AI-powered note-taking apps are increasingly attending workplace meetings in place of human participants, creating situations where automated transcription bots outnumber actual attendees.
Major platforms including Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet now offer built-in note-taking features that record, transcribe and summarize meetings for invited participants who don't attend. The technology operates under varying legal frameworks, with most states requiring only single-party consent for recording while California, Florida, and Pennsylvania mandate all-party approval.
China will launch digital IDs for internet use on July 15th, transferring online verification from private companies to government control. Users obtain digital IDs by submitting personal information including facial scans to police via an app. A pilot program launched one year ago enrolled 6 million people.
The system currently remains voluntary, though officials and state media are pushing citizens to register for "information security." Companies will see only anonymized character strings when users log in, while police retain exclusive access to personal details. The program replaces China's existing system requiring citizens to register with companies using real names before posting comments, gaming, or making purchases.
Police say they punished 47,000 people last year for spreading "rumours" online. The digital ID serves a broader government strategy to centralize data control. State planners classify data as a production factor alongside labor and capital, aiming to extract information from private companies for trading through government-operated data exchanges.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Law enforcement officials are investigating a former employee of a company that negotiates with hackers and facilitates cryptocurrency payments during ransomware attacks, according to a statement from the firm, DigitalMint. DigitalMint President Marc Jason Grens this week told organizations it works with that the US Justice Department is examining allegations that the then-employee struck deals with hackers to profit from extortion payments, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Grens did not identify the employee by name and characterized their actions as isolated, said the person, who spoke on condition that they not be identified describing private conversations. DigitalMint is cooperating with a criminal investigation into "alleged unauthorized conduct by the employee while employed here," Grens said in an email to Bloomberg News. The Chicago-based company is not the target of the investigation and the employee "was immediately terminated," Grens said, adding that he can't provide more information because the probe is ongoing.
The art world is rife with persistent myths and associations, some of which are based on socio-economic factors that have prevailed for, well, millennia. For instance, wealthy patrons have historically been among the few who benefit in a system that can be exclusive and elitist. Whether we’re talking rich ancient Romans, the Medici family in Renaissance Florence, myriad kings and queens, or today’s major art collectors, the bottom line is most often money. For many, that’s a solid barrier to entry.
Another term that gets tossed around a lot is “gatekeeping.” Galleries, art dealers, museum curators, scholars, publishers, and so on assume roles as tastemakers and assessors, building relationships (or not) that often determine which artworks end up in public institutions, which shows receive attention, or which private collections artists’ pieces are destined to join. Gatekeeping is, by definition, the act of monitoring who “gets in,” reinforcing the notion of exclusivity. In short, it describes a multitude of potential barriers.
So, if the art world has historically always indulged the wealthy or felt like a realm for scholars and intellectuals, how can it be made more accessible? That’s what curator, gallerist, educator, and self-described passionate art lover James Payne is up to with Great Art Explained.
The video series began in May 2020, at the height of the pandemic, with the simple premise that great art can be “explained clearly and concisely in 15 minutes,” he says. Payne’s YouTube channel chronicles seminal artworks throughout the centuries, predominantly focusing on textbook titans of European and American art like Marcel Duchamp, Sandro Botticelli, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Johannes Vermeer, Salvador DalÃ, and more.
Distilling the stories of iconic pieces into 15-minute explanations, Payne dives into some of the most groundbreaking moments in art history. The most recent video highlights a turning point in American art through the lens of Jackson Pollock’s splatter paintings, including “Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist),” which the artist painted on the floor of a Long Island barn in 1950.
Pollock’s methods, lifestyle, and views have long been polarizing, but he is most known for eschewing traditional brushwork—changing the course of art history, really—by pouring, dripping, and flinging paint onto canvas. Not only that, he removed the substrate from the wall and put it on the floor, challenging notions of formality and preciousness. There’s even a discarded cigarette and a few rogue insects permanently stuck to the surface.
Lee Krasner, “Combat” (1965), oil on canvas, 179 x 410.4 centimeters
“Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)” and similar works made around that time amounted to an artistic breakthrough for Pollock, who has come to exemplify the myth of the lone, troubled, so-called “cowboy painter.” (He was born in Cody, Wyoming, and was known to drink to excess; he died in 1956 in an alcohol-related car crash.) This period of his practice also spurred the Abstract Expressionist movement in New York City and marked a monumental shift in our appreciation of what painting can be.
Payne is interested in these kinds of trailblazing moments, but he emphasizes letting go of “art-speak” to bring us closer to significant works of art through a mini-documentary format. He releases a new video each month, plus an occasional sub-series called Great Art Cities that highlights a variety of destinations in collaboration with travel writer Joanne Shurvell.
“Sometimes the artwork is a springboard for other wider issues I would like to explore, and sometimes, it is a simple exploration of techniques and meaning,” Payne says. “For me, setting the works in context helps us appreciate them more.”
Payne’s work is supported via Patreon, and a Great Art Explainedbook is slated for release from Thames & Hudson later this year. And for the literary fans among us, he also runs another YouTube channel in a similar vein called Great Books Explained. (via Kottke)
Detail of Gustav Klimt, “The Kiss” (1908-09), oil and gold leaf on canvas, 180 x 180 centimeters
This is where the Anne Beadell and Connie Sue highways intersect. It is a significant desert location with a Water tank & pit toilet. We only met one other vehicle in our 8 days traversing this area, so it's not going to be crowded :) Great Victorian Desert, WA
