In an exclusive interview with David Wadhwani, Adobe’s President of Digital Media, we gained more profound insights into the company’s strategies and groundbreaking announcements. Wadhwani, brimming with enthusiasm, shed light on Adobe’s transformative journey and its unwavering commitment to innovation.

“The growth we’re witnessing is driven by the democratization of creativity and communication through generative AI,” Wadhwani explained. “From individual creatives to global enterprises, AI is making these domains more accessible and impactful. With our broad spectrum of offerings, we’re poised to emerge as a frontrunner in this burgeoning market.”

Among the conference’s highlights was the unveiling of Firefly Services, a groundbreaking product designed to revolutionize enterprise content creation and distribution. Wadhwani explained, “Enterprises grapple with the challenge of content velocity, and Firefly addresses this by streamlining the entire content supply chain—from planning and creation to activation, distribution, and measurement. It’s a one-stop solution that empowers organizations to fuel their digital engagement and drive business growth.”

However, amidst the excitement surrounding AI’s potential, questions lingered about its monetization timeline. Wadhwani assured investors of Adobe’s meticulous approach, emphasizing the company’s focus on widespread adoption before ramping up monetization efforts. “Since making our AI technology widely available, we’ve witnessed remarkable adoption, generating over 6.5 billion assets,” he revealed. “While we anticipate reaping the benefits in the latter half of this year and beyond, our priority remains nurturing a robust ecosystem of AI-driven creativity.”

An essential facet of Adobe’s AI strategy is its unwavering commitment to legal and ethical standards. Addressing concerns about copyright issues, Wadhwani underscored Adobe’s stringent practices, including training AI models exclusively on licensed content and embedding assets with content authenticity labels. “Transparency and accountability are paramount,” he emphasized. “By ensuring ethical AI practices, we safeguard intellectual property and uphold trust and integrity in content creation.”

As discussions turned to competition, Wadhwani welcomed the emergence of rivals like OpenAI’s Sora, recognizing their potential to complement Adobe’s offerings. “Sora’s focus on content capture aligns with our ethos of enhancing content production,” he acknowledged. “By integrating Sora and similar technologies into our ecosystem, we expand our toolkit and cater to diverse creative needs, reinforcing Adobe’s position as a leader in content creation.”

In closing, Wadhwani reiterated Adobe’s steadfast commitment to pioneering the future of creativity through AI. “Our journey is marked by innovation, responsibility, and collaboration,” he concluded. “As we embark on this transformative era, we invite creators, enterprises, and partners to join us in shaping a world where AI amplifies human ingenuity and fuels boundless creativity.”

With its visionary leadership and groundbreaking innovations, Adobe stands at the forefront of an AI revolution, poised to redefine the boundaries of creativity and propel industries into a new era of digital expression. As the conference draws to a close, one thing is abundantly clear: the future of creativity is AI-driven, and Adobe is leading the way.

Fubo is one of the leading streaming TV platforms, with an emphasis on sports programming. Sormaz worked at Spotify for ten years as Director and then VP of Design. He has also had stints at News Corporation, Boxee, and, most recently Sorare.

Sormaz will help Fubo continue to develop its user experience, including leveraging the company’s proprietary AI to make the platform more interactive.

“Dan is not only the best design leader in media that I know, he is also a great product strategist,” said Berkely. “I partnered closely with Dan at Spotify for several years and am so thrilled for him to lead our design team at Fubo. With the proliferation of so many streaming apps, the TV industry has become very fragmented and is not aligned with consumer needs. We believe Fubo’s aggregated content model solves this issue and, with Dan guiding us on delivering an intuitive and useful user experience, we are confident that we can evolve how consumers watch television.”

“Fubo really hits the sweet spot for me – I am so passionate about streaming, having spent more than a decade in that world across music, podcasts and video/TV, and I am a huge sports fan,” said Sormaz. “User experiences for streaming services reflect the ever-changing world around them. With an evolving content landscape, shifting consumer behaviors and emerging new technology, I believe we’re entering an exciting new era for TV streaming UX. I am looking forward to reuniting with Mike and working with the fantastic Fubo team to build what’s next for TV.”

Google is engaging in a massive redesign of Chrome, coinciding with its 15th birthday. Unfortunately, the company is ramping up Chrome’s privacy-invasive tactics with its “Privacy Sandbox” feature.

According to Ars Technica, Google Chrome will track the pages users visit and share with websites a list of advertising topics likely to appeal to the user.

If that seems like a huge conflict of interest for Google — the maker of Chrome and one of the world’s biggest advertisers — it absolutely is. It’s much like relying on kidnappers to provide private security…against kidnapping.

