NEW RESOURCES

Colorado Virtual Library: The Altrurian, Montrose County’s Cooperative Newspaper, Joins the CHNC!. “The Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection continues to grow as we happily welcome our newest title, The Altrurian, to our online catalog! This title is especially unique not only because it began publication even before the community it represented even existed, but also because it further adds to the narrative of communal or ‘Utopian’ societies that gained a relatively significant following in the late 19th century in Colorado. The Panic of 1893, an economic crisis that was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and eventually lead to a series of bank failures, left many Americans questioning the longevity of capitalism. Many felt that they had not only been abandoned by their government, but that those in power, who capitalism favored, had taken advantage of those who had no power. In response, small groups of determined settlers elected to remove themselves entirely from this system in favor of a more communal lifestyle in which they could support and rely upon one another.”

The Daily Jeff: Ohio State employee salaries available in searchable online database. “Ohio State University salaries are now searchable in an online database, the school announced Thursday. All non-student employee salary information is available on Ohio State’s human resources website, ‘breaking new ground for transparency among public universities in Ohio,’ the university’s announcement said.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch:
SmugMug acquires Flickr . “Two photo-sharing services are teaming up, as SmugMug buys Flickr from Verizon’s digital media subsidiary Oath. USA Today broke the news and interviewed SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill, who said he hopes to revitalize Flickr .” Good. Flickr has been dying of neglect for a while now. I don’t know what’s going to happen to Flickr Commons, but I’ve e-mailed someone at SmugMug and will let y’all know if I hear anything back.

USEFUL STUFF

New York Times: Project Audio: Teaching Students How to Produce Their Own Podcasts. “Given the recent rise in podcast popularity, it’s no surprise that audio narratives are making their way into the classroom. They offer an engaging way for teachers to merge project-based learning with digital media analysis and production skills. That’s why we’re announcing our first-ever Student Podcast Contest, in which we invite students to submit original podcasts, five minutes long or less, inspired by one of our 1,000-plus writing prompts. The contest will run from April 26 to May 25, so stay tuned for our official contest announcement next week.” Aside from the contest information, this is a really useful walkthrough for teaching students to create a podcast.

Google Blog: How Google autocomplete works in Search. “Autocomplete is a feature within Google Search designed to make it faster to complete searches that you’re beginning to type. In this post—the second in a series that goes behind-the-scenes about Google Search—we’ll explore when, where and how autocomplete works.” Both a look at how autocomplete works and an overview of what Google is doing to get rid of crappy autocompletes.

Make Tech Easier: 6 Ways You Can Get Creative with Google Drawings. “Google Drawings isn’t as popular as Google Docs, Presentation, Form and Spreadsheet, but it’s packed with creative uses you’re probably missing out on. Google Drawings is a free, web-based tool for creating and editing images. Anyone you share links with can edit your content on Google Drawings, so users can collaborate in real-time on the tool. If you have not been using Google Drawings, here are some creative things you can do with it.”

MakeUseOf: How to Bookmark Individual Emails Using Gmail Message IDs . “You should be organizing your Gmail inbox so that you don’t have to comb through it in desperation. Fortunately, if your inbox is a mess, Gmail comes with an excellent search box that makes finding lost emails easier. But did you know that there is another little-known method for keeping track of important emails? Each email in the Gmail inbox has a unique message ID, and this specific identification number is the fingerprint of each email.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Indian Express: Google’s new chat service won’t be secure like iMessage and WhatsApp: Amnesty International . “Google has been slammed by Amnesty International’s Technology and Human Rights researcher Joe Westby for a new ‘Chat’ feature that will not be encrypted. Westby called the decision to launch a messaging service without end-to-end encryption ‘baffling’ and said the move aims to show Google’s ‘utter contempt for the privacy of Android users’ as it easily allows cybercriminals and government spies to access to take control of users’ private communication.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Forbes: Beyond Cambridge Analytica — The Surveillance Companies Infiltrating And Manipulating Social Media . “If it hasn’t already been made clear by Facebook’s moves to cut off AggregateIQ and Cambridge Analytica from the platform following the data privacy fiasco that exploded last month, there are multiple companies who don’t play by the social network’s rules and abuse its users’ privacy. But in recent years a batch of surveillance companies, operating in a far more clandestine manner to Cambridge Analytica and its partners, have been infiltrating all kinds of social media platforms. These spytech vendors are offering services not only to co-opt and influence social media groups with sockpuppet accounts, but will even deliver spyware via the fake profiles they create and hone across different platforms. And at least one of those businesses has been caught out shipping to a regime with a dubious human rights record.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: If it’s free online, you are the product. “No wonder Zuckerberg looked like a deer caught in the headlights in front of congress, even if the questioning is inept and toothless. This is the beginning of a process. A process that could end with transformative, stringent regulation of his business practice or, at the very least, a fight between Facebook and governments over that regulation. But there’s a problem with this. It’s not just Facebook. With any service that you use online that is free – including all Google services (Docs, Gmail, Search) all social media services (Snapchat, WhatsApp, Twitter) and even Hotmail – your data is the product. Once we start to pull on this thread, once old folks like Senator Orrin Hatch begin to realise just how deeply embedded data harvesting, retargeting, cookie sharing and other ethically ambiguous practices are in digital marketing, where will that take us?”

EurekAlert: Young victims of cyberbullying twice as likely to attempt suicide and self-harm . “Children and young people under 25 who are victims of cyberbullying are more than twice as likely to self-harm and enact suicidal behavior, according to a study. New research suggests that it is not just the victims of cyberbullying that are more vulnerable to suicidal behaviours, but the perpetrators themselves are also at higher risk of experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviours.”

The Next Web: Wikipedia co-founder’s 8,000-word essay on how to build a better Wikipedia. “I started building online groups on a smaller scale in the mid-1990s, with academic discussion groups. Such groups are actually how Jimmy Wales (the other co-founder of Wikipedia) and I got to know each other. I still very much believe in the ideal of collecting ‘the sum total of human knowledge.’ That is, I think, a very worthwhile mission. But I also believe we can do much better than Wikipedia.” Good morning, Internet…

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