Watch Drones Crash Into Dummies (for Science)

*/ /*--> */ Ad Age "Media Guy" columnist Simon Dumenco's media roundup for the morning of Thursday, March 9: I'm guessing you might be here for the cheap thrill of watching what happens when drones smash into crash test dummies (No. 7, below), but please bear with me as I first serve up other essential information from all over medialand -- including the news of disappearing news at Gothamist, fake-news-sharing teens, Russian propaganda-sharing Russian media and more. Anyway, let's get started ... 1. "Google says many Android exploits detailed in WikiLeaks CIA files are already fixed," per BGR.com's Zach Epstein. And previously, per The Guardian's Alex Hern, Apple "says it already fixed many exploits described in 'Vault 7' documents released by WikiLeaks." 2. "Gothamist Deleted Negative Coverage of Its New Owner," per a post by Jezebel's Brendan O'Connor. (The new owner in question is Joe Ricketts; Ricketts' DNAinfo announced yesterday that it was buying Gothamist.) 3. The New York Post asks an important question: Call them J-Rod. Or is it A.Lo? https://t.co/EiXp7ZjFhp 4. Oh dear. "Even social media-savvy teens can't spot a fake news story." That's the headline of a Quartz story this morning by Jenny Anderson. She writes, Thirty-one percent of kids aged 10 to 18 shared a news story online that they later found out was wrong or inaccurate, while only 44% say they can tell a fake news story from a real one, research published by Common Sense Media finds. "Fake news and 'alternate facts' were not a problem in society two years ago," said Jim Steyer, founder and CEO of the non-profit, which promotes safe media and technology for children. "It has been deeply accelerated by the Trump phenomenon." 5. Speaking of fake news, on the front page of The New York Times this morning, a story by Steven Erlanger poses a question: "Journalism or Propaganda? A Russian TV Network Blurs the Line." The headline of the web version of the story shades the question a bit differently: "Russia's RT Network: Is It More BBC or K.G.B.?" 6. Speaking of the Times, the front page of its business section this morning has a story by Penelope Green titled "Renovating a Magazine for the Social Media Age" -- retitled "Architectural Digest Undergoes Renovations for the Social Media Age" for the web -- that details new editor Amy Astley's efforts to modernize the venerable Condé Nast shelter glossy. 7. And finally, with companies including Amazon and Facebook spending millions on drone R&D, they're surely paying a lot of attention to the potential downsides -- like when they crash (see "Here's why Facebook's massive drone crashed in the Arizona desert," via Recode in December). Most urgently, what happens when drones crash into people? Brian Schildhorn and Zach Goldstein of Bloomberg News talked to researchers at Virginia Tech who are trying to figure that out: Simon Dumenco, aka Media Guy, is an Ad Age editor-at-large. You can follow him on Twitter @simondumenco.

Watch Drones Crash Into Dummies (for Science)

Featured Stories