NEWSWORTHY
Line them up. Speaking of new gadgets, the review embargoes for Apple's new iPhones and Series 5 watch have lifted. As to the iPhone 11, Anabel Pasarow at Refinery 29 praises the new colors and improved durability, while Nilay Patel at The Verge really puts the new cameras through their paces, if that's your thing. And at watch geek site Hodinkee, Stephen Pulvirent says he's a big fan of the watch's new always-on display : "I'll get into the practical benefits of this in a minute, but spoiler alert: it's a huge deal." On the other hand: "My vintage Rolex doesn't tell people when my next appointment is and my modern IWC doesn't share my heart rate with passersby."
I see where you're going with that. Eyewear giant Luxottica is partnering with Facebook to make a pair of augmented reality glasses under its Ray-Ban brand. The glasses, codenamed Orion, aren't expected to go on sale until 2023 at the earliest but could replace smartphones, CNBC reports. What you'll be able to upload from those new glasses may be reviewed by Facebook's new oversight board. The company on Tuesday released details of how the board will make content decisions when it opens for business next year.
Transparency. A new online tool called ImageNet Roulette shows how artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition software can go astray or reflect biased results. Created by a couple of A.I. researchers, ImageNet takes a picture from your webcam or an uploaded photo and tries to categorize the person or persons pictured using one of about 2,500 labels (apparently, I look like a psycholinguist this morning).
My sponge is full. Need one more streaming service? Comcast's NBCUniversal unit says its ad-supported service will arrive next April as...the Peacock. Some of the programming is standard fare–reruns of The Office and Parks and Recreation–while other content sounds a little stretched: a reboot of Punky Brewster and a movie spinoff of Psyched. Not appearing on the Peacock will be the 12 seasons of AT&T's WarnerMedia hit comedy The Big Bang Theory. It's going to...you guessed it, AT&T's WarnerMedia new streaming service HBO Max. Will be interesting to see how all this shakes out. I'm thinking our voice-run digital assistants will learn how to find it all. Siri, put on the episode where Sheldon and Leonard lose their bitcoins.
Counting crocodiles. Bill Gates' net worth has increased by $16 billion this year, which by itself would rank about 77th on Bloomberg's billionaires list. But with total assets estimated at $106 billion, the Microsoft co-founder ranks second on the globe behind only Jeff Bezos (whose net wealth has fallen by almost $12 billion this year).
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Your online persona these days is largely a matter of what's on various social platforms, from Instagram photos of your favorite pancakes to your career listing on LinkedIn, or maybe a dating profile on Tinder. On the DESK blog this week, German designer Tobias van Schneider makes the case for going back to personal websites, particularly for people like him in the design field.
Having my own website says I care about what I do beyond clocking in and out and cashing a paycheck. It shows I'm proud of what I create. If my taste or my work or the industry evolves, I have the power to reflect that on my portfolio. If I launch a new project, my first thought is to put it on my homepage. With this blog, I can write articles that connect directly back to me and my website. Social media is a nice way to extend the reach, but it all points back to vanschneider.com. It's the one link I give to people inquiring about me and my work, rather some www.designplatform. com/vanchneider08247 URL or social media handle I don't own. My site is the little place I've carved out for myself on the world wide web. It's mine.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Exclusive: Venture Firm Data Collective Raises $725 Million to Invest in 'Deep Tech' By Polina Marinova
Trailing Amazon and Google, Facebook Takes Another Shot at Portal Video Calling By Danielle Abril
The Internet Cloud Has a Dirty Secret By Naomi Xu Elegant
IBM Opens Quantum Computer Center in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Home of the Mainframe Computer By Robert Hackett
Uber Now Knows If Your Ride Has Gone Wrong—By Tapping Your Smartphone's Sensors By Lisa Marie Segarra
How Artificial Intelligence Can Help Feed the World By Aric Jenkins
Ironclad, the 'Salesforce for Lawyers,' Raises $50 Million By Jeff John Roberts
BEFORE YOU GO
Ever dream of flying a rocket ship into space? Turns out it's no easy matter, even for highly trained Air Force pilots. There's a great story at Ars Technica about Joe Engle , who flew the rocket-like X-15 in the 1960s before going on to pilot an early space shuttle mission. Engle explains how hard it was to fly the X-15, which could reach speeds five or six times faster than the speed of sound and leave the earth's atmosphere. "You'd work your tail off during that 10-minute flight," Engle recalls. "You'd be covered in sweat. But once it stopped, you really felt like you'd accomplished something, like you'd scored a goal with a USA uniform on at the Olympics."
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman. Find past issues, and sign up for other Fortune newsletters.
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