Eight months into the Civil War, in December 1861, social reformer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass delivered an address at Boston's Tremont Temple about a subject that surprised many in the audience: photography. In the address, titled "Pictures and Progress," Douglass said the new medium had the potential to transform how Americans saw one another by challenging racist stereotypes. In recent years, the speech has … Read the full Story >>
A Spanish tourist was trampled to death by elephants in a South African national park on July 7 after apparently trying to take pictures of a breeding herd that included three calves, notes The Guardian. The 43-year-old man was killed at Pilanesberg national park, about 130 miles northwest of Johannesburg. According to park officials, the man, who was with three friends, climbed out of his vehicle and walked towards the animals to take photos, despite warnings from his fellow passengers. Elephant attacks are not uncommon in the region, adds TG. And that’s worth remembering. Read the full Story >>
Ramesh Shukla was 26-year-old when boarded a ship from Bombay (now Mumbai) and ventured to the Trucial States, a collection of independent Sheikhdoms along the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula that would later become the United Arab Emirates. Shulka ended up staying in what had been a British protectorate, and by doing so he was able to document the development of the UAE and the city of Dubai with a trusty Rolleicord camera. “I am not famous — my camera is very famous,” Shulka, now 85, tells CNN. Read the full Story >>
AI companies are generally secretive about their sources of training data, but an investigation by Proof News found some of the wealthiest AI companies in the world have used material from thousands of YouTube videos to train AI. Companies did so despite YouTube’s rules against harvesting materials from the platform without permission. Proof’s investigation found that subtitles from 173,536 YouTube videos, siphoned from more than 48,000 channels, were used by Silicon Valley heavyweights, including Anthropic, Nvidia, Apple, and Salesforce. Read the full Story >>
