Adidas Wilson's Blog, page 162
April 24, 2017
Tsubasa Watanabe: Model mixes punk with fashion on the runways of New York
At her first test shoot in Los Angeles, Tsubasa Watanabe was surprised by the outfit the photographer was asking her to wear: Hanging from the fingers of his outstretched hand was a pair of thong underwear.
“This is the outfit?” she asked.
“Yup,” he answered.
“Ok,” she said. “Let me change.” She walked into the bathroom and gathered her thoughts.
At this point, Watanabe had been modeling for several years in Japan after walking into an agency in Nagoya in high school, so she definitely had runway experience. But belying her striking looks, she’d grown up in rural Japan in a very traditional family and was accustomed to wearing a little more clothing, even on the runways.
She debated calling her agency and wasn’t sure she should do the job. Maybe the photographer was trying to take advantage of her, maybe he thought she wouldn’t say no because she was Japanese. “This is a test,” she told herself.
When she danced her way out of the bathroom in the thong with a smile on her face, the photographer laughed and started taking pictures, which set the atmosphere at ease. “You’re good!” he said.
This was in 2005. Watanabe is now a veteran model with years of experience in New York City: She has in all likelihood walked more seasons outside of Japan than any other Japanese model in history. Her success has been the result of steadfast focus, flexibility within a foreign culture and a refusal to accept setbacks.
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Watanabe was born and raised in Shirakawa, a small town of 9,000 nestled between rivers in the Japanese alps of Gifu Prefecture. She played classical piano from the age of 4 until the end of junior high school when she was not accepted into a music high school.
Even then music was a significant part of her life: She discovered J-rock and the Beatles, played in a rock band that covered power pop songs and decorated the walls of her bedroom with punk rock posters. She was somewhat of a tomboy and dressed in goth fashion. All the while, she shot up to nearly 180 centimeters in height, was naturally thin and had large eyes beneath beautifully angled eyebrows.
“My friends in high school were like, ‘Why aren’t you modeling?’” she says, but it just hadn’t occurred to her before.
Little by little, however, the fashion world began to seep into her everyday life, even as isolated as she was. She found the magazine “Mode et Mode” at a small bookstore in town and discovered the striking fashion of Alexander McQueen. When she later saw Betsey Johnson incorporate punk girls into her high fashion runway shows, she remembers thinking, “This is it!”
All she could focus on from that point onward was how to access that world.
After walking into an agency in 2002, Watanabe was soon commuting three hours one way to go to lessons and casting calls in Nagoya. Her teacher, a former model, drilled Watanabe and her classmates for hours on how to walk.
The work paid off, and she was booking jobs in Tokyo, Fukuoka, Osaka and Nagoya. When she finished high school she faced a decision that most rural Japanese graduates would never even consider: Should she move to Tokyo or to Los Angeles?
Despite a contract offer from an agency in Tokyo, Watanabe chose LA because of inspiration from Riff Randell, the Ramones-obsessed female lead of the movie “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School.”
In Los Angeles, Watanabe heard many Japanese complain about the inconvenience of living in the U.S., but it felt easy to her. “Even going to the supermarket (in Shirakawa) was so far,” she says. “LA to me was convenient.” She managed to get by without a car, relying on public transportation and walking.
A year later she moved to New York and had castings right away, quickly getting set up in her new hometown.
Watanabe purposely set herself apart from others in the Japanese community, not just other models. “I wanted to learn American culture,” she says. “I didn’t want to be an outsider who just follows their career, I wanted to be a local who lives here and has a job. From a certain point, modeling wasn’t my dream. It was just my job.”
Not everything has been easy. Shortly after arriving in New York, she booked a big designer’s show in Bryant Park for fashion week. The fitting the night before took nearly five hours and lasted until midnight, and she was running around the city early the next day for other castings. When she showed up to Bryant Park she posed for street photographers and was congratulated by a Japanese photographer for her newfound success.
However, when she tried to sign in at the venue, her name wasn’t listed. After some confusion, she discovered that they’d overbooked and she wasn’t needed. Dejected, Watanabe walked out past the street photographers and went home, crying the whole way.
