Google TV is experimenting with AI news on its TVs, and this isn't going to end well

Brandedis a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture.TikTok is fighting for its life in the U.S. over concerns about its parent companys relationship to the government of China. But TikTok has also just enjoyed one of the best branding weeks ever, as its potential demise has been treated as a national emergency.That sounds like hyperbole, but as youve no doubt heard, the president of the United States has literally intervened to pluck the popular video platform from its deathbedfor now, at least. Protecting this vital component of the internets attention-suck and dubious-trend infrastructure might not seem like a top government, or even societal, priority. But in the days leading up to a possible TikTok ban, Americans dependence on this virality machine went massively viral.Content creators and influencers said goodbye and posted teary videos. Fans shared serious and jokey goodbyes of their own. Brands and ad agencies lamented the loss; as one marketer moaned, Theres no substitute. The platforms wide-ranging cultural impacts were enumerated in the past tense. The New York Times asserted that TikTok had changed the way we cook, and publishers warned of an impending vacuum for bookselling. The frantic search for a replacement made an unlikely hit of a Mandarin-language app called RedNote. Rivals YouTube and Instagram angled to capitalize on the platforms demise. Even Kevin OLearythe Shark Tank guymanaged to drum up attention for claiming he might buy TikTok. Concerns about espionage were waved away with sarcastic Goodbye to my Chinese spy memes.More than a collective obituary, the outpouring amounted to an endless series of advance eulogies in honor of an entity that we, apparently, could never truly replace. It was, in short, a PR bonanza for TikTok.This has been quite a turnabout. While clearly popular, with 170 million users, TikTok owner ByteDance has long been painted by detractors as a potential tool of the Chinese government, for collecting data on or even influencing its audience. During his first term as president, Donald Trump called for banning TikTok unless it found a U.S. buyer. The Biden administration later voiced similar concerns, and backed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, passed by Congress with wide bipartisan support. The upshot was that ByteDance had to find a buyer by January 19, or it would become illegal for key service providers including Apple, Google, and Oracle to distribute or support the app, effectively killing it in the U.S. The platform fought this all the way to the Supreme Court, which unanimously upheld the act, seeming to seal TikToks fate.But as the pro-TikTok outcry swelled, the political appetite for actually shutting it down seemed to wobble, and the company took full advantage. Two days before the shutdown deadline, it blamed the Biden White House for failing to offer clarity and assurance to TikTok service providers to buy more time to find a solution, declaring that unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called this a stunt, insisting there was no reason for action before the second Trump administration took office: TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them. That night, TikTok video feeds stopped working, replaced with a pop-up message blaming a law banning the app but adding: President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok.And indeed the next morning, Trumpwho, lets not forget, had set the whole TikTok ban idea in motion in 2020promised to stall the new laws enforcement to work out a deal. The platform was operating again within hours. (Apple and Google have yet to make it available again in their app stores, however.) According to Similarweb, by the end of the day, it hit a record 106.8 million active daily users, well above its pre-ban average.The legality of this maneuver is murky at best, and the Wall Street Journal has calledit an illegal amnesty. Nevertheless, its safe to say that the narrative around TikTok has changed decisively. Trump now professes a warm spot in my heart for the platform, which he says helped him win over younger voters. And in a somewhat surprising and oddly timed chain of events, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew met with Trump last month at Mar-a-Lago, later received an invitation to his inauguration, and was seated front and center next to Americas Big Tech CEOs. Still, the details of whatever Trump has in mind beyond the 75-day extension are vague, and the app could die again; foreign policy hawks are complaining about placating China, and some TikTok creators may not want to be part of a platform too-associated with Trump. In what sounds like a negotiating feint, the president is now suggesting the United States government itself should own like half of TikTok, which he says could be worth hundreds of billions, but would have no value without its U.S. audience. (Again, the legality of such an arrangement is questionable.)Meanwhile, the TikTok faithful have been rewarded for their vocal support, the TikTok Shop sales barely missed a step, and hardly anybody seems worried about the app as an espionage toolleast of all Trump, who dismissed the importance of a geopoliticalrival spying on young kids watching crazy videos. Rumors of potential buyers include MrBeast and Elon Musk. And within a day or two of its resurrection, TikTok had spawned a fresh health trend that involves pouring castor oil in your navel. Yup, back to normal.

