Wednesday, November 30, 2022

NYC Street Design Manual, Predicting Material Properties, Word of The Year, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 30, 2022

NYC Street Design Manual, Predicting Material Properties, Word of The Year, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New York City: DOT and Fordham University to Open Exhibition Celebrating NYC’s Street Design Manual. “… the SDM has helped reimagine New York City’s street network from one designed primarily for automobiles into one that supports a greater diversity of safe and convenient travel modes and activities – including with an increased focus on pedestrians and cyclists. First published in 2009, the third edition of the SDM is for the first time available entirely online.”

UC San Diego: Nanoengineers Develop a Predictive Database for Materials. “Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering have developed an AI algorithm that predicts the structure and dynamic properties of any material—whether existing or new—almost instantaneously. Known as M3GNet, the algorithm was used to develop… a database of more than 31 million yet-to-be-synthesized materials with properties predicted by machine learning algorithms.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year Is as Grim as You’d Expect. “Lookups for gaslighting increased by 1,740% for 2022, with ‘high interest’ throughout the year, according to Merriam-Webster. In this age of conspiracy theories, Twitter trolls and deepfakes, it isn’t surprising gaslighting topped the list.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Distant Librarian: Clipchamp – a VERY cool screencasting option!. “The other day, Lifehacker posted that Windows Has a New Tool for Simultaneously Recording Your Screen and Webcam. That tool is Clipchamp, and I am impressed! Oh, and it’s free.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The New Stack: Lighting a Bonfire Under Social Media: Devs and ActivityPub. “As developers begin to shift away from post-Musk Twitter and contemplate building apps on federated social media protocols, many are asking themselves: what can I do with ActivityPub, the key open protocol of the fediverse?” This raised my understanding of ActivityPub from “nonexistent” to “abysmal” which is a great step up, because with abysmal I know enough vocabulary for research.

Screen Rant: Tumblr Users Made Up Fake Scorsese Movie Goncharov & It’s Almost Convincing. “Tumblr users have concocted a fake movie by Martin Scorsese, called Goncharov, and it’s remarkably, eerily convincing. Scorsese is the maestro of crime thrillers like Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and The Irishman. His next project is the eagerly anticipated Killers of the Flower Moon, which stars frequent Scorsese collaborators Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: New ransomware encrypts files, then steals your Discord account. “The new ‘AXLocker’ ransomware family is not only encrypting victims’ files and demanding a ransom payment but also stealing the Discord accounts of infected users.”

Global Voices: In Turkey, social media platforms become complicit in censoring media and freedom of speech . “Twitter unveiled a tool that allows it to censor content on a country basis in 2010. At the time, the platform may not have completely envisaged how its tool could be abused by a number of increasingly authoritarian countries where social media platforms have been targeted by the authorities in the face of growing crackdowns and censorship. In fact, one of the Turkish government’s tactics to silence users on the internet and deny them their right to access information, is submitting requests to Twitter and other platforms to withhold content deemed in violation of its local laws.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Phys .org: Social media can be a lifesaver for new international ventures. “The use of social media can be beneficial to international new ventures and help them to survive. A new study from the University of Vaasa, Finland, shows that newly established international firms and start-ups with limited resources can effectively use social media to learn about their new foreign markets and customers in a fast and inexpensive way.”

Techdirt: ‘Publication Laundering’: How Publishers Happily Accept Fake And Nonsense Conference Papers In The Pursuit Of Profits. “Profit margins are extremely high for top publishers — typically 30-40%. And yet academics are routinely forbidden from sharing their own papers, because they are pressured to assign copyright in them to the publisher, which uses the control that affords to block wider access to knowledge. An eye-opening post by James Heathers on Medium reveals that the greed and rot in the world of academic publishing goes even deeper.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 1, 2022 at 02:01AM
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Harriet Tubman House, New Metric Prefixes, Twitter, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, November 30, 2022

Harriet Tubman House, New Metric Prefixes, Twitter, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, November 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

News@Northeastern: The Harriet Tubman House May Be Gone, But Its Legacy Is Preserved Forever Thanks To Northeastern’s Library. “The house was a fixture of Boston’s Black community, but its century-spanning history–the kind that doesn’t get told in museums or textbooks–was in danger of getting lost with the demolition too. Fortunately, the building’s history and the community’s memories were saved through the hard work of residents who banded together under the I Am Harriet coalition, USES itself and the resources and ingenuity of the Boston Research Center.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Gizmodo: Quecto, Ronna: Meet the Newest Metric Prefixes. “Four new metric prefixes got the official stamp of approval last week at the 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures held at Versailles, the extravagant palace outside of Paris…. The new prefixes ronna and quetta refer to the largest numbers, while ronto and quecto apply to the smallest. Ronna is a 1 followed by 27 zeroes, and quetta is a 1 followed by 30 zeroes. Ronto is 10^-27, and quecto equates to 10^-30.”

Ars Technica: Twitter is now having trouble paying some employees on time. “Twitter staff in the UK received an email just before 1 pm London time on November 25 telling them their pay date would be November 28. Alongside the email, sent from the EMEA Payroll Team, staff received their usual monthly payslips. However, staff in the UK and Germany appear not to have been paid on time.”

NARA: National Archives Begins Work on 1960 Census Records Release. “Though genealogists and other researchers are still busy researching the 1950 U.S. Federal Census, which the National Archives released entirely online April 1, the agency is already preparing for the next launch: the 1960 population census. Almost as soon as the 1950 Census schedules went live, work began on digitizing approximately 41,000 rolls of the microfilmed 1960 Census, a notable increase from the 6,373 rolls of the 1950 Census. The 1960 Census records are scheduled to be released in April 2032.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: Avoiding Twitter? Try These Interest-Based Discord Servers. “ARE YOU LOOKING for an alternative to Twitter since Elon Musk acquired it? Some social media users switched over to Mastodon, a decentralized option with similar structures. For anyone who’s retiring those Twitter fingers and feels open to trying something different, Discord is another great choice.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NiemanLab: Post, the latest Twitter alternative, is betting big on micropayments for news. “The ‘social platform for real people, real news, and civil conversations,’ was founded by former Waze CEO Noam Bardin. It counts Kara Swisher as an advisor and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz as one of its two investors. The other investor is Scott Galloway, an NYU professor and cocohost of the Pivot podcast with Swisher.”

Variety: Musk Tweets Fake CNN Headline About Musk Threatening Free Speech on Twitter. “Musk — without any indication that it was a joke — posted an image that said, ‘CNN: Elon Musk could threaten free speech on Twitter by literally allowing people to speak freely.’ The post includes a photo of Lemon appearing to speak about Musk on air, with the made-up chyron below Lemon featuring the same text as the headline”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Google Settles FTC Charges About ‘Deceptive’ Pixel 4 Endorsements. “Google and iHeartMedia, a radio and podcasting company, on Monday agreed to pay $9.4 million to settle charges from the Federal Trade Commission and seven states that they were behind deceptive Pixel 4 ads.”

NJ .com: N.J. may soon set standards for students to learn how to separate fact from fiction on social media . “Though Garden State schools already have some requirements to teach the topic, the state Legislature has overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill (S588) that would mandate a state Department of Education committee to develop specific statewide guidelines for lessons on information literacy across digital, visual, and technological media.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Clemson News: Clemson Media Forensics Hub receives $3.8 million grant to study, fight online disinformation. “The fight against online disinformation is getting a boost thanks to a $3.8 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to support Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub at the Watt Family Innovation Center. Researchers with the Hub study disinformation and inauthenticity online and create tools to educate people and stop the spread of disinformation. Clemson University is matching the grant, making the total investment in the Hub $7.6 million over the next four years.”

