NEW RESOURCES

Folk music collector Peter Kennedy has a new online archive. “Between the 1950s and the 2000s, Peter Kennedy (1922–2006) collected, researched and published British and Irish folk music and customs. He worked for the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), the BBC and as an independent operator, collaborating with other prominent figures like Alan Lomax, Hamish Henderson, Sean O’Boyle and Seamus Ennis.”

The Iowa Museums, Archives, and Libraries Emergency Response Team has launched IMALERT. “The IMALERT Hotline … can connect staff with the information and expertise needed to respond to, and recover from, any level of incident from a leaking pipe to a major flood. Through the team’s vast experience in conservation, preservation and emergency response and recovery, help is available to assess damage to collection materials, make recommendations for recovery, assist with decision making on drying out buildings, and demonstrate salvage techniques and/or help organize the initial salvage operation.” I can’t tell if this is Iowa-only or not. It doesn’t say Iowa-only. I hope not; it’s a great idea.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Twitch is apparently going to start a channel where people can watch other people eat. I know this is a thing but I don’t get it. “Game streaming site Twitch says it will soon be launching a dedicated channel for watching people eat. The Amazon-owned company currently has a social eating section that allows broadcasters to ‘socialize with their viewers over their favorite meals.’ ”

WordPress 4.6 Beta 1 is now available.

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 5 Apps to Make Creative Facebook Cover Photos & Profile Pictures. I hadn’t heard of most of these nifty tools.

Google is offering a free four-month trial of YouTube Red and Google Play Music. I am a happy YouTube Red customer paying my full freight and at this point, I watch it more than Netflix.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Katy Perry has set a new Twitter record with 90 million followers. She’s so famous even I know who she is.

SECURITY AND LEGAL

A first to me, but I suspect not the last: a video pirate hid a movie in a 360-degree video clip. “The video (now removed) starts by showing a slightly sped-up version of the film in a normal YouTube screen dimension, but clicking the 360-degree arrows rotates the plane to reveal a larger viewing environment, essentially a video within a video.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

From George Mason University’s Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property: Do As I Say, Not As I Do: Google’s Patent Transparency Hypocrisy. “Given Google’s stance on the importance of broadly available prior art to help weed out vague patents and neuter the ‘trolls’ that wield them, you’d think that Google would share the same devotion to transparency when it comes to its own patent applications. But it does not. Google has not mentioned in its formal comments and in its public statements that even using its own search engine would fail to disclose a substantial majority of its own patent applications. Unlike the other top-ten patent recipients in the U.S., including many other tech companies, Google keeps most of its own patent applications secret. It does this while at the same time publicly decrying the lack of transparency in the patent system.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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