Each week, we share the top five articles that caught our attention. Here are your must-reads, published here and abroad, for the week of May 15th 2017.
Alter-egos in The Simpsons
How is it that, even after 25 years, we’re still fascinated by The Simpsons? Hannah Yan Han, a data visualist/analyst for Airbnb and a Simpsons fan, has mined the universe of our favourite family to extract some very interesting data that reveals the true size of the Simpsons family!
→ Read it on Medium Pocket
How artificial intelligence “sees”
How does Google AI see humans and their objects? Dutch artist Merijn Bolink has used everyday items to test how the Goggles app interprets what it “sees”. In presenting a series of objects to AI, Bolink was able to trace the program’s “thought process” and then recreate it in ceramic sculpture. Can artificial intelligence become a co-creator for human art?
→ Read it on Fast Company Pocket
I am a foreigner
Historically, foreigners have been a source of anxiety and fear—aliens, stealers of jobs, criminals—and according to some, your worst nightmare. Immigrant-bashing rhetoric is hard to ignore, but a new online magazine called Føreïgñer wants to debunk this stigma once and for all, by giving foreigners a voice.
→ Read it on Foreigner Pocket
Podcasting still not a thing in Quebec
Podcasting continues to be a hot trend in media… you’d have to live under a rock not to realize that. When it comes to the Quebec market, baladodiffusion is gaining ground, but it has yet to reach the same levels of profitability as seen nationally. What does Quebec need to help podcasting skyrocket?
→ Read it on Le Devoir (In French) Pocket
Translating colour into smells
Does the colour red smell like apples or strawberries? Does yellow taste like lemon or banana? Using the Arduino software and other tools, a group of students at Switzerland’s École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ÉCAL), under the guidance of engineer Niklas Roy, built an synesthetic device capable of translating specific colours into smells. Will Smell-O-Vision finally become a reality?
→ Read it on Hackster Pocket
Would you pay more for local?
#Sponsored
Buying local is an increasingly more popular trend, but are you truly ready to pay more for products made on local soil? The new head of American Apparel has decided to put this theory to a test. Stéphane Mailhiot, our Vice President of Strategy, puts in his two cents.
→ Read it on on our blog
In your earbuds: Strange Fruit
Activist Jaison Gardner and professor Dr. Kaila Story host a weekly podcast series called Strange Fruit. Based in Louisville, Kentucky, the show looks at politics and pop culture from a rarely heard point of view—the black gay community.
→ Listen to it on iTunes
This week’s favourite thing
Our Art Director, Benoît Sourrieu, has published the first part of his first online graphic novel. The work of a true artist, La page noire (French) was entirely written, hand-drawn and scanned by one of Havas Montréal’s finest ADs!
Image from Wallpapers DSC
