Posts made in January, 2018

on Jan 27, 2018

By Taruka Srivastav The US Democratic National Committee (DNC) named Bob Lord as its chief security officer to reinforce the organisation’s cyber defences ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Prior to this, Bob Lord held top technology roles at Yahoo and Twitter. Lord said: “Cyberattacks are an unfortunate, but very real threat to our work. I’ll be working to protect my new colleagues at the DNC from the attackers who would prefer to keep us distracted from our mission of getting Democrats across the nation elected.” DNC chair Tom Perez said: “When I took this job, I made it crystal clear that our organisation’s Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Jan 27, 2018

By Taruka Srivastav Amazon removed a Chinese fancy dress costume after it faced criticism for being racist as the white boy wearing the dress made a slanting eye gesture (see the pic). Amazon might have pulled sales the costume but the picture still remains on the website (at the time of writing this article). The outfit described as atosa 23639 – Chinese Boy Costume, Size 128, Black/Red sparked a controversy online as reported by Mirror. This isn’t the first time this year that a retailer has come under criticism for racist ads. Earlier, H&M was <a target=_blank Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Jan 27, 2018

By Kyle O'Brien To shed light on the refugee crisis and the harrowing journey refugees are forced to make on a daily basis, Amnesty International asked five people from the Netherlands and Belgium to go under hypnosis and live one of those dangerous journeys. The five-and-a-half-minute film, called ‘Through the eyes of a refugee,’ follows the five people who were brought into a state of hypnosis so they could gain deeper insight into the journey of a Syrian refugee. Under the guidance of a professional hypnotherapist, the participants experienced the journey of 29-year-old Marwa, from Syria, as she made her way Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Jan 26, 2018

By Bennett Bennett User-generated gif-creation platform Gfycat has acquired MovieLala, a social platform for moviegoers. With the acquisition, Gfycat strengthened its movie marketing capabilities by building on MovieLala’s partnerships with major film studios such as Lionsgate, Universal, Skydance and Paramount. Financial terms were not disclosed. The acquisition enabled MovieLala’s network of studio marketers to connect with millions of young moviegoers by promoting gif content across the Gfycat platform. In 2016, MovieLala and Gfycat partnered to help a major film studio reach nearly 21 million consumers through 21,000 user-generated gifs. In a statement, Movielala said that in addition to helping marketers Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Jan 26, 2018

By Kyle O'Brien The Grammys are returning to New York City for the awards’ 60th anniversary. In an industry first, the Recording Academy has debuted a short film that documents how the city transformed into an augmented reality musical instrument. The Grammys, along with long-time creative partner TBWAChiatDay, installed sophisticated software, multiple cameras and an augmented reality screen into a specially outfitted Uber to play New York City like an instrument. Triggered by the people and objects outside the window, thorough next-generation computer vision software as the vehicle moved along each route, musical notes played and graphics flashed on Read full story › Source: The Drum...