NEW RESOURCES

Midwestern State University: WFMA brings new tool for learning, research. “After years of hard work, the Wichita Falls Museum of Art at MSU Texas is thrilled to announce that its Collection Database is now LIVE on its website…. Consisting primarily of works on paper by American artists, the Permanent Collection holds more than 1,600 fine art pieces from 1677 to the present. The Collection also includes paintings, sculptures, and historical photographs.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Tubefilter: ‘Minecraft’ takes hard line on NFTs, other promotions with policy changes for creators. “Some changes are coming to Minecraft. In an update to the game’s End-User License Agreement (EULA), Microsoft (which acquired Minecraft developer Mojang in 2014) revealed new rules governing creators, their usage of the game, and their promotional strategies.”

The Verge: The Verge Launches “Installer,” a Newsletter About the Next Big Things to Download, Watch, and Explore. “Led by editor-at-large David Pierce, ‘Installer’ will be a guide to all the best apps, movies, and shows, and the coolest tips, tricks, and hacks sourced from true experts in the field.”

USEFUL STUFF

Smashing Magazine: Designing Accessible Text Over Images: Best Practices, Techniques, And Resources (Part 2). “In Part 2 of the series, Hannah Milan reviews in detail various accessible text over images techniques for designing your web and mobile app content, including framing the image, soft-colored gradients technique, text styles and text position, solid color shapes, and use of colored backgrounds. And finally, the emphasis will once again be placed on the accessibility aspect, which needs to be ‘baked in’ right from the start rather than being an afterthought in your design process.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Axios: Fortnite is getting an unofficial Holocaust museum . “The virtual building, called the Voices of the Forgotten Museum, will let players walk its halls to read plaques describing the genocide against Jews in Nazi Germany and see photos of Jewish resistance fighters and heroic individuals who sheltered Jews. While Fortnite is typically used as a cartoony multiplayer competitive shooting game, visitors to the Museum, which will be offered as a separate, peaceful experience, will not be able to play the game inside it.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Teens Hacked Boston Subway Cards to Get Infinite Free Rides—and This Time, Nobody Got Sued. “In 2008, Boston’s transit authority sued to stop MIT hackers from presenting at the Defcon hacker conference on how to get free subway rides. Today, four teens picked up where they left off.”

TechCrunch: Google pushes Match for more money in antitrust battle, court filing states. “Google has filed a new motion to the court in its antitrust battle with Epic Games and Match Group, where it claims that the dating app maker owes additional fees beyond the $40 million that had been previously set aside in escrow. Those funds are Google’s cut of Match’s in-app payments on Google Play that Match argues are ‘illegal under federal and state law’ — something the court case will decide. By Google’s calculations, the new figure should total around $84 million instead, based on Match’s public earnings.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Drum: Fraudsters are already tricking Google’s Performance Max – what if it got worse?. “Mathew Ratty, co-founder and chief executive officer at TrafficGuard, has been testing Google’s next-gen buying platform – he’s worried fraudulent signals will corrupt the machine learning system.”

Business Insider: Researchers from Stanford and Google have made an entire AI village. The 25 bots that live there gossip, work, and plan Valentine’s Day parties.. “A research team at Stanford and Google has created a virtual village where 25 artificial-intelligence agents lead lives eerily reminiscent of our own. The bots ‘wake up,’ chat about the latest town gossip, and even plan events like Valentine’s Day parties.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

MakeUseOf: How Specialized QR Codes Make Packaging More Accessible to People With Vision Impairments. “Blind and partially sighted people often carry a computer companion—a smartphone running at least one of a battery of applications that help them navigate the world. Now a group of companies is supercharging the capabilities of those apps through a very slightly modified QR code. And the first packages with the ‘accessible QR codes’ are already on UK shelves.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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