Watanabe also misses Japan, mostly her family, the nature she was surrounded by and Shinto traditions. Her parents, both very traditional, haven’t visited her in the U.S., but they did sign up for the cable channel WOWOW when she was featured as one of the models in the second season of “Project Runway All Stars”; she’ll reprise this role for the sixth season later this year. Watanabe makes the trip home once a year or so, and she’s married an American and since made her home in New York.
The Bryant Park incident was the first and last time Watanabe let herself cry because of modeling. The setback eventually helped her learn to stay level and not take things too seriously.
Sixty percent of her work is runway-related, and the rest is e-commerce and fashion editorials. However, the runway is what really motivates her. “Of course, we walk the runway to show the clothes, but to me it’s a performance,” she says. “When I hear the beats backstage right before the show starts, that’s when I come alive.”
Her work has given her the freedom to pursue her passion for music in her free time, but she has settled down a little from her punk days and is working on soundtrack projects.
Watanabe used to dream at night of being back at her home in Gifu with her family. Her New York dreams were nightmares in which she was lost, wandering the unfamiliar city. “Recently I had a dream that I was in my apartment in New York,” she says. “This means a lot to me.”
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Facebook Messenger is getting an Apple Music extension
Facebook just announced a bunch of changes to Messenger, with the highlight being new ways for apps to integrate with it. And while it’s not available yet, one of the standout partners announced was Apple Music.
Near the end of his presentation at Facebook’s F8 conference this afternoon, David Marcus, head of Messenger, said, “I’m really excited to share with you that Apple Music will soon be on the platform as well.”
There weren’t any details beyond that, and Apple Music only got a “coming soon” label, so there isn’t even a firm ETA on when it’ll be available. But Facebook and Apple have worked together before on music integrations — songs from Apple Music can be embedded in the News Feed — so it isn’t a huge surprise to see this partnership, even from the usually go-it-alone Apple.
From the sound of it, the integration will allow people to browse Apple Music from inside of Messenger, find a song, and send it into their chat. Everyone will then be able to play the song back without leaving Messenger, which is a huge plus over how Facebook’s older integrations work, kicking users out to separate apps. Of course, you’ll almost certainly still need a subscription to hear a full song.
For those who don’t want to wait, Spotify is launching an extension that does all of this right away. Spotify first started working inside Messenger just over a year ago, but it wasn’t a great experience since you had to go out to Spotify to both find and listen to a song.
Source:
http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/18/15345150/apple-music-facebook-messenger-extension-coming-soon
Is Spotify working on a wearable?
Spotify is said to be exploring the launch of branded wearable, according to rumors floated by a “trusted source” at Zatz Not Funny. There’s little information out there at this early stage, though a job listing posted by the company does lend some validity to the project.
Based at the streaming service’s global headquarters in Stockholm, the position involves, among other things, “leading an initiative to deliver hardware directly from Spotify to existing and new customers; a category defining product akin to Pebble Watch, Amazon Echo, and Snap Spectacles.”
The products listed offer some insight into what a device might entail – that last bit especially. Spectacles hit all the right notes for a hardware debut by a software brand, providing a template for what a product looks like when the stars align.
The product went beyond just hardware branding, filling in an interesting niche for the photo app by taking it beyond the confines of a smartphone. Hipster cachet and planned scarcity helped a bit, too.
Similarly, the Echo – and even the now-departed Pebble – point to some pretty grand ambitions for the device. Both served as proof of demand for new product categories. Which seems to imply that Spotify isn’t planning to simply slap its name on a fitness band and call it a day. Remember when Samsung branded MP3 players with the Napster logo? What’s that? You don’t?
Also worth noting from team Pebble is the Core. That product failed to surface due to the company’s own financial issues, as it was killed alongside the company’s new watches in the midst of FitBit’s acquisition of the startup. But the product at least pointed toward a category that has been neglected since hardware makers shifted focus away from MP3 players to smartphones.
Targeted specifically at runners, the device promised music playback and other functionality on a keychain, so people could leave their smartphone at home. We’ll never know how the product ultimately would have done, but it offered some interesting insight into how old product categories become new again as technology evolves.
