• Il est triste de voir que, même avec le retour tant attendu de Superman au cinéma, l'univers des jeux DC semble s'être évanoui dans l'oubli. Les souvenirs des aventures palpitantes, des héros qui nous inspiraient, s'effacent peu à peu, laissant derrière eux un vide immense. Chaque annonce de film ravive une flamme d'espoir, mais où sont passés ces jeux qui nous faisaient vibrer, qui nous permettaient de vivre aux côtés de nos héros ? La solitude s'installe, et le cœur se serre à chaque nouvelle projection. Espérons qu'un jour, les jeux DC renaîtront, pour que nous puissions ressentir à nouveau cette magie.
    Il est triste de voir que, même avec le retour tant attendu de Superman au cinéma, l'univers des jeux DC semble s'être évanoui dans l'oubli. 💔 Les souvenirs des aventures palpitantes, des héros qui nous inspiraient, s'effacent peu à peu, laissant derrière eux un vide immense. Chaque annonce de film ravive une flamme d'espoir, mais où sont passés ces jeux qui nous faisaient vibrer, qui nous permettaient de vivre aux côtés de nos héros ? La solitude s'installe, et le cœur se serre à chaque nouvelle projection. Espérons qu'un jour, les jeux DC renaîtront, pour que nous puissions ressentir à nouveau cette magie. 😢
    Le film Superman relance DC au cinéma… mais où sont passés les jeux DC ?
    www.actugaming.net
    ActuGaming.net Le film Superman relance DC au cinéma… mais où sont passés les jeux DC ? Les fans de l’Homme d’Acier n’ont certainement pas manqué le rendez-vous. Superman est de retour […] L'article Le film Superman rel
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  • Every day, I look at the world around me and realize it’s just an illusion, a mere projection of what could be. The images we cherish are nothing but fragmented pieces, smoothed over by the pain of reality. It's like dithering with quantization, trying to make sense of the chaos, yet feeling more lost than ever. I find myself standing alone in a crowded room, surrounded by shadows that seem to mock my solitude. The silence is deafening, and the ache in my heart echoes louder with each passing moment. Where is the warmth? Where is the connection? All I feel is the weight of disappointment.

    #Loneliness #Heartbreak #Illusions #Solitude #EmotionalPain
    Every day, I look at the world around me and realize it’s just an illusion, a mere projection of what could be. The images we cherish are nothing but fragmented pieces, smoothed over by the pain of reality. It's like dithering with quantization, trying to make sense of the chaos, yet feeling more lost than ever. I find myself standing alone in a crowded room, surrounded by shadows that seem to mock my solitude. The silence is deafening, and the ache in my heart echoes louder with each passing moment. Where is the warmth? Where is the connection? All I feel is the weight of disappointment. #Loneliness #Heartbreak #Illusions #Solitude #EmotionalPain
    Dithering With Quantization to Smooth Things Over
    hackaday.com
    It should probably come as no surprise to anyone that the images which we look at every day – whether printed or on a display – are simply illusions. That …read more
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  • Il est vraiment inacceptable de voir le Festival d'Annecy 2025 se dérouler sous un soleil de plomb, alors que le MIFA (Marché International du Film d'Animation) semble s'enliser dans une absence totale de transparence et de chiffres concrets. Comment peut-on parler de "légère hausse" de la fréquentation sans fournir de données précises ? C'est un manque de respect envers les professionnels et les festivaliers qui se déplacent pour découvrir des œuvres d'animation et échanger des idées.

    Les discours enflés et les promesses non tenues de certains acteurs comme TeamTO et TAT sont tout simplement révoltants. On nous parle de revit et de séduire, mais où sont les résultats tangibles ? Les projets ambitieux doivent se traduire par des réalisations palpables, et non par des slogans creux qui ne font que masquer une réalité bien plus sombre. Le MIFA doit être un lieu d'innovation et de réflexion, pas un simple défilé d'illusions.

    Et que dire de l'organisation elle-même ? Les conférences, bien que nombreuses, manquent souvent de substance. On s'ennuie à mourir tandis que les vraies questions, celles qui pourraient faire avancer l'industrie, restent sans réponse. Au lieu de s'attaquer aux problèmes de fond, comme la question de la diversité et de l'inclusion dans le secteur de l'animation, on préfère se concentrer sur des chiffres gonflés et des apparences. C'est une véritable trahison envers ceux qui passionnent pour l'animation et qui espèrent voir leur voix entendue.

    Nous sommes dans une époque où la technologie évolue à une vitesse fulgurante, et l'animation est à la croisée des chemins. Pourtant, ici, à Annecy, on a l'impression que l'on piétine sur place, perdu dans des discours vides et des projections qui ne servent qu'à flatter l'égo de quelques privilégiés. Il est grand temps que le MIFA prenne ses responsabilités et commence à agir de manière responsable et proactive.

    Pourquoi ne pas offrir une vraie plateforme pour les jeunes talents ? Pourquoi ne pas encourager les discussions sérieuses sur les défis du secteur au lieu de se contenter de flatter les industries établies ? Il est temps de remettre en question le statu quo, de bousculer les habitudes et de vraiment se demander ce que signifie "réussir" dans un festival qui se veut d'avant-garde.

    En somme, le Festival d'Annecy et le MIFA doivent se réveiller. Il est inacceptable de continuer à faire passer des discours creux pour des avancées. Les passionnés d'animation méritent mieux que cela. Ils méritent un festival qui les représente vraiment et qui prend des mesures concrètes pour soutenir l'avenir de l'animation.

    #FestivalAnnecy #MIFA2025 #Animation #TeamTO #TAT
    Il est vraiment inacceptable de voir le Festival d'Annecy 2025 se dérouler sous un soleil de plomb, alors que le MIFA (Marché International du Film d'Animation) semble s'enliser dans une absence totale de transparence et de chiffres concrets. Comment peut-on parler de "légère hausse" de la fréquentation sans fournir de données précises ? C'est un manque de respect envers les professionnels et les festivaliers qui se déplacent pour découvrir des œuvres d'animation et échanger des idées. Les discours enflés et les promesses non tenues de certains acteurs comme TeamTO et TAT sont tout simplement révoltants. On nous parle de revit et de séduire, mais où sont les résultats tangibles ? Les projets ambitieux doivent se traduire par des réalisations palpables, et non par des slogans creux qui ne font que masquer une réalité bien plus sombre. Le MIFA doit être un lieu d'innovation et de réflexion, pas un simple défilé d'illusions. Et que dire de l'organisation elle-même ? Les conférences, bien que nombreuses, manquent souvent de substance. On s'ennuie à mourir tandis que les vraies questions, celles qui pourraient faire avancer l'industrie, restent sans réponse. Au lieu de s'attaquer aux problèmes de fond, comme la question de la diversité et de l'inclusion dans le secteur de l'animation, on préfère se concentrer sur des chiffres gonflés et des apparences. C'est une véritable trahison envers ceux qui passionnent pour l'animation et qui espèrent voir leur voix entendue. Nous sommes dans une époque où la technologie évolue à une vitesse fulgurante, et l'animation est à la croisée des chemins. Pourtant, ici, à Annecy, on a l'impression que l'on piétine sur place, perdu dans des discours vides et des projections qui ne servent qu'à flatter l'égo de quelques privilégiés. Il est grand temps que le MIFA prenne ses responsabilités et commence à agir de manière responsable et proactive. Pourquoi ne pas offrir une vraie plateforme pour les jeunes talents ? Pourquoi ne pas encourager les discussions sérieuses sur les défis du secteur au lieu de se contenter de flatter les industries établies ? Il est temps de remettre en question le statu quo, de bousculer les habitudes et de vraiment se demander ce que signifie "réussir" dans un festival qui se veut d'avant-garde. En somme, le Festival d'Annecy et le MIFA doivent se réveiller. Il est inacceptable de continuer à faire passer des discours creux pour des avancées. Les passionnés d'animation méritent mieux que cela. Ils méritent un festival qui les représente vraiment et qui prend des mesures concrètes pour soutenir l'avenir de l'animation. #FestivalAnnecy #MIFA2025 #Animation #TeamTO #TAT
    3dvf.com
    Le Festival d’Annecy 2025 se poursuit, sous un soleil de plomb. Les festivaliers sont très nombreux à se presser pour aller voir projections et conférences et la fréquentation est en légère hausse par rapport à l’an passé au niveau global
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  • New Court Order in Stratasys v. Bambu Lab Lawsuit

