New researches: August 2023

Thursday, August 31, 2023

France Accessibility, New Zealand Real Estate, California Wildfire Resilience, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 31, 2023

France Accessibility, New Zealand Real Estate, California Wildfire Resilience, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 31, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Local France: France creates new guide of disability-accessible hotels, shops and restaurants. “The French government has created a new website that lists the hotels, cafés, shops, restaurants and other public establishments that are accessible to people with disabilities. The website is called Accès Libre (free access) and it has been put together with the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games in mind – although it covers the whole of France, not just the capital.”

1 News (New Zealand): New online tool reveals 25 years of property disaster claims. “Kiwis can now easily find out if a property has been damaged in a natural disaster, over the past 25 years, using a new online tool. Launched by the Earthquake Commission (EQC), the online portal allows anyone to type in an address and see whether there’s been an EQC claim made against it.”

California Natural Resources Agency: California Launches Online Tool to Track Wildfire Resilience Projects. “The dashboard offers a one-stop-shop to access data, provide transparency, and align the efforts of more than a dozen agencies to build resilient landscapes and communities in California. It reports treatment activities such as prescribed fire, targeted grazing, uneven-aged timber harvest, mechanical and hand fuels reduction, and tree planting. Users can sort treatments by region, county, land ownership and more.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

PCMag: Google Flights Will Tell You the Cheapest Time to Book a Ticket. “Google is trying to solve a problem that has long vexed travelers everywhere: When is the best time to book the cheapest flight? Starting this week, the company will answer that question through Google Flights.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Mainichi: ‘Like a teacher there 24/7’: ChatGPT tool supports English education at Japan univ. . “Ritsumeikan University has been experimentally introducing an English learning support tool combining ChatGPT and machine translation functions in some of its English classes since this spring, and a student reporter for the Mainichi Shimbun looked into the background and thoughts on the project.”

WIRED: Sexy AI Chatbots Are Creating Thorny Issues for Fandom. “Even if Character.AI might want you to get emotionally attached to its coding bots (your fellow ‘pair programmer’) or its grammar bots (your ‘English teacher’), it’s the characters you’ve heard of, real or fictional, that have sparked the most interest across the social web. ‘Billie Eilish’ currently has six times the amount of interaction of ‘Joe Biden’; both of them eclipse ‘Alan Turing.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Law firm Morgan & Morgan accuses marketing company of stealing potential clients . “In the lawsuit filed on Friday in state court in Orange County, Florida, Morgan & Morgan claims What If Holdings is paying Google for a so-called ‘click-to-call’ advertisement to appear on searches for the terms ‘morgan and morgan.’ When the ads pop up, a potential Morgan & Morgan client is tricked into clicking on a phone number that takes them to What If instead, the lawsuit claims.”

Rest of World: Chinese sextortion scammers are flooding Twitter. “Chinese sextortion scammer accounts have flooded X (previously Twitter) since April after the platform introduced a new blue-check policy allowing users to buy verified badges.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

AI Weirdness: AI vs a giraffe with no spots. “Image recognition algorithms are trained on a variety of images from around the internet, and/or on a few standard image datasets. But there likely haven’t been any spotless giraffes in their training data, since the last one to be born was probably in 1972 in Tokyo. How do they do when faced with photos of the spotless giraffe?”

Harvard Gazette: Need cancer treatment advice? Forget ChatGPT. “… researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital sought to assess how consistently the AI chatbot provides recommendations for cancer treatment that align with National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines. The team’s findings, published in JAMA Oncology, show that in one-third of cases, ChatGPT provided an inappropriate — or ‘non-concordant’ — recommendation, highlighting the need for awareness of the technology’s limitations.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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September 1, 2023 at 01:00AM
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USPTO, Twitter, Yahoo Mail, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, August 31, 2023

USPTO, Twitter, Yahoo Mail, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, August 31, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

EVENTS

USPTO: Transitioning from TESS to new search. “Did you know the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) will soon be replaced by a new public trademark search system? Do you want to learn how to use your advanced TESS searching skills with the new system? Join our free experienced practitioner training webinar on Tuesday, September 19, from 2-3:30 p.m. ET.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Gizmodo: Twitter Removes Its ‘No Political Ads’ Policy Ahead of the 2024 Election. “Twitter, rebranded as X, is bringing political ads back to its platform for the first time since 2019, the company announced on Tuesday. The move comes ahead of the 2024 presidential election and Twitter claims it is hiring employees to expand Twitter’s safety and election teams.”

TechCrunch: Yahoo Mail introduces new AI-powered capabilities, including a ‘Shopping Saver’ tool. “Yahoo is introducing new AI tools for Yahoo Mail that are aimed at helping users save time and money, the company announced on Monday. The rollout includes upgrades to several of Yahoo Mail’s existing AI features, and introduces a new Shopping Saver tool. Yahoo is TechCrunch’s parent company.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

AFP: Oil firms pay Insta, TikTok influencers for ads. “Oil companies are paying popular influencers to pump their gas on social media, sparking a backlash from some climate-conscious fans for promoting planet-warming fossil fuels among young people. Young online celebrities best known for posting about video games, their dogs or their holidays to millions of followers are also dropping in unexpected plugs for gasoline stations, fuel rewards and club cards.”

Poynter: A policy tracker helped Nevadans make sense of the latest legislative session. “Imagine how difficult that political maze must be to navigate and understand for residents who’ve never visited a state capitol or read a bill. Making sense of the legislative session has been the goal of the Nevada Policy Tracker, a web page created by The Nevada Independent, a nonprofit news site that launched in 2017.”

Tubefilter: Kai Cenat invokes ‘Rush Hour’ with action-comedy film ‘Global Pursuit’. “Global Pursuit features solid production values, dozens of crew members, and cameo appearances — even though it was filmed in just three days, according to its star. Cenat met Global Pursuit co-star Ray H during a trip to Japan, and the pair became fast friends. They soon embarked on a filmmaking project together. The trailer for Global Pursuit hit Cenat’s YouTube channel on August 23, and the full 17-minute film dropped two days later.” I watched this and it was quite good. I found Mr. Cenat more compelling than Chris Tucker.

SECURITY & LEGAL

NDTV: Noida Call Centre Duping US Citizens Busted, 84 Arrested. “The Noida police on Thursday said they have arrested 84 people, including 36 women, after a raid at a call centre on charges of duping US citizens of crores of rupees by pretending to be American government officials. The accused had a database of around five lakh US citizens that included their names, contact numbers and some financial details which were used to target them and take them into confidence, they said.” Five lakh is 500,000. A crore is 10 million. a crore of rupees is about $120,000 USD.

Space: Hackers shut down 2 of the world’s most advanced telescopes. “The National Science Foundation’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, or NOIRLab, reported that a cybersecurity incident that occurred on Aug. 1 has prompted the lab to temporarily halt operations at its Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii and Gemini South Telescope in Chile. Other, smaller telescopes on Cerro Tololo in Chile were also affected.”

