Tag: Story

modern technology

A new Facebook cloud game mixes Telltale writing and reality TV. Users will decide the story.

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Just weeks into Facebook’s debut into the cloud gaming market, it has its first “exclusive” title that’s a perfect fit for Facebook users: a reality show that lives completely in the cloud.



a group of people posing for a picture

© The Washington Post; Facebook


Coming Wednesday, “Rival Peak” is a Facebook Watch program in which artificial intelligence-driven “contestants” will live, work and exist for every minute of the day within the fictional region of Rival Peak, a mountainous forest region that emulates the Pacific Northwest. With a diverse cast of internationally-based characters, Facebook users will decide what each contestant of the show will do in the game, how they behave, and who will basically be “voted out” by the end of every week of its 12-week run.

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The game/show is being developed by Pipeworks Studios and Genvid Technologies, including former staff of the beloved-but-shuttered Telltale Games, who created some of the strongest narrative adventure games

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technology articles

Airbnb Has a Good — But Not Necessarily Great — IPO Story to Sell Wall Street

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Between the enthusiasm that markets have been showing both towards Internet growth plays and (more recently) towards companies seen as reopening plays, Airbnb should get a post-IPO valuation comfortably above the $18 billion valuation it received in an April funding round, and perhaps also above the $31 billion valuation it got in a 2017 funding round.

But a little bit like Uber (UBER) ahead of its 2019 IPO, Airbnb’s story is pretty complicated, featuring several things to be encouraged by but also a few things to be concerned about.

Key positives for Airbnb’s story:

  1. The company was seeing strong double-digit growth before COVID hit. Revenue was 32% in 2019 to $4.81 billion, while gross booking value (GBV – the total value of bookings on Airbnb’s platform, minus cancellations and alterations) rose 29% to $37.96 billion. (source: Airbnb’s IPO prospectus)
  2. Though Airbnb is still seeing revenue/bookings declines, demand has improved a
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science

How chemical clues from prehistoric microbes rewrote the story of one of Earth’s biggest mass extinctions

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How chemical clues from prehistoric microbes rewrote the story of one of Earth's biggest mass extinctions
Microbial mats in Shark Bay, Western Australia, similar to those that lived around 200 million years ago. Credit: Yalimay Jimenez Duarte WA-OIGC, Curtin University, Author provided

Chemical clues left behind by humble microbes have rewritten the timeline of one of the biggest mass extinction events in Earth’s history.


The so-called “end-Triassic mass extinction”, thought to have occurred just over 200 million years ago, wiped out swathes of prehistoric creatures both on land and in the oceans. It was prompted by the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea, which triggered massive volcanic activity that flooded the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and acidified the oceans.

But our new research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests these cataclysmic events actually happened later than previously thought.

We made this discovery by examining molecular fossils—trace chemicals derived from microbial “mats” that bathed in prehistoric waters.

A likely story

Traditionally, scientists have

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future technology

Story and Technology Must Help Society, Taiwan Creators Told

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Harnessing storytelling abilities and moving away from top-down control will benefit not only the development in technology and content creation, but also society as a whole, said speakers on the opening day of the Taiwan Creative Content Fest.

Star speakers at the fair’s opening panel “Post-Pandemic Era: Human Touch” included Taiwan’s iconic Digital Minister Audrey Tang and Tea Uglow, creative director of Google’s Creative Lab in Sydney.

Tang said that the economic, industrial and social impact of the coronavirus has been unevenly spread. To balance out the uneven impact, better storytelling abilities and narratives are necessary, said Tang. They (a pronoun preferred by genderless individuals rather than “he” or “she”) added that trusting the job to those who have the knowledge and expertise will be key.

Tang cited the creation of face mask availability maps in Taiwan made with the support of the hacker community and an active campaign to

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new technology

Twitter launches ‘Fleets’ story feature. Users aren’t sure how to feel.

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Twitter rolled out its story feature “Fleets” on Tuesday, a new, less permanent way to post on the social media platform.

But users appear to have mixed feelings about another platform debuting temporary stories.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Twitter’s Design Director Joshua Harris and Product Manager Sam Haveson said that people have reported feeling a tweet is too final, and wanting some flexibility in what they post and the duration that post stays up.

“To help people feel more comfortable, we’ve been working on a lower pressure way for people to talk about what’s happening. Today, we’re launching Fleets so everyone can easily join the conversation in a new way – with their fleeting thoughts,” the blog post states.

