NEW RESOURCES

Purdue University: Online tool identifies best and safest places to keep bees. “Beekeepers must… identify safe places to establish their colonies. A new online tool, developed by entomologists from Penn State University in partnership with Purdue University, the University of Illinois, the University of Minnesota and Dickinson College, helps them do just that.” Currently the tool only provides information for Indiana, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, but more states will be added over time.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Neowin: Microsoft is killing off the Books section in the Microsoft Store. “The ability to buy books from the Microsoft Store, which you could then read using Microsoft Edge, was introduced with the Windows 10 Creators Update, about two years ago, so it’s been a short-lived platform. If you have any books you’ve already bought or rented, you can read them until the end of the rental period, or until July 2019, when they will be removed entirely. On the bright side, you’ll get a full refund of the original price of the purchase when they’re no longer available.”

Poynter: PolitiFact announces an exclusive health news fact-checking partnership with Kaiser Health News (KHN). “The Poynter Institute, a global nonprofit dedicated to excellence in journalism, announces an exclusive new partnership between its fact-checking news organization, PolitiFact, and KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) – the trusted source of health policy information – through Kaiser Health News (KHN), KFF’s editorially independent national health and health policy newsroom.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: Your Guide To Using TikTok. “Much like YouTube and Twitch, TikTok opens onto a page recommending some of the most popular hashtags and creators. The app is filled with people — mostly teenagers — recording themselves dancing to popular songs and editing their videos to often hilarious effect. There are more than 500 million people using the app, and new personalities and trends pop up every day. The homepage isn’t a bad place to start your TikTok journey, but it’s hardly where the fun in TikTok lies.”

Lifehacker: Find Ethical Open-Source Alternatives To Almost Every App or Service With This List. “We love the convenience and feature-rich nature of the apps and products big corporations can offer you, but we’re also proponents of personal autonomy and control over your online experience. However, it’s one thing to just turn your back on the big corporations; it’s another to do so mindfully and ethically.” A commenter mentions that the list is somewhat UK-centric.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

News1130: Israeli group finds fake pro-Netanyahu social media accounts. “An Israeli watchdog says it’s found a network of social media bots disseminating messages in support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of next week’s elections. Two researchers operating the Big Bots Project said Monday they uncovered hundreds of fake accounts spreading messages in support of Netanyahu’s Likud party and smearing his opponents.”

NextGov: Survey: Only One-Third of Agencies Are Sending NARA Electronic Records. “Many federal agencies could be at risk of not meeting National Archives and Records Administration’s mandate to manage (and eventually send NARA) all records electronically by December 2019, according to a survey. An overreliance on manual processes and fallible end-users paired with a lack of manpower and implemented automation are driving that risk according to a survey of 150 government decision-makers released Thursday by AvePoint Public Sector and custom research firm Market Connections.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Daily Beast: ‘Beyond Sketchy’: Facebook Demanding Some New Users’ Email Passwords. “Just two weeks after admitting it stored hundreds of millions of its users’ own passwords insecurely, Facebook is demanding some users fork over the password for their outside email account as the price of admission to the social network.”

Georgia Tech News Center: Unauthorized Access on Georgia Tech Network Exposes Information for 1.3 Million Individuals. “A central Georgia Tech database was accessed by an unknown outside entity. Georgia Tech’s cybersecurity team is conducting a thorough forensic investigation to determine precisely what information was extracted from the system, which may include names, addresses, social security numbers and birth dates.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

EurekAlert: Research connects big data marketing tools, land conservation . “The same data used by digital marketers to sell products can also help inspire conservation behaviors, according to new research from the University of Montana. In a recent study, ‘Microtargeting for Conservation,’ published in Conservation Biology, UM faculty in the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conversation demonstrate how conservation programs can benefit from tools and analyses generally reserved for businesses and political campaigns.”

ScholarsArchive@OSU: OPEnS Hub: Real-time Data Logging, Connecting Field Sensors to Google Sheets. “In Earth science, we must often collect data from sensors installed in remote locations. Retrieving these data and storing them can be challenging. Present options include proprietary commercial dataloggers, communication devices, and protocols with rigid software and data structures that may require ongoing expenses. While there are open-source solutions that include telemetry, such as EnviroDIY’s Mayfly, none presently generate real-time, remotely accessible workbooks (EnviroDIY, 2018). The Openly Published Environmental Sensing (OPEnS) Lab developed the OPEnS Hub, a new approach to using low-power, open-source hardware and software to achieve real-time data logging from the field to the web.”

Ars Technica: Here lies Google Inbox, a radical rethink of how email should work. “But we’re not here to mourn Inbox’s death; we’re here to celebrate its life. Many of the ideas and features of Google Inbox have been spun off across the Google ecosystem, and while there is sadly still no viable replacement for an Inbox-style email client, the spirit of Inbox can live on in the features it inspired in other products. Preserved here for future generations, this is what Google Inbox was like.” Good morning, Internet…

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