New researches: 2023

Sunday, December 31, 2023

Google, Microsoft Copilot, LinkedIn, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 31, 2023

Google, Microsoft Copilot, LinkedIn, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 31, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Roundtable: Google New Years Eve Search Algorithm Update. “There has been a ton of chatter within the SEO community over the past couple of days related to extreme ranking volatility within the Google Search results. The Google tracking tools have also picked up the volatility over the past day or so. There is no way Google pushed out a confirmed update this week but hey, Google’s search results live a life of their own.”

The Verge: Microsoft’s Copilot app is now available on iOS. “Just days after introducing a Copilot app on Android, Microsoft has rolled out an app for its AI chatbot on iOS and iPadOS. Both versions of the app are now available to download from the Apple App Store.”

Times of India: How Elon Musk’s X is the reason for LinkedIn’s rise in ad revenue. “Brands are flocking to the platform, sending ad prices skyrocketing as companies reportedly pull their advertising money from X. LinkedIn’s ad revenue jumped 10.1% in 2023, reaching nearly $4 billion, according to estimates from research group Insider Intelligence, as per a report in The Financial Times. Analysts predict this strong growth will continue, with a further 14.1% increase expected in 2024.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: News outlets join forces to create AI charter. “In a year marked by rapid advances in generative artificial intelligence, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has joined with sixteen journalism organizations from around the world to forge a landmark ethical framework for addressing challenges posed by the transformative technology.”

New York Daily News: New Jersey police tell public to ignore AI-generated story about Christmas shooting that never happened. “New Jersey’s Bridgeton Police Department is asking the public to ignore an inflammatory story about a Christmas Day shooting that never actually happened. ‘This “article” is circulating social media and was brought to BPD’s attention,’ cops wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. ‘It is entirely false. Nothing even similar to this story occurred on or around Christmas, or even in recent memory for the area they described.'”

BBC: Austrian government launches repair scheme for electronic goods. “Has your washing machine broken down, or is your electric kettle, laptop or mobile phone refusing to work? Well if you live in Austria, the government will pay up to €200 ($219; £173) towards getting it repaired. The Repair Bonus voucher scheme is aimed at trying to get people to move away from throwing away old electrical appliances – and focusing on getting things mended.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TubeFilter: Revolt accused of “Ponzi-ish” scheme as its manager, Ryan Piasente, faces sexual assault allegations. “Revolt, a merch company that has released drops with creators like MrBeast, Valkyrae, Tubbo, Corpse Husband, Anthony Padilla, and Nihachu, has been accused of running a ‘Ponzi-ish’ scheme that’s left it owing significant amounts of money to an unknown number of creators. And its head, Ryan Piasente–who also manages the well-known YouTube group Misfits–is facing accusations of sexual assault and misusing money from Revolt’s company coffer.”

South China Morning Post: Singapore PM Lee issues warning after deepfake video of him ‘promoting’ crypto investment emerges. “Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has urged the public not to respond to deepfake videos of him promising guaranteed returns on investments after one such video emerged on social media platforms in recent days.”

Associated Press: Michigan and Alabama restricting how players view game film ahead of Rose Bowl over sign-stealing fears . “The Alabama Crimson Tide caused a stir at the Rose Bowl when they revealed they’ve restricted their players’ game film viewing on iPads heading into the College Football Playoff semifinal against Michigan because of concerns about hacking. As it turns out, Michigan is also taking precautions.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: The Year the Millennial Internet Died . “YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING how we got here. How all of this happened. Don’t. It’s a fool’s errand in a time of spectacular fools, crooks, and private equity monsters. My internet is dying. It’s been dying for some time. Everything I knew about it will soon vanish, its histories regurgitated via 30-second TikTok videos shared in group chats, eulogized annually in the cocoon of darkened movie theaters, where tickets run $30.”

New York Times: ChatGPT Helps, and Worries, Business Consultants, Study Finds. “Studies this year of ChatGPT in legal analysis and white-collar writing chores have found that the bot helps lower-performing people more than it does the most skilled. Dr. Lakhani and his colleagues found the same effect in their study. On a task that required reasoning based on evidence, however, ChatGPT was not helpful at all.”

Android Police: Google’s issue with excessive advertisements is only growing worse. “From invasive Search results to obnoxiously long, unskippable videos, Google’s services are often packed to the brim with content designed to sell you stuff. YouTube, Google Search, and Google TV all suffer from excessive ad saturation, worse than ever before, and it’s starting to make these services unbearable to use.” Gee, why am I thinking of AltaVista all of a sudden? 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 live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Mastodon Gizmos, and MegaGladys.

December 31, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Saturday, December 30, 2023

Reddit, Twitch, 2023 Media Stories, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 30, 2023

Reddit, Twitch, 2023 Media Stories, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Guardian: ‘Front page of the internet’: how social media’s biggest user protest rocked Reddit. “In June, thousands of Reddit communities plunged into darkness – making their pages inaccessible to the public in a mass protest of corporate policy changes. Users of a social network lambasting it is nothing new; but Reddit’s moderators rebelled on a scale never seen before. Six months later, users and researchers say reforms sparked by the movement are still rippling through the social network, which bills itself as the ‘front page of the internet’.”

Tubefilter: Kai Cenat was Twitch’s top streamer in 2023. “As for which creators are bringing in the most viewership, xQc has finally been knocked from the #1 spot. For the past three years, he’s been Twitch’s most-watched streamer, but this year, he was overtaken by three people: Kai Cenat, who’s #1 with 109 million hours of watch time; Gaules, with 106 million hours; and ibai, with 106 million hours. xQc is in fourth place, with 89 million hours. Cenat snatching top spot isn’t all that surprising considering his channel alone accounted for 2.5% of all global watch hours on Twitch in February.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Drum: From Musk’s mayhem to TikTok testimony, here’s our top 20 media stories of 2023. “From the demise of X under the leadership of mercurial billionaire Elon Musk to a landmark Google antitrust case, the question of Threads’ viability and the promise of the merger that is Max, these are the stories that defined the media landscape in 2023.”

Search Engine Journal: ChatGPT Vs. Bard Vs. Bing: What Are The Differences? (Festive Flashback). “If you want to search for information, need help fixing bugs in your CSS, or want to create something as simple as a robots.txt file, chatbots may be able to help. They’re also wonderful for topic ideation, allowing you to draft more interesting emails, newsletters, blog posts, and more. But which chatbot should you use and learn to master? Which platform provides accurate, concise information? Let’s find out.”

WIRED: Generative AI Learned Nothing From Web 2.0 . “…for all the novelty and speed, generative AI’s problems are also painfully familiar. OpenAI and its rivals racing to launch new AI models are facing problems that have dogged social platforms, that earlier era-shaping new technology, for nearly two decades. Companies like Meta never did get the upper hand over mis- and disinformation, sketchy labor practices, and nonconsensual pornography, to name just a few of their unintended consequences. Now those issues are gaining a challenging new life, with an AI twist.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Chinese Spy Agency Rising to Challenge the C.I.A.. “The ambitious Ministry of State Security is deploying A.I. and other advanced technology to go toe-to-toe with the United States, even as the two nations try to pilfer each other’s scientific secrets.”

AFP: Legal battles loom as first Mickey Mouse copyright ends. “Anyone is now free to copy, share, reuse and adapt ‘Steamboat Willie’ and ‘Plane Crazy’ —another 1928 Disney animation—and the early versions of the characters that appear within them, including Mickey and Minnie. A vital caveat is that later versions of the characters, like those in 1940 film ‘Fantasia,’ are not in the public domain, and cannot be copied without a visit from Disney’s lawyers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

San Francisco Chronicle: Errors found in key database tracking foreign influence in U.S. politics. “[OpenSecrets] is a widely used source of campaign finance and lobbying data cited by lawmakers, journalists and researchers. But since at least Dec. 11, some of its foreign lobbying data has differed from the amounts published by the Justice Department, and some of the contribution totals have not matched its own desegregated data.”

