NEW RESOURCES

InPublishing: Future Markets launches digital archive of Nanotech and Graphene. The title makes it sound like this might be one publication, but it is in fact two. “Nanotech is one of the world’s leading nanotech business magazines. Published monthly, each issue contains in-depth articles on the latest nanotech innovations with contributions from prestigious companies, as well as features on the latest nanotech products and industry news. … Graphene is the world’s only Graphene and 2D Materials business publication, say the publishers.”

United Nations: New database explores links between human rights and sustainable development goals . “A new interactive database promises to give users a chance to visually check on progress on achieving both sustainable development and human rights goals across the globe.The database was developed by the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR). It is based on more than 50,000 recommendations made during the first and second cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The UPR is a peer-review mechanism of the Human Rights Council that looks at the human rights situation on the ground for each of the United Nation’s 193 Member States. At the end of each review, recommendations are issued to improve human rights before the next review. The reviews take place once every 4.5 years. Using an algorithm developed and trained by the DIHR team, the recommendations are then weighted and linked to specific sustainable development goals (SDG), giving States and others a concrete way of seeing human rights linked with development, said Birgitte Feiring from the DIHR.”

Library of Congress: Free to Use and Reuse: Cycling Season Has Arrived!. “This month, as warmer weather signals the start of the cycling season, we’re adding to our Free to Use archive all kinds of themed content about bicycles. We’re including images portraying early women cyclers like Strage, but also historical ads featuring bicycles, cartoons, lithographs, maps and more. The Free to Use archive features themed sets of content (such as travel posters, presidential portraits, Civil War drawings, dogs and, now, bicycles) that are all free to use and reuse, meaning there are no known copyright restrictions associated with this content. In other words, you can do whatever you want with it.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Neowin: Instagram debuts new ‘Focus’ mode that blurs backgrounds in portrait shots . “This is, at its essence, a take on the software-powered portrait mode found on Google’s Pixel handsets – or on the newest iPhones – which captures a subject in clear focus and then blurs out everything in the background that it detects, producing a sort of fake depth-of-field effect. In Instagram’s case, it operates as such: the moment it detects a face, the viewfinder strives to blur out everything else, so it is unclear if this effect would apply in the case of objects that are not human faces.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Advertising Age: Ads Or Not? DJ Khaled Faces Scrutiny Over Social Media Posts Plugging Booze Brands. “A collection of watchdog groups has done the impossible: They slowed down DJ Khaled’s brand plugs on social media, at least for alcohol. The hip hop star and so-called ‘King of Snapchat’ has dialed back posts mentioning liquor brands after scrutiny from watchdog groups alleging that his boozey social media musings reached minors and were not properly labeled as ads.”

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: Your Pretty Face is Going to Sell. “On YouTube, there’s a long tail of content that pretty much guarantees the inclusion of every potential human interest. There are skate videos, makeup tutorials, and backyard surgical removals of blackheads. And yet the presentation of a lot of this content — especially when it’s trying to attract a large audience — is remarkably similar. Everywhere you look, there’s YouTube Face. The Face is hard to miss once you first spot it: an exaggerated expression, an overreaction to a given video’s subject, typically conveying heightened states like disgust, anger, or ecstasy. The assault of a bad smell; a bite of something intensely sour; a faked orgasm; an elbow to the guts.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: What You Don’t Know About How Facebook Uses Your Data. “Facebook’s tracking stretches far beyond the company’s well-known targeted advertisements. And details that people often readily volunteer — age, employer, relationship status, likes and location — are just the start. The social media giant also tracks users on other sites and apps. It also collects so-called biometric facial data without users’ explicit ‘opt-in’ consent, and helps video-game companies target ‘high-value players’ who are likely to spend on in-app purchases. The sifting of users gets into personal — even confidential — matters.”

The Register: Facebook admits: Apps were given users’ permission to go into their inboxes. “Facebook has admitted that some apps had access to users’ private messages, thanks to a policy that allowed devs to request mailbox permissions. The revelation came as current Facebook users found out whether they or their friends had used the ‘This Is Your Digital Life’ app that allowed academic Aleksandr Kogan to collect data on users and their friends.”

Ars Technica: Thousands of hacked websites are infecting visitors with malware. “Thousands of hacked websites have become unwitting participants in an advanced scheme that uses fake update notifications to install banking malware and remote access trojans on visitors’ computers, a computer researcher said Tuesday. The campaign, which has been running for at least four months, is able to compromise websites running a variety of content management systems, including WordPress, Joomla, and SquareSpace.”

Krebs on Security: Adobe, Microsoft Push Critical Security Fixes. “Adobe and Microsoft each released critical fixes for their products today, a.k.a ‘Patch Tuesday,’ the second Tuesday of every month. Adobe updated its Flash Player program to resolve a half dozen critical security holes. Microsoft issued updates to correct at least 65 security vulnerabilities in Windows and associated software.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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