NEW RESOURCES

Ireland will set up a new online database of banned drivers. “A list of all Irish motorists banned from driving by the courts is to be up and running by the end of the year. The details of the database were revealed by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) chief Moya Murdock and it will include those put off the road for drink driving or dangerous driving but not those banned for accumulating 12 penalty points.”

Oh, it just wouldn’t be CES without a new search engine launch. This time it’s Seenso Health (PRESS RELEASE). “Cogilex R&D Inc., a Montreal-based technology innovation company, today launched a new type of search engine named Seenso Health. Seenso ranks webpages intelligently based on the meaning of their content. In addition, it mimics the behavior of a knowledgeable and helpful guide by offering users knowledge maps of key information and a guided exploratory interface for expanding the search.” The press release also states that the engine will have no advertising and no user tracking…

Now available: an archive of recordings and oral histories of Wintu speakers. Wintu is both a language and an indigenous people who live in northern California; you can learn more about them here..

I’m a bit late on this one, but the magazine Art in Australia is now available as a digital archive. “Art in Australia will appeal to followers of early twentieth century art and the wonderful aesthetics of those years. It contains articles by or about significant Australian artists. Norman Lindsay and Margaret Preston contributed articles as well as featured in issues. Their works are often displayed as exquisite high quality plates.” Looks like about 47 issues, from the 1910s to the 1930s. Gorgeous images.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: Bing gets in shape with search updates for exercise & healthy recipe-related queries. “Bing has added new search updates aimed at helping its health-conscious users.”

Linux Mint 18.1 is now available. “As with other versions of Linux Mint 18.1, this version is based on Ubuntu 16.04 and offers support until 2021. The kernel version is 4.4 and the Xfce environment is updated to 4.12. From a software perspective, there is a major shakeup regarding the included default music player. Banshee has been banished, with the superior Rhythmbox taking its place.”

Google has acquired Limes Audio. “One of the biggest challenges to a great video meeting is the audio quality. Conference rooms today come in all shapes and sizes and that can provide a challenge for acoustics. Additionally, a poor internet connection can hamper voice quality in video conference calls. Limes Audio has been building solutions that remove the distracting noise, distortion and echoes that can affect online video and telephony meetings, improving the overall online conference experience.”

USEFUL STUFF

Social Media Examiner: How to Back Up Your Social Media Content. “Downloading your social media profiles, content, and contacts will ensure you always have what you need to keep your business running, no matter what platform or features come and go. In this article, you’ll discover how to download copies of your social media content and profiles.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wow! From PetaPixel: Using Humidification and Electrostatic Force in Digitizing Old Newspapers. “Often when scoping out digitization projects, devising complementary conservation treatments that assist in digital photo capture are challenging aspects of overall workflow design. And so it has been the case with our recent efforts at UConn Library on a set of 19th century Latin American newspapers from the University’s archives and special collections.”

TechCrunch: CrowdAI sells artificial-intelligence-as-a-service. “Businesses send CrowdAI their autonomous vehicle, satellite or drone imagery. CrowdAI’s artificial intelligence systems do the grunt work of recognizing objects, and humans confirm everything was properly recognized while looping back to improve the AI. This service lets customers focus on their unique business, like building advanced hardware, instead of developing AI systems from scratch.”

Interesting article from The Drum: Why fake news is a bigger problem for Google than Facebook. “Since the fake news scandal emerged, Google and Facebook have barred fake news sites from using their ad networks both Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg have detailed plans for combating fake stories. Google, however, has not been quite as forthcoming.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Bleeping Computer: MongoDB Databases Held for Ransom by Mysterious Attacker. “An attacker going by the name of Harak1r1 is hijacking unprotected MongoDB databases, stealing and replacing their content, and asking for a Bitcoin ransom to return the data. These attacks have been happening for more than a week and have hit servers all over the world.” Good morning, Internet…

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