Weekly news round-up from the media and tech world. The post is updated on a weekly basis and will be shared on our social media platforms. Come for the news, stay for the AI video translation services.

‘People are looking for ways to work together asynchronously’: Tech providers rush to meet needs of hybrid workplaces

At Papercup, we’ve recently written about how companies can maintain engaged workforces and overcome the challenges of global corporate training in a new hybrid working culture by innovating the way in which they disseminate information internally. Given we’re in the business of automatic video dubbing, our solution focuses on speaking to audiences in their own languages to ensure they remain engaged, motivated and productive. But as reported by Digiday, we’re not the only tech providers looking to meet the need of hybrid workplaces. 

Among the platforms featured in the piece are Google, which announced its Workspace for Everyone, “meaning anyone with a Google account can access the same functions as its enterprise customers.” The new features are all designed to help people access and contribute to meetings from any location. 

It also calls out the evolving role of AI and VR in training and educational content; solutions that optimize infrastructure (and make IT managers’ job less impossible) for employees working from both home and the office; and real estate apps like Desk Pass that help companies book office space on the fly. 

Europe’s top 20 publishers on TikTok

To tie in with the fact that TikTok has recently become the first non-Facebook mobile app to reach 3 billion downloads globally, The Fix has published its list of top 20 European media accounts on the platform, looking at their performance and content.

It highlights that half of the top 20 is broadcasters and draws the conclusion that having a catalogue of video content makes it easier to develop content for new mediums. A view which is of course widely supported by the steady (with the exception of exponential growth during 2020) increase in video consumption.

The piece touches on the increased rate of growth for the publisher accounts with the largest followings on TikTok and highlights the importance of this for traditional media outlets like The Daily Mail. Such companies are able to future proof  business by appealing to younger audiences on the platforms and with the content mediums they organically like to engage with, predominantly video. 

Video in the enterprise: debunking 3 myths of a ‘new normal’

Eric Rudolph of Brightcove contests that the use of video in enterprise is ‘the new normal’. His take is that the need for video always existed and that companies dabbled in it but that full integration was slow. Then the pandemic accelerated the need for it and now companies are investing in comprehensive video platforms, or should be, to support a whole host of business needs ranging from home working to reaching audiences around the world with virtual events. 

It’s a quick read, but good food for thought for companies thinking about how video can help them achieve internal and external goals.

What’s artificial intelligence best at? Stealing human Ideas

The Guardian’s inaugural tech newsletter TechScape went out on 14th July. It features a story on Microsoft’s Github – a platform that lets developers collaborate on coding with colleagues, friends and strangers around the world, and host the results. It’s the largest source of host code in the world. Github’s latest release is an AI tool called CoPilot, described by the company’s CEO as:

“A new AI pair programmer that helps you write better code. It helps you quickly discover alternative ways to solve problems, write tests, and explore new APIs without having to tediously tailor a search for answers on the internet. As you type, it adapts to the way you write code – to help you complete your work faster.”

Github’s CoPilot is used as a jumping off point for the TechScape editor Alex Hern to consider that much pondered topic of whether AI can enhance rather than replace us. A concept that is widely known as Centaur because “it leads to a hybrid worker who has an AI back half and human front.” Hern gives instances where the use of centaurs is only confirming dystopian fears (Amazon) and others where they’re enhancing human skills (competitive chess).

Clubhouse is now out of beta and open to everyone

Clubhouse is now open to everyone, TechCrunch reported on Wednesday. The voice-based social networking site took off during the pandemic and prompted Facebook, Twitter, Spotify and Discord to work their own voice-based events and chat rooms into their existing services.

TechCrunch reports that Clubhouse’s success was largely to do with the circumstances of the pandemic, citing “pandemic-imposed social isolation” as the reason for its uptake. In light of the world’s uneven opening up, the piece highlights the ways in which the platform is adapting, in particular highlighting its new text-based chat feature called Backchannel. 

Author of the TechCrunch piece Taylor Hatmaker sees such adaptations and the opening up of the app to everyone as key to its growth after its unexpected and rather meteoric rise to success.