CNBC: Credit reporting firm Equifax says data breach could potentially affect 143 million US consumers. “Equifax, which supplies credit information and other information services, said Thursday that a data breach could have potentially affected 143 million consumers in the United States. The population of the U.S. was about 324 million as of Jan. 1, 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which means the Equifax incident affects a huge portion of the United States.”

NEW RESOURCES

ReliefWeb: UN Migration Agency Launches New Missing Migrants Website. “IOM [International Organization for Migration], the UN Migration Agency has launched its new Missing Migrants Project website… The Missing Migrants Project tracks migrants, including refugees and asylum-seekers, who have died or gone missing while migrating to an international destination.”

Noupe: Stockio: Free Photos, Videos, Icons, Illustrations, and Fonts For Your Projects. “This supply is pretty large for a free service. However, what really makes Stockio stand out from its competition is that it’s not limited to photos. The service also offers high-quality vector graphics, videos, icons, and even fonts. This gives you a central starting point for any kind of media that you could need throughout the course of a project.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Wolfram|Alpha: A New Level of Step-by-Step Solutions in Wolfram|Alpha. “In our continued efforts to make it easier for students to learn and understand math and science concepts, the Wolfram|Alpha team has been hard at work this summer expanding our step-by-step solutions. Since the school year is just beginning, we’re excited to announce some new features.”

Business Wire: Twitch Extensions Now Live – A Platform for the Creation of Interactive Features for Twitch Content Creators (PRESS RELEASE). “Social video platform Twitch today released Twitch Extensions, a new set of tools from its Developer Success team that allow third-party developers to help creators customize their channel pages with interactive experiences. Extensions can be directly integrated with live video on Twitch, and will grow the unique relationship between creators and their communities, leading to higher engagement and more dedicated fans. There are more than twenty extensions available at launch, from general-use extensions such as Streamlabs’ Loyalty, Music, Polls & Games, Muxy’s Overlay and Leaderboard, and Amazon’s Gear on Amazon, to game-specific extensions such as OP.gg for League of Legends by OP.gg, Innkeeper: Interactive Hearth Overlay by Curse, and MasterOverwatch by Master Network.”

USEFUL STUFF

Business Insider: Here’s how to use Zello, the walkie-talkie app people are downloading ahead of Hurricane Irma. “As Hurricane Irma rips through the Caribbean and heads toward Florida, a free smartphone app is emerging as an important tool for search and rescue. Called Zello, the app lets you use your phone as a walkie-talkie or two-way radio as long as you have a network or Wi-Fi connection.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election. “Sometimes an international offensive begins with a few shots that draw little notice. So it was last year when Melvin Redick of Harrisburg, Pa., a friendly-looking American with a backward baseball cap and a young daughter, posted on Facebook a link to a brand-new website. “These guys show hidden truth about Hillary Clinton, George Soros and other leaders of the US,” he wrote on June 8, 2016. ‘Visit #DCLeaks website. It’s really interesting!'”

Politico: The Rise of the Twitter Thread. “We don’t get to choose the literary genre of our epoch, and in this worst-of-times-worst-of-times political era, we have the Twitter thread. A series of tweets, written by one person and strung together by Twitter’s vertical border wall, the thread has emerged as this year’s ascendant form of argument: urgent, galloping, personality-driven and—depending on your view of the topic—either tacky and misleading or damned persuasive.”

Stuff New Zealand: Google Maps wants public’s help to master Māori place names. “Google Maps promises it will start pronouncing Māori place names correctly by the end of the year. And the tech giant wants the public’s help to determine which names are being mispronounced by the app’s automated voice. An online platform, developed by Google and Vodafone, invites the public to drop pins on an interactive map of New Zealand to point out the cities, towns and streets that need linguistic attention.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: Judge dismisses ‘inventor of email’ lawsuit against Techdirt. “A Massachusetts judge has sided with Techdirt, dismissing Shiva Ayyadurai’s $15 million lawsuit against the media company, its founder Mike Masnick and writer Leigh Beadon. The suit centered on Techdirt’s coverage of Ayyadurai’s claim that he is the inventor of email — Masnick’s position on the matter is spelled out pretty clearly in an article titled, ‘Here’s The Truth: Shiva Ayyadurai Didn’t Invent Email.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

National Law Journal: ‘PACER Should Be Free,’ Tech Scholar Argues in New Paper. “The federal judiciary’s fee-based access to its public online database, known as PACER, is not just anachronistic and counter to history but harms the structural integrity of the modern judiciary, a new research article claims. The article— ‘The Price of Ignorance: The Constitutional Cost of Fees for Access to Electronic Public Court Records’ —contends the judiciary’s fee structure makes public records ‘practically inaccessible’ for many people and inhibits constitutionally protected activities. ‘PACER should be free,’ the article, posted on Aug. 29, concludes.”

Phys.org: Tweet life vs. street life: Exploring the gap between content and feelings . “Twitter is an unreliable witness to the world’s emotions, according to University of Warwick sociology expert Dr Eric Jensen. In a new paper published today, Dr Jensen, Associate Professor in the University of Warwick’s Department of Sociology, highlights the risks of assuming that Twitter accurately reflects real life.” Good morning, Internet…

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