NEW RESOURCES

Library of Congress: May It Please the Court: “Drawing Justice: The Art of Courtroom Illustration”. “‘Drawing Justice: The Art of Courtroom Illustration,’ a new exhibition at the Library of Congress, showcases the Library’s extensive collections of original art by talented artists hired by both newspapers and television to capture the personal dynamics of legal trials. Skilled at quickly conveying both individual likenesses and the atmosphere of the courtroom, these artists reveal, in intimate detail, the dramatic and, at times, mundane aspects of trial proceedings. Artists often pay attention to details like understated dress, expensive suits, a stylish hat, or clothing more appropriate for a party than a sentencing, offering insight into changing trends in fashion.”

Natural History Museum (UK): Beauties and the beasts in the louse collection | Digital Collections Programme. “Our fantastic digitisers started working on the Museum’s parasitic louse (Phthiraptera) collection in early 2017 and are now over halfway through digitising the collection. We have so far imaged >50,000 louse slides that are publically available through the Museum Data Portal. For each specimen the whole slide is imaged capturing both the specimen and its labels. The label states where and when the specimen was collected and from which host. High resolution specimen images are then taken for type specimens of each species.” This is one of those “surprisingly fascinating” stories – worth a read.

UC Berkeley has launched a new online archive of Berkeley (the city) in the 1960s and 1970s. From the About page: “On this website we tell this story: of the rare city in the United States where the transformations of the 1960s continued to gain momentum in the 1970s. It’s not a simple tale. An openness to cultural and political experimentation; a hunger for personal authenticity, for a life lived fully, with oppressive social masks stripped off; and a commitment to redress longstanding inequities in American life: these three impulses pulled Berkeley in a number of directions in this period, producing dramatic results and often equally dramatic conflicts. The ideals of the 1960s were tested on the streets of Berkeley in the 1970s.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Google Earth comes to the classroom with new educational tours and lesson plans. “In April, Google introduced a revamped, reimagined version of Google Earth, which included a number of new features that go beyond visualizing the planet through the use of maps and satellite imagery, to also allow users to explore the world through tours, and learn about its many wonders. Today, Google announced it’s bringing Google Earth to the classroom.”

Bloomberg: Facebook to Stream Live Champions League Soccer in Deal With Fox. “Facebook Inc. will stream more than a dozen matches from European soccer’s top tournament, the highest-profile event to join the small but growing lineup of live sports programming.”

BBC News: ‘Woke’ and ‘post-truth’ added to Oxford English Dictionary. “The Oxford English Dictionary is getting political in its latest update, with ‘woke’ and ‘post-truth’ now included. The original meaning of woke is to awaken after sleep but the word now has other social connotations.”

Digital Trends: In Case You Missed That LOL, Facebook Messenger Video Now Has Emoji Reactions. “Video chats inside Facebook Messenger are starting to look a lot like, well, the rest of Facebook. On Monday, the social media platform launched several special effects inside Messenger’s video capability, including emoji reactions, camera filters, and masks that respond to movements and facial expressions.”

USEFUL STUFF

Social Media Examiner: How to Easily Edit Video: A Simple Guide. “Whether you’re publishing video to your vlog, blog, or social media, editing your footage helps you present a consistent experience to your viewers. In this article, you’ll discover how to edit your video content with a free tool so you don’t break your budget.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Philadelphia Inquirer: Desperate for help, heroin addicts get ‘hijacked’ to Florida. “Targeting vulnerable drug addicts and their families, deceptive marketers have been ‘hijacking’ the phone numbers of drug treatment centers in the Philadelphia area and elsewhere, then rerouting them to Florida treatment centers. The ploy takes advantage of a Google feature that allows people to edit a business’ phone number on the search engine.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Google fined record €2.4bn by EU over search engine results. “Google has been handed a record-breaking fine €2.42bn fine by the European Union for abusing its dominance of the search engine market in building its online shopping service. European regulators gave the tech giant 90 days to stop its illegal activities or face fines of up to 5% of the average daily worldwide turnover of parent company Alphabet.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Wired: Social Networks May One Day Diagnose Disease—But At A Cost. “It’s now entirely conceivable that Facebook or Google—two of the biggest data platforms and predictive engines of our behavior—could tell someone they might have cancer before they even suspect it. Someone complaining about night sweats and weight loss on social media might not know these can be signs of lymphoma, or that their morning joint stiffness and propensity to sunburn could herald lupus. But it’s entirely feasible that bots trolling social network posts could pick up on these clues.”

New York Times: Facebook, Free Expression and the Power of a Leak. “The First Amendment protects our right to use social networks like Facebook and Twitter, the Supreme Court declared last week. That decision, which overturned a North Carolina law barring sex offenders from social networks, called social media ‘the modern public square’ and ‘one of the most important places’ for the exchange of views. The holding is a reminder of the enormous role such networks play in our speech, our access to information and, consequently, our democracy. But while the government cannot block people from social media, these private platforms can.” Good morning, Internet…

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