404 Media: iFixit Tears Down McDonald’s McFlurry Machine, Petitions Government for Right to Hack Them. “A group of right to repair activists and consumer rights advocates are petitioning the Librarian of Congress for the right to hack McDonald’s notoriously unreliable McFlurry machines for the purposes of repair, according to a copy of the petition obtained by 404 Media.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Dalhousie University: Dal researcher leads global project to empower scholars of medieval chant. “Over the next seven years, Dr. [Jennifer] Bain will create an online platform that links and synergizes plainchant databases around the world. The new digital tool will provide scholars with a vast electronic resource to deepen their understanding of the a cappella chants and those who created and recited them.”

PsyPost: The “need for chaos” is linked to the sharing of conspiracy theories, study finds. “New research suggests that a psychological concept known as ‘the need for chaos’ plays a bigger role than partisanship and ideology in the sharing of conspiracy theories on the internet. The study, published in Research & Politics, indicates that individuals driven by a desire to disrupt and challenge established systems are more inclined to share conspiracy theories.”

Euromaidan Press: Int’l architects to restore Ukraine’s war-torn cultural legacy. “In August 2023, the Architects Association of Lithuania initiated the international European cultural project ‘UREHERIT. The Architects for Heritage in Ukraine: Recreating Identity and Memory’ that will last three years and is co-financed by the European Union program ‘Creative Europe.’ The project aims to address heritage as a resource for sustainable cultural, social, environmental, and economic recovery while solving challenges of preservation, re-definition, highlighting the national and local cultural identity, and reflecting the memory in the rebuilding.” Good morning, Internet…

August 31, 2023 at 05:32PM
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Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Final Fantasy XIV, Library of Congress, GPTBot, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 30, 2023

Final Fantasy XIV, Library of Congress, GPTBot, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

SiliconEra: Japanese Fan Creates Database of All Final Fantasy XIV Items. “Japanese fan FF14_mirapri completed a database for all of the items in Final Fantasy XIV from Square Enix. This includes all of the cosmetics, hairstyles, seasonal event exclusives, weapons and more spanning the entire history of the MMORPG.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Library of Congress: Improvements Ahead for the Web Archives. “Users of the Library of Congress Web Archives may have recently noticed issues when trying to access archived content presented at webarchive.loc.gov. We want to give some background and explanation about the ongoing work that is happening to modernize and improve functionality, and to set the stage for future announcements about planned improvements for access to the Library’s Web Archives.”

Search Engine Land: Dozens of big brands have blocked GPTBot, OpenAI’s new web crawler. “At least 69 of the 1,000 most popular websites in the world have blocked GPTBot, the new web crawler OpenAI introduced Aug. 7, according to a new analysis. And the percentage of sites is increasing by about 5% per week, according to AI content and plagiarism service Originality.ai.”

USEFUL STUFF

Space: The rare Super Blue Moon rises on Aug. 30 and you can watch it online for free . “After sunset on Wednesday, this Super Blue Moon will rise in the east, as seen from New York City. But if conditions happen to be poor for moonwatching in your area, you’re in luck: The Virtual Telescope Project hosted by astronomer Gianluca Masi of Rome, Italy will host a free livestream of the event starting at 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 30 (0330 GMT on Aug. 31).” Shoutout to everyone else who is getting hurricane rain tonight and will miss the blue moon.

PC World: How to put Chrome’s download notifications back at the bottom. “In early August, Google changed the way Chrome displays download notifications. Instead of files being shown as big rectangular buttons in a bar at the bottom of the screen, the information is now much more discreetly tucked in the upper right-hand corner. A single, small icon shows both your progress and completion status, along with a dropdown list of recent downloads when clicked on. But if you’re finding this update difficult to adjust to, you can reverse it.”

MakeUseOf: Navidrome Is the Perfect Self-Hosted Music Server for Raspberry Pi. “Streaming music is a feature of modern life, and most people are used to the convenience of services such as Spotify and YouTube. If you have a large, privately owned music collection, you can instead use Navidrome to stream your favorite tunes to your mobile devices and listen to internet radio.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Verge: Can news outlets build a ‘trustworthy’ AI chatbot?. “News publishers have jumped headfirst into artificial intelligence, using generative AI tools to produce bland travel guides, inaccurate film blogs, and SEO-bait explainers. By and large, the goal has been: can we make more pages for ads without paying more writers? Now, a group of tech outlets is attempting to incorporate generative AI into its websites, though readers won’t find a machine’s byline anytime soon.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Blue-tick scammers target consumers who complain on X. “Consumers who complain of poor customer service on X are being targeted by scammers after the social media platform formerly known as Twitter changed its account verification process.”

WIRED: The Cheap Radio Hack That Disrupted Poland’s Railway System . “SINCE WAR FIRST broke out between Ukraine and Russia in 2014, Russian hackers have used some of the most sophisticated hacking techniques ever seen in the wild… But the mysterious saboteurs who have, over the past two days, disrupted Poland’s railway system—a major piece of transit infrastructure for NATO in its support of Ukraine—appear to have used a far less impressive form of technical mischief: Spoof a simple radio command to the trains that triggers their emergency stop function.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Los Angeles Times: Michael Hiltzik: Scientists used to love Twitter. Thanks to Elon Musk, they’re giving up on it. “Concerns about the decline of X as a source of reliable information extends beyond the scientific and academic communities. During the apparent coup attempt in Russia in June, journalists noticed its relative uselessness at helping them find real-time, breaking information from the ground and sifting fact from fakery, due in part to Musk’s trashing of its account verification system.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 31, 2023 at 12:51AM
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Keeping an Eye on Hurricane Idalia

Keeping an Eye on Hurricane Idalia
By ResearchBuzz

Good morning, y’all. I hope everyone is safe and well and prepared for Hurricane Idalia if you need to be. I am interested in Hurricane Idalia both as a weather event (currently under a flood watch and expecting 2-5 inches of rain) and as a news event I want to monitor online even as Twitter gets worse and worse.

I’m finding myself using a lot of my own tools this morning as I set up my information traps.

1) Marion’s Monocle 2 finds FCC-licensed TV stations by state, allowing me to quickly identify TV stations in Tallahassee, Tampa, and Pensacola and integrate them into an RSS feed Google Alert. https://searchgizmos.com/mm2/

2) I used Non-Sketchy News Search 2 to keyword-search for news outlets mentioned in Wikipedia and build out the sources I’m monitoring. I was able to find some paper-based news sources this way: https://searchgizmos.com/nsns2/ .

3) I’m not even going to try to monitor Twitter for this event; I’m staying with Mastodon. I wasn’t sure what hashtags would be appropriate to monitor so I did some testing with Hashtag Harvest (looks like #HurricaneIdalia is the one to use): https://mastogizmos.com/hh.html .

