NEW RESOURCES

Texas Film Commission: Texas Film Commission, Texas Archive of the Moving Image Launch Online Exhibit ‘Parks Under the Lone Star’. “The Texas Film Commission and the Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI) today announced the launch of Parks Under the Lone Star, the newest online exhibit from TAMI. Parks Under the Lone Star features more than 60 videos collected as a part of the Texas Film Round-Up and takes users on a visual journey through the state and national parks of Texas.”

International Federation for Human Rights: Mobilising for Justice in Belarus: FIDH Launches Website Tracking Systematic Human Rights Violations. “Since May 2020, the administration of Aliaksandr Lukashenka, the de facto president of Belarus, has intensified repression, aiming to crush the country’s democratic movement. A new website launched today by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) tracks, compiles, and presents detailed information on the human rights situation in the country, including on political prisoners, violations against vulnerable groups, and efforts to advance accountability for the regime’s crimes.”

University of St. Thomas: Introducing the Monsignor Murphy Digital Archive. “The impact of Monsignor Terrence J. Murphy, the namesake of the Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy, who served as the University of St. Thomas president from 1966-91, will continue to be felt for generations thanks to a generous gift from his family. Murphy, who passed away in 2004, would have turned 100 on Dec. 21, 2020. In celebration of this milestone, the Murphy Institute launched the Monsignor Murphy Digital Archive this spring. The collection features Murphy’s original manuscripts; more than 150 sermons, dedications and addresses were digitized.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Google delays Chrome’s cookie-blocking privacy plan by nearly 2 years. “Google has delayed a major privacy change to its Chrome browser, pushing back a plan to block third-party cookies until late 2023 as it determines how to protect users while providing web publishers a way to make money.”

BetaNews: Microsoft officially confirms Windows 11 with integrated Teams and support for Android apps . “The new operating system is based on the now cancelled Windows 10x design, but it’s much more than that. As you’ve have seen from the leaked screenshots, it has a centered taskbar and Start menu, rounded corners across the design, no live tiles, and web widgets for creators.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Creative Commons: We’re Launching the CC Open GLAM Program. “On policy, we’ll work to reform the copyright system on a global level to bring it in line with the needs of GLAM institutions and allow them to conduct their legitimate activities; we’ll continue to insist that works in the public domain must remain in the public domain; we’ll encourage a purposeful policy discourse celebrating open culture as a positive affirmation of the importance of open access and sharing of cultural materials to the fullest extent possible; we’ll also engage in conversations on respectful and ethical use of culturally-sensitive materials.”

BBC: Jack Dorsey: Unpicking Twitter boss’s passion for Nigeria. “Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is no stranger to controversy but in Nigeria he has become embroiled in the battle between the country’s tech-savvy youths and a ruling class that is seen to be out-of-touch with their thinking.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: An internal code repo used by New York State’s IT office was exposed online. “A code repository used by the New York state government’s IT department was left exposed on the internet, allowing anyone to access the projects inside, some of which contained secret keys and passwords associated with state government systems. The exposed GitLab server was discovered on Saturday by Dubai-based SpiderSilk, a cybersecurity company credited with discovering data spills at Samsung, Clearview AI and MoviePass.”

CNN: House Judiciary advances sweeping legislation to rein in and break up Big Tech. “A powerful House panel on Thursday approved a sweeping set of proposals aimed at weakening Big Tech. It passed a series of measures imposing new obligations on top digital platforms, prohibiting them from abusing any gatekeeper power, and in some cases opening the door to new fines and breakups.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Ars Technica: Archaeologists recreated three common kinds of Paleolithic cave lighting. “Lighting sources could indeed hold vital clues to the different ways prehistoric peoples used caves, according to a new paper by a team of Spanish scientists, published in the journal PLOS ONE. They conducted in situ experiments with three different kinds of Paleolithic lighting sources in the hopes of shedding some light (pun intended) on what those various illumination methods might tell us about the emergence of ‘human symbolic and artistic behavior’ in the form of cave art.”

Analytics India: Google Made A Come Back In The World Of Robotics. “In recent years, with the advancement of modern technology, Google accumulated and reassessed its target on the mechanics of complex robots. For the last few years, Google has been remodeling its program focusing on robots that are much more manageable and simpler than human-shaped machines.”

The Citizen (Tanzania): The UN’s refugee data shame, and what needs to be done. “Back in 2017, I wrote of the risks of the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, collecting biometric registration data from Rohingya refugees, noting that the data could be used to drive unwilling repatriation; that collecting such data may make refugees believe their access to aid depends upon providing such data; and that – once collected or shared – such biometric data is virtually impossible to get rid of. Nearly four years later, a report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) says these worst-case scenarios have come true: A detailed database of the Rohingya refugee population has been handed over to Myanmar’s government, which drove them across the border into Bangladesh almost four years ago.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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