Cornell Chronicle: Programming tool turns handwriting into computer code. “The pen-based interface, called Notate, lets users of computational, digital notebooks – such as Jupyter notebooks, which are web-based and interactive – to open drawing canvases and handwrite diagrams within lines of traditional, digitized computer code.”

Brigham Young University: Social media conversations are driven by those on the margins, says new BYU research . “The study found that most people – moderate Democrats and Republicans – are self-censoring their comments on social media to not create contention, lose friends online, or be perceived a certain way. Those on the margins, however, don’t fear backlash or retaliation from offering isolating opinions and are voicing viewpoints that go largely unchecked, fueling online dialogue that is becoming increasingly polarized.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 30, 2022 at 06:27PM
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Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Nintendo Power Magazine, UMSL Research, International Student Scholarships, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 29, 2022

Nintendo Power Magazine, UMSL Research, International Student Scholarships, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Kotaku: You Can Now Read All 285 Issues Of Nintendo Power Online. “Uploaded to Archive.org today by Gumball, all 285 issues of Nintendo Power are now unofficially available in .cbr format. At just over 40 gigabytes for the whole shebang, the vast majority of the collection comes courtesy of Retromags, a community-run project dedicated to archiving classic video game magazines.” Nintendo had a similar collection taken down in 2016, so if you’re interested in this don’t wait.

University of Missouri – St. Louis: New platform improves access to UMSL innovative works. “The University of Missouri–St. Louis has launched a new online platform that will make it simple for anyone to quickly and easily obtain a nonexclusive license of select intellectual property from the university. Managed by the Office of IP Management and Commercialization under its director, Tamara Wilgers, the UMSL Innovations online marketplace will help advance the office’s central mission to get UMSL ideas out into the world and achieve a wider reach and distribution of the university’s IP.”

The PIE News: IDP launches scholarship search feature. “IDP has launched a new search feature to easily connect international students with over 5,200 opportunities for scholarships. Available on the IDP website and the IDP Live app, the function gives prospective students the ability to view the criteria and value of scholarships from institutions throughout Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the US.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Sun Journal: Unity-based farmers, gardeners group improves database. “The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association Certification Services has updated its online searchable database to make it easier for people to find MOFGA-certified organic foods and products…. With 529 MOFGA-certified organic producers throughout Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, there are many options to find products within reach, and with enhanced keyword searches and an improved user interface, the database can make finding those producers easy.”

USEFUL STUFF

Smashing Magazine: A Guide To Keyboard Accessibility: HTML And CSS (Part 1). “This article is the first of two parts about a guide to making websites accessible to keyboard users. Here Cristian Diaz covers a good set of practices and recommendations on how to use HTML and CSS to create a great experience for keyboard users.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: This App Gives Your Screenshots Superpowers. That’s Just the Beginning. “What if screenshots were linkable, or portals to the playlist, the mapped location, the shopping page you wanted to share? That’s the reality Alex Mahedy has been trying to create for the past few years. The twentysomething New York City–based entrepreneur has even convinced some noteworthy venture capitalists to fund the idea. He just launched a new app for sharing link-enabled screenshots, called Pager.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: 5.4 million Twitter users’ stolen data leaked online — more shared privately. “Over 5.4 million Twitter user records containing non-public information stolen using an API vulnerability fixed in January have been shared for free on a hacker forum. Another massive, potentially more significant, data dump of millions of Twitter records has also been disclosed by a security researcher, demonstrating how widely abused this bug was by threat actors.”

Financial Times: Lex in-depth: the cost of America’s ban on Chinese chips. “Washington wants to thwart China in its aim of producing advanced semiconductors, bearing the shorthand definition of 3-14 nanometre (nm) process technology. Cheaper, simpler chips carry the designation of anything above 14nm. These might sound like the kind of fine distinctions only professional technologists care about. But the stakes are huge.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT Technology Review: A bot that watched 70,000 hours of Minecraft could unlock AI’s next big thing. “OpenAI has built the best Minecraft-playing bot yet by making it watch 70,000 hours of video of people playing the popular computer game. It showcases a powerful new technique that could be used to train machines to carry out a wide range of tasks by binging on sites like YouTube, a vast and untapped source of training data.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

New York Times: When Visiting Michelangelo’s David, She Brings a Duster. “Imagine a job that lets you get up close and personal — really, really up close and personal — with one of the world’s most famous statues. It is one perk of being the in-house restorer of the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, Italy, where Eleonora Pucci’s task is to regularly dust Michelangelo’s David, which she described recently as exhilarating, if somewhat nerve-racking.” The link is to a gift article; you should be able to read this without encountering a paywall. Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 30, 2022 at 01:06AM
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Safeguarding Science Toolkit, Altered States Database, Estonia WWII Refugees, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, November 29, 2022

Safeguarding Science Toolkit, Altered States Database, Estonia WWII Refugees, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, November 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Homeland Security Today: NCSC and Partners Unveil ‘Safeguarding Science’ Toolkit to Help U.S. Research Enterprise Guard Against Threats. “The Safeguarding Science online toolkit is designed for individuals and organizations in the U.S. scientific, academic, and emerging technology sectors who are seeking to develop their own programs to protect research, technology, and personnel from theft, abuse, misuse, or exploitation.”

Scientific Data: The Altered States Database: Psychometric data from a systematic literature review . “In this paper, we present the development of the Altered States Database (ASDB), an open-science project based on a systematic literature review. The ASDB contains psychometric questionnaire data on subjective experiences of altered states of consciousness (ASC) induced by pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods.”

ERR: Estonia establishing database of World War II refugees. “An estimated 80,000 Estonians fled the country during World War II and the Institute of Historical Memory is now establishing a database to enable further research. It is also seeking people’s help.” The database is available and has a little bit of information, but it’s very early days for this project.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: YouTube just announced its 2023 class of #YouTubeBlack Voices Fund creators. “Earlier this year, YouTube announced a new fund aimed at helping black creators find dedicated partner support, seed funding invested into the development of their channels, and the opportunity to participate in bespoke training, workshops and networking programs. This week they named the first 30 creators for the 2023 class.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: How to Make Autocorrect Work the Way You Want. “If autocorrect isn’t behaving the way you want it to, or you want to make it better or turn it off altogether, these are the settings and the screens you need to know about.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Twitter grapples with Chinese spam obscuring news of protests. “Twitter’s radically reduced anti-propaganda team grappled on Sunday with a flood of nuisance content in China that researchers said was aimed at reducing the flow of news about stunning widespread protests against coronavirus restrictions.”

Variety: National Film Archive of India on Mission to Restore 5,000 Films. “The National Film Archive of India (NFAI) has undertaken the massive task of restoring 5,000 priceless classics of Indian cinema.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Twitter failed to detect upload of Christchurch mosque terror attack videos. “Twitter has removed freshly uploaded footage of the Christchurch terror attack that was circulating on the platform, but only after the New Zealand government alerted the company, which had failed to recognise the content as harmful.”

CNET: FCC Unveils Rules for Clear Broadband Labels to Help Consumers Comparison Shop. “The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday unveiled rules that will require all internet service providers to display clear labels for their services — similar to the nutrition labels on food products — showing exactly what the customer is purchasing.”

Europol: International operation shuts down websites offering counterfeit goods and pirated content. “As of this year’s Cyber Monday, law enforcement agencies across several continents have taken down 12 526 websites, disconnected 32 servers used to distribute and host illegal content for 2 294 television channels and shut down 15 online shops selling counterfeit products on social media sites. In the physical realm, investigators seized 127 365 counterfeit products such as clothes, watches, shoes, accessories, perfumes, electronics and phone cases worth more than EUR 3.8 million.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT News: Empowering social media users to assess content helps fight misinformation. “Using their findings, the researchers developed a prototype platform that enables users to assess the accuracy of content, indicate which users they trust to assess accuracy, and filter posts that appear in their feed based on those assessments. Through a field study, they found that users were able to effectively assess misinforming posts without receiving any prior training. Moreover, users valued the ability to assess posts and view assessments in a structured way.”

