NEW RESOURCES

Michigan Live: Grand Rapids to post hundreds of historic jail mugshots on Instagram. “Looking to trace the roots of your family history? If your early 20th century relatives spent some time in the Grand Rapids jail, you might be in luck. The Grand Rapids Archives is moving thousands of the city’s historical jail photos ranging from 1928-1939 into an online database, and will next month begin posting the photos on Instagram.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mashable: Instagram tests a serious Boomerang upgrade . “It looks like Instagram is getting ready to finally revamp one of its most popular features: Boomerang. Instagram is readying as many as five new styles of looping video for its app, according to code discovered in its Android app.”

TechRadar: Google Stadia Connect: how to watch the livestream event on August 19. “Google will be holding an online livestream presentation this month ahead of the opening of GamesCom 2019 to show off the latest developments to its Netflix-for-games service ahead of its full launch later this year.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 10 Google Slides Tips to Save You Time. “Thanks to Google Slides, you don’t have to stuck with PowerPoint to do your presentation. It is web-based, and there is no software to install, which means you can access it on any PC. With Google Slides it’s possible to do things such as dictate text, import/export files, and zoom in and out of the slides.”

MakeUseOf: 5 Fastest and Free File-Sharing Apps to Transfer Large Files Online. “File transfer apps are often better than using email or a cloud storage provider like Google Drive. After all, you can simply create a link and share it with anyone, without worrying about permissions, giving out your own personal details, or constraining to file size limits. You can also share files anonymously with people in your vicinity, or share really large data faster through peer-to-peer technology.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Motherboard: TikTok Users Are Inventing Wild Theories to Explain Its Mysterious Algorithm. “TikTok users, without verifiable information from TikTok, are aggressively postulating their theories about how the For You page actually works on the platform. Speculation about the For You page has become prevalent that it’s practically adopted status as a meme on the platform. If users aren’t theorizing about it, then they’re making irreverent jokes about it.” I find it fascinating that users are speculating and trying to game this algorithm from the get. Algorithmic recommendation systems are no longer mysterious concepts or nerdy. They just are.

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Hacker News: Patches for 2 Severe LibreOffice Flaws Bypassed — Update to Patch Again. “If you are using LibreOffice, you need to update it once again. LibreOffice has released the latest version 6.2.6/6.3.0 of its open-source office software to address three new vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to bypass patches for two previously addressed vulnerabilities.”

Ars Technica: Kaspersky AV injected unique ID that allowed sites to track users, even in incognito mode. “Antivirus software is something that can help people be safer and more private on the Internet. But its protections can cut both ways. A case in point: for almost four years, AV products from Kaspersky Lab injected a unique identifier into the HTML of every website a user visited, making it possible for sites to identify people even when using incognito mode or when they switched between Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.”

TechCrunch: YouTube shuts down music companies’ use of manual copyright claims to steal creator revenue. “YouTube is making a change to its copyright enforcement policies around music used in videos, which may result in an increased number of blocked videos in the shorter term — but overall, a healthier ecosystem in the long term. Going forward, copyright owners will no longer be able to monetize creator videos with very short or unintentional uses of music via YouTube’s ‘Manual Claiming’ tool. Instead, they can choose to prevent the other party from monetizing the video or they can block the content.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

International Business Times Singapore: NTU scientist develops digital tool to study ancient traditional medicines all over the world. “In collaboration with the Research Centre for Digital Humanities at the National Taiwan University and recently NTU’s Office of Information, Knowledge and Library Services, Assistant Professor Michael Stanley-Baker designed the digital tools platform DocuSky. This tool was designed to track medical products derived from animals, plants and minerals across different genres of texts—in particular, the digitised Buddhist and Daoist canons, as well as early medical literature.”

New York Times: A.I. Is Learning From Humans. Many Humans.. “A.I., most people in the tech industry would tell you, is the future of their industry, and it is improving fast thanks to something called machine learning. But tech executives rarely discuss the labor-intensive process that goes into its creation. A.I. is learning from humans. Lots and lots of humans.”

Search Engine Journal: 33% of People Are Now Using Voice Assistants Regularly . “It’s estimated that 111.8 million people in the US will use a voice assistant at least monthly this year. That represents 39.4% of US internet users and 33.8% of the overall population.” Good morning, Internet…

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