American Libraries – Are self-service libraries a threat to the profession or an opportunity to better serve patrons? – “Automated and self-service libraries—which have been popular in Europe for years—are gaining a foothold in the US. Will these services eliminate librarian jobs, or are they a cost-effective way to stretch budgets and provide basic services… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: September 2019
How does Apple (privately) find your offline devices?
Matthew Green – Cryptography Engineering Blog: [June 5, 2019] Apple announced a cool new feature called “Find My”. Unlike Apple’s “Find my iPhone“, which uses cellular communication and the lost device’s own GPS to identify the location of a missing phone, “Find My” also lets you find devices that don’t have cellular support or internal… Continue Reading
The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Law: Basic Questions
Surden, Harry, The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Law: Basic Questions (August 22, 2019). Forthcoming chapter in Oxford Handbook of Ethics of AI, 2020. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441303 [h/t Joe Hodnicki] “Ethical issues surrounding the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in law often share a common theme. As AI becomes increasingly integrated within the legal… Continue Reading
Safe Online Surfing Challenge Launches
“The FBI’s Safe Online Surfing (SOS) Internet Challenge, which had record participation in 2018-2019, is reopening for the start of the new school year to help students navigate the web securely. As the FBI sees more and more crimes begin online, the growing participation numbers show that educators and caregivers also recognize the importance of… Continue Reading
Firefox will encrypt web domain name requests by default
You can expect to see DNS over HTTPS by the end of September – “Mozilla’s Firefox privacy protections will soon include one of the most basic tasks for any web browser: fielding the domain name requests that help you visit websites. The developer will make DNS over encrypted HTTPS the default for the US starting… Continue Reading
Real-time maps warn Hong Kong protesters of water cannons and riot police
Quartz – The “Be Water” nature of Hong Kong’s protests means that crowds move quickly and spread across the city. They might stage a protest in the central business district one weekend, then industrial neighborhoods and far-flung suburban towns the next. And a lot is happening at any one time at each protest. One of… Continue Reading
Our past on the internet is disappearing before we can make it history
Lapham’s Quarterly – Please, My Digital Archive. It’s Very Sick. “Digital history isn’t history at all—until, without warning, it is. In an age in which any internet user is a creator-in-the-making, reaching a handful of virtual friends or entire corners of the web in a moment’s notice, the line between archive-worthy material and the detritus… Continue Reading
Tech Paging Big Brother: In Amazon’s Bookstore, Orwell Gets a Rewrite
The New York Times – As fake and illegitimate texts proliferate online, books are becoming a form of misinformation.The author of “1984” would not be surprised. “I started browsing Orwell on Amazon after writing about the explosion in counterfeit books offered by the retailer. The fake books appeared to help Amazon by, for example, encouraging publishers… Continue Reading
New govinfo Webcast Available: Tracking Regulations
Via FDLP – A new, educational webcast is now available, Tracking Regulations in govinfo. The 27-minute webcast focuses on several major govinfo collections: Federal Register (FR) Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) List of CFR Sections Affected (LSA) Unified Agenda Continue Reading
The Decline of Online Piracy: How Markets Not Enforcement Drive Down Copyright Infringement
Quintais, João and Poort, Joost, The Decline of Online Piracy: How Markets – Not Enforcement – Drive Down Copyright Infringement (August 14, 2019). American University International Law Review, Vol. 34 , No. 4, pp. 807-876 (2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3437239 “This article deals with the acquisition and consumption of music, films, series, books, and games… Continue Reading
How Young People Consume News and The Implications For Mainstream Media
A report by Flamingo commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University: “Younger audiences are different from older groups not just in what they do, but in their core attitudes in terms of what they want from the news. Young people are primarily driven by progress and enjoyment in their lives,… Continue Reading
More Than Half of U.S. Adults Trust Law Enforcement to Use Facial Recognition Responsibly
But the public is less accepting of facial recognition technology when used by advertisers or technology companies: “The ability of governments and law enforcement agencies to monitor the public using facial recognition was once the province of dystopian science fiction. But modern technology is increasingly bringing versions of these scenarios to life. A recent investigation… Continue Reading
