Hello! Hope you have been having a good week yet. Sad day today as Van Halen died of Cancer. He had battled and defeated (lip) cancer back in the early 2000s as well. Aside from his general coolness did you know about his patented musical support instrument?
Also, magic PR company that sells fantastic cars, Tesla, is said to be killing its PR dept.
Anyway, here's the what we spoke about in Canvs this week:
Instagram turned 10 yesterday: A short history 📷
Instagram, a product that serves one of the best-designed ads which we fall for thereby allowing many small businesses to flourish (fantastic) and allowing fb to becoming loftier (not fantastic) turned 10 yesterday. The link above starts with a snap from Nov 2010 taken by tech journo Robert Scoble and recites the tale of the meteoric growth of this company till it's acquisition.
Here's another nice write up of stories beyond then.
The crash of Tokyo Stock Exchange and the hardware error that caused it 📉
The TSE the 3rd largest stock exchange in the world with a market cap of $6 Trillion had an unforeseen crash due to a hardware error in the Arrowhead system operated by Fujitsu. The TSE had seen another such failure back in 2005. While trading stopped that day, thanks to these operative problems that TSE has, investors have claimed this changes the trust balance associated with the TSE.
Here's the Bloomberg coverage
While I have always been someone who takes a deep interest in design and tech for some reason or the other I have never quite read about the design of the QR the 2-dimensional successor of the bar code. Always made me feel somewhat of a Luddite, tbh. Have a go at this write-up. It's pretty solid. Btw, here's also a nice gif to explain it. Here's also an ELI-5 about it on Reddit.
Apple's patent for self-healing display 📱
Apple filed a patent in January for a foldable smartphone with a self-healing display that could repair dents or scratches on the screen. The self-healing properties would automatically activate, using heat, light, or electric current to repair a protective layer above the screen when the device is being charged or on a schedule
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek : Interview on The Observer 🎧
Here's Daniel Ek, Spotify's CEO speaking about his office hours, management style, the impact of Spotify on the world, while in conversation with Sriram Krishnan of The Observer. If you like this you might also like the one they did on a11z/Netscape's Mark Andreesen.
Our Cognitive Biases and how to design better despite them 🎲
Cognitive biases are hardwired and skew our perception of reality. Just knowing about cognitive biases doesn’t make us immune to them. They’re like visual illusions which could beat our sense of perception each time we see them in a new context. The article covers seven cognitive biases, how they can mess up your design work and what you can do to avoid that. Btw, while we are on that topic here's a full spectrum image(originally by design hacks) of cognitive biases called the Cognitive Bias Codex.
Apple's 'Hi, Speed' event announced 📢
Apple confirmed its iPhone 12 event for Oct 13. The invite is a dark blue color with orange and blue exploding circular rings around the logo. The most obvious speculation can be drawn simply from the “Hi, Speed” tagline. This is a clear reference at two iPhone 12 features: 5G connectivity and the A14 processor.
Horrible AI (actually Horrible Humans) ☠️
Although the list of benefits of AI is ever-increasing, there is an equally villainous side to it. This Github repo holds an extensive list of AI applications for the not so sane purposes. From disinformation bots to sexual orientation detectors to attention engineering. See all the horror that we can unveil upon ourselves right in here. Yes, Cambridge Analytica is there.
Look closely and you can find design everywhere. It all depends on how closely you observe. An ardent cinema lover and a designer tried to draw a parallel between cinema and UI Design and explore how they are closely connected.
Nobel Prize - Medicine: Hep C Virus 💉
Americans Harvey Alter and Charles Rice together with Briton Michael Houghton won the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus. The three were honoured for their "decisive contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis, a major global health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in people around the world
Nobel Prize - Physics: Sir Roger Penrose + (Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel) 🌌
Three Laureates share this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for their discoveries about one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the black hole. Sir Roger Penrose showed that the general theory of relativity leads to the formation of black holes. You might know him from his legendary Penrose Stairs or the Tribar, though the Tribar wasn't his original creation.
Additionally, Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel discovered that an invisible and extremely heavy object governs the orbits of stars at the centre of our galaxy. A supermassive black hole is the only currently known explanation.
Predictive Policing, mass surveillance and where we are today 🇺🇸
Here's an extensive write up on how law enforcement is using machine learning and deep learning to automate surveillance at scale and take action based on algorithmic predictions. Predictive policing, however highly frowned upon, is the wet dream of any overly authoritative, paranoid regime and if anything is a clear indication towards where we might all be going. Some additional stuff you might want to know about are Clearview AI and the concept of Broken Windows Theory.
Honorary mentions:
Typed text to handwritten style with SVG downloads ✍️
This online music creator by Roland 🎶
Alright, see you next week!
Canvs Club
