We've barely had it for two weeks, and most of the Apple Intelligence features released so far on iOS 18 and MacOS Sequoia are focused on text -- such as generating summaries for notifications -- and email, helping to correct your writing and delivering smarter Siri responses. But one feature uses generative AI to work with images: the new Clean Up tool in the Photos app.Clean Up analyzes an image, suggests items you'd likely want removed, such as people or vehicles in the background, and then fills in the deleted area. Sometimes the fix can be invisible to most viewers -- and sometimes the results are laughably poor. After running many types of photos through the tool, I've come up with a few general guidelines to help you get the best cleaned-up images. The Clean Up tool can remove distractions. Jeff Carlson/CNETSurprisingly, Photos on the iPhone and iPad has never had a tool like Clean Up for removing small distractions. The Mac version does include a basic Retouch tool that can repair some areas, which is supplanted by Clean Up on compatible Macs.It's important to remember that Clean Up is a feature of Apple Intelligence, so you will see it only if you're running a compatible device and you've been granted access to the Apple Intelligence beta. That includes iPhones running iOS 18.1, iPads with M-series processors (and the iPad mini with the A17 Pro chip) in iPadOS 18.1 and Macs with M-series processors in MacOS Sequoia 15.1.For more on Apple Intelligence, see which features I think you'll use the most and where its notifications need improvement.How is Clean Up different from other retouching tools?The repair tools in most photo editing apps work by copying nearby or similar pixels to fill in the space where you're making a fix. They're great for removing lens flares or dust spots against a sky, for example.The Clean Up tool uses generative AI, which analyzes the entire scene and makes guesses about what should fill the area you've selected. If you want to remove a dog standing in front of a tree, for example, generative AI creates a replacement based on what it knows about tree texture and foliage in the background, and also takes into account the lighting level and direction in the photo.The "generative" part of generative AI comes from the way it creates the image. The pixels that fill the area literally come from nothing: The software starts with a random pattern of dots and iterates quickly to create what it determines would appear in the same space.Keep in mind, retouching tools that use generative AI are the ultimate YMMV, or "your mileage may vary." I've gotten good results in difficult compositions and terrible results in areas I thought would be simple for the app to handle. Watch this: Apple Intelligence Impressions: Don't Expect Radical Change 09:05 How to remove distractions using Apple's Clean Up toolThe Clean Up tool takes two approaches to repairing photos. Using machine learning, it suggests items such as people or vehicles in the background as possible items to remove. Or, you can drag over what you want to remove and direct Photos to work on that area. The process breaks down like this:1. Open a photo and tap the Edit button. (On MacOS, click the button labeled Edit, or press the Return key.)2. Tap Clean Up. The first time you use the tool, Photos needs to download Clean Up resources, which will take a minute or so depending on your Internet connection. Photos analyzes the image and highlights any potential items to be removed with a translucent shimmer. Open the Photos edit interface and tap Clean Up. Photos makes suggestions about what to remove. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET3. To remove a suggested item, tap it. Or, draw a circle around any item that isn't glowing.4. Don't be surprised if the area isn't cleaned fully on the first attempt -- you may need to draw over remaining areas to do more removal. If you're not happy with a fix, tap the Undo button. If Clean Up doesn't snag everything -- note that the person's legs in the image on the left are not highlighted -- use the tool again to keep cleaning the area. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET5. When finished, tap Done. As with all edits in Photos, you can revert back to the original if you want to start over: Tap the More () button and choose Revert to Original.An unexpected and cool feature: Safety FilterPrimarily you'll use the Clean Up tool to get rid of distracting elements in a scene, but it has another trick available: You can hide the identity of someone in the photo.Draw a circle around their face. You don't have to fill it in -- a general swipe will do the job. Photos applies a blocky mosaic pattern in place of the person's face to obscure it. The Safety Filter is a clever use of the Clean Up tool. