Bulletproof Children & Cambridge Analytica Scandal Grows

By David Erickson | March 30, 2018

Beyond Social Media Show, Episode 223

BL and David discuss bulletproof vests for kids; the growing Cambridge Analytica Scandal involves Plantir and Peter Thiele; driving a car with VR; brands on HQ Trivia; long-forms audio; Google image optimization; Google Lens comes to iOS; a Boring development; the mountain of data you gave away to Google and Facebook will blow your mind; Desperately Seeking Counsel on Craig’s List; no more Lytro; a social network with no humans allowed; and much, much more.

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Best Digital Cases

Bulletproof Children

A new campaign and website purporting to sell bulletproof vests designed for kids is actually promoting a hidden message about gun control in America.

VR Driven Car

At Nvidia’s GTC conference, the company unveiled a wild technology demo and it’s straight out of Black Panther.

Nvidia stuns by driving a car in real life through virtual reality

HQ Trivia Gets First Brand Sponsors

Nike and Warner Bros are the first brand sponsors of the wildly popular HQ Trivia live game show that some call “millennial Jeopardy.”

Audm – Audio Subscriptions

Service makes long-form journalism easy to consume online.

Does Mark Zuckerberg Even Know What Facebook Is? – Article includes an Audm player
Audm app
Audm.com

Boring Company to Sell Life-Size Lego Bricks (Maybe)

Elon Musk announced on Twitter that his Boring Company will sell life-size LEGO-like bricks made from excavated rock produced by the tunneling process for tunnels that don’t yet exist.

Elon Musk says Boring Company will sell ‘Lego-like’ kits of excavated rock

New Boring Company merch coming soon. Lifesize LEGO-like interlocking bricks made from tunneling rock that you can use to create sculptures & buildings. Rated for California seismic loads, so super strong, but bored in the middle, like an aircraft wing spar, so not heavy.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2018

Google Images Get Captions

Google will pull the title from the page on which the image is displayed to use as the caption for image search results.

Desperately Seeking Counsel

President Donald Trump is currently short on attorney, and since it looks like he’s gonna need one (or two), an anonymous good Samaritan decided to put a job posting on Craigslist to help Trump out.

Worst Digital Cases

What Facebook and Google Really Know About You

Your data is the cost of using a free platform. But what they know is truly mindblowing.

Detailed List of Data You Gave Away

Want to freak yourself out? I'm gonna show just how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

Cambridge Analytica + Palantir = Super Scary Shit

Peter Thiel’s defense contractor is officially connected to the Cambridge Analytica story.

Leaving Facebook via Instagram

Apparently, not everyone realizes that Facebook owns Instagram.

Gotta love the ol' We're Stepping Away From Facebook declaration posted on…. Instagram. pic.twitter.com/xEIP90V4aA

— Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) March 28, 2018

No More Lytro

The pioneering light-field camera company is shutting down.

Light-field camera pioneer Lytro is shutting down

Shiny New Stuff

Petzbe

No humands are allowed on this sweet pets only app.

Google Lens Comes To iOS

Lens is an on-demand object recognition tool, accessible through the Google Photos app. When users take a photo of a book or painting, for example, Lens recognizes it and spits out information telling you more details about the object.

Google Lens is now available on iOS

Starting today and rolling out over the next week, those of you on iOS can try the preview of Google Lens to quickly take action from a photo or discover more about the world around you. Make sure you have the latest version (3.15) of the app.https://t.co/Ni6MwEh1bu pic.twitter.com/UyIkwAP3i9

— Google Photos (@googlephotos) March 15, 2018