Imagine this for a pitch: a Broadway musical about the making of a fake Broadway musical based on a real TV show about the making of a fake Broadway musical.If that made you dizzy, you might not have what it takes to work alongside Drew Hodges and Callie Goff, the creative team that was tasked with creating the ad campaign for Smash, a new musical comedy based on a short-lived NBC series from more than a decade ago.The musical is set to begin preview performances in March at Broadways Imperial Theatre. Like the series, it pokes fun at the backstage intrigue and inflated egos that drive the madcap world of New York theater, all while charting the wayward creation of a fictional musical about Marilyn Monroe. Chaos, drama, and plenty of hijinks ensue in anticipation of one unforgettable moment, the kind that Hodges says is uniquely Broadway: a pulsating, blissful, adrenaline-filled opening night.Thats the moment he sought to recreate for the campaign.Its a really specific American piece of iconography, Hodges tells Fast Company. Youre a hit, and people drink too much, and they jump on top of a table and read a review. When youre in the middle of an opening night like that, its kind of funny because its this classic idea of what a Broadway opening night isbut it actually still happens.Hodges should know. He has worked in the business for well over three decades, helping to create the visual identity for musical hits from Rent to Avenue Q to Hamilton. He founded New Yorks SpotCo advertising agency in the 1990s and now works as an independent creative and designer. For Smash, he collaborated with Goff, SpotCos managing director and chief creative officer, along with noted portrait photographer Jason Bell.We wanted it to be realThe team captured the impromptu emotional purity of an opening night with an elaborate red-carpet photoshoot that included the entire cast, members of the Broadway press, and plenty of easter eggs for theater lovers.The result is a splashy campaign thats as meta as the musical itself, one you can stare at for hours and still find something new. Look closely beyond the red-carpet barricades and youll spot theater-industry stalwarts such as NY1s Frank DiLella, Broadway.coms Julie James, and Tony-recognized theater publicist Irene Gandy, along with theater-press newcomers, including teen influencer Joel Crump.Hodges calls it a Broadway Wheres Waldo? or maybe a Sergeant Peppers thing. And its not an overly Photoshopped composite. Everyone in the photo is actually there in real time.We wanted it to be real, he says. Thats the fun of working on Broadway. You get to have these pinch-me moments. We wanted to bring everyone else into that.The shoot took place at Pier59 Studios on Manhattans West Side and made use of a curved, high-definition screen that stretched some 70 feet wide, projecting the Imperials exterior. A 3D title treatment was added once the image was set. (Hodges says his original plan to shoot in front of an actual venue proved logistically impossible given that most Broadway theaters are filled with audiences and peoplerunning the shows.) Outfits had to be built specifically for the photoshoot because costumes for the final production werent finished yet.Goff, who has worked at SpotCo since the beginning of her career, admitted to feeling some trepidation early in the process for Smash when it came time to enlist real-life industry types for the shoot.We werent sure what was going to happen when we started reaching out to them, Goff says. The exciting moment was when we started getting positive responses. For me, that was the moment when I was like, Oh, this could come together. The community is rallying behind this.'Plenty of Broadway shows wink and nod at their target audiences with theater references and inside jokes about the business and fandom of Broadway. What makes Smash different is that it is overtly about the business of making theater, an insider comedy for an industry where proximity is everything.Only time will tell if that premise will work for or against the show when it opens this spring, although putting prominent members of the theater press in your actual campaign is not a bad way to hedge against negative reviews.If it stumbles, it wont be for lack of talent: Smash features a score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman; direction by Susan Stroman; and it counts Robert Greenblatt, Neil Meron, and Steven Spielberg as producers. The NBC series was created by playwright Theresa Rebeck.For Hodges and Goff, the goal was simply to create something entirely new. If Smash doesnt look like other Broadway campaigns that came before it, well at least it made you lookprobably more than once.I mean, you could just make a mask logo and call it a day, but Im a more-is-more kind of person, Hodges says.

