Smart accessories are increasingly common. Rings and watches track vitals, while Ray-Bans now come with cameras and microphones. Wearable tech has even broached brooches. Yet certain accessories have yet to get the smart touch. University of Washington researchers introduced the Thermal Earring, a wireless wearable that continuously monitors a user’s earlobe temperature. In a study of six...
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First Amendment Disequilibrium: Can Modernizing Outdated First Amendment Doctrines Enhance Democracy?
New legal protections are needed to empower the media to play its vital role in informing citizens about their government. The press and the executive branch routinely battle over access to government secrets. Frequently reporters seek to extract information the government would prefer to withhold and to withhold information the government would prefer to extract....
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Biden Administration Pressured Amazon to Censor Books That Questioned Covid Vaccines
Senior Biden administration aides summoned Amazon officials to the White House during the height of the pandemic to discuss “propaganda and misinformation” in books for sale on the retail giant’s website that questioned the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. White House officials “spent a week berating Amazon” in March 2021 over books related to “vaccine misinformation” and asked what steps...
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Dietary Supplements and Protein Powders Fall Under a ‘Wild West’ of Unregulated Products That Necessitate Caveats and Caution
Dietary supplements are a big business. The industry made almost US$39 billion in revenue in 2022, and with very little regulation and oversight, it stands to keep growing. The marketing of dietary supplements has been quite effective, with 77% of Americans reporting feeling that the supplement industry is trustworthy. The idea of taking your health...
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From Rebel to Retail − Inside Bob Marley’s Posthumous Musical and Merchandising Empire
The long-awaited Bob Marley biopic “One Love” will highlight important moments in the musician’s life – his adolescence in Trench Town, his spiritual growth, the attempt on his life. But as a music industry scholar, I wonder if the film is yet another extension of the Marley marketing machine. Marley died in 1981 at the...
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Why Elon Musk’s ‘Self-Driving’ of Tesla’s Board and Its Decision to Pay Him $56B Collided with the Law – and What Happens Next
Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick has blocked Elon Musk’s US$55.8 billion pay package, which Tesla’s board of directors approved in 2018 through a process she found to be “deeply flawed.” No CEO of a publicly traded U.S. company has ever been paid this much for one year’s work, according to Equilar, which...
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Regulation Makes Crypto Markets More Efficient
First-of-its-kind research on cryptocurrency finds that the most regulated coins create the most efficient markets. That crypto regulation, often provided by cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, can also help protect investors by providing reliable, public information. “Both small and institutional investors should know, if they invest in coins without any regulation, they may suffer from price...
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A Sleeker Facial Recognition Technology Tested on Michelangelo’s David
Many people are familiar with facial recognition systems that unlock smartphones and game systems or allow access to our bank accounts online. But the current technology can require boxy projectors and lenses. Now, researchers report in ACS’ Nano Letters a sleeker 3D surface imaging system with flatter, simplified optics. In proof-of-concept demonstrations, the new system recognized the...
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Why Artists Should Learn How to Use AI Tools
In his talk at Rhizome’s 7×7 conference, the musician and comedian Reggie Watts said that artists should learn how to use the creative applications of artificial intelligence so they can ‘be at the table and have an opinion.’ His words summed up the ethos of the event, which invited artists who had not previously worked...
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How to Finance Your Art Collection
Collectors are increasingly using loans to buy; Art Basel examines the mechanisms Andy Warhol famously quipped that ‘being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.’ But an artwork is itself an investment, and few collectors would ignore that their purchases can appreciate in value. Unlike stocks and other fungible assets, however, unique artworks...
