The Washington Post is having a go at building a real-time fact checker for mainstream news and political speeches.

Just soft-launched at an event in India, Theosianama (launching March 2013) will be…

“a dedicated [free] search-engine and education content provider for the Indian & Asian Arts, Culture and World Cinema.”

“[Divided into the categories] antiquities, fine arts, books, cinema, craft, economic data, cultural events, print data and photography. […] The database includes information on Hindi films, sale and auction in the field of art over the last 25 years; photography from 1840s from architectural to print, calendar art, masks, rare novel covers, print making, advertisements, lobby cards, posters and lithographs. […] the first phase will focus primarily on Hindi and Bombay cinema [Bollywood] and the history of Modern Indian and contemporary fine arts, the second phase will deal with the architectural heritage of India. “

The laudable aim is to provide a means of…

“cutting through the politics of access to knowledge and education which has plagued India” [because in India as] “a country we are insensitive and disrespectful of the plethora of [historic] visual images. There’s a lack of respect for our history because of the fundamental ability to abuse history [for religious and political purposes], which has led to its distortion.”

Theosianama seems to be part of a future MOOC, called the Osianama Learning Experience.

Sadly the developers have wasted the mainstream media launch publicity generated by the Delhi launch event and press release, since going to the website reveals nothing more than a bare PHP password box.

Not indexed by JURN, but I love the idea. The Appendix…

The Appendix is a quarterly journal of experimental and narrative history; though at times outlandish, everything in its pages is as true as the sources allow. The Appendix solicits articles from historians, writers, and artists committed to good storytelling, with an eye for the strange and a suspicion of both jargon and traditional narratives.

First issue is “sort-of” out now, with around half the articles published.

Massive Open Online Courses move into the humanities for the first time…