CogDogBlog: Gizmo-ing Stuff to Mastodon. “Once Jim Groom took the nudge to figure out how to spin up Mastodon in the Reclaim Hosting cloud gizmo (see, thingamagig!) and launch a place for DS106 I was starting to think how it might be possible to wire up the DS106 Daily Create (well into its 10th year, never missed a day, and zeroing in on the 4000th TDC, one has to hum the song Where Have All the MOOCs Gone) to join Tootland.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 29, 2022 at 06:29PM
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Monday, November 28, 2022

Boston Voting Records, Singapore Trees, Charles Darwin Correspondence, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 28, 2022

Boston Voting Records, Singapore Trees, Charles Darwin Correspondence, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 28, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

City of Boston: The Mary Eliza Project: Ward 11 Voter Records Now Available. “In Dorchester’s Ward 11, over 1500 women registered to vote between August 12 and October 13, 1920. We have finished transcribing the Ward 11 Women’s Voter Registers and the data is now available at Analyze Boston.”

TechRadar Pro: How Singapore is turning to tech to keep tabs on its trees. “In order to create more of a connection all of the two million trees are also listed online on the TreesSG online database(opens in new tab). Users can access the database to find trees near them, report any issues they might have spotted, and even email the trees to say thank you for the natural benefits they bring.” Or if you’re nearby you could just tell the tree to its bark. I mean, it isn’t going anywhere barring an unfortunate occurrence.

Engadget: Charles Darwin’s full correspondence is now available online. “The University of Cambridge has published all of the evolutionary scientist’s surviving correspondence online, including 400 letters that have either surfaced or are newly ‘reinterpreted.’ The searchable collection now covers over 15,000 letters written between 1822 and 1882, ranging from his influential time aboard the HMS Beagle to On the Origin of Species and end-of-life reflections.”

International Council of Museums: ICOM launches the Emergency Red List of Cultural Objects at Risk – Ukraine. “…experts from 11 museums across Ukraine have collaborated with ICOM’s Heritage Protection Department to research and prepare this comprehensive Emergency Red List, which is composed of 53 type of objects pertaining to 7 categories that span archaeology, books and manuscripts, numismatics, and folk, religious, applied and fine art.”

University of Virginia: Want To Help Save the World? This New Book Club Offers a Novel Approach. “Read for Action, created by the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy’s Humanitarian Collaborative, kicked off earlier this month alongside the United Nations’ annual climate change meeting, known as COP27, which convened this year in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt. The free online book club, which anyone can join, focuses on recent novels whose characters struggle with realistic, geography-spanning humanitarian crises.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Don’t Stress, but ‘Permacrisis’ Is the 2022 Word of the Year. “Over the last few years, it’s seemed like the ‘new normal’ keeps getting weirder and darker as historical events pile up. This month the Collins Dictionary acknowledged our apparent spiral into ever darker timelines by naming ‘permacrisis’ its 2022 Word of the Year.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Catholic News Agency: The ‘Random Catholic Dude’ behind the website chronicling the Catholic hierarchy. “He works a full-time computer support job, loves to travel, opens emails with ‘howdy,’ and belongs to the Church of the Holy Cross in Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City, Kansas. [David M.] Cheney is also the person behind the longest-running online database for information about the bishops and dioceses of the global Catholic Church.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ohio State News: Study uncovers new threat to security and privacy of Bluetooth devices. “Mobile devices that use Bluetooth are vulnerable to a glitch that could allow attackers to track a user’s location, a new study has found. The research revolves around Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), a type of Bluetooth that uses less energy when compared to Bluetooth Classic (an earlier generation of Bluetooth). On smartwatches and smartphones, billions of people rely on this type of wireless communication for all types of activities, ranging from entertainment and sports to retail and health care.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Associated Press: Facial recognition can help conserve seals, scientists say. “A research team at Colgate University has developed SealNet, a database of seal faces created by taking pictures of dozens of harbor seals in Maine’s Casco Bay. The team found the tool’s accuracy in identifying the marine mammals is close to 100%, which is no small accomplishment in an ecosystem home to thousands of seals.”

PsyPost: Smartphone addiction linked with lower cognitive abilities, less self-control, and worse psychological well-being. “Published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, researchers found that problematic smartphone use is linked with low self-esteem as well as negative cognitive outcomes.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 29, 2022 at 01:10AM
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Ooh! Directory, China Investments in Kazakhstan, Chicago Community Design Projects, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, November 28, 2022

Ooh! Directory, China Investments in Kazakhstan, Chicago Community Design Projects, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, November 28, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Spotted on Mastodon! The Ooh! Directory, at https://ooh.directory/. It’s a searchable subject index of blogs. From the About page: “ooh.directory is a place to find blogs that interest you. Explore the categories, search blog details, flip through random blogs, or keep visiting the most recently-updated blogs to see who’s talking about what right now.” Subject directories might be old fashioned but this one includes the blog’s most recent post (all included blogs must have an RSS feed) and each entry notes when the blog was last updated. There are 898 blogs at this writing. Great work.

Eurasianet: New website tracks Chinese investments in Kazakhstan. “Back in 2015, Kazakhstan and China signed 52 investment deals valued at more than $21 billion…. Seven years on, fewer than half of the projects have been completed and 17 are still under consideration, according to the latest information published by state firm Kazakh Invest. Now, a new website called Eco China Info aims to track these projects with a focus on their ‘social and environmental consequences.'”

Chicago Sun-Times: Chicago design studio has MAPPED out local community-based resources. “MAPPED, a project of Design Trust Chicago, was started because the three founders of the trust realized there was a lack of accessible information about community design programs…. The public site, launched last spring, documents a range of design projects around Chicago. The database allows different designers to submit businesses, organizations, initiatives and spaces to the project, so other designers can view other projects’ cost, funders and partners, [Clio] Lyons said.”

New-to-me, from The Digital Orientalist: The Toyo Bunko Archive: a source of joy and torment. “I hope that sharing my experience with the website will make your life using it a bit easier. But let me preface this post by saying that Toyo Bunko is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Buddhist art and archeology, as well as Central and South Asian Studies, and is worth using extensively. I highly recommend it, despite the navigation issues.”

University of Manitoba: New website a valuable resource on livestock production research. “The new site offers researchers, students, industry, governments and consumers access to an extensive library of research projects and resources examining the role of Canadian livestock production systems as an integral component of an adaptive and enduring food system in Canada.”

National Archives: New National Archives Catalog Debuts. ” A new, modernized National Archives Catalog launched online today. The new Catalog’s focus on scalability will allow the agency to reach its goal to get 500 million digitized pages in the Catalog by September 2026. The fully redesigned online public access Catalog makes accessing the agency’s holdings more intuitive for the user and improves the search experience by generating faster results.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Stuff New Zealand: Archives New Zealand services worst in decades, say experts. “Last week the Government’s record-keeping authority removed public access to its widely used online collections search tool – which had only been live since February – due to a potential privacy and security breach, after restricted files became visible. Late on Tuesday Archives reinstated access to the search tool, with chief archivist Anahera Morehu saying she was satisfied there was no breach.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: The Spooky Quest to Build a Google Maps for Graveyards. “[Atlantic Geomatics] has now taken on the task of mapping every churchyard and municipal burial ground in England—a total of more than 18,000—to create a Google Street View of graveyards in which descendants, genealogists, and conservationists can click on a map and see who was buried there and when.”

