NEW RESOURCES

Scoop Empire: Reconnecting With The Past: Bibliotheca Alexandria Launches New Website To Teach Hieroglyphics. “The word hieroglyph literally translates to ‘sacred carvings’. The Egyptians first used hieroglyphs exclusively for inscriptions carved or painted on temple walls. This form of pictorial writing was also used on tombs, sheets of papyrus, wooden boards, potsherds, and fragments of limestone. It is an essential part of Egyptian history. Now, new initiatives are arising to teach hieroglyphics and one of them is by the Bibliotheca of Alexandria.” The article’s link takes you to the Arabic version of the Web site. Look for the English switch on the upper left part of the landing page.

New-to-me, from The Hindu: Indian Virtual Herbarium, biggest database of country’s flora, is a global hit. “Each record in the digital herbarium includes an image of the preserved plant specimen, scientific name, collection locality, and collection date, collector name, and barcode number. The digital herbarium also includes features to extract the data State-wise and users can search plants of their own States which will help them to identify regional plants and in building regional checklists.”

The Rogersville Review: ETSU’s Archives of Appalachia digitizes Black history collection. “Given to the university more than 20 years ago, the Langston Heritage Group Collection includes a wealth of historical information about Black churches, schools, civic clubs and organizations throughout Washington County from the end of the Civil War to the present. Thanks to archivists at East Tennessee State University, the collection has been digitized and made available online to anyone interested in this history.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Indonesia restores access to PayPal, Yahoo and Valve services. “Indonesia has unblocked PayPal, Steam owner Valve and Yahoo (Engadget’s parent company), allowing them to resume operations. The country prevented residents from accessing services of several companies that missed a July 29th deadline to register with a government database.”

The Boston Pilot / Archdiocese of Boston: Online Collections Catalog Launches Aug. 1. “Because of the time and effort required to enter each collection, presently included are the most frequently used collections: bishops’ papers, the manuscript collection, reference books, school records, sacramental records, and the first several hundred of nearly 5,000 historic photographs. Adding new and updating existing records will be part of our daily workflow moving forward.”

CNN: Elon Musk’s legal team has publicly filed its official response to Twitter’s lawsuit. “Elon Musk’s legal team on Friday made public its official response to Twitter’s lawsuit attempting to force him to complete their $44 billion acquisition deal. In the answer to Twitter’s complaint, which includes counter-claims against the company, Musk’s team attempts to refute the company’s allegations that the Tesla CEO is unjustly trying to exit the deal.”

USEFUL STUFF

PC World: Best free PDF editors: Our top picks. “While nothing beats a full-featured PDF editor like Adobe’s Acrobat Pro DC, sometimes you don’t need all the bells and whistles. When you just have to edit a few lines of text, add or reposition an image, or make some review notes, a free PDF editor may be the way to go.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Bloomberg: Twitch’s Gambling Boom Is Luring Gamers Into Crypto Casinos. “These days, ‘slots’ is the seventh most popular content category on Twitch, ahead of the video game Fortnite. Many streamers are paid handsomely to take part in the activity. One popular streamer said he makes “much more” than $1 million a month as part of his sponsorship with Stake to crypto gamble in front of live audiences on Twitch.”

Techdirt: Google Fiber’s 2016 Expansion Freeze May Be Coming To An End. “In late 2016, a new era of Alphabet execs began getting cold feet about the high costs and slow returns of the project, and effectively mothballed the entire thing — without admitting that’s what they were doing. The company blew through several CEOs in just a few months, laid off hundreds of employees, froze any real expansion, and cancelled countless installations for users who had been waiting years…. But there are some faint indications that the Google Fiber freeze might be thawing somewhat. ”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CyberScoop: Federal courts left Americans’ data exposed, senator tells Supreme Court chief justice. “A top Democratic lawmaker is urging U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to address the federal court system’s decades-long failure to secure Americans’ most sensitive personal information in court filings.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NASA: How to Follow Webb’s Next Steps. “Now that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s first images and data are out, you might be wondering: What comes next? The observatory has a packed schedule of science programs looking at all kinds of cosmic phenomena, like planets, stars, galaxies, black holes, and more. Webb will revolutionize our understanding of the universe — but first, researchers need time to analyze data and make sure that they understand what they’re seeing.”

NewScientist: How the secrets of ancient cuneiform texts are being revealed by AI. “Much of the world’s first writing, carved into clay tablets, remains undeciphered. Now AI is helping us piece together this ancient Mesopotamian script, revealing the incredible stories of men, women and children at the dawn of history.” Good morning, Internet…

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