Archive for the ‘Media Control’ Category

Techstars Music announces its 2021 class and a partnership with Quality Control – TechCrunch

This morning Techstars Music is announcing 11 new companies that have joined its ranks, along with a partnership with Atlanta media company/record label Quality Control.

While its easy to mentally bunch everything Techstars does together under the singular Techstars name, its actually made up of 40+ interconnected accelerator programs each with its own focus and portfolio. The majority of these are focused on a specific region programs like Techstars Boulder, Boston or LA. Others focus on a specific vertical or industry like sports, space, or, in this case, music.

So what all does that music focus cover? Its not just music creation tools, or apps for artists. As Techstars Music Managing Director Bob Moczydlowsky put it in a Q&A last year, we dont invest in music companies we invest in companies solving problems for music.

Their past portfolio includes Endel, which generates personalized soundscapes meant to help you focus or fall asleep faster, and Blink Identity, a company looking to replace the paper/digital concert ticket with facial recognition machines at the venues entrance.

555 Comic: Develops virtual characters and uses them to tell stories through social media (like the tweet above). Imagine one artist having multiple personas, with each genre they dabble in represented by a different character, each with an evolving backstory. (Fun trivia: The number five said aloud in Japanese sounds like Go; the Japanese companys name is a play on Go Go Go!)

BlackOakTV: A subscription, on-demand video service focusing on content made by black creators. Currently costs $4.99 a month with apps available on most major platforms.

Creative Futures Collective: A networking/mentoring program aiming to unearth the next generation of creative industry leaders from disenfranchised backgrounds and connect them with jobs and paid internships.

Fave: A social platform meant to help an artists superfans connect with each other and allow them to compete to earn rewards from the artist.

HappsNow: A fully white-labeled ticketing platform meant to give artists/venues more control of the experience.

Holotch: Capture volumetric 3D video with off-the-shelf technology and stream it live. Imagine an artist capturing a performance live, and being able to watch them perform in your living room through augmented reality holograms.

Music Tech Works: A super simplified catalog and workflow for figuring out who owns the rights to a song and acquiring a license to use it.

Image Credits: Rares

Rares: A platform for investing in shares of particularly notable sneakers think game-worn shoes, the hardest to find or those that were never mass produced.

Remetrik: A software platform that aims to bring all of the (often labyrinthian) accounting involved with music royalties into one place in a simple and transparent way.

Volta Audio LTD: A platform for artists to build immersive mixed reality live experiences by, as the company puts it, converting your music into an interactive world. Artist Imogen Heap has been experimenting with the tool during performances over the last few months; weve embedded a bit of a recent stream above.

Westcott Multimedia: An automated advertising platform that looks for events related to a music catalog (like, say, an artists birthday, or a song being played in the background of a viral video) and builds marketing campaigns around them.

Along with this latest class, Techstars Music is also announcing that its partnering with Quality Control, the media house behind Quality Control Music best known as the label behind Migos, Lil Yachty and Lil Baby. Quality Control joins Techstars Music as a member company (sort of like their equivalent to an LP, offering investment, helping to vet companies and mentoring them once theyre in); existing members include Amazon Music, AVEX, Bill Silva Entertainment, Concord, Peloton, Entertainment One, Right Hand Music Group, Royalty Exchange, Sony and Warner Music Group.

Moczydlowsky tells me that Techstars Music alumni companies have raised over $105 million since the first class in 2017 and that the group above has already raised over $3 million ahead of its demo day in May.

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Techstars Music announces its 2021 class and a partnership with Quality Control - TechCrunch

Twitter Will Now Enable Advertisers to Control Who Can Reply to Their Promoted Tweets – Social Media Today

This is... interesting.

After adding the capacity for users to limit who can reply to their tweets last August, Twitter is now extending the same to promoted tweets, so that brands can limit who is able to reply to their ads.

As you can see here, now, within the Twitter ads creation flow, you'll have the option to choose who can replay to your promoted tweet via a new dropdown menu. As with Twitter's regular conversation controls, advertisers will be able to leave it as the default, which will mean that anyone can reply, or they'll be able to select People you follow or Only people you mention, restricting who can respond.

Why might you want to limit who can respond to your promoted tweet?

