NEW RESOURCES

The government of Israel has created a database with documents about the “Yemenite Children Affair” (Wikipedia has an overview of that if you need background.) “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inaugurated an online database on Wednesday that gives the public full access to some 400,000 pages of declassified documents that the state hopes will help bring closure to the decades-long controversy known as the ‘Yemenite Children Affair.'”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CogDog has updated his Flickr CC Attribution Helper. “Because I use it almost daily, I have to admit that my favorite tool I built is the flickr CC Attribution Helper which makes attributing Creative Commons licensed flickr photos a one click copy / paste operation.”

Periscope is getting into 360-degree video. “While Twitter could rest on its laurels, the company is continually looking to make Periscope even better. Today, the live-streaming service gains a very cool new feature — 360-degree videos. Unfortunately, there is a small catch.”

Google is expanding its railway Wi-Fi program in India. “Google and state-run internet service provider RailTel will push their free Wi-Fi internet to another 100 railway stations in India next year, said Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu. Google and RailTel partnered earlier this year and announced plans to bring free internet to 400 railway stations across India. The two announced last week that their Wi-Fi service has reached the 100th railway station in the country.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 10 Sites to Download High Quality Stock Videos for Free (though please don’t get inspired to make a video background for your Web site. I hate those things.)

Smashing Magazine has a great, somewhat intimidatingly-detailed list of things to do for a New Year digital cleanup. “This is not a generic article about unspectacular things like getting to inbox zero or changing the copyright year in your footer (although that’s a good idea!) — we published a detailed checklist of all of those details a couple of years ago. Instead, you’ll find below an overview of all of those obscure little things that I forget about every year; so, I decided to gather them all in one place once and for all.

Quick hit from Gizmodo: 5 Uses For Google Keep Beyond Note-Taking. “Google Keep has been quietly storing our grocery lists and random musings since 2013, but since then it’s evolved to handle much more than daily task reminders and phone numbers of friends. Here are 5 extra features you can make use of next time you launch the app.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Sunderland (England) is concerned after its city’s piers vanished off Google Maps. “Sunderland is making a plea to online giant Google after being left a pier-less city. That’s because a search for the city on the website’s Maps function does not show the famous Roker Pier or its sister south pier in Hendon. Other North East piers such as those in Seaham and Tynemouth do come up when looking at the locations on the site.” Google said it couldn’t comment.

ProPublica: Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them. “Facebook has long let users see all sorts of things the site knows about them, like whether they enjoy soccer, have recently moved, or like Melania Trump. But the tech giant gives users little indication that it buys far more sensitive data about them, including their income, the types of restaurants they frequent and even how many credit cards are in their wallets.”

Quartz: In Pakistan, secret Facebook groups are changing female friendship. “Finding support through online groups, where one is likely to stumble upon people who share one’s values, is becoming increasingly popular. Social media has become, for the Pakistani millennial generation, what neighbourhood friends were for the previous one—it’s where one can find a shoulder to cry on and get some advice from one’s peers. Many would argue that some of these groups are exclusive domains only for certain socio-economic groups. But as more and more Pakistanis get access to and use the internet, more diversity is likely to be seen.”

After the huge mess it made out of Windows 10 updates, it’s nice to see Microsoft admitting that maybe they way they were handled wasn’t a great idea. “Now that the Windows 10 upgrade push is long gone, the company actually got close to acknowledging that its behavior went too far. Speaking on the Windows Weekly podcast, Microsoft’s Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela finally acknowledged that the company mishandled the entire forced upgrade (though he falls short of apologizing or addressing the parallel privacy concerns)…”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Facebook’s Safety Check was erroneously triggered — so was it fake news or not that did it? “Facebook got fooled by its own algorithm. Today, the social network activated its Safety Check feature but falsely suggested that there was an explosion in Bangkok, Thailand. Users in the country saw an alert to mark themselves safe, but saw little details about when or where in Bangkok the ‘explosion’ occurred. Safety Check came on at around 9PM local time and was deactivated about an hour later.” Good morning, Internet…

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