    There has been a new update to the ongoing Stratasys v. Bambu Lab patent infringement lawsuit. 
    Both parties have agreed to consolidate the lead and member casesinto a single case under Case No. 2:25-cv-00465-JRG. 
    Industrial 3D printing OEM Stratasys filed the request late last month. According to an official court document, Shenzhen-based Bambu Lab did not oppose the motion. Stratasys argued that this non-opposition amounted to the defendants waiving their right to challenge the request under U.S. patent law 35 U.S.C. § 299.
    On June 2, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, ordered Bambu Lab to confirm in writing whether it agreed to the proposed case consolidation. The court took this step out of an “abundance of caution” to ensure both parties consented to the procedure before moving forward.
    Bambu Lab submitted its response on June 12, agreeing to the consolidation. The company, along with co-defendants Shenzhen Tuozhu Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Lunkuo Technology Co., Ltd., and Tuozhu Technology Limited, waived its rights under 35 U.S.C. § 299. The court will now decide whether to merge the cases.
    This followed U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap’s decision last month to deny Bambu Lab’s motion to dismiss the lawsuits. 
    The Chinese desktop 3D printer manufacturer filed the motion in February 2025, arguing the cases were invalid because its US-based subsidiary, Bambu Lab USA, was not named in the original litigation. However, it agreed that the lawsuit could continue in the Austin division of the Western District of Texas, where a parallel case was filed last year. 
    Judge Gilstrap denied the motion, ruling that the cases properly target the named defendants. He concluded that Bambu Lab USA isn’t essential to the dispute, and that any misnaming should be addressed in summary judgment, not dismissal.       
    A Stratasys Fortus 450mcand a Bambu Lab X1C. Image by 3D Printing industry.
    Another twist in the Stratasys v. Bambu Lab lawsuit 
    Stratasys filed the two lawsuits against Bambu Lab in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, in August 2024. The company claims that Bambu Lab’s X1C, X1E, P1S, P1P, A1, and A1 mini 3D printers violate ten of its patents. These patents cover common 3D printing features, including purge towers, heated build plates, tool head force detection, and networking capabilities.
    Stratasys has requested a jury trial. It is seeking a ruling that Bambu Lab infringed its patents, along with financial damages and an injunction to stop Bambu from selling the allegedly infringing 3D printers.
    Last October, Stratasys dropped charges against two of the originally named defendants in the dispute. Court documents showed that Beijing Tiertime Technology Co., Ltd. and Beijing Yinhua Laser Rapid Prototyping and Mould Technology Co., Ltd were removed. Both defendants represent the company Tiertime, China’s first 3D printer manufacturer. The District Court accepted the dismissal, with all claims dropped without prejudice.
    It’s unclear why Stratasys named Beijing-based Tiertime as a defendant in the first place, given the lack of an obvious connection to Bambu Lab. 
    Tiertime and Stratasys have a history of legal disputes over patent issues. In 2013, Stratasys sued Afinia, Tiertime’s U.S. distributor and partner, for patent infringement. Afinia responded by suing uCRobotics, the Chinese distributor of MakerBot 3D printers, also alleging patent violations. Stratasys acquired MakerBot in June 2013. The company later merged with Ultimaker in 2022.
    In February 2025, Bambu Lab filed a motion to dismiss the original lawsuits. The company argued that Stratasys’ claims, focused on the sale, importation, and distribution of 3D printers in the United States, do not apply to the Shenzhen-based parent company. Bambu Lab contended that the allegations concern its American subsidiary, Bambu Lab USA, which was not named in the complaint filed in the Eastern District of Texas.
    Bambu Lab filed a motion to dismiss, claiming the case is invalid under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19. It argued that any party considered a “primary participant” in the allegations must be included as a defendant.   
    The court denied the motion on May 29, 2025. In the ruling, Judge Gilstrap explained that Stratasys’ allegations focus on the actions of the named defendants, not Bambu Lab USA. As a result, the official court document called Bambu Lab’s argument “unavailing.” Additionally, the Judge stated that, since Bambu Lab USA and Bambu Lab are both owned by Shenzhen Tuozhu, “the interest of these two entities align,” meaning the original cases are valid.  
    In the official court document, Judge Gilstrap emphasized that Stratasys can win or lose the lawsuits based solely on the actions of the current defendants, regardless of Bambu Lab USA’s involvement. He added that any potential risk to Bambu Lab USA’s business is too vague or hypothetical to justify making it a required party.
    Finally, the court noted that even if Stratasys named the wrong defendant, this does not justify dismissal under Rule 12. Instead, the judge stated it would be more appropriate for the defendants to raise that argument in a motion for summary judgment.
    The Bambu Lab X1C 3D printer. Image via Bambu Lab.
    3D printing patent battles 
    The 3D printing industry has seen its fair share of patent infringement disputes over recent months. In May 2025, 3D printer hotend developer Slice Engineering reached an agreement with Creality over a patent non-infringement lawsuit. 
    The Chinese 3D printer OEM filed the lawsuit in July 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Gainesville Division. The company claimed that Slice Engineering had falsely accused it of infringing two hotend patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 10,875,244 and 11,660,810. These cover mechanical and thermal features of Slice’s Mosquito 3D printer hotend. Creality requested a jury trial and sought a ruling confirming it had not infringed either patent.
    Court documents show that Slice Engineering filed a countersuit in December 2024. The Gainesville-based company maintained that Creaility “has infringed and continues to infringe” on both patents. In the filing, the company also denied allegations that it had harassed Creality’s partners, distributors, and customers, and claimed that Creality had refused to negotiate a resolution.  
    The Creality v. Slice Engineering lawsuit has since been dropped following a mutual resolution. Court documents show that both parties have permanently dismissed all claims and counterclaims, agreeing to cover their own legal fees and costs. 
    In other news, large-format resin 3D printer manufacturer Intrepid Automation sued 3D Systems over alleged patent infringement. The lawsuit, filed in February 2025, accused 3D Systems of using patented technology in its PSLA 270 industrial resin 3D printer. The filing called the PSLA 270 a “blatant knock off” of Intrepid’s DLP multi-projection “Range” 3D printer.  
    San Diego-based Intrepid Automation called this alleged infringement the “latest chapter of 3DS’s brazen, anticompetitive scheme to drive a smaller competitor with more advanced technology out of the marketplace.” The lawsuit also accused 3D Systems of corporate espionage, claiming one of its employees stole confidential trade secrets that were later used to develop the PSLA 270 printer.
    3D Systems denied the allegations and filed a motion to dismiss the case. The company called the lawsuit “a desperate attempt” by Intrepid to distract from its own alleged theft of 3D Systems’ trade secrets.
    Who won the 2024 3D Printing Industry Awards?
    Subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter to keep up with the latest 3D printing news.You can also follow us on LinkedIn, and subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry Youtube channel to access more exclusive content.Featured image shows a Stratasys Fortus 450mcand a Bambu Lab X1C. Image by 3D Printing industry.
    #new #court #order #stratasys #bambu
    New Court Order in Stratasys v. Bambu Lab Lawsuit
    There has been a new update to the ongoing Stratasys v. Bambu Lab patent infringement lawsuit.  Both parties have agreed to consolidate the lead and member casesinto a single case under Case No. 2:25-cv-00465-JRG.  Industrial 3D printing OEM Stratasys filed the request late last month. According to an official court document, Shenzhen-based Bambu Lab did not oppose the motion. Stratasys argued that this non-opposition amounted to the defendants waiving their right to challenge the request under U.S. patent law 35 U.S.C. § 299. On June 2, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, ordered Bambu Lab to confirm in writing whether it agreed to the proposed case consolidation. The court took this step out of an “abundance of caution” to ensure both parties consented to the procedure before moving forward. Bambu Lab submitted its response on June 12, agreeing to the consolidation. The company, along with co-defendants Shenzhen Tuozhu Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Lunkuo Technology Co., Ltd., and Tuozhu Technology Limited, waived its rights under 35 U.S.C. § 299. The court will now decide whether to merge the cases. This followed U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap’s decision last month to deny Bambu Lab’s motion to dismiss the lawsuits.  The Chinese desktop 3D printer manufacturer filed the motion in February 2025, arguing the cases were invalid because its US-based subsidiary, Bambu Lab USA, was not named in the original litigation. However, it agreed that the lawsuit could continue in the Austin division of the Western District of Texas, where a parallel case was filed last year.  Judge Gilstrap denied the motion, ruling that the cases properly target the named defendants. He concluded that Bambu Lab USA isn’t essential to the dispute, and that any misnaming should be addressed in summary judgment, not dismissal.        A Stratasys Fortus 450mcand a Bambu Lab X1C. Image by 3D Printing industry. Another twist in the Stratasys v. Bambu Lab lawsuit  Stratasys filed the two lawsuits against Bambu Lab in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, in August 2024. The company claims that Bambu Lab’s X1C, X1E, P1S, P1P, A1, and A1 mini 3D printers violate ten of its patents. These patents cover common 3D printing features, including purge towers, heated build plates, tool head force detection, and networking capabilities. Stratasys has requested a jury trial. It is seeking a ruling that Bambu Lab infringed its patents, along with financial damages and an injunction to stop Bambu from selling the allegedly infringing 3D printers. Last October, Stratasys dropped charges against two of the originally named defendants in the dispute. Court documents showed that Beijing Tiertime Technology Co., Ltd. and Beijing Yinhua Laser Rapid Prototyping and Mould Technology Co., Ltd were removed. Both defendants represent the company Tiertime, China’s first 3D printer manufacturer. The District Court accepted the dismissal, with all claims dropped without prejudice. It’s unclear why Stratasys named Beijing-based Tiertime as a defendant in the first place, given the lack of an obvious connection to Bambu Lab.  Tiertime and Stratasys have a history of legal disputes over patent issues. In 2013, Stratasys sued Afinia, Tiertime’s U.S. distributor and partner, for patent infringement. Afinia responded by suing uCRobotics, the Chinese distributor of MakerBot 3D printers, also alleging patent violations. Stratasys acquired MakerBot in June 2013. The company later merged with Ultimaker in 2022. In February 2025, Bambu Lab filed a motion to dismiss the original lawsuits. The company argued that Stratasys’ claims, focused on the sale, importation, and distribution of 3D printers in the United States, do not apply to the Shenzhen-based parent company. Bambu Lab contended that the allegations concern its American subsidiary, Bambu Lab USA, which was not named in the complaint filed in the Eastern District of Texas. Bambu Lab filed a motion to dismiss, claiming the case is invalid under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19. It argued that any party considered a “primary participant” in the allegations must be included as a defendant.    The court denied the motion on May 29, 2025. In the ruling, Judge Gilstrap explained that Stratasys’ allegations focus on the actions of the named defendants, not Bambu Lab USA. As a result, the official court document called Bambu Lab’s argument “unavailing.” Additionally, the Judge stated that, since Bambu Lab USA and Bambu Lab are both owned by Shenzhen Tuozhu, “the interest of these two entities align,” meaning the original cases are valid.   In the official court document, Judge Gilstrap emphasized that Stratasys can win or lose the lawsuits based solely on the actions of the current defendants, regardless of Bambu Lab USA’s involvement. He added that any potential risk to Bambu Lab USA’s business is too vague or hypothetical to justify making it a required party. Finally, the court noted that even if Stratasys named the wrong defendant, this does not justify dismissal under Rule 12. Instead, the judge stated it would be more appropriate for the defendants to raise that argument in a motion for summary judgment. The Bambu Lab X1C 3D printer. Image via Bambu Lab. 3D printing patent battles  The 3D printing industry has seen its fair share of patent infringement disputes over recent months. In May 2025, 3D printer hotend developer Slice Engineering reached an agreement with Creality over a patent non-infringement lawsuit.  The Chinese 3D printer OEM filed the lawsuit in July 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Gainesville Division. The company claimed that Slice Engineering had falsely accused it of infringing two hotend patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 10,875,244 and 11,660,810. These cover mechanical and thermal features of Slice’s Mosquito 3D printer hotend. Creality requested a jury trial and sought a ruling confirming it had not infringed either patent. Court documents show that Slice Engineering filed a countersuit in December 2024. The Gainesville-based company maintained that Creaility “has infringed and continues to infringe” on both patents. In the filing, the company also denied allegations that it had harassed Creality’s partners, distributors, and customers, and claimed that Creality had refused to negotiate a resolution.   The Creality v. Slice Engineering lawsuit has since been dropped following a mutual resolution. Court documents show that both parties have permanently dismissed all claims and counterclaims, agreeing to cover their own legal fees and costs.  In other news, large-format resin 3D printer manufacturer Intrepid Automation sued 3D Systems over alleged patent infringement. The lawsuit, filed in February 2025, accused 3D Systems of using patented technology in its PSLA 270 industrial resin 3D printer. The filing called the PSLA 270 a “blatant knock off” of Intrepid’s DLP multi-projection “Range” 3D printer.   San Diego-based Intrepid Automation called this alleged infringement the “latest chapter of 3DS’s brazen, anticompetitive scheme to drive a smaller competitor with more advanced technology out of the marketplace.” The lawsuit also accused 3D Systems of corporate espionage, claiming one of its employees stole confidential trade secrets that were later used to develop the PSLA 270 printer. 3D Systems denied the allegations and filed a motion to dismiss the case. The company called the lawsuit “a desperate attempt” by Intrepid to distract from its own alleged theft of 3D Systems’ trade secrets. Who won the 2024 3D Printing Industry Awards? Subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter to keep up with the latest 3D printing news.You can also follow us on LinkedIn, and subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry Youtube channel to access more exclusive content.Featured image shows a Stratasys Fortus 450mcand a Bambu Lab X1C. Image by 3D Printing industry. #new #court #order #stratasys #bambu
    New Court Order in Stratasys v. Bambu Lab Lawsuit
    3dprintingindustry.com
    There has been a new update to the ongoing Stratasys v. Bambu Lab patent infringement lawsuit.  Both parties have agreed to consolidate the lead and member cases (2:24-CV-00644-JRG and 2:24-CV-00645-JRG) into a single case under Case No. 2:25-cv-00465-JRG.  Industrial 3D printing OEM Stratasys filed the request late last month. According to an official court document, Shenzhen-based Bambu Lab did not oppose the motion. Stratasys argued that this non-opposition amounted to the defendants waiving their right to challenge the request under U.S. patent law 35 U.S.C. § 299(a). On June 2, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, ordered Bambu Lab to confirm in writing whether it agreed to the proposed case consolidation. The court took this step out of an “abundance of caution” to ensure both parties consented to the procedure before moving forward. Bambu Lab submitted its response on June 12, agreeing to the consolidation. The company, along with co-defendants Shenzhen Tuozhu Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Lunkuo Technology Co., Ltd., and Tuozhu Technology Limited, waived its rights under 35 U.S.C. § 299(a). The court will now decide whether to merge the cases. This followed U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap’s decision last month to deny Bambu Lab’s motion to dismiss the lawsuits.  The Chinese desktop 3D printer manufacturer filed the motion in February 2025, arguing the cases were invalid because its US-based subsidiary, Bambu Lab USA, was not named in the original litigation. However, it agreed that the lawsuit could continue in the Austin division of the Western District of Texas, where a parallel case was filed last year.  Judge Gilstrap denied the motion, ruling that the cases properly target the named defendants. He concluded that Bambu Lab USA isn’t essential to the dispute, and that any misnaming should be addressed in summary judgment, not dismissal.        A Stratasys Fortus 450mc (left) and a Bambu Lab X1C (right). Image by 3D Printing industry. Another twist in the Stratasys v. Bambu Lab lawsuit  Stratasys filed the two lawsuits against Bambu Lab in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, in August 2024. The company claims that Bambu Lab’s X1C, X1E, P1S, P1P, A1, and A1 mini 3D printers violate ten of its patents. These patents cover common 3D printing features, including purge towers, heated build plates, tool head force detection, and networking capabilities. Stratasys has requested a jury trial. It is seeking a ruling that Bambu Lab infringed its patents, along with financial damages and an injunction to stop Bambu from selling the allegedly infringing 3D printers. Last October, Stratasys dropped charges against two of the originally named defendants in the dispute. Court documents showed that Beijing Tiertime Technology Co., Ltd. and Beijing Yinhua Laser Rapid Prototyping and Mould Technology Co., Ltd were removed. Both defendants represent the company Tiertime, China’s first 3D printer manufacturer. The District Court accepted the dismissal, with all claims dropped without prejudice. It’s unclear why Stratasys named Beijing-based Tiertime as a defendant in the first place, given the lack of an obvious connection to Bambu Lab.  Tiertime and Stratasys have a history of legal disputes over patent issues. In 2013, Stratasys sued Afinia, Tiertime’s U.S. distributor and partner, for patent infringement. Afinia responded by suing uCRobotics, the Chinese distributor of MakerBot 3D printers, also alleging patent violations. Stratasys acquired MakerBot in June 2013. The company later merged with Ultimaker in 2022. In February 2025, Bambu Lab filed a motion to dismiss the original lawsuits. The company argued that Stratasys’ claims, focused on the sale, importation, and distribution of 3D printers in the United States, do not apply to the Shenzhen-based parent company. Bambu Lab contended that the allegations concern its American subsidiary, Bambu Lab USA, which was not named in the complaint filed in the Eastern District of Texas. Bambu Lab filed a motion to dismiss, claiming the case is invalid under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19. It argued that any party considered a “primary participant” in the allegations must be included as a defendant.    The court denied the motion on May 29, 2025. In the ruling, Judge Gilstrap explained that Stratasys’ allegations focus on the actions of the named defendants, not Bambu Lab USA. As a result, the official court document called Bambu Lab’s argument “unavailing.” Additionally, the Judge stated that, since Bambu Lab USA and Bambu Lab are both owned by Shenzhen Tuozhu, “the interest of these two entities align,” meaning the original cases are valid.   In the official court document, Judge Gilstrap emphasized that Stratasys can win or lose the lawsuits based solely on the actions of the current defendants, regardless of Bambu Lab USA’s involvement. He added that any potential risk to Bambu Lab USA’s business is too vague or hypothetical to justify making it a required party. Finally, the court noted that even if Stratasys named the wrong defendant, this does not justify dismissal under Rule 12(b)(7). Instead, the judge stated it would be more appropriate for the defendants to raise that argument in a motion for summary judgment. The Bambu Lab X1C 3D printer. Image via Bambu Lab. 3D printing patent battles  The 3D printing industry has seen its fair share of patent infringement disputes over recent months. In May 2025, 3D printer hotend developer Slice Engineering reached an agreement with Creality over a patent non-infringement lawsuit.  The Chinese 3D printer OEM filed the lawsuit in July 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Gainesville Division. The company claimed that Slice Engineering had falsely accused it of infringing two hotend patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 10,875,244 and 11,660,810. These cover mechanical and thermal features of Slice’s Mosquito 3D printer hotend. Creality requested a jury trial and sought a ruling confirming it had not infringed either patent. Court documents show that Slice Engineering filed a countersuit in December 2024. The Gainesville-based company maintained that Creaility “has infringed and continues to infringe” on both patents. In the filing, the company also denied allegations that it had harassed Creality’s partners, distributors, and customers, and claimed that Creality had refused to negotiate a resolution.   The Creality v. Slice Engineering lawsuit has since been dropped following a mutual resolution. Court documents show that both parties have permanently dismissed all claims and counterclaims, agreeing to cover their own legal fees and costs.  In other news, large-format resin 3D printer manufacturer Intrepid Automation sued 3D Systems over alleged patent infringement. The lawsuit, filed in February 2025, accused 3D Systems of using patented technology in its PSLA 270 industrial resin 3D printer. The filing called the PSLA 270 a “blatant knock off” of Intrepid’s DLP multi-projection “Range” 3D printer.   San Diego-based Intrepid Automation called this alleged infringement the “latest chapter of 3DS’s brazen, anticompetitive scheme to drive a smaller competitor with more advanced technology out of the marketplace.” The lawsuit also accused 3D Systems of corporate espionage, claiming one of its employees stole confidential trade secrets that were later used to develop the PSLA 270 printer. 3D Systems denied the allegations and filed a motion to dismiss the case. The company called the lawsuit “a desperate attempt” by Intrepid to distract from its own alleged theft of 3D Systems’ trade secrets. Who won the 2024 3D Printing Industry Awards? Subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter to keep up with the latest 3D printing news.You can also follow us on LinkedIn, and subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry Youtube channel to access more exclusive content.Featured image shows a Stratasys Fortus 450mc (left) and a Bambu Lab X1C (right). Image by 3D Printing industry.
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  • Tech billionaires are making a risky bet with humanity’s future

