NEW RESOURCES

UK football (soccer to us Yanks) magazine When Saturday Comes has launched a full digital archive. “Subscribers to the magazine, whether in print or digital and institutional users will now gain instant access to 350 issues of the magazine. Coinciding with the release of the 350th issue and the 30th birthday of When Saturday Comes, the archive of back issues is now searchable across all digital platforms, for old subscribers and new.” This is a pay service for non-subscribers.

Wayne State University has digitized the publication produced during a Detroit newspaper strike. “A weekly publication that emerged from the one of the nation’s longest-lived newspaper strikes has been digitized by the Wayne State University Libraries, and more than 200 issues are now available in a digitized, searchable format. The Detroit Sunday Journal was produced for four years by unionized workers who went on strike against The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press in July 1995.”

Google has launched “Destinations on Google”. “Search with Google on your mobile phone for the continent, country, or state you’d like to travel to and add the word ‘destination’ to see an easy-to-browse collection of options. Destinations integrates a deep understanding of all the places in the world with Google Flights and Hotel search, so you can see available flight and hotel prices instantly. So instead of jumping between a dozen links or tabs to get the information you need, you can sit back and scroll—and leave the heavy lifting to us.”

USEFUL STUFF

From Amit Agarwal: How to track Google Spreadsheet views with Google Analytics. “Google Analytics provides a JavaScript snippet that can be inserted into web templates for tracking visits. You cannot insert JavaScript inside the cells of a Google Spreadsheet but we can use the IMAGE function combined with some Apps Script to enable tracking inside spreadsheet.”

Eric Griffith has a decent roundup of how to find product manuals and documentation on the Internet.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Looks like I got rooked, guys, and I apologize: it appears the Nefertiti scan was a hoax. “The Times reports that artists Al-badri and Nelles used a modified Microsoft Kinect scanner hidden under clothing to gather the scan data of the bust. Following the Times story, there have been several independent and exhaustive descriptions of how their scan data simply cannot have been gathered in the way Al-badri and Nelles claim. For the specifics, I refer you to analysis by Paul Docherty and Fred Kahl. They correctly point out that the Kinect scanner has fundamentally low resolution and accuracy, and that even under ideal conditions, it simply cannot acquire data as detailed as what the artists have made available. The artists’ account simply cannot be true.”

Google’s AI, AlphaGo has beaten a champion Go player in the first of five matches. “AlphaGo, a program developed by Google’s DeepMind unit, has defeated legendary Go player Lee Se-dol in the first of five historic matches being held in Seoul, South Korea. Lee resigned after about three and a half hours, with 28 minutes and 28 seconds remaining on his clock. The series is the first time a professional 9-dan Go player has taken on a computer, and Lee is competing for a $1 million prize.”

Apparently Facebook wants to detect new slang before it goes mainstream. “According to a new patent, Facebook is exploring new software designed to scan the social network looking for emerging slang and nicknames. Once found, the software would deposit the terms neatly into a ‘social glossary’ for further analysis.” Now I just want to make up words when I post to Facebook.

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

A judge in the Netherlands has ordered Google to hand over details on fake reviews which were posted to Google+. “….over in the Netherlands, a judge has ordered Google to hand over the IP addresses and details of people who have been leaving fake reviews for a nursery in which the reviews left on Google+ made false allegations that the nursery was harming children.”

Microsoft had a fat Patch Tuesday. “Microsoft has fixed 39 vulnerabilities in multiple Windows components, Internet Explorer, Edge, Office and .NET Framework, many of which allow for remote code execution. The patches are grouped in 13 security bulletins, five of which are rated critical and the rest as important.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Hey! monitoring Twitter to identify food poisoning hotspots. “One out of every six U.S. residents gets food poisoning each year, and when they do, many of them write about it on Twitter. That’s where nEmesis comes in. Developed by computer-science researchers from the University of Rochester, the software uses natural language processing and artificial intelligence to identify food poisoning-related tweets, connect them to restaurants using geotagging and identify likely hot spots.” Now the amazing part. The process was tested in Las Vegas, and “…there were 9,000 fewer food-poisoning incidents and 557 fewer hospitalizations in Las Vegas during the course of the study, the researchers estimated.”

Apparently the percentage of Americans who listened to a podcast in the month is over 20% now – 21% specifically. 21% percent of Americans! OVER SIXTY MILLION PEOPLE! And there’s still not a search engine for podcasts that’s worth a plugged nickel. There’s a social network for baristas but not a decent search engine for podcast. Oh boy, do I get frustrated sometimes. Good morning, Internet…

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