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNETWhere you'll see the most success with Clean UpSome scenes and areas work better with Clean Up, so it's good to know where to focus your efforts.In my testing, I've found the most success in these general categories of fixes:Small distractions. Items such as litter on the ground or dust and threads on people's clothing consistently turn out well.Background textures. Areas such as tree leaves, grass or stone can be replicated well.Lens flare. As long as it's not too large, lens flare caused by light bouncing between camera lens elementsBystanders or vehicles in the background that don't occupy much area.Areas with sparse detail or background. Sometimes Clean Up works well -- originals on top, edited versions on the bottom. Jeff Carlson/CNETIn general, when dragging around an area, make sure you grab reflections or shadows cast by the item you want removed. Fortunately Photos often picks up on those and will include them in its selection. Be sure to select shadows and reflections (left). Clean Up detects what should be removed based on the broad selection (middle). A little reflection is left over (right), but that can be cleaned with one more swipe of the tool. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNETAreas to avoid when trying to use Clean UpSome Clean Up targets are going to frustrate you when you try to remove them. For example:Very large areas. If it's too big, Photos balks and tells you to mark a smaller area or it makes a mess of the area. It is also inconsistent about coming up with what would plausibly appear in such a large space.Busy areas with clearly defined features. Tree leaves in the distance generally work well, but not so when there are recognizable structures or items. Removing a prominent leaf from a pile of leaves, or clearing out people from recognizable landmarks, for instance, doesn't turn out well. Removing large objects in the frame becomes a jumble of pixels. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNETWhere Clean Up needs more workRemember, Clean Up and the other Apple Intelligence features are still technically in beta, even though they're available to anyone with a compatible device who signs up for the beta program. (I have some thoughts about installing beta software in general.)And while you can get some good results, there are still a few areas I'm looking forward to Apple improving in future releases. Namely, the quality of the replaced areas is spotty, sometimes looking more like non-AI repair tools. I would have expected Apple's algorithms to do a better job of determining what's in a scene and building replacement areas.In terms of the user experience, if you don't like what Clean Up offers for a removal, your only options are to undo or reset the edit. And if you undo, then try again, you get the same already-processed results. Adobe Lightroom, by contrast, offers three possibilities for every fix, with the option to generate another set if you don't like what it came up with. Lightroom (iPhone app shown here) gives you three options for a removed area. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNETClean Up -- and other similar AI-based removal tools -- also suffer from their projected expectations: We've seen where it can do great things, which raises the bar for what we think every edit should do. When the tool gets confused and serves up a mess of disparate pixels, we expect it to do better. Maybe in the next releases.For more on what Apple Intelligence brings to your Apple devices, get a peek at the visual intelligence feature. Check Out the iPhone 16 Pro Max's Cameras, Display and Colors See all photos

Creating a Videogame in Blender (+Free Download) By Bart on November 10, 2024 Video Stache created a fully interactive videogame in vanilla Blender using a model from Sketchfab, a YouTube tutorial and some Python coding help from ChatGPT. The result is pretty cool!Key Techniques Covered Car Modeling: Creating a car model from scratch in Blender to avoid using third-party assets. Physics-Based Rigging: Setting up a realistic car rig using Blenders rigid body system and constraints. Python Scripting for Controls: Using ChatGPT-generated Python scripts to control the cars speed and steering with keyboard inputs. Rendering with EV Next: Leveraging EV Next for real-time lighting and reflections to achieve a stylized, pixel art look. Game Design Variations: Experimenting with game mechanics like maze-solving, traffic avoidance, and stunt jumps. Interactive Gameplay Setup: Implementing custom game elements, including car controls (W, A, S, D) and a braking system. Compositing for Visual Effects: Adding effects like bloom, glare, and color grading through Blenders compositor. You can try this game yourself - download it here!

