NEW RESOURCES

EurekAlert: Announcing first-ever American Association of Anatomists Virtual Microscopy Database. “The American Association of Anatomists (AAA) launches their first-ever Virtual Microscopy Database available to educators and researchers worldwide. The Virtual Microscopy Database (VMD) was created as a centralized repository where a community of anatomy and histology scholars and researchers can share a large selection of virtual tissue slides for enhancing education, research, and scholarship.”

Citizens of Ireland have a new Web site that shows how the government spends their tax money. “A NEW WEBSITE has been launched aimed at increasing awareness of where the Government spends taxpayer money…. It allows users to chart the exact amounts of money being used by various Government departments and to service public debt. The website also allows users to drill down further into the figures, to analyse where the money is being spent in each sector of each department.” Based on the comments, the citizens of Ireland are not impressed…

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Blog: Whoa, that’s one big tree … check it out in a new Street View collection. “Today, Google Maps is bringing you more Golden State beauty—we’ve added six destinations to our California State Parks Street View collection.”

Ubergizmo: Google’s Inbox Now Rolling Out High Priority Notifications Option. “Exactly what criteria an email has to meet to be considered high priority is unclear, but we guess maybe things like updates or newsletters probably won’t make the list, or unless the sender has specified that the email is of a high priority.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

From the Legal Feeds blog: Professor receives grant to create database comparing human rights decisions. “A professor at Lakehead University has received a research grant to build a free database that will compare human rights decisions from tribunals across Canada. Miriam Cohen, an assistant professor at the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law, will be working with the university’s computer science department to build the database.”

WRAL: Museum asks fans of Kermit, Elmo to help pay for exhibit. “A museum is asking fans of Jim Henson’s Muppets to help pay for an exhibition featuring original puppets of beloved characters like Elmo, Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog. The Museum of the Moving Image launched a Kickstarter campaign on Tuesday seeking $40,000 to help preserve the puppets for posterity.” These are Jim Henson’s puppet creations, not just the Muppets, if you’re wondering why Disney isn’t underwriting this exhibit.

The Next Web: Twitter allegedly deleting negative tweets about United Airlines’ passenger abuse. “In what could only be described as a vile violation of human dignity, United Airlines employees forcibly dragged a passenger off a flight headed from Chicago to Louisville. The incident quickly went viral, causing a storm of anger on Twitter. But it turns out some of the negative tweets are now mysteriously disappearing.” For the record, I tweeted something satirical yesterday and it’s still there. But I did notice that #united was not on the trending charts, which seemed very odd.

Engadget: Google says its own analysis shows ‘no gender pay gap’. “In a new post on pay equity, Google VP Eileen Naughton says the company was ‘taken aback’ by the US Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) accusation that it paid women less than men, especially since the regulator gave no data to back up the claim. To counter it, the company supplied its own study that it called ‘extremely scientific and robust,’ showing that women and men are paid equally at the firm with a 95 percent confidence rating.” What else are they going to say?

Meanwhile, from The Calvert Journal: Google Warsaw launches its own vodka . “Google Campus Warsaw has launched its very own vodka brand — startup life just got a little more spirited. Simply named Old Style Flavoured Vodka, the drink is a nod to the history of Google Campus in the Polish capital.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

BuzzFeed: Yahoo Accused Of Mismanaging Millions That Were Meant For Humanitarian Aid. “In 2007, Yahoo agreed to pay millions of dollars to set up a foundation to aid Chinese political dissidents, after the company was accused of turning over information to the Chinese government. A lawsuit filed on Tuesday claims most of the money is gone, and little went to help imprisoned activists.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT Technology Review: The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI. “Already, mathematical models are being used to help determine who makes parole, who’s approved for a loan, and who gets hired for a job. If you could get access to these mathematical models, it would be possible to understand their reasoning. But banks, the military, employers, and others are now turning their attention to more complex machine-learning approaches that could make automated decision-making altogether inscrutable.”

Phys.org: Who are you on social media? New research examines norms of online personas. “According to the Pew Research center, the majority of adults on the internet have more than one social networking profile on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Although the core purpose of these sites are similar – to digitally connect with peers and loved ones – new research conducted by researchers in Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) and King’s College in London, England, found users often adopt different personas unique to each social network.” Good morning, Internet…

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