NEW RESOURCES

A new site provides information about penguin colonies in Antarctica. “The website also allows anyone to query all publicly available penguin census data. Any user can also access the latest modeled population estimates for Adélie penguins around the Antarctic continent, as well as the probability of presence and breeding for all other avian species on the Antarctic Peninsula. Lynch also explained that researchers with data to contribute to MAPPPD have a variety of ways to do so, as do keen-eyed tourists who, in the summer months, actually outnumber scientists in the region and can contribute important information through bird checklists and photographs.”

TechCrunch: Iris AI drastically expedites research through the power of artificial intelligence. “There are more than 30 million research papers out there, and more than 3,000 papers are published every day. Put simply, you haven’t a chance in hell to read all of them. So what’s a poor researcher to do when set a challenge in a brand new field of research? Once the wave of blind panic and urge to drink copious amounts of gin has dissipated, you reach for a technology solution. Iris believes it has just the thing. The company launched a public beta to show off its technology this week.”

Wheels Magazine (which is, as you might expect, about cars), has launched a new digital archive with content dating back to 1990. (More content will be added later – the magazine started in 1953.) “Available to Wheels Archive subscribers, the Wheels Archive index will provide you with an overview of each edition’s contents; simply click on any of the article titles to view in its original form within the archive.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Facebook is launching online courses for journalists. “The free courses, which will focus on discovering content, creating stories, and building audience, will include ‘best practices and guidelines from Facebook’ and will draw on ‘great journalist case studies.’ ”

Google Photos is apparently showing albums in its search results. Google Photos is okay but man I miss Picasa. “I’m actually not seeing this feature yet on any of my devices, but Kyle Salewski over on Google+ is (via Android Police). Basically it lets you find albums of photos related to the search term that you type in at the top of the window. In the case of the below example, Kyle typed in Vegas, and while the results still show images and videos taken in Vegas, the search is also now surfacing a few albums with Vegas in the name.”

Now you can get weather by chatbot. Actually it sounds rather cooler than that: “The new bot will use IBM Watson’s natural language and machine learning tools to get to know a user’s preferences for weather information, according to an IBM press release. Over time, the bot will make recommendations about weather and news information.”

Google has launched a new digital whiteboard. “Google has launched its answer to Microsoft’s Surface Hub: a cloud-connected touchscreen whiteboard device called Jamboard. It’s a large display and new software that enables collaboration with other Jamboards (across the building or across the country) and also on iOS or Android tablets or phones.”

USEFUL STUFF

Amit Agarwal, who is awesome, has made a tool for embedding Google Photos. “Open any picture on the Google Photos website, click the Share button and then click Get Link to generate a shareable link for that image. Paste that link in the box above and generate the embed code with one-click.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

The scanning order Yahoo got from the US government apparently will not be made public. “… attempts by other members of Congress and civil society groups to learn more about the Yahoo order are unlikely to meet with success anytime soon, because its details remain a sensitive national security matter, U.S. officials told Reuters. Release of any declassified version of the order is unlikely in the foreseeable future, the officials said.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Vox: Here’s what it would take for Twitter to get serious about its harassment problem. “The fundamental problem, as one subject of harassment on Twitter told me, is that Twitter still doesn’t seem to see fighting abuse as a core part of the product. ‘If you don’t build content moderation in from day one and you tack it on after the fact, you’re facing a losing battle,’ says Susan, an active Twitter user who preferred to use a pseudonym because of the volume of online harassment she has received due to her political work. It’s a lesson Twitter still needs to learn.” Too bad Twitter has been so awful to third-party developers – we might have solutions by now. Good morning, Internet…

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