4) My Mastodon instance is very small and because of that the flow of information when news breaks is pretty poor. To save myself having to find and follow tons of people every time something happens, I made Mastodon Stadium Seats. It searches for an array of hashtags across an array of Mastodon instances and displays the results on a plain screen which updates every 90 seconds. I put it up on GitHub: if you can edit an HTML page, you’ll be able to use it. https://github.com/ResearchBuzz/Mastodon-Stadium-Seats . It’s currently casting to my side monitor so I can keep one eye on the news as I work.

I hope everybody gets through this all right. Best wishes to you.

August 30, 2023 at 04:58PM
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Tuesday, August 29, 2023

Hebrew Manuscripts, Claude AI, Linus Tech Tips, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 29, 2023

Hebrew Manuscripts, Claude AI, Linus Tech Tips, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 29, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Library of Congress: Library of Congress Releases Newly Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts. “The Library of Congress has released some 230 newly digitized manuscripts written in Hebrew and similar languages such as Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Persian and Yiddish. The collection, available online for researchers and the public for the first time, includes a 14th century collection of responsa by Solomon ibn Adret of Barcelona, considered one of the most prominent authorities on Jewish law of all time.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Journal: Anthropic To Launch Paid Plans For Access To Claude. “In a notable shift from its existing user model, Claude.ai, the web interface for Anthropic’s Claude 2, has begun limiting access for unpaid users. Claude.ai, in open beta, gives users access to the latest model of Claude with 100k context windows (175 pages of text) and file upload capability.” I haven’t used Claude as much as I have used ChatGPT, but Claude’s UI is my opinion far better.

The Verge: Linus Sebastian addresses error handling and ethics in a new video. “Over a week after Linus Media Group paused video production after allegations of theft, ethical missteps, and sexual harassment, Sebastian provided a partial response to the issues and updated viewers on what’s changing.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: An alt text guide to ensure everyone can enjoy your memes. “Accessible memes make the internet a fun place for all, but the practice is helpful in a variety of ways. 3Play Media, a captioning and video accessibility company, notes that adding alt text to your memes is a beneficial practice for companies and creators, too. ‘Alt text allows bots to “read” and better understand the content, similar to how they read closed captions on video content,’ the company explains. ‘This means your content can be better recommended to viewers, gain more exposure, and ultimately lead to increased site traffic.’ Here’s how to get started making your jokes available for all, whether you’re a meme connoisseur or a brand cashing in on a trendy bit.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Tubefilter: The Creators Guild of America is a new “service organization” for online video professionals. “The CGA officially launched on August 24. It resembles a labor union, but it’s actually a ‘professional service organization’ that provides a litany of benefits to a varied roster of digital media pros. The CGA does not engage in collective bargaining on behalf of its members, but some of its services — such as creator advocacy and networking opportunities — are decidedly union-esque.”

BBC: China state media calls on British Museum to return artefacts. “A call for the British Museum to return Chinese artefacts after the recent theft of about 2,000 items is heating up social media in the country. The demand became the most trending topic on Weibo after an editorial in a state-run nationalist newspaper.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: A Global Cyber-Scam Industry Is Booming in Plain Sight in Cambodia . “Around the world, reports of cyber-scam schemes targeting unsuspecting victims online have proliferated rapidly. Southeast Asia has become a center of gravity for those criminal syndicates, often in remote and war-torn corners. But in Cambodia, the scam industry has been flourishing well within the reach of officials.”

Australian Financial Review: Big tech urges government to go slow on AI rules. “Responding to the government’s call for ideas on how Australia can develop safe and responsible AI practices, the peak body representing the likes of Apple, Google, Twitter, Meta, TikTok and Yahoo advised the government to base its AI policy ‘on existing regulation, rather than introducing new legislation aimed at regulating AI as a technology’.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Next Web: Autonomous cars worse at detecting children and dark-skinned pedestrians, study finds. “Researchers from King’s College London (KCL) tested the software on over 8,000 images of pedestrians. They found that the average detection accuracy was almost 20% higher for adults than it was for children. The systems were also 7.5% more accurate for light-skinned pedestrians than hey were for darker-skinned ones.” And for night driving conditions, as you might expect, it’s even worse.

Irish Times: Karlin Lillington: Technology helps piece together archive lost in 1922 Four Courts fire. “This is an absorbing tale of imagination, diligence, chance discoveries and fruitful relationships with other national archives, many in the UK which hold copies of records here, and myriad small partners such as Killruddery, with its 400 years of documents including land records and correspondence.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 30, 2023 at 01:00AM
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Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Australian Parliamentary Debates, Safe Work Australia, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 29, 2023

Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Australian Parliamentary Debates, Safe Work Australia, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 29, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Art Daily: The Beaverbrook Art Gallery launches its online digital collection of nearly 5000 works of art . “The entire Beaverbrook Art Gallery permanent collection of works is now viewable online on the gallery’s website for members of the public to study and enjoy, and this is joined with new animated videos and activities for children.”

Scientific Data: Digitization of the Australian Parliamentary Debates, 1998–2022 . “Following the lead of the Linked Parliamentary Data project which achieved this for Canada, we provide a new, comprehensive, high-quality, rectangular database that captures proceedings of the Australian parliamentary debates from 1998 to 2022. The database is publicly available and can be linked to other datasets such as election results.”

Safe Work Australia: New website provides WHS data at your fingertips. “Today, Safe Work Australia released a new interactive data website that allows users to explore national work health and safety (WHS) and workers’ compensation data in an intuitive and user-friendly way. The new website provides a wide array of WHS data through dashboards, data collections and reports not previously available to the public. Website users can now explore and create their own charts and tables to explore insights into WHS data by industry, occupation, year, and mechanism of injury.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Business Insider: Russian tech billionaire wants sanctions lifted after he criticized Ukraine invasion, report says. “Russian oligarch Arkady Volozh will be the first to formally ask for sanctions to be lifted after condemning Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a report says. The Financial Times reported that Volozh’s lawyers had petitioned the European Union to repeal sanctions placed on the tech billionaire last June after he chose to criticize Putin’s offensive 18 months after Russia’s invasion.”

AFP: Microsoft’s Bing, LinkedIn vows more ads transparency. “Microsoft will provide more information on targeted adverts and protect users against any new risks from artificial intelligence, the company vowed Friday, as stringent EU rules on tech platforms enter into force. Internet giants must now enforce the milestone EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which demands they protect users online from harmful content and be more transparent about their algorithms.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Behind the AI boom, an army of overseas workers in ‘digital sweatshops’. “In the Philippines, one of the world’s biggest destinations for outsourced digital work, former employees say that at least 10,000 of these workers do this labor on a platform called Remotasks, which is owned by the $7 billion San Francisco start-up Scale AI. Scale AI has paid workers at extremely low rates, routinely delayed or withheld payments and provided few channels for workers to seek recourse, according to interviews with workers, internal company messages and payment records, and financial statements.” This is a gift article, so you should find no paywall.

Asahi Shimbun: Expert: ‘Yokai’ ghouls dwell in ChatGPT in modern times. “Masanobu Kagawa [is] the chief curator at the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of History, and the first Japanese to get his doctorate in the study of yokai. In an interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Kagawa said their nonexistent existence is an essential characteristic of yokai. He also said artificial intelligences that present themselves as human are a modern form of yokai. What makes them scary is that you can’t tell them apart from humans, he added.”

