Adobe's MAX conference kicked off today, so there's a few Adobe-related announceables doing the rounds. The biggest seems to be a version of Photoshop made for the web. It was done with Google and whilst not exclusively for Chrome, works far better in Chrome-based browsers than say, Safari or Firefox. Browser balkanization aside, this is quite impressive. Adobe's also partnered with NFT marketplaces KnownOrigin, OpenSea, Rarible and SuperRare to add "Content Credentials, a record that can be attached to a Photoshop file of a creator's identity and includes any edits they made". The Adobe chief product officer is a big fan of NFTs, telling The Verge that he has "never seen a more empowering and better-aligned system for creativity than NFTs" in his career.
Q3 earnings reports for Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft are out. As usual these companies are making insane amounts of money. Some highlights: Facebook's revenue missed market expectations and said they'll miss by even more next quarter, which Zuck attributes to Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework. The regular incriminating leaks haven't made a dent on Facebook financially. Alphabet had a gangbusting quarter, posting an all-time revenue record of US$65.1b, over 41% more than the same quarter in 2020 and a 69% (nice) in profit. Incredible considering how massive Alphabet already is. Microsoft's also still growing at a double digit rate across pretty much every part of their business. Surface, Windows OEM, gaming (50% increase thanks to Game Pass), Azure, you name it. The FAAAM snowball keeps on rolling!
The NSW government is gonna set up a unit called IDSupport NSW early next year to be a "single point-of-contact for citizens who have fallen victim to identity theft or had their personal data compromised in a data breach" plus "additional support and counselling services to customers impacted by privacy incidents". Sounds like an amazing idea. One of my worst nightmares is identity theft, simply due to the massive amount of red-tape you have to wade through to get your identity back and I'm well educated and have a high tolerance for dealing with bureaucracy. I can only imagine for a sane, normal person, the experience is even more harrowing. Hope it goes well and other states copy NSW.
Apparently vinyl records are getting so popular, manufacturers of the big spinning circles that turn into music are struggling to keep up. In the US at least, during 2020 17m vinyl records were sold, gathering US$467m in revenue compared to 16m compact discs that were worth only US$205m. Because of this gap in revenues, retailers are pushing vinyl harder and artists are selling them at decent markups to actually make money during a time when streaming royalties are sweet fuck all. I wondered why people buy them instead of a CD (which sounds so much better and is more convenient) and the article answers my question - collectors who never take em out of the sleeve are a big market.
📻 Two Years Two Days - Sebadoh
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