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African American Times, NZ/AU Academic Fraud, Israel Clinical Trials, More: Thursday Buzz, June 29, 2017

NEW RESOURCES

Public Now: Montgomery County Public Libraries Announces Digital Collection of Local African American Newspaper. This is Montgomery County, Maryland. “Montgomery County Public Libraries (MCPL) announced that seven years of the Montgomery Times newspaper is now available through a digital archive on MCPL’s website. The Montgomery Times began publication in 1992 and was combined with the Prince Georges Times in 1999 as the African American Times. The paper ran until 2002, covering news of interest to the African American community in Montgomery County.”

The Pie: Database to combat academic fraud in Aus, NZ. “Launched as Australia’s response to the Groningen Declaration Network, a worldwide initiative to tackle fraud in academic qualifications and enhance student mobility, My eQuals entails universities certifying the accuracy of qualifications records before releasing them into a database of verified qualifications. Students at participating institutions can then access and share their records at any time.”

Jerusalem Post: Ministry: Digital Health Database To Make Research More Efficient. “The Health Ministry has launched a Hebrew-language digital database of clinical research conducted in 41 medical specialties in Israeli hospitals. The web site will make it easier for patients to seek out trials on new medications, procedures and devices, as well as allowing researchers to find participants more easily.”

A new Web site provides information on waterways in South Carolina. “Upstate Forever has launched Paddle SC… The website will be updated with additional content on a regular basis and currently includes descriptions of 63 waterways, 108 trip listings, 390 points of interest and 612 river accesses, along with resources to help paddlers navigate coastal tides and river flow gauges.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bloomberg: New York Times Plans to Charge for Its Vast Recipe Database. “The New York Times is turning its cooking website and app into a subscription service, betting readers will pay for the content despite free recipes being widely available online.”

The Next Web: If you thought Facebook ads were creepy before, we’ve got some bad news. “While I’m someone who actually appreciates targeted advertising, there’s no denying that Facebook’s ads can be a little… uncanny. For better or for worse, they’re about to get a whole lot smarter.”

USEFUL STUFF

TechCrunch: Magic Wormhole is a clever way to send files easily and securely. “If you need to transfer a couple hundred megs to a coworker or friend across the country, you aren’t short on options. In fact, options are thick on the ground, and all have their own issues. Don’t you wish you could just speak a few magic words and send stuff directly to them, no intermediate upload, no web interface, no login? Magic Wormhole, created by developer Brian Warner, is a clever way to do just that.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

ProPublica: Facebook’s Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men from Hate Speech But Not Black Children. “In the wake of a terrorist attack in London earlier this month, a U.S. congressman wrote a Facebook post in which he called for the slaughter of ‘radicalized’ Muslims. ‘Hunt them, identify them, and kill them,’ declared U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican. ‘“Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.’ Higgins’ plea for violent revenge went untouched by Facebook workers who scour the social network deleting offensive speech. But a May posting on Facebook by Boston poet and Black Lives Matter activist Didi Delgado drew a different response.”

Global Voices: China’s Great Firewall Grows Ever-Stronger As Virtual Private Networks Disappear. “For years, netizens in China (and other countries with heavy restrictions on Internet content) have used virtual private networks (VPNs) that allow them to circumvent censorship by creating a secure and well-hidden connection to another network in a different geographic location. But their days using VPNs may be numbered.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Not good. Global News: How a Supreme Court decision might change what you find on Google. “It could be just a matter of time before a search on Google fails to turn up relevant and legal information after the Supreme Court of Canada opened the door to foreign courts applying their laws in other countries, said one internet law expert following Wednesday’s decision from the court.”

The Parallax : Beyond Signal: How Trump staffers could encrypt and archive. “Members of the Executive Office of the President, perhaps responding to internal calls for buttoned-up communications, have apparently been using increasingly popular consumer encrypted-messaging apps to chat with one another. In doing so, they have opened a whole other can of worms.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Knowledge@Wharton: Influencing the Influencers: Using Social Media to Find Top Customers. “Social media offers an almost endless stream of data for businesses to collect on their customers. But what good is data without a smart way to apply it? The latest research from Gad Allon, Wharton professor of operations, information and decisions, offers a lifeline for firms drowning in the deep waters of social networks. Allon and his team devised an analytics model that can help businesses identify high-value customers. The paper, ‘Managing Service Systems in the Presence of Social Networks,’ was co-authored with Washington University professor Dennis J. Zhang.” Good morning, Internet…

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1 reply »

  1. Yes, FB ads are truly creepy, and in my experience sometimes have a reach outside FB. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with some real-world friends about something else entirely unrelated, and happened to describe a person I knew as being “well-traveled.” Then for days, most of the ads that popped up wherever I went were for cruise lines, travel websites and hotels. Ick.

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