Innovation
The 10 most innovative companies in augmented and virtual reality — www.fastcompany.com
Snap, Supernatural, Valve, Qualcomm, Nreal, and five more companies creating the future of computing today. #AR#VR
Niantic is testing Pokemon Go on HoloLens 2 to let you play with friends remotely — www.cnet.com
CEO John Hanke talks about the leap to AR glasses, and figuring out telepresence.
Researchers Created a High-Contrast Transparent Screen That Might Make You Want to Wear Smart Glasses
gizmodo.com
See-through displays could make smart glasses more appealing.
Santa Monica is testing the first zero-emissions delivery zone — www.fastcompany.com
Deliveries have skyrocketed during the pandemic. This California city wants to nudge companies to make sure they’re happening in nonpolluting vehicles.
Exploring NFT Collectibles for Authors
HT @BISG A key thesis, substantiated by many others in the industry, is that digital collectibles, through non-fungible tokens (NFTs), can reinvent the creative economy. It’s subverting the creative work: make it as accessible as possible and sell digital collectibles related to the creative work. Thus: instead of trying to restrain or restrict creative works, it’s more valuable if it’s more freely available and accessible. It’s a holy grail for content.
Photoshop’s new AI feature quadruples the amount of pixels in your photos — thenextweb.com
Adobe Photoshop’s new Super Resolution feature uses machine learning to upscale photos while maintaining the details. via @thenextweb #photoshop
Technology
Good news: Adobe Photoshop for the M1 Macs has arrived. Not so good news: It has fewer features than the Intel version — www.macworld.com
Adobe pushes the M1 native version of Photoshop to all users, but there are some differences between it and the Rosetta app.
Turntable.fm is back: Users create their own radio stations & DJ sets — www.theverge.com
Turntable, a site that used to allow people to share their music sets and playlists with others before it died in 2013, has come back. Now, there are two sites, the original Turntable.fm, and a new Turntable.org, both with original team members.
E-mail Is Making Us Miserable — www.newyorker.com
Food for thought: In an attempt to work more effectively, we’ve accidentally deployed an inhumane way to collaborate.
Publishing & Media
ICYMI Infographic: The Most Instagrammed Book Covers — www.publishersweekly.com
Spain and Latin America See Entrepreneurial Growth — www.publishersweekly.com
A new platform in Spain offers matchmaking between publishers and distributors; Argentina’s Trini Vegara launches a new publishing house: and Denmark’s Podimo audio platform focuses on Latin America.
Frankfurt Book Fair 2021 confirmed as hybrid event — www.thebookseller.com
Plans for this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair have been revealed, taking place from 20th to 24th October under the motto of “re:connect”, featuring “significantly” lower fees for physical stands and supported by an accompanying digital programme.
Use ‘tremendously useful’ data, Raccah urges IPG forum — www.thebookseller.com
MT @thebookseller “Our failure rate in publishing is extraordinary — 60% to 70% of the books we publish are not commensurate with the effort we put it in. How do we help to make that more successful?”, Dominque Raccah urges publishers to use data at @ipghq’s #ipf21
RT @ipghq “What do authors think of their publishers’ efforts? Here are the numbers from a survey with @samatlounge. In short: great on editorial, not so hot on marketing #ipf21”
Scribd Announces an Audiobook Production Line, Highlighting Independent Publishers
MT @pubperspectives Scribd Announces an Audiobook Production Line, Highlighting Independent Publishers | @Porter_Anderson @Scribd | In its second imprint, the subscription service Scribd adds self-produced audiobook titles, opening with ‘Black Imagination.’
Amazon withholds its ebooks from libraries because it prefers you pay it instead — www.theverge.com
Amazon is withholding ebooks and audiobooks it publishes through its own in-house publishing arms from US libraries, according to a new report from The Washington Post. That’s because it doesn’t like the terms involved with selling to libraries that then loan out versions on platforms like Libby. #libraries #Amazon
George C. Wolfe In Talks To Adapt Toni Morrison’s ‘Song Of Solomon’ As Limited Series For Fremantle & Playground Entertainment — deadline.com
Toni Morrison’s novel Song of Solomon is getting the TV treatment with a limited series adaptation in the works with Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom director George C. Wolfe in talks to adapt.
Checkmate! Popular Award Winning Netflix Series “The Queen’s Gambit” Will Be a Broadway Musical — www.showbiz411.com
Not surprised: Broadway producers have made their move, and it’s checkmate. They’ve optioned “The Queen’s Gambit” to be a musical. #BookToStage #ReadTheBook1st #teamPRH
African Publishing Innovation Fund Names Five 2021 Projects — publishingperspectives.com
These new African Publishing Innovation Fund addresses educational shortfalls in parts of Africa where students don’t have adequate resources.
Meet the badass librarians of the NYPL — nypost.com
HT @BakerChair This March, in honor of Women’s History Month, the New York Public Library will pay tribute to some of the women who helped shape the institution.
