NEW RESOURCES

THIIS: Professional hub launches with searchable database of independent living tech. “ProAssist has been created by the charity Disabled Living Foundation (DLF) in partnership with the TEC Services Association (TSA), the national body for technology enabled care (TEC) services. With a searchable database of over 10,000 products from more than 900 retailers, this UK-wide resource helps identify the options across a wide range of technologies, from the latest digital devices to simple aids.”

Southern Star: Snap happy! West Cork in the frame. “THE pandemic has sparked an enormous appetite in people for nostalgia and days gone by. And satisfying that appetite is a hugely popular photo archive which gives a snapshot of life in West Cork from the 1950s to the 1970s. Called the Clonakilty Photo Archive, it comprises the thousands of pictures taken by chemist Tony Bluett. A Limerick man, he arrived in Clonakilty in 1958 and worked from his shop on Pearse Street until he retired in 2005.”

Digital Library of Georgia: Historic holiday menus created at the former Army post at Fort Oglethorpe from 1925-1940 are now available freely online in the Digital Library of Georgia. “The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) has partnered with the 6th Cavalry Museum to digitize its collection of historic holiday menus created at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia from 1925-1940, thanks to a digitization grant awarded by the DLG…. Holiday menus combine economic, cultural, and social histories of holidays as well as food and cooking history. Some of these menus also include rosters of US military personnel, as well as guests and family members.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: U.S. lawmakers press Big Tech for internal research on kids’ mental health. “Four Republican U.S. lawmakers requested on Tuesday that Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google turn over any studies they have done on how their services affect children’s mental health. The request follows a joint hearing last week of two House Energy and Commerce subcommittees at which the companies’ chief executives discussed their content moderation practices in the wake of the siege on the Capitol in January.”

CNET: Facebook could block news in Canada like it did in Australia. “In the middle of February, as the Australian government was passing a bill that would force Google and Facebook to pay publishers for news that surfaces on their platforms, Australia’s 16 million users found that news content had vanished from Facebook’s website and app. Now, with Canada’s government mulling similar legislation, it’s possible the story could repeat itself across the Pacific.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

BBC: Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account. “A young child inadvertently sparked confusion over the weekend by posting an unintelligible tweet to the official account of US Strategic Command. The agency is responsible for safeguarding America’s nuclear weapons.” Every time I read this summary I break down giggling. What an incredibly banal yet dystopian news story. It’s like a throwaway news article an AI would generate in some open world cyberpunk game.

Mashable: Meet the women killing it on taxidermy TikTok. “Data of taxidermists broken down by gender is hard to come by, but in Pennsylvania, where [Kelly] Brong works, the number of female taxidermists nearly doubled from 5% in 2005 to 9% in 2017. Now, TikTok is helping some women artists not only create their own community, but also to make the art form more approachable and lucrative.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: He believed Apple’s App Store was safe. Then a fake app stole his life savings in bitcoin.. “Phillipe Christodoulou wanted to check his bitcoin balance last month, so he searched the App Store on his iPhone for ‘Trezor,’ the maker of a small hardware device he uses to store his cryptocurrency. Up popped the company’s padlock logo set against a bright green background. The app was rated close to five stars. He downloaded it and typed in his credentials. In less than a second, nearly all of his life savings — 17.1 bitcoin worth $600,000 at the time — was gone. The app was a fake, designed to trick people into thinking it was a legitimate app.”

Baltimore Fishbowl: Limits on law enforcement use of DNA databases under consideration in Maryland; would be first in nation. “A first-in-the-nation bill to limit when law enforcement can search consumer genealogical databases in connection with a crime unanimously passed the Maryland House and is advancing in the Senate. HB240 would ensure that databases storing genetic information of individuals, like GEDmatch, provide notice to their consumers that their DNA could be utilized for this purpose and obtain consent from them.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Arizona State University: Center on Narrative, Disinformation, and Strategic Influence to use interdisciplinary approach . “The Global Security Initiative at Arizona State University has always focused on how disinformation influences people, and it has now dedicated a new unit to that research — the Center on Narrative, Disinformation, and Strategic Influence. The center will use an interdisciplinary method of researching disinformation campaigns and developing tools to combat them, according to Scott Ruston, a research professor who will lead the new center, housed within the Global Security Initiative.”

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