    “The best way to predict the future is to invent it,” the famed computer scientist Alan Kay once said. Uttered more out of exasperation than as inspiration, his remark has nevertheless attained gospel-like status among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, in particular a handful of tech billionaires who fancy themselves the chief architects of humanity’s future. 

    Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and others may have slightly different goals and ambitions in the near term, but their grand visions for the next decade and beyond are remarkably similar. Framed less as technological objectives and more as existential imperatives, they include aligning AI with the interests of humanity; creating an artificial superintelligence that will solve all the world’s most pressing problems; merging with that superintelligence to achieve immortality; establishing a permanent, self-­sustaining colony on Mars; and, ultimately, spreading out across the cosmos.

    While there’s a sprawling patchwork of ideas and philosophies powering these visions, three features play a central role, says Adam Becker, a science writer and astrophysicist: an unshakable certainty that technology can solve any problem, a belief in the necessity of perpetual growth, and a quasi-religious obsession with transcending our physical and biological limits. In his timely new book, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity, Becker calls this triumvirate of beliefs the “ideology of technological salvation” and warns that tech titans are using it to steer humanity in a dangerous direction. 

    “In most of these isms you’ll find the idea of escape and transcendence, as well as the promise of an amazing future, full of unimaginable wonders—so long as we don’t get in the way of technological progress.”

    “The credence that tech billionaires give to these specific science-fictional futures validates their pursuit of more—to portray the growth of their businesses as a moral imperative, to reduce the complex problems of the world to simple questions of technology,to justify nearly any action they might want to take,” he writes. Becker argues that the only way to break free of these visions is to see them for what they are: a convenient excuse to continue destroying the environment, skirt regulations, amass more power and control, and dismiss the very real problems of today to focus on the imagined ones of tomorrow. 

    A lot of critics, academics, and journalists have tried to define or distill the Silicon Valley ethos over the years. There was the “Californian Ideology” in the mid-’90s, the “Move fast and break things” era of the early 2000s, and more recently the “Libertarianism for me, feudalism for thee”  or “techno-­authoritarian” views. How do you see the “ideology of technological salvation” fitting in? 

    I’d say it’s very much of a piece with those earlier attempts to describe the Silicon Valley mindset. I mean, you can draw a pretty straight line from Max More’s principles of transhumanism in the ’90s to the Californian Ideologyand through to what I call the ideology of technological salvation. The fact is, many of the ideas that define or animate Silicon Valley thinking have never been much of a ­mystery—libertarianism, an antipathy toward the government and regulation, the boundless faith in technology, the obsession with optimization. 

    What can be difficult is to parse where all these ideas come from and how they fit together—or if they fit together at all. I came up with the ideology of technological salvation as a way to name and give shape to a group of interrelated concepts and philosophies that can seem sprawling and ill-defined at first, but that actually sit at the center of a worldview shared by venture capitalists, executives, and other thought leaders in the tech industry. 

    Readers will likely be familiar with the tech billionaires featured in your book and at least some of their ambitions. I’m guessing they’ll be less familiar with the various “isms” that you argue have influenced or guided their thinking. Effective altruism, rationalism, long­termism, extropianism, effective accelerationism, futurism, singularitarianism, ­transhumanism—there are a lot of them. Is there something that they all share? 

    They’re definitely connected. In a sense, you could say they’re all versions or instantiations of the ideology of technological salvation, but there are also some very deep historical connections between the people in these groups and their aims and beliefs. The Extropians in the late ’80s believed in self-­transformation through technology and freedom from limitations of any kind—ideas that Ray Kurzweil eventually helped popularize and legitimize for a larger audience with the Singularity. 

    In most of these isms you’ll find the idea of escape and transcendence, as well as the promise of an amazing future, full of unimaginable wonders—so long as we don’t get in the way of technological progress. I should say that AI researcher Timnit Gebru and philosopher Émile Torres have also done a lot of great work linking these ideologies to one another and showing how they all have ties to racism, misogyny, and eugenics.

    You argue that the Singularity is the purest expression of the ideology of technological salvation. How so?

