Latest Stories from Jamie
BLM protesters weaponising memes against police
The weaponisation of memes is nothing new, but taking on anti-racism has to be its biggest and most significant engagement to date. Digital natives Gen Z are constantly shifting the parameters of political demonstration and discourse to include online spaces. Now a part of our everyday vernacular, memes are used to make light of serious subjects, to highlight hypocrisies or irony within current affairs, and generally to cause a bit of...
PS5 embraces the digital generation with discless console
Sony’s PS5 reveal delivered a host of new titles for fans to get excited about, but the big surprise came in the form of a new discless console dubbed the ‘Digital Edition’. For the most part, you’d have to call the PS5 reveal a resounding success for Sony. While one or two fan favourite franchises were absent from the event (cough God of War), fans were treated to first looks...
The apps empowering BLM protesters right now
Police brutality is the enemy, racial equality is the goal, and technology is becoming the vehicle for change. Many of you won’t be old enough to recall this with much clarity, but I remember the 2011 London Riots like they happened yesterday. A 29-year-old black man named Mark Duggan was shot dead after the Metropolitan Police followed up on ‘intelligence’ that he was seeking to distribute controlled drugs and firearms....
Quibi fails to break into the mainstream during lockdown
Huge investment in both star power and content production has done little to establish Quibi among the streaming elite. But does the app have a future? Two months ago, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, veteran execs Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman boldly decided to launch a new mobile-centric streaming app called Quibi. But despite sinking a combined $1.8 billion in capital and star power, the platform may fail...
Facebook’s ‘Deep Fake Detection Challenge’ returns worrying data
As the 2020 US presidential election looms, social media sites are having to prepare for the inevitable onslaught of political discourse, and detecting defamatory content is high on the agenda. If you keep up to date with Thred, then this definitely won’t be the first time you’ve heard of deepfakes. This AI face manipulation technology began with innocuous memes of Nicholas Cage several years ago, but has slowly evolved...
Could llamas hold the key to curing Covid-19?
If this works out, the llama may pip the unicorn to the title of Most Magical Animal. As you will have heard a thousand times before, mostly on morning news shows, Covid-19 has all of us navigating through ‘unprecedented times’. Social distancing regulations may be easing worldwide, but getting back to living the way we once were will depend heavily on finding a vaccine. To that end, we’ve invested millions...
Can gaming become an arm of educational discovery?
In conjunction with ever improving tech, Ubisoft continues to bring historical periods to life with unerring accuracy in its games. But has its latest development opened a door to educational discovery that we never knew was there? As gaming technologies become more intricate and advanced, so too do the digital worlds created by the industry’s top studios. Raising the bar for immersive entertainment is unequivocally the priority for the next...
AR lenses to cure the visually impaired?
These days most of us wake up to the sight of a smartphone screen, so why not cut out the middle man completely? Thanks to the likes of Elon Musk and Drew Perkins, I can scarcely remember a time where nutty human tech projects weren’t ‘close’ to commercialisation. Nowadays, stories are leaking out of Silicon Valley and NASA almost as frequently as celebrity gossip in the tabloids. While convenience with technology...
Robot baristas help customers social distance in South Korea
South Korea is showing the rest of the world how to social distance in style. The lengths people go to for coffee... You know that awkward moment when you’re approached by a needy waiter at a local café and have to reassure them that your order is ‘delicious’ through a mouthful of carrot cake? Well, that’s no longer an issue at a nifty joint in Daejeon, South Korea. As the nation loosens its...
Indie developers can now use Unreal Engine for free
Yesterday’s demo of the Unreal Engine 5 was certainly something wasn’t it? And small indie devs will get a taste of the new cutting-edge technology for free. Consider yourself an avid gamer? the chances are you’ve already played several titles developed using one of the constantly improving iterations of the Unreal Engine. Whether we’re talking Mass Effect, Bioshock, Borderlands, Mortal Kombat, or owners Epic Games’ in-house projects Fortnite and Gears of War, a hefty chunk of the most popular franchises...
