NEW RESOURCES

Wow. From the Boston Globe: You can see your home from here. A new 3D map covers the entire city. “For years, the Boston Planning & Development Agency has kept a wooden scale model of downtown in a room on the ninth floor of City Hall. It’s a way for officials to see what proposed buildings would look like in context. Now the BPDA is bringing that concept into the 21st century, and making it public. The agency on Tuesday unveiled a new digital 3-D model of Boston on its website, the latest step in the BPDA’s push to be more transparent, and to spark conversations about planning for the city’s future. It’s a model of the entire city, with 129,000 buildings from East Boston to Mattapan.”

Bangor Daily News: This website helps you discover the perfect Maine bike route. “It’s a familiar conundrum for bicycling enthusiasts — the desire to explore new roads or trails on two wheels competing with the fear of encountering monster hills, heavy vehicular traffic or simply getting lost on unfamiliar routes. Now, thanks to a new website launched last week by The Bicycle Coalition of Maine, much of that guess work is eliminated.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Facebook bans foreign advertisers from Irish abortion referendum . “Facebook has banned foreign spending on ads related to an upcoming Irish vote on its abortion law, saying it’s concerned groups outside of the country may try to influence the outcome of the sensitive referendum. The social network said on Tuesday it would reject ads related to the May 25 vote, which could repeal the country’s ban on abortion if the messages were purchased by ‘advertisers outside of Ireland.’ Ireland doesn’t allow political donations from other countries, but its laws don’t cover advertising on social media.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

MIT Technology Review: A new company audits algorithms to see how biased they are. “Mathematician Cathy O’Neil is offering businesses a chance to test their algorithms for fairness.”

AZCentral: Cults increasingly gain followers on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube . “Below the breathless praise, the smiling black-and-white photos and the promises of a spiritual awakening, Bentinho Massaro’s website shows seekers how to join. ‘It’s quite simple,’ the guru’s website reads. ‘We suggest you become organically more familiar with Bentinho’s work and effortlessly let its magic rub off on you and change your life by liking Bentinho on Facebook, Subscribing to his YouTube channel, Following him on Instagram, and then proceed to http://www.TrinfinityAcademy.com for the real, structured, step-by-step study and implementation of this fun and transformational work.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Transparency International: Taking a step back: Why do we care so much about public registers of beneficial ownership?. “You might have seen us celebrating the UK government’s decision last week to require British overseas territories to introduce public registers of beneficial ownership. This means that companies based in places like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos and the British Virgin Islands will soon have to reveal the identity of the real individuals behind companies — the beneficial owners. We’ve called this ‘a major victory in the fight against cross-border corruption’. You might be wondering: why do we care so much about registers of beneficial ownership?”

9to5Mac: Inspiring the future: Why Apple should establish an official public archive. “Last week, Apple celebrated 20 years of the iMac. Major anniversaries are today relatively uncommon for the company, but will become increasingly prevalent in the future. Now 42 years old, Apple is a cornerstone in the technology industry. With such a rich and unique history, Apple’s products and values deserve to be properly catalogued through an official digital archive.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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