What a week this was! Drama, intrigue, adventure and more!
Reception to the Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library we mentioned last week has been quite mixed. While this has been a very good opportunity for digitalization efforts to reach out to the masses, it has also been met with criticism by authors and publishers who believe some of the terms jeopardize the value of their work. In response the director of Internet Archive’s Open Libraries (which includes the NEL) wrote a hefty blog post where he addresses these issues and on how they have taken them into consideration.
Highlights include explaining the legal status of the Internet Archive and its activities, demonstrating the legitimacy of its activities through a case by case basis and offering authors who feel that they’ve been negatively impacted by having their work included in the NEL.
Have authors opted out?
Yes, we’ve had authors opt out. We anticipated that would happen as well; in fact, we launched with clear instructions on how to opt out because we understand that authors and creators have been impacted by the same global pandemic that has shuttered libraries and left students without access to print books. Our takedowns are completed quickly and the submitter is notified via email.
It’s very much worth reading for anyone interested in the current issue, regardless of their stance.
The butt of jokes this week has been the troublesome release of Cooking Mama: Cookstar. The game’s Switch version was released only a couple of days ago as both a physical copy and online download. However the online release was delisted in only a matter of hours, without any explanation on either Nintendo’s part or the developers. Outlandish rumors range from licensing issues to the game (allegedly) having a built-in cryptocurrency miner.
However it’s interesting to note that the physical copies haven’t been called back yet and are still available for sale. At least for the time being there isn’t a serious concern for loss of media.
Wunderlist is at the end of its lifespan with about a month (May 6th) until it’s put down for good. This comes as the result of a merge between Wunderlist and Microsoft’s To Do.
You can keep using Wunderlist while we keep supporting it. You’ll still be able to access your data – you can choose to export it, or import it into To Do. Of course, we’d love for you to continue your journey with Microsoft To Do.
Excerpt from shutdown announcement on https://www.wunderlist.com
After May 6th, your to-dos will no longer sync. For a period of time, you’ll still be able to import your lists into To Do. Starting today, we will no longer accept new Wunderlist sign-ups.
We have some good news for a few retro games that have become available again. For starters G-Mode has plans for releasing a few of their titles from the early 2000’s on the Switch.
The Eye’s eXo also launched the Retro Learning Pack! recently. MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 classics, including games from The Oregon Trail, Carmen San Diego and Math Blaster series.
Check out https://exorlp.the-eye.eu for more info.
Stay tuned for next week’s summary, where we’ll hopefully see each other again same time next week at EST 9 AM!
