NEW RESOURCES

Georgia Public Broadcasting: GPB Education’s 21 Favorite New Resources Launched In 2021 . “As we look back on 2021, we see a lot accomplished by our small but mighty team at GPB Education. We are honored to continue to support Georgia’s teachers, students, and parents with free digital learning resources. So, as we prepare to ring in 2022, here’s a look back at 21 of our favorite things we launched, hosted, and accomplished in 2021.”

Internet Archive Blog: A Holiday Jackpot: The Lounge is Open. “Previous sets of items, including arcade machines, handheld toys, computer software and flash animations, all represent thousands and in some cases tens of thousands of individual items from history, all playable in the browser. The Jackpot Lounge is much more focused and refers to one specific group of coin-operated games: Gambling Machines.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ubergizmo: Telegram Pushes Out One More Update Before 2021 Closes. “If you’re a Telegram user who feels that maybe the service is still lacking a bit compared to other services, then you might be interested in the latest update to the app. The developers behind the app have managed to push out one final update before 2021 closes and it brings a ton of new features to the app.”

The Verge: BlackBerry will die on January 4th — for real this time. “Dear friends, we’re gathered here today to mourn the death of that once-beloved monarch of the mobile world: BlackBerry. And, yes, I realize that this is not the first time we’ve announced the death of the company or its devices (and, for reasons I’ll explain below, it likely won’t be the last) but this is a very definite ending for legacy BlackBerry hardware.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: How to track the James Webb telescope. “If you want to get your space fix without spending millions of dollars to be flung into the ether a la William Shatner, I have excellent news: It costs zero dollars to follow NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s trek to its final destination.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Android Police: Bundled Notes is (almost) the best Google Keep alternative around. “Google Keep is a great note-taking service, and it can also double as a to-do app, no doubt about it. But even when you use all of the organizational features available, like labels, archiving, and colors, you might soon end up with an entangled mess that’s hard to undo when you’re not careful. If you ask me, alternatives like Notion or Evernote can quickly become too complex for pure personal use, and that’s where one of my favorite indie Android apps comes in: Bundled Notes.”

9to5 Google: Report: Google is indeed working on AR smart glasses with a new project . “In recent years, Google has notoriously kept its work on augmented reality hardware secret. That has started to change recently, while a new report today provides explicit confirmation that ‘Google is working on a new iteration of smart glasses.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: A Digital Manhunt: How Chinese Police Track Critics on Twitter and Facebook. “Authorities in China have turned to sophisticated investigative software to track and silence obscure critics on overseas social media. Their targets include college students and non-Chinese nationals.”

Vox: Big Tech’s employees are one of the biggest checks on its power. “Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen created an international media blitz earlier this year when she leaked tens of thousands of damning internal company documents to the Wall Street Journal and US government. Her disclosures so far have prompted public outrage and government investigations — and they’ve directed a spotlight at an increasingly powerful movement of tech workers who have been organizing to hold their companies accountable over ethical concerns ranging from workplace issues to questionable business practices.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Google Blog: 2021 Year in Review: Google Quantum AI. “Google’s Quantum AI team has had a productive 2021. Despite ongoing global challenges, we’ve made significant progress in our effort to build a fully error-corrected quantum computer, working towards our next hardware milestone of building an error-corrected quantum bit (qubit) prototype.”

The Conversation: Five ways the internet era has changed British English – new research. “Our new study based on the British National Corpus 2014 (BNC2014) – a 100 million-word sample of current language – shows us just how language has changed in the internet era. This data was contrasted with the original British National Corpus 1994 (BNC1994) – a comparable data set which samples British English from the early 1990s.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Rats Learn To Play Doom In This Automated VR Arena. “What started as a side project for [Viktor Tóth] has evolved into quite a complex apparatus. At the center of the rig is an omnidirectional treadmill comprised of a polystyrene ball about the size of a bowling ball. The ball is free to rotate, with sensors detecting rotation in two axes — it’s basically a big electromechanical mouse upside down. The rat rides at the top of the ball, wearing a harness to keep it from slipping off. A large curved monitor sits right in front of the rat to display the virtual environment, which is a custom DOOM map.” Good morning, Internet…

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