Google Blog: Create a festive jingle with instruments from around the world. “Why not create your own jingle this festive season? Instrument Playground is a new Google AI powered experiment from Simon Doury, Artist in Residence at Google Arts & Culture Lab, that lets you create music inspired by instruments from around the globe.”
INTERPOL: INTERPOL unveils new biometric screening tool . “In mid-November, a fugitive migrant smuggler was subject to a police check… Wanted on organized crime and human trafficking charges since 2021, the smuggler presented himself as a fellow migrant under a false name, using a fraudulent identification document to avoid detection. The police check, however, was part of an INTERPOL operation that saw the Biometric Hub – a new tool that checks biometric data against the organization’s global fingerprint and facial recognition databases – used remotely for the first time.”
Centre for Economic Policy Research: The political economy of social media: A new eBook. “The emergence of social media has reshaped the way humans communicate, interact and coordinate with each other. Assessing the impact of this transformation on politics has been one of the great social science questions of the last or decade or so, and will continue to occupy researchers for a long time to come. A new CEPR eBook provides a snapshot of how economists have been trying to answer this question.”
Brookings Institution: How to improve government decisionmaking around edtech innovations. “As part of the Research on Scaling the Impact of Innovations in Education (ROSIE) project, we’ve been investigating how government decisionmakers choose education innovations for their countries—and the combination of forces shaping their decisionmaking. Our recent report examined these decision-making processes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly around educational technology (edtech).”
International Journalists’ Network: New tool tracks disinformation laws globally. “Amid the rise in disinformation today, journalists should look into legal measures adopted by countries around the world to combat it. Brazil’s Agência Lupa is helping reporters do just that, this month launching an interactive map showing national and supranational laws globally intended to legislate disinformation online. The tool, called LupaMundi, provides details about the legislation while helping users better understand the nature of the laws and how they could be used against journalists.”
PetaPixel: This Website Lets You Watch Sunsets From All Across The World. “Michael Turvey came up with the novel website called ‘Eternal Sunset’ which generates non-stop twilight hours for people to enjoy. Utilizing live webcams across the globe that broadcast on YouTube, viewers can see the sun setting on the Dubai Marina, St. Petersburg in Russia, and the Sydney Opera House in Australia.”
Poynter: International Fact-Checking Network awards $1 million to 20 groups to expand fact-checking operations. “Twenty groups have been awarded a total of $1 million in grants to help grow the capacity and sustainability of fact-checkers to fight misinformation around the world, the International Fact-Checking Network at the Poynter Institute announced Monday.”
Gothamist: Beloved NYC design store seeks new home for its extensive archive. “[KIOSK] was a place where you could find simple items from around the world, curated and arranged so that customers understood who made the objects and why they mattered. Now, the beloved emporium is looking for a new home for its archive of more than 1,500 objects – with a deadline of Thanksgiving to vacate from its current space.”
International Centre for Counter-Terrorism: Now Live: The Interlinkages Database. “The newly launched Interlinkages Database serves as a unique interactive repository of cases where alleged terrorists have been and are being prosecuted cumulatively for terrorism offences and core international crimes.”
Kyodo News: New U.N. panel to weigh benefits, risks of artificial intelligence. “U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres launched an advisory body of experts Thursday to discuss the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence as well as how the world can better control it. The group of 39 specialists, including a political analyst and anthropologist, will publish a set of recommendations by the summer of 2024 through an interim report due at the end of this year.”
ESCAP: New index reveals increasing risk in food systems across countries in Asia and the Pacific. “ESCAP and the WFP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific are launching the INsights on Food SystEm Risks (INFER) Framework, a data-driven approach for assessing multidimensional risks to food systems. INFER integrates up-to-date understanding of food systems with well-established concepts of risk based on three dimensions: hazard and exposure, vulnerability, and lack of adaptive capacity.”
ReliefWeb: CLIMB Database: Human Mobility in the Context of Disasters, Climate Change and Environmental Degradation Database. “This online database compiles over 1578 national policy instruments in 172 countries and over 230 bilateral and/or regional policy instruments containing provisions of relevance to human mobility in the context of disasters, the adverse effects of climate change, and environmental degradation.”
Waste Advantage Magazine: The Global Plastic Laws Database: A Resource to Track Policies Around the World. “The Global Plastic Laws Database is the most comprehensive tool to date to research, track, and visualize plastic legislation that has been passed around the world. The Database tracks legislation across the full life cycle of plastics and organizes these policies according to life cycle categories and key topics.”
Kyodo News: U.N. forum on internet governance begins in Kyoto, focus on AI. “A U.N. forum on public policy issues regarding the internet began in Kyoto on Sunday with focus on artificial intelligence and measures against disinformation. The results of the discussions at the Internet Governance Forum scheduled through Thursday will be utilized for the Hiroshima AI Process, in which the Group of Seven industrialized nations will establish rules on AI-related topics.”
TechCrunch: Google expands its subsea cable infrastructure with Nuvem, connecting the US, Bermuda and Portugal. “Google has announced another subsea cable system, as the internet giant strives to bolster its internet infrastructure and get more people using its array of cloud-based services. Dubbed ‘Nuvem,’ the new cable represents one of more than a dozen cables that Google has invested in through the years, starting with Unity, which went into operation in 2010, stretching more than 6,000 miles across the Pacific from Japan to California.”
