New researches: September 2022

Friday, September 30, 2022

University of Central Arkansas Photography, Google Stadia, Indigenous Milwaukee Tours, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 30, 2022

University of Central Arkansas Photography, Google Stadia, Indigenous Milwaukee Tours, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Central Arkansas: UCA digitizes more than 1,000 historic photos. “Archivists in Torreyson Library at the University of Central Arkansas have recently digitized more than 1,000 historical photographs. The collection, which can be accessed here, includes buildings, social activities and student life dating back to the school’s beginning in 1907.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Polygon: Google Stadia is shutting down, for good. “Google is officially shutting down its ambitious game streaming project, Stadia, Phil Harrison, the vice president and general manager of Stadia, said in a blog post published Thursday. The announcement comes less than three years after the cloud-gaming console launched. Stadia will shut down in January 2023.” Google was denying this at the end of July.

Marquette Today: Marquette’s Indigeneity Lab part of self-guided Indigenous Milwaukee tours. “Self-guided Indigenous Milwaukee Walk & Bike Tours, a collaboration between Historic Milwaukee, Inc. and Marquette University’s Indigeneity Lab, are now available for download via the free Historic Milwaukee Inc. app.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Harvard Gazette: How to save democracy. “Donald Trump was the perfect ‘meme leader,’ appealing to an array of shadowy, loosely organized groups with varied philosophies but shared roots in internet ‘imageboards’ like 4chan and 8chan, along with a desire, like their adopted chief, to disrupt the established power structure.”

Yale Library: Library’s EaaSI program preserves digital data in deep freeze, Norway. “Yale University Library has made its first donation to the Arctic World Archive (AWA), whose goal is to preserve global memory and cultural heritage for future generations. AWA is an initiative of the Norwegian company Piql, which collects and stores its partners’ contributions in a secure vault repository set deep in a decommissioned coal mine in Svalbard, Norway, just some 600 miles from the North Pole.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Numerous orgs hacked after installing weaponized open source apps. “Hackers backed by the North Korean government are weaponizing well-known pieces of open source software in an ongoing campaign that has already succeeded in compromising ‘numerous’ organizations in the media, defense and aerospace, and IT services industries, Microsoft said on Thursday.”

CNET: What Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey Told Elon Musk in Private Texts. “Text messages between Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and billionaire Elon Musk reveal more details about what took place before he offered to buy the company for $44 billion.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Georgia Tech: Cell Phone Accessibility: Improving, but Gaps Remain, CACP Researchers Find . “Cell phones are becoming more accessible, but gaps remain — including fewer features for people with cognitive disabilities, emerging issues such as vehicle connectivity, and surprising roadblocks such as poor battery life, according to the latest biennial analysis of cell phone accessibility by Georgia Tech’s Center for Advanced Communications Policy (CACP).”

Illinois News Bureau: More physical activity, less screen time linked to better executive function in toddlers, study finds . “Reported in The Journal of Pediatrics, the study found that 24-month-old children who spent less than 60 minutes looking at screens each day and those who engaged in daily physical activity had better executive function than those who didn’t meet the guidelines.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Anglia Ruskin University: Follow your nose with smelly tour of Amsterdam. “The free City Sniffers map brings together key city centre locations with aromas that tell the city’s story, and the walking tour is accompanied by an app, also developed by Odeuropa researchers, explaining the history behind these smells and their connection with present day Amsterdam. By rubbing the map at key points on the tour, participants can experience the stench of medieval canals, learn about the important role of rosemary, which was used at weddings and funerals, and was thought to protect from the plague, and enjoy the fragrance of linden trees, avenues of which were planted around the city centre.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 1, 2022 at 12:56AM
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Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive, PBS US History Collection, Giant Bible of Mainz, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, September 30, 2022

Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive, PBS US History Collection, Giant Bible of Mainz, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, September 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Northeastern University School of Law: 1,000 Racial Homicides Investigated in Unprecedented Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive. “The Archive brings together evidence demonstrating the extensive scale and scope of killings between 1930 and 1954 in the Jim Crow South. Many of the 1,000 cases of anti-Black killings were mishandled by local police and prosecutors or went unreported until investigated by Northeastern students in law and journalism and their faculty. Built on open-source architecture, the Archive offers users the opportunity to learn about how violence affected people’s lives, defined legal rights and shaped politics during the Jim Crow era.”

Current: GBH launches U.S. History Collection as resource for educators. “GBH in Boston is rolling out a new collection of free-to-use digital multimedia resources to help middle and high school educators teach American history. The U.S. History Collection, accessible through PBS LearningMedia, spans pre-colonial history to the present and draws on public television’s extensive archive of documentaries.”

Library of Congress: The Giant Bible of Mainz Digitized by the Library of Congress
. “The Giant Bible of Mainz, one of the last handwritten giant bibles in Europe, has now been digitized by the Library of Congress, ensuring online access to an important national treasure from the 15th century…. The Giant Bible is famous for having been copied by a single scribe, who precisely dated his progress between April 4, 1452, and July 9, 1453. These dates are remarkable because they place the creation of this manuscript bible in proximity to the first printed bible crafted in Europe, the Gutenberg Bible.

EVENTS

Archaeological Institute of America: Tweetathons Are Back For 2022!. “The popular International Archaeology Day Tweetathons that started as a pandemic innovation will be back again for the third year in a row. We’ll have a full set of Tweethaon instructions, sample tweets, and more like we did in 2020 and 2021 soon, but so that everyone can start planning, here is a list of hashtags and dates!” The tweetathon starts Monday, October 3rd, and continues for most of the next two weeks.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Here are all of the new features and updates coming to Google Maps. “The company says all of the features announced today are part of its efforts to build a visual-first Maps experience to help users navigate the world more naturally.”

The Verge: Google is trying to reinvent search — by being more than a search engine. “Google now exists on a more visual, more interactive internet, in which users want to be surprised and delighted as often as they just want an answer to their questions. In that world, what is a search engine even for? The Google you see tomorrow might not be completely different, but the change is already starting.”

ReviewGeek: You Can Now Find Songs on Deezer Just by Humming. “Music streaming platform Deezer just made it a lot easier to find songs you don’t know the name of. In a blog post, the company announced its in-app song detector, SongCatcher, can now identify tunes hummed, whistled, or sung by the user.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: How to Back Up Your Digital Life. “If the perfect backup existed, then sure, three would be overkill, but there is no perfect backup. Things go wrong with backups too. You need to hedge your bets. At the very least, you should have two backups, one local and one remote. For most people, this strikes the best balance between safety, cost, and effort.”

