would be scanning all Internet devices hosted in the UK.
For more on this and other links and related news, go here.
Tips, Tricks, Tools and Links
🤖 Create Your Own Profile Pics With AI
Astria lets you make AI-generated images of yourself for a few bucks.
It's fun, give it a go! Here are a few of the images Astria made of me...
🎙️Big Tech Little Tech Ep #13: Mastodon, The Infinite AI Conversation, BigTech Surveillance, & Citizen Smith
The latest show came out after I’d posted Friday’s issue of Wiser!
You can find BTLT on all major podcast platforms, or follow this link for show notes and links to the podcast that explain’s what’s what about Mastodon, the Twitter alternative.
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