Of course, the Core didn’t come anywhere near the promise of “affect[ing] the way the world experiences music & talk content,” but then, how often has a job listing really lived up to its promise? My first job out of college as an “editorial assistant” was 95-percent shipping boxes. But hey, I’m not bitter.
We’ve reached out to Spotify for comment on the listing/rumor, but I don’t really anticipate hearing much more than what’s already out there. This could well just be the early exploratory phase into the company’s “world affecting” hardware, and even without it, the job description points at integration with “fully-connected hardware devices,” and certainly the streaming company has been working hard to bring custom experiences to third-party products.
That alone would likely keep a new recruit busy for a while.
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Is Spotify working on a wearable?
WhatsApp just added an important feature for Siri
Too tired to read a friend’s message on WhatsApp? There is good news for you because you can now ask Siri to use out your messages on the iOS version of WhatsApp. Exciting isn’t it? Yes, because it’s one feature that could encourage more people to use the chat app and encourage more engagement among users.
According to MacRumors, the latest update to the chat app works in version 2.17.2 running at least iOS 10.3 on your device.
Other updates were also added to the chat app, including ability to select multiple statuses at once in the My Update screen, and you can now forward or revoke them. The old Voice Call icon has now been replaced with a “+” icon, and when tapped, it displays a list of contacts for making both voice and video calls.
WhatsApp also made visual improvements to the Calls tab, Contact Info and Group Info screens. In all, it’s a better and highly improved version of WhatsApp that has now been made available for every user of the iOS version of the app. Updates have already been rolled out, but you must be running at least iOS 10.3 version on your device.
Last September, WhatsApp added some exciting features to the app that got many users excited. The upgrade was added to iPhones running on iOS 10, and includes ability to use Siri to place calls and compose messages. Adding ability to use Siri to make calls is one feature a lot of iPhone users would find very interesting. However, there were other added features that were just as interesting as that.’
Even while your screen is locked, the update is extremely important for a lot of users as it frees them from the frustration of having to swipe right on a notification to open the app just to receive a call. Calls can be answered same way as regular phone calls. The feature only works on iPhones running on iOS 10 upward.
A new lock screen widget was also added to the app to allow you see how many unread messages you have. It means you no longer have to unlock your device to see how many messages waiting to be read. Probably not as exciting as the Siri integration, but not a bad idea adding it to the app. This feature is only available to iPhones running on iOS 10 upward.
To improve how you forward media to your contacts, a quick forward button was also added last year by WhatsApp. The quick forward button for media that makes it easier to share images and videos within the app. It means you no longer have to sift through several screens to forward images and videos to your contact. The update was, however, not restricted to iPhones running on iOS 10, which means it’s available to everyone.
Are you excited about the new updates; especially the one that enables Siri to read out messages when you are hands-free? Share your experience with us by using the comment box.
Source:
http://socialbarrel.com/siri-can-now-read-out-your-messages-on-the-ios-version-of-whatsapp/110426/
Mark Zuckerberg posts VR film featuring prison inmates changing their lives
In his ongoing bid to bring about positive social change, Mark Zuckerberg has posted a VR (virtual reality) short film that highlights the lives of prisoners who are changing their lives through education.
The short film is part of the Oculus ‘VR For Good’ program, which is meant to drive social change by “pushing the boundaries of cinematic VR”.
The film is called Step to the line and was unveiled at the Tribeca Film Festival last week. Zuckerberg has now posted the film on his page.
The Facebook CEO writes, “One of the most powerful side effects of VR is empathy – the ability to understand other people better when you feel like you’re actually with them.”
The film focuses on the lives of the inmates, putting you face-to-face with them in VR. Zuckerberg says that the film shows how hard it is to build a better future.
You’ll also be interested to know that the film was shot on the $60,000 (around Rs 39 lakh) Nokia Ozo camera and directed by Ricardo Laganaro, produced in partnership with Defy Ventures.
The Ozo is an orb-like device that’s festooned with cameras and mics. Together, the device captures 360 degree video and audio and that too in VR.
Each camera has a 195 degree field of view, a global shutter and can record video in 4K at 30 frames per second.
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Feeding America launches new tech platform to help businesses fight hunger
For Earth Day 2017, Feeding America® is announcing the launch of MealConnectTM, an innovative technology platform that makes food donation as simple as a click. The new and free platform was developed to help reduce food waste, benefit the environment and put more food on the tables of families and individuals facing hunger in America.
