Weekly Digest Of Must-Read Articles (26.07)

We’re glad to launch our new series – Weekly digest of must-read articles. Every week we meticulously browse through a large variety of articles on topics from cybersecurity and psychology to digital signage and geopolitics. Then we choose the 10 most interesting pieces you shouldn’t miss on any occasion. This week you’ll find out the insights of Facebook FTC settlement, learn how to adapt to your employees and workplace, figure out why standards in digital signage are essential and so much more. Here goes our first Weekly digest of 10 articles we’d like you to like. 

Dreaming bigger: how OOH can lead change for female representation in advertising. – JCDecaux

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) recently enforced stricter regulations on advertising content that promotes stereotypical gender roles, sexism and sexualization. More and more companies recognize the importance of the social effects of advertising on gender perception. Brands are using their influence to shape urban spaces around the world to be more inclusive. For example, using street signs in the outdoor space, Nike created a clever campaign to highlight this habituation of gender equality. Read more: jcdecaux.com

The hidden costs of automated thinking. – The New Yorker

Ten years ago, computers couldn’t easily identify objects in photos. Today, image search engines, like so many of the systems we interact with on a day-to-day basis, are based on extraordinarily capable machine-learning models. Seduced by the predictive power of machine-learning systems, we may stand down the human judges whom they promise to replace. But they will remain susceptible to hijacking—and we will have no easy process for validating the answers they continue to produce. Could we create a balance sheet for the intellectual debt—a system for tracking where and how theoryless knowledge is used? Read more: newyorker.com

Why getting dewy skin became a global obsession. – Quartz

Scroll through Instagram and you’ll be greeted with endless variations of essentially the same luminous #skingoal. It’s a major pivot: For decades, magazines and the beauty industry conditioned women to believe that shine was the enemy, with pressed powder, blotting papers, and mattifying gels their chief weapons in the battle against oil. And just a few years ago, the reigning Instagram aesthetic involved heavy makeup and contouring, a technique popularized by Kim Kardashian West that uses shading to create the impression of sharper cheekbones and more angular features. Read more: qz.com

Consumer Devices Are Increasingly Going Commercial, The Latest: Signagelive Adds Fire TV Stick Support. – Sixteen:Nine

When HDMI media player sticks like Amazon’s Fire TV first came on the market a few years ago, some smaller companies and enterprising digital signage nerds started playing around with it, wondering if it could serve as a very low-cost media player. Now AppleTV-based and stick-based solutions earned their share in the market. This piece by Dave Haynes offers an overview of the most popular companies in the segment. Read more: sixteen-nine.net

The workplace is a lonely place, but it doesn’t have to be. –Dropbox

Jenny Maenpaa, a psychotherapist specializing in professional and organizational development says loneliness is a growing problem in our society, especially in our workplaces. The effects of loneliness are damaging for both the individual and the company. Lonely workers are significantly more unhealthy than their connected colleagues, exhibiting increased risks of cardiovascular disease and depression and compromised immunity. Lonely workers also perform worse in their roles, exhibiting impaired creativity, productivity, and decision making. Read More: blog.dropbox.com

9 reasons the Facebook FTC settlement is a joke. – TechCrunch

The FTC just announced the details of its settlement agreement with Facebook over years of privacy practices in violation of a previous order. To say the settlement is favorable to Facebook,  even with the record $5 billion penalty, is an understatement; the company’s lawyers are probably popping champagne right about now. Here’s why. Read more: techcrunch.com

Nokia's CEO Shows You Can Climb Out of the Abyss. – Bloomberg

In recent years, it’s the stock that has been through the mill, as Nokia has ebbed and soared with each burst of spending on next-generation mobile networks. Chief Executive Officer Rajeev Suri has steadily toiled away to drag the Espoo, Finland-based company through to the next leg of growth promised by 5G. The fruits of that labor appear finally to be paying off. Read more: bloomberg.com

Podcast download is increasing: Westwood One And Audience Insights Inc. report.

Fielded in March 2019, the report examines the podcast consumption habits of 1,407 monthly podcast listeners and focuses on four distinct segments based on when people began listening to podcasts. These segments include “Podcast Pioneers” who started listening four or more years ago, those who began listening 2-3 years ago, those who began listening in the past 7-12 months, and “Podcast Newcomers” who began listening within the last six months. Read more: westwoodone.com

Brand Slam: American Express vs Barclaycard. – Campaign

The financial services brands are creating activations at music festivals and sporting events, aiming to engender loyalty by tapping into fans' passions. Here’s a great showdown overview by Campaign. Read more: campaignlive.co.uk

Is It a Standard if Nobody Uses it? – rAVe Pubs

The AV/IT industry has a problem, one of its own making and one that is getting worse by the micro-second. There are just too many conflicting and confusing “standards” and best practices. Having spent literally hundreds of hours in the committee trenches of this world, Dr. Frederick Ampelit finds dives into the reasons why standards don’t work and what to do with that. Read more: ravepubs.com