Indian studio SJK Architects has completed The Light House, a home in Nagpur lined with openable wooden shutters that evoke traditional perforated screens or jaalis.Located in a dense urban area in the city, the five-storey home is designed to provide more space for a multi-generational family on a plot adjacent to their previous home, which was demolished to make way for a garden.Responding to Maharashtra state's warm climate and the family's memories of traditional Indian architecture, Mumbai-based SJK Architects stacked the home around a central atrium and added projecting balconies to its perimeter that are sheltered by openable wooden shutters.SJK Architects has completed The Light House in Nagpur"Hailing from north India, the family held deep nostalgia for haveli, large residences with communal courtyards called chowks, projecting balconies called jharokhas and intricate brick or stone lattice screens called jaalis, vernacular to many western and northern regions of India," said SJK Architects partner Vaishali Mangalvedhekar."These climate-responsive dwellings, along with the timber-based 'wada' residential architecture more predominant in Maharashtra served as an inspiration for the design of the new house," she told Dezeen.On The Light House's ground floor, a shared living and dining space sits at the base of the full-height atrium, overlooked from balconies on the upper floors.The five-storey home is designed around a central atrium with projecting balconiesThis communal living space's position not only marks it as the heart of the home but also helps pull daylight deep into the plan and creates visual connections between the more private areas for each part of the family above.The grandmother of the family has a bedroom at the back of the ground floor to enjoy its easy access to the garden spaces via sliding glass doors, while her two sons and grandson each have a dedicated floor above with ensuite bedrooms.Each bedroom extends onto a balcony partially sheltered by wooden screensPositioned on the edges of the plan, each of the bedrooms extends onto a projecting balcony.These balconies are divided to offer both fully outdoor space and areas partially sheltered by wooden screens, which help ventilate and shade the rooms as well as enliven the home's exterior.Read: Edition Office cloaks multi-generational Melbourne home with pale bricks"The lattices are an essential climate control device that diffuses the region's harsh sunlight and facilitates airflow, effectively cooling and ventilating the interiors," explained Mangalvedhekar."[They are] a single tool that satisfies climatic needs, creates an emotional connection with the family's roots and addresses privacy concerns while contributing to the overall aesthetic of the house," she added.Dark Accoya pine wood is used for the screens and interiorsThe dark Accoya pine wood used for these screens has been carried through the interiors in panelling for the living areas, furniture and balustrades.On the uppermost floor, a slightly smaller glass volume contains a spa, gym and jacuzzi finished in dark stone, wrapped by an area of planting and wooden decking overlooking the surrounding city.The shared ground-floor living space is overlooked from aboveElsewhere in India, architecture studio Cadence Architects recently completed a home in Tamil Nadu with semi-open terraces that were created by "carving out" sections of the facade.Other new Indian homes featured on Dezeen include the gridded House XO in Kerala by 3dor Concepts and the affordable Tiny House prototype by Harshit Singh Kothari and Tanvi Jain on the outskirts of Indore.The photography is by Niveditaa Gupta.The post SJK Architects wraps multi-generational Indian home with wooden shutters appeared first on Dezeen.

