NEW RESOURCES

Firstpost: Online exhibition archives oral histories of the Kolis, degradation of Mumbai’s coastal ecology. “Through generations, the Kolis have observed firsthand how the ecology has been disturbed, and given how closely intertwined their lives are with nature, have had to adapt to these changes. All this is evident in their photos, displayed at the online exhibition Through the Eyes of the Kolis: A Reflection of Mumbai’s Past, Present, and Future, created by the experimental think tank Bombay61 Studio, with The Heritage Lab and Ministry of Mumbai’s Magic (MMM).”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Clubhouse is adding spatial audio effects to make users feel like they’re really in the room. “It’s been a busy summer for Clubhouse. The hit social audio app rolled out new messaging features and an Android app over the last few months and now the company is turning its attention to enhancing its core audio experience. Clubhouse announced Sunday that its rooms will now be infused with spatial audio to give the app’s listeners a richer sense of hanging out live with a group of other people.”

USEFUL STUFF

Variety: New Google Chrome Extension SignUp Offers ASL Captions for Three Films on Disney Plus. “SignUp, a new Google Chrome extension, overlays ASL captions on three Disney Plus movies — ‘Moana,’ ‘Zootopia’ and ‘The Incredibles.’ Founded by Mariella Satow, the free tool was created because many members of the deaf community find that written captions lack vibrancy or aren’t descriptive enough, or are absent from media sites entirely.”

Tom’s Guide: How to block spoilers on social media. “The internet can be a perilous place at times, especially when it comes to pop culture. Everyone is so desperate to discuss something as soon as it’s released that social media is often littered with major spoilers. But you don’t have to ditch social media, or try to make time to watch all your favorite shows and movies as soon as they’re released. There are things you can do to avoid all those pesky spoilers on social media.”

Motley Fool: These Free Tools Will Make Anyone a Better Investor. “In this episode of Industry Focus: Tech, we take a break from talking about specific companies to loop listeners in on our go-to free resources for information on companies. We give a rundown of our favorite primary and secondary resources for information and spend some time talking about the decision that leveled the playing field for the average investor.” Video podcast with captions AND a complete transcript.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Newsweek: YouTube, TikTok Videos Showing Animals Tortured, Buried, Eaten Alive Viewed 5bn Times. “A report published on Wednesday has revealed the shocking scope of animal cruelty videos posted to large social media platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Facebook. The research, conducted by the Asia for Animals Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition (SMACC,) identified 5,480 individual links to videos of animal cruelty between July 2020 and August 2021, with a combined number of views totalling more than 5.3 billion.”

WTKR: Influencers in the boxing ring: Are they the new fighters?. “For a number of social media influencers, the main event is in the ring. Controversial YouTuber Logan Paul — known for 20 million-plus subscribers — fought retired boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. in an exhibition match. His brother, also an internet celebrity, is set to fight an MMA fighter in the next few days.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

VentureBeat: Deepfakes in cyberattacks aren’t coming. They’re already here.. “We’ve all heard the story about the CEO whose voice was imitated convincingly enough to initiate a wire transfer of $243,000. Now, the constant Zoom meetings of the anywhere workforce era have created a wealth of audio and video data that can be fed into a machine learning system to create a compelling duplicate. And attackers have taken note. Deepfake technology has seen a drastic uptick across the dark web, and attacks are certainly taking place.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Hindu: India has the world’s lowest survival rate of cinema. And this heritage needs attention. “In his book, The Death of Cinema, Paolo Cherchi-Usai refers to an article published in 1897 in which the life of a cinematograph frame is arithmetically worked out as ‘one-and-one-third seconds’. So, Usai says, it is the most ephemeral of things, whose life is even shorter than that of a firework, and he wonders whether film eventually exists only in the minds of its viewers. If so, physical preservation of film becomes secondary. Indian culture, with its penchant for concepts like maya and transience, seems to follow a similar attitude to cinema.”

Herald Sun: Social media influencers are contributing to toxic diet culture. “For some people, influencers have become their health experts of choice. This new breed of ‘health’ influencers are perpetuating a toxic diet culture – and it’s convincing our most vulnerable.” Good evening, Internet…

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