TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Blog: Local reviews in your language–wherever you are. “When you’re traveling somewhere new, two of your biggest challenges can be figuring out where to go and understanding the native language of wherever you are. The next time you’re in a foreign place and want to check out a restaurant or point of interest, Google will translate the review into the language you’ve set on your device.”

Deccan Herald (India): Out of print books at State Central Library will be digitised, says Sait. “Thousands of books at the State Central Library here will be digitised and added to the e-library, Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Tanveer Sait said on Sunday. ‘There are 3.64 lakh books at the State Central Library and one lakh books at district central libraries. Books which cannot be reprinted will be added to e-library. Around 50,000 books have been digitalised so far. Books on various disciplines will be added to the digital library,’ he said after inaugurating the renovated building of the historic library.” 3.64 lakh is 364,000.

Financial Express: Google bolsters Indian language support for more inclusive web. “Google has expanded support for nine more Indian languages, including Gujarati, Punjabi, Malayalam and Kannada, across various products to ensure more people can access Internet in a language of their choice. Powered by ‘neural machine translation’, users will be able to translate between English and nine widely-used Indian languages — Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Malayalam and Kannada.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Kickstarter Corner: Reissue of the 1977 EPA Graphic Standards System. “In 1977, the EPA began working with the legendary New York design firm Chermayeff & Geismar (now Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv), responsible for some of the most recognizable visual identities in the world, such as Chase Bank, PBS, National Geographic, the Smithsonian Institution, Mobil Oil, and NBC. Partners Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar, and designer Steff Geissbuhler, set about tackling this problem. The result was the 1977 US EPA Graphic Standards System.” The goal of the Kickstarter is $158K; looks like the campaign has just opened and at this writing has raised a little under $18K.

PC World: What’s wrong with Microsoft To-Do: 8 things lacking in Wunderlist’s replacement. “Microsoft has its work cut out. In its current ‘preview’ state, Microsoft To-Do is a bare-bones task manager, with none of the powerful features that made Wunderlist great. Here’s the long list of features that Microsoft should consider bringing over if the company wants to offer a competent replacement…”

New York Times: Marissa Mayer Will Make $186 Million on Yahoo’s Sale to Verizon. “That compensation, which will be fully vested at the time of the shareholder vote, does not include her salary and bonuses over the past five years, or the value of other stock that Ms. Mayer has already sold. All told, her time at Yahoo will have netted her well over $200 million, according to calculations based on company filings.”

The Next Web: Larry Page’s new startup promises to bring flying cars by the end of 2017. “The future of flying cars has never looked so real. Silicon Valley startup Kitty Hawk, backed by Alphabet CEO and Google co-founder Larry Page, has finally launched today – and it promises its electric flying cars will be available to the masses by the end of the year.” How do you do this stuff and run one of the largest companies in the world at the same time? Must need a lot less sleep than I do.

RESEARCH & OPINION

Harvard Business Review: The World Needs a DARPA-Style Project to Prevent Pandemics. “While advances in tracking weather-related risks have improved public safety and resilience, we have made far less progress on enhancing global resilience to biological risks and pandemic threats. As the bipartisan Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense highlighted, U.S. levels of readiness and global coordination are woefully inadequate. And the U.S. is not alone in this; it’s is a global problem.”

The Register: CompSci boffins find Reddit is ideal source for sarcasm database . “Over here at El Reg, we think that chatbots are, like, the best thing ever. Not. But would they be any better if they could detect sarcasm and retaliate with their own snide remarks? A group of computer scientists from Princeton University, USA, certainly think so. Mikhail Khodak, Nikunj Saunshi and Kiran Vodrahalli, all graduate students, have pooled together ‘a large self-annotated corpus for sarcasm’ by trawling through Reddit.”

New Scientist: Google’s new project will gather health data from 10,000 people. “Google probably already knows plenty about you – and the company looks set to learn a whole lot more. Last week, its health spin-off Verily launched Project Baseline, an ambitious attempt to collect reams of health data from 10,000 US-based volunteers. By looking at people’s genes and microbiomes, and monitoring their sleep, physical activity and general well-being over four years, the team behind the project hopes to find clues that might predict the onset of diseases like cancer and heart disease.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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