The Brutalist leads the Oscar nominations but as a film about architecture it's a little underwhelming, writes Will Wiles.You wait ages for an architectural epic and then two come along (almost) at once. Last year Francis Ford Coppola's misfiring fable Megalopolis was released, with a story about a visionary architect struggling to realise a utopian project in the face of political intrigue and opposition. Now, from director Brady Corbet, comes The Brutalist, in which a visionary architect rises out of the horrors of the second world war and the grime of post-war poverty to realise a utopian project in the face of personal disasters and opposition.The Brutalist and Megalopolis are very different films, but they are also very similar, not least in their relationship to a third film, in some ways the defining architectural drama: King Vidor's The Fountainhead (1949), adapted from Ayn Rand's 1943 novel of the same name, in which a visionary architect struggles to realise a utopian project in the face of scheming, petty rivals. The template, by now, is pretty clear: a singular genius, an architectural dream, and an unready world filled with meaner minds.The Brutalist has been eagerly anticipated in architectural circlesWriting for Dezeen about Megalopolis last year I remarked that its celebration of the blank-slate architectural prophet was oddly old-fashioned, a mid-20th-century sort of story rather out of step with the present. And The Brutalist roots its own version of the myth in that time and milieu.But perhaps it's not so old-fashioned after all. If we've been given not one but two retellings of the same parable, then it might have more relevance than expected. It's worth considering what that might say about architecture in the present moment.In The Brutalist which was written by Corbet and Mona Fastvold Adrien Brody plays Lszl Tth, a Bauhaus-trained architect who survives the Nazis and arrives in the USA immediately after the second world war. Eventually, after various trials, he comes to the attention of wealthy industrialist Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce). Van Buren makes himself Tth's patron, and commissions him to design a community centre on a prominent hilltop, dedicated to the memory of Van Buren's mother.Read: "There is no more controversial style of architecture" says The Brutalist director Brady CorbetThis ambitious project consumes both men. Tth, ravaged by trauma, is stubborn and self-destructive, self-medicating with heroin and occasional debauches. The handsome and mannered Van Buren, meanwhile, is vain, capricious and philistine. His appreciation for Tth's work comes not from the designs themselves but from the fashionable praise they attract.Although eager for Tth to realise a great work, "something boundless, something new", he lacks any real sympathy for the artist. Tth, dragged into the project by the force of Van Buren's personality, is fatally unsuited to the role of servant. The relationship is doomed.The Brutalist has been eagerly anticipated in architectural circles. I anticipated it eagerly myself. These are anti-intellectual times. Art and architecture are battered by cultural headwinds and punishing economic conditions. Here, it appeared, was a grand statement against all that, which in addition was sticking up for a scorned architectural style presently experiencing a wave of political antipathy.When a film like this addresses architecture, it is clearly talking about more than just bricks and mortarThe themes encompassed by The Brutalist couldn't be weightier: the Holocaust, Jewish identity, the American Dream, the immigrant experience, the nature of art and beauty. Uncompromising seriousness seemed written into its very fabric, not least its substantial three-hour, thirty-five minute run-time (with intermission), and its tremendous score by Daniel Blomberg.So when a film like this addresses architecture, it is clearly talking about more than just bricks and mortar or poured concrete and cut stone.Tth is making things that have outlasted the extremists who tried to murder him, and will outlast the vicious snobs who exploit and violate him, and all the other dolts and yahoos. It is the revenge of the intelligent on the unintelligent.Read: "Megalopolis is a reminder that the heroic conception of the architect is an intoxicating one"This is distilled in the moment when Tth confronts and insults the plodding commercial architect who Van Buren brings in to keep an eye on costs. In the cinema, this scene got a hearty laugh that was almost a cheer. It was the psychological moment the audience wanted, when the artist puts the value-engineer in his place. It is the kernel of the appeal of this whole fable.To ensure that we ordinary folk can relate, the artist in The Brutalist, is not a rarefied aesthete. Like Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, Tth is the genius as working man. Just as Patricia Neal finds Gary Cooper's Roark labouring in a quarry, Van Buren finds Tth shovelling coal. He's no egghead. His art comes out of pain and when he is thwarted he rages and smashes things up. Brody sells this with a magnetic performance, splendidly complimented by Felicity Jones as Erzsbet, his wife."My buildings were devised to endure [the] erosion of the shoreline," Tth says. He talks about them having an immovable "hard core of beauty", a phrase which gives the second half of the film its title. One can see the appeal of all this mass, solidity and permanence to film directors, whose medium is light dancing on reflective fabric.Tth's creation is a monumental, windowless hulkArchitecture in The Brutalist couldn't be weightier, earthier and stonier. Railcars groan under the burden of it. But is it anything more than a giant work of sculpture? Does it have life beyond endurance?Here is where things start to get a bit disappointing. Tth's creation is a monumental, windowless hulk. Is it beautiful? It doesn't matter, because it's a symbol. It just represents itself: a bold, uncompromising, obdurate creation, around which lesser men will cluck and cavil. It is the big, dumb object we are here to root for, just as for all his human failings there's never much doubt that in the film's moral cosmos the "ugly" Tth is meant to have our full sympathy and his creation our full support.We want to see the artist triumph, just as we want to see Captain America triumph. But the problem with this art-for-art's sake approach is that it surrenders any actual sense of what Tth is doing with his building and why.Read: Sacred Modernity showcases "unique beauty and architectural innovation" of brutalist churchesTth promises that within the unadorned shell, extraordinary interior effects of space and light will play out, but they are only ever glimpsed. One of the compromises he is obliged to make early on is to include a Christian place of worship, which makes him uncomfortable. This chapel appears to consume the entire project, which ends up surmounted by a tower bisected by a cross, and the light effects he creates are cruciform.What happens to the other functions? Presumably they are still there, but we don't see much of them. The film wants to portray Tth's architecture as spiritual, but it can't manage to do that without making it literally religious.We are encouraged to feel that the building that Tth designs is more than a building, but it ends up being rather less. It is just a gesture, a symbol.I am not convinced it makes a meaningful case for architectureThe outward message here is that architecture really matters: it's important, it's lasting, it should be made with an eye on the transcendent, not the bottom line. So it's strange that the actual building that Tth makes seems to matter so little.The aesthetic stakes the difference between success and failure are never really examined. A clunky coda tries to cover some of this with a curatorial lecture, which only really draws attention to the lack of explanation in the film. The Brutalist is a compelling human drama; as architectural drama it does not wholly convince.It's only natural that the architecture world should be enthusiastic about The Brutalist, when the profession is presently experiencing a good deal of indifference and scorn. And whatever their flaws, it's genuinely terrific to see two big, fascinating films about visionary architecture in less than a year. But while it might raise morale among the brutalists in the cinema, I am not convinced it makes a meaningful case for architecture. It's a depiction of creativity from the outside, not from the inside.Will Wiles is a design writer and the author of four novels, most recently The Last Blade Priest.The photography is courtesy of Universal Pictures.Dezeen In DepthIf you enjoy reading Dezeen's interviews, opinions and features,subscribe to Dezeen In Depth. Sent on the last Friday of each month, this newsletter provides a single place to read about the design and architecture stories behind the headlines.The post "As architectural drama The Brutalist does not wholly convince" appeared first on Dezeen.

