NEW RESOURCES

British Library: Campaign medals from the India Office collections. “As part of our holdings at the British Library, the India Office collection of medals can now be found on the Explore Archives and Manuscripts online catalogue. The extensive collection includes more than 500 medals, which range from campaign medals, orders of knighthood, as well as decorations. This blog features a few of the eighteenth century medals issued to Indian officers. ”

Asharq Al-Awsat: OPEC, UAE Launch Global ‘Oil & Gas’ Database. “The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the United Arab Emirates’ ministry of energy will next week launch the first phase of a new global oil and gas database project aiming to develop an easy-to-use tool to analyze energy information and allow for more transparency.”

Jamaica is getting an online database of people wanted by law enforcement. “Jamaicans should by the end of this month have access to an online database showing people who are wanted by the police for various crimes. Head of the criminal investigation Branch, Assistant Commissioner of Police Ealan Powell, says the police are developing a comprehensive list of all wanted persons for widespread distribution.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

eWeek: Canonical Enhances Its Ubuntu Linux OS With ‘Zesty Zapus’ Release. This is a slide show.

USEFUL STUFF

BetaNews: CrankWheel: easy screen sharing for Chrome. “CrankWheel is an easy-to-use Chrome extension which enables speedy sharing of your Chrome tabs or entire screen, without installing any other software.”

Lifehacker: How to Set Up Your Own Completely Free VPN In the Cloud. “A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a great way to add security to your browsing while also preventing snoopers (including your internet service provider), but VPN providers are notoriously sketchy. You could do some research to find a good one. Or you can make your own in about 10 minutes.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

From the British Library: Unlocking our Sound Heritage. “The British Library is today launching Unlocking Our Sound Heritage, a major preservation and access project which has received a £9.5m National Lottery grant. This builds on the generous support of other donors and funders, meaning that the total project funding of £18.8 million is now in place. The funding will enable the formation of the first ever national network of ten sound preservation centres. This network will now come together with the British Library to save almost half a million rare and unique recordings that are threatened by physical degradation or stored on formats that can no longer be played.”

Vice: ‘Russia’s Google’ Is Collecting a Database of Rare Languages. “Where Google Translate currently offers 100+ languages, Yandex Translate is close behind with a catalogue of 90. But Yandex has outpaced Google in processing major regional languages within Russia, including Tatar (5.5 million speakers) and Bashkir (1.2 million speakers). The company is also working with linguists to preserve some of Russia’s most vulnerable languages, like Mari (500,000 speakers), Udmurt (324,000 speakers), and Hill Mari (23,000 speakers), all of which are available only on Yandex Translate.”

VentureBeat: The art of algorithms: How automation is affecting creativity. “As part of the so-called fourth industrial revolution, millions of jobs will be lost to automation, according to a recent World Economic Forum report. The net loss is expected to be as many as five million jobs by 2020, though of course a whole bunch of new jobs will be created, including positions in IT and data science. Jobs such as manufacturing and production are expected to be heavily affected, while another recent report indicated that more than 100,000 legal jobs will be automated over the next 20 years. But art… art is sacred.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

The Register: All ready for that Easter holiday? Here’s a mild MySQL security bug . “A programming blunder has been uncovered in Oracle’s MySQL that can potentially leak usernames and passwords to man-in-the-middle eavesdroppers. Known as ‘The Riddle,’ the flaw potentially allows a miscreant to intercept and obtain login credentials sent from MySQL clients 5.5 and 5.6 to servers. Apparently, a fix introduced in versions 5.5.49 and 5.6.30 isn’t enough to fully address the design flaw. Versions 5.7 and later, as well as MariaDB systems, are not vulnerable.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Phys.org: Researchers test ‘social contagion’ in laboratory setting . “Social contagion describes the propagation of beliefs, evaluations and attitudes through a network of people. It’s well understood that political beliefs, emotional attitudes and opinions are contagious within a network, but the precise mechanisms and dynamics are not well understood for two reasons: the complexity of network structures, and the behavioral processes that operate within the network.” Good morning, Internet…

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