CNN: Maui conspiracy theories are spreading on social media. Why this always happens after a disaster. “A slew of viral conspiracy videos on social media have made baseless claims that the Maui wildfires were started intentionally as part of a land grab, highlighting how quickly misinformation spreads after a disaster. While the cause of the fires hasn’t been determined, Hawaiian Electric — the major power company on Maui — is under scrutiny for not shutting down power lines when high winds created dangerous fire conditions.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: Auctioneer exposed by BBC admits illegally selling rare ancient coins. “A British auctioneer who was at the centre of a BBC investigation has pleaded guilty at a New York court to a series of charges in connection with unlawful sales of rare ancient coins. Richard Beale, director of London-based auction house Roma Numismatics, admitted two counts of conspiracy and three counts of criminal possession of stolen property, court documents show.”

Route Fifty: States ramp up software security standards amid growing threats. “Collaboration among states to tighten the security of cloud software is increasing under the nationwide program StateRAMP. Meanwhile, Texas is embracing its own certification effort after several high-profile cyber incidents.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Monthly: Google’s Participation Trophies. ” My certificate took me just two and a half weeks to get, mainly because I learned to game the system. (I watched videos at double speed and passed quizzes by trial and error.) And when I presented my shiny new credential to prospective employers in the Washington, D.C., area and scoured job postings in Silicon Valley, my credential was less a foot in the door than a plaintive knock at firmly barred gates.”

University of Bath: Suggestible people feel more present in virtual reality – study finds. “People with vivid imaginations are more likely than others to believe they truly inhabit the worlds they visit in virtual reality (VR) according to new research led by the University of Bath.” Good morning, Internet…

August 29, 2023 at 05:30PM
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Monday, August 28, 2023

Presbyterian Historical Society, RSS Algo, WordPress, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 28, 2023

Presbyterian Historical Society, RSS Algo, WordPress, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Presbyterian Historical Society: 60 Years Since ’63: Newly Digitized March on Washington Records. “Sixty years ago this month, over 200,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the endpoint of a massive protest march organized to draw attention to the Civil Rights Movement…. The Presbyterian Historical Society recently published a set of documents detailing the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.’s (UPCUSA) involvement in this historic march.”

Spotted on Mastodon: RSS Algo. From the home page: “An open source client-side algorithmically-driven RSS reader, living with your data on your device.” Also has a GitHub page.

EVENTS

WordPress: The Future of WordPress & What’s Next for Gutenberg. “Nearly 2,000 attendees gathered for two days of keynotes, sessions, and community-building conversations at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in the largest attended WordCamp US ever. Saturday’s sessions concluded with back-to-back keynotes by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Africanews: Gabon imposes curfew and cuts internet access as voting wraps up. “Gabon’s government announced a nationwide curfew and cut off internet access Saturday evening as voting in major national elections was wrapping up. The Central African nation’s communications minister, Rodrigue Mboumba Bissawou, said on state television that there would a nightly curfew from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. He said internet access was being restricted indefinitely, saying there had been calls for violence and the spreading of disinformation.”

CBR: Comics Twitter Has Created A Fandom That Doesn’t Understand Comics . “Twitter, or X as it’s now called, has become the most important advertising tool for the comic industry. Companies like DC Comics and Image use the site to get the news about new books out. A whole ecosystem of fan accounts and podcasts has sprung up around Twitter, where indie creators peddle their wares, and fans and creators interact like never before. However, Comics Twitter is often a cesspool of toxicity and bad takes. In fact, the very nature of Comic Twitter has often been its downfall, and the fans Comic Twitter created have run into some huge problems.”

PC Gamer: Elon Musk appearance at Valorant Champions tournament met with boos, crowd chanting ‘Bring back Twitter’. “Billionaire Elon Musk was booed by the crowd when his attendance on the final day of the Valorant Champions 2023 tournament was highlighted in the broadcast. In a clip of the stream shared by Jake Lucky, Musk’s attendance in the stadium was revealed, only to be met with raucous boos from the crowd.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ABC News (Australia): Privacy watchdog ‘monitoring’ telemarketer after financial information posted to dark web in data breach. “Two charities have said that banking details of their supporters were stolen and leaked on the dark web in a major cyber hack affecting more than 50,000 Australians. The privacy watchdog is not yet investigating the hack involving over a dozen charities, despite multiple organisations alleging the company breached privacy laws by retaining historical data.”

BBC: Lapsus$: Court finds teenagers carried out hacking spree. “A court has found an 18-year-old from Oxford was a part of an international cyber-crime gang responsible for a hacking spree against major tech firms. Arion Kurtaj was a key member of the Lapsus$ group which hacked the likes of Uber, Nvidia and Rockstar Games. A court heard Kurtaj leaked clips of the unreleased Grand Theft Auto 6 game while on bail in a Travelodge hotel.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: A.I. Brings the Robot Wingman to Aerial Combat. “An Air Force program shows how the Pentagon is starting to embrace the potential of a rapidly emerging technology, with far-reaching implications for war-fighting tactics, military culture and the defense industry.”

Harvard Kennedy School: Who knowingly shares false political information online?. “Some people share misinformation accidentally, but others do so knowingly. To fully understand the spread of misinformation online, it is important to analyze those who purposely share it. Using a 2022 U.S. survey, we found that 14 percent of respondents reported knowingly sharing misinformation, and that these respondents were more likely to also report support for political violence, a desire to run for office, and warm feelings toward extremists. These respondents were also more likely to have elevated levels of a psychological need for chaos, dark tetrad traits, and paranoia. Our findings illuminate one vector through which misinformation is spread.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 29, 2023 at 12:19AM
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UK Epidemiology, Hazard Mitigation Methodology, Czech Folk Architecture, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 28, 2023

UK Epidemiology, Hazard Mitigation Methodology, Czech Folk Architecture, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Cardiff University: Understanding all disease prevalence in the UK. “A new website gives the public, health professionals and researchers easy access to data about the prevalence of all diseases in the UK, marking a landmark achievement for global health information analysis.”

NIST: NIST Issues New Guidance for Emergency Response During Wildfires. “NIST has launched a new website intended to help community leaders and first responders in wildfire-prone areas make buildings and other structures more resistant to fire. The website is based on the Hazard Mitigation Methodology (HMM), which was developed by researchers at NIST, CAL FIRE and other agencies and organizations. While traditional strategies focus on hardening individual structures, the HMM takes a community-wide approach to addressing wildfire risks.”

Radio Prague International: Ethnologists create online museum of Czech folk architecture. “Folk architecture is one of the cornerstones of regional and national identity, but it is rapidly disappearing. That is why ethnologists from the National Museum and Czech Academy of Sciences worked together with IT specialists from the Czech Technical University to create a virtual museum of folk architecture in Czechia.”

