EVENTS

SW VA Today: Grand Ole Opry archivist to offer online look backstage. “As archives manager for The Grand Ole Opry, Jen Larson has access to 96 years of the institution’s greatest stories. Interested individuals are invited to take a virtual glimpse backstage for a parcel of that rhinestone-studded history with Larson via Zoom at 7 p.m. on March 14, as part of the Birthplace of Country Music Museum’s monthly Speaker Sessions series. The event is free and open to the public, but individuals must pre-register to join.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Register: Google euthanizes Chrome Cleanup Tool because it no longer has a purpose . “The Cholocate Factory’s Chrome Cleanup Tool was introduced in 2015 – initially as a standalone product and later integrated into the Chrome browser – and has run more than 80 million cleanups over the past eight years. But newer tools that can protect surfers and a changing threat landscape are making the Chrome Cleanup Tool increasingly irrelevant, so with the release this week of Chrome 111 for Windows (and for Mac and Linux, for that matter), the cleanup app was swept out.”

Tubefilter: Reddit is separating its feeds for users who want to “Read” or “Watch”. “In 2023, Reddit will roll out new features that will highlight its native video progress. In a blog post, the platform known as the ‘front page of the internet’ revealed its plans for the coming year. Among other developments, Reddit will roll out separate feeds for text and video content.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

AFP: Warnings over AI and toxic beauty myths dog TikTok’s Bold Glamour filter. “TikTok’s latest sensation is a real-time filter called Bold Glamour that sashays right past debates over toxic beauty standards on social media, going all in on giving users a new face. Quietly released to the app’s more than a billion users, Bold Glamour convincingly blends a user’s real face with an AI-generated ideal of a supermodel, drawing both laughs and alarm.”

The Verge: The semiautomated social network is coming. “It makes sense that LinkedIn would be the first major social network to push AI-generated content on its users. The Microsoft-owned company is weird. It’s corporate. It’s full of workfluencer posts and engagement bait that ranges in tone from management consultant bland to cheerfully psychotic. Happily, this is the same emotional spectrum on which AI tends to operate.”

Irish Examiner: Cork motor dealership archive to be donated to city . “The archive of Johnson & Perrott, one of Cork’s great family-owned businesses which dates from 1861 when a city centre carriage-building business was acquired by James Johnson, includes company documents, contracts and advertisements, as well as 11 personal diaries and some 200 photographs, negatives and glass plates.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WA Today (Australia): Search engine pulls ads promoting controversial weight loss drug. “Shonky websites purporting to sell an in-demand Hollywood weight loss drug have been appearing above health warnings in Australian search engine results, as the regulator continues to crack down on the illegal sale of Ozempic.”

TechCrunch: Telehealth startup Cerebral shared millions of patients’ data with advertisers. “Cerebral has revealed it shared the private health information, including mental health assessments, of more than 3.1 million patients in the United States with advertisers and social media giants like Facebook, Google and TikTok.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya: The most visited websites in Spain do not comply correctly with privacy laws and track their users. “Only a small percentage of the 500 most visited websites in Spain (which include everything from government sites to streaming and adult content platforms) correctly fulfil the requirements set out in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).”

Australian Aviation: Google Wing Drones To Pick Up Packages Without Human Help. “Google Wing delivery drones will overhaul how its devices pick up packages by removing the need for a store employee to wait for the aircraft to arrive. The business said the change, along with other improvements to its charging processes, could allow its drones to shift to delivering millions of parcels a year.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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