NEW RESOURCES

Vassar College has a new digitized collection of glass plates. “Although class trees and the events around them don’t have much presence on campus now, it was a big deal 85 years ago, involv­ing dove-releasing, secret rites and digging the hole using Matthew Vas­sar’s silver spade. The tree ceremo­nies were documented by a series of images dating from 1904 to 1935. This series of visual materials can be found in the ‘Glass Plates Neg­atives’ collection at Vassar’s digital library. With 870 images in total, the collection was recently conserved and digitized at an off-campus con­servation center.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google has updated the YouTube Kids app. “It’s been a busy few months for YouTube Kids. In February, we released our app, designed especially for kids, to bring to life the best family-friendly content on YouTube. Since then, families have downloaded YouTube Kids more than 8 million times, consistently ranked YouTube Kids in the top 5 kids apps in the App Store, given an overall 4+ rating on Google Play and watched Stampy Cat explore the world of Minecraft more than 54 million times.”

Twitter might want to go beyond 140 characters. I like the 140 character limit. “It’s unclear what the product will look like, but sources say it would enable Twitter users to publish long-form content to the service. Users can already tweet out blocks of text with products like OneShot, but those are simply images, not actual text published on Twitter. A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment.”

The state of Ohio is expanding its online expenditures database. “In December 2014, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel unveiled OhioCheckbook.com, an online database of expenditures from state officials and agencies dating back to fiscal 2008. Last week, the first wave of local government expenditures from 114 entities were added to the online checkbook.”

USEFUL STUFF

Got Scots ancestors? You can search this collection of valuation rolls free until October 13th. “Over one million indexed names and addresses from 1855 are now available to search for FREE* as an introductory offer. Fully searchable by name and address, the new records provide a detailed snapshot of Scotland in a time of industrial expansion and economic growth, and offer a fascinating window into the lives of Victorian Scots.” (The * just notes that after October 13 it won’t be free.)

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Edward Snowden has joined Twitter, and he’s following just one account: the NSA.

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Google is beginning HTTPS support for Blogspot. (Does anybody use Blogspot anymore?) “…today we’re expanding on the HTTPS Everywhere mission and beginning an initial rollout of HTTPS support for Blogspot. HTTPS is a cornerstone of internet security as it provides several important benefits: it makes it harder for bad actors to steal information or track the activities of blog authors and visitors, it helps check that visitors open the correct website and aren’t being redirected to a malicious location, and it helps detect if a bad actor tries to change any data sent from Blogger to a blog visitor.”

A new malvertising campaign was apparently spreading via Google AdWords. The Malwarebytes article has all the details. The ads have been pulled. Good evening, Internet…

I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!