NEW RESOURCES

National Transportation Safety Board: NTSB Releases Data Visualization Tool for General Aviation Accidents. “The General Aviation Accident Dashboard provides summary statistics, investigative findings and safety recommendations for general aviation accidents from 2012 through 2021. The Dashboard allows users to more intuitively display accident information, reports and statistics by selecting one or more filters for year, location, phase of flight and defining event.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Microsoft limits Bing conversations to prevent disturbing chatbot responses . “Microsoft has limited the number of ‘chat turns’ you can carry out with Bing’s AI chatbot to five per session and 50 per day overall. Each chat turn is a conversation exchange comprised of your question and Bing’s response, and you’ll be told that the chatbot has hit its limit and will be prompted to start a new topic after five rounds.”

The Verge: Google Meet rolls out 360-degree virtual backgrounds for video calls. “Google Meet’s launching new 360-degree virtual backgrounds for video calls on mobile. While Google first announced the new feature last month, now it’s rolling out on both iOS and Android and uses your device’s gyroscope to move with you.”

UNC Libraries: Black and Carolina Blue Tour site highlights Black History at UNC-Chapel Hill. “For more than 20 years, the Black and Blue Tour has introduced students and visitors to local histories of slavery, racism, memorialization and activism at UNC-Chapel Hill. Now, the University Libraries has released a revised Black and Carolina Blue Tour website, with updated and expanded entries for each tour stop.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Turn Your PDF Into an Audiobook Online . “Many people choose to listen to audiobooks, especially on the go. You may want to hear your PDF read aloud or create an audiobook from the contents of your PDF file to share with others. This guide will show you how to create an audiobook from a PDF file online.”

PC World: 10 cheap or free ways to make your old PC run faster. “…there are a slew of ways to breathe new life into an older PC that’s starting to feel a little pokey. Even better: Most are outright free, a couple of (still relatively low-cost) hardware upgrades aside. Sure, these tweaks and tips aren’t as thrilling as booting up a brand new PC for the first time—but they’ll let you continue to get the job done with the gear you already have.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Leaked files reveal reputation-management firm’s deceptive tactics. “They look at first glance like ordinary news outlets serving up headlines from around the world. The hundreds of websites, seemingly unconnected to one another, come in six languages and purport to cover far-flung cities such as Paris, London and Chicago. But beneath the surface, the sites have something in common: They host frothy stories about clients of a little-known reputation-management company that promises to remake the online images of its customers.”

Mashable: Creators are blowing their ancestors’ minds thanks to archeology TikTok. “What started as an engaging way for Stephanie Black, a PhD candidate in Archeology at Durham University, to share how similar we are to our ancestors quickly escaped the confines of academia TikTok and became the preeminent trend on the platform this week — so popular that even Drew Barrymore participated. Informally known as the ancestor trend, in these videos creators don makeshift costumes and conduct imaginary conversations with their ancestors through their captions about how their lives have and haven’t changed with the passage of time.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: What Brit watchdog redacted: Google gives Apple cut of Chrome iOS search revenue. “Google has been paying Apple a portion of search revenue generated by people using Google Chrome on iOS, according to a source familiar with the matter. This is one of the aspects of the relationship between the two tech goliaths that currently concerns the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).”

Motherboard: The Company Helping the IRS Go Undercover Online. “Internal IRS documents obtained by Motherboard show the IRS paid Israeli firm Cobwebs Technologies hundreds of thousands of dollars for a tool that helps it monitor the web while undercover.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Michigan Daily: A love letter to Pinterest. “I still remember the day that you and I first met. I couldn’t have been more than 12 years old. My aunt had told me all about you — ‘It’s like an online bulletin board,’ she described — and showed me around her own profile. I had never seen so many pictures, appropriately dubbed ‘pins,’ in one place before. I could save these pins to a board, or multiple boards, and organize them in whatever way I liked. I knew that I had just discovered something magical.”

New York Times: Why China Didn’t Invent ChatGPT. “The state’s hardening censorship and heavier hand have held back its tech industry; so has entrepreneurs’ reluctance to invest for the long term. It wasn’t always that way.” Good morning, Internet…

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