Reclaim the Records: The Connecticut Genealogy Index Is Now Online. “Introducing ConnecticutGenealogy.org! It’s a FREE searchable database of 576,638 births, 2,180,700 marriages, 2,086 civil unions, and 2,772,116 deaths from the state of Connecticut, spanning three centuries.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BBC: British Museum recovers some of 2,000 stolen items. “About 2,000 treasures are thought to have been stolen from the British Museum, but recovery has begun of some of them, chairman George Osborne has said. The ex-chancellor accepted the museum’s reputation has suffered but said ‘it is a mess we are going to clear up’.”

TechCrunch: YouTube to support RSS uploads for podcasters by year-end, plus private feeds in YouTube Music. “YouTube is growing its commitment to hosting podcasts on its platform. This week, at the Podcast Movement conference, YouTube product lead Steve McLendon confirmed the platform will be rolling out support for RSS uploads for podcasters by the end of the year, among other updates. The new functionality had been in beta testing since earlier this year, as a strategic, invite-only pilot.”

USEFUL STUFF

Amit Agarwal: How to Enable Push Notifications for File Changes in Google Drive with Apps Script. “Are you looking for a way to receive notifications in real-time when an important spreadsheet in your Google Drive get modified or is accidently deleted by sometimes? Well, Google Drive offers an API to help you set up a watch on any file in your Google Drive be it a document, presentation or even a PDF file. This means that you can receive instant notifications whenever the content or even permissions of that file changes. This tutorial explains how you can setup watch notifications on any file in your Google Drive with the help of Google Apps Script.”

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. Here are the latest.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Anime News Network: Manga Archive Organization Dedicated to Archiving Manga Materials Founded. “The Manga Archive Organization announced its founding on Monday. Formally founded on May 1, the organization aims to preserve and share manga creators’ original artwork and related materials, including published material such as magazines and compiled book volumes. Taku Ōishi, the curator of the Yokote Masuda Manga Museum, will be the organization’s board representative.”

Saint Louis University (Madrid): SLU-Madrid Ethnographer to Create a Digital Red Carpet for Spanish Film Festival. “The glam. The status. The pageantry. Film festivals — whether local or international — put the spotlight on filmmakers, actors and creatives alike. These events tout prestige through showy outfits and indulgence in expensive giveaways for attendees. Imagine getting glammed up for the big gala, but in a barn instead of a state-of-the-art theatre. The status of such a rustic backdrop is why Vivar has researched the annual Festival de Cans since 2020. The film event occurs in the heart of rural western Galicia in the province of Pontevedra, Spain.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New Voice of Ukraine: Crimeans using social media to help Ukrainian military spot Russian air defenses. “Crimeans are actively helping the Ukrainian military detect Russian air defense systems by publishing photos and videos of the systems in operation, Taras Berezovets, a political scientist and officer of the I. Bohun special brigade, told Radio NV in an interview on Aug. 25.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Michigan: Tuning the tension: Negative feedback could moderate extreme views on social media, per U-M research. “‘Downvotes’ and ‘dislikes’ from peers could moderate extreme rhetoric and mitigate echo chambers among social media users, according to new research from the University of Michigan. The study finds such ‘feedback can serve as the whip that regulates the polarization of opinions by encouraging users to moderate their tone.’ Conversely, the research doesn’t find evidence of equivalent moderation effects from positive feedback.” Good morning, Internet…

August 28, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Sunday, August 27, 2023

Coffee Genetics, Standard Telephone Company, California State Parks, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 27, 2023

Coffee Genetics, Standard Telephone Company, California State Parks, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Global Coffee Report: WCR releases Arabica genetic fingerprint database. “Verification of coffee varieties ensures quality control of plant material is available to farmers worldwide. WCR is making the database openly accessible to the scientific community so that it can be used by public and private labs for variety verification.”

Digital Library of Georgia: Standard Telephone Company Records documenting Standard Telephone Company’s provision of services to rural northeast Georgians for the past century are now available online.. “The collection contains historical materials dating from 1904 to 1999 that come from the archives of the independently-owned Standard Telephone Company. Headquartered in Cornelia, it provided telephone service to rural northeast Georgians. Among the materials are items recognizing fifty years of service from the Standard Telephone Company’s longtime employee, Henry Davis, an African-American telephone engineer, the first in Georgia and possibly the nation.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

California Department of Parks and Recreation: California State Parks Unveils Enhanced PORTS Website Offering Innovative Learning Resources for Teachers and Students. “PORTS is an innovative initiative that connects K-12 classrooms with the wonders of California’s diverse state parks through virtual field trips, live interactive sessions, and comprehensive digital resources. The newly updated website offers a range of exciting features to enrich the educational journey of teachers and students across the state.”

WordPress: Introducing the 100-Year Plan: Secure Your Online Legacy for a Century. “A domain is your most valuable digital asset. While standard domain registrations last a decade, our 100-Year Plan gives you an opportunity to secure your domain for a full century.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Bloomberg: Google Axes Bad Reviews of Tracker Exposing Uyghur Forced Labor. “The Human Rights Foundation’s Uyghur Forced Labor Checker had been experiencing a spate of unusual activity in recent months, with the number of downloads fluctuating dramatically, according to Claudia Bennett, the nonprofit’s legal and program officer. The tool, a Google Chrome extension, alerts internet users if a retailer or business whose website they are visiting has links to forced Uyghur labor.”

BBC: ‘Girl’ trends are sticky and fun. But they can also be problematic.. “Lazy girl jobs are just one instance of a parade of content recently branded as ‘girl’ trends. In the past month, we’ve seen the rise of ‘girl math’, which allows shoppers to justify pricey purchases with a bit of number crunching; and ‘girl dinner’, in which meagre snack platters constitute a full dinner. As these trends rise, there’s one key thing they have in common besides their nomenclature – there’s nothing inherently feminine about them at all.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: AI chatbots help web content farms copy work from top publishers, report says. “Dozens of websites are using AI chatbots to copy and repurpose articles from top publishers, according to a report from the news-rating group NewsGuard, offering a glimpse into how artificial intelligence tools risk undermining media companies and muddying the online news industry. The 37 websites, which Bloomberg also reviewed, posted stories that contained identical text, photos and quotes to articles previously published by the New York Times, Reuters and CNN, according to the report.” Not that junk content online is anything new.

The Messenger: Trump Advisor’s Former Social Media Company Gettr Accused of Stiffing IT Firm Out of $3 Million. “The social media company founded by Donald Trump advisor Jason Miller stiffed a tech outfit they hired for IT services out of more than $3 million, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in New York.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Oregon State University: FDA approving drugs after fewer trials, providing less information to public, OSU studies find. “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is approving more novel pharmaceutical drugs based on single clinical trials and with less public disclosure about those trials than was the norm just a few years ago, a pair of recent studies from Oregon State University found. Researchers agree it is important to minimize delays in making treatments for diseases such as cancer available to patients, but they say their findings point to a need for greater transparency around how drugs receive approval.”

