The New York Times – “The late 1990s was a simpler time for Google. The nascent company was merely a search engine, and Gmail, Android and YouTube were but glimmers in the startup’s eye. Google’s first privacy policy reflected that simplicity. It was short and earnest, a quaint artifact of a different time in Silicon… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: July 2019
Instagram To Flag Hateful Comments Before You Send Them
NPR – “Instagram is rolling out a feature that will urge users to think twice before posting hateful comments, in an effort to minimize cyberbullying on the massive social media platform. The new feature uses artificial intelligence to screen content and notify users if their post may be harmful or offensive. Users will see a… Continue Reading
Amazon Alexa will now be giving out health advice to UK citizens
MIT Technology Review – “The UK’s National Health Service hopes that its partnership with Amazon could help to reduce demand on its services. The news: From this week, when UK users ask their Amazon smart speaker health-related questions, it will automatically search the official NHS website, which is full of medically-backed health tips and advice.… Continue Reading
GPO Digitizes Public Papers of the Presidents
“The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) and the National Archives’ Office of the Federal Register (OFR) have digitized volumes of The Public Papers of the Presidents for Presidents Herbert Hoover (1929) through George H.W. Bush (1990), with the exception of the Franklin D. Roosevelt presidency. The papers of President Franklin Roosevelt were published privately before… Continue Reading
Seeds of life: The plants suited to climate change
BBC – “Experts at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, selected 11 seeds from plants and trees that may be better suited to climate change than other species. Using a scanning electron microscope, artist Rob Kesseler created striking colourised images of the seeds in extraordinary detail. The five experts at Kew in London chose the species based… Continue Reading
OCLC Research Mini-symposium on the Discovery and Use of Open Collections
“Description – As the volume of digitized heritage collections continues to grow, memory institutions are challenged to making this open content discoverable and usable across repositories. At this mini-symposium in Leiden, guests… learn[ed] about research & development work done in the area of digital image interoperability (IIIF), corpus-building and deep interactions with open collections by… Continue Reading
Trusted data and the future of information sharing
MIT Technology Review – How policy innovation is promoting data sharing and AI. “Data in some form underpins almost every action or process in today’s modern world. Consider that even farming, the world’s oldest industry, is on the verge of a digital revolution, with AI, drones, sensors, and blockchain technology promising to boost efficiencies. The market… Continue Reading
NOAA designates new national marine sanctuary in Maryland
NOAA – Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary, about 40 miles south of Washington, D.C., will be the first national marine sanctuary designated since 2000. “The designation of Mallows Bay as a national marine sanctuary is an exciting milestone for NOAA and an opportunity for the public to celebrate and help protect this piece of… Continue Reading
The Internet is Drowning
National Geographic – Rising seas imperil the delicate web of cables and power stations that control the internet. “When the internet goes down, life as the modern American knows it grinds to a halt. Gone are the cute kitten photos and the Facebook status updates—but also gone are the signals telling stoplights to change from… Continue Reading
The State of LinkedIn – A Twitter Parody
The State of LinkedIn – @StateOfLinkedIn – “LinkedIn is a breeding ground for lies & brown-nosing. Exposing the worst. We are in no way associated with LinkedIn, so class us as a parody.” Barry Barnes owns the Twitter account The State of LinkedIn with 104,000 followers. Via FT.com (paywall) [he tweets a] curated selection of… Continue Reading
Firefox 68 arrives with darker reader view, recommended extensions, IT customizations
VentureBeat: “Mozilla today launched Firefox 68 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Firefox 68 includes a darker reader view, recommended extensions, IT Pro customizations, and more. Firefox 68 for desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. The Android version is trickling… Continue Reading
Americans Shouldn’t Have to Drive, but the Law Insists on It
The Atlantic – Gregory H. Shill – The automobile took over because the legal system helped squeeze out the alternatives. “…In America, the freedom of movement comes with an asterisk: the obligation to drive. This truism has been echoed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has pronounced car ownership a “virtual necessity.” The Court’s pronouncement… Continue Reading
