afternoonbuzz

Arizona Voters, Journalist Safety, Iceland Literature, More: Thursday Afternoon Buzz, September 7, 2017

NEW RESOURCES

Arizona: Secretary Reagan unveils new real-time voter registration information tool . “A brand new tool for monitoring the number of Arizona voters in real-time has been released by Secretary of State Michele Reagan. The Voter Stats Dashboard displays registration data allowing users to observe trends by party and county from 2007 to the most recent report. The innovative tool aggregates statistical and demographic data of Arizona’s registered voters by county and forecasts future registration levels of partisan affiliation. The forecast is made to January 2021 and the time series is adjusted to consider yearly seasonality effects.”

IJNet: Journalism safety wiki tracks press freedom groups worldwide. “Currently, the Journalists Protection Wiki profiles 15 press freedom organizations in countries that include Afghanistan, Mexico, Iraq and Colombia. Users can view country profiles that summarize the threats facing the local press, as well as profiles of various press freedom groups that include case studies and contact information.”

The Reykjavík Grapevine: Found in Translation: Ideas Of Iceland From Across The Globe. “On September 11th and 12th, an international conference of translators will be held in Reykjavík at Veröld, the home of the Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute of Foreign Languages. One of the major features of the conference will be the presenting of the National Library’s new database of Icelandic fiction translated into other languages, the creation of which is a joint effort by the National University Library, The Centre for Icelandic Literature and the Consortium of Icelandic Libraries.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Blog: A better world for wheels on Google Maps. “Google Maps now offers answers that allow me—and millions of others on wheels—to find accessible places. Because anyone can identify and label wheelchair-friendly locations directly on the map, it’s easy to share this knowledge around the world. But not everyone knows this tool exists, so we want to do more. Starting today, we’re calling on Local Guides, a community of people who contribute their expertise about places on Google Maps, to add more wheelchair accessibility attributes to the map. ”

TechCrunch: Instagram test feature lets users share Stories straight to Facebook . “To boost the popularity of Stories, Facebook could turn to its photo-centric sister app. In a new feature test first spotted by the Next Web’s Matt Navarra and Twitter user @mruiandre, some users are seeing an option to share Instagram Stories directly to the main Facebook app. Instagram has since confirmed that the feature is indeed in testing.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: How to use Evernote to organize your life. “One of the best things about Evernote is that it works pretty much everywhere, including iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and on the web. If you want to get a little bit more from Evernote, such as more devices to sync across, offline access, or more robust storage features, you can sign up for the Plus Plan that starts at $25 annually. I personally feel like the free version will do just fine, as I’ve found 60MB of space to be pretty adequate for notes.” Extensive.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

ABC News (Australia): Wikimedia needs your photographs to build pictorial archive of Australia’s cultural heritage. “Australia has for the first time been included in the Wikimedia Foundation’s annual photography competition that seeks images for its online encyclopaedia.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Microsoft won’t patch Edge browser content security bypass. “Which of Google, Apple and Microsoft think a content security bypass doesn’t warrant a browser patch? Thanks to Cisco Talos security bod Nicolai Grødum, who found the cross-site scripting bug that affects older Chrome and Safari plus current versions of Edge, we know the answer is ‘Microsoft’.”

Fast Company Design: A Simple Design Flaw Makes It Astoundingly Easy To Hack Siri And Alexa. “Chinese researchers have discovered a terrifying vulnerability in voice assistants from Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung, and Huawei. It affects every iPhone and Macbook running Siri, any Galaxy phone, any PC running Windows 10, and even Amazon’s Alexa assistant.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Phys.org: Why many Russians have gladly agreed to online censorship. “The Russian government has persuaded many of its citizens to avoid websites and social media platforms that are critical of the government, a new study has found. Researchers analyzing a survey of Russian citizens found that those who relied more on Russian national television news perceived the internet as a greater threat to their country than did others. This in turn led to increased support for online political censorship.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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