NEW RESOURCES

Publishers Weekly: PW Inks Distribution Deal for Digital Archive. “Publishers Weekly has reached an agreement with East View Information Services for East View to distribute the Publishers Weekly Digital Archive. The archive is composed of 7,500 past issues of Publishers Weekly, with more than 650,000 fully searchable pages. In addition to the news articles and features, the archive hosts 5,000 author interviews, bestseller lists beginning in 1895, and 435,000 book reviews beginning in the 1940s.”

Environmental Defense Fund: EDF launches new tool to highlight corporate action on climate policy. “The Climate Authenticity Meter is the first-ever tool that ranks corporate policy actions in real-time, based on whether they support or obstruct progress on climate policy. The Meter complements the in-depth research conducted by groups such as InfluenceMap and the Center for Political Accountability. It assesses corporate political actions using the AAA Framework for Climate Policy Leadership, which is endorsed by 10 leading environmental and sustainable business organizations that work with companies.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Gizmodo: Google’s Daydream VR Is Officially, Really, Finally Dead. “If you happen to be one of the few people who still use Google’s Daydream VR platform, I’m sorry to tell you that it’s officially dead. (If you didn’t know Daydream was a thing, that’s totally OK. I forgot it was, too.) Spotted by Android Authority, Google recently issued a service update for Daydream letting any lingering users know the software is no longer supported.”

Engadget: Google Maps’ ‘Live View’ AR feature gets landmarks and improved accuracy. “Google Maps is continuing to update and improve its ‘Live View’ AR feature, with new capabilities like showing the relative location of landmarks and more accurate locations for pins, according to an announcement on the Google blog. Live View originally launched last May, and uses your camera to visually guide you along a route using large arrows and pins.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: Raspberry Pi 4 as Desktop Computer: Is It Really Viable?. “There’s little doubt that the Raspberry Pi 4 is significantly more powerful than its predecessors. Its based on the faster ARM Cortex-A72 microarchitecture and has four cores pegged at marginally-higher clock speeds. The graphics subsystem is significantly beefed up as well, running at twice the maximum stock clocks as the outgoing model. Everything about it makes it a viable desktop replacement. But is it really good enough to replace your trusty old desktop? I spent three weeks with the 8GB version of the Pi 4 to answer that million-dollar question.” Solid, deep dive. Recommended for Pi fans.

The Next Web: A beginner’s guide to the math that powers machine learning. “At some point in your exploration and mastering of artificial intelligence, you’ll need to come to terms with the lengthy and complicated equations that adorn AI whitepapers and machine learning textbooks. In this post, I will introduce some of my favorite machine learning math resources. And while I don’t expect you to have fun with machine learning math, I will also try my best to give you some guidelines on how to make the journey a bit more pleasant.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

NDTV: 56 Indian Startups Get On Zoom Call To Fight Google, Facebook Dominance. “Founders of dozens of Indian startups gathered over a Zoom call earlier this week to discuss setting up a startup collective to fight the power of Big Tech, shape digital policy and lobby on behalf of the country’s digital enterprises. About 56 founders were on the Tuesday evening video conference where discussions ranged from establishing an alternative to Alphabet Inc.-owned Google Play Store, the supremacy of large technology corporations such as Facebook Inc. and joining hands to get their voice heard by the government and the global behemoths.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: 2020 is giving us another chance to watch Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai get grilled by Congress. “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey have agreed to testify virtually before the Senate Commerce Committee on October 28th, Politico reported Friday evening. Assuming that the hearing is live-streamed in some way, that means you’ll be able to watch some of the world’s most powerful people get grilled by policymakers who’ve recently discussed changing the laws that let their companies grow to an unfathomable scale.”

Reuters: Headwinds for Google as rivals, customers criticise Fitbit concessions. “Google’s bid to win EU approval for its $2.1 billion (£1.62 billion) purchase of Fitbit FIT.N faces headwinds as rivals and customers argue concessions to EU antitrust regulators do not go far enough, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Fast Company: This new tool pinpoints the communities most in need of disaster relief. “A partnership between GiveDirectly and Google.org aims to smooth the process of delivering funds to the people who require them most urgently. The charity, the largest in the world that assists via direct cash transfers only, and the tech giant have launched Delphi, an online tool that allows aid organizations to pinpoint the specific locations, down to granular zip-code level, most in need of assistance. The data-driven effort creates scores based on the overlap between two metrics—poverty level and destruction of property—then ranks and shows those neighborhoods visually in Google Maps.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!