NEW RESOURCES

New York Times: Citizen Activists Lead the Hunt for Antiquities Looted From Nepal. “Roshan Mishra recalls standing inside the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia, staring into the eyes of a wooden goddess that he believed was the same artifact that had disappeared nearly 50 years earlier from a local temple in Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley, where he lives. Mishra, director of the Taragaon Museum in Kathmandu, describes that encounter, in 2019, as the event that inspired him to create a digital archive of nearly 3,000 Nepalese artifacts that he believes are being held by museums outside the country.”

State of New Jersey: Murphy Administration Releases Mapping Tool to Help New Jersey Residents Identify Lead Exposure Risks in Housing. “In recognition of National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week from Sunday, Oct. 24 through Saturday, Oct. 30, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and New Jersey Department of Health have released the first phase of a statewide online mapping tool that uses publicly available data to indicate potential sources of lead exposure.”

BusinessWire: Datasembly’s New Grocery Price Index Reveals Details of Dramatic Price Inflation Acceleration in Q3 (PRESS RELEASE). “Datasembly, the leading provider of real-time product pricing, promotions, and assortment data for retailers and CPG brands, today announced the launch of its Grocery Price Index, as well as grocery inflation trends across a number of markets with New York, Philadelphia, Tampa, Detroit and Portland showing some of the largest recent increases within a few key grocery categories. The free tool is a culmination of the billions of pricing and product records that Datasembly collects daily from over 130,000 stores and more than 180 retail banners across the United States.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BBC: Vax declared Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year. “Vax has been chosen as the word of the year by lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Words related to vaccines have spiked in frequency in 2021 due to Covid, with double-vaxxed, unvaxxed and anti-vaxxer all seeing a surge in use.”

Twitter Blog: #COP26 is happening on Twitter. “We’re committed to elevating the latest, most authoritative information about #COP26. Starting this week, people on Twitter can tap into our global #COP26 event page, featuring resources and commentary from key organizations and environmental experts and the latest #COP26 news. The event page will be localized, available to anyone on Twitter in English, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, and Japanese.”

CNET: TikTok and Amazon Fire TV team up in US and Canada. “Amazon Fire TV customers can now use the TikTok TV app to watch viral videos on Fire TVs and Fire TV devices. The update comes after Amazon Fire TV and video app TikTok announced a new partnership on Monday. To open TikTok on your Fire TV, according to the release, just say ‘Alexa, open TikTok.'”

USEFUL STUFF

Poynter: Here’s a roundup of journalism podcasts designed to inspire, entertain and inform your students. “In no particular order, here’s a handful of podcasts about journalism, with some others by journalists. I choose them specifically because they either talk about the craft and culture of journalism, or are created by journalists and showcase great techniques and storytelling. What did I miss? Send me your list and I’ll keep them coming next week.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

KnowTechie: Newslit is the Nuzzel alternative you’ve been waiting for. “Essentially, if you are familiar with Nuzzel you’ll feel right at home. If you are new to this though, just think of Newslit as an easy way to see a curated feed of what the people you follow are talking about on Twitter. In the feed, you’ll get an overview of the headline and topic and can also see which of the people you follow are actively talking about the subject. You can then click on their Twitter icons to see their actual tweet.” I’ve signed up for a free trial – alas, it is not a free service.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Route Fifty: States With the Most and Least Cybercrime. “Alaska has the highest amount of cyber fraud per person every year while West Virginia has the least, according to a recent report.”

Ubergizmo: Japanese Police Use Targeted YouTube Ads To Warn Would-Be Voyeurs. “According to the local police, it seems that illegal voyeur recordings have been a growing problem and arrests are up 25% from last year. In a bid to deter would-be voyeurs, the police have taken out targeted ads on YouTube to warn that voyeurism is a crime. So since these are targeted ads, it appears that the police are targeting users who are male and over the age of 18 and who might have search terms like ‘peeping’ and ‘small camera’ in their histories, which might suggest that they are interested in either watching these voyeuristic videos or looking to take part in them.”

The Verge: The Next Privacy Crisis. “Writer and researcher Erica Neely says that laws and social norms aren’t prepared for how AR could affect physical space. “I think we’re kind of frantically running behind the technology,” she tells The Verge. In 2019, Neely wrote about the issues that Pokémon Go had exposed around augmented locations. Those issues mostly haven’t been settled, she says. And dedicated AR hardware will only intensify them. Smartphone cameras — along with digital touchup apps like FaceTune and sophisticated image searches like Snap Scan and Google Lens — have already complicated our relationships with the offline world. But AR glasses could add an ease and ubiquity that our phones can’t manage.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Mashable: TikTok’s viral ‘talking’ dogs and cats inspire a study of animal behavior. “Lexi is one of many dogs on TikTok and other social platforms who’ve gone viral. They follow in the footsteps of dogs like Bunny, who has more than 7 million TikTok followers and regularly freaks out her audience by asking questions like, ‘Who this?’ before looking in the mirror. There’s also the original talking dog Stella, who started going viral after posting videos in 2019 and has nearly 1 million followers on Instagram.” My favorite button-stomping animal is a YouTube cat named Billi. Good morning, Internet…

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