MakeUseOf: The 6 Best All-In-One Messaging Platforms to Simplify Your Messaging. “With all the messaging apps available, it’s often hard to keep track of whose messaging you and where. All-in-one messaging platforms offer a solution to this modern-day problem. These platforms allow you to organize various messaging apps in one place, allowing you to say goodbye to the days of juggling multiple apps to communicate with friends, family, and coworkers.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Ars Technica: How hobbyist hackers are preserving Pokémon’s past—and shaping its future. “While Nintendo, the games’ publisher, hasn’t worked to make older Pokémon games accessible on modern hardware—or affordable on older gear—a certain demographic of dedicated fans has taken it upon themselves to not just preserve legacy Pokémon titles but to actively improve them. These volunteer ROM hackers and preservationists work to keep the passions of an aging generation of Pokémon masters alive, all while fighting occasionally brutal legal crackdowns from Nintendo.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ITV: Bruce Willis becomes first Hollywood actor to sell image rights to artificial intelligence company. “The deal means the firm, Deepcake, can now use both his moving and talking image within films and TV productions. It comes after the 67-year-old announced his retirement from acting in March, after being diagnosed with aphasia, which affects a person’s speech and language.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Center for European Policy Analysis: The Splinternet is Here: How to Make the Most of it. “The Open Internet turned out to be an illusion. Tech giants created a commercial space, not a public commons, more like a shopping mall than a public park. In this ‘space,’ the public discourse is owned by corporations accountable to a different set of interests than democratically elected governments. In countries such as Myanmar, Sri Lanka, India, and Ethiopia, social media has had bad, and in some cases, tragic side effects.” Good morning, Internet…

September 30, 2022 at 05:31PM
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Thursday, September 29, 2022

Aphex Twin, Kansas Life Stories, San Francisco Opera, More: Thursday Evening ResearchBuzz, September 29, 2022

Aphex Twin, Kansas Life Stories, San Francisco Opera, More: Thursday Evening ResearchBuzz, September 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

Queue’s getting a little too big so enjoy this extra issue.

NEW RESOURCES

Pitchfork: Aphex Twin Launches “Sample Mashing” App. “Aphex Twin summarized the app in a statement through Warp: ‘What if you could reconstruct source audio from a selection of other mp3’s/audio on your computer? What if you could build a 303 riff from only acapellas or bubbling mud sounds? What if you could sing a silly tune and rebuild it from classical music files? You can do this with Samplebrain.'”

WIBW: New website helps preserve Kansans life stories. “The Kay McFarland Japanese Garden played host to the launch of ‘Lasting Legacy Online.’ It is a website allowing users to log their own life stories to share with their loved ones.”

Gramophone: San Francisco Opera marks centenary with free access to online archive. “San Francisco Opera has launched a free online hub of historic recordings and rare archival interviews, as part of its centenary celebrations. Called Streaming the First Century, it will provide free entry to selected recordings from San Francisco Opera’s past, thematically inspired by upcoming performances this autumn.”

EVENTS

USC Shoah Foundation: Towards recommendations for working with Holocaust testimony in the digital age. “In this lecture, Dr Walden will present the initial outcome of the two workshops on the theme ‘digitally recording, recirculating and remixing testimony’ which brought together scholars, archivists, Holocaust educators, artists and filmmakers from the UK, USA, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Israel, including colleagues who have been involved in the USC Shoah Foundation’s Dimensions in Testimony project.” The event appears to be free but registration is required. It’s via Zoom.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bloomberg: NFT Trading Volumes Collapse 97% From January Peak. “Trading volumes in nonfungible tokens — digital art and collectibles recorded on blockchains — have tumbled 97% from a record high in January this year. They slid to just $466 million in September from $17 billion at the start of 2022, according to data from Dune Analytics.”

Engadget: Adobe vows to continue offering Figma’s free plan if its buyout is approved. “In an interview with Bloomberg, Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky has reassured worried Figma users that the online collaborative design platform’s acquisition will not change its pricing model and ease of use. If you’ll recall, Adobe announced in mid-September that it’s purchasing Figma for roughly $20 billion in cash and shares. Users understandably raised concerns about the merger, seeing as Adobe’s programs are quite expensive.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Rest of World: TikTok creators are condensing Hollywood movies into minutes and getting millions of views. “Chinese creators use translation apps, dubbing software, and VPNs — TikTok is blocked in China — to help viewers speed-watch movies and TV dramas in English, Spanish, and Bahasa Indonesia. Despite the translation errors and robotic narrations, each clip garners anywhere between a few thousand to millions of views, generating decent income for the creators.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Hill: Authors slam publishers’ lawsuit against ‘Open Library,’ push for new e-book policies. “Hundreds of authors signed a letter slamming major publishing companies’ lawsuit against a free digital library, and urged publishers to update their policies to allow libraries to purchase copies of e-books.”

TechCrunch: Vietnam to restrict which social media accounts can post news. “With the rising tide of fake news on social media platforms, the debate over how much control a government should have on online information is a perennial one. In Vietnam, the government is intensifying its control over the internet regime. The country is formulating new rules to control which types of social media accounts are allowed to disseminate news in the country, Reuters reported, citing sources.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington College: New social media guidelines are hindering student voices. “Students should have the right to post the school as they see fit. While some comments may reflect negatively on WC, they should be used as a basis for change. The voice of student life should be uplifted and heard instead of silenced in shame. The new social media guidelines are intended to stop harassment in its tracks and maintain a good image for the College, but students should be allowed to have fun with each other and make comments about their school.” Good evening, Internet…

September 30, 2022 at 03:31AM
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Kentucky Housing for Recovery, Introduction to Biology, 1990s Gifs, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 29, 2022

Kentucky Housing for Recovery, Introduction to Biology, 1990s Gifs, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Kentucky: New searchable website will help people in recovery find housing. “The Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center (KIPRC), housed in the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, recently launched a new resource for people with substance use disorder (SUD)…People who visit the site can confidentially locate safe, affordable recovery housing openings based on their needs and personal situation. Users can narrow their search by location, rent amount, amenities, services, residence requirements, transportation options and more.”

Rice University: See nature like (and with) a biologist in new online courses. “Solomon’s Introduction to Biology is the latest offering from Rice’s Wiess School of Natural Sciences through Rice Online and Coursera. The three-course series allows learners to see nature the way a biologist does, with virtual field trips to help understand and appreciate the incredible diversity of life on Earth.” The class is free to audit but if you want a certificate you’ll have to pay a fee.

Boing Boing: People are creating huge online archives of GIFs from 90s CD-ROMs. “Tumblr user Gearsphere found this neat CD-Rom of animated GIFs in a thrift store, and uploaded all 22,000 images to a public Google Drive for anyone to download and use. They are gloriously 90s, gloriously 8-bit, and just glorious overall. Not to be outdone, someone else by this act of silly-internet-history kindness, and uploaded their 6-CD-Rom set of animated web clips, too.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Google is making it easier to find search results from Reddit and other forums. “Google is making it easier to find search results from Reddit and other forum sites. The search engine is adding a new module that will surface discussions happening on forums across the web for queries that may benefit from crowd-sourced answers.”

CNBC: Google adds new search features to try to give users the ‘vibe’ of a city or neighborhood. “Google now says it has enough local data to predict a neighborhood’s ‘vibes’ in search results. The company is launching ‘immersive views’ and ‘vibes’ for some locations, adding more details in visual form so that users will be able to explore locations before they visit, Google said at its third annual Search On event Wednesday.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: 5 iPhone Screenshot Tricks You Should Know. “Taking screenshots on an iPhone is a simple thing to do, but there’s more than meets the eye. Apple includes a handful of nifty tools for screenshots, and there are some clever ‘unofficial’ tricks you should know about.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Axios: Google Ventures shelves its algorithm. “Google Ventures has mothballed an algorithm that for years had served as a gatekeeper for new investments, Axios has learned from multiple sources. Why it matters: This is a strategic sea change for one of venture capital’s most data-driven firms, and a Big Tech acknowledgement that human judgement shouldn’t always be automated away.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Twitter Ran Ads on Profiles Trading in Child Sexual Abuse Content. “Twitter said Wednesday it’s investigating how ads from major brands appeared on profiles that were soliciting or selling child sexual abuse content.”

