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NEW RESOURCES
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy: Revitalizing the drug pipeline: AntibioticDB, an open access database to aid antibacterial research and development . “The current state of antibiotic discovery, research and development is insufficient to respond to the need for new treatments for drug-resistant bacterial infections. The process has changed over the last decade, with most new agents that are in Phases 1–3, or recently approved, having been discovered in small- and medium-sized enterprises or academia. These agents have then been licensed or sold to large companies for further development with the goal of taking them to market. However, early drug discovery and development, including the possibility of developing previously discontinued agents, would benefit from a database of antibacterial compounds for scrutiny by the developers. This article describes the first free, open-access searchable database of antibacterial compounds, including discontinued agents, drugs under pre-clinical development and those in clinical trials: AntibioticDB.
” The article is free.
Gemini Research News: Global trade doubles material use for fashion, electronics over two decades . “A new database gives researchers — and potentially policymakers — the ability to see how global trade affects environmental impacts. Trade is one of the most visible hallmarks of 21st century life. Cheap shipping and global supply chains mean that goods made in one country can easily be shipped for purchase or consumption halfway around the world. But if you are trying to assess — and limit — the environmental impacts of this trade, how can you possibly measure the environmental effects of a dress made in Pakistan that’s purchased in Peoria? Buying that dress drives all sorts of environmental and social impacts in far-away countries where the raw materials are extracted or products are made.
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TWEAKS AND UPDATES
Reuters: Google to invest $550 million in Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com . “Google will invest $550 million in Chinese e-commerce powerhouse JD.com, part of the U.
S. internet giant’s efforts to expand its presence in fast-growing Asian markets and battle rivals including Amazon.com.”
Variety: BitTorrent Sells to Blockchain Entrepreneur Justin Sun .
“File-sharing pioneer BitTorrent Inc.
has been sold to Justin Sun, a blockchain entrepreneur best known for the Tron platform and its TRX cryptocurrency. The acquisition closed last week and staff has been notified of the deal, Variety has learned. Company representatives and Sun didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.”
USEFUL STUFF
MakeUseOf: 6 Useful Price Comparison Websites, Engines, and Tools to Know . “Price comparison websites, also known as price comparison engines, are essential for getting the best deals on the web—especially when you don’t have the time to hunt down coupons (use these online coupon sites) or wait for good deals to come around (how to find deals and discounts). Why visit over 10 different retailers when you can get all of their prices on one page? Of course, not all price comparison websites are equal. The best one for me might not be the best for you.
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Social Media Explorer: Quick Tips for Posting Videos on Social Media Like A Pro . “If you’re finally thinking about including videos to your marketing strategy, you’re on the right track.
According to HubSpot, videos are twice more memorable than text content, and 1.2 times more memorable than static visuals and photos.
Better that, it was 2016 when Facebook executive predicted the platform would be all video with no text in 5 years. Today, we can witness the prediction steadily coming true. Now, when it comes to marketing, some business owners hesitate to start investing in video content thinking that production may cost them a fortune. At the same time, most marketers agree that effort-wise, content creation rarely consumes more than 20%.
Yet, content promotion certainly does. In this post, we’ll walk through some of the key points on how to post video content on social media and how to make sure it doesn’t go unnoticed in your followers’ feeds.”
AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD
Hurriyet Daily News: ‘Anti-cybercrime department’ monitors 45 million social media users in Turkey . “The Turkish National Police’s ‘anti-cybercrimes department’ is surveilling the around 45 million social media users in the country to monitor possible criminal activity committed through the internet.
The department authorities told daily Hürriyet that online prostitution, drugs and illegal betting are the most committed crimes through social media platforms, followed by ‘insulting state authorities.’ The department has established a special desk dedicated to the latter, amid a flurry of cases opened in recent years in relation to ‘insulting’ President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.”
Engadget: Amazon Prime Video is offering dubious conspiracy videos . “It won’t surprise you to hear that streaming services are full of documentary-style videos with dodgy claims about aliens or the paranormal.
Amazon Prime Video, however, is coming under fire for offering considerably worse.
The Telegraph has noticed that the service includes numerous conspiracy videos from widely discredited sources like Alex Jones and David Icke. Amazon isn’t going out of its way to promote the junk theories (which include the New World Order and reptilian aliens). As a subscription service, though, it’s paying the authors for their work — unlike YouTube, it can’t just pull ads.
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TechCrunch: UK report warns DeepMind Health could gain ‘excessive monopoly power’ .
“The DeepMind Health Independent Reviewers’ 2018 report flags a series of risks and concerns, as they see it, including the potential for DeepMind Health to be able to ‘exert excessive monopoly power’ as a result of the data access and streaming infrastructure that’s bundled with provision of the Streams app — and which, contractually, positions DeepMind as the access-controlling intermediary between the structured health data and any other third parties that might, in the future, want to offer their own digital assistance solutions to the Trust.”
SECURITY & LEGAL
TorrentFreak: Yandex and Google Put on Notice Over ‘Pirate’ Search Results . “Russia’s most powerful entertainment producers and distributors have written to Yandex, the country’s leading search provider, demanding the removal of ‘pirate’ sites from search results. The letter, signed by movie, music, and TV bosses, demands both detection and deletion of content. According to one of the signatories, Google will receive the same letter.
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The Register: UN’s freedom of expression top dog slams European copyright plans . “The campaign against a key aspect of new European copyright legislation has picked up a significant backer: the United Nations’ freedom of expression expert.
David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur, has sent a lengthy letter to the European Commission outlining his concerns about Article 13 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, which would require large internet platforms to introduce automated upload filters that remove copyrighted content.”
RESEARCH & OPINION
Gizmodo: Deepfake Videos Are Getting Impossibly Good . “Fake news sucks, and as those eerily accurate videos of a lip-synced Barack Obama demonstrated last year, it’s soon going to get a hell of a lot worse. As a newly revealed video-manipulation system shows, super-realistic fake videos are improving faster than some of us thought possible. The SIGGRAPH 2018 computer graphics and design conference is scheduled for August 12 to 16 in Vancouver, British Columbia, but we’re already getting a taste of the jaw-dropping technologies that are set to go on display.” Good morning, Internet…
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