Nathan Mattise wrote about ISS, a company that makes fake products:

• When movies need prop-products in their scenes ISS creates the fake brand and packaging.
• The need for this is not as great as it once was. In the era of cross-promotion movie producers prefer to just use real products – and charge the brand a fee for the advertizing.
• However if a product or item is to be portrayed in a negative way then the owners of the brand might not be happy with its use. This is when fake products come in.
• Products and audiences’ expectations of products are constantly shifting. To keep up the veneer of realism ISS continuously monitors the latest developments and advancements in various fields.

Read more about the files that ISS keeps on each of its projects, some famous examples of the work that they have done, and how they have had to evolve along with the industry over here.

Source: Fast Company

Amazon is an online behemoth that has upended the traditional model of book publishers. Adam Davidson looked at how the industry might change in the future:

• There are currently six large book publishing companies. A merger between Random House and Penguin will soon bring it down to five.
• The new entity still won’t be able to compare to Amazon’s book sales and so further consolidation – down to two, or perhaps even one, is expected.
• A similar consolidation happened a century ago when technology companies in the fields of power, automobiles, and chemicals were gobbled up to form giant conglomerates.
• Book publishers too will likely, eventually, become small arms of massive media-entertainment companies.
• There won’t be any anti-trust issues since book publishers deal in the business of the written word, and in a time when anybody can start a blog or self-publish their own book, it would be hard to argue that one great publisher would have a monopoly over the industry.

Read more about how the publishing industry is poised to follow the path of the envelope making industry, what publishers have to say, whether the publishers will use their market power to innovate or to dominate, and much more over here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

America is set to become the world’s biggest energy producer by 2020. Could that mean that it will soon be joining OPEC? Brian Palmer answered:

• To join OPEC not only must countries export energy, they must also have common interests. It is unlikely that countries such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Iran will think that the United States shares its interests.
• OPEC signatories also have to be able to control how much energy they produce. Yet in the United States energy production is left to the private sector, and the government has little control of the amount they produce.
• Joining would also lessen America’s geopolitical influence. If it is allowed to set prices itself – rather than be held hostage to the decision making of OPEC – it could use oil prices as a foreign policy tool by offering cheap supplies to those who act in the American interest.

Read more about other energy producers who refuse to join OPEC, and the last country that the cartel added over here.

Source: Slate

With the recent popularity of Abraham Lincoln – the American President who helped abolish slavery – Popular Science decided to delve into its archives and re-release a 1957 article that showed how Lincoln helped to create modern warfare. Highlights include:

• Lincoln oversaw the development of an “air force” in 1861. Balloons were used to put eyes in the sky and provide key intelligence during battles.
• Guns of the time required the soldier to stand up to reload – thus making them a target. Lincoln himself tested on the White House lawn a new type of gun that could be reloaded while lying on the ground – safe from enemy fire.
• Lincoln also tested rocket driven submarine torpedoes although the Navy was never able to figure out how to accurately control them.
• Ultimately Lincoln’s government was responsible for over 16,000 patents. The South only got 266. This, itself, might have won Lincoln the war.

Read more of the innovations that Lincoln saw developed over here.

Source: Popular Science

YouTube has become synonymous with online video. Glenn Derene had the opportunity to interview some of the engineers that keep Google’s YouTube running smoothly to discuss what happens behind the scenes of the website:

• YouTube is a technological marvel. 72 hours – a lot of it 1080p high definition quality – of video get uploaded very minute. This is the equivalent of 36 movies. Yet the site never slows or crashes.
• YouTube begins processing videos uploaded to its website, before the full upload is complete. Videos are broken up into little chunks and processed by servers around the world. They are then stitched back together.
• The videos are then optimized for search. The same algorithms that power Google’s standard searches also underpin YouTube’s search system.
• However there are differences. People generally search for either the latest videos, or recently trending videos. The site’s algorithms are weighted to favour such videos.
• What the site does not do is use facial or object recognition technology to analyze the videos to determine what the video is about.

Read more about how YouTube has changed the world, and what Google does with videos that few people watch over here.

Source: Popular Mechanics

With the success of Gangnam Style, William Weir looked at some of the history of foreign language hits in the United States. Highlights include:

• Different languages have different natural rhythms, and if more foreign songs were popular in the United States, then Americans would be exposed to a wider variety of musical styles.
• Some languages might even be more musical than English. Vowels are easier to sing and languages such as French and Italian might be better designed for singing songs because of the frequency of vowels.
• Yet not only do English songs dominate American musical charts; they appear to dominate global ones. Germany’s top 10 only featured two songs in German last week.
• There is hope; music stations help decide what’s popular on the radio, however most radio DJs are focused on English music. With the rise of sites such as YouTube which allowed Gangnam Style to become popular, it is possible that America will see more foreign language hits.
• America also has a growing base of non-English speaking minorities. Expect to see more popular Spanish songs as Hispanics make up a greater proportion of the American population.

Find out when a foreign song last topped the Billboard 100, why the Macarena doesn’t count, what a foreign language artist has to do if they want to remain popular in the United States, and the dominance of English in the Eurovision over here.

Source: Slate

Apple and HTC, two of the largest smartphone makers, have surprisingly agreed to settle their patent disputes. Nilay Patel looked at why this might have happened:

• Apple might have realized that Samsung style success over HTC was unlikely because while Samsung did, it seems, try to copy Apple to some extent, HTC has a vastly different design language.
• In the agreement, evidence suggests that HTC has agreed to make some payments to Apple. HTC may have decided that it was better to pay Apple than to pay lawyers indefinitely to fight Apple.
• HTC has been having financial trouble in recent times, and Apple might not feel threatened enough by the phone maker to continue to go after it in court.
• HTC has recently drawn much closer to Microsoft, becoming the lead partner for Windows Phone (their latest product pictured above). Microsoft and Apple, strangely enough, have a very positive relationship, and this might have helped finalize a deal.

Read more reasons for the surprising decision over here.

Source: The Verge