NEW RESOURCES

Now available: an online archive of Irish poets reading their poetry. “In the recordings captured by the Irish Poetry Reading Archive, the poets read a selection of their poems, offer a brief overview of the context and circumstances that influenced the writing of the poem, and also provide manuscripts of the poems chosen. This allows the audience to interact with the poem and poet in a unique way. Over the past 18 months, the voices of 36 Irish poets in both the Irish and English languages were added to the archive.”

A new online archive highlights the work of artists who died of AIDS. One of the people featured in this writeup is Sylvester, who is the first person I thought of. He had a wonderful voice.

The Paris Review has created an online archive of all its interviews. “The Paris Review has created a digital archive of its entire collection and every interview that the publication has published since its inception in 1953 is available for free online.”

A new research hub will focus on “Digital Asia”. “At the core of the Digital Asia Hub is independent and interdisciplinary research exploring both the opportunities and challenges related to digital technology, innovation, and society in Asia. Initial issues the Hub may explore include digital rights, governance and infrastructure, innovation, open manufacturing, and digital trade, trending technologies and technology spaces, mobile technology and its impact on access, education, entrepreneurship, and the use of ICT for development and civic engagement.”

TWEAKS & UPDATES

Facebook has started selling concert tickets directly on Events pages. Full-court press on ecommerce — I was wondering about that new “shop” section I was seeing as available on the pages I administer. “The company is currently partnering with a select few independent venues, artists and promoters, and it’s not taking any cut of the ticket price for now.”

USEFUL STUFF

Journalism.co.uk has a writeup on Replay, which lets journalists create videos easily. “Making a Replay video is simple and takes only a couple of minutes. Once you open the app, you can select up to 200 images and video clips of any duration from your camera roll or import media from Facebook or Instagram.” This app isn’t free, but it’s a lot cheaper than something like Animoto.

Use Slack? Want a chat archive for your public projects? Here ya go. “At heart, SlackArchive is a bot that you add to your Slack. Named ArchiveBot, this bot will record conversations in this channel for the chat archive. Then, you can access your archive on the company’s website. Like on Slack, you can search across multiple channels and find information in very little time. You can also create a permalink for a specific message.” Note that this is for public chat only; private chat is not covered in order to avoid competing directly with Slack’s premium plans.

Apparently this is Android-only but MAN it sounds useful. Google Now can read you your last five text messages. “Google Now will then read out your previous messages and after each one, it will give you the opportunity to either repeat the message, move onto the next message, or reply it.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Bleh. Thieves are using Tumblr to share pictures of shoplifting hauls and to share tips about how to better steal. Gross. “Teenage shoplifters are taking to Tumblr to show off their score and share tips with their sticky-fingered friends. While social media has become a great way for retailers to advertise their deals, those looking for a five-finger discount now use the popular microblogging website to learn about specific stores and different items.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

It’s like a vampire on your wrist! Google has filed a patent for a needle-free blood drawing device. “It’s basically a really slick finger-pricking gadget that works by blasting a gas-powered microparticle into the skin and then draws a small vial of blood into a pressurized container.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Great find on Academia.edu: The “Open Science” Strategy of the Project “Text Database and Dictionary of Classic Mayan”. “The following article presents and explains the publication and knowledge transfer strategy of the research project Text Database and Dictionary of Classic Mayan. The project’s goal is to make accessible in a database the epigraphic contents and object biographies of all extant hieroglyphic texts with the aid of digital technology. On the basis of resultant object and text database, a comprehensive dictionary of the Classic Mayan language will be compiled near the end of the project run-time.” There is also a conference poster available. Good afternoon, 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!