PsyPost: New study investigates psychological correlates of emoji use and preference. “In this work, Janine Carroll examined the association between mental health, personality, prosocial behavior, and emoji use. A total of 222 participants, recruited from the University of Chester and Prolific Academic, participated in this research. Participants completed measures of anxiety and depression, prosocial behavior, Big 5 personality traits, and various aspects of emoji usage, including frequency, motivation, attitudes, and preferences (e.g., positive and negative emojis).”

Washington Post: Microsoft says its AI is safe. So why does it keep slashing people’s throats?. “Lately, ordinary users of technology such as Windows and Google have been inundated with AI. We’re wowed by what the new tech can do, but we also keep learning that it can act in an unhinged manner, including by carrying on wildly inappropriate conversations and making similarly inappropriate pictures. For AI actually to be safe enough for products used by families, we need its makers to take responsibility by anticipating how it might go awry and investing to fix it quickly when it does. In the case of these awful AI images, Microsoft appears to lay much of the blame on the users who make them.” Good afternoon, Internet…

December 31, 2023 at 02:06AM
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The Seattle Rocket, Metaverse, NFTs, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, December 30, 2023

The Seattle Rocket, Metaverse, NFTs, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, December 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Seattle Times: Archives of The Rocket, influential Seattle music magazine, go digital. “Acting as a hub of information before the digital age, the magazine helped bring together key bands like Nirvana and Alice in Chains through its classified ads, while its writers and artists helped the growing music community make sense of, and rally around, the raw new sounds being created…. Now, all 336 issues — more than 16,000 pages of Seattle music history spanning 1979 to 2000 — have been digitized, made searchable by keyword and are available to the public for free.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Marketplace: What happened to the Metaverse?. “It wasn’t all that long ago when ‘the Metaverse’ was being pushed hard in certain corners of the Big Tech universe. What was it? It wasn’t always clear — something about a virtual but realistic place where, we were told, we’d be hanging out with friends, holding office meetings and even buying property. Contributing to the hype: a tech giant neck deep in a PR mess and eager for a rebrand.”

How-To Geek: A Look Back on NFTs: Where Are They Now?. “Going into 2023, things weren’t looking good for NFTs. Between 2022 and 2023, the average price of NFT sales dropped by 92 percent, according to a Chainalysis report. This meant that an NFT once worth $1,000 was now only worth $80. Evidently, things had gone quite sour for the NFT market. NFTs can still hold value, but their current prices pale in comparison to those of 2021 and 2022, as is evident via the aforementioned Chainalysis statistic. 2023 has shown just how fragile the NFT industry is.”

WRAL: Major pornographic website blocks NC access days before new law takes effect. “One of the world’s largest pornography websites blocked access to at least some North Carolina users Thursday ahead of a new state law taking effect that will require adult websites to verify user ages. Instead of complying or providing its usual content, Pornhub redirected North Carolina users to a message asking them to reach out to lawmakers and oppose the new law.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Boing Boing: One man’s horrific saga of inadvertantly destroying municipal infrastructure with superabsorbent water beads. “With viral challenges getting bigger and broader in scope, it can be easy to forget the consequences they have on people around them. The cautionary tale of French TikToker Cyrilschr, however, serves as a sobering warning to those seeking to get a little too big for their britches. In 2020, he filled a bathtub with Orbeez–superabsorbent expanding toys–for views, only to then be left with the problem of disposing of them.”

Ars Technica: AI-created “virtual influencers” are stealing business from humans. “Pink-haired Aitana Lopez is followed by more than 200,000 people on social media. She posts selfies from concerts and her bedroom, while tagging brands such as hair care line Olaplex and lingerie giant Victoria’s Secret. Brands have paid about $1,000 a post for her to promote their products on social media—despite the fact that she is entirely fictional.”

Meduza: Latvian government blocks all Yandex sites. “Latvia’s electronic media regulator (NEPLP) announced Thursday that it has blocked access to all websites affiliated with Yandex. According to the agency’s head, Ivar Abolins, the company’s audio streaming service, Yandex Music, will also be blocked as it contains podcasts and other content ‘created by sanctioned individuals in Russia.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Hartford Courant: Bring Me Back Home: New registry seeks to prevent tragedy when loved ones go missing. “When Connecticut State Trooper Stephanie Cortes read that 80-year-old Anne Page of Willington had been found dead on Christmas Eve, her first thought went to the Bring Me Back Home Program — a new, voluntary registry designed to aid law enforcement in locating Connecticut residents with Alzheimer’s, dementia and other cognitive or developmental challenges that raise the risk of wandering and disorientation.”

ABC News: Prosecutors say there’s no need for a second trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. “A second trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on charges not in the cryptocurrency fraud case presented to a jury that convicted him in November is not necessary, prosecutors told a judge Friday.”

Bleeping Computer: Malware abuses Google OAuth endpoint to ‘revive’ cookies, hijack accounts. “In late November 2023, BleepingComputer reported on two information-stealers, namely Lumma and Rhadamanthys, who claimed they could restore expired Google authentication cookies stolen in attacks. These cookies would allow the cybercriminals to gain unauthorized access to Google accounts even after the legitimate owners have logged out, reset their passwords, or their session has expired. BleepingComputer has contacted Google multiple times over a month with questions about these claims and how they plan to mitigate the issue, but we never received a response.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NPR: Artificial intelligence can find your location in photos, worrying privacy experts. “A student project has revealed yet another power of artificial intelligence — it can be extremely good at geolocating where photos are taken. The project, known as Predicting Image Geolocations (or PIGEON, for short) was designed by three Stanford graduate students in order to identify locations on Google Street View. But when presented with a few personal photos it had never seen before, the program was, in the majority of cases, able to make accurate guesses about where the photos were taken.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

New York Times: Need a Home for 80,000 Puzzles? Try an Italian Castle.. This article is a gift link. “Until recently, the Miller collection resided at Puzzle Palace in Boca Raton, Fla….Puzzles occupied even the bathrooms. Then last year, on a whim, the Millers bought a 15th-century, 52-room castle in Panicale, a hamlet in central Italy. They packed their puzzle collection into five 40-foot shipping containers and, for their own transit, booked a cruise from Miami to Rome.” Good morning, Internet…

December 30, 2023 at 06:33PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/O5IRex3

Friday, December 29, 2023

Google, 2023 Social Media, 2023 AI, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, December 29, 2023

Google, 2023 Social Media, 2023 AI, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, December 29, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Journal: Google Tests Longer Search Result Snippets Again. “Google seems to be testing longer search result snippets again. We saw this recently with Google Ads, some really long Google Ads descriptions and now we are seeing it with the organic/free listings.”

Associated Press: The year of social media soul-searching: Twitter dies, X and Threads are born and AI gets personal. “We lost Twitter and got X. We tried out Bluesky and Mastodon (well, some of us did). We fretted about AI bots and teen mental health. We cocooned in private chats and scrolled endlessly as we did in years past. For social media users, 2023 was a year of beginnings and endings, with some soul-searching in between. Here’s a look back at some of the biggest stories in social media in 2023 — and what to watch for next year.”

