NEW RESOURCES

Datamuse Blog: Our 2022 Waterloo co-op term: In which organising words is a labour of love!. “This past Fall, Datamuse hired three talented computer science students from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Over the course of their three-month co-op they improved our word-finding apps and built a new game. These projects required a diverse set of skills, spanning topics in natural language processing (NLP), data visualization, distributed data processing, design, and web application development. In this post, we will showcase eight of the projects the students completed during the Fall term.” I use the Datamuse API for one of my Search Gizmos, Smushy Search. If you like words and word games, you definitely need to check out the Datamuse site.

Data Descriptor: A crowdsourced dataset of aerial images with annotated solar photovoltaic arrays and installation metadata . “Overhead imagery is increasingly being used to improve the knowledge of rooftop PV installations with machine learning models capable of automatically mapping these installations. However, these models cannot be reliably transferred from one region or imagery source to another without incurring a decrease in accuracy. To address this issue, known as distribution shift, and foster the development of PV array mapping pipelines, we propose a dataset containing aerial images, segmentation masks, and installation metadata (i.e., technical characteristics).”

London Jazz News: Colin Muirhead (new JazzontheTyne website + broadcasting on Hive Radio). “Colin Muirhead has presented Jazz on the Tyne on Hive Radio since 2019, giving news of gigs and events in North East England and supporting musicians with airplay and interviews. … He has just launched a new website which will offer all episodes of his programme and give listeners an easy way of getting in touch.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Observer: Bored Apes Were at the Center of the NFT Boom. Now They’re Mired in Lawsuits and Plunging in Value. “In the past few months, the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection has been the target of SEC probes, falling sales and questions regarding copyright protection.”

Boing Boing: BBC took down own Modi documentary from Internet Archive. “Twitter’s censorship is readily explained, but the documentary was also removed from the Internet Archive. The archive’s Chris Butler explains what happened: the BBC itself DMCAd it.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: Why Velma Is the Internet’s New Punching Bag . “HBO MAX’S LATEST entry into the Scooby-Doo canon, Velma, has the kind of pedigree that usually signals hit. Executive produced by veteran TV auteur Mindy Kaling, who also voices the animated series’ title character, it’s a show about one of pop culture’s most beloved nerds. Like Riverdale before it, Velma also takes a kids’ entertainment staple and gives it a new, winkingly adult twist. Yet, with all of that going for it, the show has still become the internet’s new favorite punching bag.”

New York Times: His Boating App Needed a Boost. His Daughter’s TikTok Audience Came Through.. “Mr. Foulk, who calls himself Captain Jeff, loves his app so much, he even has a shirt that reads, ‘Warning: I will tell you about my app.’ So when Mr. Foulk’s daughter, Megan, tagged along to a boat show in Chicago in January and saw that some attendees were bypassing her father’s booth as he tried to tell them about Argo, she decided to turn to one of the apps on her phone: TikTok.” Come for the inspiring story, stay for the “Whiz Khalifa” correction at the bottom.

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Google services to offer more accurate information in compliance with EU. “Many of Google’s offerings will soon be updated to provide clear and accurate information in compliance with consumer protection laws in the EU. Announced by the European Commission on Thursday, the Alphabet-owned company has agreed to introduce changes to Google Store, Google Play Store, Google Hotels, and Google Flights following discussions with the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC) in 2021.”

National Security Archive: Inter-American Court Orders Opening of Military Archives. “On Friday, January 20, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights set a new legal precedent for access to human rights information when it ordered the government of Bolivia to open historical military archives concerning a case of assassination and forced disappearance.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Slate: It’s the Perfect Time to Break Up Google’s Ad-Tech Monopoly. “It may seem contradictory, but an economic downturn is actually the perfect time to enforce antitrust laws in the ad-tech industry. First of all, Google is fine. It generated $54.5 billion in ad revenue from July through September 2022 alone, an increase of 2.5 percent from the same quarter in 2021…. The real casualties of any pending financial crisis will be the much smaller players that also depend on digital advertisements—newspapers, magazines, and local businesses—and that directly suffer from Google’s dominant position in the market.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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