NEW RESOURCES

California has launched a new tool to help residents report violations of CalOPPA, California’s online privacy law. “A website or app operator may violate CalOPPA by failing to post privacy policies or posting incomplete or inadequate policies. This new form is one of several initiatives Attorney General Harris is undertaking to protect Californians’ privacy, especially in light of technological advances and the growth of the ‘internet of things.'”

If you like illuminated manuscripts you’ll love this new project announced by the libraries of Britain and France: “In a ground-breaking new collaborative project the national libraries of Britain and France will work together to create two innovative new websites that will make 800 manuscripts decorated before the year 1200 available freely. The Bibliothèque nationale de France will create a new bilingual website that will allow side-by-side comparison of 400 manuscripts from each collection, selected for their beauty and interest.”

I got an e-mail about a new free service that focuses on delivering fresh streams of information from Twitter. It’s called TheHerdLocker. From the front page: “TheHerdLocker filters out retweets, requotes and people sharing the stuff you’ve already seen but which is obscured by URL shorteners. This free service produces realtime feeds of fresh content, highlighting the popular, and leaders who share it early.” There is a list of hashtags currently being followed, but the site encourages you to request what you don’t see.

The British Library has digitized an archive of Javanese manuscripts. “The ‘Archive of Yogyakarta’ refers to a collection of some four hundred manuscript documents in Javanese dating from 1772 to 1813, originating from the court of Yogyakarta. A highly important source for the political, economic, social, administrative and legal history of central Java in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the archive comprises official reports, letters, accounts and other documents as well as the private papers of Sultan Hamengkubuwana II (r. 1792-1810, 1811-1812, 1826-1828) and his successor Sultan Hamengkubuwana III (r. 1812-1814).”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Yahoo has cancelled the conference call after its earnings announcement on Tuesday. “That means investors and press looking for some answers from Yahoo’s brass will have to wait. Yahoo said in a statement that the scrapped call is ‘due to the pending transaction with Verizon.’ Pressed further, a Yahoo spokeswoman said, ‘his in line with what other companies have done in similar positions as they await close of a transaction.'”

Pinterest’s monthly user base is up to 150 million people. “The 50-percent monthly user base increase is a good sign for Pinterest as it tries to attract more and varied advertisers beyond the ‘tens of thousands of advertisers’ it claims to already have. But it’s also a sign of how wide the gap has become between Pinterest and other platforms vying for those budgets.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 5 Unique Ways to Use Google Maps With Other Google Tools. “I admit that I’m a Google fanboy. The biggest reason for that is that Google services are so well intertwined that you can accomplish almost any integration you can imagine. This is also true with Google Maps. It’s a cinch to integrate Google Maps with other Google services like Google Now, Google Drive, Google Docs & Sheets, and even Gmail.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

From the Washington Post: In Ethiopia’s war against social media, the truth is the main casualty. “The annual U.N. General Assembly meeting provides an unparalleled opportunity for world leaders to take to the bully pulpit of the U.N. chamber and trumpet their country’s achievements or slam their enemies. Last month, presidents, kings and prime ministers talked about the dangers of climate change, progress made in development goals, the threats of terrorism or their responses to the global immigration crisis. But when Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn took the podium Sept. 21, the global challenge he had in mind was perhaps unexpected: social media.”

Unsurprisingly, Verizon is saying that Yahoo’s hack had material impact. You don’t say? “Although the acquisition was already announced, Verizon may be able to make the claim that Yahoo did not disclose its knowledge of the hacks. Reports indicate that Yahoo may have been aware of the incident in July, which was around the time the deal was announced. However, in September, Yahoo issued a statement that they had been unaware at the time.”

Facebook has shut down ads for the entire country of Thailand as that nation mourns the loss of its king. “King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s 70-year reign came to an end on Thursday when he died at the age of 88. Facebook (FB, Tech30) said in a post that removing ads is ‘a cultural custom’ during the mourning period.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Ugh: Universities have turned over hundreds of patents to patent trolls. “Intellectual Ventures (IV), a high-powered patent troll, has made its patent portfolio public — and it contains almost 30,000 active patents. IV is notorious for using these patents, including the truly trivial ones, to sue companies for patent infringement or bully them into paying with litigation threats. But how many of IV’s patents came from universities?”

US lawmakers are putting more pressure on Yahoo and the government to answer questions about email surveillance. “A bipartisan group of 48 U.S. lawmakers wants two government agencies to explain a surveillance program in which Yahoo reportedly scanned all the messages of its email users on behalf of the FBI.” Good morning, Internet…

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