It’s not unusual for companies to use artificial intelligence (AI) to create artist personas. In the 2022 VMAs, Eminem and Snoop Dogg performed in the metaverse with their digital alter egos. And AI rappers are no different. In April 2019, FN Meka debuted as the world’s first AI-powered rapper. 

Soon enough, he gained a huge following on Tiktok for his Hypebeast aesthetic and larger-than-life personality. In 2021, his Tiktok ballooned to 10 million followers. His popularity prompted Capital Records to sign him on August 14 this year. But, internet users began pulling up records of his questionable online behavior. Ten days later, his label booted him out.

Here’s how it happened. 

Apparently, AI rappers exist. 

FN Meka’s concept isn’t a true original. In fact, when it comes to virtual rap avatars, you’d probably think of British rap group Gorillaz first. 

Brandon Le created the AI rapper avatar to sell non-fungible tokens. However, executive Anthony Martini led the avatar to new heights. Martini signed the rapper to Factory New, a record label he made for virtual artists. 

His first single, “Florida Water,” features Gunna and Cody “Cix” Conrod, a Fortnite player. On the day FN Meka signed the deal, the single was released.

The rapper is the first artist to sign in Factory New. 

The downfall

A few days after his new record deal, Industry Blackout, an online activist group, called out FN Meka over his questionable actions. 

For one, the AI rapper had used the N-word in several of his songs, including his first single. He also mocked police brutality and posted a picture of himself being beaten up by the police. 

Plus, FN Meka was criticized for racially stereotyping Black people because of his appearance and aesthetic. Furthermore, rumors began circulating that no actual Black people were involved in his creation in the first place. 

Other news outlets also criticized the AI rapper for collaborating with Gunna, who is in jail for racketeering. 

The record company has since dropped him. In a statement, the record label offered “their deepest apologies to the Black community.” Because of FN Meka’s actions, the label has cut ties with him “effective immediately.” 

More and more problems

It doesn’t end there.

Kyle the Hooligan has come forward as the voice behind FN Meka. And the rapper has dropped new information on the issue. He alleges that the company did not pay him for the first three songs he made for the AI rapper. He also claims to have been ghosted by the creators at around 2021, when FN Meka just started gaining traction.

Of course, this comes as a surprise. Factory New claims that the AI writes the song while the humans only perform it.

Kyle doesn’t know who currently voices FN Meka, and he hasn’t probed it. What we know for sure, though, is that the rapper is based on other trendy rappers like Ice Narco, Lil Pump, and 6ix9ine. 

On August 28, Kyle the Hooligan announced that he would file a lawsuit against Brandon Le and Factory New. 

There’s a sort of irony in FN Meka. The AI rapper, voiced by a Black artist, is the product of white creators. And some activists and critics even call the AI rapper a new form of blackface. Here, critics argue that anyone can use and adopt Blackness without being Black. Today, a majority of FN Meka’s music and videos have been deleted from TikTok. Martini has also walked away from Factory New and FN Meka, leaving the rapper’s fate hanging in the air.

Fiber optic technology is a major foundation of the internet. Fiber-optic subsea cables covering thousands of miles connect continents together, allowing faster exchange of data. Meanwhile, the massive data centers that host all of our cloud-based applications also rely on fiber connections. Increasingly, these fiber connections travel directly into peoples’ homes, providing them with fast, reliable internet. Sadly, only 43 percent of U.S. households have access to a fiber internet connection.

“In some cases, especially in rural and far-flung areas, it can be prohibitively expensive to deploy fiber and it can be very expensive for households to pay for it,” says Julija Jurkevic, a senior research analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law enacted in November 2021 aims to bridge this digital divide. A total of $65 billion dedicated to expanding access to broadband internet to all Americans. The government support, along with some other factors, have caused an increase in the demand for fiber products.

Fiber-Based Networks 

With fiber-optic broadband driving internet service adoption worldwide, Kagan’s survey of global fixed broadband status indicates that 1.06 billion homes will have a fixed broadband subscription by the end of 2021. Fiber-to-the-premises, or FTTP, comprise 56 percent of the total by year-end, with just 18.7 percent of fixed broadband homes still relying on xDSL, while cable will hold an estimated 21.4 percent in the market share.

Still, an estimated 11.9 million homes will drop xDSL in 2021. At the same time, fixed broadband penetration is expected to reach 47.6 percent of existing households worldwide by end-2021, surpassing the 50 percent threshold by year-end 2024, as subscriptions rise to 1.18 billion, and past 1.2 billion by 2025, equating to a 3.7 percent  compound annual growth rate (CAGR) across 2020-2025.

To understand the technology behind fiber-optic internet and how the market for fiber products is changing, CNBC visited Corning’s optical fiber and cable manufacturing facilities in North Carolina. 

