Happy Friday!!
Just before we hit send on this week's issue we got an email to make this Friday even better. We are in the Final of this year's Blog Awards 🎉 🎉
All of Team Rerun are looking forward to attending the event on October 25th.
We are very grateful for the support from our amazing readers!
Now let the scrollin' begin!
Top Pick
Q&A: How Cheddar is reinventing live news for Gen Z & Millennials
Our friends at NewsWhip bring us an in-depth interview with the EVP of Cheddar, Melissa Rosenthal.
Melissa chats about Cheddar's mission to create news that resonates with a young audience, watching on social, mobile and OTT.
That’s how we think about shows and content. What is here to stay? What are the content topics and the tech that are close to our mission?
She talks about the company's early days, and its BuzzFeed origins. And how they hacked their founder's network on LinkedIn, to scale the company to where it is today.
Features
You can now ask Google Assistant to turn off your teen’s phone during dinner
Last year Google introduced a parental control hub that allows parents to control the content children under the age of 13 can view, and apps they download. Now the plan is to expand this feature to older teens.
Family Link allows parents to set screen time limits, lock devices when it’s time for a break, approve or block apps downloaded from the Play Store, and locate their kids through their devices. These features work with Android phones starting today, with support coming for Chromebooks soon.
This update is an addition to Google's Assistant family friendly update. A feature that we really like is when a child asks “Hey Google, check for monsters”, it makes robotic noises as if it’s physically scanning the room, and then says, “All clear!” Awww!
Interactive Media
Twitter will soon let you switch between chronological and ranked feeds
The phrase "if it aint broke don't fix it" will spring to mind for Twitter users this week. Twitter has announced that they will be reverting back to a non-algorithmic, reverse-chronogical order...or "how it used to be in 2016".
This week a Twitter user, Emma Kinema shared that muting certain words like "suggest_recycled_tweet_inline” provides a roundabout way of removing suggested tweets or highlights that Twitter wants you to see. Unsurprisingly the tweet went viral, with more than 15,000 retweets and over 40,000 likes.
“We’ve learned that when showing the best Tweets first, people find Twitter more relevant and useful. However, we’ve heard feedback from people who at times prefer to see the most recent Tweets...our goal with the timeline is to balance showing you the most recent Tweets with the best Tweets you’re likely to care about, but we don’t always get this balance right.” reads the company’s statement.
It is to be noted that Twitter stated that they were planning this update for some time, and it was not as a result of the tweet going viral.
Introducing Shopify AR: augmented reality shopping for your store
Shopify is bringing customers and businesses closer together with AR. With the introduction of Shopify AR, it provides an accessible toolkit for businesses to create their own AR experiences, to showcase how products will fit in the customer's home.
With Apple’s recent announcement of AR Quick Look, AR directly through the Safari browser on iOS 12, half of the U.S browser market will have the ability to shop with AR when it launches.
Check out the exciting work they have done so far with companies like Pure Cycles and HORNE, and how AR helps break down barriers between businesses and their customers.
Storytelling
VR And AR mark the greatest revolution in the history of UX/UI design
Story is how we make sense of space in time. It’s how we record our memories.
A wonderful piece by Jesse Damiani which reminds us that storytelling is at the heart of all new media experiences, and that great user experiences puts story front and centre.
He looks at how designers can approach the use of space in VR as a storytelling tool, what lessons to bring from 2D design, and what to leave behind.
Virtual Reality
Magic Leap One’s first big game is another Angry Birds; here’s what it’s like
After years of secrecy surrounding the Magic Leap One, we're finally starting to see what it's actually capable of. Many have been underwhelmed by the release of the goggles. But perhaps it's a good omen that its first big release is from the Angry Birds franchise. A game that garnered incredible success as smart phones arrived to the market, all those years ago.
Conserve the sound
This week's 'And Finally' is a throw back to devices from the pre-smartphone era.
This great site allows you to hear what objects actually sounded like. Now Millennials can hear what it was like to wind back up a cassette tape, or what the original work assistant, a typewriter sounded like. Ding!
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