afternoonbuzz

Federal Spending, GRAMMY Foundation, New Museum, More: Tuesday Afternoon Buzz, April 18, 2017

NEW RESOURCES

The New York Times: Steve Ballmer Serves Up a Fascinating Data Trove. “On Tuesday, Mr. Ballmer plans to make public a database and a report that he and a small army of economists, professors and other professionals have been assembling as part of a stealth start-up over the last three years called USAFacts. The database is perhaps the first nonpartisan effort to create a fully integrated look at revenue and spending across federal, state and local governments.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BusinessWire: GRAMMY Museum® and GRAMMY Foundation® Join to Expand Music Education and Preservation Efforts (PRESS RELEASE). “The GRAMMY Museum® and GRAMMY Foundation® have announced that the two organizations are merging to become the leading educational institution dedicated to broadening the historical and cultural significance of music. Combining the strengths of the highly complementary organizations, the newly expanded GRAMMY Museum Foundation will offer the best of each organization’s initiatives in preservation, education, exhibitions, and public programming.”

Kickstarter: Explore the Kickstarter Collection at the New Museum Store. “Today, we’re pleased to announce an ongoing collaboration with the New Museum in New York City, showcasing an array of inventive projects that got started on Kickstarter in their store. As a leading institution dedicated to boundary-pushing art and ideas, the New Museum is the perfect place to share this collection, which features adventurous takes on everyday objects, creative explorations of technology, and designs that are simultaneously playful and profound.”

TechCrunch: You can now live stream to YouTube from your phone if you have at least 1,000 subscribers. “Back in February, YouTube gave people the ability to live stream directly to their channel from their phones… with one catch: it was only open to folks with 10,000 subscribers or more. If you’ve been dying to hop on the live streaming train but haven’t hit that 10k mark yet, good news: they’ve dropped the requirement to 1,000 subscribers as opposed to 10,000. It’s still not open to everyone, but that’s a considerably smaller hurdle.”

USEFUL STUFF

MIT News: Learn a language while you wait for WiFi. “Hyper-connectivity has changed the way we communicate, wait, and productively use our time. Even in a world of 5G wireless and ‘instant’ messaging, there are countless moments throughout the day when we’re waiting for messages, texts, and Snapchats to refresh. But our frustrations with waiting a few extra seconds for our emails to push through doesn’t mean we have to simply stand by. To help us make the most of these ‘micro-moments,’ researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a series of apps called ‘WaitSuite’ that test you on vocabulary words during idle moments, like when you’re waiting for an instant message or for your phone to connect to WiFi.”

Internet Archive: A Few Advanced Search Tips. “The Internet Archive’s search engine is based on Elastic Search and implemented by Aaron Ximm. Learning how to use the search engine can help using the website, but also using the command line tools for working with the Internet Archive. Here are some tips.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Digital Trends: Here’s Everything We Expect to See at Facebook F8 So Far. “Facebook’s big conference for the year is right around the corner, and while it seems like the hype has been a little subdued this time around, we’re expecting some pretty big announcements to come from the show.”

LA Times: Why Indians are angry at Snapchat. “Snapchat is facing backlash after its chief executive allegedly said he didn’t want to expand ‘into poor countries like India and Spain.’ The alleged remarks were described in a lawsuit by former employee Anthony Pompliano, who worked at the Venice company for three weeks in 2015 before being fired.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Mashable: Russian regulators fine Google nearly $8 million in antitrust settlement. “Google has settled its long-running court battle with the Russian search engine Yandex. The Moscow-based company had accused the search giant’s parent, Alphabet, of undermining competition by forcing phone makers to preinstall a set bundle of Google apps on Android. Per the terms of the settlement, Google must ditch those restrictions in the country. Russian antitrust regulators also fined the company $7.8 million.” Good afternoon, 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!

Categories: afternoonbuzz

Leave a Reply