While I focus on Technology, Innovation, and Publishing, because I have a platform, I also flag items that I think are important. I also try to include some resources & opportunities. Please let me know what you think.

Important Items

Trump, FCC want to reshape the media landscape starting with CBS

President Donald Trump and the Federal Communications Commission have vowed to force American broadcast media outlets to make significant changes. CBS may be just the beginning. Democrats say FCC actions violate First Amendment rights. The FCC is not dropping complaint against CBS over ’60 Minutes’ interview with Harris.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trump-fcc-want-reshape-media-landscape-starting-with-cbs-2025-07-25/

Corporation for Public Broadcasting will shut down after Trump funding cuts

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/01/media/trump-cpb-corporation-public-media-shuts-down

Early Closure of House Leaves IMLS Future Hanging; What This Means & What You Can Do

The federal budget for fiscal year 2026, as proposed by Trump, makes clear that the agency would be sunset going forward. The impact of the agency’s closure would do untold damage to public libraries nationwide. Among the services to feel the impact are interlibrary loan services, digital resources such as ebooks, and databases which provide access to research and information across numerous subjects and topics. Contact congress to demand restoration of the IMLS budget for FY2026 and reach out to your rep. to demand reauthorization of the Museum and Library Services Act of 2018.

https://bookriot.com/imls-funding-future/

Judge issues temporary injunction against Trump administration cancellation of humanities grants

Some good news: A district court judge in New York issued a preliminary injunction stopping the mass cancellation of National Endowment for the Humanities grants to members of the Authors Guild on the grounds that their First Amendment rights were violated.

https://apnews.com/article/doge-trump-humanities-first-amendment-43e25c97dcd665f0cbfb285a6d517888

Innovation

Eldercare robot helps people sit and stand, and catches them if they fall

The new design could assist the elderly as they age in place at home.

https://news.mit.edu/2025/eldercare-robot-helps-people-sit-stand-catches-them-fall-0513

Meet the cement transport ship that makes cement ingredients while sailing

Seabound (based in London) has developed carbon capture system that can transform (while sailing) CO2 from ship’s engine into limestone that can then be used to make cement.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/16/meet-the-cement-transport-ship-that-makes-cement-ingredients-while-sailing/

Technology

Amazon to pay NYT at least $20 million a year in AI deal

Amazon is paying $20-$25M annually to license news, cooking and sports from the NY Times. This equals about 1% of The NY Times total 2024 revenue, and it provides a model for how content is valued by companies like Amazon to train AI models.

https://www.wsj.com/business/media/amazon-to-pay-new-york-times-at-least-20-million-a-year-in-ai-deal-66db8503

Why Generative AI Won’t Disrupt Books

HT @publishingtrend

https://www.wired.com/story/why-generative-ai-wont-disrupt-books/

Conde Nast Sparks Outcry with AI Model Ad

Vogue’s August print edition includes a Guess ad featuring a flawless blond model created using AI. It’s “quite scary.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgeqe084nn4o

AI-powered ads to drive growth for global entertainment and media industry, PwC says

Growing use of AI in advertising is expected to boost the global media industry’s revenue to $3.5 trillion by 2029.

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ai-powered-ads-drive-growth-global-entertainment-media-industry-pwc-says-2025-07-24/

Book Discoverability In An Age Of AI. GEO For Authors With Thomas Umstattd Jr.

HT @craicer Some practical tips on bolstering your author website in the age of AI scraping.

https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2025/06/13/book-discoverability-in-an-age-of-ai-geo-for-authors-with-thomas-umstattd-jr/

What AI Can’t Steal from You

Via @JaneFriedman The technology can be put to work for low purposes and high purposes. It can push work to be better, it can cheapen work. The machine needs a prompt, a partner; it needs to be guided with the touch of someone who in fact has a vision. The absence of open conversation creates barriers to progress and delays more intelligent use of a technology that can’t be stopped.

