NEW RESOURCES

Center for Research Libraries: Global Press Archive CRL Alliance adds Southeast Asian Newspapers as digital open access collection . “Southeast Asian Newspapers adds to the growing body of open access material available in the Global Press Archive, by virtue of support from Center for Research Libraries members and other participating institutions. The Southeast Asian Newspapers collection encompasses over 265,000 digitized pages from 65 publications, including: Gia định báo (the first Vietnamese newspaper, published in Saigon from 1865–1910), Nagara vatta (the first Cambodian-language newspaper), and Bramartani (a weekly newspaper from Surakarka, Indonesia), among others.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Snapchat is adding TikTok-like AR music lenses. “Snap has signed a music licensing deal with Sony Music Entertainment. The partnership means Snapchat users will have access to songs from Sony artists. With today’s announcement, the company has licensing deals with all the major music labels. And Snap plans to take advantage of the milestone by launching new AR music filters.”

MakeUseOf: Raspberry Pi OS 11 Is Now Available: Here’s What’s New. “Debian Linux 11–codenamed ‘Bullseye’—offers a range of features that make the latest Raspberry Pi OS slicker and more functional than before. Let’s take a look at the latest iteration of Raspberry Pi OS and its noteworthy features.”

USEFUL STUFF

Wired: How to Run Your Own Secure, Portable PC From a USB Stick. “For the purposes of this guide, we’re going to take a look at Tails. It was developed as a way to avoid surveillance, censorship, advertising, and viruses, and it comes with a stack of useful, privacy-focused software applications. It’s also free to use, and all you need to provide is the USB stick. We’ll show you how to set up Tails in its default configuration, which gives you maximum anonymity and protection; every time you start it up, it’s like you’re starting up a new computer for the first time. If you’d prefer to have Tails remember your activity and hold onto files saved to the USB stick, that’s possible too—the instructions are here.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Google executives tell employees it can compete for Pentagon contracts without violating its principles.. “Google executives told employees last week in a companywide meeting that it is interested in a Pentagon contract for cloud computing and that working for the military would not necessarily conflict with principles created by the company for how its artificial intelligence technology would be used.”

Wall Street Journal: Roblox, Building Out the Metaverse, Looks to Bring Educational Videogames to Schools. “Roblox Corp. plans to help bring educational videogames to classrooms world-wide, part of its strategy to expand its mostly teen and preteen user base and play a role in the next evolution of the internet known as the metaverse. San Mateo, Calif.-based Roblox announced Monday that it has invested $10 million to help develop three games for middle-school, high-school and college students. ”

BBC: Google: US technology giant to invest $740m in Australia. “Google has announced that it will invest A$1bn ($740m, £550m) in Australia over the next five years. It is the US technology giant’s largest investment in the country to date. Google says the money will be used to build a research hub, increase its cloud computing capacity and fund partnerships with local organisations.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: A timeline of the biggest ransomware attacks. “Cryptocurrency ransomware payments totaled roughly $350 million in 2020, according to Chainanalysis — an annual increase of over 300% from 2019. And because US companies are legally required to report cyberattacks only if customers’ personal information is compromised, that estimate may be far too conservative.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Washington: Serious mental illness? There’s an app for that. “People with a serious mental illness often have dysfunctional beliefs that spiral them downward. They feel stigmatized. They may believe people are out to get them. They might think they will never get better. Wanting to address these dysfunctional beliefs, researchers created a smartphone app with daily game-like exercises to help people with a serious mental illness reassess their beliefs. The app was tested among 315 people in 45 states recruited through online ads on Google and Facebook in 2020.”

The Next Web: IBM achieves true ‘quantum supremacy’ with most powerful computer ever built. “Healthy skepticism: We’re not sure exactly what Eagle does. Modern quantum computers usually solve bespoke problems that have little-to-no impact on society. This is because the technology is in its infancy. The point of building a quantum computer, today, is to see how far we can push this rudimentary technology on our way towards a simple goal: quantum supremacy.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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