The main impetus for conversation controls in regular tweets is to stop trolls from commenting, or to limit the conversation for, say, an interview or more intimate discussion. Those same reasons could theoretically apply to promoted tweets - you could avoid potential critical replies by limiting who can respond, or you could effectively promote an interview stemming from your initial promoted tweet by mentioning the interviewee and limiting who can respond.

That could be a good way to add more context to a promotion - while there will also be various other ways in which brands will be able to prompt interaction and engagement by limiting who can respond to their promotions.

Maybe you could offer a discount to specified Twitter handles mentioned in the tweet, or you could make a special offer to anyone who's replies to the tweet - but in order to reply, they'll need to follow your handle (and you can then follow them back).

The option opens up a range of potential creative ideas, and it'll be interesting to see how brands look to utilize this capacity in their promoted tweets.

Definitely, the capability to limit replies has proven popular for regular users - Twitter says that since launch, 11 million people have applied conversation settings to 70 million conversations.

It could well present some new opportunities. Time to get thinking.

You can read more about Twitter's audience controls for promoted tweets here.

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Twitter Will Now Enable Advertisers to Control Who Can Reply to Their Promoted Tweets - Social Media Today

Aguado criticizes the very powerful who control the media and alter polls EXPLICA.CO ALL NEWS IN WORL – Explica

The former vice president of the Community of Madrid and regional leader of Citizens, Ignacio Aguado, said this Sunday that those who they control the media and alter polls are very powerful but can never take away your ability to think for yourself.

This was stated this Sunday in a tweet after a troubled week in which the Madrid president, Isabel Daz Ayuso, dissolved the Madrid Assembly last Wednesday to call early elections, and after that dismissed the advisers of Citizens who were part of the regional government coalition, as well as Aguado as vice president.

Aguado accused the president of betraying the government agreement, and of wanting to call elections for more than a year, as well as of mislead public opinion to make him believe that he had called early elections because there was a motion of censure in the making between the PSOE and Cs against the PP.

This Friday, from the government of Murcia it was announced that three deputies of Citizens would vote against the motion of no confidence organized by his own party with the PSOE.

In addition, this Sunday, Fran Hervas left Ciudadanos to join the PP in an attempt to unify the center-right vote.

They control the media, put on and take out talk shows, alter the polls to condition the mood of public opinion. They are very powerful, there is no doubt. But they can never take away your ability to think for yourself, to be critical and free. Lets go Citizens , he wrote in his account on the social network Twitter.

They control the media, put on and take out chat rooms, alter polls to condition the mood of public opinion.

They are very powerful, there is no doubt.

But they can never take away your ability to think for yourself, to be critical and free. #VamosCs

Ignacio Aguado (@ignacioaguado) March 14, 2021

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Aguado criticizes the very powerful who control the media and alter polls EXPLICA.CO ALL NEWS IN WORL - Explica

Why randomized controlled trials on mask wearing and the coronavirus are scant – PolitiFact

Nearly a year since the CDC first started recommending wearing face coverings in public, social media users are still denying their efficacy.

"Every real world, randomized controlled trial on mask effectiveness demonstrates that masks are not effective in reducing the spread of viral infections," says author Shawn Stevenson in an Instagram video.

The post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

A randomized controlled trial is a scientific study that randomly sorts participants into an experimental group and a control group to study the effect of a particular variable on the outcome. Randomized controlled trials are time-consuming and expensive, but well-designed ones are more effective at minimizing bias than most other types of studies.

So is Stevenson correct in saying that there are no randomized controlled trials demonstrating the effectiveness of mask use in blunting viral infections? No, hes not. Multiple randomized controlled trials have shown that mask-wearing effectively blunts the spread of other coronaviruses and influenza-like diseases.

And Stevensons assertion that no randomized controlled trials have conclusively proven that masks prevent the spread specifically of Sars-CoV-2 ignores that there is no lack of scientific proof establishing the efficacy of mask wearing. It also very notably misleads by leaving out the reason why randomized controlled trials have not been used for this purpose: in the midst of a pandemic, employing these methods to study the question would widely be considered unethical.

We reached out to four public health experts and asked them to sum up the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of mask use. They provided scores of systematic reviews, ecological studies and laboratory studies showing that masks play an important role in reducing the spread of the coronavirus and play a critical role in interrupting viral transmission.

