NBC News: Facebook launches new tool to help users memorialize loved ones. “Facebook on Tuesday announced changes to how it handles the profiles of users who have died, including using artificial intelligence to help keep the profiles of deceased people from showing up in places that might cause distress.”
death
This Magazine: Will Our Data Lead Us To The Virtual Afterlife?
This Magazine: Will Our Data Lead Us To The Virtual Afterlife?. “When his father, John James Vlahos, was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, at the age of 80, James began racing to record his life stories. For months, he sat across from his dad with an audio recorder, asking questions and recording long answers and jokes he’d heard ‘a hundred times.’ In the end, he recorded 91,970 words. What began as an oral-history project quickly evolved into a quest to give his dad virtual immortality.”
TechCrunch: 20 years for swatter who got a man killed
TechCrunch: 20 years for swatter who got a man killed . “Tyler Barriss, a prolific and seemingly unremorseful repeat swatter and bomb hoaxer whose fakery got a man killed in 2017, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. This hopefully closes the book on a long and disturbing career of random and mercenary harassment and threats.”
Lifehacker: How to Prepare Your Digital Life for Your Death
Lifehacker: How to Prepare Your Digital Life for Your Death. “There are a number of ways loved ones can request access to your accounts once you’re gone, but they don’t need that stress. Several online services allow you to designate legacy contacts or grant access after a period of inactivity. Here’s how to make sure that those you leave behind are able to manage your affairs when you can’t anymore.”
BetaNews: Facebook is adding a Tributes section to memorialized accounts of deceased users
BetaNews: Facebook is adding a Tributes section to memorialized accounts of deceased users. “When a Facebook user dies, it is possible to transform their profile into a memorialized account. Facebook describes this as a ‘place for friends and family to gather and share memories after a person has passed away’. Now the social network is rolling out a new feature for memorialized profiles: Tributes. This is essentially a new section that appears on the page of deceased users where friends and family can post new content about their loved ones.”
Apple Insider: Court rules man must be given access to husband’s iCloud photos
Apple Insider: Court rules man must be given access to husband’s iCloud photos. “Apple must provide a man access to the iCloud account of his late husband so he can retrieve family photos shot with an iPhone and a dedicated camera, a New York judge has ruled.”
New Database of People Killed by Police and I’m A Little Leery
There is a new database aggregating information on people killed by police. It’s called People Killed by Police. The about page states: “To provide a much needed source of input on policing related issues and events in the United States, by an ex-SWAT officer and well known media personality DonutOperator, as well as to provide a single cohesive database of all individuals killed by police, as a replacement for killedbypolice.net which sadly shut down after many years of dedicated work.” DonutOperator is not a well-known personality to me, and I can’t find his real name on the site. This gives me pause. However, every listing from 2019 and 2018 that I checked had a news story link you can access by clicking “details.” None of the 2017 listings I looked at did. I might use this as a starting point or to gather names to investigate further, but I’m a little leery of denoting this as completely credible. (And if DonutOperator doesn’t want to use his real name, fine; he doesn’t owe me anything. But skepticism is pretty much required online nowadays.)
