Each week, TP1 shares the top five articles that caught our attention. Here are your must-reads, published here and abroad, for the week of January 25th.
This street ain’t made for walkin’
Did you know that an average 31% of any downtown area is reserved for parking? Or that most cars are parked 95% of the time? Shocking, but true! Clive Thompson takes a look at how the rise of self-driving cars, car rental companies and taxi services has actually stimulated the North American desire to live in pedestrian-friendly cities. How will this remarkable shift influence urban planning and public transport systems?
→ Read it on Mother Jones Pocket
Facebook down on the farm
Before 2014, SIM cards cost almost $2,000 USD in Myanmar. But after the military junta lifted restrictions on smartphones, the price dropped to $1.50 USD. How did this sudden access to smartphones change Myanmar society? To answer this question, Craig Mod followed a special team of design ethnographers to study the communications habits of Burmese farmers. Discover how social media are used in villages, where devices are sometimes charged by a car battery!
→ Read it on The Atlantic Pocket
Timeless fiction
From David Foster Wallace to Jonathan Franzen, contemporary fiction is packed with pop culture references. These copious mentions are surely relevant to today’s readers, but what about the readers of tomorrow? Should fiction writers strive to be timeless or are they simply required to capture a particular generation in a specific time?
→ Read it on Electric Literature Pocket
Current events and social media
“Once, the radio announced, the TV showed and the press explained. Today, iPhone notifications announce, social media show and online videos explain.” Journalist Clara Schmelck asks: Is Facebook’s effort to be a top online news source undermining the independent media sources that produce and byline news information?
→ Read it on Méta-média (French only) Pocket
Rocket fuel for your personal project
Getting funding for a project no longer means putting on a tie and going to the bank. Shanley Kane, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Model View Culture, writes about how she successfully financed her independent content platform using an alternative subscription funding model, responsible sponsorship and crowdfunding.
→ Read it on Model View Culture Pocket
This week’s favourite thing
Visit Every Noise at Once, an exhaustive musical dictionary, to discover and better understand EVERY musical genre and sub-genre (no matter how obscure) by listening to many musical excerpts.
In your earbuds: NFL, TV and the Internet
To put us in the mood for the Super Bowl, Re/code Decode has interviewed Brian Rolapp, the media czar for the National Football League (NFL). With TV viewers increasingly moving towards alternate content platforms, will Internet companies soon be able to get broadcasting rights for NFL games?
→ Listen to it on Re/code Decode
