NEW RESOURCES

Brookings Institution: Introducing Sourcelist: Promoting diversity in technology policy. “I am delighted to announce the launch of Sourcelist, a database of experts in technology policy from diverse backgrounds. Here at Brookings, we built Sourcelist on the principle that technology policymaking stands to benefit from the inclusion of the voices of a broader diversity of people. It aims to help journalists, conference planners, and others to identify and connect with experts outside of their usual sources and panelists.”

Digital NC: North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics student newspaper now available. “You can now browse through 175 issues of The Stentorian, the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics’ (NCSSM) student-run newspaper. NCSSM is a residential high school located in Durham, NC. It was founded in 1980 to provide a two-year public education to high school students focusing on science, math, and technology.”

Lion’s Roar: Inquiring Mind magazine launches free online archive . “The Buddhist magazine Inquiring Mind, which ceased publication in April 2015, has launched an online digital archive to preserve 31 years of issues. Inquiring Mind, founded by editors Wes Nisker and Barbara Gates, was born out of the Theravada Buddhist community in the 1980s. The publication was financed by donation and highly regarded for its interviews with leading Buddhist teachers as well as its art, poetry, teachings, stories, and essays.” Three years of the publication are up so far with plans to add more.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Xinhuanet: Library alliance along Silk Road boosts common development. “More than 20 libraries from countries and regions along the Silk Road organized into an alliance Monday to cooperate on document sharing, classics protection and digitalization. Initiated by the National Library of China (NLC), the alliance has the first batch of 24 members from countries and regions such as Bangladesh, Belarus, Malaysia, Mongolia, Thailand and Vietnam.”

USEFUL STUFF

Opensource: 5 open source tools for building a map app in a snap. “All the attention geographical information systems (GIS) have gotten in recent years may make you think they are something new. In fact, geospatial data helped play a major role more than 160 years ago in identifying the source of the deadly London cholera outbreak of 1854. Dr. John Snow, a local physician, suspected that contaminated drinking water was the source of the disease. During the investigation, he plotted a density map of cholera cases and interviewed residents in the affected neighborhood to learned about their water use habits. His analysis showed a high number of incidents near a communal water pump. In this article, I’ll introduce five modern open source mapping tools, and then help you get started building your first GIS app.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wired: How Facebook Wants To Improve The Quality Of Your News Feed. “On Monday, I sat down with nine members of the team at Facebook fighting fake news: Eduardo Ariño de la Rubia, John Hegeman, Tessa Lyons, Michael McNally, Adam Mosseri, Henry Silverman, Sara Su, Antonia Woodford, and Dan Zigmond. The meeting began with introductions, led by Tucker Bounds and Lindsey Shepard from the marketing and communications team. Then we spoke in depth about Facebook’s recent product changes and the way the News Feed can be adjusted to counter false news.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Torrent Freak: Google’s Chrome Web Store Spammed With Dodgy ‘Pirate’ Movie Links. “The Chrome Web Store is Google’s repository for all things Chrome, from apps and extensions to a wide range of themes for the popular browser. Currently, however, the store has some very unwelcome visitors which at first appear to offer pirated movies. But on closer inspection, the whole thing is an elaborate scam designed to generate traffic to a subscription site.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

VOX EU: Effects of copyrights on science. “Copyrights grant publishers exclusive rights to content for almost a century. In science, this can involve substantial social costs by limiting who can access existing research. This column uses a unique WWII-era programme in the US, which allowed US publishers to reprint exact copies of German-owned science books, to explore how copyrights affect follow-on science. This artificial removal of copyright barriers led to a 25% decline in prices, and a 67% increase in citations. These results suggest that restrictive copyright policies slow down the progress of science considerably.”

The Royal Gazette: Whale researcher using aerial footage. “Whale researcher Andrew Stevenson will use unique aerial footage for a follow-up to his acclaimed documentary Where the Whales Sing. Mr Stevenson also believes that he now has one of the largest databases in the world held by just one person.”

TechCrunch: To truly protect citizens, lawmakers need to restructure their regulatory oversight of big tech . “If members of the European Parliament thought they could bring Mark Zuckerberg to heel with his recent appearance, they underestimated the enormous gulf between 21st century companies and their last-century regulators. Zuckerberg himself reiterated that regulation is necessary, provided it is the ‘right regulation.’ But anyone who thinks that our existing regulatory tools can reign in our digital behemoths is engaging in magical thinking. Getting to ‘right regulation’ will require us to think very differently.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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