ICYMI Time Warner will now be called WarnerMedia under new owner AT&T

ICYMI Tronc is renaming itself back to Tribune Publishing. Who’s next – Oath (AOL) or Trusted Brands (Reader’s Digest)? #BrandEquity

SoulCycle is launching a media division, hiring talent from Vox Media, Glamour and Mashable. It will create music, video, audio and experiential events.​

The Skimm has Katie Couric lining up a video series, sponsored by Proctor & Gamble

Did you know that Facebook has a print magazine??

This is a 22.7% increase over 2016. And 43% of listeners said they downloaded an audiobook from their library. #LoveAudiobooks

Science proves the book is in fact better than the movie.

The “biggest books redesign ever” features a newer, cleaner UI, with a larger focus on cover art than its predecessor. Like iBooks, the new app includes an editorial section. That’s similar to what the company’s been doing with services like Apple News and the App Store, bringing human writers in to editorially curate book picks. Audiobooks are being served up more prominently here, as well, with the addition of a devoted tab.

The Publishing Steering Committee of the W3C has put out a request for proposals to help with EpubCheck.

What happens when an #AI is trained on data from the dark corners of the Internet? And what ethical guidelines does this suggest to AI programmers and scientists? #bias #ethics #data

D. T. Max writes: Is a narrative built from Facebook comments, texts, and Instagram Stories the future of TV?

Of all the creative industries, art has been the most reluctant to embrace the digital revolution, but now galleries and artists alike seem ready to use immersive technology to create an emotional connection between artworks and their global audiences.

Brownsville – the #VR game: The team aims to release an early version of the game in the neighborhood this summer. Later this year, they intend to offer it for free on Steam, iOS and Android, as well as in kiosks around Brownsville.

Amazon’s Alexa Prize is a multimillion-dollar competition to build AI that can chat like a human. On the face of it, Amazon isn’t asking much: just create a chatbot using Alexa that can talk to a human for 20 minutes without messing up, and you get a $1.5 million prize.

The 2018 FoST Prize is open and seeking submissions! Six finalists will each receive a free ticket to attend the FoST Summit on October 3rd and 4th and have their work showcased there. Two winners will each receive $10,000 and have their work promoted broadly through PR and social media. Submissions due August 2 at 11:59pm EST.

NYC Media Lab is seeking NYC university-based teams that endeavor to start new companies. Join NYC Media Lab’s XR Startup Bootcamp, an accelerator for startup teams focusing on VR/AR, voice technology and other future interfaces. The program will empower teams to adopt the “lean” startup method to search for and develop a business model for their startup concept. Get $10K in funding + mentorship.

As members of the children’s book industry who have built careers with teen and youth readers around the world, we jointly and strongly condemn the inhumane treatment of immigrant children evidenced by the United States Department of Justice in the past week. We believe that innocent children should not be separated from their parents. We believe the “Zero Tolerance” directive issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions is cruel, immoral and outrageous. We believe the Department of Justice is engaging in practices that should be restricted to the pages of dystopian novels. We demand and expect better, and call on our readers to do the same.

Congress can use a Resolution of Disapproval to overrule the FCC. We have to make them.

Stories can facilitate dialogue and promote healthy communication around this difficult topic, and help to foster empathy and understanding. #immigrantswrite

@Google “is partnering with the podcast industry on a program to increase the diversity of voices and remove barriers to podcasting”. You can apply to be part of their ‘podcast creators’ program here: