NEW RESOURCES

The Verge: Take a tour of Akita with two floofy boys on Google Street View. “The very best way to get directions is to have a very loyal dog leading you, and now thanks to a partnership between Odate city in Japan and Google, parts of the city can be toured from the viewpoint of a very fluffy Akita. Odate is part of the Akita prefecture, the birthplace of Akita dogs…. To honor the breed’s ties to the city and give everyone a hardy dose of cute, two working Akita dogs named Ako and Asuka were brought in to capture pieces of the city from their point of view.”

Medium: Introducing 24/7 freeCodeCamp Radio: chill tunes you can code to 🎧 + 💻. The headline contains icons that might not display correctly depending on how you’re viewing them. “Most developers I know listen to music while they code. When the meetings are over, the headphones come out. And devs aren’t alone. According to a study Spotify conducted in 2014, 61% of people listen to music while they work — mostly to stay focused, and to drown out surrounding noise.”

Daily Finland: Online archives of Finnish missions published. “The Ministry for Foreign Affairs launched an online service containing all the reports of Finnish missions abroad from 1918 to 1926. The online service was launched on International Open Data Day on March 3 March, said an official press release on Monday.” “Missions” gives this announcement a religious connotation for this American, but this is more foreign affairs, diplomacy, etc.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Lucidworks launches site search as a service tool. “Lucidworks has been helping large organizations like Reddit with complex content build search tools that reach across massive content stores, but the company wanted to make the underlying search technology available to a wider market. Today, it released Lucidworks Site Search, a cloud service that enables companies to embed Lucidworks search in any application or website with a couple of lines of code.” Remember when there were LOTS Of companies offering site search services? That was a long time ago. The only name I can remember off the top of my head is PicoSearch and that shut down in 2014.

Digital NC: Thirty More Years of the Cherokee Scout Now Online at DigitalNC. “Courtesy of our partners, the Murphy Public Library and the Nantahala Regional Library, almost 30 more years of the Cherokee Scout have been newly digitized. That brings our collection to nearly 2500 issues, stretching from 1923-1971! These are brand new to DigitalNC and we are proud to present them. Published weekly, The Cherokee Scout serves Cherokee County, where it remains a staple to its readership of nearly 10,000.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Artnet News: The Museum Heist Scene in ‘Black Panther’ Adds Fuel to the Debate About African Art Restitution. “Black Panther, the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is taking the box office by storm, raking in more than $700 million in ticket sales in just its first 12 days; it’s now closing in on $900 million. For art lovers, the superhero film has added intrigue: a dramatic museum heist that brings up thorny issues of colonialism and restitution in connection to the display and ownership of African artifacts.” There are light spoilers in the article, so don’t read if you haven’t seen the movie yet and don’t want it spoiled.

Bloomberg: Here’s How Google Almost Destroyed Zagat. “For some, the question isn’t why Google sold off Zagat; it’s what took so long. The relationship between the two companies had been troubled for years. The 2011 purchase was championed by former Google executive Marissa Mayer, who saw Zagat as an asset for the maps division she controlled. But by 2013, some reviewers panned the release of the Zagat app, which had a difficult user interface and seemed designed to push content like ‘Rose for Every Mood: What to Bring to Any Summer Occasion’ rather than help people find a good place to eat.”

The National: UAE’s paid social media influencers will need licence under new media rules. “Social media influencers who make money from promoting brands and businesses will need to secure a media licence under new regulations. The move would work to professionalise and regulate the industry, the National Media Council said on Tuesday. The licence would be similar to those that magazines and newspapers acquire from the authorities.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Next Web: Researcher finds 50,000 WordPress sites infected with cryptocurrency mining malware. “The cryptocurrency mining malware epidemic is getting out of hand: nearly 50,000 WordPress sites have been surreptitiously infected with crypto-jacking scripts, according to security researcher Troy Mursch from Bad Packets Report.” Good morning, Internet…

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