NEW RESOURCES

Wayne State University: Unpaywall: A New OA Discovery Tool. “Some of you may remember oaDOI, a tool that searches for an Open Access (OA) version of an article when provided with a digital object identifier (DOI). Impactstory, the team behind oaDOI, has just announced the upcoming release of a new tool based on the oaDOI API called Unpaywall and it looks to be very useful indeed.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Reddit plans a profile page redesign reminiscent of Facebook and Twitter (updated). “Reddit has been trying to make its site more accessible to a wider pool of users, and today the company is planning to show off one of the ways it plans to do that: by making the service a little bit more like Facebook and Twitter. From today, Reddit is going to start offering users a new profile page design that will let them make posts directly to the pages themselves (not just communities), and Reddit users who are logged in will be able to follow the profile for new posts.”

The Register: Google’s stock rating downgraded as YouTube ad boycott contagion goes global. “Google has responded to a contagious YouTube advertising boycott which yesterday prompted a downgrade on Wall Street. Pivotal Research Group downgraded Alphabet shares from ‘Buy’ to ‘Hold’ based on its response to the boycott, which now includes more than 200 big brands, as well as public sector ad spending. Marks & Spencer and Hargreaves Lansdown became the latest to hit pause yesterday.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: Turn Gmail Into an Unexpected Note-Taking Tool With These Tips. “If you live in your Gmail inbox all day every day, how about turning Gmail into your go-to note-taking application? The same features that make Gmail an effective email client can make it a decent note-taking app (albeit an unconventional one). And to help you use it as such, I’ll list a few tweaks and tips in this article.”

Control Alt Achieve: Hipster Google – 21 Google Tools You Probably Never Heard Of. “Google has also created a wide range of services, apps, extensions, features, and other tools that are not as well known. Even though these tools may not be as popular or as widely known, they are still very useful in school settings. These are the ‘Hipster Google’ tools.” Bonus points for the graphic.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Jason Scott needs your help tracking down Apple II software for archiving. “The Summary: Conditions are very, very good right now for easy, top-quality, final ingestion of original commercial Apple II Software and if you know people sitting on a pile of it or even if you have a small handful of boxes, please get in touch with me to arrange the disks to be imaged.”

Knowledge@Wharton: How Facebook’s Big Bet on Video Could Change TV. “Facebook is aggressively ramping up its video strategy, cultivating content whether it comes from users, advertisers or Hollywood, or is developed internally. With its nearly two billion monthly users, the social network could make a big dent in traditional TV and help usher in a major shift towards social TV, Wharton experts say. The social network’s latest video push is partly due to a need to find more ad spaces. In its latest earnings call, Facebook says growth in the second half of 2017 will slow due to a peaking ad load, or how many ads are served up to users.”

MIT Technology Review: Andrew Ng Is Leaving Baidu in Search of a Big New AI Mission. “Andrew Ng, a leading figure in the world of artificial intelligence, is leaving his post as chief scientist at China’s Baidu and says he wants to find ways of advancing AI beyond the technology world.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

There’s a lot missing in this story. It might be BS. Take it with some salt. From Motherboard: Hackers: We Will Remotely Wipe iPhones Unless Apple Pays Ransom. “A hacker or group of hackers is apparently trying to extort Apple over alleged access to a large cache of iCloud and other Apple email accounts. The hackers, who identified themselves as ‘Turkish Crime Family’, demanded $75,000 in Bitcoin or Ethereum, another increasingly popular crypto-currency, or $100,000 worth of iTunes gift cards in exchange for deleting the alleged cache of data.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

I missed this when it was launched in January but it looks like fun: This Museum Wants to Match You With Your Ancient Statue Doppelgänger. “In addition to supporting the arts and broadening your horizons, a trip to a museum is an opportunity to find your millennia-old look-alike hiding in an exhibit. If you haven’t been lucky enough to make such a discovery on your own, the Musée de la civilisation in Quebec City wants to help you find your match. The museum’s new project, ‘My 2000-Year-Old Double,’ pairs people’s faces with their ancient Greco-Roman or Egyptian sculpture counterparts.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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