“Connectivity on an unimaginable scale is coming and the vast majority of humankind will be net beneficiaries of it. But their experience of it will not be uniform. A “digital caste system” will endure well into the future, and the extent to which people will benefit from the technology will be critically dependent on their positions in that system: poor people will be the biggest beneficiaries simply because of where they live, but they will also face the worst drawbacks of the digital age.”
Tag: 04.27.13
Text And Text-Search Once Ruled The Web. Now Pictures Do
“That text-driven model of e-commerce is slowly but surely beginning to change, giving way to a more visual form of shopping, in which people peruse high-resolution pictures of products favored by friends and online colleagues and click through to buy the item that sounds – and looks – the coolest.”
iTunes Is Broken. Here’s How To Fix It
“The iTunes Store turns 10 on Sunday, and during this decade, Apple has sold billions and billions of songs and apps out of its electronic storefront. But all those videos, apps, and songs have crippled the once-great MP3 player.”
Putting The Entertainment-Industrial Complex In Perspective
“Whether you call it indie capitalism or an indiepocalypse or something else, there’s clearly a not-only-Big moment happening in our economy right now — especially when it comes to the entertainment-industrial complex. The traditional, big organizational layer of intermediaries that help filter, fund, and cultivate talent to create big hits is changing … and it’s changing quickly.”
Economic Arguments For The Arts Miss The Point
“That the arts are central to the economy is not an isolated idea, or a new one. It’s one that has widespread support, refuses to go away and needs to be challenged by as many voices as possible, as often as is necessary; especially in these financially pressured times, when it is all too easy to give in to short-term thinking to please those handing out the paltry sums. It is a philistine approach that misses the value and point of culture.”
Want To Be A Choreographer? Great – If You’re Not A Woman
“What the history of British classical dance overwhelmingly demonstrates is that while women may run ballet schools and become ballet company administrators and directors, they are rarely, if ever, invited to the choreographic high table. They are permitted responsibility, in other words, but not creative power.”
Shamshad Begum, 94, Unseen Star Of Hindi Cinema
“Begum was one of the first female playback singers in Hindi cinema — singers who are heard but not seen on screen, with actresses lip-syncing to the recorded voices.”
Director Pedro Almodóvar Backs Housing Protests In Spain
“Almodóvar, who has a new comedy, ‘I’m So Excited!’, coming out in Britain this week, says he, like many other Spaniards, is frustrated with a double-dip recession that started four years ago. The crisis has hit young people hard, with unemployment for those aged under 25 running at 57%.”
If We Tell Artists And Writers To STFU, Who Will Guide Our Moral Compass?
“This new idea — that writers, scholars and artists who stand against orthodoxy or bigotry are to blame for upsetting people — is spreading fast.”
How Chicago Shaped (And Still Shapes) The U.S.
“There is this discussion of Chicago and black Chicago. And in … all that I’ve read, in interviews, there’s often this discussion of two different cities. And I think when Chicago finally wraps its hands around all of itself and doesn’t speak of it in these two different terms, I think they’re going to be a lot closer to solving some of these problems.”