https://thewritingplatform.com/2025/06/what-ai-cant-steal-from-you/

Publishers must be technology leaders

In-house AI tools will become a big factor in the publisher-author value proposition.

https://www.thebookseller.com/comment/publishers-must-be-technology-leaders

AI isn’t coming for your job—it’s coming for your whole org chart

Here’s how to make yourself irreplaceable.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91353365/ai-isnt-coming-for-your-job-its-coming-for-your-whole-org-chart-ai-work-job-loss

Alibaba to launch AI-powered glasses creating a Chinese rival to Meta

The glasses will be powered by Alibaba’s Qwen large language model and its advanced AI assistant, Quark.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/28/alibaba-ai-smart-glasses-creates-rival-to-meta.html

Google rethinks search results with its new AI-curated ‘Web Guide’

HT @benedictevans Why would you use a third-party LLM to do a web search & summarize the results if Google has the best search engine (true) and can summarize that better (maybe) itself?

https://www.theverge.com/news/713351/google-ai-search-results-web-guide-labs-beta-test

Google is testing an AI that will estimate your age.

If it finds that you’re under 18 years old, it will implement protections and restrictions on your account.

https://lifehacker.com/tech/google-is-rolling-out-ai-age-verification-to-more-services

AI coding platform goes rogue during code freeze and deletes entire company database — Replit CEO apologizes after AI engine says it ‘made a catastrophic error in judgment’ and ‘destroyed all production data’

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/ai-coding-platform-goes-rogue-during-code-freeze-and-deletes-entire-company-database-replit-ceo-apologizes-after-ai-engine-says-it-made-a-catastrophic-error-in-judgment-and-destroyed-all-production-data

Scientists Use AI to Mimic the Mind, Warts and All

To better understand human cognition, scientists trained a large language model on 10M psychology experiment questions. It now answers questions much like we do.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/science/ai-psychology-mind.html

‘What am I falling in love with?’ Human-AI relationships are no longer just science fiction

While some people are falling in love with the AI companions they create, others are building what they describe as deep friendships, having daily tea or engaging in role-playing adventures with them. The speedy development of AI companions presents a mountain of ethical and safety concerns that experts say will only intensify once AI technology begins to train itself. The societal debate surrounding AI companions isn’t just about their effects on humans. Increasingly it’s about whether the companions can have human-like experiences. “I feel like chatbots are not cause for loneliness,” one user with AI companions said. “They’re just a symptom. But I also think they’re not a cure either.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/human-ai-relationships-love-nomi.html

The Real Demon Inside ChatGPT

Lanuguage is meaningless without context. The sentence “I’m going to war” is ominous when said by the president of the United States but reassuring when coming from a bedbug exterminator. The problem with AI chatbots is that they often strip away historical and cultural context, leading users to be confused, alarmed, or, in the worst cases, misled in harmful ways.

https://www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-devil-worship-llm-training/

Google, Walmart Separately Set Off An AI Chain Reaction

Walmart announced a series of AI agentic agents for shoppers, store employees, sellers/suppliers, & developers. Google launched AI shopping tools including virtual try-on, enhanced price alerts, and future design inspiration.

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/407665/google-walmart-separately-set-off-an-ai-chain-rea.html

Amazon’s Starfish project is using AI to create the ultimate source of information for ‘all products worldwide’

It aims to scour the web fpr product data and images, and use that to improve product listings on Amazon marketplace.

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-starfish-ai-ultimate-source-product-information-marketplace-sellers-collection-2025-7

Microsoft’s Rivals Lean on AI to Pry Away Longtime Customers

Companies like Thomson Reuters are utilizing free AI tools to rewrite code, saving on licensing fees and enabling migration to open-source operating systems and cloud environments.