Route Fifty: After an action-packed year, 2024 will be another blockbuster year for AI. “Taylor Swift is Time magazine’s person of the year. Sam Altman is its CEO of the year. And 2023, according to the publication, is the year governments began taking artificial intelligence seriously. And indeed, it has been a banner year for executive orders and policies mandating the technology’s responsible use. State and local governments have issued their own guidelines and action plans, have dabbled with generative AI-driven pilot projects and instructed agencies to identify effective use cases.”

USEFUL STUFF

Larry Ferlazzo: This Week’s Free & Useful Artificial Intelligence Tools For The Classroom. “At least, for now, I’m going to make this a weekly feature which will highlight additions to THE BEST NEW – & FREE – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS THAT COULD BE USED IN THE CLASSROOM.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CODART: Exhibiting Sustainably: M Leuven and Its Green Book. “In this second article in CODART’s series on sustainability in museums, we will be focusing on sustainability in exhibitions. What does it involve and how does it affect the curator’s work CODART spoke to Marjan Debaene of M Leuven, a museum with a comprehensive sustainability policy and a Green Book that it has developed to translate this policy into good practice.”

Internet Archive Blog: Public Domain Day 2024 Remix Contest: The Internet Archive is Looking For Creative Short Films Made By You!. “We are looking for filmmakers and artists of all levels to create and upload short films of 2–3 minutes to the Internet Archive to help us celebrate Public Domain Day at our celebrations on January 24 (in-person screening & party) & January 25 (virtual celebration), 2024! Our short film contest serves as a platform for filmmakers to explore, remix, and breathe new life into the timeless gems that have entered the public domain.”

Mother Jones: Is Dumping Twitter Your New Year’s Resolution?. “Most users have stayed. The site still hums with activity, and is still the closest thing to a place of centralized discourse. But the numbers show a substantial share have departed: some 15% of users left since Musk took over last October; ad revenue is down by 54% over the same period. Staying does feel bad. Logging on to send little tweets while knowing you are playing some sliver of a part in enabling a petulant billionaire, however minuscule and indirect, is at a minimum embarrassing.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

London Free Press: London ‘master con man’ outed after online event featuring Elon Musk. “Benjamin Zev co-hosted a virtual debate on the social media platform X featuring billionaire owner Elon Musk, would-be U.S. presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, alt-right radio broadcaster Alex Jones and other high-profile guests earlier this month…. Less than two weeks after co-hosting the largest-ever Twitter event, Zev disappeared from social media without a trace, leaving his wide-ranging network of lawyers, political insiders, journalists and entrepreneurs baffled. They would soon learn that Zev isn’t a lawyer, never worked for the Department of Justice and was lying about his real name.”

Ars Technica: Google agrees to settle Chrome incognito mode class action lawsuit. “Google has indicated that it is ready to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 over its Chrome browser’s Incognito mode. Arising in the Northern District of California, the lawsuit accused Google of continuing to ‘track, collect, and identify [users’] browsing data in real time’ even when they had opened a new Incognito window.”

TorrentFreak: Reckless DMCA Deindexing Pushes NASA’s Artemis Towards Black Hole. “The crew of Artemis 2 are preparing to become the first humans to fly to the moon since 1972. The Artemis program faces many challenges but allowing people to learn about the program should not be one of them. Targeting the word ‘Artemis’ no matter what the context, a reckless anti-piracy sweep has demanded Google deindexing against dozens of innocent platforms for simply trying to report on mankind’s quest for knowledge.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: A.I. Can Make Art That Feels Human. Whose Fault Is That?. “A.I. cannot innovate. All it can produce are prompt-driven approximations and reconstitutions of preexisting materials. If you believe that culture is an imaginative human endeavor, then there should be nothing to fear, except that — what do you know? — a lot of humans have not been imagining anything more substantial.” This article is a gift link so you should be able to read it without paywall.

Hackaday: Generating 3D Scenes From Just One Image. “The LucidDreamer project ties a variety of functions into a pipeline that can take a source image (or generate one from a text prompt) and “lift” its content into 3D, creating highly-detailed Gaussian splats that look great and can even be navigated. Gaussian splatting is a method used to render NeRFs (Neural Radiance Fields), which are themselves a method of generating complex scenes from sparse 2D sources, and doing it quickly.” Good morning, Internet…

December 29, 2023 at 06:32PM
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Thursday, December 28, 2023

Google Chrome, Bluesky, Driving Direction Errors, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 28, 2023

Google Chrome, Bluesky, Driving Direction Errors, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Chrome’s password safety tool will now automatically run in the background. “Google’s Safety Check feature for Chrome, which, among other things, checks the internet to see if any of your saved passwords have been compromised, will now ‘run automatically in the background’ on desktop, the company said in a blog post on Thursday. The constant checks could mean that you’re alerted about a password that you should change sooner than you would have before.”

TechCrunch: Bluesky rolls out an in-app video and music player and a new ‘hide post’ feature. “The new video and music player works with YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify and Twitch embeds. Unlike on X, where autoplay on videos is the default setting, Bluesky’s in-app player won’t autoplay content. If users want to watch or listen to the content, they will have to trigger it with a tap.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: How to take advantage of Chrome’s side panel. “…when Chrome added a side panel that would give access to various features, I noted this new option, filed it away in the back of my brain and ignored it for several weeks. But now, I’ve taken another look — and I think this is something I should try. Chrome’s side panel offers immediate access to several useful apps, and it’s probably a good idea to explore what they are and whether the sidebar is a good way to access them.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

ABC News (Australia): Quairading shire erects signs telling travellers to ignore GPS maps including Google. “A frustrated council in Western Australia has erected signs warning drivers against using Google maps after GPS-based directions repeatedly sent travellers down unsafe roads…. The issue has frustrated the Quairading shire for the past eight years.”

WIRED: The Hollywood Strikes Stopped AI From Taking Your Job. But for How Long?. “Throughout 2023, many trades and professions, from painters to coders and beyond, found themselves vulnerable to being replaced by machine learning. IBM’s CEO estimated out loud that some 7,800 jobs at the company could be done by bots in the next five years. A Goldman Sachs report from late March estimated nearly 300,000 jobs globally could be affected by automation. Radiologists, journalists (gulp), tax preparers—everyone, it seemed, spent at least part of 2023 wondering if robots were coming for their jobs.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: GTA 5 source code reportedly leaked online a year after Rockstar hack. “The source code for Grand Theft Auto 5 was reportedly leaked on Christmas Eve, a little over a year after the Lapsus$ threat actors hacked Rockstar games and stole corporate data. Links to download the source code were shared on numerous channels, including Discord, a dark web website, and a Telegram channel that the hackers previously used to leak stolen Rockstar data.”

Centre Daily Times: Inside the Pennsylvania court case pitting a genealogist against Ancestry.com. “Are they the property of the commonwealth? Or are the documents — which include birth and death certificates, veterans’ burial cards, and slave records — fully controlled by a private company? That question has pitted a New York City-based professional genealogist against the Pennsylvania agency in charge of a vast array of historical documents and artifacts, as well as Ancestry.com, an online genealogy company used by millions of people to search for family and other records.”

Indian Express: FIU issues notice to 9 offshore crypto platforms, writes to MeiTY for blocking of URLs. “The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Finance Ministry has issued show cause notices to nine offshore cryptocurrency and virtual digital assets platforms, like Binance and Kucoin, for non-compliance with anti-money laundering law. The FIU has also written to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block the URLs of these nine entities that are operating illegally without complying with the provisions of the PML Act in India.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: Avert Your Eyes, Avoid Responsibility and Just Blame TikTok. “We’re in a season of hand-wringing and scapegoating over social media, especially TikTok, with many Americans and politicians missing that two things can be true at once: Social media can have an outsize and sometimes pernicious influence on society, and lawmakers can unfairly use it as an excuse to deflect legitimate criticisms.”

