NEW RESOURCES

New York Times: An Effort to Focus on Long Overlooked Roma Suffering in the Holocaust. “As many as a half million Romani people were killed by the Nazis, according to one estimate. A new database tells the story of that genocide and its impact on individual lives.”

The Oklahoman: Southern Baptist Convention task force says development of sex abuse database continues. “A Southern Baptist Convention task force said it is in the midst of the vetting process for a highly anticipated database of sex offenders. The Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force shared its progress on Thursday as it unveiled a new website aimed at preventing sex abuse and rooting out predators within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. The task force said the new website, sbcabuseprevention.com, is an ‘online hub for abuse prevention resources’ across the denomination.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

National Diet Library (Japan): Integration of the NDL Online and NDL Search web services. “The National Diet Library, Japan, (the NDL) plans to integrate two of its current web services: the National Diet Library Online Search and Request Service (NDL Online) and the NDL Search. These two will be launched as a new NDL Search web service in January 2024.”

Vivaldi: Massive code refactoring brings speed to Vivaldi. “Our new version on desktop – Vivaldi 6.2 – is now faster, especially when you open a new window. By rendering browser windows through React portals, we’ve unlocked new possibilities, reduced memory usage, and significantly improved overall performance.”

TechCrunch: The fall of Babylon: Failed telehealth startup once valued at $2B goes bankrupt, sold for parts. “It’s the end of the road for Babylon Health, the London telehealth startup once valued at nearly $2 billion after being backed by the likes of the founders of DeepMind and deep-pocketed health insurance companies. After the company’s U.S. shares became worthless and its operation turned insolvent earlier this month, last night, the U.K. subsidiary of the business formally went into administration. At the same time, the administrators sold a large chunk of its assets to eMed Healthcare UK, a new subsidiary of U.S. company eMed.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Wall Street Journal: In Exile in Berlin, Ukrainian Artists Confront the War. “Like many other Ukrainian artists, [Vlada] Ralko and [Volodymir] Budnikov are processing the trauma of Russia’s aggression while in exile in Berlin. Some 1.2 million Ukrainians have poured into Germany since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, and the capital, where about 10% of the refugees live, has become a hub of Ukraine’s cultural diaspora. Visual artists, performers, writers and filmmakers are responding to the war while helping to change the perception of Ukrainian art and culture.”

NBC News: Ads for AI sex workers are flooding Instagram and TikTok. “Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have tried to keep a tight lid on sexualized content in recent years, banning nudity outright in almost all cases, kicking off sex workers and even cracking down on some artists and educators who speak frankly about sexual health and safety. But a new kind of sexualized content has lately been getting through their moderation systems: ads for scantily clad and dirty-talking chatbots, powered by what their creators say is artificial intelligence.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: New York police will use drones to monitor backyard parties this weekend, spurring privacy concerns. “Those attending outdoor parties or barbecues in New York City this weekend may notice an uninvited guest looming over their festivities: a police surveillance drone. The New York City police department plans to pilot the unmanned aircrafts in response to complaints about large gatherings, including private events, over Labor Day weekend, officials announced Thursday.”

Washington Post: Trump’s Truth Social facing a key funding deadline. “With the merger stalled for months, Digital World is fast approaching a Sept. 8 deadline for the merger to close and has scheduled a shareholder meeting for Tuesday in hopes of getting enough votes to extend the deadline another year. If the vote fails, Digital World will be required by law to liquidate and return $300 million to its shareholders, leaving Trump’s company with nothing from the transaction.”

Slate: The Volunteer Moms Poring Over Archives to Prove Clarence Thomas Wrong. “[Jennifer] Birch is one of about 20 volunteers with Moms Demand Action, part of the gun safety group Everytown, who are scouring archives across the United States for historical firearm regulations. The project is far from academic.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Kansas: Influential ‘Instavangelists’ Blur Line Between Religion And Social Media. “Social media has radically changed the way we do things, from communicating to purchasing to learning to voting. But according to a new article, it’s also transformed the way we define religion — particularly among women.”

The Register: What happens when What3Words gets lost in translation?. “What3Words, the website and app that translates physical coordinates into short memorable combinations of words, has been praised and criticized over the years. Now a computer scientist at the University of Exeter in the UK has formally described in a paper how confusion can arise from the geocoding algorithm used by What3Words, and questioned its fitness for directing emergency services to incident locations.” Good morning, Internet…

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