NEW RESOURCES

British Library: Pem nem: a 16th-century Urdu romance goes on-line. “One of the treasures of the Urdu manuscript collection at the British Library has been digitised and made available online. The Pem Nem (Add.16880) is one of the finest examples of manuscript illustration from the court of Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II, who ruled the kingdom of Bijapur from 1580 to 1627. Containing 34 miniature paintings illustrating the Sufi love story of prince Shah Ji and princess Mah Ji, the manuscript was written by an author by the name of Hasan Manju Khalji, bearing the pen name of Hans.” Gorgeous!

Google Blog: We wear culture: Discover why we wear what we wear with Google Arts & Culture. “More than 180 museums, fashion institutions, schools, archives and other organizations from the fashion hubs of New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, São Paulo and elsewhere came together to put three millennia of fashion at your fingertips. You can browse 30,000 fashion pieces: try searching for hats and sort them by color or shoes by time. In 450+ exhibits, you can find stories from the ancient Silk Road to the ferocious fashion of the British punk. Or meet icons and trendsetters like Coco Chanel, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent or Vivienne Westwood.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mashable: Twitter now warns you before a DM fail. “The dreaded DM fail is without a doubt one of the most embarrassing Twitter faux pas you can fall victim to. Luckily, good guy Twitter wants to help prevent you from accidentally embarrassing yourself. Twitter’s app can now warn you in some situations if it detects that you may be trying to send a direct message, rather than a tweet.”

Washington Post: Here’s what Facebook’s doing with your Safety Check data. “Facebook’s Safety Check feature allows users to notify their family and friends that they’re okay after natural disasters or attacks that prompt Facebook to deploy the tool. But have you ever wondered what Facebook does with that information? On Wednesday the social network announced that it will share some of that data with aid organizations — specifically UNICEF, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the World Food Program — to make it easier for them to locate people who need help.”

Search Engine Land: Google has officially rolled out a new tab-based local panel with quick access to reviews. “After a month of testing, Google has confirmed with Search Engine Land that they have fully rolled out a new user experience for the local panel in the mobile search results. You can now quickly toggle between the local business’s overview details and the reviews for that business.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Stage: The Stage launches 52 Stages Instagram project. “The Stage has launched a new Instagram project that will feature 52 theatres over a year, including London’s Old Vic and the Royal Exchange in Manchester. Every week, a different theatre will take charge of the 52 Stages Instagram account to showcase its work and give behind-the-scenes insight into its organisation.”

Forbes: Native American Winter Counts As Unique Archives For Climate Research. “Climate scientists can use various sources to reconstruct the past climate. Natural archives, like trees or glaciers, provide temperature and precipitation records. Written documents provide records of the weather and its impact on society. In Europe descriptions of notable weather events date back to medieval times. In Asia descriptions linked to the weather, like harvest time, date back to antiquity. But what about societies who didn’t develop written records? Well, there are other ways to keep a record of the weather.”

Recode: As the merger is completed, layoffs of up to 1,000 jobs at the combined AOL and Yahoo are expected. “According to sources, layoffs are expected to take place across AOL and Yahoo that could number up to 1,000 jobs. That is less than 20 percent of the combined company, according to sources. This action is not unexpected, given that both companies have a lot of redundancies, including in human resources, finance, marketing and general administration.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Ars Technica: You’ll never guess where Russian spies are hiding their control servers. “According to a report published Tuesday by researchers from antivirus provider Eset, a recently discovered backdoor Trojan used comments posted to Britney Spears’s official Instagram account to locate the control server that sends instructions and offloads stolen data to and from infected computers. The innovation—by a so-called advanced persistent threat group known as Turla—makes the malware harder to detect because attacker-controlled servers are never directly referenced in either the malware or in the comment it accesses.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Phys.org: Fake online profiles easier to fish out with new software tool. “Researchers have trained computer models to spot social media users who make up information about themselves – known as catfishes. The system is designed to identify users who are dishonest about their age or gender. Scientists believe it could have potential benefits for helping to ensure the safety of social networks.”

Sunlight Foundation: On Trump, Twitter and transparency. “As with any tweet by @POTUS, the public should be able to know who wrote a @realDonaldTrump tweet. Someday, perhaps Twitter or Facebook will work with a White House to show tweets or updates written by a president differently, adding a Verified layer that acts as a watermark or a simple annotation in the meta data that changes how the text is displayed. In the meantime, there are two strategies to address this…”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

Gizmodo: 4000 Google Earth Photos Were Edited And Assembled Into This Dizzying Race Across The Earth. “You don’t always need a wealthy record label to create a memorable music video. As YouTube’s Adnaan demonstrates, all you need is access to the massive archive of satellite photos on Google Earth, and enough time to painstakingly assemble over 4000 of them into a frantic race across the Earth.” Caravan Palace as the soundtrack, so you know you can’t miss. Good morning, Internet…

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