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Weekly News Digest
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April 20, 2017 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.
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The OECD iLibrary Test-Drives Altmetric Platform
Altmetric joined forces with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) “to track and report on the impact of over 120,000 articles, chapters, books, papers, tables, charts and statistical datasets in the OECD iLibrary.” During this pilot, which will run until September 2017, the OECD will use Altmetric’s Explorer for Institutions platform to analyze data. Later, it will consider using Altmetric badges across the OECD iLibrary.For more information, read the blog post.
OCLC Studies Research Data Management
OCLC Research published a report, “A Tour of the Research Data Management (RDM) Service Space,” which is the first in a four-part series on decision making at institutions that are planning, developing, and deploying institutional RDM services. The series, titled The Realities of Research Data Management, covers initiatives at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign, Monash University, and Wageningen University & Research.For more information, read the press release.
ProQuest Adds to Its Civil War Archive
ProQuest introduced the Robert E. Lee Papers archive as part of the ProQuest History Vault: Confederate Military Manuscripts and Records of Union Generals and the Union Army. It features telegrams, orders, battle reports, correspondence, and other communications from the Civil War from sources such as the Virginia Historical Society, the University of Virginia, the University of Texas–Austin, and Louisiana State University. These primary sources are online for the first time in this collection.For more information, read the press release.
CyberLink Corp. Sets VR-Watching World Record
CyberLink Corp., a multimedia technology company, set the Guinness World Records title for the “Longest marathon watching [of] virtual reality (VR) video content. To reach its record breaking goal, Team CyberLink, with help from two devoted New York-based movie fans, endured and recorded a 50-hour non-stop viewing session in a virtual reality headset, setting the bar for future challengers.”Robert Glatter, an emergency room physician, monitored the participants. He says, “This challenge offered by CyberLink was a fascinating opportunity to review the effects of prolonged immersion in VR on someone’s health. … There has been a lot of speculation about the impact of VR on a person’s health, but there are few studies that have examined its effects in a controlled environment.” For more information, read the press release.
NodeSource Unveils New Tool
NodeSource updated its open source Node.js platform with the product N|Solid for Alpine Linux, which “enables a secure, reliable and extensible platform for Node.js applications. The latest release makes it easier for teams using Docker containers with the popular Alpine Linux distribution to leverage the enhanced security and performance visibility provided by N|Solid.”For more information, read the press release.
Ingram Content Group Delivers Ebooks to Windows Store
Ingram Content Group partnered with Microsoft to build inventory for the new ebooks category in the Windows Store, which already uses Ingram’s CoreSource digital asset management and distribution platform to get books from 750-plus publishers.“With the Windows 10 Creators Update we are excited to bring books to the Windows Store,” says Alex Holzer, director of Microsoft Digital Stores. “With books in Windows Store, you can discover and read e-books from your favorite authors across genres you love. We are pleased to work with Ingram’s team and CoreSource technology to bring content to readers.” For more information, read the press release.
Just Net Coalition Voices Concerns About W3C
The Just Net Coalition (JNC) issued an open letter to Tim Berners-Lee, the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), that objects to W3C’s recommendation of the Encrypted Media Extension (EME) standard “because of the danger it poses to the interests of the billions of people who already as a direct consequence of W3C's continued acquiescence have had dangerous and opaque DRM code installed on their device without their consent or even knowledge. … The official recommendation of EME by W3C, in default of substantial considerations of user rights and control by you, the Director of the W3C, will spread dangerous DRM to even more people across the globe, including developing countries in the Global South where DRM will cause tremendous harm. Although this seems to be an obscure issue of standardization, the spread of DRM represents a clear challenge to social justice.”The JNC is asking for endorsements from organizations and individuals by April 27, 2017. For more information, read the letter.
USAFacts Offers a Comprehensive Government Data Archive
According to The New York Times, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer launched USAFacts, “a database and a report that he and a small army of economists, professors and other professionals have been assembling as part of a stealth start-up over the last three years. … The database is perhaps the first nonpartisan effort to create a fully integrated look at revenue and spending across federal, state and local governments.”The article says the database provides data on a variety of topics, including how many police officers are employed in a given region (users can compare that number with crime rates), how much revenue parking tickets bring in, what percentage of Americans have diagnosed depression, how much money airports earn and spend, and what percentage of overall tax revenue is paid by corporations. For more information, read the article.
Kudos Facilitates Use of Plain-Language Summaries
Kudos and Editage partnered to create a new, co-branded website through which Editage’s subject-matter experts can create plain-language summaries to help audiences discover and cite research outputs. Researchers can share the summaries and use Kudos’ tools to measure their work’s performance.“After being published, every researcher wants their research to reach as many people as possible. Our plain-language summary service makes research understandable to a broad audience. We are excited to partner with Kudos. With the help of their tools, authors can promote their research and increase the visibility of their publications,” says Nikesh Gosalia, Editage’s director of academic and publisher relations. For more information, read the blog post.
Precise Biometrics Announces 2016 Statistics
Precise Biometrics released its 2016 annual report, which can be read online, downloaded as a PDF, or printed. It includes the sections The Year in Brief, Smart Cards The Next Major Growth Area, Fingerprint Technology, and Sustainability.For more information, read the press release.
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Brandi Scardilli
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