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Monthly Archives: July 2021

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, July 25, 2021

Via LLRX – Privacy and security issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish… Continue Reading

Future of 600,000 books being culled by National Library

1 News New Zealand: “I think it’s a really exciting opportunity because it means that we’re maintaining access to these books and it hasn’t cost the New Zealand taxpayer money, that it’s actually improved access not just for us but globally,” Te Pouhuaki national librarian Rachel Esson told 1 NEWS. The books are overseas publications… Continue Reading

Internet Futures – Spotlight on the technologies which may shape the Internet of the future

Ofcam: “People across the world use the Internet for a wide range of purposes, and the technology that drives these services is constantly evolving. Our lives have been profoundly impacted by the Internet and the web – these two inventions have made the world a more connected but complex place. Billions of people are now… Continue Reading

Institutional Authority Has Vanished. Wikipedia Points to the Answer

NextGov: “What the United States needs if it hopes to combat misinformation is a better system for communicating with the public—a system that keeps up with continuous changes in scientific knowledge; that incorporates expertise from people in a variety of fields, not just those anointed with official titles at well-known institutions; and that weaves dissenting… Continue Reading

AI firm DeepMind puts database of the building blocks of life online

The Guardian: “Last year the artificial intelligence group DeepMind cracked a mystery that has flummoxed scientists for decades: stripping bare the structure of proteins, the building blocks of life. Now, having amassed a database of nearly all human protein structures, the company is making the resource available online free for researchers to use. The key… Continue Reading

The Institute for Rebooting Social Media

“The Institute for Rebooting Social Media is a three-year, “pop-up” research initiative to accelerate progress towards addressing social media’s most urgent problems, including misinformation, privacy breaches, harassment, and content governance. By convening participants across industry, government, civil society, and academia in focused, timebound collaboration, the Institute will build a portfolio of research, projects, programming, and… Continue Reading

Maine Makes U.S. Recycling Actually Work Again

New York Magazine – Intelligencer: “Since China stopped importing waste products like plastic, textiles, and paper at the beginning of 2018, recycling in the United States has been, in many places, a feel-good exercise for consumers, rather than a functional process to reduce the absurd tonnage of recyclable waste going into landfills each year. But… Continue Reading

Then the Birds Began to Die

The Atlantic: “I carried on for more than a year of the coronavirus pandemic, but I didn’t see the next plague coming…. David Curson, the director of bird conservation for Audubon Mid-Atlantic, told me that the earliest reports of the mysterious deaths had reached local authorities in late April, sparking investigations across the region. Researchers… Continue Reading

Facebook and YouTube spent a year fighting covid misinformation

Washington Post – “It’s still spreading. The social media giants have struggled to find and take down anti-vaccine propaganda. But medical misinformation has thrived on their platforms for years. On YouTube, the accounts of six out of 12 anti-vaccine activists identified by the Center for Countering Digital Hate as being responsible for creating more than… Continue Reading