Hong Kong Free Press: Hong Kong asks search engine to place correct national anthem info in top results following rugby row. “It came after ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ – a tune popular among the city’s pro-democracy protesters in 2019 – was heard at South Korea’s Rugby Sevens instead of the Chinese national anthem ‘March of the Volunteers.’… The organiser had reportedly downloaded the top song listed when when searching online for the ‘Hong Kong national anthem.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Brussels Times: Influencer advertising on social media to include ‘trust label’ in Belgium. “On Friday, the Belgian e-commerce federation BeCommerce launched a trust label for online safety certifications that are specific to online advertising undertaken by influencers. Influencers will have to comply with European directives and those of the FPS Economy to obtain it.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New Yorker: Why I Quit Elon Musk’s Twitter. “It seems likely that this experiment will conclude with bankruptcy and Twitter falling into the hands of creditors who will have their own ideas of what it should be and whom it should serve. But at least in the interim it’s worth keeping in mind that some battles are simply not worth fighting, some battles must be fought, but none are worth fighting on terms set by those who win by having the conflict drag on endlessly.”

Delft University of Technology: A navigation system with 10 centimeter accuracy. “Researchers of Delft University of Technology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and VSL have developed an alternative positioning system that is more robust and accurate than GPS, especially in urban settings. The working prototype that demonstrated this new mobile network infrastructure achieved an accuracy of 10 centimeter.” Tip o’ the nib to Map Room Blog for the pointer. Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you.



November 28, 2022 at 06:29PM
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Sunday, November 27, 2022

Palm Pilot Software, Stable Diffusion, Google Workspace, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, November 27, 2022

Palm Pilot Software, Stable Diffusion, Google Workspace, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, November 27, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Verge: The Internet Archive just put 565 Palm Pilot apps in your web browser. “Yes, I am playing Dope Wars on a Palm Pilot inside my iPhone. It’s thanks to The Internet Archive, which is once again launching a giant collection of software you can instantly play on any web browser, up to and including your touchscreen-equipped phone. There are currently 565 classic Palm apps in all, including games, widgets, and even free trials from both the greyscale and color eras.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: AI Art Is About to Get Sharper, Better Looking, Less Porny. “Stability AI, the developers behind popular AI-generated art program Stable Diffusion, released a major update to the software on Thursday, European time (Wednesday night in the US).”

Engadget: Google Workspace’s latest updates include improved Gmail search. “Google has revealed some minor, albeit handy, updates for Workspace. Soon, when you join a Google Meet call or start presenting on one from a Docs, Sheets or Slides file, you’ll have an easier way to share that file with other attendees through the meeting’s chat panel.”

Bloomberg: FTX Chaos Prompts Reckoning on Dubai’s Embrace of Crypto Giants. “FTX was one of the first firms granted a license by Dubai’s Virtual Asset​s Regulatory Authority as part of the push to lure business, and the exchange set up its regional headquarters in the city…. With FTX and Bankman-Fried now facing investigations from the US to the Bahamas, officials have distanced themselves from that decision, even scrubbing its license details from the regulator’s website.”

USEFUL STUFF

Screen Rant: How To Follow Hashtags On Mastodon (And Why It Isn’t Working). “Following hashtags can create a personalized feed of content for users to enjoy, but what is the best way to follow hashtags on the Mastodon app? Without hashtags, users potentially lose out on content that could be relevant to their interests. While it is easy to search for hashtags, users just want an easy way to see relevant content without searching for it.”

Hongkiat: 10+ Tools to Crop and Resize Images Online (Without Photoshop). “Sometimes, using image editing tools like Photoshop or GIMP just for simple image editing tasks (cropping, resizing, etc) seems a little overkill. For that matter, we bring you a list of sites that care of these simple tasks. And best of all, they are free!”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

University of Calgary: Project digitally preserves former Indian residential schools in Alberta. “Of all the ghosts that weighed heavily on the shoulders of Brendon Many Bears as he worked his way with a 3D laser scanner across every inch of Old Sun Community College, it was those he encountered in the former coal closet that sat the most horrifically in the pit of his stomach. The tiny room in the former Old Sun Indian Residential School, on Siksika Nation in southwest Alberta, was easy to miss, hidden away behind a metal door in the building’s boiler room.”

University of New Mexico: Navajo Code Talker Collections Donated to CSWR. “The Carl N. Gorman and William Dean Wilson Collection, both document the lives and service of the aforementioned men who were among the first twenty-nine Navajo Code Talkers of World War II. The collections were donated by Zonnie Gorman —a recognized historian on the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II, prior CSWR Graduate Fellow and daughter of Carl Gorman.”

How-To Geek: Tumblr and Flickr Might Join Mastodon’s “Fediverse” Network. “It’s not clear to what degree Tumblr would support ActivityPub. Presumably, it will allow people on Mastodon to follow blogs on Tumblr, and vice-versa. It’s possible Tumblr could go even further, adding support for polls and other features beyond regular posts.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

RTE: Senior Irish Twitter executive secures temporary High Court injunction against termination of employment. “An Irish-based senior executive with Twitter has secured a temporary High Court injunction preventing the social networking giant from terminating her employment. The order was secured by Sinead McSweeney, who is Twitter’s Global Vice President for Public Policy.”

University of Michigan: Cyber vulnerability in networks used by spacecraft, aircraft and energy generation systems. “A new attack discovered by the University of Michigan and NASA exploits a trusted network technology to create unexpected and potentially catastrophic behavior.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Harvard Business Review: Does Influencer Marketing Really Pay Off?. “In 2022, the influencer industry reached $16.4 billion. More than 75% of brands have a dedicated budget for influencer marketing, from Coca Cola’s #ThisOnesFor campaign in collaboration with fashion and travel influencers, to Dior’s award-winning 67 Shades campaign in which the brand partnered with diverse influencers to promote its Forever Foundation product line. But does investing in influencers really pay off?” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 27, 2022 at 06:28PM
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Saturday, November 26, 2022

Ukraine Cultural Heritage, EU Internet Standards, Maryland RSV, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 26, 2022

Ukraine Cultural Heritage, EU Internet Standards, Maryland RSV, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 26, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Ukrinform: Special section about Ukraine appeared on Google Arts & Culture. “On November 24, Google together with the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, with the support of Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska, presented the online-space of Ukrainian culture on the Google Arts & Culture platform – ‘Ukraine is Here’.”

European Commission Science Hub: New website to monitor the uptake of key internet standards across the EU. “The Commission launches a new website to monitor the deployment of five categories of key internet communication standards in the EU, considered essential to achieve the EU vision of a free, open, accessible and secure global internet.”

State of Maryland: Maryland Department of Health releases RSV hospitalization data dashboard, urges Marylanders to wash hands, take precautions. “The Maryland Department of Health (MDH) today released a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) data dashboard containing RSV hospitalization numbers in the state. The RSV data dashboard will be updated on Thursdays and display RSV hospitalizations by respiratory season. It is currently up-to-date. With holidays right around the corner, MDH is urging all Marylanders to take precautions against RSV and other respiratory illnesses that are spreading nationwide.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Register: Elon Musk to abused Twitter users: Your tormentors are coming back. “Twitter CEO Elon Musk has decided to allow suspended accounts back onto the micro-blogging service. Musk used the same process for this decision as he did when restoring access to a Florida Man who once held high elected office in the US – an utterly unscientific and easy to manipulate poll of Twitter users.”

