It’s not often you’ll find Microsoft, Amazon and Meta in the same room, collaborating on the same goals. But that’s exactly what we have with the Overture Maps Foundation, an initiative to develop interoperable and open map data.

Launched in December 2022, the Overture Maps Foundation is an attempt to counter Google’s stranglehold on online mapping. The Linux Foundation-hosted outfit has been releasing early previews of its datasets over the past year, and the first beta incarnation arrived this April. But on Wednesday, we’re seeing the first formal fruits: The organization is launching a quartet of open data sets in general availability (GA).

For context, maps are essentially “layers” that can be tailored to many uses. The Overture Maps Foundation is today releasing buildings, constituting 2.3 billion building “footprints” globally; places, which includes some 54 million notable places of interest; divisions, which serves as a visual overlay denoting “boundaries” separating countries, regions, cities or neighborhoods; and base, which covers land and water features such as physical infrastructure (e.g., communication towers, piers and bridges).

The company’s other main dataset, transportation, will remain in beta for now. It is also debuting a new addresses dataset in alpha, which supports 200 million addresses across 14 countries.

While Microsoft, AWS and Meta are the highest-profile members of the Overture Maps Foundation, the core steering committee also counts location technology stalwart, TomTom, as a member. Other “general” and “contributor” members include Esri, Hyundai, Niantic and Tripadvisor. Google’s absence from the group is notable, albeit unsurprising given the ultimate goal of the project.

Collectively, the members are pooling myriad data sources, including open datasets from tangential projects such as OpenStreetMap and government sources, their own internal proprietary data, and even data from the main nemesis here, Google.

They can do that because although Google’s mapping data empire is mostly proprietary, it has released some datasets under an open access license, including Open Buildings, released back in 2021. As we can see from this map of the U.S. / Mexico border, the Overture Maps Foundation has used data from OpenStreetMap, Esri, Microsoft and Google.

It may sound simple to combine datasets, but the reality is somewhat different, as they generally don’t adhere to the same formats, structures and standards. So you might have two largely similar datasets with slightly different purposes that need to be meshed together to integrate their respective benefits. The process of bringing together such datasets is called conflation, and it can be a painstaking process of checking and de-duplication.

“One of the real challenges when you start combining data that’s coming from a lot of different places is, how do you know that this record of a building or an address or a place is the same as this other record?” explained Marc Prioleau, executive director of Overture Maps Foundation, in an interview with TechCrunch. “That seems kind of obvious, but people misspell things or use different names. They could also be slightly misaligned geographically. Conflation plays a big part in [fixing] this.”

You can read more at: https://tcrn.ch/4c1hUdV.

The ruthless killing of 13-year-old Sarah Ann Geer was a case that had gone cold for 42 years, but Cloverdale police used genetic tests to finally determine and arrest a 62-year-old suspect.

In the Sonoma County city of Cloverdale, some 85 miles north of San Francisco, there was a 1982 murder case of a teenager that had gone cold. Then-13-year-old Sarah Ann Geer was found dead in an alley, haveing been raped, strangled, and killed. The Cloverdale Police Department had a number of suspects, but no leads panned out, and the case went cold for four decades.

But that department reopened the case in 2021. They still had the decades-old semen samples to work with, and more modern “DNA genetic genealogy technology” at their disposal. And with that, SFGate reports the Cloverdale PD arrested 62-year-old James Unick of Willows, California on Monday, and charged him with Geer’s murder.

"Today represents a bittersweet victory for justice,” Cloverdale Police Chief Chris Parker said in  a statement. “While nothing can undo the pain inflicted upon the Geer family and our community, we can finally offer some solace in knowing that the perpetrator will be held accountable. This arrest is a testament to the dedication of our law enforcement agencies and the unwavering resolve of Cloverdale's citizens."

Per SFGate, Unick had actually been in police custody on an unrelated matter two years after Geer’s killing. In 1985, when he lived in Cloverdale and was 23 years old, he was involved in a hit-and-run, and led police on a high-speed chase before turning himself in and being arrested. It is not clear whether records obtained in that incident helped facilitate this arrest.

Regardless, Unick is now being held without bail in the Sonoma County Jail on charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, and lewd and lascivious acts with a minor under 14 by force. His future court appearances have not been announced.

