morningbuzz

Jack Brooks, Michigan Unclaimed Property, Google Pixel, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, November 14, 2021

NEW RESOURCES

The News: New website covers iconic Jack Brooks’ life and career. “The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas is pleased to announce the launch of the Jack Brooks Digital Legacy Project. The project website explores the life and public service of Congressman Jack Brooks through a digital repository of newly digitized primary source materials from the Jack Brooks Papers. Brooks represented the Beaumont—Port Arthur—Galveston region for 42 years, a period that spanned ten presidential administrations, from Dwight Eisenhower to Bill Clinton.”

WILX: Michigan’s newest database could have cash waiting for you; here’s how to claim it . “There’s a new database by the Michigan Department of Treasury that tracks unclaimed property, uncashed checks, valuables left in safe deposit boxes and stock certificates. All properties listed are either $50 or more. Because the properties were considered unclaimed, they are turned over to the state by law. Over $485 million has been paid by the Treasury in the last five years.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Android Police: Google fixes the Pixel 6’s random ghost-dialing bug. “…a Pixel Community Manager confirmed on Reddit that the issue had been resolved in the latest version of the Google app (12.43.18 or higher), which can be found on the Play Store or over at APKMirror.”

Tubefilter: Patreon Is Building A Native Video Product To Become Less Reliant On YouTube, Vimeo. “Patreon is building a native video-hosting tool, which would allow creators to upload content directly to their pages, bypassing third-party hosts like YouTube and Vimeo. CEO Jack Conte confirmed the project to The Verge, without sharing details or a launch date.”

The Verge: Disney partners with TikTok for official text-to-speech voices from Stitch, Chewbacca, Rocket Raccoon, and more. “Disney is teaming up with TikTok to add official character voices to the popular social media app’s text-to-speech feature, allowing you to have your captions read by Lilo and Stitch’s Stitch, C-3PO, Chewbacca, a Stormtrooper from Star Wars, and Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Independent: Google Maps removes offensive prank reviews from Jeffrey Epstein’s private island. “Google has removed offensive prank listings and reviews from its map of Jeffrey Epstein’s private island after The Independent raised the issue. Little St James, the 75-acre retreat in the US Virgin Islands where Epstein and his allies allegedly abused numerous teenage girls, previously had two user-submitted locations on Google Maps…” I am not including those names here. They’re offensive.

Mashable: TikTok helps adoptees find a new community to explore joy, family, and belonging. “Adoptee TikTok, a collective of TikTokers sharing their adoption stories, is reaching monumental numbers. The hashtag #Adoption itself has 2.8 billion views. More niche hashtags like #AdoptionJourney, which has 170 million views and focuses on the voices of adoptive parents, and #AdopteesofTikTok at 57.4 million views, tell individual stories of adoption and everything that accompanies the process.”

New York Times: He stalks delirious, unfinished New York as it rises. “British artist Nick Relph likes to wander New York under cover of night, loitering in the vicinity of the city’s ubiquitous construction fences, doing a thing that seems at first glance — especially if you are a police offer — immediately identifiable. He holds a dark object in his hand. He swipes it rhythmically up and down the wooden fencing and its building poster, a motion common to generations of graffitists and guerrilla wheat-paste-poster artists. Except that in place of a spray can or glue roller, his instrument is a lightweight VuPoint Magic Wand digital scanner, a cheap device about the size of an electric toothbrush, often used to digitize book pages and legal documents. And so instead of leaving art on the streets, Relph is slowly extracting it.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: U.S. states file updated antitrust complaint against Alphabet’s Google. “A group of U.S. states led by Texas have filed an amended complaint against Alphabet Inc’s Google accusing the tech giant of using coercive tactics and breaking antitrust laws in its efforts to boost its already dominant advertising business.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Harvard Gazette: Chess is more than a game for researcher focused on brain health. “As the U.S. population ages, concerns about dementia grow larger. David Canning, the Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Sciences and of Economics and International Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is studying aging among chess players, reasoning that the centuries-old game serves as a type of cognitive test. The research involves analysis of a massive database of games from the U.S. Chess Federation and a second pilot study that will follow 200 players over time.”

Dot LA: These Two SoCal Universities Are Working to Digitize and 3D Print Mesoamerican Artifacts. “William Cunningham’s voice is calm and patient over the phone. That sense of serenity will serve him well in the coming years as he helms the effort to digitize tens of thousands of artifacts, books and photographs, some nearly 3,000 years old, from USC’s collections of Mesoamerica as well as those at California State University Los Angeles. Cunningham, a digital imaging specialist at the University of Southern California Libraries Digital Library, will be responsible manning the camera and rig to capture a sprawling collection of artifacts and rare books such as recreations of Aztec codices copied directly from the original sources and a 16th-century edition of the ‘Cronica Mexicana’ by Hernando de Alvarado Tezozómoc, a writer and direct descendant of Aztec emperors.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

Ubergizmo: 91-Year Old Grandma Creates Incredible Works Of Art Using Paint On Her Windows 7 PC. “It is obvious that compared to more professional based tools like Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft’s Paint doesn’t even come close. However, does that mean it’s a completely useless tool? Hardly. In fact, 91-year-old grandma Concha García Zaera will undoubtedly put those hater and doubters to rest with her art pieces. According to a report from Digital Synopsis, Zaera started to use Paint about 12 years ago when her children gifted her a computer. As her husband was sick, she spent a lot of time at home taking care of him. She had initially attempted to take art classes but was unable to practice with real paint, so she took to Paint to practice.” It’s like a mashup of Grandma Moses’ clean lines and simplicity with a 1980s bright, primary-colors aesthetic and just a splash of 8-bit game cut screens. Good morning, Internet….

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