Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 17

The Subtle Master Plan Behind De Beers New DiamondProof In-Store Verification Device

A little over six months ago, De Beers Group announced the DiamondProof “diamond verification instrument” at a jewelry trade show in Las Vegas. The idea was that this device could sit inside a retail jewelry location and immediately distinguish between a natural diamond versus a lab-grown diamond. The official announcement for the device included this telling line: “with research showing that almost half of consumers are unaware that every LGD can be readily detected, the device … help[s] underp...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Community Data by Rahul Bhargava

For my book selection this week I’ll start by sharing that I have known this author for literally his entire life—because it’s my younger brother, Rahul! His first book, Community Data was just released this week by Oxford University Press. The book delves into the work he has been doing for the past few decades around data storytelling first as a research scientist at MIT’s Media Lab and currently as a professor teaching about data and journalism at Northeastern University in Boston.

How can...

Unemployment Is Low, But No One Is Hiring. Experts Are Calling It The Big Freeze.

What do you call it when unemployment is at record lows at the same time that hiring is similarly stalled? Actually, there’s no word for that because it’s never really happened—so experts came up with one: the big freeze. Usually if unemployment is low, that’s a good sign for job seekers. Unfortunately, the circumstances bringing about this current situation seem to be partially based on widespread uncertainty among workers … which means they will rarely leave a job to seek something else. Indee...

The Truth About the Penny

No one wants one. People will walk past a penny lying on the street, a real-life demonstration of just how worthless it is for most of us. For many, it’s also a perfect example of governmental inefficiency since it’s widely known that the cost to produce each one is higher than the actual value of the penny itself. It is estimated that the U.S. government loses 2.7 cents on every penny it mints. If they stopped making them, it would save about $85 million a year. Sounds great.

Unfortunately, ...

Why Directors Are Only Casting Actors with Lots of Instagram Followers

A big presence on social media may have seemed like a nice-to-have for creators but in the case of Hollywood films, there’s growing evidence that it may already be a necessity. In a recent interview with Variety, actor Ethan Hawke shared some observations about the growing role a social media platform is taking in casting decisions for projects and even if those projects get the green light from studios and funders in the first place:

“Sometimes I’ll be setting a movie up and someone will say...

The Manufactured Controversy Around Michael Jackson’s 12 Unreleased Songs

Michael Jackson recorded 12 songs with his longtime producer Bryan Loren that were never released to the public. According to multiple sources, the songs have been collecting dust in the archives of the estate run by MJ’s family. Recently cassette recordings of these songs were found in the bottom of a box somewhere and now an auction house wants to sell the recordings to the highest bidder. The estate wants to block the sale, noting that the original copyright belongs to them so even if someone...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week:The Long View by Richard Fisher

What will it take to transform the way the world views time? Richard Fisher, a senior journalist with BBC Global News, explores this question and shares ways to expand our minds into deeper time scales in his book The Long View. While it seems like this would be a book just about time, what’s fascinating about Fisher’s writing and research is that he looks at it from many different dimensions. In this wide-ranging book you’ll learn about linguistics, architecture, global cultures and why the way...

This Genetic Engineering Startup Wants to Make Fluorescent Bunnies and Actual Unicorns

In case you needed more life imitating fiction, a startup known as The Los Angeles Project is using gene editing to experiment with doing some “crazy” things to animals—including making glow-in-the-dark rabbits, cats that are hypo-allergenic and maybe, one day, actual unicorns. As founder and biohacker Josie Zayner says, “I think, as a human species, it’s kind of our moral prerogative to level up animals.” The actual motto of the company from their website and social media is “We Build Life.”

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Open AI Launched a New Brand Look and Expensive Super Bowl Ad … Made by Humans

Open AI has launched a cohesive new brand identity and look which was also featured in their first Super Bowl Ad last week. The campaign was developed by an in-house team led by a former Creative Director from Mercedes-Benz and includes work from Berlin-based type foundry ABC Dinamo and motion partner Studio Dumbar in Rotterdam. The branding looks excellent and has been getting strong reviews amongst marketing and design critics as well. It’s also inspiring a decent amount of ironic observations...

What Meta’s Latest Effort to Help Kids Spot Predators Really Tells Us

There is a question that journalists learn to consider often which we should all get better at asking: why now? Any time a story crosses their orbit and they consider writing about it, one of the most fundamental questions they will often start from is trying to understand the timing behind the story. This week Meta announced a “fully fanded” curriculum to teach middle schoolers how to recognize forms of online exploitation, such as sextortion scams and grooming.

This is not a new problem...