Fleets appear at the top of the app in round bubbles with the icon of the user who posted them in the center. Once they are posted, they stay

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science in the news

Opinion | The Latest Vaccine News Doesn’t Tell the Full Story

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This article is part of the Debatable newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The drugmakers Moderna and Pfizer buoyed hopes for an end to the coronavirus pandemic when they announced this month that their vaccines were 94.5 percent (Moderna) and 90 percent (Pfizer) effective at preventing Covid-19, based on preliminary results from ongoing clinical trials. Neither vaccine produced any serious safety concerns.

Pfizer’s and Moderna’s data were analyzed by independent experts, though their findings were published in news releases, not peer-reviewed scientific journals, so the results are not yet considered conclusive. But if the numbers hold steady through the end of the trials, these vaccines would be among some of the most effective ever created.

What would that mean for the future of the pandemic and vaccine science, and what obstacles still stand in the way of getting shots in people’s arms? Here’s

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science in the news

The Smart Factory – Robots lend a helping hand: the latest Top Story available on CNHIndustrial.com

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CNH INDUSTRIAL N.V.

Top Story - Cobot at work in the Brescia Plant
Top Story – Cobot at work in the Brescia Plant
Top Story – Cobot at work in the Brescia Plant

London, November 4, 2020

Robots, once the staple of science fiction films and futuristic novels, are today used in a variety of settings ranging from the workplace to the home. Unsurprisingly, most of them look nothing like the robots depicted in popular culture from the past but the space-age technology they use is truly remarkable. This latest installment in CNH Industrial’s Top Stories series gives an insight into their deployment in the world of manufacturing. The robot revolution is here and is helping to change the face of manufacturing. Read more on how they are helping our workforce at: https://www.cnhindustrial.com/SmartFactory_EN

“Think about all the movements you make when you’re gathering together a list of items from the shelves in a warehouse,” says Peter Ommeslag, Head of Industry

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technology articles

Story of an Australian Man Kye Sheehan who came from being homeless to a Million Dollar Entrepreneur

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Australian Man Kye Sheehan

Kye Sheehan-CEO of a Mobile App Development Company-The App Mentors, says, “He is on a mission to inspire and change millions of lives”
Kye Sheehan-CEO of a Mobile App Development Company-The App Mentors, says, “He is on a mission to inspire and change millions of lives”
Kye Sheehan-CEO of a Mobile App Development Company-The App Mentors, says, “He is on a mission to inspire and change millions of lives”

Kye Sheehan

I create SOLUTIONS to PROBLEMS for a living
I create SOLUTIONS to PROBLEMS for a living
I create SOLUTIONS to PROBLEMS for a living

Queensland, Australia, Oct. 29, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — A young entrepreneur from Australia has a very inspiring story, a must read for each one of us struggling in these challenging times. Kye has risen from rags to riches through hard work, discipline and sheer determination. At a young age of 17, when people enjoyed school life, he was homeless, struggling for food, he even sold his only valuable item at the time, his phone to buy food for himself. But these pains

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technology articles

Back story what happened to failed Hollywood app Quibi

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With just a few weeks to go until one of the biggest product launches in their careers, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman met alone for several hours. 

The two veteran business executives, representing the top echelons of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, were suddenly forced to discuss the future of the project they’d worked on — and promoted — almost constantly for the past two years. 

Their vision for a game-changing streaming video service called Quibi had raised a stunning $1.75 billion in capital. But their plans never foresaw a pandemic, and when Katzenberg and Whitman sat down in mid-March, the novel coronavirus was beginning to show that it was not a blip. Hospitalizations across the US were increasing; restaurants and schools were closing. 

Seth Doane — a CBS news correspondent helming a special version of the “60 Minutes” news program being created exclusively for Quibi — fell ill with COVID-19

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information technology

Information Technology Laboratory employees win HENAAC awards > U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Headquarters > Story Article View

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Christine Lozano and Dr. Alicia Ruvinsky, both members of the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center Information Technology Laboratory team, were named winners of the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Association Conference (HENAAC) 2020 Great Minds in STEM award.

HENAAC’s annual awards have recognized America’s top engineers and scientists from the Hispanic community for the past 31 years. Lozano was named a STEM hero, while Ruvinsky was honored for professional achievement.

“When I was younger, I was introduced to a drafting class by a female architect,” said Lozano. “It was through this drafting class that I realized that my appreciation for art and creativity could go hand in hand with my strength in math. As I kept looking around, I had male engineering influences, who I am so thankful for because they nurtured my goals and desires, but I never really had a female STEM influence. One of my dreams

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