I devoted some time to ResearchBuzz last night because it’s either that or go round the twist. Prepare for a deluge.

NEW RESOURCES

Phil Bradley has a quick writeup about a search engine called Instya. It’s a metasearch engine.

Citizens of Colorado have a new tool to see how their tax dollars are spent. “The online tool, called the Taxpayer Receipt tool, generates a breakdown of where individuals’ tax dollars go based on their age, annual income and how much they drive. It’s part of an interactive website called Balancing Act, launched last week in Colorado to give citizens an interactive way to find out where their tax money goes.”

The University of Chicago Visual Resources Center has launched the Robert Sengstacke Photography Archive. “Having grown up in the newspaper business (he is the grand-nephew of Robert Sengstacke Abbott, founder of the Chicago Defender), [Robert] Sengstacke was able to learn from established African American photographers at a young age and had unique access to important events and people. With the help of Art History Professor Rebecca Zorach, the VRC has scanned over 3,000 negatives featuring the artistic community and street life of Chicago’s South Side in the late 1960’s.”

BitTorrent has launched a beta of a distributed Web browser.

Now available: a database of catastrophic, fatal, and near-fatal athletic injuries (and not just at college level).

USEFUL STUFF

Ancestry.com is offering free access to its Immigration Collection through Sunday.

I try to keep ResearchBuzz apolitical, because in my case the leading “a” stands for “appalled.” That being the case I really liked this article from ZDNet on how to filter out political posts from your Facebook stream.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has released a new tool to make it easier for green card applicants to find exam-performing doctors. “The improved Find a Doctor locator lets you enter your address or ZIP code to search for a doctor based on distance. You can also look up directions and find local transportation. And we have added a helpful checklist of what to bring with you to your doctor visit. … Only doctors authorized by USCIS, known as civil surgeons, may perform the exams that are usually required as part of the process for obtaining permanent resident status.”

A WordPress 4.2 release candidate is now available.

Do you like satellite imagery? Sure, we all do. Check out this tool to check out very recent Landsat images.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Erm, okay: Google has launched a new certification program for Cardboard. “The new Works with Google Cardboard program seeks to make Cardboard viewers more compatible with third-party Cardboard apps on the Google Play Store for more widespread sharing and enjoyment of VR, according to Google’s developer blog.”

YouTube did a retrospective on its ads. I still like the Old Spice one best.

A German privacy regulator has ordered Google to limit the use of customer data. “Google lost another battle on the European regulatory front today when a German privacy commissioner ordered the Silicon Valley search giant to implement strict new controls on how it uses customers’ data…. In the original decision last fall, the Hamburg commissioner said Google must seek the explicit permission of users before merging all of their data into a single profile.”

Google has removed the ability to filter by already-visited pages. Google’s advanced search is getting lamer and lamer.

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Research appears to indicate that Google Docs use doesn’t impact students’ writing scores. “The researchers’ paper, ‘Middle School Students’ Writing and Feedback in a Cloud-Based Classroom Environment,’ is currently in press with the academic journal Technology, Knowledge, and Learning. Zheng and her co-authors will be presenting the work this week at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, being held in Chicago. (Follow Education Week’s reporting from the conference using the AERA2015 tag at the bottom of this story.)” Good morning, Internet…

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