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Just in case there was any doubt about how Jack Dorsey really feels about Bluesky, the former Twitter CEO has offered new details on why he left the board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart. In a characteristically bizarre interview with Mike Solana of Founders Fund, Dorsey had plenty of criticism for Bluesky. In the interview, Dorsey claimed that Bluesky was literally repeating all the mistakes he made while running Twitter. The entire conversation is long and a bit rambly, but Dorseys complaints seem to boil down to two issues: He never intended Bluesky to be an independent company with its own board and stock and other vestiges of a corporate entity (Bluesky spun out of Twitter as a public benefit corporation in 2022.) Instead, his plan was for Twitter to be the first client to take advantage of the open source protocol. Bluesky created. The fact that Blueksy has some form of content moderation and has occasionally banned users for things like using racial slurs in their usernames. People started seeing Bluesky as something to run to, away from Twitter, Dorsey said. It's the thing that's not Twitter, and therefore it's great. And Bluesky saw this exodus of people from Twitter show up, and it was a very, very common crowd. But little by little, they started asking Jay and the team for moderation tools, and to kick people off. And unfortunately they followed through with it. That was the second moment I thought, uh, nope. This is literally repeating all the mistakes we made as a company. Dorsey also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among some crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder. I know it's early, and Nostr is weird and hard to use, but if you truly believe in censorship resistance and free speech, you have to use the technologies that actually enable that, and defend your rights, Dorsey said. A lot of this isnt particularly surprising. If youve followed Dorseys public comments over the last couple years, hes repeatedly said that Twitters original sin was being a company that would be beholden to advertisers and other corporate interests. Its why he backed Elon Musks takeover of the company. (Not coincidentally, Dorsey still has about $1 billion of his personal wealth invested in the company now known as X.) Hes also been very clear that he made many of Twitters most consequential moderation decisions reluctantly. Unsurprisingly, Dorseys comments werent well-received on Bluesky. In a lengthy thread, Blueskys protocol engineer Paul Frazee said that Twitter was supposed to to be the AT Protocols first client but that Elon killed that straight dead after he took over the company. That entire company was frozen by the prolonged acquisition, and the agreement quickly ended when Elon took over, Frazee said. It was never going to happen. Also: unmoderated spaces are a ridiculous idea. We created a shared network for competing moderated spaces to exist. Even if somebody wanted to make an unmoderated ATProto app, I guess they could? Good luck with the app stores and regulators and users, I guess. While Dorsey was careful not to criticize Musk directly, he was slightly less enthusiastic than when he said that Musk would be the one to extend the light of consciousness by taking over Twitter. Dorsey noted that, while he used to fight government requests to take down accounts, Musk takes the other path and generally complies. Elon will fight in the way he fights, and I appreciate that, but he could certainly be compromised, Dorsey said.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/jack-dorsey-claims-bluesky-is-repeating-all-the-mistakes-he-made-at-twitter-234326121.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Apple has reportedly apologized for its tone-deaf Crush! ad that sparked a furious backlash with artists, musicians and other creators. AdAge reports that Apple said the video missed the mark and has scrapped plans to run the cutesy-turned-cringey commercial on TV. Its clear that Apple intended for the ad to serve as a metaphor for all the myriad creative tools one has when they throw down $1,000 or more for a new iPad Pro. Run during Tuesdays event, the video shows a series of musical instruments and other tools for human expression, including a guitar, drums, trumpet, amplifiers, record player, TV and much more. All I Ever Need Is You by Sonny & Cher soundtracks the clip. Soon, its revealed that the objects are all sitting on an industrial crusher, which descends upon the scattered creative instruments, exploding in plumes of satisfyingly colorful smoke. But when the crusher pulls back up, we see that everything was transformed into a shiny new iPad Pro. Apple A decade ago, this ad likely wouldnt have been a big deal. But Apples marketers completely whiffed on the context of the moment. The ad comes weeks before Apple will take the stage at WWDC to announce its generative AI features that its investors have been salivating for. Generative AI, as you may have heard, needs something to