National Catholic Reporter: Why I finally left Twitter (aka ‘X’)
. “I am now among this group of people who will no longer abide the hate-mongering algorithms; the Wild-West-like trolling; the rise in antisemitism, racism, homophobia and transphobia; and the absence of virtually any constructive discourse. Musk’s reinstatement of previously banned accounts is emblematic of the shifting context and tone of the platform.” Good afternoon, Internet…

December 29, 2023 at 01:34AM
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Ethical Book Search, Artifact Repatriations, FTC, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, December 28, 2023

Ethical Book Search, Artifact Repatriations, FTC, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, December 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Discovered via Mastodon: Ethical Book Search. From the front page: “You would prefer not to spend your money on a company that avoids paying taxes, or treats the people who work for them badly, or is damaging the environment. We make this as easy as possible for you by recommending book sellers who are much more responsible than some of their less reputable competitors and enabling you to search them all with one click.” Basically it’s a metasearch for specific booksellers.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

ProPublica: The Remains of Thousands of Native Americans Were Returned to Tribes This Year. “American museums and universities repatriated more ancestral remains and sacred objects to tribal nations this year than at any point in the past three decades, transferring ownership of an estimated 18,800 Native American ancestors, institutions reported. And more repatriations are forthcoming.”

FTC: Deadline extended for comments on FTC’s proposed ban on junk fees. “In October 2023, the FTC proposed a rule that would prohibit junk fees – hidden charges and bogus fees that cost consumers tens of billions of dollars each year and undercut honest businesses. The FTC wants your feedback on its proposed Trade Regulation Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees and has extended the deadline to February 7th.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: AI Is Telling Bedtime Stories to Your Kids Now. “The main version of ChatGPT has, since its launch last year, been able to write a children’s story, but GPTs allow parents—or anyone, really—to constrain the topic and start with specific prompts, such as a child’s name. This means anyone can generate personalized stories starring their kid and their favorite character—meaning no one needs to wait for Ludo to drop fresh content. That said, the stories churned out by AI aren’t anywhere as good as the show itself, and raise legal and ethical concerns.”

Tubefilter: Ten of YouTube’s top makers built each other high-tech gifts for a Secret Santa exchange. “As part of the exchange, all participants uploaded behind-the-scenes videos depicting the construction of their respective gifts. The results of the Secret Santa vary wildly depending on which creators are involved. Some of the presents are flat-out ridiculous, others encourage creativity, and some even seem helpful.”

New York Times: This N.Y.U. Student Owns a $6 Million Crypto Mine. His Secret Is Out.. “Jerry Yu has the trappings of what the Chinese call second-generation rich. He boasts a Connecticut prep-school education. He lives in a Manhattan condominium bought for $8 million from Jeffrey R. Immelt, the former General Electric chief executive. And he is the majority owner of a Bitcoin mine in Texas, acquired last year for more than $6 million.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: AI companies would be required to disclose copyrighted training data under new bill. “Two lawmakers filed a bill requiring creators of foundation models to disclose sources of training data so copyright holders know their information was taken. The AI Foundation Model Transparency Act — filed by Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Don Beyer (D-VA) — would direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to establish rules for reporting training data transparency.”

WSYX: Ohio’s new social media law takes effect in January. “A new Ohio law aimed at forcing social media companies to get verifiable parental consent for children under 16 is set to go into effect in mid-January. The Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act was passed by the General Assembly in July.”

Rolling Stone: Kevin Hart Sues YouTuber Tasha K for Extortion. “Kevin Hart is taking legal action against his former assistant and controversial YouTuber Tasha K over an alleged extortion surrounding a ‘defamatory’ interview. On Tuesday, the actor filed the complaint in L.A. Superior Court alleging that Tasha K, born Latasha Kebe, asked for a $250,000 ransom so that she not publish a ‘defamatory’ interview with his former personal assistant Miesha Shakes.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Physician’s Weekly: Hispanic, Indigenous Americans Undercaptured in National Cancer Database. “Hispanic and American Indian or Alaska Native (AI/AN) individuals diagnosed with breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancer have been undercaptured in the National Cancer Database (NCDB), but their representation is improving, according to a study published online Dec. 27 in JAMA Network Open.”

Associated Press: Social media companies made $11 billion in US ad revenue from minors, Harvard study finds. “Social media companies collectively made over $11 billion in U.S. advertising revenue from minors last year, according to a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health published on Wednesday. The researchers say the findings show a need for government regulation of social media since the companies that stand to make money from children who use their platforms have failed to meaningfully self-regulate.”

The Conversation: The AI industry is on the verge of becoming another boys’ club. We’re all going to lose out if it does. “Unfortunately, the omission of women from the history of STEM isn’t a new phenomenon. Women have been missing from these narratives for centuries. In the wake of recent AI developments, we now have a choice: are we going to leave women out of these conversations as well – even as they continue to make massive contributions to the AI industry? Doing so risks leading us into the same fallacy that established computing itself as a ‘man’s world’. The reality, of course, is quite different.” Good morning, Internet…

December 28, 2023 at 06:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/DQUYdKi

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Political Deepfakes, WordPress, Google Advertising, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 27, 2023

Political Deepfakes, WordPress, Google Advertising, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Associated Press: As social media guardrails fade and AI deepfakes go mainstream, experts warn of impact on elections . “Nearly three years after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the false election conspiracy theories that drove the violent attack remain prevalent on social media and cable news: suitcases filled with ballots, late-night ballot dumps, dead people voting. Experts warn it will likely be worse in the coming presidential election contest.”

Search Engine Journal: WordPress Migration Guides Undermining Divi, Elementor And Wix?. “WordPress is creating guides and tools to help publishers migrate to their block based editor Gutenberg and away from commercial WordPress page builders and private closed source content management systems like Wix. While it’s understandable that WordPress might want to help publishers and businesses migrate away from Wix, some perceive it as a somewhat controversial move to create a guide to undermine software publishers who are a part of the WordPress ecosystem itself.”

USEFUL STUFF

Tom’s Guide: How to opt out of Google Ad Topics for greater privacy. “Google recently launched its new Topics API as a part of Google’s new Privacy Sandbox. … Advertisers use this data to display tailored ads, hoping you’ll interact with the ad and make a purchase. While some individuals can discover new products with the ads, there are others who are uncomfortable sharing their personal data with who knows what. So, if you want to enjoy greater privacy and are not interested in seeing personalized ads, this guide, where we discuss how to opt out of Google Ad Topics, is for you.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

TechCrunch: TechCrunch’s favorite apps of 2023. “As 2023 draws to a close, we reflect on some of our favorite apps that made everyday life a little easier this year. While flashy new AI apps and rival social networks were grabbing headlines, sometimes the most useful innovations fly under the radar. The apps on our best-of list may not have arrived in 2023, but they became daily staples that streamlined our work or brought small moments of joy. Read on for the top apps we turned to again and again when we needed to get things done, connect with others or simply have more fun.”

