NEW RESOURCES

Black Perspectives: Enslaved People in Eighteenth-century Britain: An Interview with Nelson Mundell. “In today’s post, Keisha N. Blain, Senior Editor of Black Perspectives, interviews Nelson Mundell about the new online database, Runaway Slaves in Britain: Bondage, Freedom and Race in the Eighteenth Century. Mundell is a former History teacher with a MEd in Education and is finishing his history PhD thesis, ‘The Runaway Enslaved in Eighteenth-century Britain,’ at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.”

Washington Secretary of State: Check Out New Washington Rural Heritage Collections. “In the past year, nearly 2,000 items have been added to Washington Rural Heritage, a digital collection hosted by the State Library. Five new collections were created, 10 libraries became project partners, and nearly 20 partnerships were formed between libraries and local museums, historical societies, and private contributors.”

WOLA: New Online Database by WOLA Tracks U.S. Assistance to Central America. “Today, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a leading advocacy and research organization, is launching a database tracking U.S. assistance to Central America. This searchable database is designed to help journalists, policymakers, and citizens gain a clearer understanding about where U.S. aid to Central America is going and what kinds of programs it’s supporting. It aims to make it easier to monitor and understand how the United States is implementing the U.S. Strategy for Central America, a multi-year plan launched in 2015 to help address the root causes of migration. Users can search for U.S. programs by year, category, recipient country, and funding account.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

University of Rochester: Seward Family Digital Archive project tops $1 million in grant money. “The project, a collaboration between the University’s Department of History, the River Campus Libraries’ department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, and the Digital Scholarship Lab, brings together students in the humanities and computer science, residents of retirement communities, and retired volunteers from the greater Rochester area to help transcribe the thousands of Seward family letters, all written in Victorian-era cursive handwriting.”

CNET: Facebook pulls down over 800 pages, accounts ahead of midterm elections. “Facebook said Thursday it pulled down more than 800 pages and accounts that posted sensational political content for violating its rules against spam and ‘inauthentic behavior’ ahead of the US midterm elections.” This is been happening for literally years and I’m not giving Facebook any points for just now getting around to doing something about it.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TechCrunch: Google’s smart home sell looks cluttered and incoherent . “The company’s presenters attempted to sketch a vision of gadget-enabled domestic bliss but the effect was rather closer to described clutter-bordering-on-chaos, with existing connected devices being blamed (by Google) for causing homeowners’ device usability and control headaches — which thus necessitated another new type of ‘hub’ device which was now being unveiled, slated and priced to fix problems of the smart home’s own making.”

New York Times: Made and Distributed in the U.S.A.: Online Disinformation. “Politics has always involved shadings of the truth via whisper campaigns, direct-mail operations and negative ads bordering on untrue. What is different this time is how domestic sites are emulating the Russian strategy of 2016 by aggressively creating networks of Facebook pages and accounts — many of them fake — that make it appear as if the ideas they are promoting enjoy widespread popularity, researchers said. The activity is also happening on Twitter, they said.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NBC News: DNA databases can send the police or hackers to your door, study finds. “More than 60 percent of Americans who have some European ancestry can be identified using DNA databases — even if they have not submitted their own DNA, researchers reported Thursday.”

Krebs on Security: Patch Tuesday, October 2018 Edition. “Microsoft this week released software updates to fix roughly 50 security problems with various versions of its Windows operating system and related software, including one flaw that is already being exploited and another for which exploit code is publicly available.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

TV Technology: Local News Sources Losing Ground To Live Streaming From Social Media. “A growing number of U.S. broadband households is spending more time watching user generated live content on social media, according to a new industry report from Parks Associates. The growth in this sector parallels a declining number of viewers getting their news from local new sources.” I’m pretty sure that’s local news services, not local new services. Only pointing it out because it does change the meaning of the paragraph a bit. Good afternoon, 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!