Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

Monthly Archives: February 2019

Nine Steps That Companies Should Take To Protect You

EFF: “Today we are announcing Fix It Already, a new way to show companies we’re serious about the big security and privacy issues they need to fix. We are demanding fixes for different issues from nine tech companies and platforms, targeting social media companies, operating systems, and enterprise platforms on issues ranging from encryption design to retention policies. Some of these issues stem from business decisions. Some are security holes. Some are design choices. The common thread? All of these well-known privacy and security issues have attainable fixes and an outsize impact on people’s lives…”

EU officials say Facebook, Twitter, Google failing in “fake news” battle

Press release: A Europe that Protects: The EU steps up action against disinformation – “Today the European Commission published reports by Facebook, Google and Twitter covering the progress made in January 2019 on their commitments to fight disinformation. These three online platforms are signatories of the Code of Practice against disinformation and have been asked… Continue Reading

Studying an emerging sign language won’t kill it – so what are linguists scared of?

mosaic – Emerging sign languages could reveal how all language evolved – but keeping these fragile languages isolated for research may mean the people who rely on them lose out. “…From Ban Khor, a sign language in Thailand, to Adamorobe in Ghana, linguists have described about two dozen such languages and suspect that many more… Continue Reading

Record Number of Robots Shipped in North America in 2018

Robotic Industries Association (RIA) stats show continued growth in food & consumer goods, plastics & rubber, life sciences and other sectors, while sales to automotive customers slow – “Robots shipped to North American companies in record numbers last year, with more non-automotive companies installing robots than ever before. Statistics from the Robotic Industries Association (RIA),… Continue Reading

Climate change impacts on fisheries

The New York Times: “Fish populations are declining as oceans warm, placing a crucial resource of food items and earnings at hazard for tens of millions of individuals all around the earth, in accordance to new investigate revealed Thursday. The research identified that the sum of seafood that people could sustainably harvest from a extensive… Continue Reading

Mozilla updates Common Voice dataset with 1,400 hours of speech across 18 languages

VentureBeat: “Mozilla wants to make it easier for startups, researchers, and hobbyists to build voice-enabled apps, services, and devices. Toward that end, it’s today releasing the latest version of Common Voice, its open source collection of transcribed voice data that now comprises over 1,400 hours of voice samples from 42,000 contributors across 18 languages, including… Continue Reading

The mobility revolution may be here – is it too late?

Bloomberg BusinessWeek – This is what peak car looks like [see also the movement called peak oil]: “The automobile — once both a badge of success and the most convenient conveyance between points A and B — is falling out of favor in cities around the world as ride-hailing and other new transportation options proliferate… Continue Reading

Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State: 2018 Preliminary Data

Governor’s Highway Safety Administration – “GHSA’s projection represents a four percent increase in the number of pedestrian fatalities during 2018 – 6,227 pedestrians died last year [the highest number of fatalities since 1990]. The report examines a number of factors that may be influencing the rise in pedestrian deaths, including increased exposure; unfriendly infrastructure; unsafe driving behaviors;… Continue Reading

Which District Court Judges Now Have the Largest Civil Caseloads?

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse – “Nationally, there were 315,523 civil cases awaiting resolution before U.S. district court judges at the end of calendar year 2018. All of the “top ten” judges in the country with the most pending cases are currently handling significant multidistrict litigation. MDL dockets are usually complex litigation involving plaintiffs with common… Continue Reading

Using Google Maps costs more than you think.

Via LLRX – Using Google Maps costs more than you think. – Jason Voiovich’s article focuses on a subject of recent attention by Congress, privacy groups and journalists, both in the U.S. and abroad. Tech Giants distribute services and applications that are free, but nevertheless track and monitor your mobile activities – collecting, aggregating and… Continue Reading

New on LLRX While Putting Your Boots On – Fake News Detection Tools & Strategies

Via LLRX – While Putting Your Boots On – Fake News Detection Tools & Strategies – Genevieve Zook’s article is an actionable pathfinder to identifying inaccurate and false content published and shared online in multiple formats, including: news, social media activity, videos, photos, speeches and government documents. Zook references reliable tools and resources authored by… Continue Reading