China deploys new AI to manage its power grid, TikTok to overtake Facebook in influencer marketing spending, and anti-piracy ads may be encouraging pirating.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Wednesday, August 3, and I’m your host, Samira Balsara.
China has unleashed a powerful AI to manage its complex and vast power grid. According to a report by the Science and Technology daily, the AI can restore a blackout in just three seconds, depending on the problem. The system uses an extensive network of sensors each with its own automatic power routing technology. When a power outage occurs, the sensors work together to identify the fault location, isolate the issue, and reroute power to minimize downtime, all without human intervention. This is made possible by the AI system, which uses natural language processing to understand the diagnosis generated by the sensors and then applies a solution. This new system has been tested in one community so far and is expected to see wider deployment soon.
Even as TikTok’s popularity surges, Instagram is still far ahead when it comes to influencer marketing. According to a new report, Instagram is expected to gather three times the influencer marketing spending in 2022 compared to TikTok. To put it numbers, that’s $2.23 billion in just one year. That’s good news for Meta, and it likely would’ve celebrated if it wasn’t for the looming danger of TikTok overtaking Facebook in the same metric. Researchers at Insider Intelligence are expecting TikTok to surpass Facebook in influencer market spending this year, and then YouTube by 2024.
Anti-piracy ads may have caused the opposite effect. A study published in The Information Society claims that anti-piracy campaigns tend to exaggerate the nature of the crime committed and the losses suffered by the entertainment industry. Another component to the contradicting behaviour appears to be that pirates do not see themselves as committing a crime, or even doing anything wrong at all. The broadcasting environment matters as well. The study advises against playing anti-piracy ads in the theater since the viewers have already paid for their rights to view the media.
Stanford University researchers have created a human-like robot that possesses nearly the same finesse for handling underwater excavations. The robot, called OceanOneK, has hands that are designed to handle delicate relics salvaged from shipwrecks and caves. And thanks to its study frame, it can safely work in locations too dangerous for humans. It has a touch-based feedback system that lets the operator feel what the robot touches.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, catch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Samira Balsara.