7 NEWSFEED Updates & Upgrades
It’s a New Year and FEED has plans! We don’t think of them as New Year resolutions – since those are usually broken before Valentine’s Day. We think of them as goals – a few things we’re doing to improve and expand the FEED brand and, we hope, improve your experience as a reader. Podcasting – Yes, we’re going to expand our digital offering in 2020 with original downloadable content. This, we hope, is going to be more than your typical podcast and will extend outside the usual media tech conversation. Gender parity – We don’t do too badly at FEED already, but given the need to have new female voices commenting on the media tech space, we are committing to a 50% or higher proportion of female editorial contributors for each issue. Dumping plastic – We will be dumping the plastic, in which our magazines are delivered, for something entirely compostable. It costs us a bit more, but we are actively looking for a sponsor to support the endeavour. FEED events – We won’t elaborate too much. Just know that we’re exploring ways of doing industry events in innovative, collaborative and cross-platform ways. And we want to partner with you to make them happen! FEED LOOKS AHEAD TO 2020 OUR TOP GOALS:
FIGHTING BIASED ROBOTS
Professor Noel Sharkey, an expert in the field of AI, has urged the UK government to ban the use of all decision algorithms that impact on people’s lives. In an interview with The Guardian , he expressed concern over a series of examples of machine- learning systems being loaded with bias. On inbuilt bias in algorithms, Sharkey said: “There are so many biases happening now, from job interviews to welfare to determining who should get bail
and who should go to jail. There should be a moratorium on all algorithms that impact on people’s lives. Why? Because they are not working and have been shown to be biased.” According to The Guardian , Sharkey has had discussions with the biggest global social media and computing corporations – Google and Microsoft – about the innate bias problem. “They know it’s a problem and they’ve been working, in fairness, to find a solution over the
past few years, but none so far has been found.” He added: “Until they find that solution, what I would like to see is large- scale pharmaceutical- style testing. Which means testing these systems on millions of people, or at least hundreds of thousands of people, in order to reach a point that shows no major inbuilt bias. These algorithms have to be subjected to the same rigorous testing as any new drug produced that ultimately will be for human consumption.”
GREAT BIG DAM SOLUTIONS
With a decade of experience using computer vision and machine-learning algorithms to power the creation of interactive video, Wirewax has turned its technology to assist media companies in solving the problem of organising large archives of digital assets. Wirewax Media Services (WMS) can process video assets to find duplicates, organise programmes, detect subtitles, suggest ad insertion points and more. It can also allow clients to compare similar
assets to check for any potential issues at scale, before sending to distribution. WMS claims to revitalise hefty manual processes that would otherwise take months to deliver. Early testing with multimedia giants has seen average cost savings around 80% and processing time reduced from months to minutes. The offering is already earning a reputation at an elite industry level, winning the IABM Broadcast and Media Award for the Manage category at IBC.
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