NEW RESOURCES

State of New York: Governor Hochul Announces New Online Resource Center for New York’s Continued Expansion of Electric Vehicle Infrastructure . “Governor Kathy Hochul today announced the launch of New York’s National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program website. The newly launched website provides additional background on the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure funding program, and includes a short survey to collect user feedback in order to assist the State in the development of its National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Plan that will advance New York’s nation-leading climate agenda.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

KnowTechie: YouTube now lets you use your phone as a second screen. “You can now use your mobile device as a second screen when watching YouTube on TV. The feature will be perfect for people wanting to interact with the video without having to back out of the actual video on the screen.”

PetaPixel: Ancestry.com Now Lets You Automatically Colorize Historical Photos. “Ancestry, the largest for-profit genealogy website on the planet, has integrated an automatic colorization feature that it says lets users bring make black and white photos more lifelike.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 5 More Websites to Discover Free Documentaries to Stream Online. “In the past, we’ve covered several places to watch documentaries for free, whether streaming them on websites or dedicated apps for non-fiction content. Well, that’s not the end of the list, though. These sites find documentaries by going to sources others don’t venture or redefine what a documentary is.”

Digital Inspiration: How to Auto Format Google Form Responses in Google Sheets. “Learn how to automatically preserve the formatting in Google Sheet when new Google Form responses are submitted.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Rest of World: Inside the risky world of “Migrant TikTok”. “Speaking to Rest of World, experts pointed to migrant TikTok as a new entry point for young people into the world of irregular migration. The absence of reliable information means that social media has long played a role in helping people share advice, with Facebook groups and other private channels acting as informal hubs for knowledge: how to travel, whom to contact. But with the rise of apps like TikTok where posts are public, compounded by recommender algorithms that repeatedly suggest similar content, virality has given this information greater reach among people who aren’t actively searching for it.”

Every: The Internet Encyclopedia of Memes. “For the past 15 years, Know Your Meme has documented internet culture from across the web—from 4chan and Reddit to Twitter and TikTok. For nearly 12 of those years—or what he describes as ‘an eternity in internet years’—Don Caldwell has been at the forefront at Know Your Meme, most recently as the Editor-in-Chief. He’s made nearly 100,000 contributions to the site, slowed only by moving into a managerial role at the company.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Frontier Myanmar: Pro-military death squad rallies openly on social media. “After tea shop owner U Khin Maung Thein was abducted and killed in April, pictures of his body were uploaded to the social media platform Telegram. Hanging around his neck, over his bloodstained shirt, was a lanyard with a strange symbol: a red circle with an image of an ancient Burmese warrior holding two swords. This is the calling card of Thwe Thauk Apwe, a new pro-military vigilante group whose violent rise has played out over social media, particularly Facebook and Telegram.”

WIRED: The Race to Hide Your Voice. “As machines become better at understanding you through your voice, companies are cashing in. Voice recognition systems—from Siri and Alexa to those using your voice as your password—have proliferated in recent years as artificial intelligence and machine learning have unlocked the ability to understand not just what you are saying but who you are. Big Voice may be a $20 billion industry within a few years. And as the market grows, privacy-focused researchers are increasingly searching for ways to protect people from having their voice data used against them.”

NHK World Japan: Japan govt. planning to set up comprehensive copyright database. “The Japanese government is preparing a bill that will establish a comprehensive database of copyrighted material. The aim is to enable individuals and businesses to use music, video and other content more easily.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: Should Google pay for news in Brazil? It’s complicated. “No solution is ideal. The worst thing that journalists can do, however, is to step aside and let media owners and platforms decide among themselves. The solution should not allow Big Tech to remain free and unregulated, nor should it force it to pay the same media owners that have lobbied against diversity in media. Somewhere in between — and with ample and public and transparent debate — there is a middle ground to be found.”

Washington Post: I tried to read all my app privacy policies. It was 1 million words.. “Let’s abolish the notion that we’re supposed to read privacy policies. I’m not suggesting companies shouldn’t have to explain what they’re up to. Maybe we call them ‘data disclosures’ for the regulators, lawyers, investigative journalists and curious consumers to pore over. But to protect our privacy, the best place to start is for companies to simply collect less data.” Good morning, Internet…

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