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Forbes
3 days ago
- Science
- Forbes
Venus And Jupiter Will ‘Kiss' As Perseids Meteors Peak — When To Watch
Venus and Jupiter will dramatically pass each other in the night sky on the same day that the annual Perseid meteor shower peaks. The conjunction between the two brightest planets will take place in the east in the pre-dawn sky, with the Perseids due to peak overnight on Aug. 12/13. Planets Jupiter and Venus in conjunction are seen after sunset above LAquila, Italy, on march 1st, 2023. Planets seem to be very close (less than a degree away from each other). Moons (satellites) of Jupiter are visible even with a telephoto lens. (Photo by Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images) NurPhoto via Getty Images Venus and Jupiter will appear very close together, separated by just 0.9 degrees, or less than the width of two full moons. Venus and Jupiter are the two brightest planets in the night sky. Venus will shine at magnitude -4.0 and Jupiter at -1.9, both in the constellation Gemini. The two planets will rise in the east-northeast about 2.5 hours before sunrise and be easily visible to the naked eye until dawn. They'll make a striking pair through binoculars, particularly Jupiter, whose four Galilean moons — Ganymede, Europa, Io and Callisto — will be visible. The Perseid meteor shower will peak overnight on Aug. 12/13, but its up to 75 'shooting stars' per hour sometimes seen on the peak night will this year likely be greatly reduced. To catch the planetary conjunction, start early — about an hour before sunrise on Tuesday, Aug. 12 — and look to the east-northeast horizon for the close encounter between Venus and Jupiter. Find a location with an unobstructed eastern horizon. Perseid Meteor Shower 2025 Later, on Aug. 12, after sunset, turn your gaze to the northeast once again for the constellation Perseus, the radiant point of the Perseids, which will be rising as darkness falls. Give your eyes 20 minutes to adjust to the dark and avoid looking at a phone, whose bright white light will instantly kill your night vision. While the moonlight may obscure fainter meteors, there will likely be occasional bright 'shooting stars.' Come back after dark on Friday, Aug. 15, when the moon will rise much later, with the darker skies potentially showing lingering Perseid meteors. Although the conjunction and the Perseids will get the headlines, there's also a 'planet parade' going on, visible one hour before sunrise. As you look for Venus and Jupiter, you may notice Mercury rising into the pre-dawn sky below. Also, notice Saturn in the southern sky. Uranus and Neptune are also in the sky, but it's not possible to see them with the naked eye. Although it's visible right now, this parade — mistakenly called a planetary alignment by many — will be best seen between Sunday, Aug. 17, and Wednesday, Aug. 20, when a waning crescent moon moves past them each morning, getting slimmer each day. The highlight will be on Tuesday, Aug. 20, when a 9% crescent moon will be positioned very close to Venus. Further Reading Forbes See The Perseid Meteor Shower Now Before It Peaks, Experts Say By Jamie Carter Forbes Strange New Object Found In Solar System 'Dancing' With Neptune By Jamie Carter Forbes How To Easily Find The 'Northern Cross' In The Sky This Weekend By Jamie Carter
Forbes
15-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Canva's All-In-One AI Suite Could Rival Tech Giants — But There's Fine Print
A Canva logo displayed on a smartphone and "Magic Studio" desktop home page displayed on a ... More personal computer are seen in L'Aquila, Italy, on October 4th, 2023. On October 4th Canva launched "Magic Studio", its new design platoform powered by AI (Artificial Intelligence). (Photo by Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Canva, the Australian design juggernaut with over 230 million global users, just made an interesting foray: entering the AI work tool space. At its annual Canva Create event, the company unveiled Visual Suite 2.0, a sweeping update that adds AI-powered spreadsheets, app-building tools, and an enterprise-focused workspace, all packed into a single interface. The move could position Canva beyond a design platform (that allows just about anyone to don the hat of a graphic designer) and more as an all-in-one productivity suite that merges the visual simplicity of design tools with the analytical power of business software. With this move, Canva may not just be competing with Adobe anymore — it could also be gunning for Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Notion, GitHub Copilot, and so on. The update includes Canva AI, a voice- or text-powered assistant that acts as a creative co-pilot across documents, presentations, photo edits, and so on. If users want to do anything from designing a social media campaign to analyzing spreadsheet data and building an interactive widget, that's now possible on Canva within the same space. Meanwhile, the new Canva Code feature lets users generate interactive tools like calculators or quizzes using natural language prompts — no coding knowledge necessary. It's an unusually bold play for a design-first company, and one that puts it in direct competition with AI-coding startups like Replit and Anthropic-backed tools. Also, Canva's new Sheets feature reimagines spreadsheets in a fascinating way: Users can import data from Google Analytics, HubSpot, or Statista, and use 'Magic Insights' to instantly spot trends or highlights. For enterprise users, Canva has expanded its ambit to include access management, Secure Single Sign-On integrations, and bulk content creation tools like Magic Studio at Scale which auto-generates campaigns using data templates. The platform's updated Photo Editor, which now allows point-and-click background removal and AI-generated environment tweaks, places it within radar of Adobe Photoshop and Apple-owned Pixelmator. What stands out is how Visual Suite 2.0 combines many functions — design, copywriting, data, code, collaboration — into one single ecosystem, so that users can toggle between documents, websites, whiteboards, animations, and spreadsheets. 'Entire campaigns — from briefing to delivery — can now happen in one seamless space,' Canva said in its release. If Canva's AI-fueled vision pans out, it could become an important workspace in a post-PowerPoint, post-Photoshop era — or be relegated to the recesses of forgotten tech trends. What Canva is attempting isn't new — plenty of platforms have tried to unify creative and analytical work under one roof. What's different is how quietly it's doing it — a slow march from design tool used to make flyers to productivity platform. Whether teams and users actually want that kind of all-in-one workspace — or still prefer their tried-and-true methods — is left to be seen. As AI gets more deeply baked into productivity tools, the new updates also raise familiar questions around content ownership and copyright. Canva's terms make it clear that users are responsible for their inputs and outputs, and as with most AI tools, outputs are created using third-party models, which means data shared in prompts may be routed through external providers. Canva doesn't claim copyright over AI-generated content — users have ownership — but the company requires disclosure that it was created using AI. In professional settings, that line between human and machine authorship could start to matter more, and as generative tools become more deeply embedded into creative and corporate workflows, it may be warranted to witness closer scrutiny — not just of what these tools can do, but also of how transparently they're trained and deployed.