Stevenson did not return a request for comment.

Why are there so few randomized controlled trials on mask use?

To conduct a randomized controlled trial on the efficacy of masks, researchers would have to randomly assign some members of a community not to wear a face mask for a long period of time to see whether they got sick at higher rates than a control group.

Practically there is no way that scientists could run a study like this during a global pandemic without endangering trial participants and other people they encountered out in the world.

"Randomized controlled trials are pretty much the gold standard, but theyre not always ethical," said Mary Kathryn Grabowski, an assistant professor in epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. "We cant just send people out without masks in the middle of a pandemic in the same way we cant randomize people to not use a parachute when they jump out of a plane."

According to Babak Javid, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, only one randomized controlled trial of mask use has been conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study attempted to show whether volunteers who were given and taught to wear surgical masks were more protected from the coronavirus than those who werent. However, the study didnt analyze source control the ability of masks to prevent infected wearers from spreading the virus to other people which is the primary reason why scientists believe masks are effective at interrupting transmission.

This study, known as DANMASK-19, adhered to ethical guidelines because it was conducted in Denmark early in the pandemic while community spread of the coronavirus was at only 2%. However, that also limited its scope and precision, said Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Nikolas Wada.

Beyond the fact that the study was underpowered, it had other limitations, said Wada. Huge numbers of trial participants did not comply with their directions, with less than half the people in the masked group reporting that they wore face coverings as instructed. In addition, the study was conducted at a time when other public health guidelines such as social distancing were being implemented, making it difficult to tell what protection came from the masks and what came from these other measures.

Despite these imperfections, the study found that those who wore masks were 18% less likely to be infected than those who did not. However, since the study was only designed to detect a large effect greater than 50%, the 18% difference was statistically insignificant, meaning that it could have happened by chance.

Some social media users such as Stevenson cite the DANMASK-19 study as evidence that masks dont work. However, Wada said, this is actually a common misinterpretation of the study.

"Basically, you couldn't draw up a better design to show no mask benefit, but there appears to have been a benefit anyway. And that's just to protect the wearer, without any measurement of source control," said Wada.

Why do we know that masks are effective?

No scientific study is perfect. Instead of basing their opinions off individual trials, public health experts look beyond isolated articles to see whether the totality of research points in one direction or the other.

"I think taking individual studies on masks and using them to make a point without considering the totality of the literature is a really bad idea," said Grabowski. "Its important to consider all of the data and all of the research on this topic."

Building off that principle, Grabowski and her colleagues at Johns Hopkins have compiled a list of significant scientific studies on COVID-19 and analyze the findings and limitations of each.

Due to the lack of randomized controlled trials on mask uses effectiveness against COVID-19, public health experts have based their guidance on a variety of other scientific studies: systematic reviews, ecological studies and laboratory studies.

Systematic reviews are papers that pool existing studies and try to answer a narrowly defined question using a larger data set than any of the studies had individually. According to scientific hierarchies of evidence, systematic reviews are generally thought to produce the most reliable evidence.

A systematic review on mask-use published in the Lancet analyzed 172 observational studies across 16 countries and six continents and found that "Face mask use could result in a large reduction in risk of infection with stronger associations with N95 or similar respirators compared with disposable surgical masks or similar." However, many of the studies included in the review took place in healthcare settings rather than in community settings.

Another systematic review on the ability of mask-use to interrupt the spread of respiratory illnesses, which included 67 randomized controlled trials and observational studies, found that "overall masks were the best performing intervention across populations, settings and threats."

There have also been a wealth of ecological studies on masks and COVID-19. These studies analyze the effect that specific localized public health measures have on coronavirus case rates after theyre implemented. These papers have consistently found that mask mandates cause sharp declines in coronavirus case rates.

One of these papers, which analyzed 15 U.S. states found that daily infection rates decreased significantly after mask mandates were introduced. In seven of the 15 states, researchers from UC San Diego and Texas A&M found that the number of new infections per day increased steadily only to fall after face-mask requirements were implemented. In the six states the researchers analyzed that never implemented mask mandates, infections continued to increase on the same upward line. They estimated that mask mandates had prevented a total of 252,000 infections on May 18, equivalent to nearly 17% of infections in the nation at that point in time.

