Linked data and structured journalism at the BBC
Basile Simon, Online Journaliusm Blog, 2016/06/08

This item is obviously about the structuring of news articles, but the logic behind it applies equally well to learning. Here's the essence in a nutshell: news stories often repeat the same content when follow-up articles are written about the same series of events. To ensure accuracy, these have to be researched over and over again. But what if we didn't rewrite all this each time? "The reporter’s task is then to input facts and events into the database, as well as to connect and explain to the machine the relationships between them and earlier ones." Then we let an AI write the actual story. "These narratives are not frozen, they’re constantly evolving as stories develop. They can even represent the different views of the world we have." The skill in writing isn't the putting of text into the proper order; it's the seeing of the relationships that make the text relevant.

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Facebook pushes mobile users to Messenger app
Zoe Kleinman, BBC, 2016/06/08

I have already objected to this on my Facebook feed. Facebook is removing messages from its mobile website and requiring that people use its messenger app. I removed this app quite a while ago because it was the single biggest drain of battery and bandwidth on my phone. I'm not about to return to it. I agree with Devin Coldewey at TechCrunch: "it strikes me as quite a hostile move." I won't be using the messenger app, and I'll be looking more more friendly social network options.

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