NEW RESOURCES

Satellite Observation: A database of observation satellites. “I have assembled a database of digital high to medium resolution (GSD<50m) Earth observation satellites. The data comes mostly from eoPortal, and the World’s Meteorological Organization’s OSCAR database (for civilian satellites), and Gunter’s Space page helped a lot to make sure it is almost complete. I also used Spaceflight101‘s detailed articles for some satellites." There are 437 entries so far.

ECNS: Cybersleuths can help find lost relics. “Website lets public view images, details to locate historic artifacts China’s national internet platform featuring information about lost or stolen cultural relics went online on Thursday in Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi province. Its goal is to return home listed national treasures.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Digital Trends: Popular VPN provider TunnelBear jumps into password management with RememBear. “TunnelBear is a popular virtual private network (VPN) provider with a fun and accessible app that keeps your browsing sessions private. And now it’s expanding into password management with RememBear, a new privacy app currently in beta and available for Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac. You can also get it as a Chrome browser extension, with support for Safari and Firefox coming soon.”

Internet Archive: 5,000 78rpm sides for the Great 78 Project are now posted. “This month’s transfers of 5,000 78rpm sides for the Great 78 Project are now posted. Many are Latin American music from the David Chomowicz and Esther Ready Collection. Others are square dance music, with and without the calls, from the Larry Edelman Collection.”

BetaNews: Microsoft Office is now available for all Chromebooks . “A key piece of software that has been missing from Chromebooks is now available to everyone — Microsoft Office. Microsoft has made its office suite available for a range of platforms over the years, but Chromebook support has been notable by its absence. Now, without announcement from the company, this changes.”

Eyerys: Psy’s “Gangnam Style” Reaching 3 Billion Views On YouTube. “Psy was one of the few that initially introduced billions of people to K-pop music with “Gangnam Style”. Released in July 2012, it was the first YouTube video that reached 1 billion views, and it finally reached 3 billion on November 26 at about 8AM KST. This was three years after Gangnam Style ‘broke’ YouTube for reaching 2,147,483,647 views, and two years Psy received the Diamond Play Button from YouTube for reaching 10 million subscribers on his official YouTube channel.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 10 Google Sheets Add-ons You Should Consider Using . “Google Sheets add-ons go beyond rows and columns. You can use extensions to express mathematical formulas in graphs, build apps, develop APIs, craw up coordinates on maps, build machine learning tools for predictive analysis, and much more. Below are some of the best Google Sheets add-ons to help you be more productive in your work.” Dang it, I want the time to try most of not all of these.

MakeUseOf: The Best Free Online File Converters for All Your Formatting Needs. “Have you ever received a file or created one of your own that needed to be in a different format? Whether it’s from PDF to DOC, JPG to BMP, or MP3 to WAV, documents, images, audio and video files can be converted easier than you think.” As always, think twice before uploading a sensitive file to an unknown site for file conversion. I generally use online file converters for innocuous items.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Reuters UK: Google says no changes in algorithm to re-rank websites – Russian watchdog. “Russian communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said on Monday it had been informed by Google that the search engine does not change its algorithm to re-rank individual websites.”

The Register: Yahoo! Groups! Go! TITSUP! for! Days!. “Administrators of Yahoo! Groups have complained that the service has become unstable and unreliable. Members of the Yahoo! Groups manager’s forum have reported groups going offline, posts that fail to appear, disappearing graphics and other TITSUP* incidents.” In my experience, Yahoo Groups have been a bit messy for a while now…

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: FBI didn’t tell US targets as Russian hackers hunted emails. “The FBI failed to notify scores of U.S. officials that Russian hackers were trying to break into their personal Gmail accounts despite having evidence for at least a year that the targets were in the Kremlin’s crosshairs, The Associated Press has found.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New Arab: The Taliban’s massive social media presence that’s being ignored. “The National Security Agency is launching cyber attacks designed by the same hackers who built Stuxnet, while the US Air Force is bombing militants who forget to switch off geolocation on their phones. Few would argue that Americans have failed to acknowledge and meet the apparent online threat presented by IS. By comparison however, the Taliban has fought American soldiers for well over a decade and used the Internet for even longer – yet it has encountered no such similar response.” Good morning, Internet…

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