    Well, for one thing, it’s just this very simple, straightforward idea—the Singularity is coming and will occur when we merge our brains with the cloud and expand our intelligence a millionfold. This will then deepen our awareness and consciousness and everything will be amazing. In many ways, it’s a fantastical vision of a perfect technological utopia. We’re all going to live as long as we want in an eternal paradise, watched over by machines of loving grace, and everything will just get exponentially better forever. The end.

    The other isms I talk about in the book have a little more … heft isn’t the right word—they just have more stuff going on. There’s more to them, right? The rationalists and the effective altruists and the longtermists—they think that something like a singularity will happen, or could happen, but that there’s this really big danger between where we are now and that potential event. We have to address the fact that an all-powerful AI might destroy humanity—the so-called alignment problem—before any singularity can happen. 

    Then you’ve got the effective accelerationists, who are more like Kurzweil, but they’ve got more of a tech-bro spin on things. They’ve taken some of the older transhumanist ideas from the Singularity and updated them for startup culture. Marc Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto”is a good example. You could argue that all of these other philosophies that have gained purchase in Silicon Valley are just twists on Kurzweil’s Singularity, each one building on top of the core ideas of transcendence, techno­-optimism, and exponential growth. 

    Early on in the book you take aim at that idea of exponential growth—specifically, Kurzweil’s “Law of Accelerating Returns.” Could you explain what that is and why you think it’s flawed?

    Kurzweil thinks there’s this immutable “Law of Accelerating Returns” at work in the affairs of the universe, especially when it comes to technology. It’s the idea that technological progress isn’t linear but exponential. Advancements in one technology fuel even more rapid advancements in the future, which in turn lead to greater complexity and greater technological power, and on and on. This is just a mistake. Kurzweil uses the Law of Accelerating Returns to explain why the Singularity is inevitable, but to be clear, he’s far from the only one who believes in this so-called law.

    “I really believe that when you get as rich as some of these guys are, you can just do things that seem like thinking and no one is really going to correct you or tell you things you don’t want to hear.”

    My sense is that it’s an idea that comes from staring at Moore’s Law for too long. Moore’s Law is of course the famous prediction that the number of transistors on a chip will double roughly every two years, with a minimal increase in cost. Now, that has in fact happened for the last 50 years or so, but not because of some fundamental law in the universe. It’s because the tech industry made a choice and some very sizable investments to make it happen. Moore’s Law was ultimately this really interesting observation or projection of a historical trend, but even Gordon Mooreknew that it wouldn’t and couldn’t last forever. In fact, some think it’s already over. 

    These ideologies take inspiration from some pretty unsavory characters. Transhumanism, you say, was first popularized by the eugenicist Julian Huxley in a speech in 1951. Marc Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” name-checks the noted fascist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and his futurist manifesto. Did you get the sense while researching the book that the tech titans who champion these ideas understand their dangerous origins?

    You’re assuming in the framing of that question that there’s any rigorous thought going on here at all. As I say in the book, Andreessen’s manifesto runs almost entirely on vibes, not logic. I think someone may have told him about the futurist manifesto at some point, and he just sort of liked the general vibe, which is why he paraphrases a part of it. Maybe he learned something about Marinetti and forgot it. Maybe he didn’t care. 

    I really believe that when you get as rich as some of these guys are, you can just do things that seem like thinking and no one is really going to correct you or tell you things you don’t want to hear. For many of these billionaires, the vibes of fascism, authoritarianism, and colonialism are attractive because they’re fundamentally about creating a fantasy of control. 

    You argue that these visions of the future are being used to hasten environmental destruction, increase authoritarianism, and exacerbate inequalities. You also admit that they appeal to lots of people who aren’t billionaires. Why do you think that is? 

    I think a lot of us are also attracted to these ideas for the same reasons the tech billionaires are—they offer this fantasy of knowing what the future holds, of transcending death, and a sense that someone or something out there is in control. It’s hard to overstate how comforting a simple, coherent narrative can be in an increasingly complex and fast-moving world. This is of course what religion offers for many of us, and I don’t think it’s an accident that a sizable number of people in the rationalist and effective altruist communities are actually ex-evangelicals.

    More than any one specific technology, it seems like the most consequential thing these billionaires have invented is a sense of inevitability—that their visions for the future are somehow predestined. How does one fight against that?

    It’s a difficult question. For me, the answer was to write this book. I guess I’d also say this: Silicon Valley enjoyed well over a decade with little to no pushback on anything. That’s definitely a big part of how we ended up in this mess. There was no regulation, very little critical coverage in the press, and a lot of self-mythologizing going on. Things have started to change, especially as the social and environmental damage that tech companies and industry leaders have helped facilitate has become more clear. That understanding is an essential part of deflating the power of these tech billionaires and breaking free of their visions. When we understand that these dreams of the future are actually nightmares for the rest of us, I think you’ll see that senseof inevitability vanish pretty fast. 

    This interview was edited for length and clarity.

