NEW RESOURCES

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Pittsburgh tech company makes 401(k) data free and open to all. “More than two decades after the idea came up during a party conversation, [Raul Valdes-Perez] has launched a search engine called Benchmine that allows users to do comparative analysis on more than 54,000 company 401(k) retirement plans. The online tool provides free and public access to data that all companies offering 401(k)s to their employees are required to report annually to the U.S. Department of Labor.”

Oklahoma Department of Libraries: The archivists at the Oklahoma Department of Libraries digitized 285 prisoner newsletters, spanning from 1937 to 1973, for you to view online.. “The newsletters were written by the inmates at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and Oklahoma State Reformatory. The collection consists of five different newsletters: The Eye Opener, Soonerland, Tidings, Granite Nugget, and the OSR News & Views.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Twitter has reportedly laid off more of its global content moderation team. “In what has become a monthly occurrence at Twitter, the company has cut more of its workforce. On Friday night, Twitter reportedly laid off ‘at least a dozen’ workers across its Dublin and Singapore offices. According to Bloomberg, the casualties include Analuisa Dominguez, the company’s former senior director of revenue policy.”

CNN: LinkedIn is having a moment thanks to a wave of layoffs. “In a normal year at this time, a typical LinkedIn feed might be full of posts about year-end reflections on leadership and professional goals and suggested lifehacks for the year ahead — possibly with a few posts from CMOs offering tips on brand strategy, for good measure. Those posts are still there. But mixed in are many others about job hunts, offers of support for laid off friends and colleagues, and advice for coping with career hurdles in an uncertain economic environment.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: 10 Browser Add-Ons to Make Downloading Videos Easy. “MAYBE YOU WANT to save an image or a video clip from the web through your browser because it’ll make a great wallpaper or you want to include it in a video you’re making. In most cases (especially when it comes to pictures) you can simply right-click on the file and choose ‘save image as,’ or something similar. But sometimes that doesn’t work, or not well enough. What if there’s no save option on the right-click menu? What if you want to quickly save dozens of images from a single website? What if you’re trying to save an animated video as a GIF, or you keep downloading one of those .webp files no one wants?

MakeUseOf: 7 iPhone Scanner Apps to Track Receipts, Solve Math Problems, and More . “While scanning documents was a chore back in the day, smartphones have turned it into a relatively easy task. However, there are scanner apps out there that can do much more than just scan a few random documents here and there.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Register: CES Worst in Show slams gummi gouging, money-wasting mugs, and other dubious kit. “As the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show winds down, it’s once again time for the Worst in Show Awards, an enumeration of ill-conceived tech products as determined by various technology advocates.”

Louisiana Tech University: Special Collections and Archives acquires Bernard J. Stinnett Collection. “The Special Collections and Archives at Louisiana Tech University has acquired a collection of letters, memorabilia, artwork, and photographs of former Camp Ruston U.S. Army clerk Bernard J. Stinnett, courtesy of his daughter Hester Stinnett. Louisiana’s Camp Ruston was one of the largest prisoner-of-war (POW) camps established by the U.S. during World War II, located on the western outskirts of the town of Grambling.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NOLA: Document storage company withholding ‘hundreds of boxes’ of city records amid financial dispute. “Document storage company Iron Mountain is withholding hundreds of boxes of files it is storing for the city of New Orleans because of an ongoing financial dispute with Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration, a City Hall spokesman confirms.”

Reuters: Germany tells Musk it expects Twitter to fight disinformation. “The German government will continue to critically observe the situation at Twitter. Germany’s digital minister recently met Elon Musk to clarify what Berlin expects from Twitter, especially in fighting disinformation, since the Tesla founder took over the social media firm, the digital ministry said on Friday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: ‘Consciousness’ in Robots Was Once Taboo. Now It’s the Last Word.. “Wading directly into these murky waters might seem fruitless to roboticists and computer scientists. But, as Antonio Chella, a roboticist at the University of Palermo in Italy, said, unless consciousness is accounted for, ‘it feels like something is missing’ in the function of intelligent machines.”

Ohio State News: Why technology alone can’t solve the digital divide. “For some communities, the digital divide remains even after they have access to computers and fast internet, new research shows. A study of the Bhutanese refugee community in Columbus found that even though more than 95% of the population had access to the internet, very few were using it to connect with local resources and online news. And the study, which was done during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic stay-at-home orders in Ohio, found that nearly three-quarters of respondents never used the internet for telehealth services.” Good morning, Internet…

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