NEW RESOURCES

University of Texas at Austin: 80 years of Texas Business Review Available Online with Help from Texas ScholarWorks. “In connection with the celebration of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Bureau of Business Research (BBR) at The University of Texas at Austin, the Bureau is pleased to announce new digital access to the entire print run of articles published in Texas Business Review (TBR), one of the oldest and most influential business journals in the state.”

Digital NC: Meeting minutes and newsletters from Raleigh’s Oakwood neighborhood now online. “Newsletters and meeting minutes from our new partner, The Society for the Preservation of Historic Oakwood, are now available on DigitalNC. The Oakwood neighborhood is located in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, and is known for its historic Victorian era housing. The neighborhood was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The digitized meeting minutes cover 1972-2001, and document various board and committee meetings of the Society for the Preservation of Historic Oakwood.” I wasn’t going to include this except that Oakwood is on the Register of Historic Places.

This is from June, but I just saw it. From Science Business: New project to map Europe’s scientific research infrastructures. “A European Commission project ‘Mapping of the European Research Infrastructure Landscape’ is underway, with a new portal being previewed this week at an event in Rome. The MERIL-2 project builds on the previous phases of MERIL initiated in 2010. Now, with renewed funding from Horizon 2020 and an expanded team, the new three-year MERIL-2 project will provide the means for making informed assessments and decisions about the research infrastructure landscape in Europe, and to encourage accessibility, new partnerships and collaborations within the scientific community. A research infrastructure is defined as a facility or digital platform that provides the scientific community with resources and services to conduct top-level research in their respective fields.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Next Web: WordPress.com is opening itself up to third-party plugins and themes. “The popularity of WordPress is in no small part thanks to its customizability. There are tens of thousands of third-party themes and plugins that make the ubiquitous blogging platform vastly more useful. Unfortunately, those who have chosen to host their site on WordPress.com are prevented from using them. But that’s about to change, as Automattic today announced that those with business-tier accounts on WordPress.com can now install third-party themes and plugins built by other WordPress users.” I am excited by this but I have a Premium account, which is the tier below Business.

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: Watch outer space for free on a live stream. “A company called Slooh, which provides live streams of outer space via telescope, is opening up its sightings of eclipses, full moons, asteroids, and comets to anyone with an internet connection — for free. All you need to do is sign up on their website.”

PC World did a browser shootout comparing Edge, Opera, Firefox, and Chrome. “The web browser is by far the most important piece of software on your PC—at least for most users. Unless you’re at a workstation crunching numbers or editing the next Star Wars you probably spend the majority of your computer time staring at a web app or a website. That’s why it’s important to make sure you’ve always got the best tool for the job, and in 2017 that does not include Internet Explorer.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Bloomberg: Google Fires Author of Divisive Memo on Gender Differences. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google has fired an employee who wrote an internal memo blasting the web company’s diversity policies, creating a firestorm across Silicon Valley. James Damore, the Google engineer who wrote the note, confirmed his dismissal in an email, saying that he had been fired for ‘perpetuating gender stereotypes.’ He said he’s ‘currently exploring all possible legal remedies.'”

Austin Inno: Finding Bigfoot: 7 Seriously Strange Datasets on data.world. “Among other things, the data.world’s platform is helping track hate crimes, identify health and disease trends and provide new tools for the Census Bureau. But, there’s plenty of slightly less serious stuff being shared, as well. For example, one user provided word-count data to analyze gender equality in 2016’s most successful films. Imagine the possibilities — fun and otherwise — recreational researchers now have by harnessing the power of data and data visualizations to help them track the elusive and legendary Bigfoot. Or go ahead and make your own highly-tailored queries to find connections within the data provided from speed dating experiments.”

The Guardian: Stop children bingeing on social media during holidays, parents urged. “As web use reaches record highs among children, Anne Longfield has attacked the new methods social media giants are using to draw them into spending more time staring at tablets and smartphones. In an interview with the Observer, she said that parents should ‘step up’ and be proactive in stopping their children from bingeing on the internet during the summer holidays.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BetaNews: UK government to force social media and tech companies to give users more control over their data. “The UK government is set to introduce a new Data Protection Bill which will give people the right to demand companies delete personal data. The bill, due to be introduced this summer, will make it easier for people to find out what information is held about them and how it is being used.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Global News: U.K. researchers use Google satellite images to identify signs of slavery in India. “When Jess Wardlaw began working with the Slavery from Space project, she was taken aback by just how prevalent slavery is in the modern world. Slavery from Space is a project by the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab that uses Google satellite images to identify signs of slavery in India, and pass that information onto local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working on the ground and government officials. The Rights Lab is a wider initiative by the university to put an end to slavery around the world.”

The Next Web: Number of social media users passes 3 billion with no signs of slowing. “The latest Global Digital Statshot from We Are Social and Hootsuite reveals that the number of people using social media around the world has just passed the momentous three billion mark…” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!