Wesleyan University: Slobin’s Afghanistan Music Recordings, Field Notes Archived Online. “Between 1967-1972, ethnomusicologist Mark Slobin was one of only four Western ethnomusicologists who managed to complete research in Afghanistan before the subsequent Soviet invasion, civil war, and anti-music Taliban regime. During these five years, Slobin, who retired from Wesleyan 2016 as the Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music, completed a comprehensive documentation of music, culture, language and society in the Afghan North. Given the region’s volatile unrest, no further musical—and by extension cultural—studies have been undertaken since.”
Monthly Archives: June 2017
VentureBeat: Google’s AI-powered video analyzer hits public beta
VentureBeat: Google’s AI-powered video analyzer hits public beta. “The Video Intelligence API is designed to let users upload a video and get information back about what objects are in it, using a system called label detection. With this release, the company also added support for detecting pornographic content, making it possible to use the service to spot videos that would be inappropriate to share with an audience that isn’t looking for that sort of content.”
Hyperallergic: New Open-Source Platform Maps the Provenances of Artworks
Hyperallergic: New Open-Source Platform Maps the Provenances of Artworks. “Launched by Boston University professor Jodi Cranston, Mapping Paintings is an open-source, searchable platform for compiling provenance data for individual artworks (not just paintings, despite its name), from owners to past locations to details of sales or transactions. It allows you to select artworks of interest and visualize their records across time and space, as plotted on a map.”
The Next Web: Milanote is the Evernote for creatives
The Next Web: Milanote is the Evernote for creatives. “Like Google Keep, Milanote lets you arrange your notes in a bulletin board sort of approach. Where it differs, however, is in allowing the user to move notes to any location within the board — including off the screen. Pin an item here, add a text note there, drop in a link, a YouTube video, and connect them in whatever way you see fit using lines, arrows, or whitespace.”
TechCrunch: Facebook is rolling out its ‘Find Wi-Fi’ feature worldwide
TechCrunch: Facebook is rolling out its ‘Find Wi-Fi’ feature worldwide. “Facebook is expanding one of its newer features designed to help mobile users find accessible Wi-Fi networks. The company had begun testing a ‘Find Wi-Fi’ option last year on mobile, which highlighted free, public Wi-Fi networks nearby. At the time, the option was only available on iOS in select countries, as something of a test. Today, Facebook announced users worldwide on both iOS and Android devices will soon gain access to ‘Find Wi-Fi.'”
Washington Post: Twitter is looking for ways to let users flag fake news, offensive content
Washington Post: Twitter is looking for ways to let users flag fake news, offensive content. “Twitter is exploring adding a feature that would let users flag tweets that contain misleading, false or harmful information, according to two people familiar with the company’s projects. The feature, which is still in a prototype phase and may never be released, is part of the company’s uphill battle against rampant abuse on its platform. It could look like a tiny tab appearing in a drop-down menu alongside tweets, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details of the effort.”
Fortune: Google Still Doesn’t Care About Your Privacy
Fortune: Google Still Doesn’t Care About Your Privacy. “The other morning I looked at the pudgy personal assistant that sits on my kitchen counter and asked, ‘Hey, Google: Please read me the Google privacy policy.’ It responded, ‘Sorry; I don’t understand.’ It may sound as if the Google gnome made a mistake. But I suspect the truth is that Google doesn’t want us consumers to know how much information it is constantly collecting.”
ProPublica: Medicare Halts Release of Much-Anticipated Data
ProPublica: Medicare Halts Release of Much-Anticipated Data. “Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have been validating the accuracy of the data and, in recent months, were preparing to release it to researchers. Medicare already shares data on the 38 million patients in the traditional Medicare program, which the government runs. … The grand unveiling of the new data was scheduled to take place at the annual research meeting of AcademyHealth, a festival of health wonkery, which just concluded in New Orleans. But at the last minute, the session was canceled.”
HathiTrust: HathiTrust Libraries Propose to Retain More Than 16 Million Volumes in Shared Print Program
HathiTrust: HathiTrust Libraries Propose to Retain More Than 16 Million Volumes in Shared Print Program. “Fifty HathiTrust member libraries have proposed to retain more than 16 million volumes for 25 years under the HathiTrust Shared Print Program. These volumes correspond to more than 4.8 million individual book titles held in the HathiTrust Digital Library (about 65% of all HathiTrust digital monographs). This is a significant step toward the primary goal of the program: to ensure that print copies of all HathiTrust digital holdings remain available to scholars for many years to come.”
Mining Review: New Urgewald database reveals world’s biggest coal plant developers
Mining Review: New Urgewald database reveals world’s biggest coal plant developers. “Previous in-depth research completed by Urgewald played a key role in initiating the coal divestment actions of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund and the insurance corporation Allianz. Currently, over 1 600 new coal plants and units are planned or under development in 62 countries. If built they will add over 840 000 MW to the global coal plant fleet.”
Make Tech Easier: 7 Useful Chrome Extensions to Improve Google Calendar
Make Tech Easier: 7 Useful Chrome Extensions to Improve Google Calendar. “Google Calendar is one of the most popular calendars out there. Despite its popularity, there are some areas where it can improve. By adding and using an extension, you can add additional features and make Google Calendar better than ever.” I wish I’d known about Event Merge a while ago.
Anchor App Adds Podcasting Feature
The Anchor app has added a podcast feature. “One of the most common things we hear from people is that they want their Anchor station to be discoverable as an actual podcast. With today’s release, not only is that possible, but we took it a step further and came up with the absolute easiest way to create and share a podcast with the world. You don’t need a microphone, special software, or even a desktop computer.”
The Telegraph: EU appoints tech experts to police Google’s search results
The Telegraph: EU appoints tech experts to police Google’s search results. “The European Commission, which this week hit Google with a €2.4bn (£2.1bn) penalty for years of squeezing out rival shopping sites on its search engine, has given the company 90 days to change its ways or face further fines. It has now spending up to €10m (£9m) to appoint a team of expert technology consultants, who will track how Google complies with the commission’s demand that it make its results fairer.”
BetaNews: Ubuntu Linux 17.10 ‘Artful Aardvark’ Alpha 1 now available for download
BetaNews: Ubuntu Linux 17.10 ‘Artful Aardvark’ Alpha 1 now available for download . “While details about changes and such are virtually non-existent, you can download Alpha 1 for testing. The Artful Aardvark operating system is only available in four flavors for now — Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin, and Lubuntu Next. Not familiar with that last one? That is because it is a new experimental version of Lubuntu that uses LXQt instead of LXDE.” Hmmmm.. have to take a look at Lubuntu Next.
CNET: Telegram registers in Russia after ban threat
CNET: Telegram registers in Russia after ban threat. “After being threatened with a ban, it looks like Telegram is playing ball with Russia’s government. Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov has agreed to register the company with the Russian government, but won’t comply with laws that are ‘incompatible with the protection of [user] privacy and Telegram’s policies on confidentiality.’ Durov announced his decision on Wednesday via VK, the Russian version of Facebook.”