TWEAKS AND UPDATES

A GoFundMe is available to help the Museum of Chinese in America recover from its recent devastating fire. It’s available here: https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/mocafirerecovery . (The museum itself is tweeting out the URL so I consider it verified.)

The Next Web: After nearly 6 months, Kashmir’s internet opens up – but only to 300 sites. “After enduring the longest internet shutdown in a democracy, people in Kashmir are being allowed back online, but with major restrictions. On January 15, the state authorities allowed limited 2G access and broadband access to select institutes in a few areas. Over the weekend, it issued orders to restore 2G internet access to 301 sites across the region of Jammu and Kashmir, including a handful of news outlets. Just 301.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Bookseller: Elsevier puts together free resource on coronavirus. “Elsevier has set up an Information Centre on the newly emerged coronavirus featuring in the current outbreak in China, with free information in English and Mandarin. The resource is intended to help healthcare professionals, medical researchers and the public, bringing together content from Elsevier’s medical journals, textbooks and clinical experts, alongside resources from other information providers and major health organisations. The centre will be updated regularly with the most current research and evidence-based information available.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

UKAuthority: National Archives aims to create digital preservation ‘ninjas’. “National Archives has revealed a plan to create a cohort of ‘ninjas’ in the field of digital preservation. It is an element of its newly published strategy for building digital capacity in its sector, Plugged In, Powered Up, which focuses on engagement, access, preservation and the development of digital skills.”

New York Times: As Virus Spreads, Anger Floods Chinese Social Media. “Recently, someone following the coronavirus crisis through China’s official news media would see lots of footage, often set to stirring music, praising the heroism and sacrifice of health workers marching off to stricken places. But someone following the crisis through social media would see something else entirely: vitriolic comments and mocking memes about government officials, harrowing descriptions of untreated family members and images of hospital corridors loaded with patients, some of whom appear to be dead.”

Wired: Behind the Scenes at Rotten Tomatoes. “Strange as it is, a website that evaluates films via cartoon tomatoes might be the closest thing our fractured, post-gatekeeper culture has to an arbiter of good taste. The site’s Tomatometer has become, as one early employee put it, a Good Housekeeping Seal for visual entertainment. Red means good, green means bad. The Tomato­meter is run by a team of ‘curators’ who read just about every known review from a gigantic pool of approved critics, then decide if each is positive or negative. Once a movie has five reviews, it is Tomatometer-eligible.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ZDNet: 14% of Android app privacy policies contain contradictions about data collection. “In an academic study published last year, researchers created a tool named PolicyLint that analyzed the language used in the privacy policies of 11,430 Play Store apps. They found that 14.2% (1,618 apps) contained a privacy policy with logical contradicting statements about data collection.”

TorrentFreak: Movie & TV Show Database Bombards Google With Bizarre Takedown Notices. “Movie and TV show information portal AlloCiné has reportedly sent a wave of DMCA notices to Google to have allegedly-infringing content taken down. Unfortunately, however, the complaints are littered with clearly erroneous URLs that target everything from Netflix and Amazon listings to news reports from sites like Wired, plus content on rival movie portals such as JustWatch and Rotten Tomatoes.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Using artificial intelligence to enrich digital maps. “A model invented by researchers at MIT and Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) that uses satellite imagery to tag road features in digital maps could help improve GPS navigation. Showing drivers more details about their routes can often help them navigate in unfamiliar locations. Lane counts, for instance, can enable a GPS system to warn drivers of diverging or merging lanes. Incorporating information about parking spots can help drivers plan ahead, while mapping bicycle lanes can help cyclists negotiate busy city streets. Providing updated information on road conditions can also improve planning for disaster relief.”

Phys .org: NASA forest structure mission releases first data . “NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation mission (GEDI) released its first publicly available data on January 21, 2020, giving researchers access to measurements of forests around the world.” Good evening, Internet…

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