NEW RESOURCES

Kenyon College has put its field notes from Honduras archaeology excavations online. “Construction has destroyed more than 80 percent of the Honduran archaeological sites previously excavated by Kenyon anthropology students and faculty — but the records from those sites will live on at Digital Kenyon.”

Yahoo is going to start livestreaming NHL games. “Beginning March 11, in collaboration with the NHL, we’ll live stream an NHL ‘Game of the Day’ in the U.S., up to four days a week, along with delivering in-game highlights for each game. This is in addition to the Wednesday and Sunday national NHL games currently promoted in the alliance with NBC Sports Group.”

Wikipedia has a new iOS app. “The app features articles and images tailored to your interests and surroundings through the new Explore feed. By scrolling down in the Explore feed, you can easily browse a personalized and dynamic set of Wikipedia content…” Sounds like a rabbit hole for your iPhone.

TWEAKS & UPDATES

Web browser Opera has added a built-in ad blocker. When I was using Opera many years ago, the built-in ad blocker was the toggle that turned image loading on and off.. “Opera argues that blocking ads can speed up load times by as much as 90 percent (though in my own experience, the results aren’t quite as dramatic). By using a built-in ad blocker instead of a third-party plugin, the company is able achieve another speedup on top of this. Opera says it’s seeing sites load an extra 40 percent faster compared to third-party solutions.”

Very nice! Stock photography site Shutterstock now offers reverse image search. “All the data Shutterstock has collected about our content has led to the creation of an unparalleled reverse image search. You can now upload an image of your choosing to Shutterstock’s site, bypassing the need to type a query into a search bar, and the technology will identify similar images in look and feel inside of Shutterstock’s collection. Shutterstock will also soon launch visually similar discovery for video.”

Social media monitoring company Talkwalker is set to recognize logos in social media images. “Today, Talkwalker is making it easier for brands to harness the power of images and add a new dimension to their social listening strategy. We’ve announced the launch of proprietary image recognition technology that will allow over 30,000 brands to identify their logos in images posted on social channels and online.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: Three quick ways to turn a Chrome tab into a notepad. Which is useful if you’re using ChromeOS which does not have a notepad app I can find.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

LittleTechGirl looks back on her site with the Wayback Machine, which takes more nerve than I have. “When did you create your first stand alone website? I registered this domain in the year 2000. Before I settled on LittleTechGirl.com being what is today it went through changes… changes that I would mostly like to forget. 🙂 But thanks to the power of the Internet, and the hardworking Wayback Machine some versions of our websites are frozen in time… possibly forever! It can be umm… eye-opening!”

Google can make self-driving cars and really cool robots, but preventing Google Maps shenanigans is still a bit beyond it. “A fake cafe, apparently calling for the removal of Hong Kong’s chief executive appeared on Google Maps on Wednesday in an apparent anti-government protest. The imaginary eatery, named Down 689, featured on a map of the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront, on the Avenue of Stars.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Adobe has issued an emergency update for — what else? — Flash, as an extant vulnerability is actively being exploited. “An emergency update was released by Adobe Systems on Thursday after 23 loopholes in the software were discovered. The company issued a security advisory explaining that there have been a ‘limited number of targeted attacks’ as one of the loopholes became actively exploited.”

Speaking of software you should avoid running if at all possible, it looks like a patch for a Java security issue is broken. “A patch for a critical Java flaw released by Oracle in 2013 is ineffective and can be easily bypassed, security researchers warn. This makes the vulnerability exploitable again, paving the way for attacks against PCs and servers running the latest versions of Java.”

Really? Apparently Twitter wants to trademark the word dronie. “Twitter has appealed the U.S Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) refusal to register the word DRONIE as a trademark used in connection with a long list of goods and services. This list of goods/services being appealed, already shortened from an even longer original list in Twitter’s June 20, 2014 application, includes an appeal to register the mark in connection with…” Bleh. Good morning, Internet…

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