NEW RESOURCES

Daily Democrat: Database connects grain growers, millers, bakers. “California wheat growers have taken the next step in developing premium markets, with the introduction of a new online tool intended to make it easier for all the major players in grains to find each other and cooperate in making the grain more profitable, environmentally sustainable and better for human health. The tool, Golden State Grains, is free software that lets users log on and quickly find, learn about and connect with farmers, seed suppliers, millers, maltsters and bakers.”

PR Newswire: Community Colleges Nationwide Can Now Use Open-Access Online Platform To Help Students Identify, Navigate In-Demand Career Paths (PRESS RELEASE). “Roadtrip Nation, the pioneering nonprofit best known for its iconic green RVs and popular career exploration resources, today announced a new education resource to help community college students connect their passions with in-demand career pathways. Now available nationwide, the Roadtrip Nation Experience: Community College Edition brings project-based learning through storytelling to students and educators in the community college system. It is available at no cost through generous support from ECMC Foundation.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Marketplace: Twitter is finally thinking about accessibility first. “There’s been a lot of talk this week about new Twitter features, mostly disappearing tweets. But Twitter also announced Tuesday that it’s planning voice-only chat rooms called Spaces where you talk instead of type. Earlier this summer, Twitter experimented with letting people send audio-only tweets, but didn’t allow for captioning those tweets, so they were inaccessible to the deaf community. Twitter put that feature on pause and has now created two new teams — one to make Twitter a more accessible place to work and another to vet product ideas for accessibility.”

FDA: FDA Releases New Outbreak Investigation Table. “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is committed to transparency and keeping the public and stakeholders informed of our work upholding the safety of our food supply. As part of this continued commitment, today we are releasing a new tool to communicate foodborne illness outbreak information frequently and as soon as the FDA begins an outbreak investigation – prior to a public health advisory or recall of a certain food product being issued.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wired: Ghostery’s Making a Privacy Browser—and Ad-Free Search Engine. “THE INTERNET RUNS on advertising, and that includes search engines. Google brought in $26 billion of search revenue in the most recent quarter alone. Yes, billion. As that business has grown, it’s reshaped what search looks like. Year after year, ads have gobbled up more space on its results pages, pushing organic results further out of view. Which is why using Ghostery’s new ad-free search engine and desktop browser, even in their pre-beta form, feels at once like a throwback to a simpler internet and a glimpse of a future where browsing that puts results ahead of revenue is once again possible.”

The Courier: Better than Google? Kirkcaldy-based start-up launches alternative search engine. “Unlike most mainstream search engines, Better Internet Search Ltd has no advertising and promises even better results. The new search engine, which will launch before Christmas, was developed in collaboration with Edinburgh Napier University and with the support from the EU’s Next Generation Internet Trust which strives for a fairer more human-centric internet.”

Gadgets Now: Google, Facebook and Twitter threaten to leave Pakistan over new rules. “Internet and technology companies have threatened to leave Pakistan after the government granted blanket powers to authorities to censor digital content, a move critics say was aimed at curtailing freedom of expression in the conservative Islamic nation.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Yes, people are still using ‘123456’ and ‘password’ as their password. “When it comes to updating passwords, we are creatures of habit — and change is hard. But it’s 2020 and it may be time to beef up your security game because, according to new research, people are still using easy-to-hack passwords like ‘123456789,’ the word ‘password,’ and ‘iloveyou.'”

Reuters: Russian parliament given draft law enabling Moscow to block U.S. social media giants. “Lawmakers in Russia’s parliament presented draft legislation on Thursday that, if passed, would enable the government to restrict internet access to U.S. social media giants deemed to have discriminated against Russian media outlets.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Phys .org: The microbiome of Da Vinci’s drawings. “The work of Leonardo Da Vinci is an invaluable heritage of the 15th century. From engineering to anatomy, the master paved the way for many scientific disciplines. But what else could the drawings of Da Vinci teach us? Could molecular studies reveal interesting data from the past? These questions led an interdisciplinary team of researchers, curators and bioinformaticians, from both the University of Natural Resources and Life Science and the University of Applied Science of Wien in Austria, as well as the Central Institute for the Pathology of Archives and Books (ICPAL) in Italy, to collaborate and study the microbiome of seven different drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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