That’s the number of annual visitors to Japan. It may seem like a lot, but that’s actually pretty moderate for international travel. Now Japan is looking to attract even more tourist attention in advance of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. And as Quartz reports, part of how it plans to do it is by offering free Wi-Fi … on Mt. Fuji.
That’s how many countries will be part of Global Release Day, an attempt by the record industry to consolidate music releases into a single day of the week. In the past, artists have chosen different days to put out new music. But that led to some countries getting music earlier than others, and that inevitably led to illegal sharing of content. Some industry professionals are hoping the concentrated release of new music will help get rid of some of the piracy.
That’s at least how many hardcover copies of Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman” have been printed by HarperCollins in anticipation of its July 14th release. The publishing company is hoping for a big debut. As the Wall Street Journal reports, some predictions estimate a potential $30 million to $33 million in revenue from first-year North American sales.
That’s how many video views Facebook has racked up in the first quarter of 2015. The social network has lately been making moves to go after YouTube’s hold on online video. As the New York Times reports, there’s talk that the company is seeking to license music video content as well.
And a long-read to enjoy this weekend:
That’s how old the original emoticon turns this September. Its creator, Dr. Scott Fahlman at Carnegie Mellon University, usually spends the day of its anniversary handing out smiley-face cookies and posing for pictures with students. Over at Narrative.ly, they have an extensive profile on Fahlman’s true passion: artificial intelligence. As Fahlman puts it, one of his great aspirations is to help a computer understand the story of the three little pigs.
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