Forbes
26-03-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Italy—Where Creating A Social Media Account May Be A Taxable Event
Home of official Facebook desktop page and a blue verification checkmark are seen on February 20, ... More 2023 in L'Aquila, Italy. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of a paid subscription starting at $11.99 per month for users to authenticate their profiles on Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram). (Photo by Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images) It's a tax nerd's fever dream—a value added tax case against tech giants that leans into barter theory and challenges the 'free' (as in beer) in free platforms. According to Reuters, in a recent levy, Italy has told Meta, X and Microsoft that if it walks like a transaction and quacks like a transaction, it's getting taxed like a transaction. There is no such thing as a free lunch—or, apparently, a free Facebook account in Italy. That's the general thrust of the argument Italian tax authorities seem to be advancing in a landmark VAT case against big tech. The theory goes like this: when a user signs up for a social media platform—take, for example, Microsoft's LinkedIn—they are receiving a valuable service in exchange for their personal data. Because that exchange involves consideration, it should be subject to VAT—the same way a straight barter transaction would be treated. Reuters reports Italy has handed Meta a bill for €900 million, with smaller claims lodged against the parent companies of X and LinkedIn. Since VAT is harmonized across the European Union, this isn't necessarily just a local issue—it is a potential template for taxing tech giants across the community. The only issue is that the entire theory strains credulity. User data certainly has value, but this reimagining of how VAT works invites a parade of unintended consequences. If every exchange of attention, data, or indicia of consent counts as a taxable transaction, we aren't just taxing social media signups—we're levying a tax on the internet itself. Under the logic put forth by Italian revenue authorities, it is difficult to see how a cookie banner or email newsletter wouldn't similarly be taxable transactions subject to VAT. Italy is unquestionably frustrated with digital tax avoidance—and with good reason. But this particular expansion feels less like a principled extension of the underlying policy logic behind VAT and more like an ambitious stretch to find some way to reach big tech's pockets. On paper, the theory appears to be relatively straightforward. Under EU VAT law, a taxable transaction requires a supply of goods or services for consideration—when a user creates a social media account, they arguable are entering into exactly that kind of exchange. The user provides their personal data and the platform provides access to the service. No euros are exchanged, but consideration needn't be monetary. Social media companies have spent years pitching the value of user data to advertisers and investors. They've built empires on the monetization of online user behavior—Italy's policy begs the question: if it's valuable enough to sell or have a valuation for investment purposes, why isn't it taxable? That is the beginning and end of Italy's solid policy leg to stand on—from here on out it gets wobbly. VAT isn't just a tax on value, it's a tax on consumption. It is designed to have a broad base, but it is also intended to be keyed to the economy. Turning every exchange of data into a deemed supply of services threatens to untether VAT from that policy logic. It also raises the question: who is the consumer in this transaction? In a typical VAT system, businesses charge VAT on supplies but can reclaim input VAT on their purchases—hence it is a tax on value added. If Meta 'sells' an account to a user in exchange for their personal data, who's the taxable person and who's the consumer? Is Meta the supplier and the user the consumer? Then where's the payment of tax, since individuals can't deduct input VAT? Is the data itself the 'payment?' If so, how is it consumed? Data isn't extinguished like electricity or coffee—it is collected, replicated, resold, and algorithmically digested for future use, in perpetuity. If this is a consumption tax, what exactly is being consumed and who is doing the consuming? Italy's theory opens the door to VAT-ifying intangible and inexhaustible things simply because they generate revenue somewhere down the line. A crucial aspect in applying VAT to a barter exchange is determining the value of the bartered goods or services—this value is used as the basis for calculating the VAT due. The 'open market value' is typically used to establish this value. But what is the open market value of a LinkedIn account? VAT requires a tax base—some monetary value against which to apply a tax rate. But valuing a user's personal data at the moment of account creation is impossible. One user's X account may be worthless, drawing no followers and contributing little to the platform, while another may be an advertising bonanza. On the other side, how much is personal data worth? Is Meta prepared to assign a different value to an Italian engineer as against a high school student? In the advertising economy, data isn't bought and sold granularly like a commodity—it is aggregated, profiled, and monetized over time. If this theory sticks, if simply offering access to a service in return for data that may be necessary to even make use of that service, is enough to trigger VAT—then there is no reason to stop at social media. Airlines that offer free Wi-Fi in exchange for an email address? Sounds like a taxable transaction. Retail loyalty programs that trade purchase history for coupons? VAT-able. What about every shareware piece of software ever launched that offered a free tier in exchange for feedback, data, or brand visibility? Sounds like another bartered exchange. The logic behind Italy's apparent claim here doesn't end with Meta or Microsoft—it touches nearly every business to consumer relationship built on the illusion of 'free.' In a world where digital engagement is treated like a currency, Italy's approach risks turning every moment of online interaction into a taxable event.