The Print (India): Meet India’s ‘dunki influencers’. They teach you how to cross Panama jungle, Mexico border. “[Jaspal] Sharma, who goes by the name of ‘2 Numbari USA Wala’, is only one of the dozens of Indians who are now taking to YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok to document their migration journeys. They offer tips, route suggestions and risk assessments to hop from one country to another, especially the tricky forest between Colombia and Panama and the US-Mexico border. In fact, Indians rank third when it comes to illegal immigration to the US.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: 4-year campaign backdoored iPhones using possibly the most advanced exploit ever. “Researchers on Wednesday presented intriguing new findings surrounding an attack that over four years backdoored dozens if not thousands of iPhones, many of which belonged to employees of Moscow-based security firm Kaspersky. Chief among the discoveries: the unknown attackers were able to achieve an unprecedented level of access by exploiting a vulnerability in an undocumented hardware feature that few if anyone outside of Apple and chip suppliers such as ARM Holdings knew of.”

New York Times: The Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over A.I. Use of Copyrighted Work. “The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement on Wednesday, opening a new front in the increasingly intense legal battle over the unauthorized use of published work to train artificial intelligence technologies.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Selfies and social media: how tourists indulge their influencer fantasies. “The expansion of social media and ubiquity of smartphone cameras has had a major impact on tourists’ behaviour. This has also led to what’s been called a selfie ‘tourist gaze’, creating photos where the traveller is at the forefront of images rather than the destination. Indeed, according to my research, increasingly, some tourists go somewhere to be spotted – to be observed by others both online and in person at these destinations.”

Larry Ferlazzo via EducationWeek: Larry Ferlazzo’s 9 Education Predictions for 2024 . “I’ve been publishing annual education-related predictions for over a decade now, usually in The Washington Post. Let’s just say that no one would have become rich by betting on my past predictions. Nevertheless, since being wrong has never stopped education pundits from continuing their pontifications, I figured it shouldn’t stop me, a practicing teacher, from continuing mine!”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

BBC: Firm develops jet fuel made entirely from human poo. “Chemists at a lab in Gloucestershire have turned the waste into kerosene. James Hygate, Firefly Green Fuels CEO, said: ‘We wanted to find a really low-value feedstock that was highly abundant. And of course poo is abundant.’ [editor’s note: ] Independent tests by international aviation regulators found it was nearly identical to standard fossil jet fuel.” Good afternoon, Internet…

December 28, 2023 at 02:09AM
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Maui Fires Money Tracker, Sony Digital Content, MyHeritage, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, December 27, 2023

Maui Fires Money Tracker, Sony Digital Content, MyHeritage, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, December 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Honolulu Civil Beat: New Database Tracks Millions In Donations And Government Funds For Maui. “As part of Civil Beat’s ongoing coverage of the wildfire relief and recovery effort, we’ve created the Maui Fires Money Tracker to help publicly track the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been channeled to the Valley Isle from both non-government and government sources. This is an evolving record and is not a definitive accounting of funds for Maui and will be updated regularly.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TweakTown: Sony won’t remove Discovery TV content from PlayStation customers for ‘at least 30 months’ “Weeks ago, Sony announced that it would be deleting over 750 pieces of Discovery digital video content from the PlayStation Store. This wasn’t just a de-listing, but would have been an outright deletion and removal of all of the affected shows….Now Sony has confirmed that the deletion will no longer take place.”

Genealogy’s Star: MyHeritage Releases AI Record Finder and AI Biographer — Two Groundbreaking Features That Transform Genealogy Using Artificial Intelligence. “Some of the AI features that have been implemented over the past few years by MyHeritage.com include Record Matches, Smart Matching, DNA tools and a bundle of photo enhancement programs. But now, there is a giant leap in even more sophisticated chatbot features for MyHeritage.com.”

Reuters: Yandex’s restructuring deal expected to be delayed to next year. “The completion of Nasdaq-listed Russian tech company Yandex’s restructuring is expected to be postponed until early 2024, three sources familiar with the negotiations told Reuters on Monday.”

USEFUL STUFF

PC World: Raspberry Pi: The best beginner projects. “With more than 45 million units sold, the Raspberry Pi is not only by far the most successful single-board computer, but also the best-selling British computer ever. The single-board computer (“SBC”) has also won countless awards. So it’s no wonder that the tiny developer board from the British Raspberry Pi Foundation also attracts many beginners and novices with its favorable price. But after buying it, new owners often wonder what exactly they should do with the tiny board.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Route Fifty: GSA partners with state, local governments on text alert service. “The General Services Administration’s pilot to send customized text reminders to individuals at critical moments during the enrollment and renewal of federal benefit programs—such as upcoming application deadlines—has onboarded two states and two distinct cities and counties, GSA announced Thursday. State and local governments can also use the service to send messages to their own staff, GSA says.”

Wall Street Journal: Your Kid Prefers YouTube to Netflix. That’s a Problem for Streamers.. “Netflix’s share of U.S. streaming viewership by 2- to 11-year-olds fell to 21% in September from 25% two years earlier, according to Nielsen. Meanwhile, YouTube’s share jumped to 33% from 29.4% over the same period. That reality is changing major streaming services’ approach to children’s entertainment, from what shows and movies they make to where they release them.”

Search Engine Journal: Top 42 Viral Videos Of All Time. “I generated the list from 2.6 million videos created by 624,000 accounts that all have more than 5 million views and 100,000 engagements using all available data. From the data I used, I estimate the odds of a video going viral are 3,192 to one.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Nikkei Asia: Japan to crack down on Apple and Google app store monopolies. “Japan is preparing regulations that would require tech giants like Apple and Google to allow outside app stores and payments on their mobile operating systems, in a bid to curb abuse of their dominant position in the Japanese market. Legislation slated to be sent to the parliament in 2024 would restrict moves by platform operators to keep users in the operators’ own ecosystems and shut out rivals, focusing mainly on four areas: app stores and payments, search, browsers, and operating systems.”

The Register: Cyber sleuths reveal how they infiltrate the biggest ransomware gangs. “Though it happens rarely, it’s always a good day when a ransomware group is taken down by law enforcement. Rarer still is a takedown where one gets a detailed look at the methods that were used in these infiltrations.”

Bleeping Computer: Integris Health patients get extortion emails after cyberattack. “Integris Health patients in Oklahoma are receiving blackmail emails stating that their data was stolen in a cyberattack on the healthcare network, and if they did not pay an extortion demand, the data would be sold to other threat actors. Integris Health is Oklahoma’s largest not-for-profit health network, operating hospitals, clinics, and urgent care throughout the state.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PBS News Hour: Teens reflect on how social media nearly ruined their friendship. “The addictive nature of social media doesn’t just have parents, lawmakers and advocates worried. Last year, more than half of U.S. teens said it would be difficult to give up social media, including TikTok and YouTube. The latest episode of our Student Reporting Labs series ‘Moments of Truth’ tells the story of one teen who faced this dilemma head-on with Instagram.” Video with full transcript. Good morning, Internet….

December 27, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Tuesday, December 26, 2023

SCOTUS Financial Disclosures, OpenAI, TikTok, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 26, 2023

SCOTUS Financial Disclosures, OpenAI, TikTok, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New search tool from ProPublica: Supreme Court Financial Connections. From the front page: “Every year, the Supreme Court’s nine justices fill out a form that discloses their financial connections to companies and people. Using our new database, you can now search for organizations and people that have paid the justices, reimbursed them for travel, given them gifts and more.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bleeping Computer: OpenAI rolls out imperfect fix for ChatGPT data leak flaw. “OpenAI has mitigated a data exfiltration bug in ChatGPT that could potentially leak conversation details to an external URL. According to the researcher who discovered the flaw, the mitigation isn’t perfect, so attackers can still exploit it under certain conditions.”