Here's an overview of the most recent Blender jobs on Blender Artists, ArtStation and 3djobs.xyz: Particle Hair For more jobs, look here.Source

Although Justin says he has been on Bluesky for more than a year, he mostly used X until this week. After the election, the timeline was full of Swifties getting DMs from Trump supporters threatening rape or sexual assault and making sexually violent comments gloating because Trump won, he says.On Bluesky, however, both Justin and Kim say that they have noticed a tangible difference, feeling safer and more supported by the community itself. The Swifties are here and I, for one, welcome our new overlords, one user posted.Bluesky literally feels like a social media app again, where I'm just connected with my community or like other interesting posts. I feel like people aren't as geared up to fight you, says Kim. Over the past 48 hours she has been hopping back to X to encourage people to migrate to Bluesky. Who knows if the momentum will keep up and everything will actually move over and stay there, she says, but right now it just feels like such a breath of fresh air.As of this writing, there are nearly 200 Swift-themed starter packscollections of accounts that Bluesky users can invite people to follow. Nearly all of them have been created in the past 24 hours.If I, one day, can never open [X] again because all the Swifties are here, it's a massive triumph, says Justin.

UPDATE (08/11/24): We now have more information on the Online Safety Act that will prevent Australians that are under 16 from accessing online platforms, and as we expected, it seems as though it will apply to the likes of YouTube, Roblox and by definition even extend as far as the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live.The definition of a social media service as per the Online Safety Act according to the ABC can be found below:The sole or primary purpose of the service is to enable online social interaction between two or more end users;The service allows end users to link to, or interact with, some or all of the other end users;The service allows end users to post material on the service.By definition, any online gaming network such as Fortnite, Roblox or the PlayStation Network/Xbox Live would meet this criteria as they exist to enable online social interaction between two or more end users, allow people to interact and in most cases also allow material to be posted on the service.This is expected to be a good time away from being implemented (12+ months according to the ABC), and its obviously going to be a hard one to police, but if it does extend as far as we think it will, its going to totally change the structure of these online platforms for massive companies in Australia.We highly recommend heading to the ABC website to read more about the proposed social media ban.ORIGINAL STORY: The Albanese government is reportedly looking to enforce stricter rules for teenagers online ahead of the next federal election according to a new report from The Guardian. The prime minister will allegedly announce the bill some time today though exact details of the legislation remain unclear outside of a loosely defined restriction around the use of social media and other relevant digital platforms by persons under 18 years old.While the exact age limit of the legislation has yet to be announced, the news follows Albaneses previous endorsement of banning social media for anyone under the age of 16. Equally unknown is exactly how far reaching this legislation will seek to enforce itself and on which gaming platforms.While major live service and multiplayer titles like Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft immediately come to mind, its unclear how this love from the Australian government would coexist with pre-existing terms of service and minimum age requirements for the use of transactions and other social media platforms.The news comes ahead of Australias next federal election, slated to take place sometime before September of 2025.The Prime Minster has spoken out on this issue before, stating that We know that technology moves fast, No government is going to be able to protect every child from every threat but we have to do all we can. Parents are worried sick about this. We know theyre working without a map no generation has faced this challenge before.

Keep It PlatonicNo, Avowed doesn't have any romance options, but the game's director has some pretty good reasons behind the decision"We felt that we could best tell our companions' stories and our players' relationships with them without the romance option."Image credit: Microsoft/Obsidian Entertainment News by Oisin Kuhnke Contributor Published on Nov. 10, 2024 Romance options are pretty popular in RPGs these days, and even though Avowed doesn't have any, its director thinks it's better off without one.For reasons that will probably be pretty obvious, video game players love to digitally smooch other video game characters, with romance options being quite popular in a lot of RPGs, no doubt due to the influence of games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. It's been a big part of why Baldur's Gate 3 is so popular, people just can't get their hands off characters like Astarion. But one of next year's biggest RPGs, Avowed, won't have any romance options, despite it being a pretty common thing to find in the genre these days. In a recent interview with GamesRadar, director Carrie Patel explained why Obsidian Entertainment's latest won't have any with a simple explanation: "It's a ton of work."To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Okay, Patel actually had more to say on the topic, as she goes on to say, "You want to make sure you do it right. And part of that is also you want to make sure that a player who opts not to romance but still wants to have a very deep relationship with those companions gets to have just as thorough and meaningful an experience on a friendship or ally path as [if] they went on a romance path. And so we felt that we could best tell our companions' stories and our players' relationships with them without the romance option."Something that was important for the dev team was making sure that every companion felt fleshed out and that all players will experience them on the same terms, an important point in the game's overall story. "With the four companions we wanted them to all have key roles in the story, different party roles, different personalities, and ways that they compliment each other and let them tell the story of the Living Lands to the player," Patel said.There's even one companion that is actually in a relationship, apparently a key component of said character's development. "[It] isn't a story that I think you often get to see in a lot of games with a party member who's travelling with you, and so one thing players will really get to explore with here is kind of how she navigates having her heart in one place, while knowing that she really needs to be here."Personally I'm not too fussed about the idea of not being able to romance anyone; oftentimes the writing isn't even strong enough to support it, so I'd rather see companions and NPCs have their own stories and relationships.Avowed was originally slated to be released this year, but in August Xbox announced that it had been delayed to February 18, 2025 - when it's out you'll be able to play it on Xbox Series X/S and PC.