Associated Press: Drag performer sues blogger for defamation over edited video. “Eric Posey filed the lawsuit Monday in a court in northern Idaho, saying his reputation was damaged and his professional opportunities suffered after Summer Bushnell, who runs a blog called ‘The Bushnell Report,’ released the video and falsely told her social media followers that Posey had committed a felony by exposing himself to children during a Pride event in June. A subsequent police investigation cleared Posey of wrongdoing, and a city prosecutor said an unedited copy of the video showed no evidence of indecent exposure.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: As pandemic measures are lifted, social media use has declined with the exception of TikTok . “Our report findings show that Canadians’ use of social media has declined from its early pandemic peak; however, Canada continues to be one of the most connected countries in the world — 94 per cent of online adults use at least one social media platform. We found that TikTok had the largest gain (an increase of 11 per cent) in the number of Canadian adults who reported having an account on the platform in 2022, compared to data we collected in 2020.” Good afternoon, Internet…

September 30, 2022 at 01:01AM
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Arunachal Pradesh Cultural Heritage, Community Hazard Mitigation, Birdspotter, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, September 29, 2022

Arunachal Pradesh Cultural Heritage, Community Hazard Mitigation, Birdspotter, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, September 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

India Today: US Embassy launches website to document cultural heritage of tribes in Arunachal Pradesh. “The United States Mission in India launched a website to celebrate the intangible cultural heritage of the indigenous tribes of Arunachal Pradesh as part of the celebrations of 75 years of bilateral relations between Washington and New Delhi.”

US Economic Development Administration: FEMA And EDA Release New Resource To Align Community Plans And Build Resilience. “The Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy and Hazard Mitigation Plan Alignment Guide connects economic development and hazard mitigation plans so communities can be more resilient from natural hazards. The guide was a collaboration between FEMA and the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA). Communities, states and federal officials can use the guide when preparing or reviewing FEMA Hazard Mitigation Plans and EDA Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS).”

Popped up in my RSS feeds: Birdspotter. From the front page: “Birdspotter automates Twitter search. You can create searches using 30 options across keywords, phrases, and accounts, as well as filters for author, engagement, and content. Searches run at fixed intervals from 1 to 24 hours. You will be notified of new results via email. The web app gives you an overview of your previous results and allows you to interact directly with tweets.” No free tier but monitoring 3 searches is a reasonable $5/month, while $10/month gets you 9 searches. An additional discount is available for annual subscriptions.

PR Newswire: American Foundation for the Blind Announces Free Digital Inclusion Toolkits for School Administrators, Teachers, Families, and Students (PRESS RELEASE). “The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) today announced its Digital Inclusion Toolkits, a set of free resources to create, encourage, and advocate for more digitally inclusive classrooms. Designed for school administrators, teachers, families, and students who are blind or have low vision, the toolkits include planning tools for educators and administrators; information and resources for families and students with visual impairments that are designed to help them connect with others; advocacy tips; and lists of support organizations, hotlines, and other helpful resources.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: DALL-E image generator is now open to everyone. “If you’ve been itching to try OpenAI’s image synthesis tool but have been stymied by the lack of an invitation, now’s your chance. Today, OpenAI announced that it removed the waitlist for its DALL-E AI image generator service. That means anyone can sign up and use it.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Register: Mozilla drags Microsoft, Google, Apple for obliterating any form of browser choice. “Firefox maker Mozilla is taking aim at Microsoft, Google, and Apple for using their operating systems to steer users to their browsers and stacking the deck against rivals who lack the same OS advantages. Like, for instance, Mozilla.”

Courier Journal: Courier Journal donates ‘priceless’ photo collection to University of Louisville. “To ensure future generations can look back on defining moments in Louisville’s history, The Courier Journal is donating its library of an estimated 3 million photographs and negatives to the University of Louisville Archives and Special Collections.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University: An AI Message Decoder Based on Bacterial Growth Patterns. “Depending on the initial conditions used, such as nutrient levels and space constraints, bacteria tend to grow in specific ways. The researchers created a virtual bacterial colony and then controlled growth conditions and the numbers and sizes of simulated bacterial dots to create an entire alphabet based on how the colonies would look after they fill a virtual Petri dish. They call this encoding scheme emorfi.”

New York Times: This Surveillance Artist Knows How You Got That Perfect Instagram Photo. “A tech-savvy artist unearthed video footage of people working hard to capture the perfect shot for Instagram. It is a lesson in the artifice of social media and the ubiquity of surveillance.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT: AI system makes models like DALL-E 2 more creative. “The internet had a collective feel-good moment with the introduction of DALL-E, an artificial intelligence-based image generator inspired by artist Salvador Dali and the lovable robot WALL-E that uses natural language to produce whatever mysterious and beautiful image your heart desires. Seeing typed-out inputs like ‘smiling gopher holding an ice cream cone’ instantly spring to life clearly resonated with the world. Getting said smiling gopher and attributes to pop up on your screen is not a small task.”

Stanford News: New 3D printing method designed by Stanford engineers promises faster printing with multiple materials. “Stanford engineers have designed a method of 3D printing that is 5 to 10 times faster than the quickest high-resolution printer currently available and is capable of using multiple types of resin in a single object.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Cornell Chronicle: App for the pre-K set promotes healthy eating, exercise. “Preschoolers can be notoriously picky eaters – and that’s if you can get one to sit still for a meal. A series of free, evidence-informed apps for preschool-aged children, developed by a Cornell researcher and colleagues, aims to encourage healthy eating behaviors and exercise. A majority of parents said the apps helped their children try new foods and raise their activity level, according to a study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior on date.” Good morning, Internet…

September 29, 2022 at 05:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/AnzDRh5

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Marginalia, Trans and Intersex History Africa, 2FA, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 28, 2022

Marginalia, Trans and Intersex History Africa, 2FA, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 28, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me, via Awesome Archives: Marginalia. From the About Page: “Remember when you used to explore the Internet, when you used to discover cool little websites made by people and it wasn’t just a bunch of low effort content mill listicles and blog spam? I want to show you that the Internet you used to go exploring is still very much there. There are still tons of small personal websites, and a wealth of long form text from both the past and the present.” I see there’s an API too… hmm…

Erasing 76 Crimes: Activists launch website to document trans and intersex African history. “A group of activists has launched an initiative to document and preserve the history of trans and intersex Africans and their struggle for equal rights. The web site Trans and Intersex History Africa is a labor of love for the four principal curators, who come from South Africa and Uganda.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: Twitter CEO and Elon Musk depositions did not begin Monday, despite earlier filings in acquisition dispute. “Billionaire Elon Musk and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal did not sit for depositions Monday as part of an ongoing merger lawsuit despite earlier scheduling notices filed in a Delaware court, marking another twist in a closely watched case about the future of one of the world’s most influential social media platforms.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The 6 Best Authenticator Apps for 2FA and Other Enhanced Account Security. “Even if you use a unique username and password combination for all your accounts (which is unlikely), it could still be compromised through brute-force hacking, social engineering, or phishing. That’s why you should use a two-factor authenticator (2FA) app. But with so many options out there, which should you use? Let’s check out the six best 2FA apps for securing your online accounts.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Verge: How platforms turn boring. “At first, TikTok was exciting because there was culture that could only happen there. Now that on-platform culture is being overwhelmed by viral arbitrage, and the actual content is getting closer to what you see on every other network. As the platform gets bigger, it gets more generic, and there’s less to distinguish it from every other mass-market social network. This dynamic is larger than just TikTok.”