Techdirt: The Republican Push To Ban TikTok Has Very Little (And Dwindling) Real World Support. “The real GOP motivation for banning TikTok is lousy, and the implementation has been lousier. Most of the GOP bans on TikTok (which require endless billable legal hours to craft) so far have been bypassed by children in all of thirty seconds. Many of the bans have proven unconstitutional. And several of the state AG lawsuits against TikTok have proven to be baseless and largely incoherent. Regardless of motivation (and despite three years of breathless press coverage presenting the GOP efforts as good faith), actual support for such bans is small and shrinking.”

USEFUL STUFF

Online Journalism Blog: How to investigate companies: recommendations from Graham Barrow. “Graham Barrow has worked to prevent money laundering and fraud for decades — in recent years working with journalists to investigate companies. In a guest post he shares his tips with Tony Jarne on what you can do when you are following the money.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: Meet Flip, the Viral Video App Giving Away Free Stuff. ” Flip, a social video platform fixated on shopping has recently blazed a trail of confusion-tinged-delight across the internet. A referral program that rewards users with next-to-free merchandise has helped propel the platform into the top 25 most popular free US shopping apps on the iPhone, according to SensorTower—while sparking questions about the business model behind it.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

AFP: US Court Rules Twitter Breached Contract Over Failure To Pay Bonuses. “A US federal court ruled on Friday that social media company Twitter, now branded X, violated contracts by failing to pay annual performance bonuses it orally promised its workers. The breach-of-contract lawsuit was brought by former employer Mark Schobinger in June.”

KTLA: Google spent $1.2M lobbying against paying news publishers: LAT. “A California bill that would require large tech companies to pay news publishers for their content is on hold until at least next year, and it appears lobbying by those same companies played a role. The Los Angeles Times reports that Google spent $1.5 million lobbying state lawmakers between January and September, including $1.2 million for an advertisement attacking Assembly Bill 886, the California Journalism Preservation Act.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: I gave ChatGPT the last 13 years of Nieman Lab predictions. “In past years I’ve written my year-end predictions as articles, zines, or illustrations. This year my prediction comes in the form of a GPT: Nieman Lab Predictions GPT. I made a GPT and used retrieval augmentation to give the it access to the past 13 years of Nieman Lab year-end predictions. That’s 1,369 articles.”

TechXplore: Examining effects of mobile phone use on attention, reaction time, and working memory of office workers. “Writing in the International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics, a team from Iran has looked at mobile phone use on attention, reaction time, and the working memory of office workers. Fatemeh Sharmandemola, Gholamhossein Halvani, Sara Jambarsang, and Amir Houshang Mehrparvar of the Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences in Yazd, Iran, hoped to discover whether mobile phone use has an impact on cognitive function.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Open Source Scanner Scans The Slides. “What do you get when you join a slide projector and a digital camera? Filmolimo, an open source slide scanner. The scanner uses an M5Stack Fire, an ESP32 development board. Thanks to the ESP32, you can control the device via WiFi.” 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 live at Calishat.

December 27, 2023 at 02:00AM
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Introduction to Finite Mathematics, Bluesky, 2023 Tech, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, December 26, 2023

Introduction to Finite Mathematics, Bluesky, 2023 Tech, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, December 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Wolfram Blog: Get Down to Business with Finite Mathematics in Wolfram Language. “I am glad to announce the launch of Introduction to Finite Mathematics, a free interactive course that will help open the world of finite mathematics to students from any background. Topics are chosen to align with college courses on finite mathematics and are presented so that you can learn how to use either Wolfram Language or pen and paper to perform calculations.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Bluesky posts are finally open to the public. “Bluesky remains an invite-only decentralized Twitter alternative, but now, you don’t need to have an account and log in to be able to see posts on the platform, according to a blog post from Bluesky CEO Jay Graber. Now, anyone can easily see posts from both the web and from the Bluesky app.”

PC Magazine: Game Over: The Tech That Died in 2023. “Nothing lasts forever, especially in Silicon Valley. Products, services, and CEOs fizzle out regularly, many without any fanfare. Other endings catch us by surprise (10 years later, the demise of Google Reader still stings). Time marches on and corporate priorities shift. Here are the products and services that took a final bow in 2023, starting with the most headline-grabbing shutdowns and then a month-by-month breakdown.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Create a Free AI Avatar on TikTok. “TikTok has introduced AI avatar generation capabilities to its app, so you can easily create AI portraits of yourself. Here’s what you need to know about the feature, and how to use it.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Hürriyet Daily News: German archaeologist’s photo archive delivered to Türkiye. “Between 1953 and 1970, [Friedrich Karl] Dörner carried out various archaeological studies, especially on Mount Nemrut, Arsemia Ruins and Old Kahta Castle. … The photo archive was digitized with funding from the Gerda Henkel Foundation in Germany. The digital archive was delivered to the Adıyaman Culture and Tourism Directorate at a ceremony held on Dec. 22 in Adıyaman. Digital photographs will be kept at the Adıyaman Museum Directorate.”

CBC: How Nanalan’s viral TikTok success reunited the show’s creators after 15 years. “In 1999, Canadian puppeteers Jason Hopley and Jamie Shannon created Nanalan’ — a weird, whimsical and very wholesome children’s television series about a three-year-old girl named Mona, her ever-nurturing Nana and Nana’s dog, Russell. And while this beautiful and bizarre Canadian kids’ show has been off the air for 20 years, the internet has recently brought it back to life.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Rejected Play Store Fee Changes Due to Impact on Revenue, Epic Lawsuit Shows. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google considered changing its app store pricing model to circumvent a regulatory crackdown, but abandoned a proposal to charge a set fee per app after it became clear that could cost the company billions of dollars, according to documents released late Thursday.”

Associated Press: YouTube mom who gave parenting advice, Ruby Franke, pleads guilty in child abuse case. “A Utah mother of six who gave parenting advice on YouTube pleaded guilty Monday to child abuse charges and will go to prison for trying to convince her two youngest children they were evil, possessed and needed to be punished to repent. Ruby Franke stood shackled in gray and white jail clothing as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath before pleading guilty to each of her first three charges.”

New York Times: How Strangers Got My Email Address From ChatGPT’s Model. “My email address is not a secret. But the success of the researchers’ experiment should ring alarm bells because it reveals the potential for ChatGPT, and generative A.I. tools like it, to reveal much more sensitive personal information with just a bit of tweaking.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Wall Street Journal: How TikTok Brings War Home to Your Child. “The Wall Street Journal created [bots] to understand what TikTok shows young users about the conflict. Those bots, registered as 13-year-old users, browsed TikTok’s For You feed, the highly personalized, never-ending stream of content curated by the algorithm. Within hours after signing up, TikTok began serving some accounts highly polarized content, reflecting often extreme pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel positions about the conflict. Many stoked fear.”

Associated Press: AI pioneer says public discourse on intelligent machines must give ‘proper respect to human agency’. “She’s an important figure behind today’s artificial intelligence boom, but not all computer scientists thought Fei-Fei Li was on the right track when she came up with the idea for a giant visual database called ImageNet that took years to build. Li, now a founding director of Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, is out with a new memoir that recounts her pioneering work in curating the dataset that accelerated the computer vision branch of AI.”