A dearth of funding for vital open source technologies is leading to a swath of support from startups, unicorns, corporations, and even venture capital firms.Last year, Bloomberg launched its FOSS (free and open source software) fund, committing up to $90,000 per year to various projects. And in October, Indian financial services company Zerodha launched a similar initiative dubbed FLOSS/fund, pledging $1 million annually to open source projects. The reason? A significant portion of our success and growth is owed to FOSS, Zerodha CTO Kailash Nadh said at the time.It goes without saying that this holds true for nearly every technology company founded in the last decade, whether it is publicly acknowledged or not, Nadh added. While there is no shortage of companies building businesses and raising money off the back of open source software, not every community-driven project lends itself to becoming a commercial entity. Some open source tools are more akin to Lego blocks: key components of a software stack, for sure, but difficult to monetize directly particularly in the early days.And this is why weve seen a steady rise in funding initiatives come to the fore. This includes reactive programs, such as 2022s Big Tech-driven $30 million pledge to bolster open source security in the wake of the Log4Shellsecurity flaw that wreakedhavocon the software supply chain. But were also seeing more proactive efforts, driven from all corners of industry. Silicon Valley VC Sequoia Capital launched an open source fellowship in 2023 to support project maintainers with equity-free capital to cover living expenses for up to 12 months. Its inaugural fellow was Colombian software developer Sebastin Ramrez Montao, creator ofFastAPI, an open source web framework for building APIs.In February, Sequoia revealed it would start accepting applications from any developer leading an open source project, with plans to provide funding for up to three qualifying projects annually. Nine months on, and the first two fellows from Sequoias expanded program have now been revealed: Chatbot Arena, a popular open source AI model benchmarking tool used by many of the industrys biggest names, including OpenAI, Meta, and Google; and vLLM, an open source library focused on memory management to power faster and cheaper LLM serving.FastAPI creator Sebastin Ramrez flanked by Sequoia partners Lauren Reeder and Bogomil Balkansky. Image Credits:Sequoia Capital (opens in a new window)Jolly good fellowsChatbot Arena, which spun out of a broader research organization called LMSYS, is the handiwork of doctorate students Wei-Lin Chiang and Anastasios Angelopoulos from Berkeleys Sky Computing Lab. With north of 1 million monthly users, Chatbot Arena is all about helping LLM developers validate claims around their models performance, while anyone can test these models and vote for their preferences. Companies such as OpenAI often share versions of their models with the Chatbot Arena team ahead of the models release to help fine-tune things before their formal launch.While Chatbot Arena receives financing as part of the creators doctorate research work at the Sky Computing Lab, the Sequoia fellowship award of $100,000 will help fund further technical development, including building a better interface.The Sequoia grant supports the development of Chatbot Arenas website, covering full-stack development and server maintenance costs, Chiang told TechCrunch. This is a gift to support the open source project, with no future obligations.Sequoia isnt the only VC firm to lend equity-free support to Chatbot Arena; Andreessen Horowitz launched an open source AI grant program last August, and Chatbot Arenas umbrella outfit LMSYS was among the second cohort of recipients.Chiang said that there are no plans to evolve the project into a commercial entity, underscoring the need for alternative sources of financing now, and perhaps long into the future.As part of our long-term vision, we may establish a nonprofit organization to host the leaderboard, keeping our focus on broad accessibility and community impact, Chiang said.In tandem, Berkeleys Sky Computing Lab also birthed vLLM in 2022, spearheaded by researchers Zhuohan Li, Woosuk Kwon, and Simon Mo, who started the project after developing a system to distribute complex processes across multiple GPUs more efficiently. vLLM leans on a new attention algorithm dubbed PagedAttention, which helps reduce memory waste and is already being used by developers at companies such as AWS, Cloudflare, and Nvidia.vLLM creators Woosuk Kwon, Zhuohan Li, and Simon Mo.Image Credits:vLLMSimilar to Chatbot Arena, vLLM serves as the focal point of its creators PhD research work, and future commercialization is not currently on the agenda. At the moment, we do not have a plan to transition it into a stand-alone company we are solely focused on making the open source project useful and widely adopted, Mo said.In addition