Would you sit on a chair that only has one leg? Probably not willingly, and only if youve been tricked really hard. Chairs are meant to be stable after all, and many definitely look that part. Once in a while, however, we do come across a design that boggles the mind, causing a conflict between what youre seeing and what you know to be true.This classical wooden chair is one such design, though to be fair, its single leg isnt exactly just a wooden stick. Inspired by Brazilian folklore and using indigenous materials, this modular furniture adds a rather playful twist to your living space, while also inspiring the sharing of stories with the unique marks on the wood that come from its past lifetimes.Designer: Dimitrih CorreaAlmost every culture has myths about a trickster god or creature. The Greeks have Hermes, the Norse have Loki, and Brazilians have Saci, a one-legged black man who loves to play dangerous pranks but also rewards those who are able to trick and trap him in turn. Not exactly the most reassuring inspiration, but fortunately, its association with the Per Chair is pretty superficial.Like that mythical character, the wooden chair has only one leg on the front that spans the whole width. There are, of course, chairs with similar designs that similarly cause some hesitation from people. Practically speaking, however, its a rather safe design because it uses a cantilever system thats employed in even more critical structures like balconies, bridges, and towers. Its backrest is removable, transforming it into a stool, though with that same uncertainty and taunting appearance.You cant be blamed if you feel like youre being wooed to sit on it, especially with its warm reddish brown hues and a rattan woven seat and backrest. That wood is made of Peroba de Campos, a hardwood thats particularly popular in Brazil for its sturdiness and durability. Its widely used in fine furniture and decorative paneling because of its innate beauty and longevity.The Per Chair, however, has another story to tell, quite literally. No trees were cut down in making this quirky chair, and it uses recycled hardwood instead. It doesnt mask its old soul, though, and displays scratches and holes for everyone to see, making you wonder where the wood has been and what stories it had to tell as well.The post One-legged wooden chair steeped in Brazilian culture challenges your courage first appeared on Yanko Design.

You might want to check those answers, Peter.

Go-with-the-Flow allows easy cut-and-drag animation.

As President Trump moves to change federal policy so the US government only recognizes two genders and social media platforms become less safe for LGBTQ+ people, dating apps could become a refuge.

The best hearing aids weve tested to date require a visit to the ear doctorand a sizable investment.