Image: Snap
Snap sees the AR future

Good morning! This Wednesday, Snap lays out its plan for the future of AR, Twitter wins over the AI ethics world, Quill wants to out-Slack Slack and Spotify is watching Clubhouse carefully.
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Augmented reality is coming. That we pretty much know. Everything else — the timing, the use cases, the hardware, the software, the "will I look stupid doing it" — is up for grabs.
But Snap is well ahead of the industry in AR, and at its investor day yesterday it gave a sense of where it thinks that world is headed.
Other companies are also pushing hard in this space. Facebook's the VR giant thanks to Oculus, of course, and everyone's waiting on Apple to show the way for AR glasses. But the competition among the big companies is heating up:
Chris Dixon wrote 11 years ago that "the next big thing will start out looking like a toy." That thing, that toy, is camera filters and AR lenses. And it's becoming big-thingified pretty quickly.
Twitter made a lot of friends in the AI ethics world this week.
The ethical AI community isn't feeling friendly toward tech companies these days, in case you haven't been paying attention.
Twitter has taken advantage of the ill will by hiring Rumman Chowdhury, a pioneer in the field of responsible AI research who will now be leading Twitter's ML Ethics, Transparency and Accountability team. (It calls itself META!)
Praise of the news came from all corners of the internet yesterday, much of it from the same people who are still very angry with Google.
Twitter wouldn't comment on the Google comparisons, but a spokesperson said in a statement to Protocol that bias in AI is an industry-wide problem, and the company hired Chowdhury to help push the company's own algorithms toward transparency, accountability and inclusion.
A new generation of work-chat startups is coming, as quickly as you can say "Salesforce bought Slack for how much?!" The fight to be the new best-of-breed is on.
Quill looks like one of the more exciting contenders. It was founded by ex-Stripe exec Ludwig Pettersson and launched yesterday.
Keep an eye on this space. From Twist to Coast to Element to Flock to the Discord Business that just seems inevitable at this point, the work-chat startups look set to have a moment. And I suspect Microsoft, Google and Slack are going to continue to develop fast too, at least for a while.
In 2018, Amazon established a $15/hr start wage for all their U.S. employees, which is more than double the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. They've seen the positive impact on their employees and their families. That's why they're calling on Congress to pass the Raise the Wage Act.
Spotify is thinking about Clubhouse, but Daniel Ek said he's also paying attention to the gaming world:
Jeff Blackburn is leaving Amazon, and said he's proudly helping solve the "too many Jeffs" problem:
The U.S. is hard at work on a digital dollar, Jerome Powell said:
Tim Wu is joining the White House National Economic Council, our friends at POLITICO reported. Given Wu's general anti-monopoly stance, this will make a few knees shake in Silicon Valley.
On Protocol | Enterprise: ServiceNow's new HR chief has already left. Gabrielle Toledano joined in early January, but left yesterday.
Jim Bell is leaving his role as GameStop CFO. The company's looking for a new CFO with more digital experience, it seems. And also it's been an … odd few weeks to be GameStop's CFO.
Claire Hough is the new CTO at Carbon Health. She joins from Lyte.
Her name is Ruth, she speaks a little like a robot from a 1980s sci-fi movie, and she's here to help keep you from burning your cookies. She's Toll House's new AI cookie coach, and I just wish she were more fun to talk to? I like the idea of interactive, hands-free cooking assistants, but I swear, if I hear her say "ah, sweet sweet sugar" one more time, I'm going to lose it.
In 2018, Amazon established a $15/hr start wage for all their U.S. employees, which is more than double the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. They've seen the positive impact on their employees and their families. That's why they're calling on Congress to pass the Raise the Wage Act.
Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce, with help from Anna Kramer and Shakeel Hashim. Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day, see you tomorrow.
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