Feeding America is already the largest food rescue and domestic hunger-relief organization, helping to provide food to 46 million people in need each year, and now with MealConnect is poised to play an even bigger role in reducing food waste. MealConnect helps to save food that previously might have gone to waste—such as a small load of meat from a local butcher or a box of tomatoes from a farmers market. The platform then directs that rescued food immediately to Feeding America food banks’ food pantries and meal programs that serve people in need. MealConnect allows food businesses of all sizes, from local mom-and-pop restaurants to large chain grocery retailers, to post surplus food on the MealConnect platform. An algorithm determines the best-suited local pantry or food program to quickly pick up and distribute the donation.
MealConnect is available to donors from any smartphone, tablet or computer to make an immediate impact in the communities where they operate. MealConnect is free for all users and all donations are tax-deductible. The technology leverages the Feeding America network of 200 food banks and 60,000 pantries and feeding programs across the country. In addition, Feeding America maintains stringent food-safety standards to ensure that all food distributed is safe for consumption.
This new technology enhancement has been made possible with a $1 million grant from General Mills. This funding also will help support efforts to scale MealConnect to communities nationwide.
“We are extremely grateful to General Mills for their incredible support of this major initiative. This donation is not only beneficial to our environment but also helps meet the needs of hardworking families throughout the country,” Feeding America CEO Diana Aviv said.
“For nearly 40 years, we’ve partnered with Feeding America to help rescue more food to help families facing hunger,” said Shawn O’Grady, group president of Convenience & Foodservice, and senior vice president of Global Revenue Development at General Mills. “We are encouraged that the new MealConnect technology will help food retailers and foodservice operators nationwide donate food safely and efficiently.” O’Grady has served on the Feeding America board of directors since 2013.
Starbucks, which announced a partnership with Feeding America in 2016, will use MealConnect to help achieve its goal to rescue 100 percent of unsold food from its U.S. company-operated stores.
“In 2016, we pledged to bring the excess food in our stores, that otherwise would have been thrown away, to families in need,” said Jane Maly, Program Manager at Starbucks. “By using MealConnect, we’re able to track our donations in real time, allowing for more streamlined reporting by store and food bank.”
Feeding America is the leading food recovery partner across the food industry, currently rescuing 2.8 billion pounds of good food from going to waste and providing it to families in need.
New information from ReFED, a collaboration of business, nonprofit, foundation and government leaders committed to reducing food waste in the United States, indicates that 72 billion pounds of good, safe food is wasted every year in the U.S. MealConnect aims to close that gap to reduce food waste and end hunger.
“Working with valued companies, including General Mills, Walmart and Starbucks, Feeding America has been able to distribute more than four billion pounds of food annually to people facing hunger,” Aviv said. “Now, MealConnect will allow us to supplement these great national efforts with donations captured from regional and local donors who may not have a consistent donation stream.”
MealConnect was initially funded and designed with support from Google.org with additional funding from the Walmart Foundation.
Google.org strives to identify and support innovations that improve our world, and MealConnect’s enhanced platform does just that. We are thrilled to support Feeding America and its network, which will allow MealConnect to scale across the country,” said Andrew Dunckelman of Google.org.
“Since 2005 Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have invested over $100 million in Feeding America,” Karrie Denniston said. “We made the investment in MealConnect because we saw an opportunity to strengthen capacity for the organization and its network of food banks. This platform is a prime example of how innovative technology is being used to improve food recovery and address hunger.”
By connecting more donors with the Feeding America network of food banks, food pantries and meal programs, MealConnect will prevent more food waste, benefit the environment and help end the hunger crisis for millions of people in America.
For more information on MealConnect, visit MealConnect.org.
– See more at: http://3blmedia.com/News/Feeding-America-Launches-MealConnecttm-Technology-Platform-Help-Reduce-Food-Waste-and-End#sthash.HIc1aq5p.dpuf
How Becoming a Published Author Can Accelerate Your Success
It doesn’t matter what industry you are in—today, customers and clients demand to work with experts. In some cases, they want to work only with the marquee names in a particular field.
