Is this the end of Facebook’s news ban?  - It looks like news is coming back to Facebook.  - Facebook says it will reinstate news content on its platform after the government agreed to last minute amendments to the media bargaining code. - Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships, said the company would restore news in “coming days”  - Here’s the quote: “After further discussions with the Australian government, we have come to an agreement that will allow us to support the publishers we choose to, including small and local publishers. We’re restoring news on Facebook in Australia in the coming days,” Mr Brown said. - “Going forward, the government has clarified we will retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook so that we won’t automatically be subject to a forced negotiation.” - So, sounds like not everyone will be back, just the publishers who play nice with FB?  - The amendments include inserting a two-month mediation period into the code to give the parties more time to broker agreements before they are forced to enter a binding final offer arbitration process.  - Also: the code will take into account whether the digital platform “has made a significant contribution to the sustainability of the Australian news industry through reaching commercial agreements with new media businesses”  Automation set to gut 1.5m jobs from Australian economy  - Robots will take 1.5 million Australian jobs by 2020, according to new research from research firm Forrester  - Australia’s job market will shrink by 11 per cent by 2030 due to the rise of better automation technology - How did they come up with these numbers? By tracking the progress of automation on 391 occupations that the ABS tracks.  - Under the most threat in the near term, according to the report, are the cubicle workers, such as bookkeepers, accountants, human resources staff and office clerks.  - If your gig involves repetitive and structured tasks it might be time to plan an exit strategy.  - On the other side of the digital divide are the “digital elites” like data scientists, software and app developers, network and systems administrators, mathematicians and information security specialists who will be even more in demand. https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295273/spotify-hifi-announced-lossless-streaming-hd-quality?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4 - Spotify had an event overnight to announce a new high quality pricing tier, although weirdly they didn’t announce what the pricing is.. - The new service, called Spotify Hifi will be rolling out in 80 markets  - They’ve also announced advertising tools to podcasts. They’ve purchased megaphone, a podcast advertising company that currently is used around the world.  - Disclaimer we use acast for ad insertion, but megaphone has a similar platform that inserts local ads into pods dynamically - Australia is not listed as a market yet Canva’s acquisition spree  - Cashed-up Australian software business Canva has bought two European design start-ups.  - Kaleido.ai, an Austrian visual artificial-intelligence startup behind a popular design tool to instantly remove background from a photo or video. -  It also purchased Smartmockups in the Czech Republic, which allows e-commerce entrepreneurs and other users to quickly and easily create mockups for t-shirts, mugs and other items. - According to Bloomberg Canva has now acquired 6 companies.  - The price of these latest acquisitions weren’t disclosed but Canva’s business has more than doubled in the past year, The firm now has 50 million monthly active users, up from 25 million a year ago. - Also Melanie Perkins has made it on to a list of “The next female CEOs who could take their companies public” (after Bumble’s IPO) But her co-founder t