NEW RESOURCES

St. Lucia News Online: Caribbean’s first online human rights database launched. “The region’s first online database that will enable a standard system for capturing, collating and reporting human rights violations, has been launched. Developed by the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC), the Shared Incident Database (SID) is an advanced, user-friendly, web-based technology that will strengthen evidence-based advocacy for more just policies and programmes in the Caribbean’s HIV response.”

From the Finnish Meteorological Institute : Finnish Meteorological Institute’s open data distributed on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud platform. “In the initial stage, an AWS cloud service, AWS S3, will provide access to the Hirlam weather forecasting model that covers the whole of Europe. The model is provided with the same content and in the same format as in the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s own open data service. The model’s forecast period is forty-eight hours, the timestep is one hour and the horizontal resolution is 7.5 kilometres. The model provides data both for the surface of the earth as well as for pressure levels in the upper atmosphere. The data is updated four times every twenty-four hours. Unlike the FMI’s open data service, the old model times will not be removed from Amazon’s service. AWS will thus also provide an archive of old model data covering the duration of the pilot.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Next Web: Opera optimizes its browser and launches a news engine for African consumers. “The Norway-based tech icon Opera is huge in Africa, with almost 100 million people using its mobile and desktop products across the continent. Recognizing this, Opera is investing $100 million (30 billion Nigerian naira) in Africa over the next two years, aiming to speed up Internet adoption and strengthen the local Internet ecosystem.”

Digital Trends: Snapchat Now Lets You Send Snaps That Don’t Have A Time Limit. “Snapchat launched a new update to its app, and this one is a doozy. In fact, put together, the new updates to Snapchat could represent the biggest change to the service since its launch.”

Google Blog: Create your own Street View imagery with new 360 cameras. “Today we’re announcing a simple way to share your perspective, with a new ‘street view ready’ certification standard integrated with 20 new 360-degree cameras coming to market in 2017. Whether you’re sharing your experience at a local market or on your recent vacation, publishing high-quality, interactive imagery no longer requires significant time and effort—all you have to do is get one of the cameras, download the Street View app and start creating. You can walk, run, bike, drive—even ride a horse—while we do the heavy lifting of connecting each frame of your video into a traditional, interactive Street View experience.”

Deutsche Welle: New Twitter record set by chicken nugget plea. “A US teen broke the record for the number of retweets with 3.44 million repeats of his request for free food from fast food chain Wendy’s. The boy bested the likes of Ellen DeGeneres and Barack Obama to claim the title.”

USEFUL STUFF

CoinDesk: How Does Blockchain Technology Work?. “As stated in our guide ‘What is Blockchain Technology?’, there are three principal technologies that combine to create a blockchain. None of them are new. Rather, it is their orchestration and application that is new.” Maybe you don’t need this but I sure as heck do.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: The Trump team just tried to delete old press releases because it doesn’t understand the internet. “Trump’s team appeared to realize its mistake … so they deleted literally every last press release from Trump’s site. Check it out for yourself. The press releases are nowhere to be found. Buuuuttt … unfortunately, that’s not how the internet works. Trump’s team may have pulled the press releases from his website, but they are still available on the Wayback Machine, a project run by the Internet Archive that keeps records of the internet’s past for all to see.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

I don’t believe this. Your mileage may vary. New York Times: The ‘Frightful Five’ Aren’t So Scary, as Long as They’re Competing. “They are each assembling enormous pools of data about their users — which they use not just to sell more targeted advertising, but to improve and personalize their services, increasing their network advantage against smaller players. But while these firms are increasingly formidable and deserve scrutiny, over all their market power appears less durable than infrastructure-based monopolies of previous generations.”

Wisconsin State Journal: Madison students required to disconnect from social media apps in pilot program. “Four Madison public schools are blocking student access to a host of popular social media apps during the school day to test whether student behavior, school safety and grades improve with fewer online distractions.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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