NEW RESOURCES

FutureScot: ScotLIS takes shape. “There’s a myriad of property data out there, from house price information to property title details. Wouldn’t it be useful if all that information was available in one place? That’s why, at Registers of Scotland (RoS) we’re developing ScotLIS. ScotLIS is an innovative, map-based land and information service that will facilitate easy access to a wide range of data relating to land and property in Scotland.”

IFL Science: See Global Google Trend In Real Life Thanks To This Awesome 3D Map. “Users can search for the topics by country or watch the globe spin around with the search terms appearing over the outline of the country. By clicking on one of the terms, you get a preview of the Google search page with an indication of how many times the word had been searched. The trending topics remain in the original language and alphabet.”

Saint Francis University: CSOR Launches Database for Occupational Regulation. “The Center for the Study of Occupational Regulation (CSOR) at Saint Francis University has launched a national all-encompassing database that will document and track the occupational licensing regulations of thousands of professions across the fifty-states and the District of Columbia. The database is free and openly accessible to the public.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Roundtable: Google Search Algorithm Update Today. “The chatter and discussions around a Google search algorithm update is pretty strong this morning in the ongoing WebmasterWorld forums. It is very early on the chatter side, as it seems the ranking fluctuations have just started early this morning or late last night. I suspect we will see even more chatter over the weekend.”

The Verge: The Google Drive app for PC and Mac is being shut down in March. “The aging Google Drive app for desktop is officially deprecated as of today, Google announced in a blog post. Support will be cut off on December 11th and the app will shut down completely on March 12th, 2018.”

TechCrunch: Facebook is testing features to help you make new friends. “Facebook wants to show you more of what you have in common with potential new friends and make sure you don’t forget about your old ones either. The company is rolling out a feature that allows you to get a closer look at your friend’s buddies. It’s not only showcasing connections you’ve yet to make but a lot of current friends as well, which seems a bit odd, but I suppose it helps you orient yourself with friends you haven’t interacted with in a bit.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Daily Beast: Russia’s Facebook Fake News Could Have Reached 70 Million Americans. “Russian-funded covert propaganda posts on Facebook were likely seen by a minimum of 23 million people and might have reached as many as 70 million, according to analysis by an expert on the social-media giant’s complex advertising systems. That means up to 28 percent of American adults were swept in by the campaign.”

Wired: The British Library is racing to save archived sounds from decay. “A Nazi radio archive with more than 4,000 discs that have never been played, a collection of Beijing street sounds from the 90s and the voice of Florence Nightingale are among the British Library’s six-and-a-half million sound recordings. The earliest are from the 1880s, recorded on wax cylinders that sit four storeys beneath the bustling streets of London, fighting off mould and decay. In a race against time before the most fragile recordings vanish forever, the archive is being digitised.”

Reuters: Hong Kong’s vanishing archives and the battle to preserve history. “For anyone digging into Hong Kong’s history, the official archives might not be the place to look. The office of the chief executive, Hong Kong’s leader, failed to hand over any official records at all for eight of the 20 years since it came under Chinese rule in 1997, according to the government department that manages the archives. The Security Bureau only did it for 10.”

KQED: Meet Me in the Google Doc For, Uh… a Performance?. “Even for those who believe wholeheartedly in the software’s claim to ‘bring documents to life,’ Google Docs remains for the most part a working space, a place for orderly rows of facts and figures on a white piece of digital paper. But artists are here to challenge that conventional use — and, let’s be honest, all conventions — with a knowing nod to the document’s inherent power. Documents of the Future: Invitation to Edit, a one-night-only event on Sept. 9 at Oakland’s CTRL+SHFT Collective, presents individual performances (some on-site, some live streaming) and one collaborative performance all addressing the ‘unstable and transformative nature of documents.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Australasian Lawyer: UK judge uses Google Translate in pre-trial hearing. “A judge in the UK resorted to using Google Translate in court last 30 August because of a defendant’s limited grasp of English.” This is the second time in a few months that I’ve read about Google Translate being used in the course of legal proceedings, and it makes me kind of nervous considering how Google Translate can be gamed through crowdsourcing..

RESEARCH & OPINION

Phys.org: Social networks extend gains as news sources in US: survey. “Social networks have made more gains as news sources for Americans in 2017, according to a study released Thursday suggesting more woes for traditional news organizations. The Pew Research Center report showed 67 percent of US adults are getting at least some of their news on social media, with 20 percent doing so often.” Good morning, Internet…

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