NEW RESOURCES

University of Maryland Baltimore: New Portal Aids Discoveries To Reverse Hearing Loss. “Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) have launched a new online tool that could more quickly advance medical discoveries to reverse progressive hearing loss.”

EVENTS

US Census Bureau: Census Bureau to Hold News Conference on Release of 2020 Census Redistricting Data. “The news conference will provide initial analysis of the first local level results from the 2020 Census on population change, race, ethnicity, the age 18 and over population, and housing occupancy status. A live Q&A session with Census Bureau subject-matter experts will immediately follow the briefing for credentialed media who have RSVPed.” Thursday August 12 at 1pm.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Creators can now monetize their expertise on Quora. “Quora’s first new product is Quora+ — subscribers will pay a $5 monthly fee or a $50 yearly fee to access content that any creator chooses to put behind a paywall. These are the same rates that Medium, which has no ads, charges for its membership program.”

Search Engine Journal: WordPress Releases Gutenberg 11.2 – Offers Improved Performance & Bug Fixes. “WordPress announced the release of the newest version of Gutenberg which is now at 11.2. This is an incremental update in that it’s not a major upgrade. Nevertheless it does contain a slight performance improvement to the editor as well as numerous bug fixes and feature additions that makes version 11.2 a notable upgrade.”

USEFUL STUFF

CNET: How to improve your TV’s speech and get rid of muffled dialog. “If you’re struggling to understand the dialog in your new favorite show, it’s most likely the TV’s tiny speakers that are to blame. However, there could be other causes — for example, if you find that people’s lips are moving but speech isn’t correlating, you may need help with a lip-sync issue. If your main problem is that dialog sounds muffled and incomprehensible, whether you’re using a TV speaker or a separate sound system, here are three things you can do to fix it.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: Trauma memes are taking over the internet. Why that can be a good thing.. “When [Erin] Taylor creates these memes, she’s digging into her own trauma and using art and humor as a way to communicate that. She says it can feel cathartic to create. But these memes can also be helpful and healing to the audience, Theresa Nguyen, the chief program officer at Mental Health America, told Mashable.”

AdAge: Everything You Need To Know About TikTok Advertising . “In the first half of this year, TikTok became the most downloaded non-Facebook, non-gaming app globally, topping 3 million downloads. While some brands might be hesitant or unsure of where their brand fits into the app, those who have taken the plunge have often been rewarded (even if fleetingly). Below, Ad Age has compiled what advertisers should know about TikTok creators, e-commerce opportunities and more.” The “3 million downloads” is an apparent typo; TikTok has had over three BILLION downloads.

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: Turkish influencer prosecuted ‘for photos at Amsterdam sex museum’. “A Turkish social media influencer says she’s being prosecuted in her country for posting ‘joke’ photos inside the world-famous Sex Museum in Amsterdam. Merve Taskin, 23, shared pictures of sex toys she bought at the museum during a birthday trip to the Netherlands in January last year.”

The Daily Beast: Scandal, Spyware, and 69 Pounds of Weed. “Amid the furor over the abuse of NSO’s powerful spyware, the story of how the company landed its first contract with Mexico has largely escaped attention. It’s a deal that might never have come together were it not for the behind-the-scenes efforts of an influential, twice-convicted Republican powerbroker: Elliott Broidy.”

Techdirt: Olympics Copyright Insanity Rules Again: Gold Medal Winner Blocked From Sharing Her Own Victory. “Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica won both the women’s 100 meter and 200 meter gold medals at the Olympics this year, and then did the super piratey thing of… excitedly posting snippets of her victories to Instagram, which responded by blocking her account for copyright violations.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Engadget: Pentagon believes its precognitive AI can predict events ‘days in advance’. “The US military’s AI experiments are growing particularly ambitious. The Drive reports that US Northern Command recently completed a string of tests for Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE), a combination of AI, cloud computing and sensors that could give the Pentagon the ability to predict events ‘days in advance,’ according to Command leader General Glen VanHerck.”

The Register: Paperless office? 2.8 trillion pages printed in 2020, down by 14% or 450 billion sheets . “Around 450 billion fewer pages were printed from home and office devices in 2020 as COVID-19 disrupted the world of work. The direction of travel has been obvious in recent times: people were printing less even before the pandemic took hold, but the decline was sharper last year as volumes plunged 14 per cent on 2019 levels to a total of 2.8 trillion pages, according to IDC.” Good morning, Internet…

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