In Louisiana, the enslaved population grew to more than 331,000 in 1860.

I wrote before about the 10 Million Names project (at https://eogn.com/page-18080/13236396) but this new article provides even more information about the project.

You can read more at: https://bit.ly/4ddwvnq.

The following is a press release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS):

The Biden-Harris Administration’s Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force, co-led by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s (DOC) National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), released a new report today with recommendations and best practices for safer social media and online platform use for youth. The recommendations in the report, Online Health and Safety for Children and Youth: Best Practices for Families and Guidance for Industry , underscore the Administration’s efforts to address the ongoing youth mental health crisis and support the President’s Unity Agenda for the nation. Task Force members also committed to future actions, including providing more resources for kids, teenagers and families, guidance for pediatricians and conducting more research.

“Across the Biden-Harris Administration, we are committed to combatting the youth mental health crisis in this country and ensuring Americans have the tools and support they need to thrive online,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “As more and more of kids’ time is spent online, this administration is taking steps to protect their privacy and mental health. The recommendations in our report will chart a path toward an Internet that works for everyone.”

“President Biden has made addressing the youth mental health crisis a top priority. That’s why we are taking steps to ensure the safety and well-being of young people when they use social media and online platforms,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “The Biden-Harris Administration has whole-of-government approach to protect the mental health, safety, and privacy of youth online, but it will take more than government alone to achieve results.”

Approximately 95% of teenagers, and 40% of children between the ages of eight and 12 years old, use some form of social media. Digital technology use can both benefit young people’s well-being and expose them to significant harm. Social media use has been associated with risks to physical and mental health, including exposure to bullying, online harassment and abuse, discrimination, and child sexual exploitation. And adolescents who seek out information about health and safety topics online risk encountering inaccurate information that can be unhelpful or actively dangerous.

The report released today provides a summary of the risks and benefits of social media on the health, safety, and privacy of young people; best practices for parents and caregivers; recommended practices for industry; a research agenda; and suggested future work, including for the federal government. Youth advocates, civil society organizations, academic researchers and other experts provided input into the Task Force’s recommendations.

“SAMHSA is focused on helping young people, their parents, caregivers and others to protect their mental health when using social media and online platforms,” said Task Force Co-Chair Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon, Ph.D., HHS Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use and the leader of SAMHSA. “We know that while there are some benefits to using this technology, such as building connections and supportive communities, there is also substantial cause for concern, and we want to reduce the potential harms as much as possible so that young people can thrive.”

“As young people spend more of their lives online, it is past time to act and do more to protect them,” said Task Force Co-Chair Alan Davidson, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator. “This Task Force report outlines practices and design choices that companies can implement today to prioritize the privacy of kids, their well-being. and their ability to thrive online. Our report suggests changes that will help young people safely navigate and enjoy all the benefits the Internet offers, while minimizing the risks they face.”

Resources for Parents and Caregivers

The best practices and resources for parents and caregivers includes an overarching framework, strategies for parents and caregivers, handouts, and conversation-starters to help engage children in conversations about online platforms and technology use, and a compendium of resources for parents and caregivers. Many of these materials were developed in coordination with the SAMHSA-funded Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health  run by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

“The American Academy of Pediatrics supports the Kids Online Safety Task Force report released today and commends SAMHSA and the Department of Commerce for addressing the impact of social media on youth mental health,” said Dr. Megan Moreno, co-Medical Director of the SAMHSA-funded AAP Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health.  “To help make the report's recommendations accessible and actionable, we've published new resources for families and those who work with them, including conversation starters and activities to help parents and caregivers know what to say and how to begin building foundational skills. We are pleased to be a strong partner in this work.”

In collaboration with the Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force, the AAP Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health is also launching a variety of new web content, including: recommended best practices resources by topic and/or audience; a series of age-based handouts for parents that pediatricians and others can distribute at well-check visits; new clinical case examples for pediatricians and other clinicians demonstrating how to integrate conversations about media use into health consultations with teen patients; and expanded content specifically for teens.

