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Daily Archives: July 11, 2018

Doing User Research in the Courts on the Future of Access to Justice

Legal Design Lab: “Over the past quarter, the Stanford Legal Design Lab has established a regular on-site civic user testing group at the California courts. Through a policy lab class, Community-Led System Design Practice, our team of five students, teachers, and fellows has developed a user testing protocol for people working on justice innovation. It is particularly aimed at court staff and executives, legal aid leaders, and others who are interested in making the justice system work better for people — and who are considering where to spend resources on innovation. We ran weekly court user testing sessions in May and June 2018, speaking to a total of 55 court-users, with approximately 9 users each visit. On average, we spoke with them for 20 minutes, structured around two short surveys. Our surveys, run on Qualtrics or on paper cards/canvases, asked court visitors to rank different ideas for ‘innovations’ in for civil justice self help, and then to rank different places where self-help resources may be located. These surveys were meant to draw out the explicit rankings of different innovation efforts from the users’ point of view, as well as to understand their driving values and preferences…”

Algorithms and Justice

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society examines the role of the state in the development and deployment of algorithmic technologies. Jul 11, 2018 I. Introduction Our work on “Algorithms and Justice,” as part of the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Initiative, explores ways in which government institutions are increasingly using artificial intelligence, algorithms,… Continue Reading

The Violent Consequences of Trade-Induced Worker Displacement in Mexico

The Violent Consequences of Trade-Induced Worker Displacement in Mexico. Melissa Dell, Benjamin Feigenberg, Kensuke Teshima. Harvard University and NBER, University of Illinois at Chicago, ITAM. May 2018. “Mexican manufacturing job loss induced by competition with China increases cocaine trafficking and violence, particularly in municipalities with transnational criminal organizations. When it becomes more lucrative to traffic… Continue Reading

The Odd Paraphernalia of the NYPL’s Berg Collection

BookRiot: “On the third floor of the New York Public Library, off of a quiet, marble-tiled hallway, is the Berg Reading Room. Mary Catherine Kinniburgh is one of the literary-manuscript specialists in charge of the cache of artifacts, which includes a lock of Walt Whitman’s hair, Jack Kerouac’s boots and Virginia Woolf’s walking cane—all guarded… Continue Reading

Activism in the Social Media Age

Pew – As the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag turns 5 years old, a look at its evolution on Twitter and how Americans view social media’s impact on political and civic engagement: “This month marks the fifth anniversary of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, which was first coined following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of unarmed… Continue Reading

New project allows users to identify local media by ZIP code

Columbia Journalism Review: “…the Media Deserts Project [is] a research effort that is trying to map the ways in which many of America’s rural communities are indeed impoverished by the lack of fresh, daily local news and information. As daily newspapers cut and slashed personnel through the Great Recession (or closed completely), they also reduced… Continue Reading

Mueller asks court for 100 more blank subpoenas ahead of Manafort trial

The Hill: “Special counsel Robert Mueller is asking a federal court in Virginia for 100 blank subpoenas in the case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.  The request was made in a filing on Wednesday. The subpoenas would require their recipients to testify in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria on July 25, when… Continue Reading

80 percent of IT decision makers say outdated tech is holding them back

betanews: “A study by analysts Vanson Bourne for self service automation specialist SnapLogic looks at the data priorities and investment plans of IT decision makers, along with what’s holding them back from maximizing value. Among the findings are that 80 percent of those surveyed report that outdated technology holds their organization back from taking advantage of… Continue Reading

Yes – Software beats animal tests at predicting toxicity of chemicals

A cessation to the use animal testing is long overdue. Via Nature – Machine learning on mountain of safety data improves automated assessments. “Machine-learning software trained on masses of chemical-safety data is so good at predicting some kinds of toxicity that it now rivals — and sometimes outperforms — expensive animal studies, researchers report. Computer… Continue Reading

You can now test Google’s biggest Chrome redesign in years

BGR: “For the past several months, Google has been releasing updates for its Chrome browser in preparation for a massive redesign. We’ve seen bits and pieces of the next Material Design overhaul already, but this week, Google rolled out a substantial UI refresh to the Chrome Canary browser (for developers and early adopters), giving Chrome… Continue Reading

Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate

Union of Concerned Scientists – “Hundreds of thousands of homes are at risk of chronic flooding due to sea level rise over the coming decades. The implications for coastal residents, communities, and the economy are profound…Sea levels are rising. Tides are inching higher. High-tide floods are becoming more frequent and reaching farther inland. And hundreds… Continue Reading