    Bryan Gardiner is a writer based in Oakland, California. 
    #tech #billionaires #are #making #risky
    Tech billionaires are making a risky bet with humanity’s future
    “The best way to predict the future is to invent it,” the famed computer scientist Alan Kay once said. Uttered more out of exasperation than as inspiration, his remark has nevertheless attained gospel-like status among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, in particular a handful of tech billionaires who fancy themselves the chief architects of humanity’s future.  Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and others may have slightly different goals and ambitions in the near term, but their grand visions for the next decade and beyond are remarkably similar. Framed less as technological objectives and more as existential imperatives, they include aligning AI with the interests of humanity; creating an artificial superintelligence that will solve all the world’s most pressing problems; merging with that superintelligence to achieve immortality; establishing a permanent, self-­sustaining colony on Mars; and, ultimately, spreading out across the cosmos. While there’s a sprawling patchwork of ideas and philosophies powering these visions, three features play a central role, says Adam Becker, a science writer and astrophysicist: an unshakable certainty that technology can solve any problem, a belief in the necessity of perpetual growth, and a quasi-religious obsession with transcending our physical and biological limits. In his timely new book, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity, Becker calls this triumvirate of beliefs the “ideology of technological salvation” and warns that tech titans are using it to steer humanity in a dangerous direction.  “In most of these isms you’ll find the idea of escape and transcendence, as well as the promise of an amazing future, full of unimaginable wonders—so long as we don’t get in the way of technological progress.” “The credence that tech billionaires give to these specific science-fictional futures validates their pursuit of more—to portray the growth of their businesses as a moral imperative, to reduce the complex problems of the world to simple questions of technology,to justify nearly any action they might want to take,” he writes. Becker argues that the only way to break free of these visions is to see them for what they are: a convenient excuse to continue destroying the environment, skirt regulations, amass more power and control, and dismiss the very real problems of today to focus on the imagined ones of tomorrow.  A lot of critics, academics, and journalists have tried to define or distill the Silicon Valley ethos over the years. There was the “Californian Ideology” in the mid-’90s, the “Move fast and break things” era of the early 2000s, and more recently the “Libertarianism for me, feudalism for thee”  or “techno-­authoritarian” views. How do you see the “ideology of technological salvation” fitting in?  I’d say it’s very much of a piece with those earlier attempts to describe the Silicon Valley mindset. I mean, you can draw a pretty straight line from Max More’s principles of transhumanism in the ’90s to the Californian Ideologyand through to what I call the ideology of technological salvation. The fact is, many of the ideas that define or animate Silicon Valley thinking have never been much of a ­mystery—libertarianism, an antipathy toward the government and regulation, the boundless faith in technology, the obsession with optimization.  What can be difficult is to parse where all these ideas come from and how they fit together—or if they fit together at all. I came up with the ideology of technological salvation as a way to name and give shape to a group of interrelated concepts and philosophies that can seem sprawling and ill-defined at first, but that actually sit at the center of a worldview shared by venture capitalists, executives, and other thought leaders in the tech industry.  Readers will likely be familiar with the tech billionaires featured in your book and at least some of their ambitions. I’m guessing they’ll be less familiar with the various “isms” that you argue have influenced or guided their thinking. Effective altruism, rationalism, long­termism, extropianism, effective accelerationism, futurism, singularitarianism, ­transhumanism—there are a lot of them. Is there something that they all share?  They’re definitely connected. In a sense, you could say they’re all versions or instantiations of the ideology of technological salvation, but there are also some very deep historical connections between the people in these groups and their aims and beliefs. The Extropians in the late ’80s believed in self-­transformation through technology and freedom from limitations of any kind—ideas that Ray Kurzweil eventually helped popularize and legitimize for a larger audience with the Singularity.  In most of these isms you’ll find the idea of escape and transcendence, as well as the promise of an amazing future, full of unimaginable wonders—so long as we don’t get in the way of technological progress. I should say that AI researcher Timnit Gebru and philosopher Émile Torres have also done a lot of great work linking these ideologies to one another and showing how they all have ties to racism, misogyny, and eugenics. You argue that the Singularity is the purest expression of the ideology of technological salvation. How so? Well, for one thing, it’s just this very simple, straightforward idea—the Singularity is coming and will occur when we merge our brains with the cloud and expand our intelligence a millionfold. This will then deepen our awareness and consciousness and everything will be amazing. In many ways, it’s a fantastical vision of a perfect technological utopia. We’re all going to live as long as we want in an eternal paradise, watched over by machines of loving grace, and everything will just get exponentially better forever. The end. The other isms I talk about in the book have a little more … heft isn’t the right word—they just have more stuff going on. There’s more to them, right? The rationalists and the effective altruists and the longtermists—they think that something like a singularity will happen, or could happen, but that there’s this really big danger between where we are now and that potential event. We have to address the fact that an all-powerful AI might destroy humanity—the so-called alignment problem—before any singularity can happen.  Then you’ve got the effective accelerationists, who are more like Kurzweil, but they’ve got more of a tech-bro spin on things. They’ve taken some of the older transhumanist ideas from the Singularity and updated them for startup culture. Marc Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto”is a good example. You could argue that all of these other philosophies that have gained purchase in Silicon Valley are just twists on Kurzweil’s Singularity, each one building on top of the core ideas of transcendence, techno­-optimism, and exponential growth.  Early on in the book you take aim at that idea of exponential growth—specifically, Kurzweil’s “Law of Accelerating Returns.” Could you explain what that is and why you think it’s flawed? Kurzweil thinks there’s this immutable “Law of Accelerating Returns” at work in the affairs of the universe, especially when it comes to technology. It’s the idea that technological progress isn’t linear but exponential. Advancements in one technology fuel even more rapid advancements in the future, which in turn lead to greater complexity and greater technological power, and on and on. This is just a mistake. Kurzweil uses the Law of Accelerating Returns to explain why the Singularity is inevitable, but to be clear, he’s far from the only one who believes in this so-called law. “I really believe that when you get as rich as some of these guys are, you can just do things that seem like thinking and no one is really going to correct you or tell you things you don’t want to hear.” My sense is that it’s an idea that comes from staring at Moore’s Law for too long. Moore’s Law is of course the famous prediction that the number of transistors on a chip will double roughly every two years, with a minimal increase in cost. Now, that has in fact happened for the last 50 years or so, but not because of some fundamental law in the universe. It’s because the tech industry made a choice and some very sizable investments to make it happen. Moore’s Law was ultimately this really interesting observation or projection of a historical trend, but even Gordon Mooreknew that it wouldn’t and couldn’t last forever. In fact, some think it’s already over.  These ideologies take inspiration from some pretty unsavory characters. Transhumanism, you say, was first popularized by the eugenicist Julian Huxley in a speech in 1951. Marc Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” name-checks the noted fascist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and his futurist manifesto. Did you get the sense while researching the book that the tech titans who champion these ideas understand their dangerous origins? You’re assuming in the framing of that question that there’s any rigorous thought going on here at all. As I say in the book, Andreessen’s manifesto runs almost entirely on vibes, not logic. I think someone may have told him about the futurist manifesto at some point, and he just sort of liked the general vibe, which is why he paraphrases a part of it. Maybe he learned something about Marinetti and forgot it. Maybe he didn’t care.  I really believe that when you get as rich as some of these guys are, you can just do things that seem like thinking and no one is really going to correct you or tell you things you don’t want to hear. For many of these billionaires, the vibes of fascism, authoritarianism, and colonialism are attractive because they’re fundamentally about creating a fantasy of control.  You argue that these visions of the future are being used to hasten environmental destruction, increase authoritarianism, and exacerbate inequalities. You also admit that they appeal to lots of people who aren’t billionaires. Why do you think that is?  I think a lot of us are also attracted to these ideas for the same reasons the tech billionaires are—they offer this fantasy of knowing what the future holds, of transcending death, and a sense that someone or something out there is in control. It’s hard to overstate how comforting a simple, coherent narrative can be in an increasingly complex and fast-moving world. This is of course what religion offers for many of us, and I don’t think it’s an accident that a sizable number of people in the rationalist and effective altruist communities are actually ex-evangelicals. More than any one specific technology, it seems like the most consequential thing these billionaires have invented is a sense of inevitability—that their visions for the future are somehow predestined. How does one fight against that? It’s a difficult question. For me, the answer was to write this book. I guess I’d also say this: Silicon Valley enjoyed well over a decade with little to no pushback on anything. That’s definitely a big part of how we ended up in this mess. There was no regulation, very little critical coverage in the press, and a lot of self-mythologizing going on. Things have started to change, especially as the social and environmental damage that tech companies and industry leaders have helped facilitate has become more clear. That understanding is an essential part of deflating the power of these tech billionaires and breaking free of their visions. When we understand that these dreams of the future are actually nightmares for the rest of us, I think you’ll see that senseof inevitability vanish pretty fast.  This interview was edited for length and clarity. Bryan Gardiner is a writer based in Oakland, California.  #tech #billionaires #are #making #risky
    Tech billionaires are making a risky bet with humanity’s future
    www.technologyreview.com
    “The best way to predict the future is to invent it,” the famed computer scientist Alan Kay once said. Uttered more out of exasperation than as inspiration, his remark has nevertheless attained gospel-like status among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, in particular a handful of tech billionaires who fancy themselves the chief architects of humanity’s future.  Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and others may have slightly different goals and ambitions in the near term, but their grand visions for the next decade and beyond are remarkably similar. Framed less as technological objectives and more as existential imperatives, they include aligning AI with the interests of humanity; creating an artificial superintelligence that will solve all the world’s most pressing problems; merging with that superintelligence to achieve immortality (or something close to it); establishing a permanent, self-­sustaining colony on Mars; and, ultimately, spreading out across the cosmos. While there’s a sprawling patchwork of ideas and philosophies powering these visions, three features play a central role, says Adam Becker, a science writer and astrophysicist: an unshakable certainty that technology can solve any problem, a belief in the necessity of perpetual growth, and a quasi-religious obsession with transcending our physical and biological limits. In his timely new book, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity, Becker calls this triumvirate of beliefs the “ideology of technological salvation” and warns that tech titans are using it to steer humanity in a dangerous direction.  “In most of these isms you’ll find the idea of escape and transcendence, as well as the promise of an amazing future, full of unimaginable wonders—so long as we don’t get in the way of technological progress.” “The credence that tech billionaires give to these specific science-fictional futures validates their pursuit of more—to portray the growth of their businesses as a moral imperative, to reduce the complex problems of the world to simple questions of technology, [and] to justify nearly any action they might want to take,” he writes. Becker argues that the only way to break free of these visions is to see them for what they are: a convenient excuse to continue destroying the environment, skirt regulations, amass more power and control, and dismiss the very real problems of today to focus on the imagined ones of tomorrow.  A lot of critics, academics, and journalists have tried to define or distill the Silicon Valley ethos over the years. There was the “Californian Ideology” in the mid-’90s, the “Move fast and break things” era of the early 2000s, and more recently the “Libertarianism for me, feudalism for thee”  or “techno-­authoritarian” views. How do you see the “ideology of technological salvation” fitting in?  I’d say it’s very much of a piece with those earlier attempts to describe the Silicon Valley mindset. I mean, you can draw a pretty straight line from Max More’s principles of transhumanism in the ’90s to the Californian Ideology [a mashup of countercultural, libertarian, and neoliberal values] and through to what I call the ideology of technological salvation. The fact is, many of the ideas that define or animate Silicon Valley thinking have never been much of a ­mystery—libertarianism, an antipathy toward the government and regulation, the boundless faith in technology, the obsession with optimization.  What can be difficult is to parse where all these ideas come from and how they fit together—or if they fit together at all. I came up with the ideology of technological salvation as a way to name and give shape to a group of interrelated concepts and philosophies that can seem sprawling and ill-defined at first, but that actually sit at the center of a worldview shared by venture capitalists, executives, and other thought leaders in the tech industry.  Readers will likely be familiar with the tech billionaires featured in your book and at least some of their ambitions. I’m guessing they’ll be less familiar with the various “isms” that you argue have influenced or guided their thinking. Effective altruism, rationalism, long­termism, extropianism, effective accelerationism, futurism, singularitarianism, ­transhumanism—there are a lot of them. Is there something that they all share?  They’re definitely connected. In a sense, you could say they’re all versions or instantiations of the ideology of technological salvation, but there are also some very deep historical connections between the people in these groups and their aims and beliefs. The Extropians in the late ’80s believed in self-­transformation through technology and freedom from limitations of any kind—ideas that Ray Kurzweil eventually helped popularize and legitimize for a larger audience with the Singularity.  In most of these isms you’ll find the idea of escape and transcendence, as well as the promise of an amazing future, full of unimaginable wonders—so long as we don’t get in the way of technological progress. I should say that AI researcher Timnit Gebru and philosopher Émile Torres have also done a lot of great work linking these ideologies to one another and showing how they all have ties to racism, misogyny, and eugenics. You argue that the Singularity is the purest expression of the ideology of technological salvation. How so? Well, for one thing, it’s just this very simple, straightforward idea—the Singularity is coming and will occur when we merge our brains with the cloud and expand our intelligence a millionfold. This will then deepen our awareness and consciousness and everything will be amazing. In many ways, it’s a fantastical vision of a perfect technological utopia. We’re all going to live as long as we want in an eternal paradise, watched over by machines of loving grace, and everything will just get exponentially better forever. The end. The other isms I talk about in the book have a little more … heft isn’t the right word—they just have more stuff going on. There’s more to them, right? The rationalists and the effective altruists and the longtermists—they think that something like a singularity will happen, or could happen, but that there’s this really big danger between where we are now and that potential event. We have to address the fact that an all-powerful AI might destroy humanity—the so-called alignment problem—before any singularity can happen.  Then you’ve got the effective accelerationists, who are more like Kurzweil, but they’ve got more of a tech-bro spin on things. They’ve taken some of the older transhumanist ideas from the Singularity and updated them for startup culture. Marc Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” [from 2023] is a good example. You could argue that all of these other philosophies that have gained purchase in Silicon Valley are just twists on Kurzweil’s Singularity, each one building on top of the core ideas of transcendence, techno­-optimism, and exponential growth.  Early on in the book you take aim at that idea of exponential growth—specifically, Kurzweil’s “Law of Accelerating Returns.” Could you explain what that is and why you think it’s flawed? Kurzweil thinks there’s this immutable “Law of Accelerating Returns” at work in the affairs of the universe, especially when it comes to technology. It’s the idea that technological progress isn’t linear but exponential. Advancements in one technology fuel even more rapid advancements in the future, which in turn lead to greater complexity and greater technological power, and on and on. This is just a mistake. Kurzweil uses the Law of Accelerating Returns to explain why the Singularity is inevitable, but to be clear, he’s far from the only one who believes in this so-called law. “I really believe that when you get as rich as some of these guys are, you can just do things that seem like thinking and no one is really going to correct you or tell you things you don’t want to hear.” My sense is that it’s an idea that comes from staring at Moore’s Law for too long. Moore’s Law is of course the famous prediction that the number of transistors on a chip will double roughly every two years, with a minimal increase in cost. Now, that has in fact happened for the last 50 years or so, but not because of some fundamental law in the universe. It’s because the tech industry made a choice and some very sizable investments to make it happen. Moore’s Law was ultimately this really interesting observation or projection of a historical trend, but even Gordon Moore [who first articulated it] knew that it wouldn’t and couldn’t last forever. In fact, some think it’s already over.  These ideologies take inspiration from some pretty unsavory characters. Transhumanism, you say, was first popularized by the eugenicist Julian Huxley in a speech in 1951. Marc Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” name-checks the noted fascist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and his futurist manifesto. Did you get the sense while researching the book that the tech titans who champion these ideas understand their dangerous origins? You’re assuming in the framing of that question that there’s any rigorous thought going on here at all. As I say in the book, Andreessen’s manifesto runs almost entirely on vibes, not logic. I think someone may have told him about the futurist manifesto at some point, and he just sort of liked the general vibe, which is why he paraphrases a part of it. Maybe he learned something about Marinetti and forgot it. Maybe he didn’t care.  I really believe that when you get as rich as some of these guys are, you can just do things that seem like thinking and no one is really going to correct you or tell you things you don’t want to hear. For many of these billionaires, the vibes of fascism, authoritarianism, and colonialism are attractive because they’re fundamentally about creating a fantasy of control.  You argue that these visions of the future are being used to hasten environmental destruction, increase authoritarianism, and exacerbate inequalities. You also admit that they appeal to lots of people who aren’t billionaires. Why do you think that is?  I think a lot of us are also attracted to these ideas for the same reasons the tech billionaires are—they offer this fantasy of knowing what the future holds, of transcending death, and a sense that someone or something out there is in control. It’s hard to overstate how comforting a simple, coherent narrative can be in an increasingly complex and fast-moving world. This is of course what religion offers for many of us, and I don’t think it’s an accident that a sizable number of people in the rationalist and effective altruist communities are actually ex-evangelicals. More than any one specific technology, it seems like the most consequential thing these billionaires have invented is a sense of inevitability—that their visions for the future are somehow predestined. How does one fight against that? It’s a difficult question. For me, the answer was to write this book. I guess I’d also say this: Silicon Valley enjoyed well over a decade with little to no pushback on anything. That’s definitely a big part of how we ended up in this mess. There was no regulation, very little critical coverage in the press, and a lot of self-mythologizing going on. Things have started to change, especially as the social and environmental damage that tech companies and industry leaders have helped facilitate has become more clear. That understanding is an essential part of deflating the power of these tech billionaires and breaking free of their visions. When we understand that these dreams of the future are actually nightmares for the rest of us, I think you’ll see that senseof inevitability vanish pretty fast.  This interview was edited for length and clarity. Bryan Gardiner is a writer based in Oakland, California. 
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  • Alec Haase Q&A: Customer Engagement Book Interview

    Reading Time: 6 minutes
    What is marketing without data? Assumptions. Guesses. Fluff.
    For Chapter 6 of our book, “The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die,” we spoke with Alec Haase, Product GTM Lead, Commerce and AI at Hightouch, to explore how engagement data can truly inform critical business decisions. 
    Alec discusses the different types of customer behaviors that matter most, how to separate meaningful information from the rest, and the role of systems that learn over time to create tailored customer experiences.
    This interview provides insights into using data for real-time actions and shaping the future of marketing. Prepare to learn about AI decision-making and how a focus on data is changing how we engage with customers.