Industry Recommendations

The Task Force identified 10 recommended practices for online service providers to implement to develop and operate their platforms with youth well-being in mind. Companies make design choices that shape kids’ online experiences, and those choices can contribute to, or alleviate harms. This report urges industry to make design choices that prioritize kids’ well-being. This includes guidance on ways to:

• Design age-appropriate experiences for youth users;
• Make privacy protections for youth the default;
• Reduce and remove features that encourage excessive or problematic use by youth;
• Limit “likes” and social comparison features for youth by default;
• Develop and deploy mechanisms and strategies to counter child sexual exploitation and abuse;
• Disclose accurate and comprehensive safety-related information about apps;
• Improve systems to address bias and discrimination that youth experience online;
• Use data-driven methods to detect and prevent cyberbullying, and other forms of online harassment and abuse;
• Provide age-appropriate parental control tools that are easy to understand and use; and
• Make data accessible for verified, qualified, and independent research.

Research Agenda

The research agenda includes: overarching objectives that include the need for continued study of the harms associated with online platform use; development and evaluation of scalable interventions to protect children’s online health, safety, and privacy; broadening access to platform data and algorithms; and taking a developmental perspective in studying the impacts of online platforms on children’s well-being. The research agenda includes specific research topics and domains of interests as they relate to mental and physical health and well-being, safety, and privacy. These include research using comparisons for well-being across different age groups, on efforts to address online safety, and into the effects of ubiquitous computer use in schools. Additionally, there are a set of research approaches that have also been highlighted including the need to include a broad spectrum of online platforms and spaces, focus on casual and interpretivist research, include new methods of assessing what data are collected and with whom data are shared (including through monetization processes), and engaging youth.

Next Steps

The report concludes with recommended next steps for policymakers, including:

• Enacting bipartisan federal legislation to protect youth health, safety, and privacy online;
• Advancing industry action to implement age-appropriate health, safety, and privacy best practices on online platforms through federal legislation and voluntary commitments;
• Working to require access to platform data for independent researchers in privacy-preserving ways;
• Providing support for research into youth privacy, health, and safety online;
• Promoting youth voices in solution setting;
• Supporting access to new and updated resources tailored for youth, parents, health providers, educators, and online platforms; and
• Engaging in international efforts to collaborate on online safety.

About the Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force

The interagency Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force  was announced in May 2023 by the Biden-Harris Administration to strengthen protections for children’s privacy, health, and safety online. The Task Force is comprised of leadership from HHS, DOC, the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, Justice, the Executive Office of the President and a representative from the Federal Trade Commission. The Task Force builds on prior work across the federal government, including the 2023 U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health.

The Task Force is a collaborative initiative aimed at addressing measures we can take regarding making the use of social media safer. It brings together experts, policymakers, and stakeholders to devise strategies for promoting online safety and mental health awareness among young individuals.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org . To learn how to get support for mental health, drug or alcohol issues, visit FindSupport.gov . If you are ready to locate a treatment facility or provider, you can go directly to FindTreatment.gov  or call 800-662-HELP (4357).

According to an article by Ronan McGreevy published in the Irish Times web site:

Presumptive Democratic nominee and US vice-president Kamala Harris has Irish roots but not in a way that she is likely to embrace.

Ms Harris is the daughter of Donald J Harris, who was born in Jamaica, and Shyamala Gopalan Harris from India.

Genealogical research carried out by Northern Irish historian Stephen McCracken reveals Ms Harris’s four-times-paternal-great-grandfather Hamilton Brown was born in Co Antrim in 1776, the year of the US Declaration of Independence.

Brown emigrated to Jamaica, then a British colony, and became an enthusiastic slave owner on the sugar plantations that were the mainstay of the island’s economy. He opposed the abolition of slavery across the British Empire in 1832 and went to Antrim to replace his slaves with workers from his native county.

He gave his name to Brown’s Town in Jamaica and is buried in the interior of St Mark’s Anglican Church, which he built with his own money. Brown was pro-slavery and hated the British abolitionist William Wilberforce who brought in a Slave Registry Bill to stop the trading of slaves between different islands in the Caribbean. Brown called him “cloven footed” and a hypocrite.

Brown received almost €11 million in modern money in compensation from the British government for his slaves, according to records held by University College London (UCL).

Compensation was paid when the UK government banned slavery across the British Empire in 1833. The British spent €20 million (£17 billion or almost 40 per cent of annual government revenue at the time) on compensation.

