USEFUL STUFF

Betanews has a quick writeup on a tool that shows your browser extensions. “Freeware developer NirSoft has released BrowserAddonsView, a free tool which detects and displays all your installed Chrome, Firefox and IE extensions, in all user profile folders.”

Want to know how much of those “based on a true story” movies are actually, like, true? Gizmodo’s got you covered. “The site Information is Beautiful is providing an invaluable service to the film-going public: the ability to be an insufferable know-it-all during films based on true historical events. The interactive feature has carved up ten recent movies into their individual scenes and grades each scene as ‘true,’ ‘true-ish,’ ‘false-ish,’ and ‘false.’ You can set the grading system to different levels of skepticism, from ‘Flexible,’ to ‘Only the Absolute Truth.'”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Earlier this week I mentioned a new search engine called Kiddle and expressed doubt that it was run by Google despite what the news story had said. Well, it turns out Kiddle is not run by Google. It’s just using Google Custom Search. And like most children’s search engines, the story indicates it has problems. Unless you’re searching a handpicked directory of URLs, in my experience kid-friendly search engines aren’t. There’s just too much margin for error to try to filter out URLs.

Quartz has an interview with the lead designer of Periscope. I think the fact that his grandparents were early users explains a lot about how easy it is to use.

Snapchat is getting Nielsen tracking for its advertising campaigns. Snapchat has unlocked the “advertising player” badge. “Snapchat is teaming up with Nielsen to supply marketers with third-party data measuring their ad campaigns. In addition, Snapchat has inked deals with two ad tech companies, Innovid and Sizmek, to bolster Snapchat’s ability to provide more granular data on campaign delivery.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Ooopsie. The IRS has admitted that last year’s hack was worse than originally stated. Protip: they’re ALWAYS worse than originally stated. “WHEN THE IRS first reported a hack that exposed taxpayer accounts’ vulnerable information, it pegged the number of affected people at a little over 100,000. Today, in its second upward revision, the number of affected people now stands at over 700,000.”

It looks like courts in Japan are now recognizing the “right to be forgotten”. “A court in Saitama has recognized the ‘right to be forgotten’ — the first ruling of its kind in Japan — in a case filed by a man demanding Google Inc. remove three-year-old news reports of his arrest in connection to child prostitution and pornography, according to newly discovered court documents.” When I read this I thought, “Wait, Japanese courts have ordered Google to remove results before,” so I went looking. The Saitama District Court ordered Google to remove search results last summer, but the reason cited was privacy, not RTBF. (In fact, it looks like it might be the same case.)

AT&T really does not want Google Fiber in Louisville, Kentucky. In fact, they’re suing over it. “The telecoms giant filed a complaint [PDF] in federal court on Thursday seeking to prevent the Kentucky’s largest city, and Jefferson County, from allowing Google’s contractors to access utility poles in order to string fiber lines.” 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!