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PETA Wants to Replace Punxsutawney Phil With AI

Andrew Orr ·

Animal rights group PETA wants to replace famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil with an animatronic AI.

The way the group sees it, not only would an AI be better at estimating when the winter will end, but it would also attract an entirely new generation of visitors to the western Pennsylvanian town. “Today’s young people are born into a world of terabytes, and to them, watching a nocturnal rodent being pulled from a fake hole isn’t even worthy of a text message,” Newkirk said. “Ignoring the nation’s fast-changing demographics might well prove the end of Groundhog Day.”

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TiVo GameSkip Will Let You Watch Pure Commercials for Super Bowl LIV

Andrew Orr ·

TiVo’s GameSkip feature lets people record Super Bowl LIV and jump right to the commercial breaks, which are nearly as big as the game itself.

Here’s how GameSkip works: Set your TiVo to record during the game, an hour after it’s over, look for the onscreen SKIP icon. Once the icon appears, you can jump right to the commercial breaks.

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Amazon Beats Apple to Become World's Most Valuable Brand

Charlotte Henry ·

Amazon is the world’s most valuable brand, according to one analysis firm. Cult of Mac reported that it beat Apple and Google in the Brand Finance list.

The somewhat unorthodox ranking system looks at the world’s 500 most valuable brands across all sectors and countries. It then assigns a “brand value” based on a royalty rate that companies could get for licensing their name in the open market. Brand Finance compiles its annual list by estimating the royalty rate that would be charged to use a company’s brand. This takes into account current and expected future revenue. It’s a fairly complex methodology that’s explained in more detail here. As the firm explains: “Brand Finance helped craft the internationally recognised standard on Brand Valuation – ISO 10668. It defines a brand as a marketing-related intangible asset including, but not limited to, names, terms, signs, symbols, logos, and designs, intended to identify goods, services or entities, creating distinctive images and associations in the minds of stakeholders, thereby generating economic benefits.”

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EU Wants a Single Data Market to Challenge Big Tech

Andrew Orr ·

The European Union introduced a way to challenge the likes of Big Tech by creating a single market for data.

Measures to achieve that goal include an array of new rules covering cross-border data use, data interoperability and standards related to manufacturing, climate change, the auto industry, healthcare, financial services, agriculture and energy.

Other rules in the coming months will open up more public data on geospatial, the environment, meteorology, statistics and companies’ data across the bloc for companies to use for free.