NEW RESOURCES

Legal Services Corporation: New Eviction Laws Database Reveals Striking Differences in Eviction Processes Around the Country. “The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) launched the LSC Eviction Laws Database today, a new online tool that will aid users in better understanding the significant variation in eviction laws across the country and the effect these differences have on eviction outcomes. LSC produced the database in partnership with the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. Users can examine the entire eviction legal process, from pre-filing to post-judgment, in different communities around the country.”

Rolling Stone: Holly Herndon Releases AI Deepfake Tool That Lets Others Make Music With Her Voice. “Holly Herndon has released a new artificial intelligence tool — which the composer is also referring to as her ‘digital twin’ — called ‘Holly+’ that allows users to upload any polyphonic audio and receive a new version of that music sung in Herndon’s own voice.” I tried it with an old novelty song I downloaded from Internet Archive. The Holly+ version sounded like a drunk carousel underwater. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

EVENTS

NASA: NASA TV to Air Launch of Space Station Module, Departure of Another. “NASA will provide live coverage of a new Russian science module’s launch and automated docking to the International Space Station, and the undocking of another module that has been part of the orbital outpost for the past 20 years. Live coverage of all events will be available on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.” The first event is July 21.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Twitter is shutting down Fleets, its expiring tweets feature. “Say goodbye to Fleets, the row of fullscreen tweets at the top of the Twitter timeline that expire after 24 hours. The ephemeral tweet format is shutting down due to low usage after launching widely just eight months ago.”

BBC: Facebook adds ‘expert’ feature to groups. “Group admins will have the power to give the title to nearly any member they want. That could mean that groups promoting conspiracy theories or fringe views may also be able to designate ‘experts’.”

USEFUL STUFF

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Art Newspaper: Security guards become guest curators at the Baltimore Museum of Art. “Museum security officers, the people who probably spend the most time looking at art, will soon be organising an exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) as guest curators. The show Guarding the Art, due to open in March 2022, will bring together a selection of works that resonate with each of the 17 participating officers, and offer ‘different perspectives from within the museum hierarchy’, says the curator and art historian Lowery Stokes Sims, who helped develop the project.”

Business Insider: A Facebook engineer abused access to user data to track down a woman who had left their hotel room after they fought on vacation, new book says. “A Facebook engineer reportedly abused employee access to user data to track down a woman who had left him after they fought, a new book says. Between January 2014 and August 2015, the company fired 52 employees for exploiting user data for personal means, according to an advance copy of ‘An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination’ that Insider obtained.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Microsoft Security Blog: Microsoft discovers threat actor targeting SolarWinds Serv-U software with 0-day exploit. “Microsoft has detected a 0-day remote code execution exploit being used to attack SolarWinds Serv-U FTP software in limited and targeted attacks. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) attributes this campaign with high confidence to DEV-0322, a group operating out of China, based on observed victimology, tactics, and procedures.”

ZDNet: These Iranian hackers posed as academics in a bid to steal email passwords. “An Iranian cyber-espionage campaign used spoofed identities of real academics at a UK university in phishing attacks designed to steal password details of experts in Middle Eastern affairs from universities, think tanks and the media.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Live Science: Book of the Dead fragments, half a world apart, are pieced together. “The two linen fragments were pieced together after a digital image of one segment was cataloged on an open-source online database by the Teece Museum of Classical Antiquities at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Historians at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles who saw the image quickly realized that the institute had a shroud fragment that, like a puzzle piece, fit together with the New Zealand segment.” Good evening, Internet…

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