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Weekly News Digest
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January 25, 2018 — 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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Open Data Day 2018 Is Planned for March 3
This year’s Open Data Day will be held March 3. This seventh worldwide “annual celebration of open data” is marked by local events. Communities can “show the benefits of open data and encourage the adoption of open data policies in government, business and civil society.” Open Data Day 2018 will focus on key areas that can be impacted by using open data: open research data, tracking public money flows, and open mapping. Get ideas for participating on the day here.For more information, visit the website.
G2 Crowd Unveils Top 100 Software Companies List
G2 Crowd published its annual list of 100 software companies that best met their customers’ needs (based on customer reviews collected from Jan. 7, 2017, to Jan. 7, 2018). Slack took first place on Best Software Companies 2018, and Shopify and Google were numbers two and three, respectively. “We built G2 Crowd to empower users with the ability to transparently help one another find the software solutions that best fit their needs. This list recognizes the voice of those users and they are telling us that these companies have designed great products that are meeting the needs of their customers,” says Tim Handorf, G2 Crowd’s co-founder and CEO.The list also has categories for the Top 50 Small Business, Top 50 Mid-Market, and Top 50 Enterprise software companies. For more information, read the press release.
Thomson Reuters Rolls Out Top 100 Technology Companies List
Thomson Reuters put out its inaugural Top 100 Global Tech Leaders list, which identifies the most operationally sound and financially successful companies from a holistic assessment—a 28-data-point algorithm measuring performance across eight pillars (management and investor confidence, risk and resilience, legal compliance, etc.). The top five companies are Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, IBM, and Alphabet (of which Google is a subsidiary). Nearly half of the companies on the list are headquartered in the U.S., while Japan and Taiwan each host 13 companies on the list.For more information, read the press release.
The IET Adds Content to InnovationQ Plus
IEEE and IP.com made more than 230,000 full-text journals and conference papers from the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) fully discoverable on their InnovationQ Plus patent discovery and analytics platform. “Enriching InnovationQ Plus with this high-quality, leading-edge content empowers IP professionals to discover even more critical business information contained in technical documents to derive key insights,” says Samir El-Ghazaly, IEEE’s VP of publications services and products.For more information, read the press release.
Datasette Publish Transforms CSV Files Into Online Databases
Simon Willison announced the launch of his Datasette Publish app, which allows users to turn CSV files into an online database with a JSON API. It combines his Datasette tool for publishing SQLite databases as an API with his csvs-to-sqlite tool for creating them. Willison suggests that Datasette will be useful for data journalism, for publishing civic open data, and for cultural institutions. He writes, “The world is full of interesting data that often ends up trapped in PDF blobs or other hard-to-use formats, if it gets published at all. … Since so much of the data that IS published today uses CSV, this first release of Datasette Publish focuses on CSV conversion above anything else.” Support for other formats will be available in the future.For more information, read the blog post.
Armed Services Members Can Now Use Demco's BrainHQ
Demco Software partnered with the Department of Defense to give Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine library users 24/7 access to Demco’s BrainHQ online brain training program. Active, reserve, and retired military personnel and their families can use their library cards to get on the BrainHQ platform from any device. According to the press release, “BrainHQ contains dozens of brain exercises to help people think faster, focus better, and remember more, and it is uniquely backed by more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles on the benefits of its exercises.”For more information, read the press release.
SAGE Acquires Data-Planet
SAGE has bought Data-Planet as a way to expand its data offerings, which include SAGE Stats and U.S. Political Stats. The Data-Planet statistical, multidisciplinary data repository is used by a variety of library markets and has the largest collection of organized statistical data—35 billion data points from 450-plus databases. It has 16 major subject categories, such as education, health, and international relations, which feature data presented in charts, maps, graphs, and tables for easy comparison with other datasets.Richard Landry, Data-Planet’s CEO and founder, and other staff members will join the SAGE team to support the transition period. For more information, read the press release.
YouTube Assigns Video Creators an ISNI
YouTube became the first ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier) registration agency in the music field. ISNI is the ISO-certified standard for identifying contributors to and distributors of creative works. According to the press release, “YouTube will request an ISNI … to be assigned to all creators whose works are used on the platform—including performers and songwriters—helping to reconcile data and ensure attribution. YouTube will share ISNIs with its label and publishing partners in order to promote the adoption of this standard by the industry as a whole.”FX Nuttall, technical program manager at YouTube, adds, “By adopting ISNI, artists, songwriters and other creators will be unambiguously identified, enabling better visibility and tracking on YouTube. Bringing the ISNI open standard to music opens the door to more accurate credit for creators, discovery for fans, and transparency for the industry.” For more information, read the press release.
Reuters Expands Global Sports Coverage
Reuters announced that Field Level Media and Opta will provide expanded sports content to its customers on Reuters Connect and other Reuters News Agency products. Field Level Media offers breaking news, recaps, roundups, analysis, and player notes from sporting events—including football, basketball, baseball, hockey, car racing, and golf—in North America. Opta provides live, detailed data about leagues and competitions from around the world.For more information, read the press release.
Apple Joins Forces With Malala Fund
Apple became the first Laureate partner of Malala Yousafzai’s Malala Fund as a commitment to expanding support for free, safe girls’ education and advocating for equal opportunities. According to the press release, “With Apple’s support, Malala Fund expects to double the number of grants awarded by its Gulmakai Network and extend funding programs to India and Latin America with the initial goal of extending secondary education opportunities to more than 100,000 girls.” Apple will also help Malala Fund with technology, curriculum, and research support. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, will join its leadership council.For more information, read the press release.
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Brandi Scardilli
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