NEW RESOURCES

The Rochester Hills Museum (Michigan) has added a lot of content, including old newspapers, to its site. “Over 7,000 catalog records have been uploaded to the museum’s online database using a museum cataloging software called PastPerfect. The collections include archival photographs and documents, and objects related to the greater Rochester area and the Taylor/Van Hoosen family. The museum’s collection of old newspapers is also available for view.”

The Kelowna Art Gallery (British Columbia, Canada) has put its permanent collection online. “The collection contains 881 pieces by 166 different artists in a wide variety of media, ranging from acrylic paintings to hand-woven wicker sculpture and even to a vintage hockey helmet with honeycomb attached.”

DigitalNC has launched an archive for the Wake Forest University Jurist. “These campus publications document the updates about the goings on Wake Forest School of Law, the accomplishments of alums, and various information about the institution and the field of law generally.” The headline says “25 Years” but browsing through it I saw issues ranging from 1971 to 2015.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google has released a Tilt Brush toolkit. “Tilt Brush is a tool for creators of all backgrounds and styles to make art in virtual reality. Sketches made in Tilt Brush stand on their own — you can film your sketches, take 2D snapshots, export them as 3D objects. However there hasn’t been an easy way to add animation, interactivity, or sequencing to your art. That is, until now.”

LinkedIn has launched a redesign of its desktop version. “After a short preview in September last year, and the small matter of getting acquired for $26.2 billion by Microsoft, today LinkedIn — the social network for the professional world with close to 470 million users — is finally unveiling its redesign of its desktop site, complete with a simpler, app-like look; a new messaging experience that appears as a pop-up on the homepage; and updated search features. LinkedIn said the new desktop version will be rolling out globally over the next few weeks.”

I’m not even sure I knew Microsoft HAD a competitor to Twitch. But it does, and it’s gotten an upgrade. “The most conspicuous change is what you’ll see the moment you hop in. There’s a revamped home page that can feature multiple streams and show more info about a broadcaster’s communities. Also, you’ll notice a revamped, HTML5-only player that touts better video-on-demand controls, playback at higher bitrates (up to 10Mbps) and higher resolutions (1440p at 60 frames per second, anyone?). However, some of the biggest improvements are under the hood.”

Microsoft is killing off Cache, which I had barely heard of and which from its description sounds like it’s only fractionally useful as compared to OneNote. “When Microsoft launched its Cache note-taking experiment last year, we hoped it could become Microsoft’s version of Google Keep, if Microsoft devoted enough resources to it. Sadly, that’s not the case.”

After ages (months certainly. Years?) of being on leave, Matt Cutts has finally left Google. “After dipping his toes in government work last year, Google Search guru Matt Cutts is now stepping away from Google in a more permanent way. Cutts, who has wrestled spam and SEO at Google since 2000, joined the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) in mid-2016 for a role that he expected to last three months. After extending his stay by three more, Cutts, now the USDS director of engineering, will take over as the in-house tech consulting group’s acting administrator.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Have you been having trouble with your Instagram app? It’s not just you. “Twitter has been abuzz over the past several hours with many users complaining that Instagram’s Android and iOS apps are crashing when they try to upload photos and Stories.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

NewCo: S&*!t! I’m Locked Out By Google Authenticator and I Can’t Get In! (Cartoonish obscenity reproduced as is.) “It’s great to depend on Google’s authentication system to confirm your identity on an online application’s website — until it doesn’t work. If you’ve ever been locked out of your own life, here’s how to work around that conundrum.”

BloombergQuint: Indonesia Tax Agency Demands Meeting With Top Google Executives. “A meeting on Thursday with the tax office was abruptly halted after senior executives from Google failed to show and the company sent only a local representative, Hestu Yoga Saksama, a spokesman for the Directorate General of Taxation, said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Friday. Google had submitted some financial statements but they didn’t match the tax agency’s own assessment of the revenue the company was making in Indonesia, he said.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

The Wrap: Hashtags to Cash: Twitter Buzz Can Boost Box Office, Study Finds. “The Emerson study, conducted as part of a School of Communication research course at the university, involved manually coding a sample of 12,000 tweets out of a selection of more than 800,000 tweets that included hashtags related to 17 movies released in the fall of 2016. All films were wide releases and none were holiday-themed, to avoid any skew from unique audiences.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!