Coming wave of video games could build empathy on racism, environment and aftermath of war
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2021/03/16/video-games-and-vr-tackle-racism-environment-and-aftermath-war/4718952001/
“Our America” and four other projects will evenly split $125,000 from Unity, the company announced Tuesday at the Game Developers Conference, which runs online through Friday. Each project may also get technical, marketing, and fundraising support from Unity.
- Ahi Kā Rangers: An ecological mobile game with development led by Māori creators.
- Dot’s Home: A game that explores historical housing injustices faced by Black and brown home buyers.
- Future Aleppo: A VR experience for children to rebuild homes and cities destroyed by war.
- Samudra: A children’s environmental puzzle game that takes the player across a polluted sea to learn about pollution and plastic waste.
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more on empathy in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=empathy
https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/whatsapp-ceo-on-the-controversy-surrounding-proposed-german-communications-laws-a-2e6f4c52-4a39-4117-8199-1606e1f3ac87
Cathcart: Let me be very clear: We cannot read your messages, we cannot listen to your calls. When you send your location over WhatsApp, we do not know where you are.
DER SPIEGEL: But you do save data about your users like the device ID, the phone model, the WhatsApp user name, the phone book and thereby also the numbers of all their contacts, right?
DER SPIEGEL: Apple has recently introduced privacy labels that resemble nutritional labels about what kind of data an app collects and what it doesn’t. Why don’t you do something similar?
DER SPIEGEL: A new German law, if passed, would mean that WhatsApp would have to hand over account data to law enforcement. Do you hand over data about your customers to government agencies?
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more on WhatsApp in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=whatsapp
Gig economy: Europe tells companies to negotiate with workers or face new laws – Europe’s lawmakers have a message for “gig-economy” companies—get negotiating with unions and other workers’ representatives, or face new EU-wide legislation. from r/Futurology
https://fortune.com/2021/02/24/gig-economy-europe-worker-rights-eu/
Around 11% of the EU’s workforce—so, 24 million people—is estimated to have provided services through digital platforms at least once. Of those, 3 million do so for their primary source of income, 9 million for their secondary source, and nearly 7 million as an occasional income source.
Uber, notably, has already tried to lobby EU legislators on the topic. Early last week, it released a white paper arguing for a similar regulatory approach to that taken in California, where voters last November backed a ballot initiative cementing independent contractor status for Uber’s and Lyft’s drivers.
However, that argument was undermined within days by the U.K.’s Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled that Uber’s drivers are in fact workers rather than independent contractors, and therefore deserve the minimum wage and annual paid leave.
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more on gig economy in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=%22gig+economy%22
Polymer cables could replace Thunderbolt & USB, deliver more than twice the speed from r/gadgets
https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/08/polymer-cables-could-replace-thunderbolt-with-105-gbps-data-transfers
Researchers are working on a cabling system that could provide data transfer speeds multiple times faster than existing USB connections using an extremely thin polymer cable, in a system that echoes the design path of Thunderbolt.
While the “increasingly bulky and costly” copper could be replaced by fiber optic cables, that introduces its own issues. As silicon chips have difficulty dealing with photons, this makes the interconnection between the cable and the computers more challenging to optimize.
The polymer can also use sub-terahertz electromagnetic signals, which is more energy-efficient than copper at high data loads. It is believed this efficiency brings it close to that of fiber optic systems, but crucially with better compatibility with silicon chips.
It seems plausible that such a system could be employed for a future Thunderbolt-style connection, allowing it to go far beyond the current 40Gbps upper limit.
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more on USB in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=usb
“CCC Webinar – Copyright Basics for Academia”
Date Time: Mar 4, 2021 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
CopyRight Clearance Center
John Savage, not a legal advise, this is a seminar. jsavage@copyright.com. Client Engagement Manager. License agreements, additional solutions
the velocity of content sharing is on the rise. an average of 9 per week. sharing not only internal, but external sources.
CCC, founded 1978, non profit, reproduction rights organziation, like many other countries (Japan has 3). started as a licensing organization. navigate vast amount of data, make informed decisions. 16.5% possibility for unlicensed sharing of info.
THe COVID situation increased further content sharing.
methods for sharing content are shifting. email remains the preferred method of sharing. Intranet posting remains. MS Teams, Google Meet, Slack and other collaboration tools
purpose of copyright. US Constitution, Article 1, Section B
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times…”
US copyright law protects the rights of authors of “original works of authorship”
106 exclusive rights of the rights holder. 5 exclusive rights: reproduction; distribution of copies ; create a derivative work; perform publicly; display publicly.
After 1978 (70 years rule, after author’s death), the author has copyrights
Works for hire, anonymous, 95 years from publication, 120 years
public domain: works of the US federal government when used in the US.
works published before 1926; from 1926 to 1963 failed to register or renew copyright registration; prior to 1989 and failed to include copyright notice
OER: logistical nightmare; open doesn’t always mean free; fair use may not apply; copyright permissions may be difficult and expensive
copyright registration : creates a searchable public record; required to sue for infringement
copyright notice: not required but recommended; copyright registration not required to display the copyright symbol (since 1989).
attribution: not a substitute for permission
public domain: does not mean “publicly available”
copyright infringement
- limitations and exceptions
US Code Title 17, Chapter 1 # 101 #107 3108 #109 #110 #122
Fair Use: it is a legal defense. attempt to balance rights of
4 Fair Use factors considered by courts. it can be slippery slope
#110(1) performance and display in the classroom. in a F2F classroom, copies to help students is allowed. in the course of teaching activities. for non profit ed institutions
#110(2) for online distance education TEACH Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act of 2002
#108 reproduction by libraries and archives. exemptions ILL and coped for patrons. Digital copies for library’s own use . for preservation and replacement. No more then a single copy per patron. also limitations on types of materials.
annual copyright license
campus-wide coverage
get it now service (document delivery service). Augments ILL operation. In cooperatin with Elsevier and more
pay per view services on copyright.com
http://www.copyright.com/learn
Q&A:
Is copyright permission needed for URL use in the classroom? If so, what are the best methods for obtaining copyright permission for URLs?
What solutions does CCC provide for libraries wanting to provide electronic article access to students for their courses for material they don’t subscribe to.
How can one found out if one’s library is covered by a campus-wide license.
I am working with a student who would like to include figures from published academic articles and books in his dissertation. If he is not able to obtain permissions before the due date, does it seem like this would fall under fair use for academic purposes (not publishing or profit)? Thank you.
How does controlled digital lending (CDL) operate in an academic environment. Can you digitize an analog book owned by the library for posting in Moodle to support distance learning?
How can a user know what is and what is not the core of the document? or Book?
What about providing a link to an article or other material that is publicly available when you click on the link? How/why is that different from printing it and distributing it?
Can an author send her article to participants in the journal club? (journal not subscribed to by library or attendees).
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more on copyright in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=copyright
AI progress depends on us using less data, not more
A minimal-data practice will enable several AI-driven industries — including cyber security, which is my own area of focus — to become more efficient, accessible, independent, and disruptive.
1. AI has a compute addiction. The growing fear is that new advancements in experimental AI research, which frequently require formidable datasets supported by an appropriate compute infrastructure, might be stemmed due to compute and memory constraints, not to mention the financial and environmental costs of higher compute needs.
MIT researchers estimated that “three years of algorithmic improvement is equivalent to a 10 times increase in computing power.”
2. Big data can mean more spurious noise.
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more on infodemic in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=infodemic