NEW RESOURCES

Devdiscourse: Satyajit Ray’s film manuscripts digitised. “The National Digital Library of India (NDLI) on Friday launched digitized versions of filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s film manuscripts, IIT-Kharagpur said in a statement. Besides, digitised news reports of Bengali dailies ‘Jugantar’ and ‘Amrita Bazar Patrika’ on freedom struggle and socio-political developments of the pre-Independence era have also been launched, the statement said.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: You’re running out of time to submit your Equifax data breach claim — here’s how. “You have just a few days to file your claim if you’re among the 147 million people whose data was exposed in the 2017 Equifax data breach. The Federal Trade Commission said you have till Jan. 22 to submit a claim to recover money you spent or lost as a result of the massive database hack.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Create and Use Memoji and Animoji on an iPhone. “When you think of playful camera filters, Snapchat is probably the first app that comes to mind. But did you know that you can create your own interactive avatars using your iPhone or iPad? You can use Memoji and Animoji to send fun stickers to friends or disguise yourself during a FaceTime call. Thanks to iOS 13, Memoji are now available on all iPhones and iPads running the latest software, even if they don’t have a Face ID camera. Here’s how it works.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wall Street Journal: Facebook Removes Pages That Coordinated Posts Defending Man Embroiled in Impeachment Probe. “Facebook Inc. late Friday took down a network of several dozen Facebook pages that were coordinating posts defending Robert F. Hyde, a figure who has become embroiled in the impeachment investigation.”

New York Times: This Is the Guy Who’s Taking Away the Likes. “Likes are the social media currency undergirding an entire influencer economy, inspiring a million Kardashian wannabes and giving many of us regular people daily endorphin hits. But lately, Mr. [Adam] Mosseri has been concerned about the unanticipated consequences of Instagram as approval arbiter.”

Nippon: Ōkawa Tatsuya: Japan’s Best-Known Unknown Face. “Looking for a different kind of job, Ōkawa was surfing the Internet when he happened to come across Pakutaso, which was recruiting models. He got in touch and was soon hired, although this was a job with no pay. Pakutaso is an outfit run on a shoestring by a handful of people who draw no salaries themselves and who provide stock photos to anyone free of charge. No matter how many times Ōkawa’s photo was uploaded to the Internet, he stood to receive not a single yen. Despite that, Ōkawa felt that the Internet’s time had come. He innocently believed that the more he got his face out there, the better his job prospects would be.” This is one of those stories that leaves me fascinated and full of questions and melancholic and bone-aware of how many people there are in the world and how different they all are.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: A Georgia election server was vulnerable to Shellshock and may have been hacked. “Forensic evidence shows signs that a Georgia election server may have been hacked ahead of the 2016 and 2018 elections by someone who exploited Shellshock, a critical flaw that gives attackers full control over vulnerable systems, a computer security expert said in a court filing on Thursday.”

The Register: It’s Friday, the weekend has landed… and Microsoft warns of an Internet Explorer zero day exploited in the wild. “Microsoft let slip on Friday an advisory detailing an under-attack zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2020-0674) for Internet Explorer. The scripting engine flaw can be exploited to gain remote code execution on a vulnerable machine by way of a specially crafted webpage. The flaw can be mitigated by restricting access to the JavaScript component JScript.dll, and thus far there is no patch available.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Phys .org: Deep learning enables real-time imaging around corners . “Researchers have harnessed the power of a type of artificial intelligence known as deep learning to create a new laser-based system that can image around corners in real time. With further development, the system might let self-driving cars ‘look’ around parked cars or busy intersections to see hazards or pedestrians. It could also be installed on satellites and spacecraft for tasks such as capturing images inside a cave on an asteroid.”

Scientific American: Supercomputer Scours Fossil Record for Earth’s Hidden Extinctions. “Using the world’s fourth most powerful supercomputer, Tianhe II, a team of scientists based mostly in China mined a database of more than 11,000 fossil species that lived from around 540 million to 250 million years ago. The result is a history of life during this period, the early Palaeozoic era, that can pinpoint the rise and fall of species during diversifications and mass extinctions to within about 26,000 years.”

The Next Web: Why using AI to screen job applicants is almost always a bunch of crap. “Millions of potential employees are subjected to artificial intelligence screenings during the hiring process every month. While some systems make it easier to weed out candidates who lack necessary educational or work qualifications, many AI hiring solutions are nothing more than snake oil.”

The Guardian: Was anyone ever so young? What 10 years of my Instagram data revealed. “In the 10 days leading up to Christmas, I searched on Instagram for three of my exes, an acquaintance I met on a trip to Cuba four years ago, an account dedicated to astrology memes, a past roommate, my own dog’s account (@lucythetherapypup), my best friend’s sweater-wearing poodle, a famous Pomeranian who lives in New York, a bird named Parfait I recently met at a San Francisco market, 10 contestants of the reality TV show Love Island, and the hashtag #wienerdog. I know all of this because Instagram told me.” Good morning, Internet…

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