NEW RESOURCES

In development: a map of historically-important LGBT sites in New York. “Still in the early stages, the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project will evolve into an online archive and interactive map of around 1,000 places throughout New York, from the residences of notable figures like Walt Whitman and Audre Lorde to cultural nexuses like the Apollo Theater and the West Side Tennis Club to business hubs—and protest sites—like the New York Stock Exchange. Contemporary and archival photos will supplement a searchable bibliography of each site.”

Thanks to Paul P. for the Twitter tip: Archives of the Planet is now available as open data. “This large iconographic collection consists of 72,000 Autochrome plates (color photographs on glass plates) and hundreds of hours worth of black and white films. This is the result of the work of photographers recruited by Albert Kahn and sent all around the world. Between 1909 and 1931, the photographers have been to more than fifty countries to record the everyday lives of the inhabitants of the planet.”

Architecture. Architecture featuring limestone. In the midwest. It’s an archive of photographs from the Indiana Limestone Company. “The 47 file drawers of photos, originally used by the Indiana Limestone Company for marketing purposes, were stored in the living room of a dilapidated house in Bedford, Indiana. They date from the early to mid-1900s and illustrate architectural styles and limestone use in crisp black and white imagery.” Over 1200 photographs are online, and grant support means an additional 4500 images will be digitized. There are over 25,000 photos total.

Now available: a digitized newspaper from the US Virgin Islands when it was the Danish West Indies. “Over 3,000 pages of David Hamilton Jackson’s The Herald, which is the first citizen-owned and -operated newspaper in the Danish West Indies, have been digitized and are freely available online to researchers everywhere … the digitization project includes issues spanning the entire publication run of 1915 to 1925.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The National Institutes of Health Library is now on Facebook. “Please ‘like’ our Facebook page and you will get instant updates about our products, services, and events.” If you’re one of the lucky 5%.

Google and the United Nations are teaming up against climate change. “New Google-powered software will help the world tackle problems related to climate change, deforestation and food production, a United Nations agency said on Friday, as it presented its revamped online platform. Open Foris, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) software, uses high-resolution satellite images to monitor the environment and changes in land use and forest cover.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Bloomberg: Microsoft’s Bing Isn’t a Joke Anymore When was it a joke? “Bing is on track to generate roughly $5.3 billion in revenue for Microsoft’s fiscal year ended June 30, based on the pace of sales during the previous nine months. Here’s some context: Web search and advertising are among Microsoft’s lowest-priority businesses, yet Bing’s revenue is more than Yahoo’s sales over the last 12 months, and two-and-a-half times Twitter’s advertising revenue. Bing’s yearly revenue may top what Microsoft makes from selling Windows PCs to consumers, based on some rough 2015 disclosures.”

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at how video distribution on Facebook has been better for media companies than YouTube. Writing a thorough article about how much I hate YouTube’s content-discovery systems would take days, so let’s just stick with: I’m not surprised. “In May, the do-it-yourself, home-and-garden site Hometalk made its first big push into video on Facebook. Since then, its Facebook video audience has surged, driven by clips such as an eco-friendly oven cleaning technique that has garnered over 38 million views since July 2, according to Hometalk’s co-founder and chief marketing officer, Miriam Illions. That’s far more attention than Hometalk’s videos have generated on YouTube, where it has had a limited presence for years.”

The Republican National Convention apparently caused a spike in people searching for third party information.

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Illinois online voter registration database has been hacked. “McLean County Clerk Kathy Michael tells WMBD the biggest cause for concern lies in which records were compromised. Older records contained voters’ full social security numbers; newer records only contain public information.”

Two paramedics about whom I am way too angry to describe without melting my keyboard apparently had a “selfies war” featuring their patients. Mostly non-consensually. “Investigators initially identified a total of 41 patients. Two of whom have since died. Three of the photos appear consensual. Out of the remaining patients, 19 were female, and 17 were male. One of those victims was an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Deputy. Five were homeless, the Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Chinese search engine Baidu has created a tool that makes composes music based on images. “In a new exhibit at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, Baidu’s new AI is analysing photos and paintings and creating entirely original musical arrangements based on the imagery it sees.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

I love the idea of a “pop-up” newspaper. “Pro-Remain newspaper the New European is thought to have sold more than 40,000 copies of its launch edition, more than the short-lived national the New Day when it was shut by publisher Trinity Mirror.” Conception to newsstands in NINE DAYS. Good morning, Internet…

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