NEW RESOURCES

The Hindu: Leonard Munn maps of City on GCI website. “Leonard Munn maps are the holy grail for cartographic and social research on Hyderabad. On the morning of January 6, 2018, these maps would become available for everyone across the world on the Google Culture Institute website. “Kalakriti Archives is among the first private archives to be associated with the Google Culture Institute. These maps will help researchers, academicians and planners understand the city better,” said Prshant Lahoti of Krishnakriti Foundation.”

Irish Genealogy News: C19th editions join online Church of Ireland Gazette. “The Church of Ireland’s record repository, Representative Church Body Library (RCBL), has announced that all 19th-century editions of the Church of Ireland Gazette have been added to the online archive of the weekly newspaper. This upload means a full archive of editions published from 1856 to 1923 is now freely accessible. ”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Register: ‘Kernel memory leaking’ Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign. “A fundamental design flaw in Intel’s processor chips has forced a significant redesign of the Linux and Windows kernels to defang the chip-level security bug. Programmers are scrambling to overhaul the open-source Linux kernel’s virtual memory system. Meanwhile, Microsoft is expected to publicly introduce the necessary changes to its Windows operating system in an upcoming Patch Tuesday: these changes were seeded to beta testers running fast-ring Windows Insider builds in November and December.”

USEFUL STUFF

Cool Cat Teacher: 8 Tried And True Edtech Tools To Try In 2018. “Today we’re talking with my friend, Steve Dembo @teach42, coauthor of Untangling the Web. He was one of my first blogs that I read, and first podcasts I listened to. Steve, today for Ed Tech Tool Tuesday, what are some things that people need to try in 2018? Do we need to always be doing the new latest and greatest, or are there some things that maybe we might need to dust off?” This is a podcast but it has an excellent transcript.

Techradar: Best free image hosting websites 2018: for your photos and videos. “When it comes to sussing out the best online home for your pics and vids, you will want to check out where these services are based, and whether or not they require registration. You’ll also need to consider other features: storage space, file size limits, file support, how easy it is to upload pictures, platforms supported, and whether there’s capacity for direct linking, image galleries, editing capabilities and more. Note that image hosting websites are fundamentally different from online photo printing or backup services – the latter are used primarily to keep a copy of pictures online, with sharing being a minor consideration. At any rate, let’s take a look at some of our favorite free image hosting websites.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Financial Post: Google’s ‘Dutch Sandwich’ manoeuvre shielded $19.2 billion from taxes in 2016. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google moved 15.9 billion euros (US$19.2 billion) to a Bermuda shell company in 2016, saving at least US$3.7 billion in taxes that year, regulatory filings in the Netherlands show. Google uses two structures, known as a ‘Double Irish’ and a ‘Dutch Sandwich,’ to shield the majority of its international profits from taxation. The setup involves shifting revenue from one Irish subsidiary to a Dutch company with no employees, and then on to a Bermuda mailbox owned by another Ireland-registered company.”

EFF: Open Access Weathers a Governmental Sea Change: 2017 in Review. “In the first few weeks of 2017, just days after President Donald Trump took office, reports emerged that the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture were instructing scientists on staff not to talk to the public or the press. The reports raised serious questions among open access advocates: what does it mean to advocate for public access to publicly funded scientific research at a time when the future of public funding for science itself is in question?”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Next Web: YouTube should impose harsher punishments on wayward stars. “Here’s my question: Why doesn’t YouTube take stronger measures against creators that abuse the platform? The company wants to be taken seriously against the likes of network television, but doesn’t want to be held accountable like one. On TV, this type of stunt could get someone fired. But YouTube barely gives its biggest creators a slap on the wrist when they majorly screw up.”

TechCrunch: These psychedelic stickers blow AI minds. “Machine learning systems are very capable, but they aren’t exactly smart. They lack common sense. Taking advantage of that fact, researchers have created a wonderful attack on image recognition systems that uses specially-printed stickers that are so interesting to the AI that it completely fails to see anything else. Why do I get the feeling these may soon be popular accessories?” Good afternoon, 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!