VentureBeat: Apple quietly released an open source multimodal LLM in October. “With little fanfare, researchers from Apple and Columbia University released an open source multimodal LLM, called Ferret, in October 2023. At the time, the release — which included the code and weights, but for research use only, not a commercial license — did not receive much attention. But now that may be changing.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 26, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Monday, December 25, 2023

Texas Archives, Social Media, Google Maps, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 25, 2023

Texas Archives, Social Media, Google Maps, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Texas State Library and Archives Commission: New Online: Recent Updates to Finding Aids and Digital Images. “As our archives staff work on an ongoing basis to arrange, preserve, describe, and make available to the public the materials under our care, we spotlight new additions to the website in a regular feature from Out of the Stacks. The column lists new and revised finding aids recently made available online, along with fresh uploads to the Texas Digital Archive, our repository of electronic items.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Associated Press: The year of social media soul-searching: Twitter dies, X and Threads are born and AI gets personal. “We lost Twitter and got X. We tried out Bluesky and Mastodon (well, some of us did). We fretted about AI bots and teen mental health. We cocooned in private chats and scrolled endlessly as we did in years past. For social media users, 2023 was a year of beginnings and endings, with some soul-searching in between. Here’s a look back some of the biggest stories in social media in 2023 — and what to watch for next year.”

Times of Israel: After 2 months amid war, Google starts to reactivate live traffic updates on Waze, maps. “For the first time in some two months amid the war with the Hamas terror group, Google is starting to gradually reactivate live traffic updates for Google Maps and Waze in Israel.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Search Engine Roundtable: Pre-Christmas Intense Google Algorithm Ranking Volatility. “No one should be surprised to hear that I am reporting on some intense Google search ranking volatility starting this Friday, December 22nd, through the weekend, with things seeming to calm down today, Sunday, December 24th. Did Google push an algorithm update or tweak before the holiday break? Who knows, but there are signals of ranking volatility either way.”

Politico: Arizona creates own deep-fake election hoaxes to prepare for 2024. “After his key swing state became a magnet for election fraud conspiracy theories in the 2020 presidential election, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is leading a series of exercises to prepare the Grand Canyon State for a range of likely threats to next year’s vote, foremost among them the use of open access AI tools to amplify disinformation.”

WIRED: Pinterest Is Having a Moment. “In 2023, Pinterest had a moment—and that’s thanks to Gen Z-ers. They make up more than 40 percent of its active monthly users and are now the platform’s fastest growing demographic, outpacing the millennials who first discovered and popularized the platform with mood boards and wedding planning pins. Experts say Pinterest is also growing because it fills a different, more positive niche than other forms of social media, serving as a place for exploration and creativity rather than a race for likes and views.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CTV News: Sudbury senior loses life savings after clicking on social media ad. “Over the course of five months, he lost about $130,000 total after clicking on a social media ad that said a $250 investment could return thousands.”

TechCrunch: Google makes bid to resolve competition concerns in Germany over its automotive services bundling. “Following competition objections raised on Google in Germany this summer over bundling of services including Google Maps via its Android-based in-car infotainment system software, known as Google Automotive Services (GAS), the tech giant has made an offer of some service unbundling and the removal of contractual restrictions it applies to vehicle makers in a bid to settle the regulatory intervention.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: Let’s Rescue Book Lovers From This Online Hellscape. “Goodreads is broken. What began in 2007 as a promising tool for readers, authors, booksellers and publishers has become an unreliable, unmanageable, near-unnavigable morass of unreliable data and unfettered ill will. Of course, the internet offers no shortage of bad data and ill will but at its inception Goodreads promised something different: a gathering space where ardent readers could connect with writers and with one another, swapping impressions and sharing recommendations.”

IEEE Spectrum: Quantum Computing’s Hard, Cold Reality Check . “The quantum computer revolution may be further off and more limited than many have been led to believe. That’s the message coming from a small but vocal set of prominent skeptics in and around the emerging quantum computing industry.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 26, 2023 at 01:19AM
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Library of Congress, Twitter, American Journalism Project, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, December 25, 2023

Library of Congress, Twitter, American Journalism Project, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, December 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Library of Congress: Celebrating 5 Years of By the People. “By the People (BtP), the Library of Congress crowdsourced transcription program, is taking a moment this winter to look back on how we’ve grown and celebrate our 5th year! As we’ve shared in earlier birthday celebrations, BtP was originally incubated in 2018 by the LC Labs team and was designed to engage volunteers by inviting them to explore and transcribe documents from the Library’s digital collections.”

Washington Post: Elon Musk promised an anti-‘woke’ chatbot. It’s not going as planned.. “Two weeks after the Dec. 8 launch of Grok to paid subscribers of X, formerly Twitter, Musk is fielding complaints from the political right that the chatbot gives liberal responses to questions about diversity programs, transgender rights and inequality.”

Medium: Exploring emerging technologies: an update on our Product & AI Studio. “This summer, the American Journalism Project launched our new Product & AI Studio, a new program to explore the smart application of emerging technologies in local journalism…. Today, we’re excited to share an update on the progress the Product & AI Studio has made so far.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Search Engine Journal: Santa Tracker 2023: Google Vs. Microsoft, Bing, AWS, And NORAD. “Are you looking for examples of interactive content for brands? Or festive content that creatively promotes logistics and call center management? Say hello to Santa Tracker 2023. This article explores Google’s approach to interactive content experiences vs. the official 2023 NORAD Santa Tracker powered by Microsoft, Bing, Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Zillow.”

Malta Today: Electoral Office to scan all Malta buildings in Google-type mapping. “The electoral office is to carry out a €900,000 geo-mapping of Malta’s building units, in a Google-type photographic survey using low-emission cars. The Electoral Office said it wants to consolidate its records of addresses with spatially accurate points that also reflect the rapidly changing streetscapes of Malta.”

The Verge: Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content. “This latest clash over moderation comes after The Atlantic reported on Substack publications with ‘overt Nazi symbols’ in their logos, several from prominent white nationalists, and other posts on Substack supporting those views. McKenzie’s response explains that absent an incitement to violence, Substack’s ‘decentralized approach to content moderation’ response to that material is to publish it, monetize it, and continue to take a cut of the profits.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Europol: Action against digital skimming reveals 443 compromised online merchants. “Europol, law enforcement authorities from 17 countries and the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) have joined forces with the private sector partners, including Group-IB and Sansec, to fight digital skimming attacks. With the support of national Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT), the two-month action has enabled Europol and its partners to notify 443 online merchants that their customers’ credit card or payment card data had been compromised.”

Association of Health Care Journalists: Court rules California can share firearm owner data with researchers. “A California appeals court in November overturned a ruling that barred the state from sharing the personal information of registered gun owners for research purposes. The ruling, which overturned a San Diego Superior Court decision that such data-sharing violates privacy, was a win for the state’s firearm researchers, particularly the Firearm Violence Research Center based at UC Davis.”

Techdirt: Utah’s Top Court Says Government Can’t Portray Refusals To Unlock Phones As Incriminatory. “There’s been plenty of courtroom discussion about Fifth Amendment rights surrounding compelled decryption in recent years. Encryption is on by default on most devices these days. Law enforcement seems to believe all it needs is a warrant to compel decryption. Courts aren’t so sure.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

XDA Developers: Why LLMs like ChatGPT and Google Bard are bad at math. “When it comes to large language models (LLM), you might think they’re a silver bullet to most of your problems. You can have it plan your day or ask it almost anything, knowing it will do its utmost best to give you a comprehensive answer. However, there’s one thing you should never rely on an LLM for, and that’s math. To be clear, LLMs can be trained on large mathematical datasets to recognize patterns and, with smaller numbers, get close to real answers. Even then, though, you’re better off just using a calculator.”

Ethan Zuckerman: How Big is YouTube?. “I’ll write at some length in the future about what we can learn from a true random sample of YouTube videos. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the idea of ‘the quotidian web’, learning from the bottom half of the long tail of user-generated media so we can understand what most creators are doing with these tools, not just from the most successful influencers. But I’m going to limit myself to the question that started this blog post: how big is YouTube?”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

GamesRadar: After 23 years, developer reveals he snuck a cheat code past Sony that turns a cult-classic horror game into a godsend for retro enthusiasts. “Argonaut Games’ cult classic survival horror FPS Alien Resurrection has been hiding a secret for 23 years: it contains a cheat code that lets you play backup disks on PS1 without having to mod the hardware at all.” 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 live at Calishat.

