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The Chasing-Pikachu Edition Sunday, July 10, 2016

Hype Check: Pokémon Go Says More About Pokémon Than It Does About AR, by Darrell Etherington, TechCrunch

Basically everyone is Pokémon Go-ing according to Twitter, and I’m sure basic resources like power and water will soon start to shut down because key staff are out chasing Pikachu.

But before we go sagely nodding about the coming Augmented Reality revolution the Poképoaclypse foretells, maybe it’s best to take a step back and examine the components of Pokémon Go’s success, and its potential pitfalls.

‘Pokémon Go’ International Rollout Will Be ‘Paused’ As Players Overload The System, by Matt Weinberger, Business Insider

Niantic, the Google/Alphabet spinoff that co-created “Pokémon Go” with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, is aware of the problem and hard at work on a fix, CEO John Hanke tells Business Insider.

Hundreds Of 'Pokémon Go' Fans Search For Pikachu In Downtown Sydney, by Ariel Bogle, Mashable

Although players had their heads down in their smartphones, it was still something of a social experience. Wherever rare Pokémon appeared, people would call out and crowds would gather. The abundance of lures, which attract the creatures, meant there were plenty to choose from.

Pokemon Go Player Finds Dead Body In Wyoming River While Searching For A Pokestop, by BBC

Nineteen-year-old Shayla Wiggins, from Wyoming, was told to find a Pokemon in a natural water source but instead found a man's corpse.

Pokemon Go Has An Unexpected Side Effect: Injuries, by Hayley Tsukayama, Washington Post

"Pokemon Go put me in the ER last night," read one post on the Pokemon Go subreddit. (Yes, the game has its own subreddit.) [...]

Others posted that they, too, had near misses or minor scrapes from chasing Pokemon a little too enthusiastically. Some have repoirted mishaps while seeking Pokemon and driving, which is a thing that just shouldn't happen.

That bears repeating: do not Pokemon Go and drive.

Stuff

Duo Launch Dedicated App For Old Pictures, by Morpeth Herald

An innovative application by two Morpeth residents is encouraging people to feel confident in sharing their treasured old photographs.

The founders of the free Clixta app have developed what they believe is an image-sharing social network that provides a simple and fun way to share pre-digital pictures and save them for future generations.

Prisma App Turns The Most Boring Photos Into Striking Paintings, by Gopal Sathe, NDTV

Ever wanted to turn a photo into a painting? There are plenty of apps and Photoshop filters that can do the job for you, but with most, the effect is pretty limited and the result can look rather feeble. There's an iOS app called Prisma that steps things up to the next level, in a super-easy to use interface that you really have to try out.

Notes

Apple’s Creating A New Sticker Economy, And Kim Kardashian Is Going To Dominate It, by Joon Ian Wong, Quartz

Stickers are worth hundreds of millions of dollars to chat platforms. The virtual tchotchkes earned $268 million for the chat app LINE last year. As Apple lays the foundations for its own sticker economy, with an overhaul of iMessage in iOS 10 due in a few months, none other than Kim Kardashian West is waiting in the wings to capitalize on it.

Beer Brewed With The Help Of AI? Yup, That's Now A Thing, by James Temperton, Wired

The world's first beer brewed with the help of artificial intelligence is now on sale. Four beers have been created, with each recipe altered based on customer feedback received by an algorithm.

Bottom of the Page

In a world of AI and Robots, we will all be out of jobs soon. Whether that means we all live for leisurely pursuits or in the Matrix as energy providers for our robotic overlords, that will depend a lot on the choices we make today. It is time to throw out whatever assumptions we have about job security and welfare.

Meanwhile, let's go catch some Pokémons.

~

Thanks for reading.