The Verge: Telegram’s group video calls can now have up to 1,000 viewers. “Telegram has announced the latest new features and improvements making their way to the popular messaging app. Video is the focus this time around. After launching group video calls last month, those sessions are now able to tally up to 1,000 viewers.”
Ubergizmo: Older Kindle Models Will Lose Their Internet Access In December. “The big deal here is that by no longer being able to access the internet, these Kindle devices cannot download new content wirelessly. Amazon says that your purchased content will stay where it is, and if you’ve already downloaded it you can keep reading it on your device, but future content will no longer be possible.”
Datebook: Review: Kids books take on the upside-down world of the pandemic. “What did the shutdown mean for families and communities? What has been the impact of COVID-19 — big and small, close to home and faraway? Where can optimism be found? Some recent books — fiction, nonfiction and picture books — take up these questions and help all of us reflect on this unprecedented time.”
Route Fifty: It’s a Pivotal Moment for Expanding High-Speed Internet Access. “As the pandemic forced people to work from home, and children to attend school online, it put a harsh spotlight on service and affordability gaps. On the upside, there’s billions in new federal funding available for broadband initiatives under ARPA, and the bipartisan infrastructure framework that U.S. Senate lawmakers voted to move ahead with on Wednesday includes $65 billion for high-speed internet investments.”
Tubefilter: Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” Rickrolls Its Way Past 1 Billion YouTube Views. “The cult-favorite music video for Rick Astley’s 1987 single ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ has joined YouTube’s illustrious 1 billion views club. YouTube notes that the video emerged as an unexpected smash thanks to the ‘Rickrolling‘ meme, which sees pranksters proffering an enticing link that is actually a bait-and-switch for the ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ music video.”
AP: Missouri AG sues over St. Louis area mask mandate. “The attorney general in Missouri has sued in an effort to halt a mask mandate that took effect Monday in the St. Louis area amid a rise in COVID-19 cases that are burdening a growing number of hospitals around the state.”
GameRant: Zelda Fan Creates a Google Maps-esque Website for Breath of Wild. “Nassim Software is a software designer and Zelda fan. One idea he had was the idea of creating something akin to Google Maps for Breath of the Wild, where one could get a 360-degree picture of a location when taken to a certain place. This set in motion the project to create a Breath of the Wild street view site.”
CNET: Hospitalized young patients ‘run the bases’ at Dodger Stadium, via robots. “Young patients at a Los Angeles hospital got to run the bases at Dodger Stadium, virtually at least, thanks to telepresence robots that transported them from their beds onto the baseball field. With tablets in hand, 10 patients at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital moved the wheeled robots around the diamond, and even chatted with Los Angeles Dodgers players face to face.”
Techdirt: Top German Court Says Facebook Must Inform Users About Deleting Their Posts Or Suspending Their Account, Explain Why, And Allow Them To Respond. “We’ve just written about Germany’s constitutional court grappling with the issue of whether government users of zero-days for surveillance have a responsibility to report the flaws they use to the relevant developers. Another senior court in the country has been pondering an even thornier question that is occupying judges and lawmakers around the world: how should social media police so-called ‘hate speech’ on their services in a way that respects fundamental rights on all sides?”
CNN: This Florida mother has been living in her teen daughter’s ICU room for days, praying she survives Covid-19. “Agnes Velasquez remembers the last words her teen daughter said before Covid-19 severely attacked her respiratory system. ‘She told me that she loved me,’ said Velasquez, who rushed her daughter to the hospital. Velasquez spoke with CNN on a video call from the ICU room at Broward Health Medical Center where her 15-year-old daughter, Paulina, has been battling Covid-19 for about 10 days.”
ARTNews: Hermitage Museum to Sell Monet, Leonardo Paintings as NFTs. “The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, is minting several masterpieces from its collection as NFTs. The sale of NFT versions of works by Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, and Leonardo da Vinci will take place at the end of August on the Binance online marketplace.”
TechCrunch: Pittsburgh Google contractors ratify deal with HCL. “Nearly two years ago, contractors for Google’s Pittsburgh operations voted to join the United Steelworkers union in a bid to secure more labor rights representation. It was an early example of a building union movement for tech workers across the spectrum. But as other hard-fought battles have been waged among blue and white collar workers alike, both sides have continued hashing out negotiations. This week, those have finally resulted in something more concrete.”
Washington Post: WFT’s player vaccination rate lags behind rest of NFL, frustrating Ron Rivera. “On the first day of training camp, Washington Football Team Coach Ron Rivera walked to the podium for his introductory news conference wearing a black mask. As of Monday, his team ranked last in the NFL in player vaccination rate at 60 percent, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.”
Daily Beast: From Super-Spreader Sex Houses to Nude Beach Fistfights, Vaccinated Partying Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be. “After being woken up by the sound of a little dog below me humping his favorite teddy bear, I crawl down the ladder of a kid bunk bed and head downstairs to assess the damage of last night’s debauchery. Cigarette butts, empty wine bottles, and half eaten baguettes litter the kitchen and pool area of this mini French mansion my friend Jackie is currently dog sitting at. There’s puke around the toilet in the ‘cave’ downstairs, a hot Frenchie sashaying through the kitchen in his gunties, still high on X, and a middle-aged dude starfished face up on these people’s shmancy leather couch, completely naked. Goddamn it’s good to be going back to normal!”
Miami Herald: Florida sets a record with 21,683 new COVID-19 cases reported Saturday, the CDC says. “That’s a jump over the previous record, 19,334, on Jan. 7, during the worst month of the pandemic, when daily case counts were routinely topping 10,000. It was the second peak of the pandemic and in the months following cases returned to average levels of between 2,000 and 8,000 daily cases.”
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