NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Discovering millions of datasets on the web. “Across the web, there are millions of datasets about nearly any subject that interests you. If you’re looking to buy a puppy, you could find datasets compiling complaints of puppy buyers or studies on puppy cognition. Or if you like skiing, you could find data on revenue of ski resorts or injury rates and participation numbers. Dataset Search has indexed almost 25 million of these datasets, giving you a single place to search for datasets and find links to where the data is. Over the past year, people have tried it out and provided feedback, and now Dataset Search is officially out of beta.”

Delaware Online: Introducing ‘Know Your Legislator,’ a tool for learning more about your state lawmakers. “What state Senate district am I in? Who represents me in Dover? Where do my representatives stand on the issues? These are the types of questions that Delaware Online wants to help you answer. Today we launched ‘Know Your Legislator,’ a tool connecting readers to information about their representatives.”

Broadway World: City Of Los Angeles Department Of Cultural Affairs Launches Online Archive For Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House. “The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), with support from the California Arts Council, announces the Hollyhock House Digital Archive. The archive, which is free and open to the public, encompasses over 500 works that include original drawings, blueprints, and ephemera, which date from 1918 through the early 21st century.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: After a decade of drama, Apple is ready to kill Flash in Safari once and for all. “Release notes for the latest version of the Safari Technology Preview, essentially the beta version of the macOS Web browser, explicitly state that the update ends support for Adobe Flash. This marks the end of the line for that Web technology on Macs.”

New York Times: Twitter Tells Facial Recognition Trailblazer to Stop Using Site’s Photos. “Twitter sent a letter this week to the small start-up company, Clearview AI, demanding that it stop taking photos and any other data from the social media website ‘for any reason’ and delete any data that it previously collected, a Twitter spokeswoman said. The cease-and-desist letter, sent on Tuesday, accused Clearview of violating Twitter’s policies.”

USEFUL STUFF

PopSugar Tech: You Can Delete All iPhone Texts at Once With This Hack, and My Mind Is Blown. “Usually when my phone is in serious need of a storage cleanse, I get rid of old text conversations individually by swiping left and pressing the red ‘delete’ button. It’s time-consuming AF, and I usually give up when I’m about 15 conversations deep and still in need of said storage cleanse. Little have I known, there’s an alternative method that allows you to delete tons of messages at once.”

Poynter: Podcasting has a discoverability problem. Here’s a tool that can solve that.. “You name a topic and there’s a podcast about it. The big problem is finding what you’re looking for or, maybe moreso, finding what you don’t know you want to hear. A tool called Headliner is solving the discoverability issue in podcasting in a couple different ways, for both consumers and creators.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Next City: ‘People Not Property’ Aims to Create Statewide Database of Slave Deeds in North Carolina. “When Deshawn Elam started college at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, an Historically Black College (HBCU) in Greensboro, N.C., he thought he would become a history teacher. But life changed his plans. One of his first classes introduced Elam to digital archiving.”

ProPublica: Who’s Afraid of the IRS? Not Facebook.. “The social media behemoth is about to face off with the tax agency in a rare trial to capture billions that the IRS thinks Facebook owes. But onerous budget cuts have hamstrung the agency’s ability to bring the case.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Mozilla Blog: ICANN Directors: Take a Close Look at the Dot Org Sale. “As outlined in two previous posts, we believe that the sale of the nonprofit Public Interest Registry (PIR) to Ethos Capital demands close and careful scrutiny. ICANN — the body that granted the dot org license to PIR and which must approve the sale — needs to engage in this kind of scrutiny.”

Voxy: Otago researchers develop first NZ food emissions database – Otago University. “The research team developed a New Zealand-specific food emissions database that, in estimating greenhouse gas emissions arising from foods commonly consumed in New Zealand, considers important parts of the ‘lifecycle’ of each food, including farming and processing, transportation, packaging, warehouse and distribution, refrigeration needs, and supermarket overheads. Using their database, the team was then able to model climate, health, and health system cost impacts stemming from a range of dietary scenarios.”

The National Archives Blog: Accepting Responsibility, Working to Rebuild Your Trust. “Our credibility, so important to our mission, understandably has been questioned. We have begun to examine internal exhibit policies and processes and we will incorporate external best practices to ensure something like this never happens again. In addition to our public apology and my letter to staff yesterday, we will be apologizing to our colleagues in the archives, museum, library, education, and other fields, as well.” Good morning, Internet…

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