Most famous as the maker of Gorilla Glass for iPhones, Corning is also the world’s largest producer of optical fiber by manufacturing capacity and market share, as well as the largest manufacturer of fiber cable in North America. In Q2 2022, Corning disclosed that the optical communications business was its largest segment by revenue, reaching sales of $1.3 billion.

North America lags the global fiber-optic broadband

While fiber dominates globally, its availability and service take-up differ greatly across regions and individual markets.It is estimated that by 2025, fiber will become the dominant fixed broadband platform in all regions but North America and the Middle East and Africa. As of 2021, the technology dominates only in Asia-Pacific and Eastern Europe.

Asia-Pacific is the largest market for fixed broadband and full fiber, the latter forecast to represent more than 80 percent of the region’s subscribers by year-end 2021. The world’s largest broadband market, mainland China, will account for 53.1 percent of global fiber homes by year-end. 

Fiber is the dominant platform in Asia including in the less developed markets of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The affordability of broadband services has helped drive fiber adoption, evidenced by our affordability index, which shows a relatively low threshold of 1 percent to 1.3 percent as of end-2020. The Philippines had an affordability index of 2.1 percent as of end-2020. Thanks to the archipelago’s challenging geography, fixed wireless dominates the market, and fiber’s share is estimated to lag behind the Asia-Pacific average  which recorded 38.8 percent at end-2021. Asia will also account for 74.2 percent of the world’s FTTH subscribers by year-end.

For other news and stories, read more here at Owner’s Mag!

Social media trends fads come and go. Short-video hosting app TikTok might be dancing in glory right now, but a newcomer, BeReal app, is about to steal the spotlight. Amusingly, it is partly because of TikTok users sharing their reviews about BeReal, saying that the app has exploded so quickly. 

What is BeReal App? 

Source: Android Police

BeReal app is a new social media phenomenon that operates under a simple premise at works this way: 

• Once a day, the app will alert you to take a photo. It will take one from your rear camera and one from your front camera a few seconds later. 
• You will have a two-minute interval to take this photo to capture candid images. 
• Then, the BeReal app will lay your front photo over your rear photo. 
• You can share it with your friends. However, you won’t be able to see their posts until the next day. And if you missed the two-hour window, you’ll have to wait until the next day. 
• You can also react to your friend’s posts by sharing a quick selfie attached to their post.

The premise behind these weird shooting windows is to encourage people to share snippets from their lives that aren’t just hand picked from parties or any planned events. But, it’s not the first app to go for the candid angle. Back in 2016, Casey Neistat of YouTube developed an app called Beme. The app encouraged users to take videos with their phones clasped to their chest so that, allegedly, they could stay focused on the moment. Later that year, CNN bought the app but ultimately shut it down in 2018.

BeReal vs Beme

What BeReal had that Beme didn’t was the ability to operate for two years with the increasing number of users showing for it. Based on a BeReal app job posting, the app has more than 10 million daiily users. It also says the company’s goal is to increase this number to over 100 million. Quite an ambitious goal but recent reports project the mid-size social media network Snapchat at about 350 million daily active users.

As Snapchat popularized the concept of communication through disappearing messages, BeReal may be relying on its own style to continue and encourage future partnerships with other businesses. Clubhouse, an audio-based social app that went live around the same time as BeReal, had plenty of activities to back it up, but things have quickly cooled down. It is recently experimenting with new features to make the app nteresting enough to attract more users.  Meanwhile, the novelty of BeReal is still fresh, but once the surge of interest from TikTok has mellowed down, it will need to learn to be independent and beat the competitors.

What is an Instagram Candid?

Meta seems to be working on a feature called “Candid Challenges” for Instagram. Discovered by self-described reverse engineer Allessandro Palluzzi, users would be notified once a day to take and share a “candid.” It also copies BeReal right down to the last detail, giving users just two minutes to take the candid.

An Instagram spokesperson told Engadget that the feature was an “internal prototype” and with no users testing the feature. Still,  we are yet to see this announced soon in an Instagram update.

While Meta has been the only company confirmed to be working on a BeReal clone, it wouldn’t be surprising if Twitter or TikTok followed suit as well. Twitter, specifically, might see BeReal candid shots a fit for the microblogging platform, but considering its brave attempt at copying Snapchat’s stories and the on-going buyout buzz with Elon Musk, it’ll need to stride carefully.

While BeReal is becoming popular, it faces an uncertain future. Will it end up being defeated by Meta as have many other successful startups that even vaguely have a conflicting interest with its existing properties? Or will it fail to innovate like Clubhouse did and die off after its 15 minutes in the spotlight? It might be a welcome change to the airbrushed faces and saturated filters from Instagram, but BeReal might just end up being a little too real for its own good.
If you’re interested in trying out the BeReal App, download it from the Play Store. Just remember you know how to take a selfie before you start aad that you’ll only get one shot daily.