NEW RESOURCES

Online materials for Finnish parliamentary elections have been collected into an online archive. “For social media, the collection covered the profile pages of candidates and parties on Twitter and Facebook as well as tweets with election-related hashtags, such as #vaalit2015 and #eduskuntavaalit. Election videos were collected on YouTube and election galleries. For websites, the collection focused on the online contents published by candidates, parties, organisations, political decision-makers, support groups and news media.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The White House blog has gotten an overhaul. “Whether you’re visiting WhiteHouse.gov looking for a specific piece of content, following a link from another site back to our platform, or you’re simply browsing — we want you to have a great experience that both gives you what you were looking for and introduces something you didn’t know was there. That’s how interacting with your government should be.”

USEFUL STUFF

Interesting roundup article from Amateur Photographer – How photographers back up their digital photographs. “Earlier this year, Amateur Photographer (AP) published an online article highlighting the dangers of photographers sleepwalking towards a photographic Armageddon, threatening access to today’s imagery in years to come. AP has since contacted several photographers, asking them to share their experiences and tips as they strive to ensure photos are not permanently consigned to the digital dustbin.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

A Harvard student has lost his Facebook intership after pointing out Facebook privacy flaws. “Within three days, Facebook asked Khanna to disable the app. The company also deactivated location sharing from desktops, which meant Khanna’s app wouldn’t work even if he hadn’t taken it down. And the company that Mark Zuckerberg famously launched from his Harvard dorm room withdrew its internship offer from this Harvard student, who apparently made the mistake of…launching an app from his dorm room.” LAME.

Not too long ago I linked to an article on Instagram and art collection. Now check this article on Instagram and public art. “Gatherings like [Hank Willis] Thomas’s are called “Instameets,” and they are designed to give Instagram enthusiasts with large followings a chance to creatively capture and share photos, in an effort to drum up visibility for art exhibitions. It is a method that has spread throughout the art world. The Guggenheim Museum regularly holds #EmptyGuggenheim Instagram previews, along with traditional openings. ”

Apparently Apple is building a self-driving car. Of course, when the hardware problems pop up, Steve Jobs will appear to all of us in a dream and tell us we’re riding in it wrong. “In May, engineers from Apple’s secretive Special Project group met with officials from GoMentum Station, a 2,100-acre former naval base near San Francisco that is being turned into a high-security testing ground for autonomous vehicles.”

Comcast is about to launch its own video platform. “Comcast is partnering with major digital publishers like Comcast-backed Vox and Buzzfeed, lifestyle, and comedy sites like AwesomenessTV, Refinery29, and The Onion, news sites like Mic and Vice, as well as legacy brands like NBC Sports to come up with a widespread digital-video platform that will rival YouTube and Facebook’s online video efforts. It will also rival the rumored video platform Verizon is preparing to unveil.”

The National Museum of Qatar needs some help with its visual identity. You have to be Qatari, though. “The National Museum of Qatar is taking suggestions for its new logo and branding as part of a nationwide competition encouraging public involvement in design. All Qatari nationals over the age of 18 will be able to enter and suggest designs for the new museum’s graphic identity.”

Google has given an update on Project Ara. “For those who are unfamiliar, Project Ara is a smartphone concept that the folks at Google are trying to make a reality. The idea is that a smartphone is pieced together using different modules, and in turn it allows users to swap out the modules as they need, like adding more storage, bumping camera megapixels, and more.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Remember Android’s Stagefright security flaw? Apparently Google’s patch has its own issues. “On August 5, Google started releasing over-the-air (OTA) security updates for Nexus 4,5,6,7,9,10 and Nexus Player devices to address most of these flaws. However, shortly after the search giant started distributing the patches, researchers at Exodus Intel confirmed their suspicion that the fix for an integer overflow triggered in libstagefright during MPEG4 tx3g data processing (CVE-2015-3824) was flawed.”

Even with all its settings tweaked, Windows 10 seems to have some privacy issues. “Windows 10 will periodically send data to a Microsoft server named ssw.live.com. This server seems to be used for OneDrive and some other Microsoft services. Windows 10 seems to transmit information to the server even when OneDrive is disabled and logins are using a local account that isn’t connected to a Microsoft Account. The exact nature of the information being sent isn’t clear—it appears to be referencing telemetry settings—and again, it’s not clear why any data is being sent at all. We disabled telemetry on our test machine using group policies.”

Firefox is getting more private browsing options. “Mozilla is testing a new private browsing mode in Firefox that doesn’t just keep no trace of your… browsing habits on your machine but that also blocks online services that could track you while you’re surfing the web. That’s not unlike what plug-ins like Ghostery and the EFF’s Privacy Badger can do for you, but Firefox now combines that with its own incognito mode.” Good morning, Internet…

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