NEW RESOURCES

State Library of New South Wales: Australian Photo Review: Now Online. ” This first issue appeared on 23 January 1897. Published by Baker and Rouse it was sold at ‘four shillings’ for a year’s subscription and it welcomed, … photographs and literary contributions or correspondence on all matters of interest to photographers. This new format obviously found its audience and the Australian Photographic Review, or A.P.R. as it later branded itself, was published monthly for the next 59 years. The longevity of this journal marks it as the most significant in terms of insights into the development of photography in Australia 1894 through to the last issue which appeared in December 1956.”

Manila Bulletin (Philippines): Virtual tour of Presidential Museum launched. “The public can now avail a virtual tour of the Presidential Museum and Library (PML) with a single click. The Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) has launched the online exhibits of the PML on Googles Art and Culture…to share with the world the treasures associated with the seat of government power.”

Library of Congress: Library Begins Release of Occupational Folklife Interviews. “The Library of Congress today announced it has put online the first installment of a major oral history project documenting the diverse culture of contemporary workers around the United States. The Occupational Folklife Project (OFP), a multi-year initiative of the American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress, launches today online with a collection of interviews from the Port of Houston.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

USA Today: Add links to Snaps at last with new release . “An update to the popular messaging app, introduced Wednesday, brings links, and features to add colorful backgrounds to your selfies. In addition, you can also alter your voice in your Snap by clicking on the speaker icon at the bottom of the screen to choose from a number of character voices.”

TechCrunch: Amazon is launching a series of Alexa training workshops worldwide. “With over 15,000 voice-activated apps and growing, Amazon’s Alexa platform has momentum. And Amazon is expected control 70 percent of the voice-controlled speaker market this year, outpacing Google Home and others. Now the company is doubling down on its investment in the developer community, with the debut of a new event series that trains developers to build for Alexa.”

Bloomberg: SoundCloud Cuts 40 Percent of Staff in Bid to Remain Independent. “SoundCloud Ltd. is cutting about 40 percent of its staff in a cost-cutting move the digital music service says will give it a better financial footing to compete against larger rivals Spotify Ltd. and Apple Inc.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Verge: Facebook is building a Houseparty clone for live group video chat. “Facebook is building a standalone app that incorporates ideas from Houseparty, the group video chat app that rose from the ashes of Meerkat, The Verge has learned. The app, which has the working name Bonfire, was recently demonstrated for employees. It is being targeted for a fall release, according to a person familiar with the matter. ”

SocialEarth: Creating an “Internet of Water” Database to Manage Water Sustainably. “Presently, the value of water data has not been widely documented, communicated or quantified. An internet of water (IOW) would make water data effectively integrated. And making public water data open and digitally accessible is a necessary step in using water data for sustainability. Those are the main findings from a series on water data the Aspen Institute Dialogue Series recently hosted between May 2016 and February 2017.”

CNET: Nike will soon sell you shoes on Instagram. “In a recent earnings call, athletic apparel-maker Nike announced that it’ll soon start selling shoes someplace you might not have expected — Instagram. There, it’ll join other select brands like Kate Spade and Warby Parker in using Instagram-style posts to advertise its products and make it simple for people to buy them. ”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Barron’s: Alphabet, Amazon Dominance May Prompt Re-Write of Monopoly Rules, Opines MKM. “In the wake of the €2.42 billion fine against Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google unit brought last week by the European Commission on grounds of anti-competitive behavior by Google, MKM Partners’s Rob Sanderson today opines the rising scrutiny of ‘trust’-like behavior by the Internet giants could prompt new legislation to re-write rules of competition.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Phys.org: The misappropriation of the identities of famous people on Twitter. “Basing itself on the approaches of discourse analysis and sociocultural pragmatics, [Ana] Mancera has made a linguistic study of 5,030 messages published on more than 50 Twitter profiles, all of which were parodic in nature and which were written in the guise of figures of social importance. These were grouped into different categories according to the area of the parodied subject—for example, politics, the communications media, sport, royalty, etc.”

Digital Trends: I, Alexa: Should We Give Artificial Intelligence Human Rights?. “We don’t yet have smart elevators, although judging by the kind of lavish headquarters tech giants like Google and Apple build for themselves, that may just be because they’ve not bothered sharing them with us yet. In fact, as we’ve documented time and again at Digital Trends, the field of AI is currently making a bunch of things possible we never thought realistic in the past — such as self-driving cars or Star Trek-style universal translators. Have we also reached the point where we need to think about rights for AIs?” Good morning, Internet…

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