As an entrepreneur, you’ve got to take the right steps to demonstrate your expertise and authority—and, if possible, be seen as a bit of a celebrity in your business.
The best way I know how to make that happen: Write a book. The credibility that you can achieve among your ideal clients and prospects by being a published author is amazing. I know—I’ve written or co-written dozens of books, and they’ve have a huge impact in establishing me as an expert in my niche.
The good news: Writing and publishing a credibility-building book is nowhere near as difficult as it might seem at first glance. I recently spoke with Rob Kosberg to get his advice on generating tons of new business using books as primary marketing tools. Kosberg is the author of the best-seller Life After Debt and the founder of Best Seller Publishing, which helps business owners write, publish and successful market their own bestselling books. To date, Kosberg has helped 300 authors in 25 niches use books to accelerate their success.
1. Everybody has a book in them. The most common response most entrepreneurs have to the idea of writing a book is, “I’ve lead a pretty mundane life that isn’t the basis for a book.” Wrong, says Kosberg. “If you’re a business owner, you’ve had experiences and stories that are book-worthy,” he says. “Even if your backstory isn’t especially exciting, you have examples of how you have helped your clients or customers, and that’s more than enough.”
2. Don’t go it alone. That said, getting your own story and ideas out of you and into a well-written book isn’t an instinctive process. Get help by working with a ghost writer who can capture your stories, your insights and—most important—your voice. A lot of entrepreneurs think it’s somehow cheating or being unethical if they don’t write the book entirely by themselves, but that’s simply not true. It’s perfectly acceptable for you to be the author—the person with the expertise and advice—and work with a writer who can get that information on the page in a way that positions you as an authority. Bonus: A writer will help you get your book done faster than if you go it alone—and can even help make the process fun.
3. Use the book to generate leads. The biggest mistaken assumption that business owners usually make when doing books is that they’ll make a lot of money from book sales. That’s almost never the case, unless you manage to get on Oprah.
It’s OK if your book doesn’t fly off the shelves (or the e-shelves). The reason: Your book isn’t an end—it’s a means to get lots of new clients, get booked for speaking engagements at events, get booked on local radio and TV and generally raising awareness of you (and your expertise) among ideal prospects.
That’s why your book effort should be accompanied by a lead generation strategy—which could be as simple as having prospects call a phone number you give out during a radio show appearance to get a copy of the book and more information. Or you can use various e-marketing and direct marketing strategies.
Pro tip: Be willing to give away your book for free. The leads you can generate from simply getting your book into prospects’ hands are much more valuable than the cost of the book itself. For example, one of Kosberg’s clients used his book to get a speaking engagement at a trade show—the book gave him the credibility to get the attention of the organizers, who had refused to book him in the past. Then he gave away copies of the book to prospects at the event—and ultimately generated $700,000 worth of new business as a result.
4. Take advantage of self-publishing options. In the “old days”—maybe 10 years ago—publishing a book meant going through a publishing company and spending big bucks. They might make you print a thousand copies, most of which would end up sitting in a box in your basement. Now, of course, you can self-publish inexpensively through Amazon and other services. Even better, you can print your book on demand in whatever amount you need.
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April 22, 2017
Supercharge healthcare with artificial intelligence
Pattern-recognition algorithms can transform horses into zebras; winter scenes can become summer; artificial intelligence algorithms can generate art; robot radiologists can analyze your X-rays with remarkable precision.
We have reached the point where pattern-recognition algorithms and artificial intelligence (A.I.) are more accurate than humans at the visual diagnosis and observation of X-rays, stained breast cancer slides and other medical signs involving general correlations between normal and abnormal health patterns.
Before we run off and fire all the doctors, let’s better understand the A.I. landscape and the technology’s broad capabilities. A.I. won’t replace doctors — it will help to empower them and extend their reach, improving patient outcomes.
An evolution of machine learning
The challenge with artificial intelligence is that no single and agreed-upon definition exists. Nils Nilsson defined A.I. as “activity devoted to making machines intelligent, and intelligence is that quality that enables an entity to function appropriately and with foresight in its environment.” But that definition isn’t close to describing how A.I. evolved.
