NEW RESOURCES

BusinessWire: Smithsonian Launches “Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past” With a Virtual Forum (PRESS RELEASE). “The Smithsonian will kick off its new race initiative, ‘Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past,’ with a virtual forum Aug. 26. The initiative will bring together resources from across the Smithsonian to explore how Americans understand, experience and confront racism through several critical lenses like wellness, wealth and the arts. ‘Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past’ will include virtual and live events across the country as well as digital content, storytelling and learning resources for students and educators.”

Louder Sound: This website claims it can find your new favourite band. “Music-recommending website Sage claims that it can find you your new favourite band using artificial intelligence. All you have to do is type in your favourite band and least favourite band, and Sage will come up with a list of recommendations for you, with a match percentage for each one and a link to listen.” Your mileage may vary. When I was trying to enter music I like, Sage found bands like Ball Park Music and Lime Cordiale as well as individuals like Dallas Woods and Baker Boy, but couldn’t find Miiesha or Tierra Whack. What?

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Reddit is now valued at more than $10 billion. “Reddit, the self-declared ‘front page of the internet,’ says it is now valued at more than $10 billion after raising an additional $410 million in funding, with the final round expected to grow to up to $700 million. The company continues to build and sanitize its business, removing racist, misogynist, and otherwise controversial communities, as it prepares to go public at some point in the future.”

USEFUL STUFF

Bustle: Instagram Guides Are Way More Useful Than You Probably Think . “While you’re probably not as familiar with Guides as you are with Stories or IGTV, the feature can be incredibly useful: Even if you’re not an influencer or content creator, Guides can be a creative way to blog about your summer, shop products, or discover new trends. Instagram originally introduced Guides to exclusive creators in May 2020, but opened up the feature to all users in November of last year.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Tubefilter: #BookTok Is Boosting Sales For Brick-And-Mortar Bookstores. “TikTok’s crop of book lovers are boosting sales for Canada’s largest bookseller. In its second-quarter earnings report, Indigo Books and Music Inc. said that #BookTok is having a noticeable positive effect on demand, especially for older titles.”

Ars Technica: Excerpt: How Google bought Android—according to folks in the room. “Androids: The team that built the Android operating system is a new book from longtime Android engineer Chet Haase. Haase has been on the Android team since 2010, and he interviewed dozens of Googlers for this book, which offers a behind-the-scenes look at early Android development. With Haase’s permission, we’re giving readers a look at chapters four and five of the book, ‘The Pitch,’ and ‘The Acquisition.'”

DA NANG Today: Data on traditional festivals to go digital. “The Vietnamese Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has given the green light to the implementation of a project on digitalising all types of Vietnamese festivals for the 2021-2025 period. They involve traditional and cultural ones, industry festivals, and those of foreign origin.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Daily Sabah: Turkey expedites efforts for new social media regulation. “The Turkish government has accelerated its efforts for a new social media regulation, in light of online manipulations and disinformation about recent incidents such as forest fires and tensions between locals and Syrian migrants in the capital Ankara’s Altındağ district.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Penn State: Seed grant to explore using AI to model subsurface rock formations. “It is difficult for geoscientists to map sedimentary rocks’ compositional and mechanical properties at high resolution, according to Yashar Mehmani, assistant professor in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering. He recently received a seed grant from the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) to investigate using artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a new method to model the Earth’s subsurface.”

University of Maine: Researchers assess whether open educational resources improved biology instruction. “The National Science Foundation awarded a nearly $2 million collaborative research grant for principal investigators from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Cornell University and UMaine to assess the effectiveness of open educational resources in teaching core biology concepts, facilitating student-centered learning and supporting diversity, equity and inclusion. Funding for the five-year project derived from the NSF’s Vision and Change Program.” Good evening, Internet…

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