Mashable: Content moderation is changing how we speak — and dictating who gets heard. “It’s not surprising that language changes with the influence of online content. New forms of communication have that effect. But content moderation, with all its fluidity and platform-specific nuances, has the potential to force our language to evolve at an accelerated rate, often silencing marginalized communities.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Study of Electronic Monitoring Smartphone Apps Confirms Advocates’ Concerns of Privacy Harms. “Researchers at the University of Washington and Harvard Law School recently published a groundbreaking study analyzing the technical capabilities of 16 electronic monitoring (EM) smartphone apps used as ‘alternatives’ to criminal and civil detention.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PetaPixel: Getty Images Ban AI-Generated Pictures, Shutterstock Following Suit. “Getty Images has announced it will not accept submissions that were created with AI-image generators and will remove all such artworks. The world’s largest repository of images shared with PetaPixel the note sent to contributors stating that images generated from artificially intelligent (AI) image generators such as Stable Diffusion, DALL-E, and Midjourney will not be allowed on the site.”

TechRadar: 100TB cartridges set to rival tapes, hard drives, DNA for data archiving domination. “Optical storage (think DVD and Blu-ray) has been in the shadows as tape, exotic media (like silica or DNA) and hard disk drives vie for supremacy in the hotly contested area of archiving. However, one newcomer, Folio Photonics, aims to deliver the goods faster than everyone by taking a new spin on existing optical technology.”

MIT Technology Review: There’s no Tiananmen Square in the new Chinese image-making AI. “The new text-to-image AI developed by Baidu can generate images that show Chinese objects and celebrities more accurately than existing AIs. But a built-in censorship mechanism will filter out politically sensitive words.” Good afternoon, Internet…

September 29, 2022 at 12:52AM
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The Fanscene Project, Women Artists, The Open Web Search Initiative, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, September 28, 2022

The Fanscene Project, Women Artists, The Open Web Search Initiative, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, September 28, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

downthetubes: British comic fanzines archive “The Fanscene Project” has a new online home. “Founded back in 2015 as the Classic UK Comic Zines site, artist and comic archivist David Hathaway-Price has been constantly adding to what is now The Fanscene Project… the project is an online, read-only archive of British comic fanzines, published across the last 50 years, including, with the permission of their original editors, titles such as BEM, Comic Media News, Fantasy Trader, Infinity, Speakeasy, and many more.”

Smithsonian: Smithsonian American Art Museum Publishes Online 10 Comics Featuring Trailblazing Women Artists. “The Smithsonian American Art Museum has published online a second set of 10 short comics each celebrating a woman artist with artwork represented in the museum’s permanent collection…. Inspired by graphic novels and web comics, these short takes on artists’ lives were drawn by 10 student-illustrators from the Ringling College of Art and Design.”

Spotted in about four different places at once: the new EU initiative Open Web Search. “14 renowned European research and computing centers have joined forces to develop an open European infrastructure for web search. The project will be contributing to Europe’s digital sovereignty as well as promoting an open human-centered search engine market.” Sounds good to me!

EVENTS

The Clare Herald: Clare invite to Dublin Festival of History online. “Now in its eighth year, the festival will take place largely online as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, but will still play host to an international and domestic line up of speakers and panels. The festival will shine a light and fresh perspective on topics such as the construction of the notion of race, Ireland’s last great pandemic and the history of Ireland’s partition.” Events are free but registration is required.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Wall Street Journal: National Archives to Report on Whether More Trump Files Are Missing. “The National Archives faces a Tuesday deadline to update a congressional committee on a key question: Are there still documents from the Trump White House that are unaccounted for?”

CNBC: Trump-linked SPAC changes address to UPS Store as investors pull more than $130 million. “Digital World Acquisition Corp., the blank-check company looking to take Trump Media and Technology Group public, has changed its listed address to a UPS Store in Miami. The change from a Miami office building to a UPS address came with DWAC’s regulatory filing on Friday disclosing that some investors pulled out tens of millions of dollars.”

9to5Google: Some Google Photos users finding that old images have been ‘corrupted’ [Updated]. “In recent days, Google Photos users scrolling back several years through their library have found pictures that can be best described as ‘corrupted.’ Update 9/26: Google shared the following this afternoon: ‘We’re aware of the issue and are rolling out a fix. The original photos are not impacted.'”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Register: Girls Who Code book series banned in some US classrooms . “The Girls Who Code series is a mashup of The Babysitters Club and Computer Science 101. A group of four or five (depending which book in the series you are on) diverse tween girls navigate friendship, life, coding and hackathons while the authors drop some code fragments into the storyline. It’s the type of stuff parents buy their kids in hopes of making IT seem cool. But apparently not everyone found it aspirational.”

NPR: Google celebrates NASA’s DART mission with a new search gimmick. “Tech giant Google took it upon itself to launch its own type of celebration following NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission successfully crashing into an asteroid on Monday evening.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NBC News: TikTok could face a $29 million fine in the U.K. for failing to protect kids’ privacy . “The Information Commissioner’s Office issued TikTok a ‘notice of intent’ informing the Chinese-owned video app of its ‘provisional view that TikTok breached UK data protection law between May 2018 and July 2020.’ It follows an investigation into the company that began in 2019.”

Reuters: Google’s India policy head Gulati resigns – sources. “Google’s head of public policy for India has resigned just five months after taking the job, two sources told Reuters, at a potentially critical time for the U.S. tech giant as it awaits the outcome of at least two antitrust cases in the country. The reasons for Archana Gulati’s resignation were not immediately clear.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Ars Technica: AI model from OpenAI automatically recognizes speech and translates it to English. “On Wednesday, OpenAI released a new open source AI model called Whisper that recognizes and translates audio at a level that approaches human recognition ability. It can transcribe interviews, podcasts, conversations, and more.” Good morning, Internet…

September 28, 2022 at 05:32PM
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American Kennel Club, Bellingcat’s Auto Archiver, Low-Code Fest 2022, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, September 26, 2022

American Kennel Club, Bellingcat’s Auto Archiver, Low-Code Fest 2022, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, September 26, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

American Kennel Club: AKC Launches Digital Library To Commemorate Anniversary. “The digital library will include the entire run of the AKC Gazette from 1889 to the present day. The AKC Gazette is the longest continuously published dog magazine in America and one of the oldest sporting publications in the country. Users can also search a collection of historic Show Catalogs from 1887 – 1983, including the very first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show catalog from 1877. New collections will be added to the digital library in 2023. All content is made available without fees and is fully text-searchable thanks to Optical Character Recognition in PDF files, which makes the library user-friendly.”

Bellingcat: Preserve Vital Online Content With Bellingcat’s Auto Archiver. “Open source research often relies on social media posts that contain videos and images. However, these posts can be taken down by platforms or deleted by those posting them. That’s why we at Bellingcat created a tool — the Auto Archiver — to help the open-source community, as well as journalists and researchers, easily archive online content. The tool allows for posts, and their video or visual attachments, to be archived by simply entering a link into a Google Sheets document.”

EVENTS

Europeana Pro: Europeana Low-Code Fest 2022 | Europeana Pro. “Inspired by examples like DigiEduhack and the Erasmus+ project #hackAD – Social, the Europeana Education Community invites you to the first Europeana social and educational low-code hackathon – Low-Code Fest 2022! This programme and series of events aims to engage teachers, educators and their students to co-develop solutions to social challenges and/or enhance educational processes and practices.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Variety: CIA Launches First Podcast, ‘The Langley Files,’ Which Reveals That Working at the Agency Is More Boring Than Hollywood Makes It Seem. “It seems like everyone is launching a podcast these days — and now comes the Central Intelligence Agency. But don’t expect any major revelations from CIA’s ‘The Langley Files,’ which is really a PR-outreach initiative to burnish the agency’s image as well as dispel notions that it’s a glamorous line of work as often portrayed in pop culture.”