The Conversation: Online gaming communities could provide a lifeline for isolated young men − new research. “Online gaming communities could be a vital lifeline for young men struggling silently with mental health issues, according to new research. My colleagues and I analyzed an all-male online football gaming community over the course of a year. We discovered that members who reported more depressive symptoms and less real-life support were roughly 40% more likely to form and maintain social ties with fellow gamers compared with those reporting more real-life support.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 28, 2023 at 12:07AM
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Hawaii Jobs Portal, Alaskan Native Americans, MIT Press, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, August 27, 2023

Hawaii Jobs Portal, Alaskan Native Americans, MIT Press, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, August 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

State of Hawaii: DLIR News Release: State Activates Disaster Recovery Jobs Portal. “The Hawaiʻi State Department of Labor & Industrial Relations (DLIR) today announced the availability of a disaster recovery jobs portal for Maui to help workers and businesses impacted by the wildfires. The portal provides access to all currently available jobs on Maui as maintained by the DLIR.”

Anchorage Daily News: New state database shows circumstances around disappearances of hundreds of Indigenous people in Alaska. “A new state database reveals for the first time the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of hundreds of Alaska Native people considered missing in Alaska. The Department of Public Safety calls the Missing Indigenous Persons Report, released earlier this week, a first-of-its-kind effort to publicly release data on Alaska Native and American Indian people missing in Alaska. The data includes whether police believe the disappearance was related to criminal activity or not.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

MIT Press: MIT Press’s Direct to Open (D2O) achieves second year goal, opens access to eighty-two new books in 2023 . “With 322 participating libraries and new consortium agreements, the D2O publishing model has now opened access to more than 160 scholarly monographs and edited collections.”

TechCrunch: Google TV adds 25 more free channels, NFL Sunday Ticket integration. “Google TV is once again expanding its free live TV lineup. In April, the company announced the Google TV service was growing to include over 800 live TV channels, including those from Tubi, Plex, Haystack and others. Today, the company says it’s adding 25 more free channels to the lineup, which can be watched without having to install any additional apps or needing to sign in.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Mashable: Trump evidently didn’t sell Mar-a-Lago. “Did Donald Trump quietly sell off his Mar-a-Lago estate for hundreds of millions of dollars just a few short weeks before being booked in Georgia for trying to steal the 2020 presidential election? While many media outlets ran with the story, the claim is entirely based on a false record posted to Zillow. It appears to not be true.”

BBC: BBC announces Creator Lab, a brand new talent scheme for Social Media Content Creators, in collaboration with TikTok . “Announced at the Edinburgh TV Festival 2023, the BBC will be collaborating with TikTok for the first year of Creator Lab on this brand new scheme which aims to give 100 social and digital creators, who have an interest in pursuing a career in television, the opportunity to take part in a development programme…”

The Real Deal: Celeb names rise in brick-and-mortar retail game . “Celebrities are translating their brands’ e-commerce success to deals for physical retail spaces. Stores for brands connected to big names account for more than 300,000 square feet of retail space nationally, according to JLL data reported by the Commercial Observer.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: GOP Stumbles in Suit Claiming Google Censors Donation Emails. “A Republican National Committee lawsuit accusing Google of routing emails to Gmail users’ spam folders was tossed out by a judge who said the internet giant fairly concluded they were unwanted messages.”

FedScoop: National Archives discloses planned AI uses for record management. “In its 2023 AI use case inventory, the agency charged with managing U.S. government documents disclosed it wants to use an AI-based system to autofill metadata for its archival documents. Similar to some other agencies, the National Archives also disclosed its interest in using the technology to help respond to FOIA requests. While NARA shared these planned applications, it did not include any current, operational use cases of AI.”

US Department of Justice: Tornado Cash Founders Charged with Money Laundering and Sanctions Violations. “According to the indictment, unsealed today in the Southern District of New York, Roman Storm, 34, of Auburn, Washington, and Roman Semenov, 49, of Russia, created, operated, and promoted Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixer that facilitated more than $1 billion in money laundering transactions, and laundered hundreds of millions of dollars for the Lazarus Group, the sanctioned North Korean cybercrime organization. Storm was arrested today in the state of Washington and will be presented later today in the Western District of Washington.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Harvard Gazette: The eye as we’ve never seen it. “In a culmination of more than a decade of research, Harvard scientists have completed a detailed analysis that could not only light the way to better, more targeted gene therapies for blindness, but also inspire a new appreciation for the vast complexity of human vision. The team, led by neurobiologist Joshua Sanes, has authored a complete catalog of the nearly 160 cell types found across all the structures of the human eye, as well as an inventory of the genes each cell type expresses.”

University of Kentucky: Herculaneum scrolls: A 20-year journey to read the unreadable. “Restoring an ancient library from the ashes of Mount Vesuvius is now closer to a reality. To highlight the progress, this is the first in a four-video series featuring Brent Seales, University of Kentucky Alumni Professor in the Department of Computer Science in the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering and his Digital Restoration Initiative team.” Good morning, Internet…

August 27, 2023 at 05:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/oVcabe1

Saturday, August 26, 2023

Oregon Housing, NYC Asylum Seeker Spending, World Rugby, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 26, 2023

Oregon Housing, NYC Asylum Seeker Spending, World Rugby, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Central Oregon Daily News: Oregon launches online housing, homelessness, rent and poverty dashboard. “Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) announced the launch of a County Profiles data dashboard Thursday with data about housing and related dynamics across the state. It includes income levels, median home prices, percentage of home ownership and homelessness trends.”

New York City Comptroller: NYC Comptroller Lander Unveils New Online Hub to Track City’s Contracting & Budgeting Data for Asylum Seeker Service Provision. “New York City Comptroller Brad Lander launched a new resource on the Comptroller’s Office website to enhance transparency into the City’s contracting and budgeting for service provision to support asylum seekers. The page, titled ‘Accounting for Asylum Seeker Services,’ brings together the most comprehensive publicly available set of the City’s known emergency contracts, budget projections, and high-level data on the asylum seeker population.”

Hypertext: World Rugby launches free streaming site ahead of 2023 World Cup. “The global governing body for the sport of Rugby has launched its first streaming platform ahead of the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France – RugbyPass TV. The streaming platform offers content for free but matches are capped as only the highlights, at least for right now.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WBUR: Ousted Mass. police chiefs missing from state discipline database. “Massachusetts’ new officer disciplinary database lists more than 2,100 officers who were punished for wrongdoing. But missing from that list are several police chiefs who were investigated for their own misconduct.”

Fast Company: Chrome’s sidebar apps are the best new productivity feature no one’s talking about. “Back in May, Google added a brilliant new feature to Chrome, and almost everyone appears to have missed it. It’s called the Side Panel API, and it allows Chrome extensions to run as miniature apps in the browser’s sidebar. Several extensions have used this feature to add vertical tabs in Chrome, while other have added things like a ChatGPT sidebar or a persistent scratchpad for notes.”