As Ars points out, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been equally vocal in its condemnation of Google’s antics.

Google’s pitch to privacy advocates is that a world with FLoC (and other elements of the “privacy sandbox”) will be better than the world we have today, where data brokers and ad-tech giants track and profile with impunity. But that framing is based on a false premise that we have to choose between “old tracking” and “new tracking.” It’s not either-or. Instead of re-inventing the tracking wheel, we should imagine a better world without the myriad problems of targeted ads.

Google Chrome may be the most popular browser in the world, but it’s time for that to change. Firefox, Brave, Safari, and Vivaldi all provide far better privacy and are not run by companies that have a fundamental conflict of interest with privacy concerns.

According to Mashable, the Twitterverse is ablaze with reports of inboxes filled to the brim with spam messages. The emails ranged from random — but not necessarily harmful — emails to blatant phishing attempts.

There does not appear to be an explanation for the issue, nor is there a time frame for when it will be fixed. Mashable reached out to Microsoft for comment, but has not received a response.

We will update this story as more information becomes available.

The FCC passed rules requiring phone carriers to implement the STIR/SHAKEN protocol in an effort to fight robocalls. The protocol allows carriers to verify the authenticity of a caller, pass that verification on to the next carrier for confirmation, and so on. Carriers were given a deadline to implement the protocol or be blacklisted, with the first such carrier blocked in November.

The FCC has now sent cease & desist orders to two additional companies the agency says has been supporting “illegal robocall traffic.” This brings the number of cease & desists to twenty, with the majority complying and cutting off robocall assistance.

The latest cease & desists, sent to SIPphony LLC and Vultik, Inc, included a warning that their traffic could be permanently blocked by downstream providers if they failed to comply.

“You should investigate the identified traffic and take the steps …, including blocking the traffic if necessary, and take steps to prevent your network from continuing to be a source of apparently illegal robocalls,” wrote FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan A. Egal. “Failure to comply with the steps outlined in this letter may result in downstream voice service providers blocking all of [SIPphony LLC and Vultik, Inc] traffic, permanently.”

“Scam robocalls are more than just a nuisance, they waste our time and resources and destroy trust in our communications networks,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “We will continue to use every tool we have to go after this fraud and stop the bad actors responsible for these calls in their tracks.”

Post-Pandemic Event Trends

Now in 2022, most COVID mitigation practices have eased. Despite the ability for physical events to continue, digital events remain popular. 40% of events planned in 2022 are intended as virtual. Another 35% are planned as hybrid events. Many professionals plan to attend virtual events at least as often as they had attended physical events pre-COVID-19. Digital engagement platforms are here to stay.

The benefits of hosting and attending online are numerous. Hotel rooms and airfare are both expensive. Businesses cut travel expenses by 30% when they switch to virtual webinars. Attending virtually also eliminates travel time for both hosts and participants. As a result, employees have more time and resources to dedicate to other tasks in their lives. Over 2 years after the pandemic began, 42% of business travelers have vowed never to return to the road. Hotel rooms have seen the impact of this pledge in their numbers. Business travel’s share of hotel room revenue is 9% lower in 2022 than it was in 2019.

The Rise of Digital Platforms

Instead of filling conference halls, audiences have moved to digital platforms. Zoom hosted over 45 billion minutes of webinars in 2020. At the same time, Microsoft Teams grew nearly 900%. Video conferencing existed before the pandemic, but COVID made it more commonplace than anyone had previously anticipated.

The massive switch to video conferencing benefitted many people, but it also came with a few challenges. Technology issues can ruin meetings in a matter of seconds. Audio glitches, poor communication, and problems with virtual meetings generate intense feelings of frustration.

Even in the video calls that run smoothly, “Zoom fatigue” can take over. Constantly looking at all the participants in a meeting can create a hyper-aroused state. Always being able to see oneself in real time is also disconcerting. Most humans don’t go places with a mirror in front of them at every moment, after all.

Despite these issues, there are ways virtual event organizers can make their experience beneficial to all. Planning appropriate breaks can limit Zoom fatigue. Another option is to organize a hybrid event instead of a purely virtual one. In hybrid events, virtual and physical components come together to connect separate audiences with the same content. The goal of hybrid events is to create the best experience for every audience.

Closing Thoughts

There are numerous ways to format a hybrid event. The main event could be physical, one marketed as a VIP experience for a limited number of attendees. The virtual component could be watched by everyone for a limited time after an event has ended. Some companies may also look for ways to gamify the event. Creating a list of milestones can ensure participants see everything the event has to offer. See more about digital events through digital engagement platforms below.