DataDownload: Evolution of the American census, Quibi’s launch & Zoom weddings
DataDownload: Evolution of the American census, Quibi’s launch & Zoom weddings A weekly summary of all things Media, Data, Emerging Tech View this email in your browser
Hi everyone. I have good news today.
Yesterday, members of the NYC Media Lab’s Combine startup accelerator program did an amazing thing. They’d joined twelve weeks ago, when the world was a very different place — and despite challenges and a shift from a physical to a virtual classroom, they remained steadfast and focused. Startups are always hard. The Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment Anne del Castillo may have said it best: “startups are always a leap of faith, and it’s great to see that everyone is keeping the faith.”
And that is what we’re doing. And you can watch the live feed here.
In today’s newsletter, you’ll find coverage of how scientists are coming together, the importance of the changing American Census, Quibi’s COVID-19 launch plans, and even marriages taking place online. A Zoom wedding, seriously. And a link to the entire live Combine Cohort Digital Demo Day (it’s a must-watch!).
So, read, share, and email me with your thoughts and ideas about how the NYC Media Lab can work with you and your team to build new ideas and innovation in the challenging weeks ahead. Steve@NYCMediaLab.org.
Cheers,
Steven Rosenbaum
Managing Director
The NYC Media Lab Must-Read Covid-19 Changed How the World Does Science, Together
“I never hear scientists — true scientists, good quality scientists — speak in terms of nationality.” Dr. Francesco Perrone, who is leading a coronavirus clinical trial in Italy
The NY Times reports that while politics transforms the rush to a vaccine into a global arms race, researchers are collaborating around the world at an unprecedented scale. “There is going to be plenty of time to get papers published,” said one virologist, who shared his findings on a WHO conference call within two hours. Some scientists have said this level of collaboration was only matched by the global movement to mitigate the AIDS epidemic in the 90s.
“The ability to work collaboratively, setting aside your personal academic progress, is occurring right now because it’s a matter of survival,” notes a Harvard Medical professor. While both the US and Chinese governments aim to conjure images of unquestionable superiority and an unrelenting armada against the pandemic, scientists from both countries and around the world are pushing their data to overseas colleagues at breakneck speeds.
7 min read
Read More The Evolution of the American Census The Pudding took a total of 600 questions from every census from 1790 to 2020. Together these weave a tale of America’s priorities and biases — on race, war, housing, and immigration. Being a Pudding piece, the visuals are spectacular. Take a look:
5 min read Read More For the Media Jeffrey Katzenberg on Launching Quibi in the Middle of a Global Pandemic & Working to Recruit J.J. Abrams
Despite events, Quibi is launching April 6 with a planned 175 originals shows — 8.5k episodes total — for its first year. The platform’s pre-launch numbers are already big — the YouTube channel has generated over 191M views, with some show trailers racking up tens of millions of views. Deadline speaks with founder Jeffrey Katzenberg on launching during the pandemic and upcoming original content.
Katzenberg doesn’t mention Netflix by name, but he does point out that Quibi isn’t going to see a TV app: “[Quibi’s tech is] special. I can’t stand my TV on its side.” As for other streaming platforms, Katzenberg doesn’t see them as a threat — “I don’t see… us taking share away from [them].”
“Those platforms, all of them, have billions of monthly active users. You have 2 billion on YouTube and 1.5 billion on Instagram and hundreds of millions on the others. We’re a blip on that but if we get a small, single-digit version of that, we’ll be the biggest hit ever as a subscription platform.”
13 min read
Read More We’re Sharing Coronavirus Case Data for Every U.S. County The NY Times has compiled one of the most detailed datasets of COVID-19 cases to date — take a look at the repo here. In their announcement, NYT notes that no agency has “provided the public with an accurate, up-to-date record of coronavirus cases, tracked to the county level.”
County-level data can provide insights that state- or country-level stats can’t. For example, the NY Times dataset “has shown how the detection of a small cluster in one area, like New Rochelle, N.Y., can precede the discovery of thousands more cases in nearby cities and states.”
5 min read Read More Saying ‘I Do’ Over Zoom
#ZoomWedding on Instagram yields hundreds of images and videos of at-home and live-streamed weddings. The Verge spoke to the attendees of one Zoom wedding, who noted the event was a much-needed pick-me-up, with family and friends crying on screen.
While video chat was awkward at first, the married couple said that “once the officiant started going, we were both locked in and the emotion of the wedding definitely came through.”
Like organizations that were forced to restructure for remote work and found it more productive than they thought, people who normally wouldn’t attend an event online are being exposed en masse to new ways of connecting — and we bet the habit will stick with many.
5 min read
Read More What We’re Watching The Combine Demo Day
We’re all working to adjust our programs to meet the challenges of these times while continuing to provide resources for our students and startups. The COMBINE 2020 Cohort has achieved extraordinary results in challenging times. This was our Virtual Demo Day — live and streamed to your desktop.
Seven teams shared their pitches, highlighting new applications and customer segments for AR/VR, machine learning, computer vision, and more. If you missed the livestream, you can watch it here…
1 hr 12 min watch
Watch Now Events (All Virtual) Virtual Event: Kevin Scott on Making AI Work for Everyone
Date: April 6, 1PM-2PM
Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s CTO, argues that AI has the potential to create abundance & opportunity for everyone by helping solve some of mankind’s most frustrating problems. Join to hear his thoughtful roadmap for bringing AI to everyone. Register Here.
Virtual Event: Priya Parker on How to Create Meaningful (Digital) Gatherings
Date: April 7, 12PM-1PM
From weddings to meetings, coming together is part of our human nature. But with all sorts of gatherings happening every day, do we get the most out of them? Drawing on her expertise as a facilitator of high-powered gatherings around the world, Priya Parker takes us inside various events to show what works, what doesn’t, and why. Register Here.
Virtual Event: Weathering 2008 & Now with MobileIron Founder Bob Tinker
Date: April 9, 2PM
This is part of Work-Bench’s “Weathering the Storm: 2008 & Now,” webinar series, which was created in response to an influx of questions and concerns from our enterprise community during COVID-19. Register Here. A Deeper Look Why It’s So Freaking Hard to Make a Good COVID-19 Model
CDC estimates that, if no preventative measures are employed, at least 200k people will die from the virus, while the Imperial College London estimated 2.2M. That insane spread — and the reason why FiveThirtyEight doesn’t have a model of its own — is due to general uncertainty and the rapid pace at which results can change over time. FiveThirtyEight dives into the difficulties of modeling a pandemic — from understanding why simple assumptions aren’t useful…
To the complexity of factoring in known variables into prediction models:
14 min read
Read More Scientists Develop AI That Can Turn Brain Activity Into Text
In a recent Nature Neuroscience paper, UCSF researchers described a system that was able to decode text from brain signals. The researchers recruited patients with electrode arrays implanted in their brains and fed the signals into an ML algorithm that predicted one of 50 sentences.
The study was notable because the system only used 40 minutes of training data per participant. While the ML model achieved high accuracy, the system only worked with patients who could say sentences aloud — “this is not translation of thought [but of brain activity involved in speech].” “Of course this is fantastic research but those people could just use ‘OK Google’ as well.”
3 min read
Read More Transactions & Announcements MiningLamp Raises $300M in Round Led by Tencent and Temasek
Startup Olive Lands $51M From General Catalyst, Ascension Ventures
Helm.ai Raises $13M in Seed Funding
Japanese AI Startup Cogent Labs Nets $13M to Expand in Asia
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