NEW RESOURCES

Phys .org: Database stores names for family members in 1,200+ languages. “Fiona Jordan, professor of anthropology from the University of Bristol, has been working with colleagues from Australia, Finland, and Brazil to develop KinBank—a catalog of more than 1,200 languages and their words for family members—known as kinship terminology. It features more than 210,000 kinship terms ranging from cousins to great-grandparents.”

Vanderbilt University: Vanderbilt launches free online ChatGPT course, shaping the future of AI education. “Jules White, associate dean for strategic learning programs and associate professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University, is making ChatGPT more accessible and useful for the broader public with the launch of his free online Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT course on the Coursera platform.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Cornell Chronicle: Merlin milestone: App now helps ID birds worldwide. “The free Merlin Bird ID app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology just hit a major milestone: The digital field guide and ID assistant can now help users identify birds in any country – a grand total of 10,315 species.”

Yahoo Sports: Shaquille O’Neal finally served in FTX lawsuit while covering Celtics-Heat in Miami . “O’Neal, who has been apparently ‘dodging’ lawyers representing FTX investors for months, was finally served a complaint Tuesday that’s part of a proposed class-action lawsuit filed against the failed cryptocurrency company, Adam Moskowitz, a lawyer representing the FTX investors, confirmed to People.”

Bloomberg: Microsoft to Add Bing Search to OpenAI’s ChatGPT in Battle With Google. “Microsoft Corp. is bringing its Bing search engine to OpenAI Inc.’s ChatGPT, further tightening ties with the artificial intelligence startup in a bid to challenge Google.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NPR: Ron DeSantis debuts presidential bid in a glitch-ridden Twitter ‘disaster’. “It was supposed to be a historic moment for Twitter: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would smoothly kick off his presidential candidacy on the social media platform. An uninterrupted conversation between DeSantis and Twitter CEO Elon Musk would be live-streamed on Twitter Spaces to mark the event. But instead, the live audio event was beset with technical malfunctions. After some 20 minutes of crashing and echoing and chaos, it abruptly ended.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: EU, Google to develop voluntary AI pact ahead of new AI rules, EU’s Breton says. “Alphabet and the European Commission aim to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) pact involving European and non-European companies before rules are established to govern the technology, EU industry chief Thierry Breton said on Wednesday.”

Dutch News: Dutch consumers group plans privacy case against Google. “Dutch consumers lobby group Consumentenbond said on Tuesday it is preparing a mass claim against Google for infringing the privacy of users. The watchdog claims that the American tech company is collecting a large amount of sensitive information about users, much of which consumers are unaware of.”

Omaha World-Herald: Bill passes to create video archive of Nebraska legislative activity. “Legislative Bill 254, introduced by State Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon, passed on a 48-0 vote. The measure would require the creation of a digital archive of video coverage of legislative debate and public hearings starting with the 2025 session.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Scientific American: People, Not Google’s Algorithm, Create Their Own Partisan ‘Bubbles’ Online. “A study published today in Nature found that Google’s search engine does not return disproportionately partisan results. Instead politically polarized Google users tend to silo themselves by clicking on links to partisan news sites. These findings suggest that, at least when it comes to Google searches, it may be easier for people to escape online echo chambers than previously thought—but only if they choose to do so.”

The Verge: A Google DeepMind AI language model is now making descriptions for YouTube Shorts. “Google just combined DeepMind and Google Brain into one big AI team, and on Wednesday, the new Google DeepMind shared details on how one of its visual language models (VLM) is being used to generate descriptions for YouTube Shorts, which can help with discoverability.”

The Packer: Survey measures impact of rising costs, stress, social media on food choices. “The survey showed 4 in 10 Americans (42%) said they have come across social media content about food and nutrition in the past year. Predictably, exposure to this content is inversely proportional with age, with Gen Z (71%) and millennials (58%) reporting the highest exposure, as compared to older generations, the survey said. Two-thirds said they trust that information at least a little (46%) or a lot (21%), the survey found.” Good morning, Internet…

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