NEW RESOURCES

British Library Digital Scholarship Blog: Intro to AI for GLAM. “Earlier this year Daniel van Strien and I teamed up with colleagues Mike Trizna from the Smithsonian and Mark Bell at the National Archives, UK in a Carpentries Lesson Development Study Group with an eye to developing an Introduction to AI for GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) lesson for eventual inclusion in Library Carpentry…. The result is the framework and foundations for what we hope will be a useful, ever evolving and continuously collaboratively written workshop that can provide a gentle and practical introduction for GLAM to the world of machine learning and its implications for the sector.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

How-To Geek: No Smartwatch? Google Can Check Your Heart Rate on a Phone. “While not as quick and efficient as using a smartwatch or fitness tracker, Google Fit is an excellent alternative if you’re willing to wait around a bit to get your results. You can check your heart and respiratory rate using your iPhone’s camera and Google Fit.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 5 Audio-Journaling Apps to Beat Anxiety. “Many people keep journals for their mental health benefits. Journaling about your feelings can reduce mental distress and is a highly encouraged practice for people dealing with anxiety. Audio-journaling, one of the recently introduced forms of journaling, has proven to be effective at this. Let’s take a look at the best audio-journaling apps.”

CogDogBlog: Forcing Google’s Image Search to Provide CC Licensed Results by Default. “I find perverse pleasure in finding a way to force Google to Sit, Stay, Rollover, and do the tricks I want it to do rather than what it decides. The sense of power is of course a fabricated illusion, but still, the effect is robustly divine. After some explanation of my current approach, creating a quick shortcut for google image results that are CC licensed, and steps hpw ypu can do the same, I present my newest hatched karate chop to Google.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: Wildest things tech executives said in 2021. “Tech executives are typically known for their work ethic, bank accounts, ability to imagine a different world in the future, and, on occasion, some very weird hobbies. What they are not known for, though, is their ability to communicate in a way that is calm, confidence-inducing, or even, at the very least, kind. And in 2021, boy, did we see that on display.”

AFP: Chinese tech giant Baidu tests metaverse waters with new app. “Chinese tech giant Baidu on Monday took its first steps into the metaverse industry with the launch of a virtual reality app, looking to test the waters in what is considered by many to be the next phase in the internet’s evolution. The Beijing-based company joins brands such as Nike and Ferrari in rushing to experiment with virtual goods against a backdrop of predictions that the metaverse could one day overtake and replace the web of today.”

Christian Post: More than 30K churches using big data from tech firm Gloo to target new members. “More than 30,000 churches have signed up for the services of Gloo, a small company that uses people’s personal data and online activities to target individuals who might be more receptive to their message and become new members as they seek to sure up dwindling numbers in their pews that was made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Global Banking and Finance Review: Why open databases are easy pickings for cyber criminals. “Some of the largest breaches in recent times have stemmed from unsecured public databases. In June it was discovered that a database of 815 million records was left unprotected by web hosting company DreamHost. Last year, BlueKai, a data analysis platform owned by Oracle was found to have left potentially billions of records exposed through an unsecured server. Such breaches can be cripplingly expensive for the data holder. The average cost of a breach involving 40-50 million records was estimated to be $364 million in 2020, an increase of $19m from the year before. The average cost in 2020 jumped to $388 million for incidents involving more than 50 million records.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Independent: Brain chip allows paralysed man to post first ever ‘direct-thought’ tweet. “A paralysed man has made the first ‘direct-thought tweet’ after having a computer chip implanted in his brain. Philip O-Keefe, a 62-year-old Australian who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), composed and posted the tweet using only his thoughts via a brain computer interface developed by neurotech startup Synchron.”

CNET: Mummy of beloved pharaoh digitally ‘unwrapped’ after 3,000 years. “Scientists have unwrapped nearly every mummy discovered thus far, finding remarkable evidence of things like traditional burial practices and unique facial features. But for three millennia, one Egyptian pharaoh’s remains, discovered in 1881, have been left untouched for fear of tampering with their stunning condition. That ruler was Amenhotep I. Thanks to the age of computing, though, the royal mummy has finally been unveiled. A team of researchers digitally exhumed Amenhotep I’s body using computing tomography imaging, a sort of X-ray imaging process.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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