Brown received £12,610 for his slaves who were emancipated. He spent much of the money recruiting hired labour from his native Co Antrim.

Ms Harris’s father, an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University, acknowledged his family’s slave-owning past in a piece for a Jamaican newspaper in 2018. Curiously, relatives on his mother’s side are called Finegan. President Joe Biden’s Irish ancestors are also called Finegan (Finnegan).

You can read more at: https://bit.ly/3WymCex.

The following is a press release issued by the (U.S.) National Archives and Records Administration:

Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan announced today Dr. Todd Arrington’s appointment as the new Director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, KS, effective August 26, 2024. Dr. Arrington will oversee the planning, direction, and administration of all Library programs and activities. 

Enlarge

Image courtesy of Dr. Benjamin Todd Arrington

“Todd Arrington’s dedication to historic preservation and public engagement is unparalleled,” said Dr. Shogan. “His Park Service leadership, extensive scholarship, and creative social media approaches will be invaluable to the National Archives. We are fortunate to have someone of his caliber guiding our efforts to honor and help share President Eisenhower’s life and legacy.”

For the past 25 years, Dr. Arrington has managed and led historic sites for the National Park Service, most recently as site manager at the James A. Garfield National Historic Site. In various roles there since 2009, he has overseen all aspects of the operation, including programming, communications, and partnerships. He previously held appointments at the Homestead National Monument of America in Nebraska and the Eisenhower National Historic Site in Pennsylvania. He has also served in temporary leadership assignments at institutions including Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio and Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana.

Dr. Arrington’s scholarship has included publications on topics such as the American Civil War and the early Republican Party. His book, The Last Lincoln Republican: The Presidential Election of 1880, was published by the University Press of Kansas in September 2020. He has taught history and humanities courses at several colleges in northeast Ohio, including Lake Erie College and John Carroll University, and has provided scholarly commentary on C-SPAN, Radio Free Europe, and National Public Radio.

Dr. Arrington, a veteran of the United States Army, holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He received a master of arts in history from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor of arts in history from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania.

“Dr. Arrington is exceptionally well-suited to lead this prestigious institution with his impressive blend of academic credentials, professional experience, and commitment to public history,” said Stephen Hauge, Chair of the Eisenhower Foundation. “His expertise in managing historical sites and his proven ability to foster local and national partnerships will benefit the Library and its mission. We welcome him to this important role and look forward to a strong collaboration.”

The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum is one of 15 libraries in the Presidential Library system operated by the National Archives and Records Administration, representing Herbert Hoover through Donald J. Trump. Presidential Libraries and Museums are repositories for each administration’s papers and records and preserve and provide access to historical materials, support research, and create interactive programs and exhibits that educate and inspire.

The US transportation department said on Tuesday it was opening an investigation into Delta Air Lines after the carrier canceled more than 5,000 flights since Friday as it struggles to recover from a global cyber outage that snarled airlines worldwide. From a report:

While other carriers have been able to resume normal operations, Delta has continued to cancel hundreds of flights daily because of problems with its crew scheduling system. Since Friday Delta has been cancelling 30% or more of its flights daily through Monday, axing 444 flights on Tuesday, or 12% of its schedule as of 11.00am and delaying another 590, or 16%, according to FlightAware, after cancelling 1,150 on Monday.

The transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said on Tuesday the investigation was to "ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions ... Our department will leverage the full extent of our investigative and enforcement power to ensure the rights of Delta's passengers are upheld." Delta said it was in receipt of the USDOT notice of investigation and was fully cooperating. "Delta teams are working tirelessly to care for and make it right for customers impacted by delays and cancellations as we work to restore the reliable, on-time service they have come to expect from Delta," the airline said.

CrowdStrike has published a new “Remediation and Guidance Hub” that collects details related to its faulty update that crashed 8.5 million Windows computers across the globe on Friday. 

The page includes technical information on what caused the outage, what systems are affected, and CEO George Kurtz’s statement. It contains links to Bitlocker key recovery processes and to various third-party vendor pages about dealing with the outage, as well.

The page points to a knowledge base article (which only logged-in customers can access) for using a bootable USB key. Microsoft released such a tool yesterdaythat automatically deletes the problematic channel file that caused machines to blue screen.