How-To Geek: Google Photos Is Getting a Revamped Web Editor. “Google Photos keeps improving, from a new scrapbook and AI tool to 3D Cinematic photos and more. While most of the best editing features have been available on mobile for quite some time, they’re finally coming to Google Photos on the web this week.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Associated Press: Native American Group to Digitize 20,000 Archival Pages Linked to Quaker-Run Indian Boarding Schools. “A coalition advocating for Native American people traumatized by an oppressive system of boarding schools for Native youths plans to digitize 20,000 archival pages related to schools in that system that were operated by the Quakers.”

The Verge: 3D printer nightmare fuel: Bambu X1C and P1P started printing while owners were asleep. “When owners of Bambu’s extremely well-regarded 3D printers woke up on August 15th, some found their printer had gone rogue. Some woke up to failed prints. Some found a second copy of a previous print. And at least a few found their Bambu X1C or P1P had started smacking itself apart — damaging components — while trying to print a second copy atop the object they’d actually asked for.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gizmodo: The College Board Tells TikTok and Facebook Your SAT Scores. “Many students have no choice about working with the College Board, the company that administers the SAT test and Advanced Placement exams. Part of that relationship involves a long history of privacy issues. Tests by Gizmodo found if you use some of the handy tools promoted by College Board’s website, the organization sends details about your SAT scores, GPA, and other data to Facebook, TikTok, and a variety of companies.”

Radar Online: Blogger Who Owes Cardi B $3.9 Million Offers to Pay 6-Figure Sum to Settle Debt in Bankruptcy, Rapper Objecting to Plan. “The blogger who owes Cardi B millions after losing a defamation lawsuit brought by the singer has offered to pay a 6-figure sum to settle the $3.9 million she was ordered to pay the rapper, RadarOnline.com has learned. According to court documents obtained by RadarOnline.com, Tasha K, who filed for bankruptcy earlier this year after Cardi started garnishing her wages, has submitted her proposed plan to repay her creditors.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 27, 2023 at 12:24AM
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Hawaii Air Quality Monitors, California Groundwater Management, Reddit, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, August 26, 2023

Hawaii Air Quality Monitors, California Groundwater Management, Reddit, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, August 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Hawaii News Now: State installs new sensors for Lahaina residents to track air quality in real-time. “One is next to the Lahaina Civic Center. The other two are near Lahainaluna High School. They track whether exposure over 24 hours poses a health risk. And real-time results are updated every 10 minutes.”

California Institute for Water Resources: Database of Demand Management Actions Under SGMA Goes Live. “Demand management – policies that alter the incentives of water users in ways that encourage conservation – will be necessary to achieve groundwater sustainability under California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). … We record and explain the demand management proposals made in the state’s 118 submitted [Groundwater Sustainability Plans] and make these data publicly available in a new online platform called the SGMA Demand Management Action Database.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Reddit launches moderator rewards program amid sitewide discontent . “Reddit is launching the ‘Mod Helper Program’ to reward moderators who offer helpful advice to other moderators, along with an updated moderator help center. The announcement comes amid growing discontent among the site’s moderators, many of whom relied on third-party apps that have since been shut down because of Reddit’s API pricing.”

Search Engine Land: Google Search app could soon introduce a new Notes feature. “Google appears to be working on a new experimental feature that would let users respond to links in search results via text, images and stickers, 9to5Google reported. Why we care. There is already a lot of competition for attention in Google’s search results. If this search feature graduates from Labs, there will be even more competition in the SERPs, which could impact your organic search traffic.” None came from Google, but I remember such leave-a-note type Web annotators being briefly fashionable 20-25 years ago. They failed because either nobody used them or left just the kind of comments you’d expect, and it was like accessing a Web site through a layer of graffiti.

Bloomberg: Dropbox Ends Unlimited Cloud Storage Following Google Change. “Dropbox Inc., a provider of online data storage, is ending its unlimited option, saying a small handful of customers were using massive amounts of resources that had the potential to degrade the cloud service for the rest of its clients.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Elon Musk stopped policing political misinformation. The tech industry followed.. “Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against political misinformation, abandoning their most aggressive efforts to police online falsehoods in a trend expected to profoundly affect the 2024 presidential election.”

WIRED: How to Talk to Your Kids About Social Media and Mental Health. “Around the world, lawmakers have been mounting pressure on the likes of Meta and TikTok to restrict the addictive design features that young users are subjected to. But social media can be valuable to young people too. Digital spaces can be beneficial settings to build friendships and receive social support from peers. So if your kid starts asking about social media (or you suspect that they already have secret accounts), what’s a parent to do?”

Jewish Herald-Voice: Klezmer Institute awarded NEH grant. “The Klezmer Archive project is creating a universally accessible digital archival tool for interaction, discovery and research on available information about klezmer music and its network of contemporary and historical people. Taking individual melodies as the primary artifact, the digital archive will integrate existing tools and archival methods in novel ways to facilitate search and discovery rooted in the needs of its contemporary heritage community.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

FTC: FTC Action Stops Business Opportunity Scheme That Promised Its AI-Boosted Tools Would Power High Earnings Through Online Stores. “As a result of a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit, a federal court has temporarily shut down a business opportunity scheme that lured consumers to invest $22 million in online stores, using unfounded claims about income and profits. The operators of Automators also claimed to use artificial intelligence to ensure success and profitability for consumers who agreed to invest with Automators.”

University of Waterloo: Protecting Canada’s energy infrastructure and supply chain from cyber attacks. “An engineering professor from the University of Waterloo was awarded $1.2 million in federal funding to protect Canada’s critical energy infrastructure and energy sector supply chains from cyber threats. Dr. Sebastian Fischmeister and his research team will use the grant to develop an enhanced cybersecurity system, using a checkpoint technology, that can identify the threats to the supply chains serving the country’s energy sector.”

Bleeping Computer: Google Workspace will require two admins to sign off on critical changes. “Google announced today new cybersecurity defense controls that will allow security teams to thwart social engineering attacks like phishing targeting Workspace users and prevent account takeover attempts. Prominently among these new capabilities is the ability to add an additional layer of protection that requires sensitive Google Workspace actions to be signed off by two admins.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Engineer: Digital avatar relays decoded brain signals to give voice to paralysed woman. “A woman with severe paralysis from a brainstem stroke can speak through a digital avatar following the development of a brain-computer interface at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley. The breakthrough marks the first time that speech or facial expressions have been synthesised from brain signals.” Good morning, Internet…

August 26, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Friday, August 25, 2023

University of Florida, TikTok, Online Media, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 25, 2023

University of Florida, TikTok, Online Media, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Independent Florida Alligator: The Alligator introduces new website that tracks crimes on UF campus. “The Alligator is introducing a new feature on its website to assist students and faculty in tracking crimes on campus; it’s called the UF Campus Crime Project. On the bottom right side of The Alligator website, users will find a new widget that directs them to ufcrime.com. The website features an interactive map of the university, displaying the last 90 days’ worth of crimes that have occurred on campus, along with any available court records.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: TikTok search ads are here. “It’s official – TikTok is bringing ads to its search results. In TikTok Ads Manager, you’ll find the ‘Search Ads Toggle.’ This newly added feature ‘leverages advertisers’ existing In-Feed Ad creative to serve ads alongside organic video search results from relevant user queries,’ TikTok said.”