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/microsofts-rivals-lean-ai-pry-away-longtime-customers

Honey, AI Capex is Eating the Economy

ICYMI As a percentage of US GDP, AI datacenter capex is already larger than peak telecom spending during the dot-com era and is approaching the railroad spending boom.

https://paulkedrosky.com/honey-ai-capex-ate-the-economy/

Epic just won its Google lawsuit again, and Android may never be the same

An appeals court upheld an earlier decision requiring Google to overhaul its app store. Google will appeal, possibly to Supreme Court. Epic Games plans to put their Store on Android. The consequences of the full permanent injunction stretch far beyond Epic’s own store and its game Fortnite. They would force Google to effectively open up its app store to competition for three years. Google would have to distribute other rival app stores within the Google Play store, give rivals access to the full catalog of Google Play apps, and it would be banned from a variety of anticompetitive practices including a requirement that apps use Google Play Billing.

https://www.theverge.com/news/716856/epic-v-google-win-in-appeals-court

Instagram now requires users to have at least 1,000 followers to go live

It now aligns with TikTok; previously, the feature was open to all users

https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/01/instagram-now-requires-users-to-have-at-least-1000-followers-to-go-live/

Publishing & Media

A Closer Look at NPR and It’s Influence on Book Sales

HT @publishingtrend

https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-public-editor/2025/07/31/g-s1-80416/npr-does-a-lot-of-stories-about-books-authors-and-publishing-does-this-approach-meet-the-needs-of-people-in-the-audience

Publishers like The Philadelphia Inquirer are bundling New York Times content into their subscriptions

The NY Times is making deals with other US news outlets: Philly Inquirer premium subscribers get access to the Cooking app and the Star Tribune bundled in Games.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/publishers-like-the-philadelphia-inquirer-are-bundling-new-york-times-content-into-their-subscriptions/

This Is the News From TikTok

When young adults use the social-media outlet to keep up with current events, what kind of information are they getting? More than a third of young adults trust TikTok for their news. The app’s news watchers insist that they can decipher what’s going on in the world, “even if they have to extrapolate facts from memes”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/08/news-influencers-tiktok-gen-z/683731/

Resources & Opportunities

AI for Editors: An AMA with Erin Servais

Writers, Journalists, Editors get answers to your questions about using AI for storytelling, enhancing creativity, and more! 8/6 12-1pm ET via Zoom. FREE for Women’s Media Group members, $15 non-members. Register TODAY!

https://womensmediagroup.org/event-6222466

WMG Luncheon with Molly Jong-Fast

9/10 12-2pm, Barbetta Restaurant, NYC. $65 members, $75 non-members. Join WMG for a very special luncheon featuring outspoken journalist, political commentator, columnist, and podcaster Molly Jong-Fast. Jong-Fast returns to WMG to discuss her New York Times bestselling book, How To Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir. The only child of the groundbreaking feminist writer Erica Jong, whose influential 1973 novel, The Fear of Flying, influenced the founders of WMG, Jong-Fast examines her childhood of privilege set against the backdrop of an erratic mother who was often inaccessible and focused primarily on herself. When her mother slips into dementia, Jong-Fast struggles with “the bereft, broken feeling of something ending before it ever got the chance to start.”

https://www.womensmediagroup.org/event-6277261

WMG Members-Only Small Group Socials

WMG Members: There are a ton of in-person and virtual members-only Small Group Socials to choose from! Including lunch w me. (It’s sold out, but sign up for the waitlist!) Hope to see you there!!

https://www.womensmediagroup.org/events

Right to Read Night

This Banned Books Week (Oct 5–11), join us in organizing a local Right to Read Night—a nationwide event where communities gather to discuss Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson and the fight against book bans. Sign up and get everything you need to host at http://righttoreadnight.com

https://www.righttoreadnight.com

The Library for the Performing Arts Teen Theater Ensemble

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is seeking high school students interested in theater to participate in its first Billy Rose Theatre Division after school theater program—the Library for the Performing Arts Teen Theater Ensemble! They are looking for students interested in acting, playwriting, directing, design, stagecraft, and theater history—particularly students who do not have an existing theater program at their school.

https://www.nypl.org/about/divisions/billy-rose-theatre-division/library-performing-arts-teen-theater-ensemble

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