morningbuzz

Arkansas Counties, Internet Archive, Instagram, More: Wednesday Buzz, May 23, 2018

NEW RESOURCES

KTBS: Arkansas Community Foundation launches new website. “The Arkansas Community Foundation is launching a new website with the goal of improving the quality of life across the state…. The program is an online database that provides county by county data on education, healthcare, families and communities. The new tool includes information from all 75 counties in Arkansas and Bowie County in Texas.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Internet Archive: Internet Archive awarded grant from Arcadia Fund to digitize university press collections . “Internet Archive has received a $1 million dollar grant from Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin – to digitize titles from university press collections to make them available via controlled digital lending. The project, Unlocking University Press Books, will bring more than 15,000 titles online from university presses. This project extends the successful pilot with MIT Press, which has already made more than 400 books available for digital learners around the world.”

High Snobriety: Instagram Launches New “Mute” & “You’re All Caught Up” Features. “Instagram has announced new updates expected to roll out over the coming weeks, which will allow users to mute people without unfollowing them, along with a ‘You’re All Caught Up’ feature.”

CNET: All the Google, Android, Waymo news you need in one place. “Welcome to Alphabet City! This is our newest show that covers everything to do with Alphabet. In case you didn’t know, Alphabet is the parent company of Google and a number of other companies that do some crazy things.” CNET’s new show has episodes out every Tuesday.

USEFUL STUFF

Social Media Examiner: How to Use Facebook Group Units to Organize Your Content. “Do you want to organize the content and resources available in your Facebook group? Wondering how the Units feature for Facebook groups can help? In this article, you’ll discover how to create and use units in Facebook groups.”

Digital Inspiration: Read This Before You Buy Any Udemy Course. “I’ve purchased more than two dozen Udemy courses around web development from different instructors – the list includes courses on React, Redux, JavaScript, Node.js, ES6, Express, Webpack, Firebase, TypeScript – and have been really impressed with the overall quality of the training content. You pay a one-time fee for any course and, unlike Pluralsight or Lynda LinkedIn Learning that charge a monthly subscription, your Udemy course will be yours forever. Most video courses on Udemy are priced between $20 and $200 but before you key in the credit card, ready this.” I think he means “read this,” but yeah.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Verge: Predatory Behavior Runs Rampant In Facebook’s Addiction Support Groups. “When Laurie Couch first joined the Affected by Addiction Support Group, a closed Facebook group with 70,000 members, she felt a sense of belonging. Here were people who understood her struggle to care for a son addicted to drugs, and they were there to support her, any time of the day or night. She began regularly responding to people who were dealing with cravings and comforting parents devastated by their children’s addictions…. In March, Couch’s son almost overdosed. They live together in rural Kansas, where she doesn’t have access to much in-person support, which is part of what made Affected by Addiction attractive to begin with. In the wake of his near-overdose, she reached out to the group for comfort and encouragement while she panicked and figured out what to do. Shortly after that, a stranger named Garrett Hall sent Couch a Facebook message.”

Outside: The Social-Media Sleuths Hunting Down Moose Harassers. “On May 4, a man chased a moose onto the median of a busy stretch of highway in Frisco, Colorado. The man stood casually next to the moose with his hands in his pockets, like he was standing with a friend. The moose, awkwardly marooned on a narrow patch of dirt, was visibly agitated, its ears drawn back and hackles raised. A startled motorist slowed so his passenger could take a photo of the scene. He posted it on social media.”

New York Times: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Gets an Earful From the E.U.. “European lawmakers barraged Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, on Tuesday with a litany of questions about his company’s global power, its role in elections and its misuse of user data. One even raised the prospect of breaking up the social media giant.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Mnuchin Urges Antitrust Probe of Tech After Google Report. “Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin urged the Justice Department to review the power that large technology firms such as Google have over the American economy, the latest U.S. official to back antitrust scrutiny of the industry.”

ZDNet: YubiKey: Protect your Facebook, Google, and other online accounts with this hardware authentication key. “Looking for a quick, easy, and affordable way to protect your Google account, Facebook, GitHub, Dropbox, Salesforce admin account (and much more)? Or maybe you’re looking for a way to harden your Mac or Windows login credentials. Take a look at the YubiKey.”

ACLU Northern California: Amazon Teams Up With Law Enforcement to Deploy Dangerous New Face Recognition Technology. “Amazon, which got its start selling books and still bills itself as ‘Earth’s most customer-centric company,’ has officially entered the surveillance business. The company has developed a powerful and dangerous new facial recognition system and is actively helping governments deploy it. Amazon calls the service ‘Rekognition.'” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!

Categories: morningbuzz

Leave a Reply