to Sequoias $100,000 contribution for the year, other public sponsors include Andreessen Horowitz, which donated as part of its inaugural open source AI grant program last year, while the likes of AWS, Nvidia, and others have collectively helped vLLM cover its compute resources which are not insignificant.For vLLM, we intend to use the fund to cover our continuous integration testing and benchmark suite, Mo said. These suites, running on GPUs, are expensive to maintain but critical to ensure the performance and correctness of vLLM for production usage.One clear message emerges from all this: AI and data infrastructure might be driving demand for open source technologies, but this demand creates significant costs for the project maintainers. Ion Stoica, professor of the computer science division at Berkeley and a Sky Computing Lab adviser, says that the funding pressure on open source project maintainers is at least an order of magnitude higher with the advent of LLMs.You have multiple kinds of GPUs, you have all of these other accelerators, and theres also a difference in scale, he said. Ten years ago, most of the funding for a new startup would go to adding people; today, its going to infrastructure.AlignmentDigging a little deeper, and its clear that Sequoias involvement isnt quite as altruistic as it might seem, owing to the fact that its two new fellows intersect with startups in its existing investment portfolio. By way of example, vLLM is used by Replicate, which Sequoia (and Andreessen Horowitz) backed across its Series A and Series B rounds.Elsewhere, Sequoia last year co-led a $5 million seed round into an AI startup called Factory, with the startups founder and CTO Eno Reyes confirming that his company uses Chatbot Arena to keep close track of the top LLM options.Theyre a key input to make sure we have the best product for our users, Reyes said. Similarly, Sequoias first fellowship award last year, FastAPI, leans heavily on Pydantic, the popular data validation library created by the eponymous startup in Sequoias portfolio.However, Sequoia Capital partner Lauren Reeder told TechCrunch that this cross-pollination between fellows and portfolio isnt a strict condition of its funding decisions, merely a nice bonus when things do align. And in truth, when an open source project is genuinely popular, theres every chance that it will be picked up by one of Sequoias portfolio companies, which is a good way for the VC firm to hear about worthwhile projects.In terms of how the funding is dispersed, Reeder says its open to whatever suits the team in question. For FastAPI, this involved making a direct payment to Montao himself, which was simpler given that it was just the one individual. But where teams are involved, it makes sense to use a third-party fundraising platform such as Open Collective, which also comes with added transparency.For the two most recent fellows, we were supporting small groups rather than a single individual and Open Collective made it easier to manage the funds, Reeder said. Similarly, weve done both up-front payments as multi-install payments, depending on the needs of the project. Open Collective is more transparent, but the fees are not insignificant.Taking a pledgeThere have been numerous other efforts to formalize open source project financing in the past five years alone, including dedicated FOSS funds from Indeed and Salesforce, a tacit acknowledgment that critical components of the tech stack are crying out for support.One of the biggest efforts of late, however, hails from developer tooling unicorn Sentry, which itself has been donating to open source projects for many years. In 2021, Sentry adopted a more systematic program with firmer and more transparent commitments, and last month the company officially launched the Open Source Pledge to encourage other companies to get involved either by donating directly through platforms such as GitHub Sponsors or Thanks.dev, or indirectly via foundations.Weve run our program successfully for three years, but its not enough by itself to solve the open source sustainability crisis. So this year David [Sentry co-founder David Cramer] asked me to get other companies on board to make a bigger impact, Sentrys head of open source, Chad Whitacre, told TechCrunch.The rules of engagement are thus: Commitments should amount to at least $2,000 per year for each developer the member company has on staff, which for Sentry itself translated to around $500,000 last year $3,704 for each of its 135 developer headcount. Beneficiaries through the years have included Django, Python, Rust, and Apache. This year, Sentry has upped its own budget to $750,000, and with some two dozen additional members signed up to the Pledge at the time of writing, Whitacre is hopeful that open source software developers will see a little more compensation in the future.The primary intent with the Pledge is no-strings-attached payments to open