The first podcast-style show was a 1965 sales training tape meant to be played in car journeys

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The first podcast-style show was a 1965 sales training tape meant to be played in car journeys

the gist

In 1965 Frank Siedel and his scriptwriting firm Storycraft made Salespoint, a sales training program for Westinghouse salespeople. They recorded 60-minute audio programmes on Philips compact cassette recorders, which were new portable devices, so salespeople could listen in their cars. The program ran for at least ten years. In 2004 Adam Curry launched Daily Source Code, a show about podcast development, and that year the iPodderX app became the first graphical podcast application. Apple added formal podcast support to iTunes in June 2005, and the word podcast combined the iPod with broadcast.

so what

Its commercial path, from free shows to paid subscriptions and advertising, has made it a major medium today.

fun fact

Apple sent cease-and-desist letters to developers who used the word pod in their product names.

Hampi was once one of the world's largest cities, until its Vijayanagara capital was destroyed in 1565

the gist

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.

how it works

The city was built around a fortified core with temples, markets and water structures along the river, supplied by an extensive network of roads and waterworks. When the empire fell, the city was not rebuilt, so its stone monuments were left standing.

so what

Hampi shows how quickly a great city can vanish after a military defeat, and how a ruined capital can remain sacred. Its ruins give historians a view of medieval South Asia that few other sites can match.

fun fact

The name Hampi comes from Pampa, an old name for the Tungabhadra River.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · text CC BY-SA 4.0

Image: Wikimedia Commons

source: Wikipedia ↗

2 min

politicsshortCNA2:01

False allegations about Singapore’s hand in Indonesia’s markets and a made-up meeting

from CNA

CNA Verify has found close to 400 posts pushing falsehoods tying Singapore to Indonesia’s stock market rout and to a secret meeting that never took place. Together, they drew nearly 12 million views, and some were circulated by accounts that appeared to be working in concert, across multiple social media platforms.

Here’s how the disinformation campaign targeting Singapore was uncovered.

on YouTube: CNA ↗