Monthly archives: July, 2019

Google’s 4,000-Word Privacy Policy Is a Secret History of the Internet

The New York Times – “The late 1990s was a simpler time for Google. The nascent company was merely a search engine, and Gmail, Android and YouTube were but glimmers in the startup’s eye. Google’s first privacy policy reflected that simplicity. It was short and earnest, a quaint artifact of a different time in Silicon …

Subjects: E-Commerce, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines

Amazon Alexa will now be giving out health advice to UK citizens

MIT Technology Review – “The UK’s National Health Service hopes that its partnership with Amazon could help to reduce demand on its services. The news: From this week, when UK users ask their Amazon smart speaker health-related questions, it will automatically search the official NHS website, which is full of medically-backed health tips and advice. …

Subjects: AI, E-Records, Health Care, Privacy

GPO Digitizes Public Papers of the Presidents

“The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) and the National Archives’ Office of the Federal Register (OFR) have digitized volumes of The Public Papers of the Presidents for Presidents Herbert Hoover (1929) through George H.W. Bush (1990), with the exception of the Franklin D. Roosevelt presidency. The papers of President Franklin Roosevelt were published privately before …

Subjects: E-Government, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research, Libraries

Seeds of life: The plants suited to climate change

BBC – “Experts at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, selected 11 seeds from plants and trees that may be better suited to climate change than other species. Using a scanning electron microscope, artist Rob Kesseler created striking colourised images of the seeds in extraordinary detail. The five experts at Kew in London chose the species based …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Knowledge Management

OCLC Research Mini-symposium on the Discovery and Use of Open Collections

“Description – As the volume of digitized heritage collections continues to grow, memory institutions are challenged to making this open content discoverable and usable across repositories. At this mini-symposium in Leiden, guests… learn[ed] about research & development work done in the area of digital image interoperability (IIIF), corpus-building and deep interactions with open collections by …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Libraries, Search Engines

Trusted data and the future of information sharing

MIT Technology Review – How policy innovation is promoting data sharing and AI. “Data in some form underpins almost every action or process in today’s modern world. Consider that even farming, the world’s oldest industry, is on the verge of a digital revolution, with AI, drones, sensors, and blockchain technology promising to boost efficiencies. The market …

Subjects: AI, Economy, Education, Financial System, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

NOAA designates new national marine sanctuary in Maryland

NOAA – Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary, about 40 miles south of Washington, D.C., will be the first national marine sanctuary designated since 2000.  “The designation of Mallows Bay as a national marine sanctuary is an exciting milestone for NOAA and an opportunity for the public to celebrate and help protect this piece of …

Subjects: Climate Change, Education, Environmental Law

The State of LinkedIn – A Twitter Parody

The State of LinkedIn – @StateOfLinkedIn – “LinkedIn is a breeding ground for lies & brown-nosing. Exposing the worst. We are in no way associated with LinkedIn, so class us as a parody.” Barry Barnes owns the Twitter account The State of LinkedIn with 104,000 followers. Via FT.com (paywall) [he tweets a] curated selection of …

Subjects: Marketing, Social Media

Firefox 68 arrives with darker reader view, recommended extensions, IT customizations

VentureBeat: “Mozilla today launched Firefox 68 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Firefox 68 includes a darker reader view, recommended extensions, IT Pro customizations, and more. Firefox 68 for desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. The Android version is trickling …

Subjects: Internet, Privacy, Search Engines

Americans Shouldn’t Have to Drive, but the Law Insists on It

The Atlantic – Gregory H. Shill – The automobile took over because the legal system helped squeeze out the alternatives. “…In America, the freedom of movement comes with an asterisk: the obligation to drive. This truism has been echoed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has pronounced car ownership a “virtual necessity.” The Court’s pronouncement …

Subjects: Climate Change, Energy, Legal Research, Transportation