Finally, scientists have studied the spread of coronavirus particles in laboratory settings and found that masks are effective at stopping them from dispersing into the air, suggesting that they also function that way in real world settings.

Its important to note, said Javid, that mask-wearing shouldnt be viewed as a panacea for COVID-19 control. Some people who wear masks will get sick or spread the virus to others. The best scientific evidence shows that masks help to prevent viral spread, but that their effectiveness varies based on the quality of the mask worn and the strictness with which people adhere to mask-wearing guidelines.

"Unless one wears a properly fitted respirator mask for all interactions outside of the household, masks cannot, by themselves, completely interrupt transmission," he said. "Nonetheless, from what we know about the biology of the disease, and the biophysics of droplet and aerosol production, there is a strong rationale for why masks can have some effect in both protecting the wearer and as source control."

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Why randomized controlled trials on mask wearing and the coronavirus are scant - PolitiFact

2022 Audi Q4 e-tron EV Previewed, Will Have Augmented-Reality Head-Up Display – Car and Driver

Audi's on a roll with the e-tron line. The 2022 Q4 e-tron is the fourth e-tron electric vehicle from the German automaker coming to the United States, and its entering the coveted compact-SUV space. Based on the Volkswagen Group's MEB platform, the electric SUV boasts cargo space behind the front seats that's nearly on par with the 2021 Audi Q5 and has a new augmented-reality HUD system with a flying arrow that assists with navigation.

As is their modus operandi, the production version of the 2022 Q4 e-tron is initially being shown off covered in camouflage. But even with all the orange and white, its clear the exterior design of the vehicle is extremely close to the Q4 e-tron concept the automaker showed off in 2019. With a wheelbase of 108.7 inches and a length of 180.7 inches, the Q4 e-tron has nearly the same exterior dimensions as the 2021 Volkswagen ID.4, which also rides on the MEB platform, although the Audi is about one inch shorter.

But while VW is going for a more minimalist approach, Audis Q4 e-tron interior is reflective of the luxury brand. The Q4 e-tron has a 10.3-inch instrument cluster housing the all-digital "virtual cockpit" we've seen from the automaker for the past few years. In the dash, the latest version of the automakers MMI infotainment system is housed in either a standard 10.1-inch display or an optional 11.6-inch display. Fans of actual tangible buttons will be happy to know that the climate controls are operated via physical buttons directly below the infotainment screen while the gear shifter, drive mode, and media control buttons are housed in a floating center console with room underneath for storage.

On the windshield, Audi is introducing an augmented-reality head-up display (HUD) similar to what Mercedes has added to the latest version of MBUX. In addition to the usual projected driving information, the Q4 e-tron will superimpose navigation elements onto the windshield. Information about upcoming intersectoins will be projected in addition to a dynamic floating arrow that appears ahead of route actions. For example, it will appear ahead of a turn at an intersection to help the driver stay on the correct route. It should be helpful particularly in roundabouts and at complex intersections with more than the typical four roads.

The interior will be available in the traditional leather/faux-leather mixture with the option of nappa leather throughout. As with nearly all EVs, there is a more sustainable interior solution, a mixture of faux eather and Dinamica microfiber, which is made from 45 percent recycled textiles and plastic bottles. Audi says the result is a material that looks and feels like suede.

Cargo-wise, with the rear seats down, the 2022 Q4 e-tron has 52.6 cubic feet of space, which is nearly on par with the larger 2021 Audi Q5s 53.1 cubic feet of cargo space behind the front seats. With the rear seats up, the Q4 e-tron has 18.4 cubic feet of cargo space.

While pricing and range information havent been shared yet, the 2021 Volvo XC40 Recharge is likely the closest competitor to the Q4 e-tron in the luxury compact electric SUV space. The Audi is 6.5 inches longer and has 5.2 inches more total cargo space than the electric Volvo.

Audi didn't share motor or battery specs. It's likely saving that information for the reveal of the vehicle next month. Pricing information is also unavailable, but we predict that the 2022 Audi Q4 e-tron will start at around $55,000. Audi is expected to place the Q4 e-tron into production by the end of this year with vehicle deliveries expected to begin in early 2022.

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2022 Audi Q4 e-tron EV Previewed, Will Have Augmented-Reality Head-Up Display - Car and Driver