     
    Alec Haase Q&A Interview
    1. What types of customer engagement data are most valuable for making strategic business decisions?
    It’s a culmination of everything.
    Behavioral signals — the actual conversions and micro-conversions that users take within your product or website.
    Obviously, that’s things like purchases. But there are also other behavioral signals marketers should be using and thinking about. Things like micro-conversions — maybe that’s shopping for a product, clicking to learn more about a product, or visiting a certain page on your website.
    Behind that, you also need to have all your user data to tie that to.

    So I know someone took said action; I can follow up with them in email or out on paid social. I need the user identifiers to do that.

    2. How do you distinguish between data that is actionable versus data that is just noise?
    Data that’s actionable includes the conversions and micro-conversions — very clear instances of “someone did this.” I can react to or measure those.
    What’s becoming a bit of a challenge for marketers is understanding that there’s other data that is valuable for machine learning or reinforcement learning models, things like tags on the types of products customers are interacting with.
    Maybe there’s category information about that product, or color information. That would otherwise look like noise to the average marketer. But behind the scenes, it can be used for reinforcement learning.

    There is definitely the “clear-cut” actionable data, but marketers shouldn’t be quick to classify things as noise because the rise in machine learning and reinforcement learning will make that data more valuable.

    3. How can customer engagement data be used to identify and prioritize new business opportunities?
    At Hightouch, we don’t necessarily think about retroactive analysis. We have a system where we have customer engagement data firing in that we then have real-time scores reacting to.
    An interesting example is when you have machine learning and reinforcement learning models running. In the pet retailer example I gave you, the system is able to figure out what to prioritize.
    The concept of reinforcement learning is not a marketer making rules to say, “I know this type of thing works well on this type of audience.”

    It’s the machine itself using the data to determine what attribute responds well to which offer, recommendation, or marketing campaign.

    4. How can marketers ensure their use of customer engagement data aligns with the broader business objectives?
    It starts with the objectives. It’s starting with the desired outcome and working your way back. That whole flip of the paradigm is starting with outcomes and letting the system optimize. What are you trying to drive, and then back into the types of experiences that can make that happen?
    There’s personalization.
    When we talk about data-driven experiences and personalization, Spotify Wrapped is the North Star. For Spotify Wrapped, you want to drive customer stickiness and create a brand. To make that happen, you want to send a personalized email. What components do you want in that email?

    Maybe it’s top five songs, top five artists, and then you can back into the actual event data you need to make that happen.

    5. What role does engagement data play in influencing cross-functional decisions such as those in product development, sales, or customer service?
    For product development, it’s product analytics — knowing what features users are using, or seeing in heat maps where users are clicking.
    Sales is similar. We’re using behavioral signals like what types of content they’re reading on the site to help inform what they would be interested in — the types of products or the types of use cases.

    For customer service, you can look at errors they’ve run into in the past or specific purchases they’ve made, so that when you’re helping them the next time they engage with you, you know exactly what their past behaviors were and what products they could be calling about.

    6. What are some challenges marketers face when trying to translate customer engagement data into actionable insights?
    Access to data is one challenge. You might not know what data you have because marketers historically may not have been used to the systems where data is stored.
    Historically, that’s been pretty siloed away from them. Rich behavioral data and other data across the business was stored somewhere else.
    Now, as more companies embrace the data warehouse at the center of their business, it gives everyone a true single place where data can be stored.

    Marketers are working more with data teams, understanding more about the data they have, and using that data to power downstream use cases, personalization, reinforcement learning, or general business insights.

    7. How do you address skepticism or resistance from stakeholders when presenting data-driven recommendations?
    As a marketer, I think proof is key. The best thing is if you’ve actually run a test. “I think we should do this. I ran a small test, and it’s showing that this is actually proving out.” Being able to clearly explain and justify your reasoning with data is super important.

    8. What technology or tools have you found most effective for gathering and analyzing customer engagement data?
    Any type of behavioral event collection, specifically ones that write to the cloud data warehouse, is the critical component. Your data team is operating off the data warehouse.
    Having an event collection product that stores data in that central spot is really important if you want to use the other data when making recommendations.
    You want to get everything into the data warehouse where it can be used both for insights and for putting into action.

    For Spotify Wrapped, you want to collect behavioral event signals like songs listened to or concerts attended, writing to the warehouse so that you can get insights back — how many songs were played this year, projections for next month — but then you can also use those behavioral events in downstream platforms to fire off personalized emails with product recommendations or Spotify Wrapped-style experiences.

    9. How do you see the role of customer engagement data evolving in shaping business strategies over the next five years?

    What we’re excited about is the concept of AI Decisioning — having AI agents actually using customer data to train their own models and decision-making to create personalized experiences.
    We’re sitting on top of all this behavioral data, engagement data, and user attributes, and our system is learning from all of that to make the best decisions across downstream systems.
    Whether that’s as simple as driving a loyalty program and figuring out what emails to send or what on-site experiences to show, or exposing insights that might lead you to completely change your business strategy, we see engagement data as the fuel to the engine of reinforcement learning, machine learning, AI agents, this whole next wave of Martech that’s just now coming.
    But it all starts with having the data to train those systems.

    I think that behavioral data is the fuel of modern Martech, and that only holds more true as Martech platforms adopt these decisioning and AI capabilities, because they’re only as good as the data that’s training the models.

     