TechCrunch: Twitter allows more researchers to access platform data. “Earlier this year, Twitter launched the Twitter Moderation Research Consortium (TMRC), a group of experts from across academia, civil society, nongovernmental organizations and journalism dedicated to studying Twitter’s platform governance issues. Previously, membership in the TMRC was limited to select trusted partners, but Twitter today began offering all researchers the chance to apply.”

Business Insider: Investors pull almost $140 million from the company planning to merge with Donald Trump’s Truth Social. “‘Blank-check’ company Digital World Acquisition said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday that some backers were pulling a total of $139 million they had planned to put into the deal. Digital World had previously announced funding commitments of $1 billion. The investors who signed up for the deal about a year ago were able to back out if it was not completed by September 20.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNBC: Google CEO Pichai tells employees not to ‘equate fun with money’ in heated all-hands meeting. “As Google tries to navigate an unfamiliar environment of slowing growth, cost-cutting and employee dissent over cultural changes, CEO Sundar Pichai is finding himself on the defensive. At a companywide all-hands meeting this week, Pichai was faced with tough questions from employees related to cuts to travel and entertainment budgets, managing productivity, and potential layoffs, according to audio obtained by CNBC.”

New York Times: Silicon Valley Slides Back Into ‘Bro’ Culture. “Two parallel Silicon Valleys have emerged. There’s the ThunderDome of Twitter, where tech thought leaders collect likes by posting edgy memes and spouting flip political takes — then invoke cancel culture when they are criticized. They troll their way into impulsive $44 billion acquisitions, then back out. They promote an entirely online existence inside the so-called metaverse. Then there’s the day-to-day reality, where women still get just 2 percent of venture capital funding and Black founders get 1 percent, where the largest tech companies have made negligible progress on diversifying their staff, and where harassment and discrimination remain common.”

Slashgear: Why The Queen’s Funeral Soon May Not Look The Same. “The queue to see Her Majesty’s coffin spanned almost 5 miles long in just two days, with officials keeping its length to a maximum of 10 miles. While everyone, including tourists, was invited to view The Queen’s coffin during that period, there were certain conditions guests were expected to adhere to. That means attendees were prohibited from taking selfies or using any mobile devices upon entering the Royal Palace…. The same limited coverage applied during Her Majesty’s state funeral on September 19. However, it seems like restrictions not only applied during the funeral in real time but also to media footage that has already been publicized as well.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Krebs on Security: Accused Russian RSOCKS Botmaster Arrested, Requests Extradition to U.S.. “A 36-year-old Russian man recently identified by KrebsOnSecurity as the likely proprietor of the massive RSOCKS botnet has been arrested in Bulgaria at the request of U.S. authorities. At a court hearing in Bulgaria this month, the accused hacker requested and was granted extradition to the United States, reportedly telling the judge, ‘America is looking for me because I have enormous information and they need it.'”

Washington Post: The online incel movement is getting more violent and extreme, report says. “The most prominent forum for men who consider themselves involuntarily celibate or ‘incels’ has become significantly more radicalized over the past year and a half and is seeking to normalize child rape, a new report says. The report, by the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s new Quant Lab, is the culmination of an investigation that analyzed more than 1 million posts on the site. It found a marked spike in conversations about mass murder and growing approval of sexually assaulting prepubescent girls.”

WIRED: Iran’s Internet Shutdown Hides a Deadly Crackdown. “As thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the death of Amini this week, Iranian officials have repeatedly shut down mobile internet connections and disrupted the services of Instagram and WhatsApp, two of the most popular social media services in the country. The internet shutdowns are the largest since November 2019 and raise fears about further atrocities. So far, more than 30 people have reportedly been killed, while the Iranian government has admitted to 17 deaths.” Good morning, Internet…

September 28, 2022 at 05:31PM
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Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Neighborhood Cognability, Mental Health Resources, Google Surveys, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 27, 2022

Neighborhood Cognability, Mental Health Resources, Google Surveys, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 27, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Michigan: New online tool can calculate your neighborhood’s ‘cognability’. “A new tool, an interactive map developed by University of Michigan researchers, allows you to plug in your address and assess how your neighborhood could support healthy cognitive aging under a theory U-M scientist Jessica Finlay and colleagues developed, called ‘cognability.'” I couldn’t get this to work with an address search, but it worked great when I searched by zip code.

Houston Chronicle: Megan Thee Stallion launches online hub for mental health resources. “Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion is out with a new message for her fans: bad bitches have bad days too. That’s the name of a new website she’s launched as a guide to diverse mental health resources, including the LGBTQ Psychotherapists of Color directory, Therapy for Black Girls and the StrongHearts Native Helpline.”

USEFUL STUFF

Search Engine Journal: Google Surveys Is Shutting Down; Here Are 6 Alternatives. “Google announces it’s shutting down market research product Google Surveys. The service will be unavailable after November 1, and users will have another month to download historical data.”

Fast Company: How to go live on TikTok: Everything you need to know to get started. “Although going live on TikTok might seem a little intimidating at first, it’s well worth considering if you want to connect with your followers on a deeper level. Here’s everything you need to know to go live on TikTok, no matter how many followers you have.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Vulture: Podcasting Is Just Radio Now. “It’s been almost eight years since Serial dropped. An entire industry has roared to life, drawing in Hollywood studios, corporations, celebrities, and billions of dollars. But the blockbuster podcast — a subgenre or prestige tier essential to the medium’s rise as an artistic force — is in a serious funk.”

WIRED: The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps. “Covenant Eyes is part of a multimillion-dollar ecosystem of so-called accountability apps that are marketed to both churches and parents as tools to police online activity. For a monthly fee, some of these apps monitor everything their users see and do on their devices, even taking screenshots (at least one per minute, in the case of Covenant Eyes) and eavesdropping on web traffic, WIRED found.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: TikTok Seen Moving Toward U.S. Security Deal, but Hurdles Remain. “The Biden administration and TikTok have drafted a preliminary agreement to resolve national security concerns posed by the Chinese-owned video app but face hurdles over the terms, as the platform negotiates to keep operating in the United States without major changes to its ownership structure, four people with knowledge of the discussions said.”

Bleeping Computer: UK Police arrests teen believed to be behind Uber, Rockstar hacks. “While there are no details about the investigation, the arrest is believed to be tied to the Lapsus$ hacking group, which is suspected to be behind recent cyberattacks on Uber, Rockstar Games, and 2K.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Verge: I tried replacing Google with TikTok, and it worked better than I thought. “What I found was, in a sense, not terribly surprising: there are things for which TikTok is an absolutely useful search engine, even if TikTok’s algorithm and content aren’t quite tuned for that yet. But for what Google does best, there’s no competition. Ultimately, I don’t think Google is actually nervous about TikTok’s growing search prowess. But YouTube probably should be.”

University of British Columbia: Emo-jional rescue: UBCO researchers create tool to measure the emotion in emojis. “How much is really known about those smiley faces staring back at from smartphone screens? Anyone who has ever wondered if the people sending them are really that happy is not alone. Thanks to a pair of UBC Okanagan colleagues, researchers striving to better understand the ever-expanding world of emojis now have a new tool to keep pace with technology—what they call a multidimensional lexicon of emojis (MLE).” Good afternoon, Internet…

September 28, 2022 at 12:07AM
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Japanese-American History, FathomNet, Great Britain Museums, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, September 27, 2022

Japanese-American History, FathomNet, Great Britain Museums, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, September 27, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Tricycle: A New Monument Addresses the Erasure of Japanese American Incarceration . “At the heart of the Irei Monument is the first comprehensive and accurate list of over 125,000 names of every person of Japanese ancestry incarcerated during World War II. Now, the list will be shared with the public through three distinct, interlinking elements: a sacred book of names as monument (慰霊帳 Ireichō), an online archive as monument (慰霊蔵 Ireizō), and light sculptures as monument (慰霊碑 Ireihi).”

