What You Need To Know: Tik Tok Ban, Apple AI, Record Sales in HUG Shop

The redemption marathon of my dreams.

From being brought to my knees in Boston, to a triumphant comeback in London- may we always find this level of joy in doing hard things. May we always live at the perfect intersection of being so hungry for more while celebrating how far we’ve already come. Most importantly, may we always remember that no matter how many times we get knocked down, a true warrior ALWAYS finds a way to get back up again.

What You Need To Know:

Biden signs bill to ban Tik Tok.

Read now on the New York Times, by Sapna Maheshwari & David McCabe

The American government's crusade against Tik Tok escalates, as Biden signs a bill passed by senate that would ban the Chinese-owned app unless it sells within the next nine months.

The leading concern for government officials is one of national security, as concerns grow due the app's influence and reach across American audiences. However, Tik Tok has been a life changing tool not just pop culture and brands, but for small businesses and creative entrepreneurs who have been leverage organic viral organic marketing in ways they haven't been able before.

Additional concerns lie in the potential ban's infrigement on First Amendment rights, sparking a debate on what matters more: Free Speech or National Security?

Either way, what happens next will set a precedent for the role of social media and federal policy. Whether you're for or against, call your elected officials and let them know you feel. Meanwhile, we'll all have to wait to see what's next.

Apple teases AI integration with iPhones

Read now on The Verge, by Emilia David

AI has been the hot topic in tech for months, but especially with so with Meta's recent release of Llama 3 and Samsung leading a new era of AI through the Samsung Galaxy S24... but Apple's been notoriously quiet, until now.

Apple's researchers released OpenELM, a series of small language models on the Hugging Face library. Local AI integration with the iPhone seems sensible, which could take features like auto-correct, voice to text, and predictive text and expand them into language outputs for texting, email writing, and more.

I don't anybody who is old enough to remember using flip phones wants to remember just how long ago it was, but I can't help but wonder if the next leap with AI will see as a big in phones as we did back the smart phone came into mass adoption.

What's happening at HUG:

Jackson Alves sets record sales on HUG's marketplace in 24 hours!

Jackson Alves is an unparalleled calligraphy/lettering artist who shares his love of script through education. I'm especially excited about his HUG Artist Storefront, where you not only find his art as NFTs and printed on merch, but also as downloadable procreate brushes and fonts.

In fact, in just a little over 24 hours after launching his shop on HUG, he surpassed 50 downloads and $1400 in sales for his Procreate calligraphy brush packs alone.

I'm so inspired not just by his entrepreneurial spirit, but the positive impact this will have on other artists. We're already seeing artists making new art with his brushes!

I can't wait to see what other digital downloads artists on HUG develop as we roll out more storefronts.

Shop on HUG. ( Use HUG20 to get 20% through April 30! )

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Sincerely,

Randi