source maintainers, Whitacre said. We vet companies when they join to ensure theyre complying with our guidelines, but theres a fair amount of latitude within those guidelines.Aside from corporate members contributing cash, the Pledge has also attracted ecosystem partners to endorse the pledge, which includes foundations, individuals, and even storied VC firm Accel, which itself has invested in numerous open source startups through the years (including Sentry, both before and after it transitioned away from an open source license in 2019).Accel partner Dan Levine said that if something is truly critical, then it should, in theory, be able to sustain itself as a business. The reality, though, is that if enough companies and developers are deriving value from a given open source project, there shouldnt be any issues in getting financial support at least in the early days, before the maintainers can forge a path to commercialization.In the case of open source software, while it can be used for free, users who find it essential are inherently motivated to ensure its sustainability, Levine told TechCrunch. The open source community, particularly on the demand side, needs to reassess its strategies and make more informed decisions to support critical projects. The Pledge is an excellent effort to galvanize the demand side to do whats in their own best interests.

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ZCON 2024Ari Elgharsi & Nick DybelZCON is a groundbreaking conference that last month brought together 150+ content creators and representatives from 500+ brands to challenge the rules of business engagement. Unlike traditional corporate gatherings where seasoned executives dominate the conversation, this event flips the script: here, Gen Z voices take center stage and the CEOs and CMOs listen and learn.The Power of Gen Z Creators"Gen Z creators are content machines," explains Regina Harris, talent manager at Digital Brand Architects "They love creating content whether it's paid or not". This natural inclination toward content creation sets them apart from previous generations, who often approach digital content more methodically.What makes Gen Z unique is their unprecedented commitment to authenticity and social impact. "They crave honesty at a level that maybe may not be healthy," Harris notes. "The oversharing is all the rage and what is almost expected, but that really just comes from a place of wanting transparency."Olivia Frary, Head of ZCON at UTA Next Gen, emphasizes this generational shift: "What we always say is teenage girls set the trends of every generation. Even just thinking back to middle school, all the 13-year-old girls who had One Direction fan pages are now the most powerful up-and-coming marketers that I know." She adds, "I think the difference is that Gen Z is really just unafraid of that digital footprint... You see streamers going at it for 24 hours a day, totally unfiltered."MORE FOR YOUThe Evolution of Content CreationThe landscape of content creation has undergone significant changes in recent years. Harris reflects on this transformation: "Over consumption was amazing. It was not called over consumption. They were called hauls. And we loved to do a good haul back in 2014... No matter what company it was, there was no shame in the company that you were buying from."However, the approach has evolved with growing awareness of social and environmental issues. "I don't think that over consumption has ended," Harris admits, "but now we have to be a lot more tasteful with it. There might be a haul, but you might just space it out over a few TikToks. Or maybe it's in one video, and it's like 10 items, but 10 items max."Reimagining Corporate SpacesZCON, launched last year, represents a radical reimagining of traditional business conferences. The event emerged from Juve Consulting, which Frary describes as "one of the biggest Gen Z marketing agencies, Gen Z run, Gen Z lead, created by diverse young people who are really tired of being in rooms and looking at corporate spaces that didn't represent them.""We created ZCON as a space and platform for diverse young voices to be heard. It's the first ever conference with only Gen Z speakers," Frary explains. The event was born from a vision to transform how corporates engage with young leaders."So often we have diverse young people who are leaders, who are entrepreneurs or content creators or business owners themselves, who are being told that they have to wait their turn," Frary observes. "Our goal was really just to flip that on its head and say, what if we had a room where the CEOs and CMOs of Fortune 500 companies are actually the ones who are listening and learning from diverse young people and the lived experiences that diverse young people are facing?"The Rise of Digital ActivismOne of the most striking aspects of Gen Z's influence is their approach to social activism through digital platforms. Harris