Nature: FathomNet: A global image database for enabling artificial intelligence in the ocean. “Recent advances in machine learning enables fast, sophisticated analysis of visual data, but have had limited success in the ocean due to lack of data standardization, insufficient formatting, and demand for large, labeled datasets. To address this need, we built FathomNet, an open-source image database that standardizes and aggregates expertly curated labeled data.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Guardian: Museums in England and Wales to gain powers to dispose of objects on moral grounds. “Museums and galleries in England and Wales will be given unprecedented powers to dispose of objects in their collections if there is a compelling moral obligation to do so, under a new law.”

AP: Musk faces deposition with Twitter ahead of October trial. “Tesla CEO Elon Musk is scheduled to spend the next few days with lawyers for Twitter, answering questions ahead of an October trial that will determine whether he must carry through with his $44 billion agreement to acquire the social platform after attempting to back out of the deal.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Jan. 6 Twitter witness: Failure to curb Trump spurred ‘terrifying’ choice. “In an explosive hearing in July, an unidentified former Twitter employee testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that the company had tolerated false and rule-breaking tweets from Donald Trump for years because executives knew their service was his ‘favorite and most-used … and enjoyed having that sort of power.'”

News 24: Digitising heritage: How one project is making our multilingual history accessible. “For 500 years, much of South Africa’s history has remained locked away in languages that don’t feature in school and university textbooks. But a project driven by the University of Cape Town, in partnership with Rhodes University, is making South Africa’s history available in indigenous languages on a digital platform – creating an accessible historical reference that reflects our multicultural society.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CoinDesk: Interpol Issues Red Notice for Do Kwon: Report. “Interpol has issued a red notice for Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, according to a report from Bloomberg. Kwon has yet to issue a statement via Twitter, but in prior tweets he has maintained that Terraform Labs is defending itself in multiple jurisdictions.”

Inc 42: Mumbai Police Asks Google To Tweak Play Store Policy To Curb Dubious Loan Apps. “The Mumbai Police has reportedly asked tech giant Google to bring additional safeguards and tweak its Play Store policy to curb the misuse of the app store by dubious loan apps. The city police found that the app developers and fintech companies that floated instant loan apps with Chinese links exploited a number of loopholes in the Play Store, ET reported.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Brussels Times: New research could cut number of animals needed for laboratory research. “A PhD student at the Brussels VUB university has found that fewer laboratory animals would be needed for research projects if mathematical calculations were used to improve the analysis of results. This would bring down costs and spare animal lives.”

Ars Technica: AI software helps bust image fraud in academic papers. “During a trial that ran from January 2021 to May 2022, [American Association for Cancer Research] used Proofig to screen 1,367 papers accepted for publication, according to The Register. Of those, 208 papers required author contact to clear up issues such as mistaken duplications, and four papers were withdrawn.”

University of Bristol: New research shows U.S. Republican politicians increasingly spread news on social media from untrustworthy sources. “A study analysing millions of Tweets has revealed that Republican members of the US Congress are increasingly circulating news from dubious sources, compared to their European counterparts.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Madison: Luck strikes twice as another ancient canoe is pulled from Lake Mendota’s depths. “Estimated by radiocarbon, or carbon-14, dating to be 3,000 years old, the canoe, made by ancestors of the Ho-Chunk Nation, was discovered in May in 24 feet of water off the Shorewood Hills shoreline by Tamara Thomsen, who owns Diversions Scuba and is an archaeologist for the historical society. The boat was about 300 yards from where, in June 2021, Thomsen found a 1,200-year-old canoe that at the time was the most intact, oldest boat ever found in Wisconsin.” Good morning, Internet…

September 27, 2022 at 05:28PM
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Monday, September 26, 2022

Mishneh Torah, Plastic Pollution Policies, Bellingcat Hackathon, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 26, 2022

Mishneh Torah, Plastic Pollution Policies, Bellingcat Hackathon, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 26, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Jewish News Service: First digital translation of Mishneh Torah interconnected with other Jewish texts goes online. “A complete English translation of the Mishneh Torah interconnected with other Jewish texts is being digitally offered for the first time ever by the nonprofit organization Sefaria, which digitizes and shares Jewish texts for free in Hebrew along with translations and commentaries.”

University of Portsmouth: New Evidence Finds Current Policies Not Working To End Plastic Pollution. “The results of the research form the heart of the recently launched GPPC – a unique online inventory of plastic policies that is easily searchable. Free to all, it is a ‘one stop shop’ of independent, evidence-based plastics advice. The new website is a knowledge sharing platform that gives the latest guidance to anyone with an interest in plastics policy. The website is designed to give governments and businesses the evidence needed to make informed, evidence-based decisions around plastic policies.”

USEFUL STUFF

Bellingcat: Identifying Suspicious Businesses, Reddit Analysis and Tracking Russian Propaganda: Here are the Results of Bellingcat’s First Ever Hackathon. “Bellingcat hosted its first ever hackathon earlier this month with the event focussing on developing network analysis tools. We were impressed with the quality of the projects and had a great time getting to know the developers, many of whom work at the intersection between open-source research and open-source software.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Guardian: Museums on prescription: Brussels tests cultural visits to treat anxiety. “A tour of ancient sewers? An encounter with a masterpiece of 16th-century lace-making? These are two of the therapies on offer to people in Brussels suffering from depression, stress or anxiety. From this month, psychiatrists in one of the city’s largest hospitals have been able to offer patients ‘museum prescriptions’, a free visit with a few friends or family members to discover one or more of Brussels’ cultural institutions.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Signal calls on users to run proxies for bypassing Iran blocks. “Signal is urging its global community to help people in Iran stay connected with each other and the rest of the world by volunteering proxies to bypass the aggressive restrictions imposed by the Iranian regime. The end-to-end encrypted messaging tool is currently blocked in Iran, along with WhatsApp and Instagram, which many people in the country use to coordinate protests and share information with the rest of the world.”

Washington Post: Health apps share your concerns with advertisers. HIPAA can’t stop it.. “In a nation with millions of uninsured families and a shortage of health professionals, many of us turn to health-care apps and websites for accessible information or even potential treatment. But when you fire up a symptom-checker or digital therapy app, you might be unknowingly sharing your concerns with more than just the app maker.”

BBC: Did misinformation fan the flames in Leicester?. “We’ve spent the past week trying to unpick some of the false claims in and about Leicester and tried to see how much they spread both in the run-up to the disorder and the aftermath. Temporary chief constable Rob Nixon told BBC Two’s Newsnight there had been a deliberate attempt by people to use social media in a destructive way.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Phys .org: Support for art and other cultural objects can be strengthened by highlighting their collective value. “New research into the sacredness of artistic objects shows that it’s possible to get people to see just about any artwork as sacred—even an amateur drawing—so long as they believe that the art connects humanity to something bigger than itself. And when people do that, they are more willing to put themselves out to ensure it’s protected.”

Trinity College Dublin: New research project to lay foundations for next generation of Old and Middle English scholarship. “Entitled ‘Searobend: Linked Metadata for English-Language Texts, 1000-1300’, the project will use techniques from computer science to link fifteen major resources for the study of English texts from the High Middle Ages (c. 1000-1300).”

