NEW RESOURCES

Journal of Blacks in Higher Education: Roanoke College Students Create Digital Archive Documenting th Area’s Civil Rights Era. “Last semester students in an introduction to public history class at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, created a digital archive of newspaper and other clippings collected during the civil rights era by the Hill Street Baptist Church in Roanoke. The project documents efforts in the area to desegregate lunch counters. movie theaters, and public schools during the 1950s and 1960s.”

Arch Daily: Álvaro Siza’s Full Personal Archive Released for Free Online Browsing. “A’s extensive personal archive of built and unbuilt projects is going online with free access, thanks to the collaboration between three institutions – the Serralves Foundation in Oporto, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal. Siza donated his archive to the three institutions in 2014, and after three years of archival work, the first batch of entries are set for public viewing.”

Safety+Health Magazine: 42 percent of construction worker deaths involve falls, new database shows. “A recently created database allowed researchers to determine that, in a 33-year period, falls accounted for nearly half of all construction worker deaths – and more than half of the workers killed lacked access to fall protection – according to the Center for Construction Research and Training (also known as CPWR).”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Daily Dot: Snapchat overhauls Bitmoji so you can make your avatar look just like you. “Snapchat announced today the addition of hundreds of new customizations to your cartoon avatar with Bitmoji Deluxe, an upgrade to the popular avatar-creation app. One of the highlights of Bitmoji Deluxe is the ability to snap a selfie of yourself and use it as a reference for your digital character. Another useful addition is the ability to preview changes directly from the builder before applying them.”

Engadget: Facebook bans ads promoting cryptocurrencies. “Most of Facebook’s recent advertising changes have tried to curb the danger of, you know, a foreign government using the social network to influence elections. But Facebook believes other kinds of harmful ads prey on less-than-savvy users with get-rich-quick promises and trendy buzzwords. So the network is banning all advertisements that promote cryptocurrencies — yes, even bitcoin — because they are ‘frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.'”

USEFUL STUFF

Creative Bloq: 13 incredible tools for creating infographics. “Done right, infographics can be a great way to make sense of complex data. The best infographics transform complex information and data into graphics that are both easy to grasp and visually appealing. The only problem is, infographics that look like they were simple to make are often anything but.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Laughing Squid: Laughing Squid Video Archive Digitization Project. “Way back in the early days of Laughing Squid, before I launched this blog, I used to shoot a lot of video, documenting events in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the country. You may not realize this, but Laughing Squid originally started out as a film and video company, producing documentaries on the surrealist painter Alonso Smith and The Cacophony Society’s Portland Santacon ’96 event. I’m finally working on digitizing all of the old video I shot during those days, the bulk of which was on HI8 from 1995 to 1999, with some MiniDV from 2001-2003.”

Digiday: Instagram appeal: How social media is changing product development in beauty. “Today’s beauty brands have a new audience to win over when debuting their products: the ever-growing group of skin-care and makeup junkies that is burgeoning online. But with that has come increased competition, as these customers are surfing through social platforms crowded by other brands and influencers, all hoping to entice the same group of customers. To solve for this, companies have started focusing on what’s trending online from the get-go, altering both their product formulations and outside packaging to better catch the scrolling eye.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: Google says it removed 700K apps from the Play Store in 2017, up 70% from 2016. “The relatively open nature of Android has made it a target for malware authors and other bad actors of all stripes who often try to get their wares onto your phone through both the official Google Play Store, third-party app stores and any other way they can think of. For most users, though, the main Android app store is Google’s own Play Store and as the company announced today, the company removed 700,000 potentially harmful or deceiving apps from its store last year. That’s up 70 percent from 2016.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Atlantic: All Followers Are Fake Followers. “For people whose work product is intimately connected to their person, appearing influential online has become more important, too. Bennett Foddy and I were excited about our relative Twitter fame partly because of narcissism, and partly because it promised an improved platform for us as creators. When I go to write a book proposal, for example, having 100,000 Twitter followers offers evidence to the publishers who might buy my book. In an ideal world, it would mean that I have a platform from which to promote that book to a throng of eager buyers. But in the short-term, it mostly helps me appear to have such a platform in order to get the deal done.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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