NEW RESOURCES

OHS: New IARC Website Tracks UV Radiation Cancers. “The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) recently launched its new database on cancers attributable to ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Part of the Global Cancer Observatory, the website aims to provide estimates of the preventable melanoma burden using a standardized analytical approach for all countries.”

PRWeb: JsonWHOIS is Now Offering Complete Whois Database Download (PRESS RELEASE). “JsonWHOIS, a company specializing in domain Whois API services, announced today they would begin offering access to complete whois database download. The announcement means the company will now offer users access to close than 300 million active domain names with WHOIS records, including data on important dates like expiration and creation, owner and contact information, name servers, and social data including counts from websites including Google, Twitter, and Facebook.” As you might imagine, this is not free.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: Smart Compose and offline mode have arrived in Gmail. “As promised, Google has rolled out new key features for Gmail. Native offline mail support is now available after it was promised as a follow-up to the major redesign that launched late last month. You have to be using Chrome as your Web browser to access this feature, though.”

Search Engine Land: Bing is latest to ban cryptocurrency ads. “In another blow to cryptocurrency marketers, Bing Ads is banning ads promoting cryptocurrency sales, offerings and related products. Facebook, Google and Twitter banned cryptocurrency ads earlier this year.”

CNET: White House reportedly eliminates top cybersecurity role. “Politico, The Hill and CNN report that the Trump adminstration has eliminated the White House position of cybersecurity coordinator, a role President Obama first established in 2009, at a time when hacks and cybersecurity threats weren’t as commonplace as they are today.” This is a terrible idea, and I’d be saying that even if we had President Fred Rogers.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Slate: How Augmented Reality Is Going to Change Google Maps. “Augmented reality is one of the hottest areas in consumer technology. Apple, Facebook, Google, and many others are devoting significant resources to ensure developers have the tools they need to create memorable app experiences and make AR products of their own. At Google’s I/O developer conference this week, AR naturally played a notable role in many announcements. In particular, the sneak peek at the future of Google Maps showed how AR will integrate more seamlessly into our daily lives.”

Digital Content Next: 7 reasons you should pay attention to podcasting. “‘Wayne’s World for Radio.’ That’s one of the ways in which Steve Jobs described podcasting in 2005. That was the same year that Apple put podcasts on iTunes and The New Oxford American Dictionary named ‘podcast’ its word of the year. Citing low barriers to entry, Jobs observed how ‘anyone can make a podcast … and get a worldwide audience… We see it as the hottest thing going in radio,’ he added. Thirteen years ago, there may have been an element of hyperbole in that assertion, but it’s certainly true now. The so called ‘Serial Effect’ – named after the phenomenally popular 2014 series has enjoyed more than 175 million downloads. Its success sparked new levels of interest in the genre, and is often seen as the catalyst for a new golden age of podcasting.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Wired: Russia-Linked Facebook Ads Targeted A Sketchy Chrome Extension At Teen Girls . “EARLIER THIS WEEK, the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released roughly 3,500 Facebook and Instagram ads purchased by the Internet Research Agency, a notorious Russian troll farm. Among them: Ads purchased in May of 2016 that promoted a suspicious Chrome extension that gained wide access to the Facebook accounts and web browsing behavior of those who installed it.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Nature Index: Open-access model is a return to the origins of journal publishing. “The history of Philosophical Transactions is not exceptional in the annals of journal publishing. Members of scientific associations, such as the Royal Society, subsidised publications from their subscriptions for their first three centuries. Only in the last 50 years or so did the situation reverse, leading them to subsidise their subscriptions from their publications. Yet the period of profitability is disproportionately shaping researchers’ thinking about journal publishing.”

Select/All: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore. “The other day, I found myself looking at a blinking cursor in a blank address bar in a new tab of my web browser. I was bored. I didn’t really feel like doing work, but I felt some distant compulsion to sit at my computer in a kind of work-simulacrum, so that at least at the end of the day I would feel gross and tired in the manner of someone who had worked. What I really wanted to do was waste some time. But … I didn’t know how. I did not know what to type into the address bar of my browser.”

Forbes: The Problem With Using AI To Fight Terrorism On Social Media. “Social media has a terrorism problem. From Twitter’s famous 2015 letter to Congress that it would never restrict the right of terrorists to use its platform, to its rapid about-face in the face of public and governmental outcry, Silicon Valley has had a change of heart in how it sees its role in curbing the use of its tools by those who wish to commit violence across the world. Today Facebook released a new transparency report that emphasizes its efforts to combat terroristic use of its platform and the role AI is playing in what it claims are significant successes. Yet, that narrative of AI success has been increasingly challenged, from academic studies suggesting that not only is content not being deleted, but that other Facebook tools may actually be assisting terrorists, to a Bloomberg piece last week that demonstrates just how readily terrorist content can still be found on Facebook. Can we really rely on AI to curb terroristic use of social media?”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

This is so off-topic, but I love it. Apologies. From DIY Photography: This Photographer Shot Formula 1 With Game Boy Camera And Clip-on Smartphone Lens. “Game Boy camera was launched twenty years ago, and technology has advanced immensely since then. Nevertheless, experimenting with this toy camera in the modern era is still kind of fun. Photographer Tim Binnion recently brought his to 2018 Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, China. He captured the Formula 1 race with the 0.016-megapixel camera, and the results are unusual and pretty amazing.” Good morning, Internet…

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