NEW RESOURCES

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Times Launches ‘Shape Your L.A.’ Civic Engagement Tool. “The Los Angeles Times has launched a new civic engagement tool that shows Angelenos how to get involved in their communities. Dubbed ‘the people’s guide to power,’ Shape Your L.A. allows users to type in their address and get maps and relevant information about their local government and institutions, and how to contact their representatives in the state capitol and Washington, D.C.”

Cornell Chronicle: New Muses Project injects diversity into classical music choices. “The New Muses Project is a platform that provides recommendations of composers based on a person’s current preferences. The platform is backed up by a comprehensive, highly researched network database of composers and their music, including a full set of vetted external resources as well as biographies, transcriptions and other supporting material.”

It’s Nice That: New web tool Munken Creator lets you create downloadable, animated font experiments. “In 2020, Swedish paper manufacturer Arctic Paper launched Munken Sans, a free-to-use font inspired by the Swedish typeface Tratex – which was actually designed by Kåge Gustafson to be used on national road signs in the 1960s. Munken Creator is the next step in the creative project from the paper manufacturer. Working with design agency Juno and creative technologist Patrik Hübner, Arctic Paper has launched a new web-based app which allows users to create visual experiments using Munken Sans as its open-source typographic base.”

Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas: MOOCs on covering the climate crisis attract more than 3,800 and can now be taken at anytime, from anywhere. “A recent multilingual course on covering the climate crisis is now available as a self-directed course after reaching 3,810 students from 151 countries. The massive open online courses (MOOCs), ‘How to cover the climate crisis – and fight disinformation,’ ran for four weeks, from Aug. 8 to Sept. 4, 2022. They were organized by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas with support from Google News Initiative.” The course is available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

FOSS Force: Ubuntu’s Kinetic Kudu 22.10 Released: What’s New for Desktop & Server. “Although Ubuntu 22.10, ‘Kinetic Kudu,’ is an interim release that will only be supported for nine months, it includes enough new features to perhaps attract some to drop their LTS to at least give it a try.”

Politico: Parler was jubilant about Kanye West buying it. Then the problems started.. “On the afternoon that Parler, a social media platform popular with conservatives, announced its acquisition by Ye, better known as Kanye West, the site emailed hundreds of VIP members to excitedly share the news. There were just two problems.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Engadget: Google launches its News Showcase program in France. “Google has launched News Showcase in France, and it has teamed up with over 65 publishers representing over 130 publications for the program’s expansion in the country. Now, users in France will see panels populated by articles from participating publications when they navigate to the News tab on Android, iOS or the web and in Discover on the mobile platforms.”

New York Times: South Korean Super App Goes Down, Putting a Halt on Life. “Millions of people had trouble getting in touch with one another. Many could not pay for everyday items at convenience stores or order food and groceries. Travelers were left stranded because they were not able to book taxis, depriving drivers of income. The chaos had one source: the Kakao suite of apps was down because of a fire at a data center.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Google sued over biometric data collection without consent. “Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has sued Google for allegedly collecting and using biometric data belonging to millions of Texans without proper consent. The Texas AG says that Google allegedly used products and services like Google Photos, Google Assistant, and Nest Hub Max to collect a vast array of biometric identifiers, including voiceprints and records of face geometry since 2015.”

TechCrunch: India fines Google $162 million for anti-competitive practices on Android. “India’s competition regulator fined Google $161.9 million on Thursday for anti-competitive practices related to Android mobile devices in ‘multiple markets’ in a major setback for the search giant in the key overseas nation where it has poured billions of dollars over the past decade.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Gizmodo: Adobe Demos a Prototype Tool That Can Uncrop Photos Using AI to Recreate What’s Missing. “Have you ever prepped a photo for printing but regretted not being more generous with your framing when snapping the image? Extending the borders of a photo before digital editing was all but impossible, and it still represents a time-consuming challenge for even Photoshop masters, but a new tool teased by Adobe on Wednesday could make it impossibly easy to ‘uncrop’ a photograph.”

Harvard Medical School: How AI Can Help Diagnose Rare Diseases. “Rare diseases are often difficult to diagnose, and predicting the best course of treatment can be challenging for clinicians. To help address these challenges, investigators from the Mahmood Lab at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have developed a deep- learning algorithm that can teach itself to learn features that can then be used to find similar cases in large pathology image repositories.” Good morning, Internet…

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