train on and that means humans work. It learns from existing content to make algorithmically generated words, pictures, music, voices or who knows what else. It also has the capability to put those same creators most of whom dont have cushy jobs at Apple or other Big Five tech companies out of work as corporations and consumers eagerly adopt the robots destined to put creators on the unemployment line. Context is everything, and Apple failed spectacularly there. Its ad serves as a pitch-perfect metaphor for generative AIs potential to crush human creation, turning us all into prompt artists who type words into text boxes to replace their years of training and experience. (Granted, generative AI has genuinely exciting applications, too, but much more needs to be made of the society-level chaos it can and will unleash.) Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and its incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world, Tor Myhren, Apple VP of marketing communications, told AdAge. Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and were sorry. Hey, an apology means something. But well see what tone Apple adopts next month when it rolls out the tools that set the stage for the apology in the first place. Something tells me that train is out of the station and will be plowing forward full steam, no matter how much creativity the company has in its DNA. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-apologizes-for-its-tone-deaf-ad-that-crushed-human-creativity-to-make-an-ipad-211116524.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Google has an offer for iPad owners who are curious about the Pixel Tablet. The company has a trade-in promotion that covers at least the cost of the Pixel Tablet for iPad owners if not more, depending on which model you have. It works with Samsung tablets as well, but those trade-in values are lower. The Pixel Tablet costs $399 (without deals) for 128GB storage and no charging speaker dock. The promo works with iPads as old as the sixth-generation model from six years ago. For that, Google will give you a surprising $399 matching the Pixel Tablets base cost. That iPad model only cost $329 in 2018, so Google is overpaying by a lot for that one. However, Google balances that with much worse offers for modern, high-end iPads. For example, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro with M2 chip (2022) only nets $450. Until this week (when the company launched a new iPad Pro and iPad Air), Apple sold that model for $1,099, so we dont recommend that trade-in price. If youre done with a high-end iPad from the last few years, you can likely sell it on places like eBay, Craigslist or Swappa for significantly more. Sam Rutherford for Engadget The Pixel Tablet stands out from its Android-running competitors by working with a charging speaker base that lets the device double as a smart display, making it much more versatile. Engadgets Cherlynn Low thought that part overshadowed its core functionality as a tablet. As a smart display, the Pixel Tablet mostly shines. It has a useful dashboard, an easy-to-read interface and impressive audio quality, she wrote in our full review. The tablet has a 10.95-inch display with a 2,560 x 1,600 resolution (276 PPI) and runs on a Google Tensor G2 chip. It weighs slightly over a pound and is lighter than Android rivals like the Galaxy Tab S8 and OnePlus Pad. Its back has a nano-ceramic coating that gives it a premium, glass-like feeling that you may not expect from a $399 device. Accessories are where the Pixel Tablet stands out the most. Googles Pixel Tablet Case, sold separately for $79, has a built-in kickstand that makes the slate more versatile. What I love about the kickstand-hanger-combo is that it allows you to place the Tablet pretty much anywhere, Low wrote in Engadgets review. So when I want to hang it off a kitchen cabinet to follow along with a recipe video or keep watching Love Is Blind for example, I can. And though the 2,560 x 1,600 LCD panel isnt as vibrant as the OLED on Samsungs Galaxy Tabs, it still produced crisp details and colorful images. The star accessory is Googles $129 charging speaker dock, which you can use without removing the kickstand case. This product transforms the tablet into a smart display, potentially voiding the need for other smart home control hubs. The speaker has impressive sound for its size, making it easier to hear its responses if you arent right next to it. Googles fine print notes that the trade-in value will be finalized after receiving the tablet, and it could be lower if it determines the condition doesnt match what you selected during the trade-in process. The refund will be processed on the credit card you used to buy the Pixel Tablet (or through Google Store credit if you return your purchase during that time). Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/get-up-to-450-off-a-google-pixel-tablet-when-you-trade-in-your-old-ipad-or-android-slab-192718892.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
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