USEFUL STUFF

Computerworld has updated its list of free tools for data visualization and analysis.

From How-To Geek: How to find Chrome extensions that inject ads into Web pages.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress 4.2 beta 3 is now available.

Now available on Google Street View – the Danube River.

Vine is getting into high-res video. “. A new post on the company blog announced a technical change that allows Vine users to upload the higher-resolution 720p HD video to the app. That’s a significant improvement from the 480p resolution.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The American Numismatic Society is partnering with HathiTrust. “As a result of this partnership scans of nearly 550 ANS titles – including the American Journal of Numismatics, Numismatic Literature, Numismatic Notes and Monographs, and stand-­alone monographs have become fully readable and downloadable to anyone who wants them under a Creative Commons, non-­commercial, attribution, share-­alike license.”

Google is teaming up with Johnson & Johnson to develop AI surgical robots. “The robots will aid surgeons in minimally invasive operations, giving operators greater control and accuracy than is possible by hand, minimising trauma and damage to the patient. Some systems allow surgeons to remotely control devices inside the patient’s body to minimise entry wounds and reduce blood loss and scarring.”

This should be interesting: the UN has created a digital privacy watchdog. “The new ‘Special Rapporteur’ created by the Human Rights Council on Thursday will be tasked with investigating whether countries’ cyber spying programs unnecessarily violate people’s privacy and what people around the world can do to protect those rights.”

The University of Texas at Austin is is looking to crowdfund a collection of public domain, high-resolution insect photos.

RESEARCH AND OPINION

From Pew (pew pew pew pew!): the challenges of using Facebook for research. “When Pew Research Center studied how Americans access and share local news in three cities, we naturally wanted to analyze the role that Facebook played as a means for people to hear about, discuss and share local news. But getting the data we needed proved challenging.” Good evening, Internet…

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