CBS News: Twitter and other social media sites slipped on removing hate speech in 2022, EU review says. Please note this study is from the spring, before Elon Musk. “The EU report, carried out over six weeks in the spring, found Twitter assessed just over half of the notifications it received about illegal hate speech within 24 hours, down from 82% in 2021. In comparison, the amount of flagged material Facebook reviewed within 24 hours fell to 64%, Instagram slipped to 56.9% and YouTube dipped to 83.3%. TikTok came in at 92%, the only company to improve.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New Yorker: Turning YouTube Comments Into Art. “…a ‘web experience’ [Chiara] Amisola created this past Valentine’s Day… explores ‘the rawness of human intimacy and confession in the YouTube comments left under love songs.’ The page is minimal: each comment appears in large black text above the video in question, which plays inside a small circle that rotates like an LP.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Google pushes emergency Chrome update to fix 8th zero-day in 2022. “Google has released an emergency security update for the desktop version of the Chrome web browser, addressing the eighth zero-day vulnerability exploited in attacks this year.”

Engadget: Google says Google and other Android manufacturers haven’t patched security flaws. “Google has disclosed several security flaws for phones that have Mali GPUs, such as those with Exynos SoCs. The company’s Project Zero team says it flagged the problems to ARM (which designs the GPUs) back in the summer. ARM resolved the issues on its end in July and August. However, smartphone manufacturers including Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo and Google itself hadn’t deployed patches to fix the vulnerabilities as of earlier this week, Project Zero said.”

Reuters: Russian court upholds $33 million fine against Google. “An arbitration court in Moscow has upheld a 2-billion rouble ($33 million) fine against Google issued by Russia’s federal anti-monopoly service over the company’s decision to block some YouTube channels, the RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing a court decision.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The National: How virtual reality is being used to recreate Iraq’s destroyed heritage. “The new Mosul Heritage Museum in Iraq is inviting people to experience its greatest historical sites — in virtual reality…. Through painstaking documentation, computer technology and virtual-reality artistry, Qaf Lab, an innovation hub in Mosul that supports Iraqi entrepreneurs, has reconstructed five heritage sites destroyed or damaged by ISIS during their three-year occupation of Mosul from 2014.”

IFLScience: Social Media Trends Are Encouraging Animal Abuse In Viral Videos, Review Finds. “Social media is encouraging cases of animal cruelty, with trends driven by viral videos motivating some content creators to bring wild animals into their channels. That’s the message from the Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition (SMACC) following research conducted as part of a coalition with 13 animal protection organizations.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 26, 2022 at 06:29PM
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Friday, November 25, 2022

Glasgow’s Tech Ecosystem, Italy Fascist Landmarks, Luxembourgish, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 25, 2022

Glasgow’s Tech Ecosystem, Italy Fascist Landmarks, Luxembourgish, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 25, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Glasgow City Council: Glasgow launches open-access database to showcase £2.6billion regional tech ecosystem. “The Glasgow Tech Ecosystem Platform is an open-access database offering to better connect start-ups with investors and corporates, providing real-time insights on the health of the regional innovation economy and showcasing Glasgow City Region’s wider tech ecosystem to the world…. The data covers 740+ technology-based start-ups as well as investors and accelerators, universities, co-working spaces, tech meetups and much more.”

Wanted in Rome: Italy’s fascist landmarks mapped in new website. “An online map charting the existing monuments, buildings and memorials honouring fascism in Italy was launched on Tuesday by the Istituto Ferruccio Parri, an historical research institute in Milan. The luoghi del fascismo website is hailed as Italy’s first nationwide project to document the surviving traces of Benito Mussolini’s regime and assess how the memory of fascism has been preserved and even revived in recent decades.”

Government of Luxembourg: LOD.Lu – the “Lëtzebuerger Online dictionnaire” now also available as an app. “You’re on the bus and can’t remember a word? You’re out and about and don’t know how to say Clemency in Luxembourgish? You’re in a restaurant and wonder what a Ziwwi is? Just ask the LOD app! The brand new website of the Lëtzebuerger Online Dictionnaire was introduced five months ago, with a new look and enhanced features…. To make the dictionary’s content even more accessible, the LOD is now also available as a free app (LOD.lu), which can be downloaded from Google’s Play Store or Apple’s App Store.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Financial Times: Twitter disbands Brussels office, prompting fears about online safety. “The executives had led the company’s effort to comply with the EU’s disinformation code and the bloc’s landmark Digital Services Act, which came into force last week and sets new rules on how Big Tech should keep users safe online. Other Twitter executives in the small but vital Brussels office, seen as a crucial conduit to European policymakers, had left at the start of the month during company-wide cuts that removed around half of its 7,500-strong workforce.”

Daily Dot: WikiLeaks website is struggling to stay online—as millions of documents disappear. “WikiLeaks’ website appears to be coming apart at the seams, with more and more of the organization’s content unavailable without explanation. WikiLeaks technical issues, which have been ongoing for months, have gotten worse in recent weeks as increasingly larger portions of its website no longer function.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WAMC: Ft. Ticonderoga acquires major collection as it prepares for 250th anniversary of American Revolution . “Fort Ticonderoga has acquired a private collection of more than 3,000 objects, including over 200 rare firearms, as the historical site prepares to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the American War for Independence.”

New York Times: Inside Sam Bankman-Fried’s Quest to Win Friends and Influence People. “A network of political action committees, nonprofits and consulting firms funded by FTX or its executives worked to court politicians, regulators and others in the policy orbit, with the goal of making Mr. Bankman-Fried the authoritative voice of crypto, while also shaping regulation for the industry and other causes, according to interviews, email exchanges and an encrypted group chat viewed by The New York Times.”

ERR (Estonia): National Archive finds streets named after Red Army soldiers inappropriate. “A report compiled by the National Archives of Estonia has found that commemorating fallen Red Army soldiers in public space by naming streets after them, is inappropriate and incompatible with contemporary understandings of Estonian history and culture.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Europol: Action against criminal website that offered ‘spoofing’ services to fraudsters: 142 arrests. “Judicial and law enforcement authorities in Europe, Australia, the United States, Ukraine, and Canada have taken down a website that allowed fraudsters to impersonate trusted corporations or contacts to access sensitive information from victims, a type of cybercrime known as ‘spoofing’. The website is believed to have caused an estimated worldwide loss in excess of GBP 100 million (EUR 115 million).”

New York Times: Lawsuit Takes Aim at the Way A.I. Is Built. “Like many cutting-edge A.I. technologies, Copilot developed its skills by analyzing vast amounts of data. In this case, it relied on billions of lines of computer code posted to the internet. [Matthew] Butterick, 52, equates this process to piracy, because the system does not acknowledge its debt to existing work. His lawsuit claims that Microsoft and its collaborators violated the legal rights of millions of programmers who spent years writing the original code.”

CNN: House Republicans say TikTok made misleading claims in briefings on data handling. “House Republicans say TikTok may have misled congressional staff in private briefings about the company’s handling of US user data, in a new letter to the short-form video app this week.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

CBS News: Minnesotans’ massive antique pump organ collection spans neighboring homes. “Ron Manzow has spent most of his life in Plainview. He taught third grade for decades before retiring. But you could say his home is still full of history lessons. Manzow has collected 75 pipe organs. His collection has gotten so big, in fact, that he bought the house next door to him for storage.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 25, 2022 at 06:31PM
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Thursday, November 24, 2022

Twitch, Google, Twitter, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 24, 2022

Twitch, Google, Twitter, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 24, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Twitch Expands Measures to Thwart Child Predators. “Twitch said Tuesday that it’s implementing a series of new safeguards to address child grooming on its streaming platform.”

Global Village Space: Google to soon begin operations in Pakistan. “According to the details, the Senator said that a delegation of Google will visit Pakistan on December 11 to start operations. The platform will also provide 15,000 scholarships to Pakistani citizens after starting operations in Pakistan.”

