NEW RESOURCES

Stanford Libraries: The Stanford Media Preservation Lab begins preservation of the New Dimensions radio show. “Adi Da (Bubba Free John) was a 20th century religious leader that studied English literature at Stanford, Joseph Campbell proposed a universal narrative that is mythopoetic, and host Michael Toms interviewed the latter and the early followers of the former in the embryonic episodes of the radio show New Dimensions. While these two interviews from the 1970’s are remarkable in their own right, New Dimensions in its entirety represents the fractured search for meaning in the post-1960’s United States. ”

Viet Nam News: New website on noted music composer launched. “A new website on noted composer Hoàng Vân (1930-2018), offering the most valuable material on his life and works, has been launched by his children. The website…was initiated by popular music conductor Lê Phi Phi and music researcher Lê Ly Linh as many of their father’s works had been lost during wars.”

University of Nebraska-Lincoln: NEH-funded project brings Salmon Pueblo ruins into digital age. “The project is designed as an online resource that allows users to search more than 140,500 records, including approximately 11,000 photographs, 29,000 documents and 24 data tables with information on particular artifact types, such as ceramics vessels, ornaments and bone tools. The records are from the comprehensive excavations of the Salmon Pueblo completed in the last 40 years.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Nieman Lab: Medium abruptly cancels the membership programs of its 21 remaining subscription publisher partners. “Medium has informed publishers using its platform to offer paid memberships that it’s ending that feature. An email at the end of last month from Medium’s head of partnerships Basil Enan told publishers that the company was planning to discontinue memberships in May.”

Engadget: Google updates privacy policy so you can actually understand it . “Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy laws are about to go into effect, and one of the key rules is that companies must provide ‘clear and transparent’ notice about how your data will be used. Google has done just that, releasing its upcoming privacy policy that explains exactly how it will use your data in surprisingly easy-to-understand terms.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: How to Make Your Own Virtual Reality Tours with Google Street View. “Google’s done more than almost any other company to bring virtual reality to the masses, from making cheap Cardboard headsets to giving the public easy ways to create and share 360-degree photos. Now the company is giving VR fans another way to dive in with a new tool called Tour Creator. The service lets you quickly create and share VR tours of your favorite locations from all over the world, pulling from Google Street View along with your own 360-degree pictures. Here’s what you need to know to get started.”

Make Tech Easier: 9 Alternatives to Whatsapp that Actually Respect Your Privacy. “When social media giant Facebook purchased everyone’s favorite mobile messenger ‘Whatsapp,’ users were promised their data would be private and that they wouldn’t be subject to the shady things that Mark Zuckerberg and crew are known for. That promise is all but gone, leaving many of us seeking alternatives.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: Snapchat’s redesigned redesign couldn’t come at a more-needed time. “The polling company YouGov released a report about Snapchat on Friday showing that millennial consumer sentiment towards the brand is at an all-time low. YouGov’s Impression poll about Snapchat, which asks whether people have a positive or negative impression of a brand, dropped 73 percent from late January to early April. Snapchat reached a high score of 30, and dropped to 8 by April. Yikes!”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Facebook sued over collection of mobile call and text data. “John Condelles III installed two Facebook apps on the Android phone he bought in 2016. Now he’s suing the social network for its alleged collection of information on calls and text messages on all Android phones with a Facebook app installed. Filed in federal court in California, the lawsuit seeks to hold Facebook liable for allegedly violating the privacy of all Android users who installed a Facebook app while the data collection occurred.”

MakeUseOf: The Internet of (Medical) Things: Dangers, Risks, and Security Problems . “You may have heard the phrase ‘your health is your wealth.’ It’s one of the reasons the US spent over $3.2 trillion on healthcare in 2015 alone. With so much money floating around, it’s only natural that a lot of businesses have entered the healthcare market—including technology companies. Medical technology sometimes feels dated, but companies are intent on dragging those devices into the 21st century. And while internet connectivity might seem like a great feature to have, there are some real dangers and issues that could surprise you.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Computerworld Australia: Google, NASA, UTS propose ‘hello world’ test for quantum computers. “What is the smallest computational task a quantum computer might be able to complete, that the most powerful supercomputers available today would find prohibitively hard? Find that and you locate the frontier of what is commonly (and some say, problematically) referred to as ‘quantum supremacy’.”

New Atlas: FontCode hides letters within letters. “While it’s already possible to relay information via barcodes or QR codes, those codes are entirely visible when included in a document. Using Columbia University’s FontCode system, however, users can hide messages within unrelated text via virtually-invisible changes to the displayed letters.” Good morning, Internet…

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