NEW RESOURCES

New York University: Researchers Building Database of African American Civil War Soldiers. “Just a few weeks prior to the Battle of Gettysburg, the Union Army officially created the United States Colored Troops (USCT)—regiments of African American soldiers that included large numbers of men who had been slaves at the start of the Civil War. However, details of these estimated 200,000 men who fought in the conflict are not easily accessible….To bring the USCT, composed of regiments that were formed stretching back to 1862, closer to both scholars and descendants, a team of researchers has launched a project that is working to put these records online and in an accessible system.”

University of Chicago: Decades of South Side Home Movies to be Released in Digital Archive. “Over 200 home movies, spanning more than half a century of South Side visual history, will be available to view online beginning May 1, 2018. The new South Side Home Movie Project Digital Archive is a globally accessible online portal to home movies shot by residents of Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods from 1929-1982. This contemporary platform provides access to the entire collection of digitized home movies archived by the South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP).”

OCNJ Daily: Ocean City Man’s Passion Leads to Image Archive. “Wonderful pictures are stock in trade of [the website]. Categories include the 9th St. Bridge including the old one, the new one and the demolition of the former and construction of the latter. The Sindia, storms, boardwalk, Music Pier are other examples of categories. Just about anything you can think of concerning Ocean City has a pictorial home on Mike’s site. At present, there are thousands of images in 845 files and 43 albums.”

Daily Sabah: New database on Nazi-looted art findings shows first results. “Art lovers will now be able to learn about one of the largest cases of Nazi-looted art in history after a team of researchers on Wednesday launched a website with their findings about the art collection of legendary German-Jewish publisher Rudolf Mosse….German institutions are working with the descendents of former Nazi victims through the project. The Mosse collection – with its thousands of paintings, sculptures, objects, books and antiquities – is one of the largest cases of Nazi-looted art.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Google’s pricey Clips ‘smart camera’ gets a $50 discount. “There’s nothing altogether unusual about a holiday-related sale, but Google’s decision to drop its Clips camera by $50 through May 13 does leave one wondering if the company’s had some trouble moving the first-generation product.” I have yet to see any review more enthusiastic than “meh.”

New York Times: Snap to Tweak Snapchat’s Redesign After Users Complain. “When Snapchat’s app was redesigned late last year, a viral rage gripped its passionate and young users. The social media star Kylie Jenner tweeted that she had not been using the app as much and called the changes ‘sad.’ More than 1.25 million people signed a Change.org petition to get the company to return the app to its old design. A complaint on Twitter about the Snapchat redesign became one of the most retweeted messages of all time.”

CNET: Facebook is building a virtual memory palace out of your photos. “Facebook’s F8 Conference started today and has been dreaming big about the future of augmented reality and virtual reality, but one of the most fascinating plans has to do with memories. Or, Facebook’s interpretation of them. A several-stage plan to create 3D spaces and experiences from personal photos is underway, starting this summer with the ability to upload 3D photos, Facebook announced. The photos look like moving images, creating 3D info out of 2D photos and videos.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wall Street Journal: NIH Seeks One Million Volunteers for Medical Database. “The National Institutes of Health has begun recruiting volunteers for a $1.46 billion medical database that will eventually comprise data on more than one million people, an effort to discern the genetic underpinnings of a range of diseases and even of healthy aging. The endeavor by the nation’s leading government medical-research entity is aimed at deciphering the workings of poorly understood maladies ranging from cancers to migraines to dementia.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BuzzFeed: Australia’s Largest Bank Lost The Personal Financial Histories Of 12 Million Customers. “The Commonwealth Bank lost the personal financial histories of 12 million customers, and chose not to reveal the breach to consumers, in one of the largest financial services privacy breaches ever to occur in Australia. BuzzFeed News can reveal that the nation’s largest bank lost the banking statements for customers from 2004 to 2014 after a subcontractor lost several tape drives containing the financial information in 2016.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Radio Canada International: Google searches may affect your reaction to a drug, suggests study. “A new study suggests that people who do internet searches on the side-effects of a medication are more likely to report intolerance to the drug. Researchers say this suggests that searching the web could be the culprit for triggering these side effects and not the medication itself. This particular study involved statins, the drugs that lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.”

Boing Boing: Thousands of prominent AI researchers tell Nature they won’t have anything to do with its new paywalled journal . “Over 2,000 prominent AI researchers, including esteemed industry figures from the biggest of Big Tech, have signed an open letter to Nature telling it that they will not “submit to, review, or edit” its new, closed-access ‘Nature Machine Intelligence.'”

The Guardian: Spotify trends could help us gauge the public mood – Bank of England. “Central bankers seeking to understand what’s really happening in the economy might want to forget about market research surveys and get hip to the number of Taylor Swift downloads instead, the chief economist at the Bank of England has suggested. Andy Haldane said researchers were increasingly looking at music download sites such as Spotify and studying the lyrics of songs to gauge the public mood.” Good morning, Internet…

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