You can read the full article at: https://bit.ly/4fqlpxo

The following is an excerpt from the BYU.EDU web site:

Discover the remarkable stories of nearly 90,000 Latter-day Saint pioneers' ocean voyages to America, meticulously preserved by BYU's Saints by Sea database.

Between 1840 and 1890, nearly 90,000 Latter-day Saints immigrated to America. The stories of these seagoing Saints are often overshadowed by tales of their arduous trek across the plains.

But the stories of the pioneer trek didn't always start on land. Many Latter-day Saint pioneers recorded inspiring experiences of their voyage over the ocean towards an unknown future.

“When I arrived at Liverpool and saw the ocean that would soon roll between me and all I loved, my heart almost failed me,” wrote Priscilla Stains of her 1844 voyage across the Atlantic Ocean on the ship Fanny. “There was no turning back ... so I thus alone set out for the reward of everlasting life, trusting in God.”

Fred E. Woods, BYU professor of Church history and doctrine, is determined to keep these stories alive.

For nearly three decades, Woods and a team of colleagues, students and missionaries have collected sources and documented the experiences of convert immigrants to America in an interactive database, Saints by Sea.

The Saints by Sea website contains information about all known Latter-day Saint immigrant voyages, including names of passengers and first-hand accounts. Through a collaboration with FamilySearch and the BYU Library, visitors are guided to the ship on which their ancestors traveled to the United States, accompanied by first-hand accounts that vividly detail the voyage.

Joe Everett, senior librarian at BYU Library Family History Center, oversees the maintenance of the website for public use. Everett cherishes the moments when people connect with their ancestors.

“The actual number of unique people in the database is less than 100,000,” said Everett. “But at least a couple of million people today can connect back to those people who are in the database.”

Woods and his team meticulously indexed each immigrant name and searched for journals and memoirs to transcribe to the database. The result is an impressive resource for people to make meaningful connections with their ancestors.

During the voyages, European immigrants lived in cramped quarters on ships for weeks to months. Yet Latter-day Saint passengers were known for their joy and faith in God.

You can read more at: https://bit.ly/3Wam3pQ.

From the MyHeritage Blog:

FamilyTreeDNA has been a valued partner and friend of MyHeritage for well over a decade. Notably, since the launch of MyHeritage DNA in 2016, FamilyTreeDNA’s in-house lab, Gene by Gene, based in Houston, Texas, has provided MyHeritage with our DNA processing services.

Today, we are happy to announce the launch of a new collaboration between the two companies that we introduced in March at RootsTech 2024. This collaboration, which includes integration between the MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA websites, enables FamilyTreeDNA customers to transfer their family trees to MyHeritage, and to continue building them on MyHeritage. FamilyTreeDNA users can now easily transfer their family trees to MyHeritage for free, after providing consent on both FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage.

This collaboration expands the two companies’ longstanding partnership, and will provide FamilyTreeDNA customers with access to MyHeritage’s robust suite of genealogy tools and features, many of which are not available on FamilyTreeDNA.

This integration stems from the recognition that MyHeritage excels in family tree tools and historical records, while FamilyTreeDNA offers exceptional DNA testing services for exploring direct maternal and paternal lines (mtDNA and Y-DNA) that are unique to the market, as well as industry-standard autosomal DNA testing. This strategic decision allows FamilyTreeDNA to focus on its expertise in DNA testing services and reporting, while providing its users with access to the powerful family tree tools and technologies offered by MyHeritage.

To facilitate this collaboration, MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA have developed a technical integration that now enables FamilyTreeDNA users to seamlessly transfer their family tree data to MyHeritage. This process is voluntary; however, transferring the tree data to MyHeritage is encouraged, as FamilyTreeDNA will officially sunset their family tree builder on September 9, 2024. At that point, all family trees on FamilyTreeDNA will become read-only. It will still be possible to transfer trees from FamilyTreeDNA to MyHeritage after this date, but this functionality may not be available forever, so the sooner the transfer is done, the better. Access to DNA results on FamilyTreeDNA will remain unchanged.

You can read more at: https://blog.myheritage.com/2024/07/new-collaboration-with-familytreedna/