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It's the new year and thus time to award the BUDDIE for the Best Unknown Database. The BUDDIE announcement is often a festive affair, but this year's event has a [...]

The 2024 U.S. presidential election has been described as consequential on many counts, but in one highly significant way, it is unique: For the first time, a major party has [...]

The 2024 U.S. presidential election has been referred to as 'the most important in our time.' This tagline has been used before, but given the starkly divergent visions of the [...]

In March 2023, a tech giant, to great fanfare, released an AI product whose multiple errors went viral and cast doubt on the company and on the viability of AI [...]

It's perplexing to figure out Perplexity, starting with its tagline. It refers to itself as a 'conversational search engine,' a 'conversational answer engine,' and an 'AI-powered Swiss Army Knife.' It [...]

I work with a small group of volunteers who restore graves in a public cemetery in our community. The cemetery is large, with more than 40,000 graves. It was founded [...]

Nov. 30, 2022, launched an epochal, 6-month burst of technological advance. On that date, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a generative AI chatbot that inaugurated a frenzied period of startling and unprecedented [...]

Data seems to drive almost everything we do. GDP, longevity rates, carbon emissions, cholesterol levels, housing costs, unemployment rates, and on and on--these research-based metrics shape our understanding of what's [...]

It's a brand-new year and thus time to hand out the BUDDIE, Database Review's award for the Best Unknown Database. This year's winner represents a time of profound change in [...]

The Holy Grail of search has always been the answer machine (AM): In response to a simple, natural language query, you quickly get an answer that is accurate, comprehensive, organized, [...]

In November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, its latest and most significant AI product, powered by GPT-3. The fanfare and excitement of this major AI advance were still surging when, in [...]

The history of online searching has been marked by increasing power on the part of the systems and decreasing control on the part of the searchers. COMMAND-DRIVEN The first online [...]

In March 2023, ALA released data noting that in 2022, there were 1,269 library book-banning attempts, the highest number since ALA began compiling such data. This was almost twice as [...]

In the April 2018 Database Review, I covered the World Inequality Lab, a research group devoted to investigating worldwide income and wealth inequality. The lab had recently produced a major [...]

In America's culture wars, some of the fiercest battles are fought in higher education, particularly over matters of speech. One person's free speech is another's trigger warning, and terms such [...]

This year marks the 50 th anniversary of the first commercial publication of a feminist classic that's recognized as one of the most important books of the last half century: [...]

It is my first column of 2023 and thus time to hand out the BUDDIE, the annual Database Review Award for Best Unknown Database. This issue of Information Today coincides [...]

SYNOPSIS The Digital Intelligence Index (sites.tufts.edu/digitalplanet/digitalinteNigence) provides extensive data and analysis on the digital environments and transitions for most of the world's digitally engaged populations. It investigates not only technical [...]

The first book ban occurred, I suppose, not long after the first book was published. Some person or group decided that a book threatened their values or status and tried [...]

Although it's unlikely that a highly technical article in an economics journal would spark a nationwide policy debate, it happened in 2016 with the publication of 'The Fading American Dream: [...]

For the past several years, the nation has been intensely scrutinizing its recurring episodes of police misconduct, especially violence. The first wave began in 2014 with the highly publicized deaths [...]

If there is an unalloyed internet treasure, it's the virtual museum. Thousands of museums have virtual versions. They range from world-renowned institutions such as the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural [...]

Over the past several years, democratic governments and democratic aspirations have been in turmoil, both from the assertiveness of authoritarian states and from their own internal dissensions. Citizens' confidence in [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic has been described as an accelerator that speeds up social, economic, and political trends. This is surely occurring in labor markets, as unprecedented numbers of workers quit [...]

In 2017, a new phrase--alternative facts--abruptly entered the nation's political vocabulary. It was a clever way to validate lies (which we meekly continue to refer to as 'untruths,' 'fake news,' [...]

Data on the COVID-19 pandemic are ubiquitous. Media of all sorts offer front-page, continually updated reporting, especially on the big five COVID metrics: cases, hospitalizations, ICU occupancies, deaths, and vaccinations. [...]

Donald Trump's sudden rise to prominence in national politics surprised almost everyone. Many people in Republican Party circles, especially rank-and-file voters, welcomed the brash newcomer, but a smaller number were [...]

Visual Capitalist and HowMuch.net SYNOPSIS Visual Capitalist (visualcapitalist.com) and HowMuch.net (howmuch.net) create appealing and highly informative infographics on a wide range of money-related topics, including economies, finance, investment, trade, markets, [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic has harmed women more than men. This is the experience of millions of people worldwide, as well as the findings of manifold reports from journalists, researchers, and [...]

Recently, I dropped my Amazon Fire HD 8 tablet, shattering the screen. I didn't hesitate to replace it with a newer Fire, because my model was a good product at [...]

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the U.S. unemployment rate in February 2021 was 6.2%. This rate is down from a COVID-era high of 14.7% in April [...]

Recent reports on search engine market share show almost complete dominance by Google, with its share hovering around 90%. What's more, the next two engines--Bing and Yahoo Search--are, in effect, [...]

In recent years, the internal divisions in the U.S.--on vital matters of governance, economics, and values--have gotten much deeper and angrier. This troubling phenomenon isn't just based on a media [...]

It's a rare database that appeals to both academic experts and regular folks. The database must have broadly appealing content and a presentation that serves both professional and personal interests. [...]

It seems that today, there are two types of people in the world: people who stop to stare at a horrific crash site and the people who are in the [...]

The old booklover's aphorism, 'too many books, too little time,' is all too true and all too sad. Even if you narrow your wish list to the absolute must-reads, there [...]

In the course of a sudden and important news event, a hitherto obscure term or phrase often bursts into widespread public awareness. In late May 2020, it was 'qualified immunity' [...]

In August 2019, a CIA employee sent a report to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community under the provisions of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act. The Inspector General, [...]

This review started out in a straightforward and predictable fashion, but quickly took unexpected, even startling, twists and turns and ended up on a completely different path. I began with [...]

According to standard and widely reported indicators, the U.S. economy is better and stronger than ever. The Dow has been hitting record highs. The unemployment rate is at a 50-year [...]

SYNOPSIS The University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab applies state-of-the-art curation and presentation technologies to American history datasets, thereby transforming its rich content into digital creations that are at once [...]

It's awards season and thus time for Database Review's annual BUDDIE award for Best Unknown Database. With several superb candidates, this year's competition has been the toughest since the first [...]

In the deeply troubled history of American mass shootings, incidents in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, during the first weekend of August stood out. Each resulted in a large [...]

Like many people (I suppose), I thought that redlining was a historical artifact, a legacy of segregation that was swept away by civil rights legislation in the 1960s. My misunderstanding [...]

SYNOPSIS The World Heritage Centre, a UNESCO agency, maintains the World Heritage List, which identifies more than 1,100 world sites of enduring cultural and natural value. The center also provides [...]

Unemployment is at near-record lows, the stock market is robust, and even workers' wages have had a modest uptick. But behind these happy-face talking points, there is a much larger [...]

Last year, the Federal Reserve Board issued a study titled 'Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2017.' It states that four in 10 Americans 'would either borrow, [...]

A great promise of the internet was to bring vast amounts of information to everyone. This has occurred, with many benefits--but there's a downside. Some significant portion of this information [...]

I thought that I knew a lot about Google. I use Google Search (doesn't everybody?), read Google News daily, and occasionally consult Google Scholar. I keep great amounts of my [...]

SYNOPSIS Four democracy scorecards analyze and assess the status of democracy in the world and the U.S. They describe troubling trends that threaten political and civic well-being. ********** The Global [...]