TechCrunch – that could shape the next generation of social media: “People on Bluesky and Mastodon are fighting over how to bridge the two decentralized social networks, and whether there should even be a bridge at all. Behind the snarky GitHub comments, these coding conflicts aren’t frivolous — in fact, they could shape the future… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Monthly Archives: February 2024
Judge rejects most ChatGPT copyright claims from book authors
Ars Technica: “A US district judge in California has largely sided with OpenAI, dismissing the majority of claims raised by authors alleging that large language models powering ChatGPT were illegally trained on pirated copies of their books without their permission. By allegedly repackaging original works as ChatGPT outputs, authors alleged, OpenAI’s most popular chatbot was just… Continue Reading
DuckDuckGo’s privacy browser adds built-in password syncing
The Verge: “DuckDuckGo has added a new “Sync & Backup” feature to its privacy-first browser that will keep passwords, bookmarks, and favorites constant across all of your devices — without setting up an account. Falling right in line with its usual claims that it won’t track you or collect your data, the company says that… Continue Reading
Wyden Reveals Phone Data Used to Target Abortion Misinformation at Visitors to Hundreds of Reproductive Health Clinics
“U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., revealed today that an anti-abortion political group used mobile phone location data to send targeted misinformation to people who visited any of 600 reproductive health clinics in 48 states. In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission, Wyden urged the government to act quickly to… Continue Reading
AI will judge your entire financial life – and Moody’s is stoked about it
Quartz – The credit-rating firm provided a window into how generative AI could change its business – “A lot of CEOs are highlighting AI initiatives on earnings calls with investors and analysts. Add Moody’s to the list. The firm, which rates the creditworthiness of institutions including companies and governments, cited “GenAI” at least 33 times… Continue Reading
Social Media Posts Have Power, and So Do You
Rand – Stop the Spread of False and Misleading Information During Voting Season by Alice Huguet, Julia H. Kaufman, Melissa Kay Diliberti – “In a healthy democracy, having accurate information is crucial for making informed decisions about voting and civic engagement. False and misleading information can lead to knowledge that is inaccurate, incomplete, or manipulated.… Continue Reading
A 3D Animation Shows the Evolution of New York City (1524 – 2023)
Open Culture: “Nearly two and a half centuries after its founding, the United States of America is still both celebrated and derided as a young country. Examined on the whole, the US may or may not seem less mature than other lands in any obvious way, but the difference manifests much more clearly on the… Continue Reading
US GPO Webinars – Health Stats and Govt Info
Webinar: Health Statistics on the Web; Date: Thursday, February 15, 2024; Time: 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (EST) Register – https://secure.icohere.com/registration/register.cfm?reg=10482&evt=20240215-Health-Stats&t=1707829397055 Recording and closed captioning are available. All webinars are free of charge. Speakers: Katie Pierce Farrier, Data Science Strategist, Region 3, Network of the National Library of Medicine, Christine Nieman, Data Education Librarian, Region… Continue Reading
RSS Parrot – Turn Mastodon into your feed reader
“This is the browser home of RSS Parrot, a Fediverse service that lets you turn Mastodon into your feed reader. The Parrot follows the RSS or Atom feeds of a large number of websites, and sends out a toot whenever a new post is published on one of them. Every feed has a dedicated account.… Continue Reading
6 Ways to Use Old Hard Drives
How to Geek: ” You can buy an enclosure to convert internal hard drives into external USB drives for easy data transfer and storage. Hard drives can be used as archival storage for game consoles, USB boot drives, storage for DVRs, and more. Hard drives can be used for easy file backups with File History… Continue Reading
OpenAI Gives ChatGPT a Memory
Wired [read free]: “…The promise and peril of the internet has always been a memory greater than our own, a permanent recall of information and events that our brains can’t store. More recently, tech companies have promised that virtual assistants and chatbots could handle some of the mnemonic load, by both remembering and reminding. It’s… Continue Reading
The unsettling scourge of obituary spam
The Verge: “…“Obituary scraping” is a common practice that affects not just celebrities and public figures, but also average, private individuals. Funeral homes have been dealing with obituary aggregator sites for at least 15 years, says Courtney Gould Miller, chief strategy officer at MKJ Marketing, which specializes in marketing funeral services. The sites trawl news… Continue Reading