New York Times: As Elon Musk Cuts Costs at Twitter, Some Bills Are Going Unpaid. “Mr. Musk and his advisers are examining all types of expenses at Twitter. Some of the social media company’s vendors have gotten stiffed.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Analytics India: Meet the Woman Behind India’s Major Political Narratives on Social Media. “Political campaigns in India are evolving quickly; political parties are utilising new technology, data analytics, and artificial intelligence in a variety of ways. However, one aspect of political campaigns that has not changed is the use of social media for narrative building. To understand the inner workings of such undertakings in depth, Analytics India Magazine got in touch with political campaign manager Sukriti Sharma.”

ChicagoInno: Winklevoss twins back search engine startup with Chicago roots. “Based in Boston, the new search engine uses artificial intelligence to instantly extract, aggregate and distill findings directly from scientific research. The site also prides itself on being 100% ad-free.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: New York’s crypto mining restrictions are the first in the nation. “The environment-focused law establishes a two-year freeze on new and renewed air permits for fossil fuel power plants used for mining that uses demanding ‘proof-of-work’ authentication. The Department of Environmental Conservation will also have to study if and how crypto mining hurts the government’s climate change mitigation efforts.”

Ars Technica: European Parliament declares Russia a terrorism sponsor, then its site goes down. “The European Parliament website was knocked offline for several hours on Wednesday by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that started shortly after the governing body voted to declare the Russian government a state sponsor of terrorism.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CogDogBlog: Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back into the Google Image CC Search Waters Again… . “I am not looking for any kind of fix here. And I don’t want to keep documenting this stuff. But it is obvious to me that we should not sent people to use Google Image search for Creative Licensed photos without making them aware that the results are not to be trusted.”

Florida Tech: University Study Examines Viral Probability of Social Media Posts. “[Xi] Zhang’s work provides a straightforward way of computing the average number of future reshares based on how the content has fared so far in terms of popularity. More plainly, Zhang’s work allows to predict how the resharing of online content will evolve over time.”

Media Matters: In less than a month, Elon Musk has driven away half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers. “In recent weeks, 50 of the top 100 advertisers have either announced or seemingly stopped advertising on Twitter. These advertisers have accounted for nearly $2 billion in spending on the platform since 2020, and over $750 million in advertising in 2022 alone.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 25, 2022 at 01:33AM
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Airborne Microbes, Coronavirus Test Results, Florida Hurricane Ian Relief, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, November 24, 2022

Airborne Microbes, Coronavirus Test Results, Florida Hurricane Ian Relief, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, November 24, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Hong Kong Polytechnic University: PolyU researchers compile world’s first “atlas” of airborne microbes that provides an important new perspective for public health research. “Bacteria are truly abundant across the Earth’s surface, from the soil to the oceans. The microbial population of the air that surrounds us is comparatively unknown, but a research expedition led by PolyU scientists is about to change that. After nearly a decade of effort, they have compiled a comprehensive map of the world’s airborne microbes, providing fresh insights into how these species interact with the surface environment – as well as their likely future changes.”

News-Medical: NIH’s new website allows users to anonymously report COVID-19 test results. “[The site] developed through NIH’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx®) Tech program, allows users to anonymously report the results of any brand of at-home COVID-19 test.”

ABC7: Florida creates website for Hurricane Ian relief. “Florida’s first-ever state-led sheltering and housing program is available through the Unite Florida Recovery Portal… and provides temporary sheltering options — such as travel trailers and recreational vehicles — and temporary or permanent repairs for households whose needs are not met through insurance or FEMA’s Individual Assistance program. Residents impacted by Hurricane Ian can also use the site to report unmet needs such as transportation, household items and social services.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Elon Musk proposes letting nearly everyone Twitter banned back on the site. “Now that Elon Musk has let us know that he’s totally done with his moderation council myth, he’s put up a new poll asking users if he should let most suspended accounts back onto the site.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Vox: Crypto probably isn’t dead, but should it be?. “For those who have been paying attention to the sector, this sort of feels like waking up from a worldwide hypnosis. The metaverse thing, which is basically Zoom meetings with legless cartoons, never made sense. Neither did this idea that images of pixelated punks and weird-looking monkeys were worth millions of dollars as NFTs. Thousands of crypto tokens and coins spun up out of thin air have been revealed to be nothing more than magic beans.” If you HAVEN’T been paying attention to the sector, this is a good overview of its problems with lots of links to backstory.

NARA: NARA to Award $1.9 Million for Historical Records Projects . “Acting Archivist of the United States Debra Steidel Wall approved 31 proposals totaling $1,904,539 in National Archives awards for projects in 25 states and the District of Columbia, pending appropriations of a final budget for FY 2023.”

Ars Technica: Crypto and NFTs aren’t welcome in Grand Theft Auto Online. “Cryptocurrencies and NFTs have been formally disallowed from Grand Theft Auto Online’s popular role-playing (RP) servers. That’s according to a new set of guidelines posted on Rockstar’s support site last Friday.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Crypto exchanges enabled online child sex-abuse profiteer. “The sums involved in buying and selling images of sexual abuse remain small compared to other criminal activities, such as the drugs trade. But the figures are increasing. While in the past offenders typically traded child abuse imagery among themselves in small communities, the darknet has become a breeding ground for sites like Dark Scandals that charge in crypto. And the damage is far-reaching.” This story is important but it’s also horrifying and has all kinds of disturbing content. PLEASE read with caution.

CoinDesk: Senator Warren Demands Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX Execs Be Held Accountable to ‘Fullest Extent of the Law’. “In the letter, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) reminded Garland and Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite of the DOJ’s recently renewed commitment to prosecuting white-collar criminals, and asked that they honor that commitment when investigating the behavior of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and other executives ‘with the utmost scrutiny.'”

New York Times: Crypto Firm FTX’s Ownership of a U.S. Bank Raises Questions. “Through a subsidiary, FTX invested $11.5 million in the parent company of Farmington State Bank, which has a single branch and, until this year, just three employees.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Caltech: Machine Learning Tools Automatically Classify 1,000 Supernovae. “Astronomers at Caltech have used a machine learning algorithm to classify 1,000 supernovae completely autonomously. The algorithm was applied to data captured by the Zwicky Transient Facility, or ZTF, a sky survey instrument based at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory.”

Stony Brook University: Researchers’ App to Increase Quality of Life for ALS Patients. “Patients suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, more commonly known as ALS, experience limited mobility and communication, leading to less personal freedom and a lower quality of life. However, two Stony Brook University professors are working to advance a multifunctional eye-gaze-based app that can help ALS patients gain back some of their lost independence.” The app is currently available (it’s free) but I think it’s still in development. Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 24, 2022 at 06:29PM
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Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Twitter, FTX, DWAC, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 23, 2022

Twitter, FTX, DWAC, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 23, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

I’m sorry these last issues have been so Twitter / FTX heavy. I feel both of these stories are very important right now. Since this is a holiday week in America many of you are ignoring this newsletter anyway, hopefully. By Monday I’ll try to steer us back to more interesting horizons.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: ‘Toxic Twitter’ activists ramp up pressure on brands after Trump account reinstated. “A coalition of civil rights activists on Monday were urging Twitter’s advertisers to issue statements about pulling their ads off the social media platform after its owner Elon Musk lifted the ban on tweets by former U.S. President Donald Trump.”

Wall Street Journal: FTX Crypto Customers Worry They Will Never See Their Money Again. “Customers of beleaguered crypto exchange FTX are losing hope they will ever see their money again. The company’s massive financial problems began spilling into the open early this month, and FTX was quick to halt withdrawals from its international unit. American customers had hoped they might be luckier, but many of them haven’t been able to get their money out either.”

