TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Wellesley: Wellesley’s Snapchat Reporters Capture Campus News . “Many people know Snapchat as a social media platform, used to send pictures and videos back and forth to friends. This semester, Wellesley launched its own Snapchat account, Wellesley, and staffed it with a crew of students ready to tackle this new platform for reporting. This group of reporters is committed to documenting the year at Wellesley as it happens, and sharing it with current students, prospective students, and alums. It includes Emilia Ball ’19, Rory Fernandez ’20, Doris Li ’20, Rhea Mehta ’20, Ngozi Oghor ’19, Emily Pearson ’20, and Katie Sidhu ’20.”

Google has launched a Web site especially for Chinese developers. “US tech giant Google Inc launched a Chinese developers’ website on Thursday, aiming to make it easier for developers to learn more about Google services and technologies, as well as develop new applications. The US company said it set up the website … especially for Chinese developers, which has gathered the technological resources Google provides to its global developers and the latest technical information, including the Android and Firebase platforms.”

Search Engine Roundtable: Google Adds New Books Schema Markup With Buy E-Book Links. “Google has added a new schema markup type for books in their developer center. Aaron Bradley posted about it on Google+ explaining that this was just added on December 3, 2016. It is currently a closed beta…”

USEFUL STUFF

Coschedule: How to Improve Your Instagram Engagement With 15 Tips. Nothing earth-shattering but a good solid set of tips for the beginner or someone who’s just trying to get a bit more out of Instagram.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

From the Library of Congress: Technology at the Library: Getting the Whole Picture. “One of the great joys in looking at a panoramic photograph is finding small details in a picture that can be several feet in length and show an entire city, or the whole crew of a battleship. It’s an experience that’s hard to reproduce in a smaller space, such as in a book or on a computer monitor or on a magazine page. But new viewing technologies let us zoom in and pan around to see the fascinating details, on computers and mobile devices. And new scanning technologies are helping the Library produce higher-quality digital images in a single exposure.”

The Guardian: Facebook court filings hint at possible political future for Mark Zuckerberg. “Mark Zuckerberg may intend to pursue government service while retaining control of Facebook, according to recently unsealed court filings in a case pitting the CEO against minority investors.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Techdirt: Lawsuit Against Courts Massively Overcharging For Documents Moves Forward. “Back in April, we wrote about an interesting lawsuit filed over excessive fees for PACER, the federal court system’s electronic records system. If you’re not a lawyer or journalist, and have never used PACER, it is difficult to put into words what a ridiculous and outdated system it is. Not only does it look like it was designed and built in 1998, the court system leverages ridiculous fees for everything you do in it. It’s officially 10 cents per page (with a limit of $3 max per document), but that’s not just per page you download of court documents, but everything. Do a search? That’ll be at least 10 cents and possibly more if the magic PACER system decides the results are long enough. Look at a docket of a court case? Better hope it’s not one with hundreds of filings, because just opening the docket can cost you $3 — and that’s before downloading any documents.”

Unfortunately the Internet of Things also includes potentially privacy-invading dolls. “That internet-connected talking toy you bought your kids may be putting their privacy at risk without your knowledge or consent, according to a coalition of consumer-interest organizations. A complaint filed Tuesday with the US Federal Trade Commission alleges that Genesis Toys, the makers of ‘smart’ kids toys — the My Friend Cayla doll and the i-Que Intelligent Robot — and speech-recognition software maker Nuance Communications are violating rules that protect children’s privacy and prohibit unfair and deceptive practices.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Research paper, in PDF: Tweeting negative emotion: An investigation of Twitter data in the aftermath of violence on college campuses . “Studying communities impacted by traumatic events is often costly, requires swift action to enter the field when disaster strikes, and may be invasive for some traumatized respondents. Typically, individuals are studied after the traumatic event with no baseline data against which to compare their post-disaster responses. Given these challenges, we used longitudinal Twitter data across three case studies to examine the impact of violence near or on college campuses in the communities of Isla Vista, CA, Flagstaff, AZ, and Roseburg, OR, compared to control communities, between 2014 and 2015. ”

Google: Reflecting on the Right to be Forgotten. “What if links to stories about someone’s past – stories about defrauding an international business or about medical tourism malpractice – were removed from Google search in your country, not because of your local laws but because someone was able to use the laws of another country. How would you feel about that? That question may seem simplistic. But it goes to the heart of a very important debate that is taking place now in Europe, initially between some Data Protection Authorities and, next year, in court.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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