NEW RESOURCES

Consumer Reports: Consumer Reports Introduces Free ‘Permission Slip by CR’ App to Empower Consumers to Take Back Control of Their Personal Data . “Permission Slip makes it easy for consumers to manage their personal information. Users can swipe through companies that may have their data, and with a simple tap, send a request for the company to delete their account or stop selling their information.”

EVENTS

Engadget: NASA will reveal what OSIRIS-REx brought back from asteroid Bennu on Wednesday. “NASA will give the public a look at the asteroid sample brought back to Earth by its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft next week. A livestream of the reveal is set for 11 AM ET on Wednesday, October 11. The capsule containing rocks and dust taken from the surface of the near-Earth asteroid ‘Bennu’ touched down at a Department of Defense training site in the Utah desert on September 24, and scientists have since been at work making their initial analyses.”

USEFUL STUFF

New York Times: How to Make the Audio in Your Projects Sound Better. “Even if you don’t plan to start a podcast, understanding digital audio a bit more can make other tasks like recording Grandma’s stories for a family-history archive or adding a narration track to your vacation videos sound much cleaner. Here’s an overview.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Boing Boing: Twitter running shady undisclosed ads that look an awful lot like those new unheadlined link previews. “A couple of days ago, Twitter removed headlines from embedded links to other websites. Today, the other shoe dropped: advertisements with the same design, making them look very similar to news stories and other links. You can’t report, block, like or retweet them, and there’s no disclosure or other indication that it’s an ad.”

The Verge: Pokémon’s Van Gogh collaboration turned out to be kind of a disaster. “The horde of people that descended upon the Van Gogh Museum yesterday to snatch up as much merchandise as they could was the first sign that the Pokémon x Van Gogh collaboration might be a bit more chaotic than expected. While there was hope that all the fracas might die down and give everyone a chance to get in on the fun, unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’s going to be the case.”

Chicago Tribune: Puerto Rican museum in Humboldt Park to tear down archives building amid complaints, lawsuit and find new site. “It resembles a German style of architecture that is ‘very unusual’ in Chicago, according to the Chicago Park District, and is home to the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture. But when the museum began construction about a year ago — without proper permits — on a cinder-block structure for archives beside the Chicago landmark, some residents and preservation groups were alarmed, calling it an eyesore that blemished the area’s historic charm and didn’t involve enough community input.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Changed Ad Auctions, Raising Prices 15%, Witness Says. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google changed its advertising auction formula in 2017, raising prices by 15% and likely making the company billions of dollars in additional revenue, according to an economist testifying for the US Justice Department in the antitrust case against the search giant.”

Troy Record (New York): Ashby sponsors legislation to create inventory database of vacant state facilities and unused property. “State Sen. Jake Ashby hopes the state will create an inventory database of vacant state facilities and unused property. Ashby (R,C-Castleton) said he wants to prevent the state from contracting to lease or construct new facilities when existing ones could be repurposed more cost-effectively. Additionally, given the state’s accelerating budget shortfall, selling properties that have been vacant for many years could be a prudent measure that simultaneously cuts costs and juices revenue. Ashby is sponsoring legislation (S.7665).”

Route Fifty: The hazards of facial recognition in schools. “New York has banned the emerging technology in its schools, arguing that the concerns surrounding it ‘are not outweighed by the claimed benefits.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Dartmouth University: K-Pop Fans Helped COVID-19 Public Health Messaging Go Viral. “When health officials and agencies such as Tedros leveraged entertainment groups like ‘#BTS’ into their public health messages on COVID-19, this generated 111 times more virality or retweets, according to a new Dartmouth-led study.”

University of Waterloo: Gen Z imagines innovative finance tools using virtual reality and 5G. “Banking with a virtual reality headset may not be as far-fetched as you might think after students from the University of Waterloo’s startup incubator Velocity wrapped up a two-week-long ‘hackathon’, an innovation challenge aimed at augmenting the future of finance with VR and high-speed wireless technology.”

Newswise: You Are What Your Food Influencer Is Eating: UNLV Social Media Experts Team on Mukbang Study. “Ever find yourself inexplicably sucked into (another!) video of social media influencer downing a massive feast of 100 different kinds of shrimp? You can’t scroll past. And before you know it, you’re craving crustaceans, making reservations at that new seafood restaurant, and searching for recipes. We’ve got one word for you: mukbang.” Good morning, Internet…

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