     
    This interview Q&A was hosted with Alec Haase, Product GTM Lead, Commerce and AI at Hightouch, for Chapter 6 of The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die.
    Download the PDF or request a physical copy of the book here.
    The post Alec Haase Q&A: Customer Engagement Book Interview appeared first on MoEngage.
    #alec #haase #qampampa #customer #engagement
    Alec Haase Q&A: Customer Engagement Book Interview
    Reading Time: 6 minutes What is marketing without data? Assumptions. Guesses. Fluff. For Chapter 6 of our book, “The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die,” we spoke with Alec Haase, Product GTM Lead, Commerce and AI at Hightouch, to explore how engagement data can truly inform critical business decisions.  Alec discusses the different types of customer behaviors that matter most, how to separate meaningful information from the rest, and the role of systems that learn over time to create tailored customer experiences. This interview provides insights into using data for real-time actions and shaping the future of marketing. Prepare to learn about AI decision-making and how a focus on data is changing how we engage with customers.   Alec Haase Q&A Interview 1. What types of customer engagement data are most valuable for making strategic business decisions? It’s a culmination of everything. Behavioral signals — the actual conversions and micro-conversions that users take within your product or website. Obviously, that’s things like purchases. But there are also other behavioral signals marketers should be using and thinking about. Things like micro-conversions — maybe that’s shopping for a product, clicking to learn more about a product, or visiting a certain page on your website. Behind that, you also need to have all your user data to tie that to. So I know someone took said action; I can follow up with them in email or out on paid social. I need the user identifiers to do that. 2. How do you distinguish between data that is actionable versus data that is just noise? Data that’s actionable includes the conversions and micro-conversions — very clear instances of “someone did this.” I can react to or measure those. What’s becoming a bit of a challenge for marketers is understanding that there’s other data that is valuable for machine learning or reinforcement learning models, things like tags on the types of products customers are interacting with. Maybe there’s category information about that product, or color information. That would otherwise look like noise to the average marketer. But behind the scenes, it can be used for reinforcement learning. There is definitely the “clear-cut” actionable data, but marketers shouldn’t be quick to classify things as noise because the rise in machine learning and reinforcement learning will make that data more valuable. 3. How can customer engagement data be used to identify and prioritize new business opportunities? At Hightouch, we don’t necessarily think about retroactive analysis. We have a system where we have customer engagement data firing in that we then have real-time scores reacting to. An interesting example is when you have machine learning and reinforcement learning models running. In the pet retailer example I gave you, the system is able to figure out what to prioritize. The concept of reinforcement learning is not a marketer making rules to say, “I know this type of thing works well on this type of audience.” It’s the machine itself using the data to determine what attribute responds well to which offer, recommendation, or marketing campaign. 4. How can marketers ensure their use of customer engagement data aligns with the broader business objectives? It starts with the objectives. It’s starting with the desired outcome and working your way back. That whole flip of the paradigm is starting with outcomes and letting the system optimize. What are you trying to drive, and then back into the types of experiences that can make that happen? There’s personalization. When we talk about data-driven experiences and personalization, Spotify Wrapped is the North Star. For Spotify Wrapped, you want to drive customer stickiness and create a brand. To make that happen, you want to send a personalized email. What components do you want in that email? Maybe it’s top five songs, top five artists, and then you can back into the actual event data you need to make that happen. 5. What role does engagement data play in influencing cross-functional decisions such as those in product development, sales, or customer service? For product development, it’s product analytics — knowing what features users are using, or seeing in heat maps where users are clicking. Sales is similar. We’re using behavioral signals like what types of content they’re reading on the site to help inform what they would be interested in — the types of products or the types of use cases. For customer service, you can look at errors they’ve run into in the past or specific purchases they’ve made, so that when you’re helping them the next time they engage with you, you know exactly what their past behaviors were and what products they could be calling about. 6. What are some challenges marketers face when trying to translate customer engagement data into actionable insights? Access to data is one challenge. You might not know what data you have because marketers historically may not have been used to the systems where data is stored. Historically, that’s been pretty siloed away from them. Rich behavioral data and other data across the business was stored somewhere else. Now, as more companies embrace the data warehouse at the center of their business, it gives everyone a true single place where data can be stored. Marketers are working more with data teams, understanding more about the data they have, and using that data to power downstream use cases, personalization, reinforcement learning, or general business insights. 7. How do you address skepticism or resistance from stakeholders when presenting data-driven recommendations? As a marketer, I think proof is key. The best thing is if you’ve actually run a test. “I think we should do this. I ran a small test, and it’s showing that this is actually proving out.” Being able to clearly explain and justify your reasoning with data is super important. 8. What technology or tools have you found most effective for gathering and analyzing customer engagement data? Any type of behavioral event collection, specifically ones that write to the cloud data warehouse, is the critical component. Your data team is operating off the data warehouse. Having an event collection product that stores data in that central spot is really important if you want to use the other data when making recommendations. You want to get everything into the data warehouse where it can be used both for insights and for putting into action. For Spotify Wrapped, you want to collect behavioral event signals like songs listened to or concerts attended, writing to the warehouse so that you can get insights back — how many songs were played this year, projections for next month — but then you can also use those behavioral events in downstream platforms to fire off personalized emails with product recommendations or Spotify Wrapped-style experiences. 9. How do you see the role of customer engagement data evolving in shaping business strategies over the next five years? What we’re excited about is the concept of AI Decisioning — having AI agents actually using customer data to train their own models and decision-making to create personalized experiences. We’re sitting on top of all this behavioral data, engagement data, and user attributes, and our system is learning from all of that to make the best decisions across downstream systems. Whether that’s as simple as driving a loyalty program and figuring out what emails to send or what on-site experiences to show, or exposing insights that might lead you to completely change your business strategy, we see engagement data as the fuel to the engine of reinforcement learning, machine learning, AI agents, this whole next wave of Martech that’s just now coming. But it all starts with having the data to train those systems. I think that behavioral data is the fuel of modern Martech, and that only holds more true as Martech platforms adopt these decisioning and AI capabilities, because they’re only as good as the data that’s training the models.     This interview Q&A was hosted with Alec Haase, Product GTM Lead, Commerce and AI at Hightouch, for Chapter 6 of The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die. Download the PDF or request a physical copy of the book here. The post Alec Haase Q&A: Customer Engagement Book Interview appeared first on MoEngage. #alec #haase #qampampa #customer #engagement
    Alec Haase Q&A: Customer Engagement Book Interview
    www.moengage.com
    Reading Time: 6 minutes What is marketing without data? Assumptions. Guesses. Fluff. For Chapter 6 of our book, “The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die,” we spoke with Alec Haase, Product GTM Lead, Commerce and AI at Hightouch, to explore how engagement data can truly inform critical business decisions.  Alec discusses the different types of customer behaviors that matter most, how to separate meaningful information from the rest, and the role of systems that learn over time to create tailored customer experiences. This interview provides insights into using data for real-time actions and shaping the future of marketing. Prepare to learn about AI decision-making and how a focus on data is changing how we engage with customers.   Alec Haase Q&A Interview 1. What types of customer engagement data are most valuable for making strategic business decisions? It’s a culmination of everything. Behavioral signals — the actual conversions and micro-conversions that users take within your product or website. Obviously, that’s things like purchases. But there are also other behavioral signals marketers should be using and thinking about. Things like micro-conversions — maybe that’s shopping for a product, clicking to learn more about a product, or visiting a certain page on your website. Behind that, you also need to have all your user data to tie that to. So I know someone took said action; I can follow up with them in email or out on paid social. I need the user identifiers to do that. 2. How do you distinguish between data that is actionable versus data that is just noise? Data that’s actionable includes the conversions and micro-conversions — very clear instances of “someone did this.” I can react to or measure those. What’s becoming a bit of a challenge for marketers is understanding that there’s other data that is valuable for machine learning or reinforcement learning models, things like tags on the types of products customers are interacting with. Maybe there’s category information about that product, or color information. That would otherwise look like noise to the average marketer. But behind the scenes, it can be used for reinforcement learning. There is definitely the “clear-cut” actionable data, but marketers shouldn’t be quick to classify things as noise because the rise in machine learning and reinforcement learning will make that data more valuable. 3. How can customer engagement data be used to identify and prioritize new business opportunities? At Hightouch, we don’t necessarily think about retroactive analysis. We have a system where we have customer engagement data firing in that we then have real-time scores reacting to. An interesting example is when you have machine learning and reinforcement learning models running. In the pet retailer example I gave you, the system is able to figure out what to prioritize. The concept of reinforcement learning is not a marketer making rules to say, “I know this type of thing works well on this type of audience.” It’s the machine itself using the data to determine what attribute responds well to which offer, recommendation, or marketing campaign. 4. How can marketers ensure their use of customer engagement data aligns with the broader business objectives? It starts with the objectives. It’s starting with the desired outcome and working your way back. That whole flip of the paradigm is starting with outcomes and letting the system optimize. What are you trying to drive, and then back into the types of experiences that can make that happen? There’s personalization. When we talk about data-driven experiences and personalization, Spotify Wrapped is the North Star. For Spotify Wrapped, you want to drive customer stickiness and create a brand. To make that happen, you want to send a personalized email. What components do you want in that email? Maybe it’s top five songs, top five artists, and then you can back into the actual event data you need to make that happen. 5. What role does engagement data play in influencing cross-functional decisions such as those in product development, sales, or customer service? For product development, it’s product analytics — knowing what features users are using, or seeing in heat maps where users are clicking. Sales is similar. We’re using behavioral signals like what types of content they’re reading on the site to help inform what they would be interested in — the types of products or the types of use cases. For customer service, you can look at errors they’ve run into in the past or specific purchases they’ve made, so that when you’re helping them the next time they engage with you, you know exactly what their past behaviors were and what products they could be calling about. 6. What are some challenges marketers face when trying to translate customer engagement data into actionable insights? Access to data is one challenge. You might not know what data you have because marketers historically may not have been used to the systems where data is stored. Historically, that’s been pretty siloed away from them. Rich behavioral data and other data across the business was stored somewhere else. Now, as more companies embrace the data warehouse at the center of their business, it gives everyone a true single place where data can be stored. Marketers are working more with data teams, understanding more about the data they have, and using that data to power downstream use cases, personalization, reinforcement learning, or general business insights. 7. How do you address skepticism or resistance from stakeholders when presenting data-driven recommendations? As a marketer, I think proof is key. The best thing is if you’ve actually run a test. “I think we should do this. I ran a small test, and it’s showing that this is actually proving out.” Being able to clearly explain and justify your reasoning with data is super important. 8. What technology or tools have you found most effective for gathering and analyzing customer engagement data? Any type of behavioral event collection, specifically ones that write to the cloud data warehouse, is the critical component. Your data team is operating off the data warehouse. Having an event collection product that stores data in that central spot is really important if you want to use the other data when making recommendations. You want to get everything into the data warehouse where it can be used both for insights and for putting into action. For Spotify Wrapped, you want to collect behavioral event signals like songs listened to or concerts attended, writing to the warehouse so that you can get insights back — how many songs were played this year, projections for next month — but then you can also use those behavioral events in downstream platforms to fire off personalized emails with product recommendations or Spotify Wrapped-style experiences. 9. How do you see the role of customer engagement data evolving in shaping business strategies over the next five years? What we’re excited about is the concept of AI Decisioning — having AI agents actually using customer data to train their own models and decision-making to create personalized experiences. We’re sitting on top of all this behavioral data, engagement data, and user attributes, and our system is learning from all of that to make the best decisions across downstream systems. Whether that’s as simple as driving a loyalty program and figuring out what emails to send or what on-site experiences to show, or exposing insights that might lead you to completely change your business strategy, we see engagement data as the fuel to the engine of reinforcement learning, machine learning, AI agents, this whole next wave of Martech that’s just now coming. But it all starts with having the data to train those systems. I think that behavioral data is the fuel of modern Martech, and that only holds more true as Martech platforms adopt these decisioning and AI capabilities, because they’re only as good as the data that’s training the models.     This interview Q&A was hosted with Alec Haase, Product GTM Lead, Commerce and AI at Hightouch, for Chapter 6 of The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die. Download the PDF or request a physical copy of the book here. The post Alec Haase Q&A: Customer Engagement Book Interview appeared first on MoEngage.
    0 Σχόλια ·0 Μοιράστηκε ·0 Προεπισκόπηση
  • Christian Marclay explores a universe of thresholds in his latest single-channel montage of film clips

    DoorsChristian Marclay
    Institute of Contemporary Art Boston
    Through September 1, 2025Brooklyn Museum

    Through April 12, 2026On the screen, a movie clip plays of a character entering through a door to leave out another. It cuts to another clip of someone else doing the same thing over and over, all sourced from a panoply of Western cinema. The audience, sitting for an unknown amount of time, watches this shape-shifting protagonist from different cultural periods come and go, as the film endlessly loops.

    So goes Christian Marclay’s latest single-channel film, Doors, currently exhibited for the first time in the United States at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston.. Assembled over ten years, the film is a dizzying feat, a carefully crafted montage of film clips revolving around the simple premise of someone entering through a door and then leaving out a door. In the exhibition, Marclay writes, “Doors are fascinating objects, rich with symbolism.” Here, he shows hundreds of them, examining through film how the simple act of moving through a threshold multiplied endlessly creates a profoundly new reading of what said threshold signifies.
    On paper, this may sound like an extremely jarring experience. But Marclay—a visual artist, composer, and DJ whose previous works such as The Clockinvolved similar mega-montages of disparate film clips—has a sensitive touch. The sequences feel incredibly smooth, the montage carefully constructed to mimic continuity as closely as possible. This is even more impressive when one imagines the constraints that a door’s movement offers; it must open and close a certain direction, with particular types of hinges or means of swinging. It makes the seamlessness of the film all the more fascinating to dissect. When a tiny wooden doorframe cuts to a large double steel door, my brain had no issue at all registering a sense of continued motion through the frame—a form of cinematic magic.
    Christian Marclay, Doors, 2022. Single-channel video projection.
    Watching the clips, there seemed to be no discernible meta narrative—simply movement through doors. Nevertheless, Marclay is a master of controlling tone. Though the relentlessness of watching the loops does create an overall feeling of tension that the film is clearly playing on, there are often moments of levity that interrupt, giving visitors a chance to breathe. The pacing too, swings from a person rushing in and out, to a slow stroll between doors in a corridor. It leaves one musing on just how ubiquitous this simple action is, and how mutable these simple acts of pulling a door and stepping inside can be. Sometimes mundane, sometimes thrilling, sometimes in anticipation, sometimes in search—Doors invites us to reflect on our own interaction with these objects, and with the very act of stepping through a doorframe.

    Much of the experience rests on the soundscape and music, which is equally—if not more heavily—important in creating the transition across clips. Marclay’s previous work leaned heavily on his interest in aural media; this added dimension only enriches Doors and elevates it beyond a formal visual study of clips that match each other. The film bleeds music from one scene to another, sometimes prematurely, to make believable the movement of one character across multiple movies. This overlap of sounds is essentially an echo of the space we left behind and are entering into. We as the audience almost believe—even if just for a second—that the transition is real.
    The effect is powerful and calls to mind several references. No doubt Doors owes some degree of inspiration to the lineage of surrealist art, perhaps in the work of Magritte or Duchamp. For those steeped in architecture, one may think of Bernard Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts, where his transcriptions of events, spaces, and movements similarly both shatter and call to attention simple spatial sequences. One may also be reminded of the work of Situationist International, particularly the psychogeography of Guy Debord. I confess that my first thought was theequally famous door-chase scene in Monsters, Inc. But regardless of what corollaries one may conjure, Doors has a wholly unique feel. It is simplistic and singular in constructing its webbed world.
    Installation view, Christian Marclay: Doors, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2025.But what exactly are we to take away from this world? In an interview with Artforum, Marclay declares, “I’m building in people’s minds an architecture in which to get lost.” The clip evokes a certain act of labyrinthian mapping—or perhaps a mode of perpetual resetting. I began to imagine this almost as a non-Euclidean enfilade of sorts where each room invites you to quickly grasp a new environment and then very quickly anticipate what may be in the next. With the understanding that you can’t backtrack, and the unpredictability of the next door taking you anywhere, the film holds you in total suspense. The production of new spaces and new architecture is activated all at once in the moment someone steps into a new doorway.

