NEW RESOURCES

Ekathimerini (Greece): The magic of Greece’s customs captured in stills. “The pculiar website, which is in English, has two functions. To begin with, you can type in a destination you are planning to visit along with your dates and learn about customs or festivities that will be taking place in that area at that time – along with photographs of them. At the bottom of the page, moreover, you will see fresh stories that are frequently renewed and give the website a newsy feel. Each photograph comes with a caption by the photographer describing his experience.” The article headline might give you the impression that the images are all from Greece, but visiting the site I saw images from China, Brazil, India…

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Microsoft Pix can now turn your iPhone photos into art, thanks to artificial intelligence. “Microsoft is rolling out an update to its AI-powered photo editing app, Microsoft Pix, that aims to give Prisma and others like it some new competition. While the app was originally designed to enhance your iPhone photos by tweaking things like color, exposure and other variables, the newly updated Microsoft Pix will now let you have a little more fun with your photos, too – this time, by turning them into art.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: How to set up two-factor authentication on all your online accounts. “While 2FA doesn’t totally cloak you from potential hackers, it is an important step in preventing your account from being accessed by unauthorized users. Here’s how to enable 2FA on your accounts across the web.”

Handy, but not a lot here yet. From The Library Lab: Library Twitter Chats Calendar. “Library related Twitter chats is one of my greatest sources for inspiration, knowledge and network and there is many great chats on different subjects. The chats are ‘live’ and is happening globally in real time and one of my biggest obstacles has been to keep track when the different chats are on, so I decided to make a calendar over upcoming chats. If I’m missing something please leave a comment or DM me on Twitter.”

Larry Ferlazzo, getting WAY ahead of the game: A Beginning List For Learning About The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. “The Tokyo Summer Olympics won’t be happening for awhile but, as I’ve done in the past, I’ll start this list and continue to add to it over the next two years.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Tuko (Kenya): Social media users left in limbo as Facebook shuts down one of the biggest groups in Kenya. “Well, just like thousands of social media users in other groups akin to Kilimani Mums, Kisumu Dads etc, Group Kenya’s fans were in the dark about new the Facebook rules that have recently been dealing pages, groups and even personal accounts big blows. Group Kenya, a group that had amassed itself a staggering 2.2 million members was ‘mysteriously’ deleted by Facebook.”

Tubefilter: Katy Perry’s Four-Day YouTube Live Stream Amassed 49 Million Views Worldwide. “In something of an unprecedented move for a celebrity of her caliber, Katy Perry took YouTube by storm last weekend when she announced that she’d be streaming live from a Big Brother-style house for four nonstop days in celebration of her new album, Witness.”

Bloomberg: Reddit Is Raising Funds Valuing Startup at $1.7 Billion. “Reddit is one of the few relics of the mid-2000s internet that has not only survived but thrived in recent years. Now venture capitalists are giving a major boost to the link-sharing website, with funding that will give the company a valuation of about $1.7 billion, two people familiar with the matter said.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ZDNet: Jaff ransomware demanding $4,000 to unlock your files? Now you can get them back for free. “Victims of a form of ransomware that demands a huge payment to unlock files can now do so for free, thanks to a newly released decryption tool. that exploits a vulnerability in its malicious code.”

Krebs on Security: Credit Card Breach at Buckle Stores. “On Friday morning, KrebsOnSecurity contacted The Buckle after receiving multiple tips from sources in the financial industry about a pattern of fraud on customer credit and debit cards which suggested a breach of point-of-sale systems at Buckle stores across the country. Later Friday evening, The Buckle Inc. released a statement saying that point-of-sale malware was indeed found installed on cash registers at Buckle retail stores, and that the company believes the malware was stealing customer credit card data between Oct. 28, 2016 and April 14, 2017.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Guardian: Google, not GCHQ, is the truly chilling spy network. “‘Surveillance’, as the security expert Bruce Schneier has observed, is the business model of the internet and that is true of both the public and private sectors. Given how central the network has become to our lives, that means our societies have embarked on the greatest uncontrolled experiment in history. Without really thinking about it, we have subjected ourselves to relentless, intrusive, comprehensive surveillance of all our activities and much of our most intimate actions and thoughts. And we have no idea what the long-term implications of this will be for our societies – or for us as citizens.”

Arab News: KAU to analyze extremist discourse on social media. “The English Language Institute (ELI) and the Prince Khaled Al-Faisal Center for Moderation (PKAFM) at King Abdul Aziz University (KAU) have signed a deal to establish an academic unit to investigate and analyze extremist discourse on social media. The agreement was signed in the presence and under the patronage of KAU President Abdulrahman Al-Youbi, PKAFM head Alhasan Almnakharah and ELI Dean Abdullah Al-Bargi.” Good morning, Internet…

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