New York Times: Social Media Companies Still Boost Election Fraud Claims, Report Says. “The report, by New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, argues that the companies fuel false conspiracies about election fraud despite promises to combat them.” Good afternoon, Internet…

September 27, 2022 at 01:00AM
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RB Search Gizmos: Get Resources About a Historical Figure with the Contemporary Biography Builder

RB Search Gizmos: Get Resources About a Historical Figure with the Contemporary Biography Builder
By ResearchBuzz

The best thing about the Internet is that it’s constantly getting bigger, with more information being added every second.

The worst thing about the Internet is that it’s constantly getting bigger, with more information being added every second.

I was thinking the other day about Web-searching for historical figures. There’s so much research and content coming online now that it seems like older news and information might get buried when you’re trying to do research. It would be nice, I thought, if someone made a tool that restricted a search for a historical figure to their lifetime only.

Then I remembered I’m learning JavaScript so I made it myself. The Contemporary Biography Builder (CBB) is available at https://researchbuzz.github.io/Contemporary-Biography-Builder/ .

CBB only works for people listed in Wikipedia, so don’t go poking around for tea about your cousin Fred. Enter a name and Wikipedia pulls the birth and death dates from Wikipedia (if the person is still alive it uses the current year instead) and generates lifespan-delimited searches for Google Books, Internet Archive, DPLA, and the Library of Congress’ historical newspapers database, Chronicling America.

Let’s use Louisa May Alcott as an example. Enter her name and click the Search Contemporary Information button, and CBB spits out a list of URLs, all of which will open in a new tab.

In the case where there are different levels of access (full vs partial view, unlimited re-use vs restrictions) I created separate URLs. Click on a link and it’ll take you to a set of search results delimited by the years of the person’s lifespan – in LMA’s case, 1832-1888.

For Google Books, the content is what you’d expect – newspapers, magazines, books, etc. For the Internet Archive and the DPLA, though, you can find more varied content. Here’s how a search over LMA’s lifespan looks at the Internet Archive:

In this case, a search for LMA found a lot of books and stories, but also correspondence from her father, Amos Bronson Alcott. Similarly, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) finds multimedia resources from a number of collections:

Finally, Chronicling America will find you lots of nice old content:

I was very excited to see a mention of LMA in December 1854, when she was only 23. I clicked on it only to discover the most frustrating paper repair of all time:

I was able to read some of it, but I spent way too much time squinting at this.

It’s not guaranteed that your searches will have results from all resources. In this case, there are no results for LMA in Google Books’ magazine collection (I suspect they don’t have any magazines that old.)

You’ll also find fewer results if you search for historical figures that go back more than about 200 years. When I searched for Jonathan Swift, for example (1667-1745), I found some books in Google Books (but no newspapers or magazines), a few things in the DPLA, a pretty good selection at the Internet Archive, and nothing in Chronicling America. Always check all the links, especially if you’re searching for older historical figures.

I had a couple of challenges putting this together (I had to figure out how to determine if someone listed on Wikipedia is dead or not; this is more difficult than you’d expect) so if you try it and anything weird happens, leave a comment. But mostly it should work fine. I hope it helps you make amazing discoveries!

September 26, 2022 at 07:23PM
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Sunday, September 25, 2022

Georgia Presbyterian Churches, Google Sheets, Election Memes, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 25, 2022

Georgia Presbyterian Churches, Google Sheets, Election Memes, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 25, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Digital Library of Georgia: 19th and early 20th century collections from the Presbyterian Church are now available online without paywalls or passwords.. “Selected by Georgia stakeholders and funded by the DLG, these materials document the Church’s interaction with slavery, emancipation, and religion.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Import Data With Google Sheets Functions. “You may want to work with data in your spreadsheet that resides elsewhere. Using a set of Google Sheets functions, you can import data from a CSV file, RSS feed, web page, or another spreadsheet. With the functions we’ll describe here, you can pull data into your sheet from external sources. Then, analyze, manipulate, format, and do what you please with your new data.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: The Fetterman-Oz meme campaign, illustrated. “The rivals for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat are turning to uncommon tactics to paint their opponent as unqualified or unfit. Since emerging from the primaries, Democratic nominee John Fetterman has waged a relentless trolling offensive, creating moments that often went viral on social media portraying Republican rival Mehmet Oz as an out-of-state elitist. Oz began countering with his own posts questioning Fetterman’s health and willingness to debate, as well as his policy positions.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Long Island Press: NY Museums to Disclose Artwork Looted by Nazis. “Museums in New York that exhibit artworks looted by Nazis during the Holocaust are now required by law to let the public know about those dark chapters in their provenance through placards displayed with the stolen objects. At least 600,000 pieces of art were looted from Jewish people before and during World War II, according to experts. Some of that plunder wound up in the world’s great museums.”

Motherboard: Revealed: US Military Bought Mass Monitoring Tool That Includes Internet Browsing, Email Data. “Multiple branches of the U.S. military have bought access to a powerful internet monitoring tool that claims to cover over 90 percent of the world’s internet traffic, and which in some cases provides access to people’s email data, browsing history, and other information such as their sensitive internet cookies, according to contracting data and other documents reviewed by Motherboard.”

CyberScoop: Commerce lacks intelligence resources to keep U.S. tech from fueling Chinese cyberthreat, experts warn. “The Commerce Department unit that approves sensitive U.S. technology exports does not have the intelligence resources to fully realize the national security consequences of selling advanced equipment and software to China, several experts and a former agency official told CyberScoop.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Verge: It sure seems like Google is struggling to invent the future. “If companies want to attract the sort of people who are going to build the future, they have to be the type of place where people can actually go out on limbs and not be worried about getting in trouble for barking up the wrong tree. It’d be a shame if Google became a company where that wasn’t the case.”

PC Magazine: We Must Save Streaming Video Before It’s Too Late. “The core problem, of course, is capitalism’s inherent antagonism toward art. Companies commission movies primarily for their ability to make money. Preserving them is also largely about profit, making more money by selling them again.”

Maryland Today: How AI Could Help Writers Spot Stereotypes. “Studious Asians, sassy yet helpless women and greedy shopkeepers: These tired stereotypes of literature and film not only often offend the people they caricature, but can drag down what might otherwise have been a compelling narrative. Researchers at the University of Maryland’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab are working to combat these clichés with the creation of DramatVis Personae (DVP), a web-based visual analytics system powered by artificial intelligence that helps writers identify stereotypes they might be unwittingly giving fictional form among their cast of characters (or dramatis personae).”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ars Technica: The case of the murdered mummies: “Virtual autopsy” reveals foul play. “An international team of scientists used CT scanning to conduct ‘virtual autopsies’ of three South American mummies and found evidence of fatal trauma in two of them, according to a recent paper published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine.” Good afternoon, Internet…

September 26, 2022 at 12:32AM
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Andean States, NASA DART, Audio Standards, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, September 25, 2022

Andean States, NASA DART, Audio Standards, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, September 25, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Library of Congress: Connecting Andean Voices and Heritages. “The Hispanic Reading Room has a new research guide, Interconnecting Worlds: Weaving Community Narratives, Andean Histories & the Library’s Collections. This guide, with resources in English, Spanish and Quechua, facilitates research about Andean peoples through language, literature, visual arts and music. We used video interviews to connect with Indigenous people from Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru and their communities in New York, Massachusetts and the greater Washington, D.C. area.”