Investor’s Business Daily: DWAC Stock Spikes After Trump Merger Vote, Musk Reinstates Trump On Twitter. “Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) stock spiked after early losses Tuesday, as shareholders of the special acquisition company approved a one-year deadline extension to take former President Donald Trump’s social media platform public.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Verge: Twitter won’t restart paid verification until ‘significant impersonations’ stop, Elon Musk says. “Elon Musk told Twitter employees on Monday that the company won’t relaunch its paid verification subscription, Twitter Blue, until ‘we’re confident about significant impersonations not happening,’ according to a recording of his remarks obtained by The Verge.”

Search Engine Land: Is Google Search getting worse?. “Marissa Mayer, the former CEO of Yahoo, was Google’s 20th employee and the one-time leader of its search team, said Google is concerned about the declining quality of the web. The comments were made on a recent Freakonomics podcast episode that looked at whether the quality of Google search has declined over the years.”

New York Times: As Elon Musk Cuts Costs at Twitter, Some Bills Are Going Unpaid. “Before Elon Musk bought Twitter last month, the company’s executives had racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel invoices that the social media service planned to pay. But once Mr. Musk took over the company, he refused to reimburse travel vendors for those bills, current and former Twitter employees said. Mr. Musk’s staff said the services were authorized by the company’s former management and not by him. His staff have since avoided the calls of the travel vendors, the people said.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: France says non to Office 365 and Google Workspace in school. “The French minister of national education and youth has said that free versions of Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workplace should not be used in schools – a position that reflects ongoing European concerns about cloud data sovereignty, competition, and privacy rules.”

CNBC: UK to investigate Apple and Google’s ‘stranglehold’ over web browsing. “The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority launched an investigation Tuesday into Apple and Google’s control of the mobile browser market. The authority will explore the companies’ ‘stranglehold’ over browsing, as well as Apple’s control over cloud gaming through the App Store, it said in a release. The agency said Google and Apple powered 97% of all web browsing that took place in the U.K. in 2021.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Financial Times: Let crypto burn. “In the aftermath of the collapse of FTX, authorities should resist the urge to create a parallel legal and regulatory framework for the crypto industry. It is far better to do nothing, and just let crypto burn. Actively intervening would convey undeserved legitimacy upon a system that does little to support real economic activity. It also would provide an official seal of approval to a system that currently poses no threat to financial stability and would lead to calls for public bailouts when crypto inevitably erupts again.”

WIRED: Here’s Proof Hate Speech Is More Viral on Elon Musk’s Twitter. “For the months prior to Musk’s takeover, the researchers deemed just one tweet out of the three top 20 lists to be actually hateful, in this case against Jewish people. The others were either quoting another person’s hateful remarks or using the relevant key words in a non-hateful way. In the weeks after Musk took over Twitter, the same analysis found that hateful tweets became much more prominent among the most popular tweets with potentially toxic language.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 24, 2022 at 01:43AM
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Organocatalysts, Mastodon, Google, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, November 23, 2022

Organocatalysts, Mastodon, Google, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, November 23, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Chemistry World: Gigantic database of building blocks will help artificial intelligence uncover new organocatalysts. “Researchers have constructed a public database of 4000 experimentally derived organocatalysts. The database also contains several thousand molecular fragments and combinatorially enriched structures based on the experimentally derived entries.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: An official Google social account is now on Mastodon. “The Twitter upheaval has affected everyone from end users to advertisers and brands. It will be interesting to see where the latter group lands, but Google — via its Search Liaison account — now has an official presence on Mastodon.”

Search Engine Journal: Google Publishes Guide To Current & Retired Ranking Systems. “A new guide to Google’s ranking systems will keep you informed about which systems Google uses to rank search results and which ones are retired. Additionally, Google introduces new terminology in its latest guide, distinguishing between ranking ‘systems’ and ranking ‘updates.'”

IANS: Google’s parent company Alphabet ‘prepares’ to lay off 10,000 employees . “Alphabet, Google`s parent company, is reportedly gearing up to lay off about 10,000 “poor performing” employees, or 6 per cent of its workforce, in the Big tech layoff season kicked off by Meta, Amazon, Twitter, Salesforce and more amid the rough global conditions.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Rolling Stone: All the Celebrities Who’ve Quit Twitter Because of Elon Musk . “From (failed) paid Twitter verification to the reinstatement of accounts run by bigots to the layoffs of hundreds, Musk’s drastic changes to the platform have caused several celebrities to say goodbye to the platform….Here’s a growing list of celebrities who’ve decided to no longer use Twitter… all because of Musk.”

Wall Street Journal: How Elon Musk’s Twitter Faces Mountain of Debt, Falling Revenue and Surging Costs . “Analysts and academics have been able to piece together a picture of the company from information Mr. Musk has offered as well as details of the deal and the company’s last regulatory filings. Bankruptcy could be one result. Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person, could also raise new funds, or buy back debt from lenders, giving Twitter a buffer to turn around its business. Here is a look at their assessments of Twitter’s financial situation and prospects.”

MarketWatch: My bad: The YouTube financial influencer network paid to pump FTX. “Kevin Paffrath, a 30-year-old YouTube star with 1.85 million followers to his real estate and financial tip page Meet Kevin, says he was paid $2,500 every time he mentioned FTX in one of his videos. And he believes he had one of the smaller deals with the crypto exchange; others have claimed six-figure deals with the firm.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

University of Washington: Q&A: UW researchers find privacy risks with 3D tours on real estate websites. “The team examined 44 3D tours on a real estate website. Each tour was for a home in a different state and had at least one personal detail — such as a letter, a college diploma or photos — visible. The researchers concluded that the details left in these tours could expose residents to a variety of threats, including phishing attacks or credit card fraud.”

US DOJ: Two Estonian Citizens Arrested in $575 Million Cryptocurrency Fraud and Money Laundering Scheme. “Two Estonian citizens were arrested in Tallinn, Estonia, yesterday on an 18-count indictment for their alleged involvement in a $575 million cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering conspiracy. The indictment was returned by a grand jury in the Western District of Washington on Oct. 27 and unsealed today.”

Radio Prague International: Recordings from trial with “chief symbol” of Nazi occupation K. H. Frank being restored. “Archivists at Czech Radio have discovered 1,300 discs of recordings from the 1946 trial with Karl Hermann Frank, who was in charge of the Nazi security forces during the wartime occupation of Bohemia and Moravia. The discs are currently in the process of digitisation, making it possible to play the sounds for the first time in more than 70 years.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

George Washington University: The National Science Foundation Awards $5 Million to IDDP Team to Continue Work Assisting Journalists Facing Online Harassment. “As part of the 2021 cohort of the National Science Foundation’s Convergence Accelerator, a team led by Rebekah Tromble, director of the George Washington University’s Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics, received a grant award to develop a rapid response system that will aid experts facing coordinated campaigns of online harassment.”

The Register: Swiss bankers warn: Three quarters of retail Bitcoin investors are in the red. “Somewhere between 73 and 81 percent of retail Bitcoin buyers are likely to be into the negative on their investment, according to research published Monday by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). In other words: the Bitcoin they bought is now worth less. Bitcoin is down 73 percent in the past year, and up 155 percent in the past five years. Losses are only realized upon sale.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 23, 2022 at 06:29PM
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Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Geopipe, Twitter, Identifying Languages, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 22, 2022

Geopipe, Twitter, Identifying Languages, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 22, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

I am still publishing ResearchBuzz updates on Twitter but I have moved most of my “looking-for-interesting-stuff” activity to Mastodon (researchbuzz@researchbuzz.masto.host if you care to drop by.) The Web site Geopipe ( https://www.geopipe.ai/download ) is the second RB item I’ve found on that site. It’s a company that makes digital twins of cities to be used in gaming, virtual environments, etc. At the moment they’re giving away a digital twin of New York City for free. You’ll need to register, but you can download sample models of Rockerfeller Plaza and Columbus Circle without providing any personal information. Sample models are downloadable in .fbx, .dae, and .glb formats.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Wall Street Journal: Twitter Lays Off Some Sales Employees After They Committed to Twitter 2.0. “Elon Musk extended his job-cutting at Twitter Inc., laying off some employees in sales after they had signed on to the billionaire’s vision for the social-media platform, people familiar with the matter said. The exact scope of the latest cuts couldn’t be learned immediately. One employee said he found out early Monday that he had been laid off and was told in an email his role was no longer necessary.”

