New Week Same Humans #8
A big NWSH announcement! Twitter acts to save democracy. A new platform wants to revolutionise higher education.
Welcome to the Wednesday update from New World Same Humans, a newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.
If you’re reading this and you haven’t yet subscribed, then join 13,000+ curious souls on a journey to build a better shared future 🚀🔮
💡 This week’s Sunday essay was about progress, the pandemic, and why we should never see the world the same way again after 2020. Go here to read The Overview Effect.💡
This week, Facebook and Twitter can feel us watching them. And in the run up to the US Presidential election, they’re determined to act as Grown Up as possible.
Also, a new startup that wants to revolutionise virtual university lectures: from the founder of online learning platform Coursera.
Plus, Waymo launch driverless rides. And dogs enter the metaverse via AR goggles.
First, though, I promised a big announcement this week.
🙌 The NWSH Slack group is live!
I’ve always thought of NWSH as a community. So far, though, we’ve lacked the platform needed to make that real. Today all that changes thanks to the NWSH Slack group, which is now open!
This group marks a big step forward in NWSH’s journey to supercharge you, and your personal mission to contribute to our shared future.
There are channels to share news and ideas on the future of technology, society, health, power, and the planet. Plus further channels where you can highlight your projects, debate the latest email instalment, and connect to others to post or discover job and internship opportunities.
In short, it’s a space where we can connect, learn from, and empower one another.
For the last two months I’ve been building the group with a small team of early users. Now, it’s ready for a whole lot more people. Let the NWSH hivemind begin its formation!
***Simply follow this link to join the NWSH Slack Group***
Once inside, go to the #start-here channel to read a brief introduction to the group. And then head over to #intros to introduce yourself; we promise to say hi back!
🔦 Social giants feel the glare of the spotlight
Facebook announced a ban on Holocaust denial content this week.
Two years ago, Zuckerberg said he didn’t believe posts that deny or significantly distort the truth of the Holocaust should automatically be taken down. Now, he says his ‘thinking has evolved’ on hate speech. The platform also banned paid ads that promote anti-vaccination ideas, though user posts that express support for the anti-vax movement will still be allowed.
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg and his wife donated a further $100 million to fund election security efforts; that comes a month after they donated $300 million to the same cause.
Twitter announced it would turn off some features, and add new ones, in the run up to the US Presidential election. Under the changes, users will be forced to wait before they can retweet a post they’ve just seen. They will be warned if they are about to share a content flagged as false. And Twitter will label tweets that attempt to prematurely call the result of the election; yes, they’re inventing a whole feature aimed at Trump. The changes will come into force on 20 October.
⚡ NWSH Take: Allow yourself a microsecond to reflect on the road Twitter has travelled. I’m not saying anything new here, but from ‘micro-blogging’ upstart in 2006 to problematic bodyguard of democracy in 2020 is a wild ride. // The undeniable context when it comes to these moves? FB and Twitter know that the Presidential election and its aftermath will put their wider impact under the spotlight as never before. And they see the polls: Biden is likely to win. That means the fight over regulation will intensify. When 2021 rolls around, they want to be able to argue that they can regulate themselves.
🧑🎓 Coursera founder plots a higher ed revolution
Daphne Koller is a co-founder of online learning platform Coursera. Now, she is launching Engageli, a platform for live, online higher education courses. Basically, it’s a Zoom for university teachers and their remote students.
Koller says the platform will allow game-changing new functionality, such as the ability for students to visually signal whether they understand what is being taught, and for teachers to post real-time quizzes and instantly show the results.
The launch comes amid a huge, pandemic-fuelled spike in numbers taking MOOCs. According to online course site Class Central, the top three MOOC providers – Coursera, edX, and FutureLearn – registered as many new users in April as in the whole of 2019.
⚡ NWSH Take: Not so long ago MOOCs felt something of an unsuccessful experiment. Now, remote learning is on the agenda as never before. The big question is: will that stick or is it just temporary? // With Engageli, Koller is betting it can be made to stick. What’s revolutionary about her pitch is not that the platform is better than Zoom for education experiences, but that it’s better than being in most real lecture theatres, too. Engageli, says Koller, beats traditional lectures ‘where you’re in row 23 looking down at the instructor writing on the board’. // The underlying principle you can apply? What shift is coming to your industry because of the pandemic? And how can you reinvent your offering around that shift, such that it’s better than it was before?
🗓️ Also this week
💉 The pandemic has seen a spike in cosmetic surgery, because people want to look good on Zoom. Treatments such Botox and dermal fillers are booming.
🏡 Android phones can now alert you to the presence of common household sounds. The can identify a doorbell, a dog barking, running water and more. The feature is aimed at those with hearing loss, and WFH’ers listening to music on headphones.
🤖 Google also launched its AI voice agent Duplex, which can book appointments for users via phone. The world hasn’t forgotten this crazy demonstration of its powers by CEO Sundar Pichai at Google I/O 2018.
👨💻 Microsoft say they will let employees work from home permanently. That means WFH for approximately half the week, which can be increased to the full week with manager approval.
🪐 Astronomers at Washington State University have identified 24 planets that may be even more habitable than Earth. The planets are warmer, wetter, larger and older than our own, and so make promising targets in the search for complex life.
🚗 Waymo has made fully driverless rides available to customers in Phoenix. A remote team will monitor the vehicles via real-time feeds, and can intervene if they get stuck.
🦠 A US man became the fifth confirmed case of Covid reinfection. Tests revealed the 31-year old had been infected with two different strains of the virus.
✏️ Design algorithms are producing objects that imitate nature according to this fascinating Twitter thread. The author asks whether we should focus on creating algorithms that can do our design for us, rather than trying to do design ourselves.
🙌 Barbie won kudos for a viral YouTube video that addressed racism and BLM. Back in New Week #6 we looked at the pressure brands are coming under to take a stand on social issues.
🐶 The US army is trialling augmented reality goggles for dogs. The technology is intended to allow dogs on the battlefield to receive orders at a distance. Woof.
🌍 Humans of Earth
Key metrics to help you keep track of Project Human.
🙋♀️ Global population: 7,818,517,207 and counting
🌊 Earths currently needed: 1.7696626033
🗓️ 2020 progress bar: 79% complete
📖 On this day: On 14 October 1947 US test pilot Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to travel faster than the speed of sound.
See you on the other side
I could not be more excited about the launch of the NWSH Slack group!
If we come together and share knowledge, perspectives, news and opportunities, we can give each other superpowers.
If you have friends or colleagues who’d also find the group useful, then share the news! Just forward this email to them with a prompt to sign up to the newsletter. They’ll receive an introductory email with a link to the Slack group.
Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let others know why you think it’s worth their time. The more people who join us, the stronger we become.
I’ll see you there! Until Sunday, be well,
David.
P.S Huge thanks to Nikki Ritmeijer for the illustration at the top of this email. And to Monique van Dusseldorp for additional research and analysis.