December 25, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Sunday, December 24, 2023

Kukla Fran and Ollie, Guyana Animation Network, Online Safety, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 24, 2023

Kukla Fran and Ollie, Guyana Animation Network, Online Safety, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me and discovered via a circuitous route it would take far too long to explain: an ongoing project/fundraising effort to digitize existing episodes of the 1950s television program “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” and make them available on YouTube. The channel has been around for at least 13 years but it looks like the uploading really took off in the last three years.

Guyana Chronicle: First screenwriters’ database launched. “THE Guyana Animation Network Inc (GAN) is inviting talented screenwriters and scriptwriters from Guyana and the Caribbean to register and be a part of its first screenwriters’ database which is geared at enabling these writers in animation, film and television to gain access to screenwriting opportunities, locally and internationally.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Spot the Real Download Button on Websites. “One of the most annoying types of ads on the internet is fake download buttons. You think you’re downloading something, but instead, you end up with malware, junkware, or phishing sites. Here are some tips to help you spot and avoid fake download buttons.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Ars Technica: A song of hype and fire: The 10 biggest AI stories of 2023. “‘Here, There, and Everywhere’ isn’t just a Beatles song. It’s also a phrase that recalls the spread of generative AI into the tech industry during 2023. Whether you think AI is just a fad or the dawn of a new tech revolution, it’s been impossible to deny that AI news has dominated the tech space for the past year.”

DefenseScoop: Air Force Academy moves to monitor social media for potential cadet misconduct. “The U.S. Air Force Academy aims to hire a contractor that can closely monitor popular social media platforms for posts and content that violate national laws and its official policies — or display potential hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, or harassment of or by its cadets.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Crypto scammers abuse Twitter ‘feature’ to impersonate high-profile accounts. “Cryptocurrency scammers are abusing a legitimate Twitter ‘feature’ to promote scams, fake giveaways, and fraudulent Telegram channels used to steal your crypto and NFTs.”

HathiTrust: HathiTrust Files Brief to Support Libraries’ Fair Use Rights. “HathiTrust has filed an amicus brief in Hachette Book Group et al vs Internet Archive, a US federal lawsuit addressing ‘controlled digital lending’ (CDL).”

RESEARCH & OPINION

US Government Accountability Office: Artificial Intelligence in Natural Hazard Modeling: Severe Storms, Hurricanes, Floods, and Wildfires. “GAO found that machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses algorithms to identify patterns in information, is being applied to forecasting models for natural hazards such as severe storms, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires, which can lead to natural disasters. A few machine learning models are used operationally—in routine forecasting—such as one that may improve the warning time for severe storms. Some uses of machine learning are considered close to operational, while others require years of development and testing.”

The Next Web: AI beats humans for the first time in physical skill game. “AI’s ability to beat human players in games like chess and GO is no longer surprising. After all, artificial intelligence has proved it can outperform its animate creators in certain tasks, especially when it comes to processing and analysing information. But physical skill has remained a human prerogative — until now.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Make: Here Are The Winners Of The Build2Gether Accessibility Challenge. “Back in July, the Build2Gether Accessibility challenge launched, calling on members of the maker community to design and build solutions to a few specific topics. The time has come to share the winners! There were 3 main categories, each with a grand prize winner and runners up.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 25, 2023 at 01:11AM
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Company of Merchant Adventurers of York, Public Domain, Maze Generator, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 24, 2023

Company of Merchant Adventurers of York, Public Domain, Maze Generator, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of York: New archive reveals snapshot of a wartime Christmas in York. “The records, which date back to the 12th century, consist of nearly 300 boxes of material which have now been fully catalogued and published online. The archive documents the rich history of the [Company of Merchant Adventurers of York] and their Hall, which have been central to the commercial life of the City of York for over 655 years.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Public Domain Review: What Will Enter the Public Domain in 2024? . “At the start of each year, on January 1st, a new crop of works enter the public domain and become free to enjoy, share, and reuse for any purpose. Due to differing copyright laws around the world, there is no one single public domain — and here we focus on three of the most prominent.”

USEFUL STUFF

Useful for a given value of useful, but I think it’s neat. Boing Boing: A simple maze generator . “Alance AB’s Maze Generator exemplifies the simple, get-what’s-promised web. Choose several different shapes of maze, set the desired size, click and amaze yourself.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Houston Chronicle: Houston Public Library’s Latino archive is a trove of Hispanic history. Critics say it’s neglected. . “The library’s Latino archives, documenting one of the largest Hispanic populations in the country, are languishing, critics said, due to decades of underfunding and disregard from Houston Public Library leadership — even after recent efforts to revamp the collections.”

Gothamist: Some TikTok users go viral by complaining about the city. New Yorkers have had enough. . “People in videos rant about how there isn’t much to do in the city but go out for drinks and dinner. Another transplant complained about the lack of a Whole Foods in the Bronx – and wound up getting fired after accusations of racism. In early December, TikTok user Sliimkim found herself in the center of a viral storm, after posting a video about being unable to dress in her expensive clothing on the subway out of a fear that she’ll get robbed.”

Mint (India): Fake AI-generated Amul cheese doing rounds on social media, Amul says…. “Milk and dairy products major Amul has dismissed social media rumours about the launch of a new cheese brand. The fake claims are being circulated online via social media and WhatsApp.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: NY Proposes Mandated Open Access To Social Media APIs. “NY state senator Brad Holyman-Sigal has introduced a bill to require social media websites to provide an openly accessible API for others to build on top of.”

CBS New York: Gov. Kathy Hochul signs bill granting government access to previously hidden LLC records. “Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill Saturday that was intended to make it easier to find out who owns a building in New York state. Many companies are registered to Limited Liability Corporations, and shell companies. The sponsors of the bill Hochul signed released a statement however critiquing the elimination of a key part of the bill – the creation of a public database that would’ve listed the names of those who benefit from those LLCs.”

Court News Ohio: Amusement Park Police Must Provide Records Requested by TV Stations. “The Cedar Point Police Department must turn over records requested by three Ohio television stations, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today. The Supreme Court unanimously concluded the amusement park’s police department is the ‘functional equivalent’ of a public office, noting that park officers report to the Sandusky city manager by city ordinance and carry out the core functions of government.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Copenhagen: AI can spot suicidal tendencies among young people. “An increasing number of young people are attempting suicide. While old methods of assessing risk factors have limited effect, artificial intelligence can help spot the most important warning signs. This is according to a new research project from the University of Copenhagen.”

Clemson University: Clemson Media Forensics Hub digs into Russian ‘narrative laundering’. “‘Olena Zelenska spends $1,000,000 on Cartier jewelry, gets sales employee fired’ — readers in Nigeria may have seen this headline on the news website The Nation in early October. The story about Ukraine’s first lady was also carried on other news sites in African nations and spread on social media. But according to researchers with Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, the story is a complete fabrication, created and spread by Russian influencers through a process called ‘narrative laundering.'”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Max Planck Society: New computational tool detects up to second to third degree cousins using ancient genomes. “Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Harvard in the USA have developed a new tool which enables them to identify prehistoric and historic individuals’ relatives up to the sixth degree. Previous methods worked only up to the third degree. This innovation will help scientists identify yet unknown ties between ancient individuals and cultures.” 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 live at Calishat.

December 24, 2023 at 06:31PM
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