Sci-Fi Authors Comment on Apple TV+ Series ‘Foundation’

Although “Foundation” won’t appear on Apple TV+ until 2021, science fiction authors Anthony Ha, Abby Goldsmith, and John Kessel talk about the books behind the series from author Isaac Asimov. John Kessel on psychohistory:

[Asimov is] basically saying if you have enough human beings—you have 100 million worlds, all inhabited by human beings—that psychohistory can predict the mass behavior of human beings, without being able to predict any individual human being’s behavior. That’s a cool idea.

I can’t wait until for the Apple TV+ series.

YouTube Restores iOS 14 Picture in Picture to Mobile Website

YouTube initially blocked iOS 14’s picture in picture function on its mobile website. However, Macrumors reported that the capability has now returned.

This is an apparent reversal of a change that YouTube explicitly made following the release of ‌iOS 14‌ which blocked such behavior. At that time, YouTube would only allow that capability for users with Premium accounts. Tonight’s change means that any YouTube visitor can use Picture in Picture in Safari‌iOS 14‌ introduced native Picture in Picture capability to the iPhone for the first time, however, apps have to explicitly support the feature. YouTube’s native app has never supported Picture in Picture for any of its users even though iPadOS has offered the capability for some time. There have been reports that YouTube has been testing this feature, but there have been no announcements.

Some Historians Don't Like Digital Upscalers Making History 4K

So-called ‘digital upscalers’ have turned grainy footage from bygone eras into high-quality 4k clips. However, Wired reported, some historians are not very happy about it.

Digital upscalers and the millions who’ve watched their work on YouTube say they’re making the past relatable for viewers in 2020, but for some historians of art and image-making, modernising century-old archives brings a host of problems. Even adding colour to black and white photographs is hotly contested. “The problem with colourisation is it leads people to just think about photographs as a kind of uncomplicated window onto the past, and that’s not what photographs are,” says Emily Mark-FitzGerald, Associate Professor at University College Dublin’s School of Art History and Cultural Policy.