FOMO: Fear Of Machinery Output
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| FOMO: Fear Of Machinery Output | |
| Number | 3456 |
| Broadcast Date | JANUARY 28, 2019 |
| Episode Length | 32:52 |
| Hosts | Sarah Lane, Roger Chang |
| Guests | Dr. Kiki Sanford, Erin Carson |
A recent report by the Brookings Institution finds 25% of US workers have high exposure to jobs that will be automated. While the US Bureau of Labor Statistics says the effects of automation will be felt unevenly with women and minorities taking a higher burden. Will higher education supply the necessary skills to compete in the future workplace or does there need to be shift in how we view jobs and labor?
Guest
Quick Hits
- Dropbox announced plans to acquire the electronic signature company HelloSign for $230 million in cash, the largest acquisition in the company's history. HelloSign will operate independently with its CEO Joseph Walla reporting directly to Dropbox SVP of engineering and product Quentin Clark. Dropbox says it will continue to work with other electronic signature providers.
- In a note to investors, Nvidia lowered Q4 revenue guidance, citing "deteriorating macroeconomic conditions, particularly in China." The company now expects Q4 revenue of $2.2 billion, down 19% from their original $2.7 billion guidance. Nvidia said both datacenter and gaming divisions would see declining revenue, specifically citing crowded channel inventory following the end of the cryptocurrency mining boom.
- The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), a nonprofit organization that has overseen Bluetooth development since way back to 1998, announced the upcoming Bluetooth 5.1 for developers that integrates new “direction finding” features into Bluetooth-enabled products. So similar to GPS, the new feature can pinpoint exactly where another Bluetooth 5.1-enabled object is down to the centimeter, rather than to within a few meters, as it has been thus far.
Top Stories
- Alex Heath at Cheddar cites sources that report Apple is in the early stages of planning a subscription game service, which would offer unlimited access to a bundle of games for a typical subscription fee. Apple reportedly began private discussions with game developers to join the service in the second half of 2018. The report also stated that Apple has had talks with developers about exclusively publishing titles, assuming distribution, marketing, and other related costs. No word on pricing or the types of games the service might include.
- Last year, Facebook committed about $1 billion to buying shows for Watch, its streaming video service that showed up as a tab within the overall Facebook timeline experience. Research company EMarketer estimates that Facebook could take in almost double what YouTube’s $4.3 billion in video ad sales made this year when it reports its quarterly earnings on Wednesday, but it expects Watch to account for only a sliver of that number. Unlike the Netflixes of the world, Facebook said it doesn’t expect to pay upfront for shows in the long term. Its idea is that shows will be able to attract enough viewers on Watch so that the producers’ share of Facebook ad revenue will account for their compensation.
- Canalys published a report showing smartphone shipments in China fell 14% in 2018, reaching their lowest level since 2013, for a total of 396 million units. This marks the second straight year of decline, after a 4% drop in 2017. The Chinese smartphone market also consolidated, with the top five manufacturers claiming 88% of shipments in 2018, up from 73% the year before. Huawei and Vivo bucked the trends and grew shipments by 16 and 19%, respectively. Oppo and Xiaomi each saw single digit declines, with Apple declining 13% on the year and maintaining the number 5 spot in the country.
- Recent changes by Facebook has also restricted the ability of political transparency activist groups to monitor political ads. Facebook says the change was the result of unauthorized access of data from 3rd party browser plug-ins. WhoTargetsMe and ProPublica say their web extensions get full consent from users before accessing data. In late 2018, Facebook launched a political ad archive to be more transparent but WhoTargetsMe co-founder Sam Jeffers said Facebook’s effort was inadequate as it doesn’t provide meaningful information on why users are targeted or who’s behind it.
- Facebook released a draft charter as part of its plan announced last November to revamp the way content policy decisions are made. The proposal states the board will have about 40 members and include experts with experience in “content, privacy, free expression, human rights, journalism, civil rights, safety, and other relevant disciplines.” The member list will be public and with members serving one 3 year term automatically renewing one time. The board will have final say and can reverse Facebook’s own decisions when necessary. Cases will be referred through a user appeal process and directly from Facebook. The board will not include former or current Facebook employees, contingent workers or government officials.
Discussion
- Robots could replace humans in a quarter of US jobs by 2030
- More women than men could lose their jobs to automation
- How can you prepare for the future of work? The answer is not “learn to code.”
Mailbag
- I moved to the US from India as an adult and walking into the grocery store was the exact experience Tom spoke about and so is my experience now buying electronics in India. Whenever I have to buy a new phone for my dad back home, I end up buying a Samsung that fits my budget. There are so many choices within Samsung and of course from other companies like Xiaomi, Oppo and Micromax. I am sure they make great phones but I just want a reliable phone without spending hours researching phones which really only have very small differences. I end up going with a brand I trust and even within that brand, my deciding factor is the price. Just thought I’ll add to Tom’s thought and also use this opportunity to compliment you guys on the amazing work. Cheers!
- Sent by Aditya
YouTube
Links
| Preceded by: "DTNS: It's My Toto's Africa!" |
FOMO: Fear Of Machinery Output |
Followed by: "A Bug in the Apple" |