TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: YouTube’s TikTok rival, Shorts, starts rolling out in US. “YouTube is rolling out Shorts, its response to the TikTok phenomenon, in the US starting Thursday and continuing over the next ‘several weeks.’ This suite of creator tools for making short, vertical, looping videos is expected to be available to all creators on YouTube in the US, whether they have millions of channel subscribers or none at all.”

Google Blog: Stay tournament-ready with Google. “We teamed up with the NCAA and Turner Sports to bring the action of both the men and women’s Tournaments to you. Game-related searches including those for specific teams, match-ups or the tournament will trigger either in-game or postgame video highlights, all from the Google Search page. From unbelievable blocks to clutch steals to buzzer beaters, you’ll be able to relive the best moments from every game.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Screen Record on Your Chromebook. “Recording your smartphone or computer’s screen can be useful, but sometimes you have to download third-party apps to do it. Fortunately, Chromebooks have a built-in tool that makes it easy to create screen recordings with no extra software required.”

Search Engine Journal: 8 Useful Python Libraries for SEO & How To Use Them. “There are over 100,000 libraries available to use in Python, which can be used for functions from data analysis to creating video games. In this article, you’ll find several different libraries I have used for completing SEO projects and tasks. All of them are beginner-friendly and you’ll find plenty of documentation and resources to help you get started.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Politico: How Washington fumbled the future. “Few moments in the power struggle between Washington and Silicon Valley have inspired more anger and bafflement than one in January 2013, when antitrust regulators appointed by former President Barack Obama declined to sue Google. The decision still rankles the company’s rivals, who have watched the search giant continue to amass power over smartphones, data-hoovering devices and wide swaths of the internet, unimpeded by laws meant to deter monopolies.”

TechCrunch: Google Area 120’s ThreadIt is bite-size video for team collaborations. “ThreadIt, which launches today as a browser-accessible service and Chrome plug-in, is an attempt to address a perceived hole in the market. The system, which allows users to record short video messages, is positioned to sit somewhere between long-form, live- video teleconferencing and short texts and emails.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Exclusive: Google’s privacy push draws U.S. antitrust scrutiny – sources. “Google’s plan to block a popular web tracking tool called ‘cookies’ is a source of concern for U.S. Justice Department investigators who have been asking advertising industry executives whether the move by the search giant will hobble its smaller rivals, people familiar with the situation said.”

BetaNews: Phishing campaign uses US tax season to lure victims . “Researchers at Cybereason have detected a new campaign targeting US taxpayers with documents that purport to contain tax-related content. These deliver NetWire and Remcos — two powerful and popular RATs which can allow attackers to take control of the victims’ machines and steal sensitive information. The malicious documents used are roughly 7MB in size, which allows them to evade traditional AV mechanisms and heuristic detection.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: What happens in your brain when you ‘lose yourself’ in fiction. “If you count yourself among those who lose themselves in the lives of fictional characters, scientists now have a better idea of how that happens. Researchers found that the more immersed people tend to get into ‘becoming’ a fictional character, the more they use the same part of the brain to think about the character as they do to think about themselves.”

Drexel Now: Autism Online: A Review of How Autistic People Communicate Virtually. “Various studies have shown how autistic people use information and communication technology (ICT) since the early 2000s, some finding that autistic people may prefer to communicate using the internet instead of in-person. However, no systematic review has been conducted to summarize these findings. To understand what has been discovered so far, researchers from Drexel University’s A.J. Drexel Autism Institute collected and reviewed published research about how autistic youth and adults use the internet to communicate and provide a framework for understanding contributions, gaps and opportunities in online autistic communities.” Good evening, Internet…

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