Wondering what you were searching for online a few years ago? You now have a (relatively) easy way to find out. Google has quietly trotted out an option to download your entire search history. So long as you searched using your Google account, you’ll have a permanent record.
via Google wants you to download your web search history | Engadget
Reading this article, it struck me that the website Jonathan Basile has created would be a great premise for an MLIS student’s research paper on multimedia literacies. Or at least continue to inspire others to create online and/or virtual worlds based on ideas and settings as described in fiction.
“When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness,” wrote Jorge Luis Borges in his classic of philosophical fiction, “The Library of Babel.” One of the most revered stories-as-thought-experiments ever committed to print, Borges’ fiction posits the Universe as a library (“composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries”) that contains every possible text. This intellectual vision, at once playful and poised, has stirred authors (like Umberto Eco and Terry Pratchett) and philosophers (W.V.O. Quine and Daniel Dennett) alike for more than 75 years.
And now it exists! Recently, Jonathan Basile, a Brooklyn author and Borgesian Man of the Book, taught himself programming so that he could recreate Borges’ Universal Library as a website. The results are confounding.
READ MORE: Brooklyn Author Recreates Borges’ Library of Babel as Infinite Website | Flavorwire.
From April 9, 2015.
Microsoft and Dropbox are expanding their already close partnership with the reveal of a new integration that will now allow consumers to edit their Microsoft Office files, including Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents, in Dropbox using Office Online via the web.
Previously, many of these edits would have taken place using Microsoft Office’s desktop applications – which also meant that you would have to be at a computer where the software was installed. The online option makes the service more flexible, as you can edit your files from any computer, including a borrowed machine or a shared computer, like a business center’s kiosk PC, for example.
To use the new feature, you’ll click the “Open” button when you’re previewing the file on the web, Dropbox explains, and then you’ll have the option to edit the file from your web browser using Office Online. The option is available to Dropbox for Business customers who have an Office 365 license as well as Dropbox Basic and Pro users, and those who are on the free tier of Office Online. The only requirement for using the free tier of Office Online is creating a free Microsoft account, the company says.
READ MORE: Dropbox Teams With Microsoft To Allow Anyone To Edit Documents Online | TechCrunch
Note: Amazon owns Audible and GoodReads.
If you like listening to audiobooks then I have some good news for you. Goodreads is in the process of adding audiobook excerpts to its website. Soon GR members will find free audio samples for 180,000 Audible titles on the book listing pages. Along with the option of reading a sample from the book, GR members can now also listen to an excerpt from the audiobook. The excerpt will (should) play in a pop up window the web browser, and if you like what you hear you can the title to your “want to read” list, or you can head over to Audible and acquire the audiobook directly.
Obviously this feature is not available for all titles listed on Goodreads, but when it is available you’ll find the listen button below the cover image on the left side of the page. Goodreads told me that the new feature is only available on the desktop site, but not GR’s mobile site or its Android and iDevice apps.
READ MORE: Audiobook Samples Now Available on Goodreads | Ink, Bits, & Pixels | The Digital Reader
2015 Internet Security Threat Report, Volume 20 | Symantec
The Internet Security Threat Report provides an overview and analysis of the year in global threat activity. The report is based on data from the Symantec Global Intelligence Network, which Symantec’s analysts use to identify, analyze, and provide commentary on emerging trends in the dynamic threat landscape.
▶ Symantec’s 2015 Internet Security Threat Report: The Cyber Landscape | YouTube.
The most effective way to learn a foreign language is to immerse yourself as much as possible in it. Readlang is a webapp and Chrome extension that helps you learn by translating web sites and creating flashcards and word lists for you. READ MORE: Readlang Helps You Learn a Foreign Language as You Surf the Web | LifeHacker
Design is always changing, and with tech and design increasingly aligning, we’re arguably headed to the most radical period of change in design history. How radical will the design landscape of 2020 be, then?
To find out, we asked five elite studios—each and every one a member of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list—to give us their predictions for the near-future of design. Designers from Ammunition, Herman Miller, Code and Theory, and more gave us their thoughts on everything from the future of the office as cathedral, to the rise of the designer CEO. Here’s what they all had to say. READ MORE: 25 Ideas Shaping The Future Of Design | Co.Design | business + design.
Every day, you hear about security flaws, viruses, and evil hacker gangs that could leave you destitute — or, worse, bring your country to its knees. But what’s the truth about these digital dangers? We asked computer security experts to separate the myths from the facts. Here’s what they said.
READ MORE: 9 Facts About Computer Security That Experts Wish You Knew | Gizmodo
As accomplished as modern-day computers are, there are some very basic things even the smartest machines have yet to master: tough judgment calls, advanced image recognition, making goofy faces, conducting psychological surveys. These are an assortment of tasks we humans can still claim as our own. Or at least, that we can outsource to other, less fortunate humans. Like me.
In Amazons words, Mechanical Turk is “a marketplace for work that requires human intelligence.” But in reality its even simpler than that description implies: Its a job board where the pay is low and the jobs are dumb. If you have a functional cerebral cortex, an internet connection, and a few minutes to spare, you can pick up a handful of odd jobs—the oddest of jobs—and make a few bucks, pennies, and nickels at a time. But whats it like to be that “human intelligence?” As I found out last year, its weird, fascinating, perplexing, and a little depressing, all at once.
READ MORE: My Brief and Curious Life As a Mechanical Turk | Gizmodo
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