NEW RESOURCES

Berkeley News: Tracking inequality in real time — a powerful new tool from Berkeley economists. “UC Berkeley economists have launched a powerful new web tool that allows users to track, almost in real time, how economic growth and public policy affect the distribution of income and wealth among classes in the United States. The website, Realtime Inequality, is an extension of the pioneering work done by Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman that explores how law and policy in the U.S. and worldwide result in profound inequality in the distribution of economic resources.”

Gambit: Tune into recordings of Vernon ‘Dr. Daddy-O’ Winslow, New Orleans’ first Black radio DJ. “One night in 1949, Vernon Winslow, a Black man, took to the New Orleans radio airwaves — and was fired…. Still, one night he hosted a show and became the city’s first Black radio disc jockey. And he was noticed: Within just a few months, rival radio station WWEZ AM hired Winslow to host ‘Jivin’ with Jax,’ a full-length radio program sponsored by Jackson Brewery and the city’s first program to feature a Black DJ.”

US Patent and Trademark Office: USPTO launches new Patent Public Search tool and webpage. “Based on the advanced Patents End-to-End (PE2E) search tool USPTO examiners use to identify prior art, this free, cloud-based platform combines the capabilities of four existing search tools scheduled to be retired in September 2022: Public-Examiner’s Automated Search Tool (PubEAST), Public-Web-based Examiner’s Search Tool (PubWEST), Patent Full-Text and Image Database (PatFT), and Patent Application Full-Text and Image Database (AppFT).”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Sun Gazette (California): State extends access to digital reading for all students. “On Jan. 25, state superintendent of public instruction Tony Thurmond announced access to myON digital books and daily news articles for students in California has been extended until Feb. 28. A partnership with Renaissance Learning, Inc. was originally announced in December to give students from pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade the gift of literacy and provide them an opportunity to engage in reading at home, at school, and in the community.”

CNET: Pinterest’s new AR feature will let you ‘try on’ furniture, home decor. “Retailers and tech companies are boosting their use of augmented reality to help customers decide what products to buy. AR lets people superimpose a virtual image onto a view of the real world through their phone’s camera, making it easier to visualize what an item will look like in a particular space. On Monday, digital pinboard company Pinterest said it’s releasing a new feature called Try On for Home Decor.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TechCrunch: Dashworks is a search engine for your company’s sprawling internal knowledge. “Dashworks is built to be your work laptop’s home page. It’s got support for broadcasting companywide announcements, building out FAQs and sharing bookmarks for the things you often need and can never find — your handbooks, your OKRs, your org charts, etc. More impressive, though, is its cross-tool search.”

The Verge: Google Maps review moderation detailed as Yelp reports thousands of violations. “Google explains how it keeps user-created reviews on Google Maps free of fraud and abuse in a new blog post and accompanying video. Like many platforms dealing with moderation at scale, Google says it uses a mix of automated machine learning systems as well as human operators. The details come amidst growing scrutiny of user reviews on sites like Google Maps and Yelp, where businesses have been hit with bad reviews for implementing COVID-related health and safety measures (including mask and vaccine requirements) often beyond their control.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Times-Union: State Archives find Sojourner Truth’s historic court case. “Buried in 5,000 cubic feet of court records, the New York State Archives has uncovered the 1828 documents thought lost to history detailing how Sojourner Truth became the first Black woman to successfully sue white men to get her son released from slavery.”

The Register: Website fined by German court for leaking visitor’s IP address via Google Fonts . “Earlier this month, a German court fined an unidentified website €100 ($110, £84) for violating EU privacy law by importing a Google-hosted web font. The decision, by Landgericht München’s third civil chamber in Munich, found that the website, by including Google-Fonts-hosted font on its pages, passed the unidentified plaintiff’s IP address to Google without authorization and without a legitimate reason for doing so. And that violates Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).”

Engadget: Purdue University sues Google over mobile power management tech. “Google is once again facing claims it copied others’ code in Android. Purdue University has sued Google over allegations the company is knowingly violating a patent for detecting power management bugs in code. The internet giant purportedly saw an article about Professor Y. Charlie Hu’s research on the subject in 2012 and incorporated related infringing code into Android Lint, an error-catching tool in what would become the Android Studio development kit.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

BBC: DeepMind AI rivals average human competitive coder. “Google-owned artificial-intelligence company DeepMind has announced a big achievement in competitive computer programming. After simulating 10 contests, with more than 5,000 participants, AI system AlphaCode has ranked in the top 54% of competitors.”

The Conversation: How social media forces stand-up comedians like Trevor Noah and Basket Mouth to self-censor. “As an art form based on abuse and amusement, comedy uses potentially offensive material. One would expect the audience to be either delighted or infuriated. But stand-up comedy creates a space where a kind of agreement is reached, which renders most offensive gags inoffensive. This happens through elements like audiences choosing to attend, the venue and shared socio-cultural knowledge. Stand-up comedy has its own norms about how jokes are made and received. The synergy between comedians and live audiences allows for a momentary suspension of offence. But when these jokes start to circulate in a separate space – like social media – they are subjected to other sets of appraisal and questioning.” Good morning, Internet…

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