Journalism & Digital Education Roundup: July 28

Enlarge / BlueCruise allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel but not their eyes off the road. (credit: Ford) The federal regulator responsible for road safety has opened yet another probe into the safety of a hands-free driver assistance system, we learned this morning. And no, it's not a system from Tesla.

Enlarge (credit: FT) Brussels is set to open a probe into Meta’s Facebook and Instagram as soon as Monday over concerns the social media giant is failing to do enough to counter disinformation from Russia and other countries. Regulators suspect that Meta’s moderation does not go far enough to stop the widespread dissemination of political advertising that risks undermining the electoral process, the European Commission is expected to say on Monday, two people with knowledge of the matter said. EU officials are particularly worried about the way Meta’s platforms are handling Russia’s efforts to undermine upcoming European elections.

These steps can help you build genuine professional relationships that last. Cultivating meaningful professional relationships can open doors to all kinds of exciting new career opportunities. However, it takes a certain set of skills to be able to build, and keep, these relationships. These skills are vital if you hope to grow your network and progress in your career.

A 1971 plan for a global carbon dioxide monitoring network never came to fruition. This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) People have been leaving public messages since the first artists painted hunting scenes on cave walls. But it was the invention of electricity that forever changed the way we talked to each other. In 1844, the first message was sent via telegraph. Samuel Morse, who created the binary Morse Code decades before electronic computers were even possible, tapped out, “What hath God wrought?” It was a prophetic first post. World War II accelerated the invention of digital computers, but they were primarily single-use machines, designed to calculate artillery firing tables or solve scientific problems.

Kindness is also contagious—and science backs that up. This entrepreneur rediscovered that phenomenon when her community pulled together after a wintry blast knocked out power. When a windy arctic blast raged through the Northeast U. S. this past winter, more than 600,000 people lost power for days. I was one of them.