NEW RESOURCES

Two twentieth-century Irish newspapers have been digitized and put online. “For historians of the British and Irish communist movements, Irish republicanism, the Northern Ireland conflict, and those examining the Irish community in Britain generally, the digitisation and uploading online of the newspapers of the Connolly Association, Irish Freedom (1939-1944) and the Irish Democrat (1945-2000), by the group are an important development that will make research much easier. Wedding traditional Irish republicanism with socialism, the Connolly Association played a highly visible role in the Irish community in Britain after its establishment in 1938, having branches in most of the main cities to which Irish immigrants were attracted in the large-scale post-war migration across the Irish Sea.”

Cornell University is digitizing four of its collections, including a collection containingPalmyra pictures taken in 1885. The collections include “…the Cornell Costume and Textile Collection, which includes more than 10,000 items of apparel, flat textiles and accessories dating from the late 18th century,” the aforementioned Palmyra pictures – “…the Sterrett Photographs collection, which documents major archaeological monuments in present-day Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria and Iraq…”, music: “Benjamin Piekut, associate professor of music, will lead a project to digitize the Lindsay Cooper Archive, currently housed in a London storage locker and inaccessible to researchers. The project is a partnership between Cornell and the University of the Arts London to make Cooper’s scores and archival recordings available….” and feminist publications: “The fourth project will digitize the full content of ‘On Our Backs,’ a historically important publication used by students and researchers in the visual, political, historical, and gender and sexuality fields…”

East View has launched a complete archive of The Japan Times. This is a subscription service. ‘The Japan Times publication was founded in 1897, with the intention to “give Japanese the opportunity to read news and current events in English and to help Japan to participate more fully in the international community.’ This new digital archive includes every newspaper published between 1897 and 2014 (nearly 500,000 pages), with annual updates.”

The city of New York has a new map of sidewalk cafes. This is of interest to me because there are over 1300 of them. “Applications can be rejected because business owners are unaware of zoning regulations. And community boards often complain of excessive noise or crowding. The city aims to address some of these concerns with a new interactive map of all 1,357 sidewalk cafés, allowing the public to track the status of each eatery’s application, license number, expiration date and health grade. It even shows the number of outdoor tables and chairs allowed for each dining spot.”

Ohio University has a new online history archive. “University College and University Libraries are proud to debut ‘An Introduction to Ohio University,’ a web-based, multi-media project that documents the University’s rich and distinct history – from its humble beginnings in the wilderness of the Ohio Country through its post-World War II rise to prominence.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Vine is adding music tools. “Vine is rolling out a new music-focused tool for video creators on its network called ‘Snap to Beat’. The option, Vine says, will make it a doddle to create looping six second videos that sync perfectly.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

This is fascinating: museums are using Instagram for a virtual collection swap. “Using the hashtag #museuminstaswap, each participating institution will share photos of its partner museum throughout the week, highlighting works that resonate with their own collections.” This has actually wound down but take a look at the tags.

What a bizarre milestone: this week one billion people used Facebook in a 24-hour period. Maybe it’s more appropriate to say “One billion accounts used Facebook in a 24-hour period.”

If you search for certain things on Google, you will apparently attract recruiting interest. “Turning to Google to find out more about the programming language he was using, he typed in the search bar: ‘python lambda function list comprehension.’ But as well as the regular search results, Rosett was then presented with a rather peculiar statement: ‘You’re speaking our language. Up for a challenge?'” Some commenters have denounced this as creepy but I don’t see it; apparently certain types of searches trigger this response. It’s no different from certain types of searches triggering instant answers or knowledge cards.

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Flash ads will get a big freeze in Google Chrome. “The web giant has set September 1, 2015 as the date from which non-important Flash files will be click-to-play in the browser by default – effectively freezing out “many” Flash ads in the process. Netizens can right-click over the security-challenged plugin and select “Run this” if they want to unfreeze an ad. Otherwise, the Flash files will remain suspended in a grey box, unable to cause any harm nor any annoyance.”

Facebook is going to be cracking down more on video copyright violations. “Facebook has been under fire lately from top Web video creators who have called out the social networking giant for failing to prevent people from posting their videos without permission. Now, Facebook is trying to make it easier for some of these creators to protect their content, particularly when videos go viral.”

Google has rejected EU antitrust charges. “Google on Thursday rejected claims from the European Union’s top antitrust official that the company favored some of its own search results over those of rivals, saying there was significant competition in the region’s online search market and that the company’s services increased choice for local consumers.” Good morning, Internet…

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