Artificial intelligence began with the Turing Test, proposed in 1950 by Alan Turing, the scientist, cryptanalyst and theoretical biologist. Since then, rapid progress has been made over the last 75 years, advancing A.I. capabilities.
Isaac Asimov proposed the Three Laws of Robotics in 1950. The first A.I. program was coded in 1951. In 1959, MIT began research in the field of artificial intelligence. GM introduced the first robot into its production assembly line in 1961. The 1960s were transformative, with the first machine learning program written and the first demonstration of an A.I. program which understood natural language, and the first chatbot emerged. In the 1970s, the first autonomous vehicle was designed at the Stanford A.I. lab. Healthcare applications for A.I. were first introduced in 1974, along with an expert system for medical diagnostics. The LISP language emerged out of the 1980s, with natural networks integrating with autonomous vehicles. IBM’s famous Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov at chess in 1997. And by 1999, the world was experimenting with A.I.-based “domesticated” robots.
Innovation was further inspired in 2004 when DARPA hosted the first design competition for autonomous vehicles in the commercial sector. By 2005, big tech companies, including IBM, Microsoft, Google and Facebook, were actively investing in commercial applications, and the first recommendation engines surfaced. The highlight of 2009 was Google’s first self-driving car, some three decades after the first autonomous vehicle was tested at Stanford.
The fascination of narrative science, for A.I. to write reports, was demonstrated in 2010, and IBM Watson was crowned a Jeopardy champion in 2011. Narrative science quickly evolved into personal assistants with the likes of Siri, Google, Now and Cortana. Elon Musk and others launched OpenAI, to discover and enact the path to safe artificial general intelligence in 2015 — to find a friendly A.I. In early 2016, Google’s DeepMind defeated legendary Go player Lee Se-dol in a historic victory.
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RBmedia launches with focus on digital media, acquires Audiobooks.com
A new digital media company is making its debut with a splashy acquisition: RBmedia, a new entity formed by combining eight brands focused on digital magazine and audio content, will acquire Audiobooks.com, the audiobook streaming and download service the offers access to over 100,000 books via apps for various devices and platforms.
The company’s reach already includes spoken audio content, but the audiobook acquisition opens up a whole new audience, including listeners on platforms like Sonos, CarPlay, Android Auto and across over 10,000 libraries worldwide that use RBmedia’s tech for book lending. The Maryland-based company had already enjoyed a strong library business, but the Audiobooks.com acquisition represents its direct-to-consumer efforts.
“The biggest picture is that audiobooks are really exploding,” explained RBmedia CEO Tom MacIsaac in an interview. “They’re benefiting from a bunch of other trends in the market, and we’re really trying to take advantage of that; we’re trying to build a category-killer in the space. Print book and ebook growth is especially flat. Depending on who you listen to, audiobook growth is 20 to 30 percent per year. We think that’s for two principal reasons – one is the growth of podcasts.”
“We think of podcasts as training wheels for audiobooks,” MacIsaac continued. “When consumers get accustomed to listening to short-form content, it basically conditions them and gets them excited to embrace listening to long-form content. That dynamic has really, really helped the growth of audiobooks.”
The other big contributing factor to the rise of audiobooks, MacIssac says, is the growth of voice-based interaction, via connected homes and connected vehicles. Use of voice assistants like Siri, and devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, have primed consumers for audio content delivery. Likewise, in-car platforms like Android Auto and CarPlay, and growing use of smartphone-based content delivery apps for in-car listening, have helped grow the amount of time and attention users have to dedicate to listening to long-form audio.
While RBmedia’s spoken audio business focuses on book-length content, the company is also in regular discussion with dedicated podcast businesses regarding potential collaboration where their models and interests intersect. MacIsaac said that they often talk to “Gimlet, PodcastOne” and others and that they’re “going to be announcing ways in which we collaborate with them” at some point in the future.
The new media distribution company also offers distribution for digital magazines, games, language learning, continuing education courses and more. Basically, it partners with platforms and operates its own wherever there’s a demand for getting digital editions out to the masses. Spoken audio is a key growth area, however, and one where it’s clear McIsaac and company see a lot of new opportunity.
Source:
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/11/rbmedia-launches-with-focus-on-digital-media-acquires-audiobooks-com/
