NEW RESOURCES

Animation World Network: Masterpiece Studio Releases New Text-to-3D Generative AI Tool. “Masterpiece Studio has announced the release of Masterpiece X – Generate, a generative AI tools for creating textured and animated 3D models from simple text prompts.”

Washington Post: Think you could make a safer social media site? This game lets you try. “Policymakers in Washington often accuse social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok of putting profits over people when making decisions about how to run their businesses. An educational game released Tuesday is looking to flip the script by putting users in charge of safety efforts at a fictional digital platform, an initiative aimed at teaching people about the thorny trade-offs tech companies face daily.”

EVENTS

Harvard Gazette: Murthy says social media hurting kids, time for government, tech firms to help. “It’s time for government and private industry to step up and reduce the mental health risks of social media for young people, according to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Murthy called the impact of digital platforms on teen well-being a ‘pivotal issue in public health’ during an event last Friday afternoon marking the launch of the Center for Digital Thriving at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 5 Best Alternatives to Google Sheets . “If you’re looking for other spreadsheet options, you’re in the right place. In this guide, we’ll introduce you to some of the top alternatives to Google Sheets. Each tool has its own special features, advantages, and disadvantages. Let’s dive in to learn more about them.” Not mentioned and heartily endorsed by me: Gnumeric.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The City: Tongue Twisted: Adams Taps AI to Make City Robocalls in Languages He Doesn’t Speak . “Mayor Eric Adams is using artificial intelligence to turn himself into a polyglot: sending out robocalls with his voice to New Yorkers in a slew of languages he does not speak — and spooking out ethics and privacy advocates.”

MariTalk: NARA Wants Agencies to Automate Social Media Records Retention. “The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is calling on Federal agencies to consider dedicating more resources to IT solutions that can automate the records retention of their social media records.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Wall Street Journal: The Crypto Exchange Moving Money for Criminal Gangs, Rich Russians and a Hamas-Linked Terror Group. “Despite its place on the U.S. blacklist, which restricts transactions with sanctioned entities, Garantex has become a major channel through which Russians move funds into and out of the country, according to trading data and people familiar with the firm. It has also been a vehicle for Russian cybercriminals to launder their earnings, U.S. authorities say.”

Bloomberg: South Africa goes after Google, Facebook, and ChatGPT. “South Africa has started a probe to gauge if artificial intelligence models, digital and social media platforms managed by companies including Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook are limiting the nation’s news and media companies’ ability to generate revenue.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Pete Warden: Why We’re Building an Open-Source Universal Translator. “One of the most common answers is a wearable earpiece. This is in line with Hitchhikers’ Babel Fish, but there are still massive technical obstacles to fitting the processing required into such a small device, even offloading compute to a phone would require a lot of radio and battery usage…. Instead, we’re building a small, unconnected box with a built-in display that can automatically translate between dozens of different languages.”

MarketWatch: Some teens are spending a quarter of their lives on social media. These are the sites sucking up their time.. “A Gallup poll finds that that 17-year-old girls spend about 6 hours a day across social media apps, and teens overall scroll for almost 5 hours a day on average.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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