The Hill: Twitter’s head of France resigns amid Musk’s shakeup. “Twitter’s head of France, Damien Viel, announced his resignation from the social media platform in a tweet saying it was ‘over.'”

Coindesk: UC Berkeley Suspends Stadium Naming Rights Deal With FTX. “The deal was originally planned for 10 years and lasted just 450 days. The sponsorship was inked in August 2021 for $17.5 million. It was paid entirely in cryptocurrency and was the exchange’s first partnership in college sports. With the deal, Cal’s football stadium was named FTX Field at California Memorial Stadium.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: What Language Is This? 5 Tools to Identify Unknown Languages. “If you’ve come across a language you can’t identify, it might drive you crazy until you figure out what it is. Even if you don’t speak multiple languages, it’s useful to know what a language is just by looking at it. Let’s look at some language finder services to help you identify which language you’re looking at in an image or text.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Smithsonian: National Museum of American History Adds Key Blues Archive. “The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has accepted the donation of the late Robert ‘Mack’ McCormick’s significant blues and folklore archive as a gift from his daughter, Susannah Nix. The extensive collection consists of 590 reels of sound recordings and 165 boxes of materials, totaling more than 70 cubic feet of unpublished manuscripts, original interviews and research notes, thousands of photographs and negatives, playbills, posters, maps, booking contracts and business records.”

Al Jazeera: In Brazil, Twitter users fear effect of Musk’s rule. “It was Easter, and Lola Aronovich, a Brazilian literature professor, was enjoying a break at a beach with no internet access, totally unaware of the defamation campaign being orchestrated against her on Twitter. That day in April 2015, the son of Geraldo Alckmin, the former São Paulo governor and currently Brazil’s vice-president-elect, tragically died in a helicopter crash. Aronovich saw the events unfold on TV and headed home three days later – only to find thousands of vitriolic posts directed at her on Twitter for something she hadn’t done.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Twitter Africa employees accuse Elon Musk of discrimination over severance terms. “Laid-off employees at Twitter’s Africa headquarters are accusing Twitter of ‘deliberately and recklessly flouting the laws of Ghana’ and trying to ‘silence and intimidate’ them after they were fired. The team has hired a lawyer and sent a letter to the company demanding it comply with the West African nation’s labor laws, provide them with additional severance pay and other relevant benefits, in line with what other Twitter employees will receive.”

TechCrunch: Musk’s impact on content moderation at Twitter faces early test in Germany. “A German law requiring social media platforms to promptly respond to reports of hate speech — and in some cases remove illegal speech within 24 hours of it being brought to their attention — looks like it will provide an early test for whether Elon Musk-owned Twitter will face meaningful legal consequences over how recklessly he’s operating the company.”

New York Times: Inside a Crypto Nemesis’ Campaign to Rein In the Industry. “In March, eight months before his cryptocurrency empire imploded, Sam Bankman-Fried joined a video call with Gary Gensler, a longtime financial regulator who now leads the Securities and Exchange Commission. The meeting didn’t go well.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 23, 2022 at 01:08AM
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New Mexico Public Television, Native Cinema Showcase, Google Doodles, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, November 22, 2022

New Mexico Public Television, Native Cinema Showcase, Google Doodles, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, November 22, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Albuquerque Journal: NMPBS digitizes its archive of over 8,000 items. “Two years and a half-million dollars. That’s what it has taken for New Mexico PBS to get their archive digitized…. Michael Kamins, supervising project manager at NMPBS, says the project brings together more than 8,000 items from public media stations across the state, including full television and radio programs, as well as interviews and footage documenting New Mexico’s social, political, artistic and cultural history between 1963 and 2020.”

EVENTS

Smithsonian: Online Native Cinema Showcase Brings Indigenous Films to Audiences Worldwide. “The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian’s Native Cinema Showcase returns to an online format Nov. 18–25 for American Indian Heritage Month. An annual celebration of the best in Indigenous film, the selections show how filmmakers are embracing their communities’ oral histories, knowledge and ancestral lands to seek guidance from the past and envision new paths for the future.” All films are free and available on demand. Two films require registration to view.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Google Celebrates 2022 World Cup With Doodle, New Game. “The animated Doodle features a pair of multi-colored cleats practicing their passing skills with a ball as the world turns its attention to the biggest tournament in global football. Fans who want to get into the action themselves can Google ‘World Cup Qatar 2022’ on their mobile device to compete with other fans around the world.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: How to Declutter Your Home Screen. “The home screen of your Android phone or iPhone probably shows evidence of this growing clutter: apps you forgot about, widgets you barely use, and shortcuts you’re not 100 percent sure about the origin of. Mobile home screens aren’t unlike the desktop screens of Windows and macOS computers, with a tendency to attract all kinds of digital detritus that builds up over time. With that in mind, it’s worth committing yourself to some regular home screen decluttering.”

Make Tech Easier: How to View Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and More Without an Account. “Popular apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit now prevent non-account holders from freely accessing content on their networks. Luckily, there are a few workarounds that can help you bypass the restriction. In this tutorial, we show you how to view posts and more without signing up.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: How Colleges and Sports-Betting Companies ‘Caesarized’ Campus Life. “In order to reap millions of dollars in fees, universities are partnering with betting companies to introduce their students and sports fans to online gambling.”

New York Magazine: Where Have the FTX Depositors Gone to Panic? Distraught users — and scammers — are flooding Telegram.. “In the good times, FTX’s official presence on Telegram helped the company cultivate a reputation for responsive customer service. When things were falling apart at FTX, they fell apart here, too, as thousands of panicked users flooded its support channels.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Teen Vogue: John Fetterman and Social Media: How His Campaign Built a Winning Strategy. “If you’ve been entertained by Senator-elect John Fetterman’s social media presence and trolling of his Trump-backed opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz, you partly have Sophie Ota to thank. At 26, Ota serves as the digital director of Fetterman for PA, a campaign that has harnessed the power of humor and authenticity to set a new standard for the use of social media in politics — and managed to flip a Senate seat in purple Pennsylvania.”

Mashable: Twitter’s copyright system seemingly broken as full-length movies are posted on platform. “Cracks are starting to show on Twitter as users have begun to post entire movies on the platform, with many yet to be taken down. A sign that the social media giant’s copyright violation policy is not properly being enforced.”

Wall Street Journal: FTX Auditors Doubled as Crypto Industry Cheerleaders. “There is a race among crypto brokers, lenders and exchanges to calm their anxious clients by getting the blessing of an auditor. But the type of audits they are getting and the collapse of an audited firm such as FTX shows how far that sector is from a traditional regulated, scrutinized industry.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Diggit Magazine: How Google Arts & Culture is challenging and reproducing ‘The Museum’. “Google launched the Google Arts & Culture project — ‘GAC’ from now on — in 2011 in collaboration with 17 museums (Delacroix, 2018). Today, the project contains content from over two thousand museums and has expanded its activities towards archives, heritage sites and other cultural organizations.” To say that this is a deep dive is to describe Niagara Falls as a bit damp.

UC Irvine: UCI-led study finds virtual green space exposure beneficial to pregnant women. “Pregnant women exposed to a green space environment in a virtual reality setting experienced decreases in blood pressure and improvements in mental health and well-being, according to a study led by the University of California, Irvine.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 22, 2022 at 06:32PM
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