NEW RESOURCES

European Patent Office: European Patent Office launches new Espacenet, improving access to world’s largest free collection of patent documents. “The European Patent Office (EPO) has today released the new Espacenet, a substantially revised and improved version of the Office’s patent information search tool. New Espacenet’s state-of-the-art features and enhanced functionality will make it even easier for users to conduct patent searches and access over 110 million patent documents from all over the world free-of-charge.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

British Library: Happy anniversary to the Polonsky Project. “Today is the one-year anniversary of the launch of our collaborative interpretative and digitisation project with the Bibliothèque nationale de France, The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200. A year ago we met in Paris as part of a three-day international conference to celebrate two new bilingual websites that provide unprecedented access to some of the riches of our two national collections. Thanks to generous funding from The Polonsky Foundation, each Library digitised 400 manuscripts made in either England or France before the year 1200.”

USEFUL STUFF

Genealogy’s Star: How to take better photos for genealogy: Part Four: Quality. “Historically, the only way you could obtain a copy of a photograph was to take another photograph of the original. My Great-grandmother, Margaret Godfrey Jarvis Overson, was a professional photographer and I have several examples of her attempts to make a photographic copy. Unfortunately, we do not seem to have the original photo so we cannot determine the quality of the original, but it looks like the original was likely overexposed. If you look at the face and hands you can see that they are almost white with no detail. When the copy was made, Grandmother Overson tried to compensate for the overexposure by underexposing the copy.” I’m not linking to all of the articles in this series because I don’t have the room.

Lifehacker: How Do I Recover an Old Google Account I Now Need to Access?. “We all forget passwords sometimes. It happens. If you use a password manager, this shouldn’t be a problem at all—in fact, I’m expecting you will not be able to remember your long and complicated passwords. I sure don’t. But there are plenty of people who don’t use password managers, and this means that they run the risk of losing access to older accounts if their passwords (and backup methods) fail.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Will Instagram Ever ‘Free the Nipple’?. “For years, artists have put pressure on Facebook and Instagram to treat female and male nipples equally, but such a change may be too radical for Silicon Valley.”

Business News Wales: National Library of Wales to Lead on Welsh Wikipedia Project. “The 12-month pilot project is funded by the Welsh Government and will see the library’s National Wikimedian working with Menter Iaith Môn, WJEC and subject specialists. Together, they will identify the 100 most important events and themes studied for the subject of history in Welsh primary and secondary schools and develop techniques to structure relevant information regarding the topics to publish on the Welsh Wikipedia.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Russia bans the sale of devices without Russian software. “Earlier this month, Russia signed a law giving it the power to censor the internet. Now, it has passed another law banning the sale of smartphones, computers and smart TVs that don’t have Russian software pre-installed, the BBC reported. Those devices can still be sold with their normal software, but Russian alternatives must be installed, as well.”

Krebs on Security: Ransomware Bites 400 Veterinary Hospitals. “National Veterinary Associates (NVA), a California company that owns more than 700 animal care facilities around the globe, is still working to recover from a ransomware attack late last month that affected more than half of those properties, separating many veterinary practices from their patient records, payment systems and practice management software. NVA says it expects to have all facilities fully back up and running normally within the next week.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Virtual Reality Would Make Attending Therapy Easier For Stroke Survivors. “Researchers have created a virtual reality clinic to make it easier for stroke survivors to attend their physical and occupational therapy sessions. Results from a proof-of-concept study suggest that the technology – and the social connection it facilitates – are effective at encouraging therapy participation.”

Phys .org: Deep learning to analyze neurological problems . “Getting to the doctor’s office for a check-up can be challenging for someone with a neurological disorder that impairs their movement, such as a stroke. But what if the patient could just take a video clip of their movements with a smart phone and forward the results to their doctor? Work by Dr. Hardeep Ryait and colleagues at CCBN-University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, publishing November 21 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, shows how this might one day be possible.” Good evening, Internet…

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