NEW RESOURCES

ABC News (Australia): How home movies reveal decades of Queensland’s history. “Family members of deceased amateur filmmakers are uncovering home movies dating back to the 1930s, which document life in the Sunshine State over generations. However, due to age, heat and humidity, the films are deteriorating at a rapid rate and the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) is in a race against time to save them. SLQ staff are digitising and storing the best quality home movies they are given and sharing them online.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Wired: Google Calendar’s ‘Appointment Schedule’ Is Good, Not Great. “IF THERE’S ONE thing I hate, it’s global pandemics. If there are two things I hate, it’s global pandemics and long email exchanges in which two people try to figure out a time and day to meet. Software hasn’t solved the whole pandemic thing (clearly), but the appointment thing is largely sorted. Calendly is a market leader here. This app gives you a dedicated landing page anyone can use to schedule an appointment with you…. It’s nice. The folks at Google noticed, so they built a feature that’s pretty much an exact copy.”

USEFUL STUFF

Search Engine Journal: The Complete Guide To Google Business Profile Reviews. “Learn how to manage Google Business Profile reviews, how reviews impact local rankings, how to respond to bad reviews, and more.” The usual good work from Search Engine Journal. This article is huge.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Carscoops: Google’s AI Finds This Strosek Porsche Interior Photo Sexually Arousing. “We regularly feature some down and dirty sexy cars on this site, but we want Carscoops to be a place for fans of all ages (and backgrounds, races, religions and genders,) so usually try to come up with a reacharound, I mean workaround, when faced with the prospect of publishing potentially offensive content. Unless it’s a shockingly ugly modified Ferrari. But this week Google clearly thought we weren’t sticking to our own rules as it flagged a story we’d written about a modified Porsche, claiming it contained sexually explicit material. Google being Google, though, it didn’t tell us exactly what it was about the post that had upset its AI guardians.”

KENS5: Book of safe places for Black motorists to visit during Jim Crow era included SA locations . “Students at Texas A&M University – San Antonio are spending the spring semester diving into the rich history of African American culture locally in collaboration with the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum (SAAACAM) via a grant with the city’s Office of Historic Preservation from the Summerlee Foundation. Thirteen undergraduate students in the Methods of Historical Research course are selecting one of more than 20 San Antonio locations originally listed in the Green Book to research.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Target open sources scanner for digital credit card skimmers. “A skimmer is malicious code injected into shopping sites to steal customers’ credit card data at checkout. The code can be hidden on the online store or it can be loaded from external resources, sometimes via a local element such as a favicon. By open-sourcing Merry-Maker, Target helps online retailers fight the credit card skimming threat that’s been affecting the sector for years.”

The Verge: FBI used geofence warrant in Seattle after BLM protest attack, new documents show. “While the building sustained little damage, the attack spurred widespread national interest: Seattle police initially posted a $1,000 reward for information, and the FBI later offered up to $20,000 for any tips that would help identify the people involved. But documents unsealed on February 3rd show that, before offering the reward for information, the FBI also used a controversial search technique known as a geofence warrant to request information from Google about all Android devices that had passed through the area before and after the attack.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York University: History as it Happens: Rescuing the Historical Record in a Digital World. “Papyrus was abundant and relatively easy to produce, and its use as a writing material was widespread. But it broke down easily in cooler, wetter climates and as a result, pretty much the only surviving papyrus-based scholarship is from Egypt. Plenty more records, including all of Aristotle’s dialogues, were lost. The use of a fragile medium in ancient times means that roughly 95 percent of ancient scholarly output has since disappeared. It’s an old tragedy that’s taking on new relevance now, as archivists are discovering that cutting-edge forms of digital media can be surprisingly difficult to preserve, too.”

Cornell Chronicle: Ready, set, count: Great Backyard Bird Count turns 25. “For a quarter of a century the annual Great Backyard Bird Count has been a bright spot for nature lovers. The 25th edition of the event is coming up Feb. 18-21. Everyone is invited to join the count, so their birds can become part of a massive database used by scientists to track changes in bird populations over time. The Great Backyard Bird Count is a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, National Audubon Society and Birds Canada.”

Bloomberg: How Google is helping fight climate change, illegal logging, flooding in Africa and a lot more with a service you haven’t heard of. “Google Earth Engine offers its trove of satellite imagery and analysis tools for free, helping groups around the world monitor changes in the environment.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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