NEW RESOURCES

Ordnance Survey: Tens of thousands of unseen post-war images of Manchester unveiled online for first time. “New historical photo mapping web app Timepix… was launched in Manchester this week, giving the public the chance to explore how their streets looked in yesteryear.” The project is limited to Manchester for now will extend to other UK cities in the future.

Dagbladet: Hidden Munch treasures released: «The Scream» initially looked completely different. “…the Munch Museum is releasing previously unknown sketches and drawings by [Edvard] Munch. The museum has gathered pictures of all the artist’s drawings in a new database. Now they are being published for unrestricted use. Among the works being published are also previously unknown sketches for his world-famous «The Scream».”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Twitter snags the Major League Soccer live streaming deal from Facebook. “Facebook is streaming Major League Baseball, and now Twitter will stream Major League Soccer. The company announced on Friday a new three-year streaming deal that will bring at least 25 soccer matches that broadcast on Univision networks in Spanish to Twitter’s network, where they’ll be available in English.”

Bloomberg: YouTube to Work With Wikipedia to Curb Conspiracy Theories. “YouTube will introduce a new tool to combat online conspiracy theories in the coming weeks, the latest effort from Google’s video site to halt the spread of misinformation. Videos propagating conspiracy theories about events, like the moon landing, will now be accompanied by text from Wikipedia providing facts that counter the theory, Susan Wojcicki, chief executive officer of YouTube, said on Wednesday.” And what stops conspiracy theorists from providing their own “facts” to Wikipedia?

Engadget: Evernote will use AI to automate your workflow. “As the official note-taker of SXSW 2018, Evernote has a massive job. It has to record and produce recaps of more than 50 sessions across four different convention verticals, while at the same time delivering its own news amid meetings with partners and press. Whew. But it’s also looking to make that job easier for its users, with new tools it’s adding to the Spaces feature it launched two weeks ago.”

USEFUL STUFF

WRAL: Submit a records request like a pro in 8 easy steps. “There’s nothing inherently special about journalists’ access to government records under the law – anything we can get, you can get. But given that requesting documents is a regular part of our job (WRAL News has about 30 requests pending with various agencies right now), we’ve picked up a few strategies that help us get our information a little more quickly. Sunshine Week, an annual celebration of open government taking place this year from March 11 to March 18, is a great opportunity to share what we know so you can access public information like a pro. We’re talking mostly about North Carolina public records law here, but much of this advice applies on the federal level, too.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Virginia Tech: Virginia Tech leads efforts to develop national water pipeline database. “Virginia Tech is leading a five-year U.S. Bureau of Reclamation-funded effort to collect data on the reliability of the nation’s aging water pipelines and then to establish an infrastructure database for resilient and sustainable water systems.”

CBR: Tim Berners-Lee fights Google, Facebook, Twitter over internet control . “Tim Berners-Lee has called for more action to be taken against technology firms, in a bid to make the internet a safer and fairer place. The creator of the World Wide Web has said Facebook, Google and Twitter have become too dominant in the online world. In order to squash this power the scientist has called for more regulations to be put in place in order to tackle the increasing problem.”

New York Times: As Bots Flourish on Instagram, Companies Form to Fight Them. “In a sunny office in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, Mike Schmidt spends his time ferreting out fake Instagram accounts. Some are obvious, like the one that had never posted a photo and lacked a profile picture yet followed about 7,500 accounts — the maximum allowed by the social media site. Others are trickier. Mr. Schmidt had to scroll down a little on an account with the name @ailebnoblk before the same stock image of a car showed up three times in a row, a clue that there was no real person behind the profile.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BetaNews: Critical vulnerability found in Windows Remote Desktop Protocol. “Researchers at threat prevention specialist Preempt have discovered a flaw in Credential Security Support Provider protocol (CredSSP), which is used by Remote Desktop and WinRM in their authentication processes. An attacker with man-in-the-middle control over the session could use this to gain the ability to remotely run code on the compromised server masquerading as a legitimate user.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Drum: Reuters builds AI tool capable of writing sentences and pitching stories. “Reuters is advancing its embrace of artificial intelligence a stage further with the development of a new tool capable of writing sentences and suggesting story ideas as well as data analysis. Lynx Insight has been conceived to better differentiate between tasks suited to automation and those which remain the preserve of humans, who will be able to dedicate more time to high value tasks such as interviewing, assessing importance and understanding context.”

Phys .org: Technology and regulation must work in concert to combat hate speech online. “Online bullying, hate and incitement are on the rise, and new approaches are needed to tackle them. As the Australian Senate conducts hearings for its Inquiry into cyberbullying, it should consider a two-pronged approach to combating the problem.” Good morning, Internet…

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