TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Brave browser matures with move to Chromium foundation. “One day after Microsoft announced it’s ditching its own EdgeHTML core and rebuilding its Edge browser on Google’s rival Chromium project instead, rival Brave said it’s completed its own move to a tighter integration with the software.”

Everybody’s Libraries: Announcing a draft guide for identifying public domain serial content. “Back in June, I announced that we had completed an inventory of all serials with active copyright renewals made through 1977, based on listings in the Copyright Office’s Catalog of Copyright Entries. At the time, I said we’d also be releasing a draft of suggested procedures for using the information there, along with other data, to quickly identify and check public domain serial content. (If you’ve been following the Public Domain Day advent calendar I’ve been publishing this month, you’ll have seen the inventory or its records mentioned in some recent entries.) It took a little longer than I’d hoped, but after having some librarians and IP experts have a look at it, I’m pleased to announce that the draft of ‘Determining copyright status of serial issues’ is open for public comment.”

Digital Trends: Amazon starts crowdsourcing Alexa’s answers. What could go wrong? BESIDES EVERYTHING? “According to Amazon’s DayOne blog, until now, the Alexa division has added the answers to common potential questions to a data bank, merging information from multiple sources…. Alexa Answers will change that, although the program is by invitation only. Starting December 6, 2018, Amazon is sending email invites to certain customers to begin contributing answers for Alexa. The customers will be selected by their history of writing product reviews or engagement with Alexa, The Verge reports.”

Search Engine Journal: Majority of Publishers See Much Lower Facebook Traffic Now vs. Last Year [POLL]. “This recent change in Facebook’s news feed algorithm left plenty of publishers and businesses reeling from notable drops in organic reach and engagement. And Search Engine Journal is no exception.”

USEFUL STUFF

ZDNet: What’s the best cloud storage for you? . “In 2007, Drew Houston, Dropbox’s CEO, got sick and tired of misplacing his USB drive, so he created the first personal and small business cloud storage service. It was a radical one in its day. Today, everyone and their uncle seems to be offering cheap or free cloud storage. That’s great! Except, well, how do you choose which one is right for you? It used to be that most people decided simply on the basis of how much free storage space they got. That’s simple, but it only tells part of the story.”

MakeUseOf: What Could Robots Do With Your Pictures? 5 Cool AI-Based Photo Editing Apps. “There’s a curiosity around AI that is difficult to quench. So far, we’ve seen how neural networks create paintings, but AI is now going beyond that. There are apps that are trying to ‘see’ photos the way a human would, and do useful or fun stuff based on it.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Los Angeles Times: In UC’s battle with the world’s largest scientific publisher, the future of information is at stake. “Boiled down to dollars and cents, the battle between the University of California, the nation’s premier producer of academic research, and Reed Elsevier, the world’s leading publisher of academic journals, can seem almost trivial. UC is paying almost $11 million this year for subscriptions to some 1,500 Elsevier journals. That’s not much when measured against the university’s core budget of $9.3 billion. But in fact it’s a very big deal — big enough for the university to consider dropping the subscriptions entirely when its current five-year contract with Elsevier expires on Dec. 31. Scores of town hall meetings for UC faculty to discuss the ongoing negotiations between UC and Elsevier have been scheduled across the system as the deadline approaches. What faculty are likely to hear, in the words of Jeff MacKie-Mason, the university librarian at UC Berkeley, is that ‘we’re pretty far apart at this point.'”

Hyperallergic: Museum Creates Program for Families Suffering from the Opioid Crisis. “Approximately 72,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017 alone. For families hurt by addiction, the Currier Museum of Art in New Hampshire has created an unprecedented program that uses art as a healing tool for those affected by the epidemic in a state that’s ranked third in the nation for drug overdoses.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Wired: The Wired Guide To Data Breaches. “Think of data breaches as coming in two flavors: breaches of institutions that people choose to entrust with their data—like retailers and banks—and breaches of entities that acquired user data secondarily—like credit bureaus and marketing firms. Unfortunately, you can’t keep your information perfectly safe: It is often impossible to avoid sharing data, especially with organizations like governments and health insurers. Furthermore, in cases where a company or institution gives your information to an additional party, you’ve often agreed to sharing more data than you realize by clicking ‘I accept’ on a dense user agreement.”

Ars Technica: Bikini app maker draws another disgruntled developer to its Facebook fight. “In recent weeks, a dust-up between the maker of a forgotten Facebook bikini app and the social media giant has been boosted by a high-profile fight involving the British Parliament. On Friday, both sides in the Six4Three v. Facebook lawsuit, which alleges breach of contract, appeared before a San Mateo County judge for the second time in a week in a hearing that dragged on for over three hours.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: How to Save the Web. “In recent years, it has become clear that the web is not living up to the high hopes we had for it. Built as an open tool for collaboration and empowerment, the web has been hijacked by crooks and trolls who have used it to manipulate people all over the world. To preserve a web that serves all of humanity, not just the privileged and the powerful, we will have to fight for it. That’s why I’m asking governments, companies and citizens across the globe to commit to a set of core principles for the web.”

Nieman Lab: Few people are actually trapped in filter bubbles. Why do they like to say that they are?. “We’re not trapped in filter bubbles, but we like to act as if we are. Few people are in complete filter bubbles in which they only consume, say, Fox News, Matt Grossmann writes in a new report for Knight (and there’s a summary version of it on Medium here). But the ‘popular story of how media bubbles allegedly undermine democracy’ is one that people actually seem to enjoy clinging to.” Good morning, Internet…

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