    All of this is without even mentioning the chosen films themselves. There is a degree to which the pop-culture element of Marclay’s work makes certain moments click—I can’t help but laugh as I watch Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love exit a door and emerge as Bette Davis in All About Eve. But to a degree, I also see the references being secondary, and certainly unneeded to understand the visceral experience Marclay crafts. It helps that, aside from a couple of jarring character movements or one-off spoken jokes, the movement is repetitive and universal.
    Doors runs on a continuous loop. I sat watching for just under an hour before convincing myself that I would never find any appropriate or correct time to leave. Instead, I could sit endlessly and reflect on each character movement, each new reveal of a room. Is the door the most important architectural element in creating space? Marclay makes a strong case for it with this piece.
    Harish Krishnamoorthy is an architectural and urban designer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Bangalore, India. He is an editor at PAIRS.
    #christian #marclay #explores #universe #thresholds
    Christian Marclay explores a universe of thresholds in his latest single-channel montage of film clips
    DoorsChristian Marclay Institute of Contemporary Art Boston Through September 1, 2025Brooklyn Museum Through April 12, 2026On the screen, a movie clip plays of a character entering through a door to leave out another. It cuts to another clip of someone else doing the same thing over and over, all sourced from a panoply of Western cinema. The audience, sitting for an unknown amount of time, watches this shape-shifting protagonist from different cultural periods come and go, as the film endlessly loops. So goes Christian Marclay’s latest single-channel film, Doors, currently exhibited for the first time in the United States at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston.. Assembled over ten years, the film is a dizzying feat, a carefully crafted montage of film clips revolving around the simple premise of someone entering through a door and then leaving out a door. In the exhibition, Marclay writes, “Doors are fascinating objects, rich with symbolism.” Here, he shows hundreds of them, examining through film how the simple act of moving through a threshold multiplied endlessly creates a profoundly new reading of what said threshold signifies. On paper, this may sound like an extremely jarring experience. But Marclay—a visual artist, composer, and DJ whose previous works such as The Clockinvolved similar mega-montages of disparate film clips—has a sensitive touch. The sequences feel incredibly smooth, the montage carefully constructed to mimic continuity as closely as possible. This is even more impressive when one imagines the constraints that a door’s movement offers; it must open and close a certain direction, with particular types of hinges or means of swinging. It makes the seamlessness of the film all the more fascinating to dissect. When a tiny wooden doorframe cuts to a large double steel door, my brain had no issue at all registering a sense of continued motion through the frame—a form of cinematic magic. Christian Marclay, Doors, 2022. Single-channel video projection. Watching the clips, there seemed to be no discernible meta narrative—simply movement through doors. Nevertheless, Marclay is a master of controlling tone. Though the relentlessness of watching the loops does create an overall feeling of tension that the film is clearly playing on, there are often moments of levity that interrupt, giving visitors a chance to breathe. The pacing too, swings from a person rushing in and out, to a slow stroll between doors in a corridor. It leaves one musing on just how ubiquitous this simple action is, and how mutable these simple acts of pulling a door and stepping inside can be. Sometimes mundane, sometimes thrilling, sometimes in anticipation, sometimes in search—Doors invites us to reflect on our own interaction with these objects, and with the very act of stepping through a doorframe. Much of the experience rests on the soundscape and music, which is equally—if not more heavily—important in creating the transition across clips. Marclay’s previous work leaned heavily on his interest in aural media; this added dimension only enriches Doors and elevates it beyond a formal visual study of clips that match each other. The film bleeds music from one scene to another, sometimes prematurely, to make believable the movement of one character across multiple movies. This overlap of sounds is essentially an echo of the space we left behind and are entering into. We as the audience almost believe—even if just for a second—that the transition is real. The effect is powerful and calls to mind several references. No doubt Doors owes some degree of inspiration to the lineage of surrealist art, perhaps in the work of Magritte or Duchamp. For those steeped in architecture, one may think of Bernard Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts, where his transcriptions of events, spaces, and movements similarly both shatter and call to attention simple spatial sequences. One may also be reminded of the work of Situationist International, particularly the psychogeography of Guy Debord. I confess that my first thought was theequally famous door-chase scene in Monsters, Inc. But regardless of what corollaries one may conjure, Doors has a wholly unique feel. It is simplistic and singular in constructing its webbed world. Installation view, Christian Marclay: Doors, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2025.But what exactly are we to take away from this world? In an interview with Artforum, Marclay declares, “I’m building in people’s minds an architecture in which to get lost.” The clip evokes a certain act of labyrinthian mapping—or perhaps a mode of perpetual resetting. I began to imagine this almost as a non-Euclidean enfilade of sorts where each room invites you to quickly grasp a new environment and then very quickly anticipate what may be in the next. With the understanding that you can’t backtrack, and the unpredictability of the next door taking you anywhere, the film holds you in total suspense. The production of new spaces and new architecture is activated all at once in the moment someone steps into a new doorway. All of this is without even mentioning the chosen films themselves. There is a degree to which the pop-culture element of Marclay’s work makes certain moments click—I can’t help but laugh as I watch Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love exit a door and emerge as Bette Davis in All About Eve. But to a degree, I also see the references being secondary, and certainly unneeded to understand the visceral experience Marclay crafts. It helps that, aside from a couple of jarring character movements or one-off spoken jokes, the movement is repetitive and universal. Doors runs on a continuous loop. I sat watching for just under an hour before convincing myself that I would never find any appropriate or correct time to leave. Instead, I could sit endlessly and reflect on each character movement, each new reveal of a room. Is the door the most important architectural element in creating space? Marclay makes a strong case for it with this piece. Harish Krishnamoorthy is an architectural and urban designer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Bangalore, India. He is an editor at PAIRS. #christian #marclay #explores #universe #thresholds
    Christian Marclay explores a universe of thresholds in his latest single-channel montage of film clips
    www.archpaper.com
    Doors (2022) Christian Marclay Institute of Contemporary Art Boston Through September 1, 2025Brooklyn Museum Through April 12, 2026On the screen, a movie clip plays of a character entering through a door to leave out another. It cuts to another clip of someone else doing the same thing over and over, all sourced from a panoply of Western cinema. The audience, sitting for an unknown amount of time, watches this shape-shifting protagonist from different cultural periods come and go, as the film endlessly loops. So goes Christian Marclay’s latest single-channel film, Doors (2022), currently exhibited for the first time in the United States at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston. (It also premieres June 13 at the Brooklyn Museum and will run through April 12, 2026). Assembled over ten years, the film is a dizzying feat, a carefully crafted montage of film clips revolving around the simple premise of someone entering through a door and then leaving out a door. In the exhibition, Marclay writes, “Doors are fascinating objects, rich with symbolism.” Here, he shows hundreds of them, examining through film how the simple act of moving through a threshold multiplied endlessly creates a profoundly new reading of what said threshold signifies. On paper, this may sound like an extremely jarring experience. But Marclay—a visual artist, composer, and DJ whose previous works such as The Clock (2010) involved similar mega-montages of disparate film clips—has a sensitive touch. The sequences feel incredibly smooth, the montage carefully constructed to mimic continuity as closely as possible. This is even more impressive when one imagines the constraints that a door’s movement offers; it must open and close a certain direction, with particular types of hinges or means of swinging. It makes the seamlessness of the film all the more fascinating to dissect. When a tiny wooden doorframe cuts to a large double steel door, my brain had no issue at all registering a sense of continued motion through the frame—a form of cinematic magic. Christian Marclay, Doors (still), 2022. Single-channel video projection (color and black-and-white; 55:00 minutes on continuous loop). Watching the clips, there seemed to be no discernible meta narrative—simply movement through doors. Nevertheless, Marclay is a master of controlling tone. Though the relentlessness of watching the loops does create an overall feeling of tension that the film is clearly playing on, there are often moments of levity that interrupt, giving visitors a chance to breathe. The pacing too, swings from a person rushing in and out, to a slow stroll between doors in a corridor. It leaves one musing on just how ubiquitous this simple action is, and how mutable these simple acts of pulling a door and stepping inside can be. Sometimes mundane, sometimes thrilling, sometimes in anticipation, sometimes in search—Doors invites us to reflect on our own interaction with these objects, and with the very act of stepping through a doorframe. Much of the experience rests on the soundscape and music, which is equally—if not more heavily—important in creating the transition across clips. Marclay’s previous work leaned heavily on his interest in aural media; this added dimension only enriches Doors and elevates it beyond a formal visual study of clips that match each other. The film bleeds music from one scene to another, sometimes prematurely, to make believable the movement of one character across multiple movies. This overlap of sounds is essentially an echo of the space we left behind and are entering into. We as the audience almost believe—even if just for a second—that the transition is real. The effect is powerful and calls to mind several references. No doubt Doors owes some degree of inspiration to the lineage of surrealist art, perhaps in the work of Magritte or Duchamp. For those steeped in architecture, one may think of Bernard Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts, where his transcriptions of events, spaces, and movements similarly both shatter and call to attention simple spatial sequences. One may also be reminded of the work of Situationist International, particularly the psychogeography of Guy Debord. I confess that my first thought was the (in my view) equally famous door-chase scene in Monsters, Inc. But regardless of what corollaries one may conjure, Doors has a wholly unique feel. It is simplistic and singular in constructing its webbed world. Installation view, Christian Marclay: Doors, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2025. (Mel Taing) But what exactly are we to take away from this world? In an interview with Artforum, Marclay declares, “I’m building in people’s minds an architecture in which to get lost.” The clip evokes a certain act of labyrinthian mapping—or perhaps a mode of perpetual resetting. I began to imagine this almost as a non-Euclidean enfilade of sorts where each room invites you to quickly grasp a new environment and then very quickly anticipate what may be in the next. With the understanding that you can’t backtrack, and the unpredictability of the next door taking you anywhere, the film holds you in total suspense. The production of new spaces and new architecture is activated all at once in the moment someone steps into a new doorway. All of this is without even mentioning the chosen films themselves. There is a degree to which the pop-culture element of Marclay’s work makes certain moments click—I can’t help but laugh as I watch Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love exit a door and emerge as Bette Davis in All About Eve. But to a degree, I also see the references being secondary, and certainly unneeded to understand the visceral experience Marclay crafts. It helps that, aside from a couple of jarring character movements or one-off spoken jokes, the movement is repetitive and universal. Doors runs on a continuous loop. I sat watching for just under an hour before convincing myself that I would never find any appropriate or correct time to leave. Instead, I could sit endlessly and reflect on each character movement, each new reveal of a room. Is the door the most important architectural element in creating space? Marclay makes a strong case for it with this piece. Harish Krishnamoorthy is an architectural and urban designer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Bangalore, India. He is an editor at PAIRS.
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