explains the organic evolution of this movement: "I think initially, they just wanted to be heard. The internet was a place where you could say, 'I might live in this small town where no one really understands me, but I can find my community online.'"This community-building has evolved into powerful social movements. "They themselves became the content creator and wanted to start posting about the things they care about," Harris continues. "They realized that we can't just be talking heads. We really have to start doing our research and spreading research in a way that is digestible to the masses... These infographics that really have been the backbone of so many movements, because you're getting these micro doses of information."Beyond Traditional ProgrammingThe ZCON conference featured innovative sessions that transcended typical corporate discussions. "One of my favorite conversations was actually hosted by Maya Urban," Frary shares, describing a panel on confidence that included "the incredible Justina Miles, who's actually a Deaf performer, who went viral for being the sign language interpreter during Rihanna's Super Bowl performance."The event also paired activist-influencer Amelie Zilber with March for Our Lives founder Cameron Kasky for authentic conversations about social impact. "Their conversation was just absolutely captivating," Frary notes. "We called it 'made it out of the group chat,' and it was full of a lot of exciting surprises."Social Impact InitiativesZCON's commitment to social impact goes beyond discussions. "At the core of what we do is really, we really always want to center our values," says Frary. "We have recess instead of breaks, we have prom instead of an after party. We're flipping the script on who's on stage versus who's in seats."The event incorporated numerous practical initiatives: "This year, our nonprofit partners were Earth Justice, Born This Way Foundation, the Jed Foundation... We had 5 Gyres, who led a trash sorting workshop on site at ZCON this year... We had an incredible organization called Strategy for Black Lives, another incredible organization focused on the Arts called Noise for Now, and When We All Vote."Intergenerational ImpactThe event's influence extended beyond its target demographic. Harris, who attended as both a speaker and participant, shares her surprise: "There were so many generations in the crowd. I saw so many millennials light up... They were proud of us, proud of what we're doing."She continues, "There was a moment on stage that I remember giving the millennials in the crowd their flowers, because it was like, you know, you kind of created us... You walked, now we're running, we're sprinting. We're going to do all these things, because we've seen what you all did. Time to pass the baton."The Evolution of Brand PartnershipsFor brands looking to connect with Gen Z creators, Harris emphasizes the importance of authentic collaboration: "Yes, give them a creative brief, they want to know what you want, but when you're giving a creator a creative brief, leave enough room for there to be creative freedom, because at the end of the day, they know their audience better than anyone. They study them all day long."She challenges traditional approaches to influencer marketing: "I've had a number of talent say they want it mentioned in the first three seconds. And that just doesn't make sense. They're going to click off of the video in the first three seconds if they hear 'Sponsored by'... Those are kind of the old days of doing influencer marketing."Looking AheadAs ZCON prepares for its next iteration, Frary shares exciting plans: "We are very excited to take this event to different spaces and different demographics, different geographies... We're toying with the idea of bringing it back to LA. But it was a really exciting thing this year that it was so much bigger and better and just has grown in every single aspect."For young creators looking to make their mark, Frary shares a powerful insight from the conference: "Embarrassment is the cost of entry... if you're feeling embarrassed about something, as long as it's not harming other people, that feeling is something that is so important to push through and keep going when you feel that, because it means that you're on the right track."Harris adds her own advice: "Don't think any job is too small, because it usually leads you to the next thing, the next thing... Never think any opportunity is too small. Just learn everything you possibly can for as long as you can."As Gen Z continues to reshape the business landscape, ZCON stands as a testament to the power of giving young voices a platform. Through its unique approach to intergenerational dialogue and social impact, it's not just changing how conferences workit's changing how business gets done.Excerpts taken from an episode of the Business of Creators podcast, where industry leaders share insights on the creator economy.