The lawnmower hypothesis

AI won't take your job. In fact it might create a new one for you - look at lawnmowers. Snapchat's market woes, the gig economy, a chat with Jimmy Iovine, and the most baffling piece of visual special effects ever seen in cinema

Will Snap (the parent company for Snapchat) become the next Facebook, with high revenues and high profits, or the next Twitter, devoted following but consistently losing money?

This week it looks like it’s destined to be another Twitter, with the share price falling below the initial IPO price for the first time since floatation three months ago. Meanwhile Snapchat now gives you the tools to create a simple geofilter for $6.

If you work at a startup, then you need funding. But not too much: as cash piled into Jawbone, sales could not meet its huge valuation.

On the one hand, the Google news initiative diverts funds to news organisations in order to support journalism, while on the other attempts to make journalists redundant by farming their skills off to bots. Should there be a fairer way to fund serious journalism, which drives so much of both Facebook's and Google's traffic, but the publishers continue to suffer.

AI might take your job, but it will create another one: how a lawnmower created your job. If the title perplexes, read on for the industries the lawnmower created.

Google’s Deep Mind trains itself to climb over virtual objects, as you can see in this video:

How to be better at brainstorming - it could be as easy as starting meetings with the phrases ‘how we might…’ which tech companies find works for them.

The ‘gig economy’ employs around 1.1 million people in the UK.

Who benefits? The ‘employers’ (they claim to not employ people), the employees? The Treasury? Uber, which has never made a profit, and Deliveroo, which has never disclosed profits but has raised vast amounts of investor and VC cash, are two companies typically in the firing line. The recommendations in the Turner report, which suggests protecting workers currently unprotected by gig employers, could revolutionise the sector but also raise prices for services like Uber.

If you are a freelancer, you may find yourself at the mercy of agencies. A new initiative, The Freelance Circle gives some power back, allowing you to rate your overmasters so they can better decide whether to work where you have (and vice versa).

New features of iOS 11 developers have picked-up on from a beta release. After last week's coverage of the, um, less than marvellous 'Planet of the apps' Apple initiative, they then produce a great ad:

France plans to ban petrol and diesel engines by 2040 a clearly audacious move that could make our neighbour a leader in electric cars. But when will climate change make the earth too hot for humans to live in?

Improving ‘service design’ for better customer journeys.

The best Pride campaigns from last week.

The future of the music industry, according to Intercope records and Beats by Dr Dre founder Jimmy Iovine. Plus a piece on the future of digital audio.

Sainsbury's makes the odd choice of celebrating summer in monochrome, but continues in the hyperkinetic style Weiden+Kennedy has deveoped for the supermarket brand:

Do you remember those ‘Choose your own adventure’ books? Here are some of the hand-drawn maps to show how readers can travel through the stories on offer.

Unilever eventually pulls controversial Dove ‘breastfeeding’ ad following a considerable backlash. An unusual misstep for this brand. Meanwhile, this Femfresh ad was banned by the ASA for ‘objectifying women’ and of causing ‘serious and widespread offence’. Predictably, every news outlet going is showing the ad in full.

On the imminent release of Christopher Nolan’s film Dunkirk, an interview with our leading Auteur from Playboy (note – this is a safe version without any dubious images). Nolan is a great advocate of celluloid over digital, and particularly the 70mm format. Watch this chat from two years ago between Nolan and another enthusiast for the 70mm format Quentin Tarantino:

An infographic showing some of the approaches large brands have used in their Instagram marketing.

3,500 words to explain ‘blockchain’. Which is pretty good going.

More on Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods and the real ‘why’ they bought the very expensive grocer. Make suggestions for new Alexa/Echo features, and you could win some… socks? One Amazon seller has automated its production of smartphone cases. But with random stock images, such as the installation of septic tanks. Only 164 days until Christmas...

Despite its acquisition of Karmarama, Accenture will NOT be the next holding company, says Alison Weissbrot.

One of the most famous visual effects shots of all time doesn’t involve robots, explosions or super powers, but a girl running up some stairs and opening a mirrored door, from the 1997 Jodie Foster vehicle Contact, directed by Robert Zemeckis. Read about the many visual effects developed for the film here including how they made this apparently simple shot, which baffles movie nerds to this day. And the shot: