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

Daily Archives: March 24, 2022

After 25 years Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive are still working to democratize knowledge

NiemanLab: “…In 1996, Kahle founded the Internet Archive, which stands alongside Wikipedia as one of the great not-for-profit knowledge-enhancing creations of modern digital technology. You may know it best for the Wayback Machine, its now quarter-century-old tool for deriving some sort of permanent record from the inherently transient medium of the web. (It’s collected 668 billion web pages so far.) But its ambitions extend far beyond that, creating a free-to-all library of 38 million books and documents, 14 million audio recordings, 7 million videos, and more. (Malamud’s book is, of course, among them.) That work has not been without controversy, but it’s an enormous public service — not least to journalists, who rely on it for reporting every day. (Not to mention the Wayback Machine is often the only place to find the first two decades of web-based journalism, most of which has been wiped away from its original URLs.) A little while back, the Internet Archive celebrated its 25th birthday, and I used that as an excuse to chat with Kahle about how his vision for it had changed along with the internet it tries to preserve in amber — and about why there is still so much human knowledge locked away on microfilm. Here are some bits of our conversation, lightly edited to make me sound more coherent on Zoom calls…”

The Check Up: helping people live healthier lives

Google Blog: “…Our teams apply their expertise and technological strengths and harness the power of partnerships to support our 3Cs – consumers, caregivers and communities around the world. Today, we’re hosting our second annual Google Health event, The Check Up. Teams from across the company — including Search, YouTube, Fitbit, Care Studio, Health AI, Cloud… Continue Reading

Why ocean researchers want to create a global library of undersea sounds

Popular Science: “Oceans are noisy places, but scientists aren’t always sure what’s making the hubbub. Enter an idea called GLUBS, or the Global Library of Underwater Biological Sound. Its genesis came about during the International Quiet Ocean Experiment—a project that aimed to coordinate the use of a worldwide network of non-military hydrophones to listen in… Continue Reading

Discover Which Corporations are Biggest Regulatory Violators and Lawbreakers Throughout US

Philip Mattera – Research Director of Good Jobs First & Director of the Corporate Research Project: “The latest expansion of Violation Tracker includes more than 2,000 consumer protection and safety cases brought by state public utility commissions across the country over the past two decades. We’ve published a report called Policing the Grid which analyzes… Continue Reading

Publishing Giants Are Fighting Libraries on E-Books

Sludge: “The Association of American Publishers filed suit to block a new Maryland law that aims to increase public libraries’ access to e-books, with support from a powerful copyright lobbying group…Libraries and schools worldwide have been increasingly lending out e-books and audiobooks, even before the coronavirus pandemic took hold. Over 500 million copies of digital… Continue Reading

Redfin Launches Rental Search

BusinessWire: “Redfin today launched nationwide rental search, letting consumers search for both rental and for-sale home listings on Redfin for the first time. Built on the same map-based search technology used by tens of millions to find homes for sale, the addition of rentals makes Redfin a destination for everyone in the U.S. looking for… Continue Reading

Associations Between Online Instruction in Lateral Reading Strategies and Fact-Checking COVID-19 News Among College Students

Associations Between Online Instruction in Lateral Reading Strategies and Fact-Checking COVID-19 News Among College Students. AERA Open January-December 2021, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1 –17 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584211038937 “College students, and adults in general, may find it hard to identify trustworthy information amid the proliferation of false news and misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. In… Continue Reading

How Yayoi Kusama, Obsessed with Polka Dots, Became One of the Most Radical Artists of All Time

Open Culture: “Yayoi Kusama turned 93 this past Tuesday, and she remains not just artistically productive but globally beloved. Her work itself continues to appeal to an ever wider range of viewers of all nationalities and ages. “Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist who is sometimes called ‘the princess of polka dots’,” says the brief… Continue Reading

Lateral Reading on the Open Internet

Wineburg, Sam and breakstone, joel and mcgrew, sarah and Smith, Mark and Ortega, Teresa, Lateral Reading on the Open Internet (November 15, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3936112 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3936112 “Young people turn to the Internet to become informed about the issues that concern them and their communities. How can they learn to distinguish credible information… Continue Reading

Volunteers Rally to Archive Ukrainian Web Sites

Internet Archive Blogs: “As the war intensifies in Ukraine, volunteers from around the world are working to archive digital content at risk of destruction or manipulation. The Internet Archive is supporting several preservation efforts including the Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO) initiative launched in early March. “When we think about the internet, we think the… Continue Reading