EVENTS

Review Geek: Watch NASA Attack an Innocent Asteroid on Monday. “NASA is set to channel the spirit of the 1998 film Armageddon on Monday. The space agency plans to crash a spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos in the first test of a planetary defense system. Dubbed ‘Double Asteroid Redirection Test’ (DART), the program aims to change the celestial body’s orbit.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: After pushing AV1 codec, Google goes after Dolby with HDR and audio standards. “Google can do basically whatever it wants regarding video and web standards. YouTube is the world’s most popular video site. Chrome is the world’s most popular browser. Android is the world’s most popular operating system. Anything Google wants to roll out can immediately have a sizable user base of clients, servers, and content. From there, it’s just a matter of getting a few partners to tag along.”

CNET: Don’t Like a Comment on TikTok? You Can Hit the ‘Dislike’ Button. “TikTok said Friday that it’s rolling out a comment dislike button for people worldwide. The feature was created to help TikTok get feedback from its users, helping to identify ‘irrelevant or inappropriate’ comments. ”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: What Hemingway Left in Sloppy Joe’s Bar 80 Years Ago. “The trove of items deposited in Key West, now part of a new archive at Penn State, includes four unpublished short stories, drafts of manuscripts and boxes of personal effects.”

ABC News (Australia): Pandora shipwreck history to be shared through digital project in Queensland. “Thousands of underwater films, photographs, hand-drawn maps, field journals and other unseen archive material are being digitised to bring to light the untold story of the discovery and excavation of the Pandora wreck 120 kilometres east of Cape York.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: US allows tech firms to boost internet access in Iran. “American tech firms will be allowed to expand their business in Iran, where most internet access has been cut off in response to anti-government protests, the Treasury Department said Friday. Iran has been cracking down on demonstrators protesting the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of its morality police. Iranian state TV suggests that as many as 26 protesters and police have been killed since violence erupted over the weekend.”

News Australia: Older Aussies are exposed by shift to online banking. “Data shows phishing attacks on senior Australians are on the rise in a big way, with the ACCC’s Scamwatch reporting Australians over 65 have lost more money to phishing scams this year than all other age groups combined – totalling over $6.5 million in the first eight months of the year. And that could just be the tip of the iceberg.”

NBC News: Swizz Beatz and Timbaland reach settlement with Triller in lawsuit over Verzuz payments. “Swizz Beatz and Timbaland have settled their lawsuit with Triller, after suing the service last month for $28 million, an amount they contended was owed after their sale of Verzuz to the service in March 2021.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Nation Thailand: DITP launches new AI tool to evaluate Thailand’s trade prospects. “Phusit Rattanakul Seriroengrit, [Department of International Trade Promotion]’s director general, said on Friday that the DITP Business AI tool can analyse products in five categories, including agriculture, food, lifestyle and fashion, health and beauty, and industrial sectors. He said the system features a global trade analytics option which predicts export trends in the short term (three months) and long term (12 months).”

The Verge: Here’s Krafton’s virtual human Ana in action. “Earlier this year, Krafton — the company best known for the battle royale shooter PUBG — unveiled what it described as a ‘hyper-realistic’ virtual human. Alongside those first images and details were some big plans to turn Ana, as she’s known, into a virtual star. Now we can see what that looks like with a brand-new music video.”

The Ohio State University: Recreating “ghost neighborhoods” destroyed by highways. “The building of the interstate highway system in Columbus split and sometimes destroyed entire neighborhoods, mostly those housing African Americans, immigrants and other minorities. Now a team of researchers from The Ohio State University are working to digitally recreate these ‘ghost neighborhoods’ in 3D so that people can see, and researchers can study, what was lost.” Good morning, Internet…

September 25, 2022 at 05:31PM
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Saturday, September 24, 2022

Indianapolis School Architecture, Indiana School Performance, San Francisco Law Enforcement, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 24, 2022

Indianapolis School Architecture, Indiana School Performance, San Francisco Law Enforcement, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 24, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Indianapolis Public Library: Digital Indy Reveals Indianapolis Public Schools Architecture Collection. “The Indianapolis Public Schools Architecture Collection spans three centuries and includes documents from the 1890s through the 1970s. The educational priorities of various time periods are reflected in the design of buildings and how they were used. For example, school floor plans that highlight what was taught in classrooms during various time periods reveal rooms designated for clothing laboratory, cabinet making shop, and other subjects that are hard to find in modern schools.”

WISH: Indiana Board of Education demos new school data tool for parents. “The site will provide visual representations of all data pertaining to an individual school, school corporation or the state as a whole. Parents and educators will be able to see data points related to math and reading scores, graduation rates and percentages of students earning college credit through high school courses. They’ll also be able to filter data by factors such as, students on free or reduced-price meal plans, race or ethnicity.”

CBS News: Residents can follow complaints against SFPD officers on new website. “The San Francisco Department of Police Accountability has launched a case status tracking portal to make it easier for complainants to follow their case, submit documents and investigate hearing requests. The department works separately from the San Francisco Police Department to independently review the public’s allegations of misconduct and abuse from police officers.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: Facebook whistleblower launches nonprofit to solve social media harms . “Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is launching a nonprofit organization that will seek solutions to harms created by social media, she said on Thursday.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Hyperallergic: Announcing the Inaugural Center for Craft Archive Fellows. “The recipients of the Center for Craft’s 2022 Craft Archive Fellowship are Xenobia Bailey, Jeffrey Gan, Elizabeth G. Greenlee and N.E. Brown, Siera Hyte, Maru López, and Olivia Quintanilla. For their six projects, they will receive grants of $5,000 to explore and analyze archives of their choosing, allowing them to engage in both conventional and innovative approaches to archival research.”

Israel 21c: Google acquires air quality insights company BreezoMeter. “Haifa-based BreezoMeter, founded in 2014, developed a system that collects environmental data from 11 million sources around the world and applies algorithms to predicHacks and roasts: Inside the new social media currency (Vogue Business) – https://www.voguebusiness.com/companies/gen-z-tik-tok-hacks-and-roasts-inside-the-new-social-media-currency #beauty #fashion #SocialMedia #humor t hazards related to air quality, such as pollution, pollen and wildfires. BreezoMeter has about 400 million users worldwide.”

Vogue Business: Hacks and roasts: Inside the new social media currency. “Hacks, where TikTok users share tips and tricks for efficiency or creativity; and roasts, a form of insult comedy in which someone is mocked, usually playfully, are thriving on the app and going viral. Brands are finding themselves involved in both — whether they like it or not. While some luxury and fashion labels might prefer to keep a distance, not least to maintain a well-protected aspirational status, others are eagerly jumping in, dishing their own comedic responses and launching collaborations with unexpected partners.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: Pentagon launches effort to assess crypto’s threat to national security. “The military’s innovation office is launching a sweeping review of cryptocurrencies to assess threats to national security and law enforcement posed by the rise of digital assets.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

KnowTechie: It’s not me, it’s you: Why I’m breaking up with Otter.ai. “Otter.ai is an automated service. Unlike other industries, it isn’t battling rampant wage inflation. The biggest variable that influences the cost-per-transaction is computing power, which is unbelievably cheap. Sure, the big three cloud providers (Microsoft, Google, and Amazon) have all recently hiked their prices in light of supply chain woes and soaring energy costs. But not by that much.”

New York Times: The Most Dominant Toxic Election Narratives Online. “Ballot mules. Poll watch parties. Groomers. These topics are now among the most dominant divisive and misleading narratives online about November’s midterm elections, according to researchers and data analytics companies. On Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Truth Social and other social media sites, some of these narratives have surged in recent months, often accompanied by angry and threatening rhetoric.” Good afternoon, Internet…

September 24, 2022 at 09:09PM
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