NEW RESOURCES

PRNewswire: Zirra Opens its Startup Insights Report Database for the Public (PRESS RELEASE). “Zirra, a startup that has developed AI and machine learning technology to analyze the private tech market, is opening its Startups Spotlight Report database to the public, which includes a collection of data and insights on startups, free of charge. You will now be able to search for any company – public or private – and immediately get a Zirra Spotlight Report. These reports will be automatically generated using our proprietary tech to create a report at the touch of a button.” I tried this for three slightly less well-known companies – Twilio, Nuzzel, and PicMonkey – and it popped every time.

National Library of Australia: Pacific Islands Monthly Digitised. “The National Library has recently completed the digitisation of the entire run of the Pacific Islands monthly magazine and all of the issues can be browsed or the text fully searched on Trove. The Pacific Islands monthly (PIM) was founded in Sydney by New Zealand born journalist Robert William (Robbie) Robson, who had moved to Australia during World War I. The first issue was published August 1930 and it ran until June 2000.”

WOW! From the University of St. Andrews: New technology reveals old Edinburgh. “The lost townscape of sixteenth-century Edinburgh has been brought back to life by researchers at the University of St Andrews. The new digital reconstruction is the first to be created of the period, and is based on a drawing from 1544, thought to be the earliest accurate depiction of the capital. The virtual time travel technology – which will be released as an app in May – provides a unique window into the capital around the time of the birth of Mary Queen of Scots.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The 2017 SXSW music torrent is now available. “For the past several years Ben Stolt has taken the time and effort to put all of the MP3s on BitTorrent. Last week he published the latest 2017 torrent, which consists of 1,201 tracks totaling 7.86 gigabytes of free music. All the tracks released for the previous editions are also still available and most of these torrents remain well-seeded. The 2005 – 2017 archives now total more than 77 gigabytes.”

From WPTavern: GitHub Adds Plain English Explanations to License Pages for Open Source Projects. “GitHub took another step towards beefing up its support for open source projects this week with a new feature that makes it easier to understand a project’s license.”

BetaNews: Amazon makes it cheaper to build and host Alexa skills . “Thousands of Alexa developers can now build and host most Alexa skills for free using Amazon Web Services (AWS), thanks to a newly released Amazon program. Previously, developers have had at their disposal the AWS Free Tier, offering a million AWS Lambda requests and a total of 750 hours of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) — monthly, for free. However, exceeding these limits also meant monthly fees.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Find and Keep Up with All Your YouTube Subscriptions. “It used to be so simple. If you liked a video, and wanted to see more videos like it, you’d click the ‘Subscribe’ button. The next time that channel put out a video, you’d see it on the homepage. But in 2017, there’s probably a few channels you love that you haven’t seen lately, and more than a few channels you hate-watched at some point showing up on your homepage constantly. What gives?”

TechnoNutty: Top 14 Reddit alternative websites you should check out. “If you are an internet buff, then you probably know Reddit. This popular web forum where people discuss on certain general and controversial topics has become a one-stop hub for web users. Unlike the social networks, this web forum delivers a plenty of information that most people are unaware of or would like to know. Although being a recognized space to present your thoughts, Reddit ignores most of the posts and topics posted by users and those are left unmoderated or unpublished by Reddit admins. This makes several users get frustrated and they seek a place where their voice can be heard. Therefore, in this post, we will mention a few of the Reddit alternatives that you would prefer using.” A couple of these choices are kind of odd – Newsvine? – but it’s an interesting list.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Register: Big-in-Russia’s Yandex launches itself at a Google world . “The Google-Facebook duopoly has created a Silicon Valley empire that stretches from sea to shining sea. With two exceptions: Russia and China. While we think of Russian and Chinese internet companies as exclusively focused on their home territories, this isn’t totally the case. NASDAQ-listed Yandex operates mainly in the former CIS states and Turkey, but without much fanfare, it’s taking on the giants in both emerging and mature markets too.”

The News & Observer: Senate leader’s Facebook page used for legislative business, campaign. “State Senate leader Phil Berger has embraced social media, both for his legislative staff and his re-election campaign. Berger’s campaign uses Facebook to encourage potential contributors to give money. A red button posted there says ‘Support Phil. Donate now!’ Government employees on Berger’s staff use Facebook to promote Berger’s agenda. They post links to press releases, news articles and other content, according to his office. But Berger has a single Facebook page, not two.”

WIRED: Why Instagram Is Suddenly the Place for Sports Highlights. “IF YOU WANT to watch sports highlights on your phone, there are lots of sites and platforms that make it easy. But none is more now than House of Highlights. The bombastic, occasionally NSFW Instagram account is the hottest thing going, due in no small part to the dedication of its 22-year-old founder, Omar Raja.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

New York Times: One Billion Yahoo Accounts Still for Sale, Despite Hacking Indictments. “For sale: one billion Yahoo accounts, $200,000 or best offer. The passwords don’t work, but the dates of birth, telephone numbers and security questions could still be useful to an adept cyberthief.” Good morning, Internet…

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