The State of Podcast Listening for 2021
Per the 2021 edition of The Infinite Dial, the percentage of Americans 12+ who say they have ever listened to a podcast is now 57%, or approximately 162 million Americans — that’s enough to be the ninth-largest country on earth. 41% of the US population 12+ listened to at least one podcast in the last month.
Making a Hollywood movie, from home: Using cloud computing to film a thriller in a pandemic — www.zdnet.com
Using a brand-new camera-to-cloud technology, Songbird’s crew was able to film a full-length feature film in the middle of a global health crisis.
Malala Yousafzai makes a major film, TV deal with Apple — apnews.com
Malala Yousafzai is a Nobel laureate known around the world for her activism, but she’s also a cartoon fan, and is taking her love of television and film to Apple. #Apple
The New Yorker leans into crossword puzzles online and, now, in print — www.niemanlab.org
HT @Adriana_Lacy “If you’re looking at a metric like unique visitors, the audience for the crossword is not colossal. But if you’re looking at people who subscribe, or people who read multiple articles a month, those are groups that really value our crossword….At The Wall Street Journal, for example, a team looking to increase subscribers’ active days found that playing a puzzle had a more dramatic impact on reader retention than other actions the team had been promoting to new subscribers.”
Cosmo Wants to Own Commerce With Livestreaming and Clubhouse — www.adweek.com
The industry eyes China’s $125 billion virtual shopping market. Hearst Magazines’ Cosmopolitan is building up its commerce repertoire through semi-annual deal days, Clubhouse chats with editors and designers, and livestreamed commerce.
Resources & Opportunities
Podcasting, Seriously Awards Fund — www.podcastingseriously.com
RT @LanWilCo We’re excited to announce #ThePodcastingSeriouslyAwardsFund! Along with @AIRmedia & @pacificcontent we’re on a mission to help QTBIPOC independent audio professionals submit work to US competitions by covering submission fees. Learn more, apply, & support
Emerging Voices Fellowship — PEN America — pen.org
RT @PENamerica Apply for the Emerging Voices Fellowship — a five-month fellowship that nurtures creative community, provides a professional skill-set & demystifies the path to publication for early-career writers traditionally underrepresented in the publishing world.
Arts Educator Emergency Relief Fund — NYC AiE Roundtable — nycaieroundtable.org
MT @nycaier The Roundtable is excited to announce that teaching artists and arts education administrators can apply for a new round of funding from the Arts Educator Emergency Relief Fund- a one-time, unrestricted $1,000 grant!
2020 Beatrice Warde Scholarship Competition Deadline Extended to April 1 — The Type Directors Club — www.tdc.org
MT @typedirectors During her career at Monotype Corporation, Beatrice Warde championed education + spread understanding of typography. To honor her, TDC + Monotype set up the Beatrice Warde Scholarship. Female undergraduate design students everywhere in the world are encouraged to apply.
Advice for young editors — twitter.com
RT @jhanteigh “Hello! If you’re a young editor (or editorial hopeful) in the industry looking for advice/mentorship, I’ve set aside 12 pm-1 pm on my calendar every Friday for JK Open Hours. You can email me if you want to chat! First come, first served, and you can ask for a 30 or 60 min block.”
Virtual Bookish Events for March 15–21 — sarahnicolas.substack.com
A weekly list via @Sarah_Nicolas
Join us for Penguin Teen Book Fest! — www.penguinteen.com
MT @PenguinTeen Get ready for #PenguinTeenBookFest! Join us March 18–20 for a virtual bookish celebration filled with panels, giveaways, games, and more! See the schedule: http://bit.ly/PTBookFest #teamPRH
Free Dallas Literary Festival
www.dallasliteraryfestival.org
RT @mad2034 Mark your calendars and register for events! March 26–28 @DallasLiterary Festival is entirely FREE this year and has an absolutely incredible line-up featuring Mitchell Jackson, Joy Harjo, Steph Cha, Charles Blow and many more.
Free Poem-a-day email during National Poetry Month
MT @AAKnopf Did you know that during April (National Poetry Month) Knopf sends out a poem-a-day straight to your inbox? #teamPRH
NYS Vaccination Jobs — www.tempositions.com
RT @uche_blackstock DATA ENTRY HELP NEEDED FOR VACCINES AT JAVITS CENTER: The Javits Center is DESPERATE for help administering the vaccine. Pay is $27/hr & there’s lots of OT (12 hour shifts). THIS IS ALL DATA ENTRY! You also get vaccinated in the first couple of days!
WMG “You Don’t Have to Read the Book” Book Club: Come Hope or High Water
Free virtual book club for WMG members 3/17 at 6pm ET.
Cry from Laughter! Annabelle Gurwitch in Conversation with Sandra Tsing Loh
You deserve a laugh! Sign up today to hear the hilarious Annabelle Gurwitch in conversation w @SandraTsingLoh as they celebrate @LAGurwitch’s new book, You’re Leaving When? on April 13 at 6pm ET @WMG_NYC — Open to Members and Non-Members! #YoureLeavingWhen #ReadWomen #WomenSupportingWomen