NEW RESOURCES

The government of Nigeria is finalizing its database of water supply and sanitation. “Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, said at the weekend that the Federal Government was finalizing updates of the national database on water supply and sanitation for all states in Nigeria including the Federal Capital Territory. Adamu said the finalized database would contain household survey on access to water supply and sanitation across the country.”

TWEAKS & UPDATES

Snapchat (which I’m finally getting into, by the way: friend me at ResearchBuzz (of course) or send me suggestions of cool ResearchBuzzy Snapchatters to follow) has launched the ability for users and brands to create their own geofilters. Danny Sullivan has a walkthrough of how it works. Geofilters are little overlays that users can put on their Snapchats so they can show where they are in a general way. BuzzFeed has a list of over 60 of them so you can get an idea of what they look like.

Want to wish your Facebook friend happy birthday? Facebook will let you leave a video. “The company announced a feature on Monday that allows users to record 15-second videos that can be shared to a friend’s timeline. You’ll also be able to select from various birthday-themed frames to dress up the video message.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Interesting. David Bowie’s final album will be the subject of an “Instagram miniseries”. “UNBOUND: A ★ InstaMiniSeries will visually interpret Bowie’s final album, taking the audience ‘on a journey of evocative images inspired by the moods suggested in the album’s music, lyrics, and artwork,’ according to a press release.”

An odd little Twitter bot combines news headlines and shots from Washington DC traffic cams. “[Max] Leyzerovich says there are ‘no political’ motivations in his Twitter hack, but there are some implied messages, especially when it chirps out a traffic-camera image accompanied by a jarring headline, most of which appear to be sourced from Reuters’ breaking-news feeds.”

Wired has an overview of Google’s Sidewalk Labs. “So what’s coming now that the Sidewalk Labs team’s in place? Well, no one outside the effort knows yet. [Dan] Doctoroff wouldn’t talk about specific efforts, but says his team is getting involved in the Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge. The contest invites medium-sized American cities to create comprehensive plans for how’d they’d use things like automated vehicles, on-demand services, and open data, for a $50 million prize to make it happen. Sidewalk Labs is working with 10 cities on their proposals, though Doctoroff wouldn’t say which ones.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

A poorly-configured MongoDB installation has been leaking private details about 1700 children for at least six weeks. “The exposed database contained sensitive records on just over 1,700 children, including full names, email addresses, GPS coordinates, date of birth, 6.8 million private text messages, and 1.8 million images (many depicting children). Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram account details were also exposed.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

From The New York Times: Yahoo’s Decision to Explore a Sale Exposes a Weak Board. Gee, I thought approving all those ridiculous pay and severance packages did that. “It’s hard to believe, but after all these years, the Yahoo board is still a contender for America’s worst corporate board. The announcement last week that the board is officially exploring ‘strategic alternatives’ — code for a sale — and hiring advisers is confirmation that it is still stumbling, refusing to take a stand as its chief executive, Marissa Mayer, flounders.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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