NEW RESOURCES

Voxy: Revamped digital library of archaeological reports launched today. “Heritage New Zealand has revamped its Archaeological Reports Digital Library and is launching it today. The digital library currently contains over 7500 reports dating from the 1950s until today, with more reports being added all the time. These reports have been available on request since 2007; however the upgrade now means that searching the library is far easier and reports are able to be directly accessed.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Neowin: Linux Mint 19.2 ‘Tina’ is approaching release, final testing underway. “The next version of Linux Mint is very close to its stable release according to project head, Clement Lefebvre. Two weeks ago, the project released beta ISOs of Linux Mint 19.2 ‘Tina’ so that users could test the upcoming release and report any last-minute bugs; Lefebvre said that “many bugs” were identified and fixed, meaning other users are less likely to encounter problems when Mint 19.2 is finally released.”

USEFUL STUFF

Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Help Needed on List of Lists: An Index of Diversity Book Lists for Adults Project. “Rachel Ivy Clarke, Assistant Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies and Sayward Schoonmaker, MLIS, Syracuse University are asking public libraries across the United States to contribute to their indexing project, List of Lists: An Index of Diversity Book Lists for Adults. You can contribute your library’s diversity books lists, LibGuides or similar resources publicly available online between 2016 and present using their Google form link. They would like responses by September 1, 2019.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Nieman Journalism Lab: Full Fact has been fact-checking Facebook posts for six months. Here’s what they think needs to change. “Full Fact, the independent U.K. fact-checking organization, signed on as one of Facebook’s third-party fact-checking partners in January. (All partners must be members of Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network, though that hasn’t completely prevented disputes over who should qualify to be a fact-checker; some original partners like Snopes have dropped out.) Six months in, the organization has released a report about its experience so far — what it’s learned, what it likes, and what it thinks needs to change.”

New York Times: Facebook Connected Her to a Tattooed Soldier in Iraq. Or So She Thought.. “While fraud has proliferated on Facebook for years, those running the military romance scams are taking on not only one of the world’s most influential companies, but also the most powerful military — and succeeding. Many scammers operate from their phones in Nigeria and other African nations, working several victims at the same time. In interviews in Nigeria, six men told The New York Times that the love hoaxes were lucrative and low risk.”

Asian Age: Cisco partners Google to roll out public WiFi in Bengaluru. “US networking giant Cisco on Monday said it is collaborating with Google for its ‘gStation’ offering that provides access to free and high-speed WiFi at public locations across the country. Under the partnership, Cisco is providing the network infrastructure and a pilot has been rolled out in Bengaluru. About 25 locations in the city are already live and another 200 locations will go live in the next 2-3 months.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: EPIC privacy group sues FTC for letting Facebook off easy. “The Federal Trade Commission is facing a lawsuit filed by privacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, known as EPIC, designed to block the automatic approval of the landmark Facebook privacy settlement. Facebook settled with the FTC earlier this week, walking away with a $5 billion fine, some added privacy checks, and a stock price bump. The consensus: the FTC gave the company a slap on the wrist, and Facebook’s latest earnings report showed the social network earning three times as much in revenue as the FTC fine in just three months.”

The Guardian: Apple contractors ‘regularly hear confidential details’ on Siri recordings. “Apple contractors regularly hear confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex, as part of their job providing quality control, or ‘grading’, the company’s Siri voice assistant, the Guardian has learned.”

Mashable: Huge LinkedIn loophole put user security at risk . “[Michel] Rijnders discovered a serious flaw embedded within a very basic LinkedIn feature that allows users to post an official looking job opening on nearly any company’s LinkedIn business page. These unofficial listings show up on a company’s ‘Jobs’ page and look just like any other job opening posted legitimately by the organization.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNET: Google’s DeepMind is using StarCraft II to help train self-driving cars. “Finding new ways to train neural networks is becoming more important all the time, especially as the race to develop autonomous cars heats up. This has led developers to come up with some reasonably inventive ways of getting their networks up to speed, and one of them seems to involve the game StarCraft II.” 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!