The Coca-Cola Company’s bottle have a long history as part of the Coke brand’s portfolio. The iconic bottle design has undergone recent cosmetic changes that bring together environmental sustainabilty, branding, trade mark, supply chain innovations and more. It may not seem like a big deal to drop the bottle weight from 21 grams last year to 18.5 grams this year, but these changes to arguably the most recognisable softdrink bottle have required juggling the company’s efforts to introduce more sustainable packaging without jeposiding the long brand legacy of the bottle design or compromising the fizz you get when you open the lid.

There is a lot of talk about AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more  → at the moment. Certainly, I have been reading lots of articles about it. This piece by Professor Terry Flew is a bit philosophical and a lot academic. But it does present a role for the arts and humanities that makes a lot of sense to me: “… the answers to [ethical] questions raised [by AI] are not intrinsic to the science that developed them.” Flew goes on to say, “In order to give AI’s development and deployment a sense of social purpose, it is not enough to simply regulate it, although that is important. It is to be prepared to open up conversations about values and the space that learning, as distinct from politics or science, provides for the exchange and contestation of competing visions of the good society. And those are humanities-type questions.”

Four years on from the start of the Job-ready Graduates program and Arts students are now paying up to four times more HECS than STEM students. Despite this UNSW reports that Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, Design and Creative Arts enrollments are are up 16.5 percent. It seems “The former government’s attempt to use pricing controls to steer students into politically favoured disciplines was clearly misguided.”

Professor Axel Bruns has a detailed look on his blog about Meta’s recent announcements that it will not renew its (secret) commercial deals with Australian news media organisations and will downrank news content on Instagram and Threads. It is worth reading in full, but here are the takeaways for me: the presumption behind the Australian News Media Bargaining CodeA scheme set up by the Australian Government to compell specific tech companies to negotiate payments to news organisations for news content on their platforms. that news content is too important to Meta platforms is wrong, in fact, while it generates some engagement (and therefore ad revenue), it also can generate “… controversial debate, abuse, hate speech, mis- and disinformation that are costly to [Meta to] moderate.” It is more more trouble than it’s worth to Meta so downplaying or dumping news is a more attractive option. As Bruns suggests, “… having no news on its platforms would solve a lot of policy and political problems for Meta…” The News Media Bargaining CodeA scheme set up by the Australian Government to compell specific tech companies to negotiate payments to news organisations for news content on their platforms. was a blunt instrument to attempt to address news media’s failing business model by forcing search and social media platforms to redistribute some advertising revenue to news organisations. Largely for political reasons it was constructed in such a way that compulsory direct negotiations occur at arms’ length from government and regulatory agencies and the scheme has only really has served mainstream news organisations.

I also agree with Bruns that “… Meta will continue to use Australia as a test case for calibrating its response to similar policies elsewhere in the world – and that the Australian experience (of short-term negative PR from the 2021 news ban, but apparently very limited long-term consequences in terms of user attitudes or behaviours) has emboldened it to reduce the circulation of news on its platforms world-wide.” But, its policy of downranking news and politics (which gets it out of news as best it can without an explicit all-out news ban) isn’t good for democracy because citizens that are not actively looking for news will see even less of it on the major social media platforms as news publishers further retreat into their voluntarily self-enclosure paywalls. ⟨  And separate to all of that, I still ask the question: why is news such a privileged form of content that it alone should get a cut of the platforms ad dollars?⟩

The EU Parliament has adopted the or the Right to Repair Directive. The Directive is designed to encourage consumers to repair not replace broken goods such as smartphones, TVs, washing machines and vacuum cleaners. It compliments the current two-year minimum warranty on products. If an item breaks while under warranty, consumers can choose between a replacement or a repair. If they choose to repair, the warranty will be extended for a year. If it breaks after the warranty the company must offer repairs for a ‘reasonable’ price so that customers aren’t ‘intentionally deterred’ from getting their product fixed. It’s a good step in the right direction, but as the next list shows, not everyone is convinced it goes far enough.

The EU ‘Right to repair’ Directive has gained support but, as Communia warns, without provisions related to the use of anti-circumvention provisions in copyright law the Directive doesn’t go far enough. “Failing to address this issue in the Directive creates a serious backdoor for bad-faith actors who are free to continue to prevent repairs under the guise of copyright.” At the Australian Digital Alliance that the application of technological protection measures (TPMs) under copyright law has the potential to prevent independent repairers from circumventing these measures to undertake repairs.

Meta is betting big on AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more  →. Bigger than its wager on the metaverse. ⟨  Remember that?!⟩ The Financial Times is speculating that big spending on AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more  → is slowing. With purpose designed chips and the release of Llama 3 into Meta’s platforms, the company has big AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more  → ambitions but “…[i]t is not selling the chips it designs or the generative AIWhen text, images and other content are generated by AI (hence why it is called generative AI). Learn more  → model it builds …” so it is unclear how AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more  → investment will translate into profits for the company.

In further proof the AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more  → hype cycle is slowing, The Verge and Vox Media’s updated findings on their AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more  → survey show interest in AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more  → is growing at a smaller rate than a year ago and new adoption is slowing. While both productivity and creativity are touted as benefits of AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more  →, productivity is pulling ahead, especially for older users, with the fastest-growing use case being email. ⟨  Just what we all need – even more email!⟩ They are interesting insights given how much money and marketing is being pumped into AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more  →.