TechDirt – The Answer (Sadly) Will Not Surprise You – “Clearview’s facial recognition app links to a database of 4 billion pictures. And those photos are linked to all the data that got scraped up with them, culled (without permission) from sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn… pretty much anywhere people post photos and personal information. There’s… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: April 2020
A Feature on Zoom Secretly Displayed Data From People’s LinkedIn Profiles
The New York Times – After an inquiry from Times reporters, Zoom said it would disable a data-mining feature that could be used to snoop on participants during meetings without their knowledge. “For Americans sheltering at home during the coronavirus pandemic, the Zoom videoconferencing platform has become a lifeline, enabling millions of people to easily… Continue Reading
How to Digitize Your Most Important Documents
The New York Times – If you have some spare time at home and want a productive project, consider creating a digital archive of your personal papers. “While this week’s World Backup Day is typically celebrated most by hard-drive makers and data-storage services, it’s supposed to make people remember to back up their computers. But… Continue Reading
Virtual Dives – An immersive 360 view of your national marine sanctuaries
NOAA: “Immerse yourself in the ocean and your national marine sanctuaries without getting wet! These virtual reality voyages use 360-degree images to highlight the amazing habitats, animals, and cultural resources you can find in each national marine sanctuary. Select which sanctuary you want to visit, scroll through the gallery, and click on a panorama to start… Continue Reading
COVID-19 Ventilator Projects and Resources and FAQ
GitHub – “An analyzed list of projects to make emergency ventilators in response to COVID-19, focusing on free-libre open source. PLEASE make pull requests or submit issues too add any project missing from this list. The comments are entirely my own (possibly not well-informed) opinions and are meant to be helpful to those looking for… Continue Reading
How Americans perceive the outbreak and view media coverage differ by main news source
Cable TV and COVID-19: “Coverage of COVID-19 has dominated the news and resulted in skyrocketing ratings for the nation’s cable news networks. And according to a survey conducted March 10-16, 2020, as a part of Pew Research Center’s Election News Pathways project, responses to that coverage and the pandemic itself vary notably among Americans who… Continue Reading
Air pollution’s impact on health and the immune system – and the ventilator quagmire
Jamie Hopkins – PublicIntegrity.org: “I wrote a story this week about air pollution’s impact on health and the immune system that included a quick data analysis. Academics who studied the impact of the 1918 flu looked at 180 cities and found that higher-pollution places — as measured by coal use — saw more deaths. I… Continue Reading
NYC launches portal to crowdsource COVID-19 information
StateScoop – “New York City’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications this week launched a new website aimed at getting residents to contribute to the city’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic by self-reporting symptoms or encounters with people who may have been diagnosed with the COVID-19 illness. The “NYC COVID-19 Engagement Portal” is designed… Continue Reading
Wide Open School organizes free educational resources to help parents, teachers homeschool
TechCrunch: “Nearly 300 million kids are missing school worldwide because of the coronavirus outbreak, including some 54 million in the U.S. alone. That’s left parents scrambling for resources to help continue their children’s education, often while also working from home themselves — an almost insurmountable challenge. Today, the nonprofit media organization Common Sense is launching… Continue Reading
SiriusXM is free through May 15 to help with Coronavirus isolation boredom
BetaNews: “We are weeks into people self-isolating in their homes due to the Coronavirus (COVID 19), and apparently, many are getting bored. As someone who is staying indoors to help “flatten the curve” and prevent the spread of the virus, I have to wonder if these bored people are nuts. I mean, look, we live… Continue Reading
Ted Chiang Explains the Disaster Novel We All Suddenly Live In
Electric Lit Interview – The esteemed science fiction author on how we may never go “back to normal”—and why that might be a good thing – “…Halimah Marcus: This pandemic isn’t science fiction, but it does feel like a dystopia. How can we understand the coronavirus as a cautionary tale? How can we combat our own… Continue Reading
International Treasure Dolly Parton Will Now Read Us Bedtime Stories
Nashville Scene – The superstar’s Goodnight With Dolly video series is exactly what we need right now – “It’s no small thing to find comfort and solace in a time of widespread panic. Most of us have never experienced a global pandemic of this scale in our lifetimes. As we responsibly limit our interactions with others… Continue Reading
