NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Celebrating 50 years of hip-hop. “For hip-hop’s golden milestone, we worked with Google Arts & Culture who partnered with hip-hop experts and institutions across the board to create a ‘cultural sampler’ honoring the impact the genre has on American culture, from social equity to fashion, music videos to local city pride, old school to trap. With 30+ curated stories and 960+ high resolution photographs and videos from 9 cultural organizations, you can get a taste of the key elements of hip-hop. Read on for 7 must-see stories.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Moscow Times: Google Blocks Workspace Apps for Sanctioned Russian Firms – Kommersant. “Google has started blocking its popular workplace apps for Russian companies under U.S. sanctions, the Kommersant business daily reported Friday, citing anonymous sources at two major IT companies. Around 30% of Russian companies’ corporate information is stored on Google Workspace services, which include Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Drive and other cloud-based tools, according to one of the sources’ estimates.”

Unseen Japan: Japan Earthquake Alert App Says Sayonara to X. “Japan’s best safety app for natural disasters will withdraw from X (formerly Twitter). 1.9M followers have relied on the app NERV for live information about real-time natural disasters and weather reports. Now, this life-saving information will begin its fadeout from the social media platform.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: Generative AI Is Making Companies Even More Thirsty for Your Data. “The outcry over Zoom’s tweak to its data policy shows how the race to build more powerful AI models creates new pressure to source training data—including by juicing it from users.”

CBC: B.C. woman buried in Amazon packages she did not ask for and does not want. “Almost every day, Anca Nitu comes home from work to find an Amazon package she did not order at her doorstep. For the past two months, Nitu says she’s received more than 50 parcels containing women’s shoes at her home in Langley, B.C. They were sent by people across North America who intended to return them to the Amazon seller, with each box containing a return authorization slip to her address.”

The Messenger: Authors Are Calling Out A Computer Scientist For Adding Their Work To His AI-Powered Website. “In recent Book Twitter controversy, a computer scientist shut down his AI website following backlash from authors — some of whom he stole from. In 2017, Benji Smith created Prosecraft, a linguistic tool meant to help aspiring writers with their work. This was done by writers inserting their stories into a desktop word processor Smith made called Shaxpir and comparing them to over 25,000 books in Prosecraft’s database.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

PetaPixel: All DJI Apps on Google Play are Frauds and Are Stealing Users’ Money. “The company published a warning to its users on the DJI Forums stating that there are some apps that will appear that imitate official DJI Apps (such as the DJI Fly – Go for Drone models or the DJI Earning app) that appear legitimate but instead seek to steal or defraud anyone who downloads them, DIY Photography reports. DJI’s official apps aren’t even listed on Google Play at all.”

Axios: Congress may let jet owners like Elon Musk block flight info. “Elon Musk and other private jet owners may soon be able to stop the public from learning about their flights, thanks to the FAA reauthorization bill recently passed by the House. Why it matters: Such information has proven useful to journalists and other researchers — but some plane owners, including Musk, have argued that it can pose a security risk.”

Washington Post: China hacked Japan’s sensitive defense networks, officials say. “Tokyo has taken steps to strengthen its networks. But they are still deemed not sufficiently secure from Beijing’s prying eyes, which, officials say, could impede greater intelligence-sharing between the Pentagon and Japan’s Defense Ministry. The 2020 penetration was so disturbing that Gen. Paul Nakasone, the head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, and Matthew Pottinger, who was White House deputy national security adviser at the time, raced to Tokyo. They briefed the defense minister, who was so concerned that he arranged for them to alert the prime minister himself.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNN: Linda Yaccarino was pressed about the chaos on Elon Musk’s X. Her answers were detached from reality. “Linda Yaccarino is living in a world of delusion. The Twitter/X figurehead on Thursday made a number of wild — and outright laughable — claims about the Elon Musk-owned company where she holds the title (at least on paper) as chief executive, seemingly unaware of the grim state of affairs at the imperiled platform.”

University College London: Social media use interventions alleviate symptoms of depression. “Receiving therapy for problematic social media use can be effective in improving the mental wellbeing of people with depression, finds a new study by UCL researchers.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Running Doom In A Keycap Takes Careful Work. ” Shoehorning DOOM into different hardware is a classic hacker’s exercise, and [TheKeebProject] managed to squeeze the 1993 classic into a custom keycap with the help of a Raspberry Pi RP2040, a custom PCB, and a clear resin enclosure. It even has a speaker for sound!” Good morning, Internet…

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