SEARCH GIZMO OF THE DAY: Gossip Machine
Gossip Machine uses Wikipedia page views to surface potential “news days” in a given year (2016-2023) for any topic with a Wikipedia page. It analyzes daily page views and flags dates with significantly higher-than-average views, then provides you with pre-filled Google News and Google Web search links.

NEW RESOURCES

Daily Tar Heel: New website creates a virtual space for American South collaboration. “The goal of the Digital South website is to create a virtual space to encourage partnership between scholars – students, staff, faculty or anyone using digital scholarship — to research or teach about the American South. Rolando Rodriguez, an academic library associate at UNC, said visitors can see ongoing projects, explore a particular project’s page and spark conversations regarding southern history through the website.”

EVENTS

Library of Congress: Save the Date! 2023 National Book Festival. “Mark your calendars! Join us at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Saturday, Aug. 12 from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the 2023 Library of Congress National Book Festival.” Several of t he events will be livestreamed.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Twitter shut off its free API and it’s breaking a lot of apps. “All of these issues are further complicated by the fact that Twitter seems to have communicated very little with any of its developers about these changes or what they mean. Most of the employees who worked in developer relations were cut during the company’s mass layoffs. And the company’s developer forums are filled with posts from confused developers looking for answers. The company no longer has a communications team, and its press email auto-responds with a poop emoji.”

New York Times: Senior Twitter Lawyer Resigns, the Latest in a Series of Executive Departures. “The lawyer, Christian Dowell, rose to the top of Twitter’s legal department in recent months after the company’s legal leaders resigned or were fired by Mr. Musk. Mr. Dowell had been intimately involved in Twitter’s recent negotiations with the Federal Trade Commission, two people familiar with those discussions said.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Gizmodo: Google CEO Says an AI Chatbot Is Coming to Search… Eventually. “Following in the footsteps of competitor Microsoft—which added the same tech behind ChatGPT to Bing earlier this year—Google is on its own path to include a chatbot in its own search engine. When? Well, CEO Sundar Pichai was delightfully vague on the timeline.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: India startups call for antitrust probe of Google in-app billing fee. “Top startups in India have called on the country’s competition watchdog to launch an inquiry into Alphabet’s Google for allegedly bypassing an antitrust directive by charging a high service fee for in-app payments, a filing shows.”

Hindustan Times Tech: Internet firms to lose safe harbour on not removing content flagged by govt notified fact checker. “Internet firms like Google, Facebook and Twitter may lose protection under safe harbour if they fail to remove content identified by the government-notified fact-checker as false or misleading information, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Thursday.”

Bloomberg: Vietnam Warns TikTok, Social Media Apps Over ‘Toxic’ Content. “Vietnam’s communications ministry said TikTok isn’t doing enough to remove toxic and false content and warned that the government could soon take measures to restrict operations of the popular social media platform and others seen as violating national laws.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Adelaide: AI art vending machine seeks human connection. “The chassis is made of concrete and an annex cage contains a camera, display screen, and microphone. The camera recognises when a person is standing in front of it, and once they’ve pushed the button to start, the machine greets them and initiates a spoken conversation. Users can then collaborate with the machine to create an artwork gift, which is determined by the ‘opinion’ the machine forms of the user.”

Georgetown University: Massive Data Institute partners with leading data scientists at Howard and Morgan State Universities. “The Massive Data Institute (MDI) at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy is partnering with researchers at Howard University and Morgan State University to develop the Environmental Impact Data Collaborative (EIDC), a data and computing infrastructure that will support community groups, policymakers and scholars in their efforts to make environmental policy more effective and just.”

The Guardian: ChatGPT is making up fake Guardian articles. Here’s how we’re responding. “Huge amounts have been written about generative AI’s tendency to manufacture facts and events. But this specific wrinkle – the invention of sources – is particularly troubling for trusted news organisations and journalists whose inclusion adds legitimacy and weight to a persuasively written fantasy.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

The Verge: This AI clock uses ChatGPT to generate tiny poems that tell the time. “ChatGPT has been one of the internet’s favorite toys for months now, but people are still finding novel and fun ways to use the AI chatbot. Case in point is this rhyming E Ink clock created by designer and blogger Matt Webb. It uses ChatGPT to create a short two-line rhyme that also tells the time for every minute of the day.” Good morning, Internet…

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