Netflix To End User Reviews by End of Summer

Netflix has announced that by end of this summer, user reviews will no longer be available on the website stating that - that's what Social Media is for. https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/06/netflix-is-ditching-user-reviews/

Key Takeaway

This can go one of two ways - either this is a signal to everyone that user reviews should reside on platforms like Rotten Tomatoes, or Netflix is simply hoping to drive more viewership without pesky bad reviews of that latest Adam Sandler movie.

MIT Builds a Robot that Sees Through Touch

Contrary to previous robots, we now have robots that can maneuver through difficult terrain by touch instead of cameras. This breakthrough solves for myriad problems like cameras melting in the Fukushima nuclear disaster or simply misrepresentations of what a camera thinks its seeing. https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/5/17537160/mits-cheetah-3-robot-run-up-stairs

Key Takeaway

Until now, all automated vehicles relied on Computer Vision (the algorithm that translates a camera's data into objects that a computer recognizes) to interpret the world around itself. Poor computer vision, for example, is what lead to a number of Uber crashes lately. The ability to use touch instead of solely relying on vision is huge. As one example - if your car can tell the road is slippery, it will likely drive itself very differently than simply seeing the ground as wet.

There are some creepy implications here for ad technology as well; however, our computers aren't equipped with a whole hell of a lot of physical sensors (aside from gyroscopes and thermometers).

Over 800 Cryptocurrencies Are Now Defunct

Over the past 18 months, 800 cryptocurrencies have dropped in value to less than $1. Pundits are comparing these currencies to the drop in the NASDAQ in 2000 when the dot com bubble burst. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/02/over-800-cryptocurrencies-are-now-dead-as-bitcoin-feels-pressure.html

Key Takeaway

Bitcoin has dropped by 70% since it's peak nearly a year ago and unfortunately there have been too many ICOs (Initial Coin Offering) that turned out to be scams, or simply failed products. Without a serious bump in credibility, things don't look so good unless somebody figures out how to do something scalably profitable through Blockchain.