Howdy👋🏾, documentaries like Ken Burn’s Civil War humanize epic historical events by mixing the personal thoughts of leaders and everyday humans. To help frame why a decision was made or the thoughts of soldiers on the field, narrators read personal letters, snippets from diaries, and stories passed down.

A beloved friend passed away, and I found solace in reminiscing over texts or scrolling through videos and photos on my phone. The more I looked, the more I realized that, like the letters from soldiers, these texts and pictures had become part of our story, but who controls this data? Who else can access these texts and chats? And how do we create time capsules of all the digital media that is so core to our lives?

It’s hard to think of our mortality, yet we have the power to take proactive steps and define what we want for our digital legacy. One easy step is to define a digital legacy contact, a person who, if something happens, could get access to your phone, text messages, or social media accounts. So, in honor of those we’ve lost, take action now. This way, you can rest assured that your digital memories will be entrusted to someone you love and trust.

👉 How to add a legacy contact to your Apple account (iOs, iPad, and MacOS)

👉 Add, edit, or remove a legacy contact for Facebook

👉 Google Inactivity Manager

👉 Memoralizing an Instagram Account

I hope the concept of digital legacy contacts catches on more platforms, allowing us to express our intentions for the abundance of photos, videos, notes, texts, and other digital artifacts that truly reflect our identity. Now to some thoughts on tech & things:

⚡️Android users are celebrating the Made by Google event that included the release of an Android 14, a new Pixel phone and watch, an AI-powered photos app, and a pretty exciting AI-powered assistant.

⚡️Meta released a new version of Lama2 that allows for longer conversation windows and outperforms ChatGPT and Claude 2 in some ways.

⚡️Robot.txt file now lets you limit OpenAI and Google’s AI training on your data.

That’s all, folks! If you haven’t already, sign up for this week’s AI in Action event on Thursday, October 12th. We’re going to delve into the healthcare industry and how it can use AI, and I’m a panelist. Hope to see you there!

-jason

p.s. For All Mankind is one of the best TV shows I’ve watched, and Season 4 is releasing over my birthday week. You can get up to speed with previous seasons and prepare for this fantastic show.