TechCrunch: Friend.tech hype is skyrocketing, but will it actually reach the stars?. “Since Friend.tech opened its invite-only beta test 11 days ago, the decentralized social-focused app has quickly attracted a lot of users, even catching the attention of big name crypto influencers, NBA players and OnlyFans creators. But can it convert all the early hype to meaningful, lasting traction?”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Bounding Into Comics: Disgruntled CBR Employee Hijacks Official Twitter Account, Publicly Accuses Outlet Of Becoming “An AI-Driven, Clickbait-Focused Content Mill”. “In a move that speaks volumes to the present state of the entertainment media ecosystem, a disgruntled Comic Book Resources employee recently used their access to the outlet’s official Twitter account to deliver a scathing condemnation of its current leadership direction.”

WBBM: Newberry Library acquires Eastland archive that helps humanize the 1915 maritime disaster . “Chicago’s Eastland Disaster killed 844 people in 1915 when a passenger ship rolled over in the Chicago River, and now some of those lost lives are coming into sharper focus. The Newberry Library has acquired the collection of the Eastland Disaster Historical Society.” Please note the second picture in this article includes the deceased body of a child.

SECURITY & LEGAL

SBS News (Australia): New bill to force stronger action on social media disinformation. “Social media is at the centre of many of our lives, but there’s concern it’s increasingly an echo chamber. New legislation seeks to ensure social media platforms are doing their best to combat disinformation, which some say is causing damage to our democracy.”

South China Morning Post: Vietnamese video gaming and social media start-up VNG files to be country’s first tech firm to go public in US. “Formerly known as Vinagame, VNG Corp had its start as a game publisher in 2004. It develops and publishes its own titles as well as local versions of international hits, and has gradually expanded to a wide range of services, such as music sharing, video streaming, messaging, a news portal and mobile payments. It has been exploring going public in the US since at least 2017.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Governing: Public Health Enters the Era of Infodemiology. “Misinformation can thwart the work of public health. Leaders from the field are bringing the mindset they use to detect and contain disease to the rapid, far-reaching spread of an information epidemic.”

University of Mississippi: UM Launching Nation’s First Center for Narrative Intelligence. “The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning has approved the creation of a new National Center for Narrative Intelligence at the University of Mississippi, the first of its kind in the country. Narrative intelligence – a human and artificial intelligence-driven process that analyzes large amounts of data to derive meaning, trends and outcomes is particularly useful in identifying the patterns and flow of misinformation and disinformation. It has broad professional applications in various fields including journalism, health care, national security and public policy.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Wooden CNC Sculpture Displays Conway’s Game Of Life. “Conway’s Game of Life has been the object of fascination for computer hobbyists for decades. Watching the generations tick by is mesmerizing to watch, but programming the data structure and implementing the rules is also a rewarding experience, especially if you’re just getting acquainted with a new computing platform. Just as rewarding can be creating a nice piece of hardware to run the game on, as [SandwichRising] has just done: check out his beautiful wooden Game of Life implementation.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 26, 2023 at 12:24AM
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Three Ballet Teachers, Gulf South Air Pollution, Early Child Education, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, August 25, 2023

Three Ballet Teachers, Gulf South Air Pollution, Early Child Education, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, August 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Bard College: Maria Simpson Launches Free Online Ballet Resource for Educators. “Maria Simpson, professor of dance at Bard College, has launched Three Ballet Teachers… (3BT) in collaboration with Zvi Gotheiner and Hannah Wiley. 3BT is an online resource featuring video documentation of original ballet class choreography by the three contemporary ballet teachers.”

NPR: New mapping tool gives county-by-county breakdown of air pollution. “It’s not easy to picture what’s in the air we breathe in Louisiana and Mississippi. But earlier this month, a researcher debuted a new tool that could help. It maps pollution in the region, and some environmental groups are already using it.”

PR Newswire: Innovative digital tool equips policymakers with strategies and innovations from all 50 states to advance and strengthen early education and care (PRESS RELEASE). “The Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education today launched the Zaentz Navigator, an innovative, user-friendly, and interactive digital tool to help policymakers and leaders learn how cities and states across the country are working to structure, finance, expand, and advance early education and care.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bloomberg: Google, Twitter, Facebook Under EU Scrutiny as New Rules Kick In. “Meta Platforms Inc., Google and X, formerly known as Twitter, will need to adhere to strict new content moderation rules in the European Union when a new law governing social media platforms becomes legally enforceable from Friday.”

Mashable: YouTube is testing a new search feature powered by humming. “If you have a song stuck in your head and just can’t remember the words, YouTube is testing a new feature for you. In a blog post, the platform announced this week it will be testing a new app feature on Android phones that allows users to search for a song by humming or recording it for more than three seconds.”

TechCrunch: X tries to lure back advertisers with new $250 ad credit. “X, the company formerly known as Twitter, has a new initiative aimed at luring smaller businesses to advertise on its platform. The company announced on Wednesday it would offer a one-time ad credit of $250 to select businesses when they spend $1,000 or more on new ad campaigns over the next 30 days.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Business Insider: Google’s Achilles’ heel: The tech giant’s struggles in augmented reality highlight a much bigger weakness. “From Iris to Alius to Betty, Google’s code-named AR projects rival a millennial parent’s baby-name list. But the projects have been just that: projects. Google has failed to turn any into a viable business yet, thanks largely to constant pivots and strategy tweaks, which eventually led to a talent exodus, Hugh reports. To make matters worse, the chaos in Google’s AR division comes as one of its biggest rivals — Apple — has generated buzz for its mixed-reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro.”

WIRED: The Internet Is Turning Into a Data Black Box. An ‘Inspectability API’ Could Crack It Open. “In addition to exposing surveillance, browser inspection tools provide a powerful way to crowdsource data to study discrimination, the spread of misinformation, and other types of harms tech companies cause or facilitate. But in spite of these tools’ powerful capabilities, their reach is limited. In 2023, Kepios reported that 92 percent of global users accessed the internet through their smartphones, whereas only 65 percent of global users did so using a desktop or laptop computer.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: X took two days to suspend account of suspect in Pride flag killing. “X has suspended an account that posted numerous anti-gay and antisemitic posts and was used by the man accused of killing store owner Lauri Carleton over her display of a Pride Flag. But the account had remained live two days after law enforcement publicly confirmed its existence on the platform formerly known as Twitter. The social media company finally suspended the account Wednesday evening.”

Tech Xplore: Research hack reveals call security risk in smartphones. “Advanced smartphone features attract users who want more from their devices, especially in health and entertainment areas, but do these features create a security risk when making or receiving actual calls?…The researchers’ malware, called EarSpy, used machine learning algorithms to filter a surprising amount of caller information from ear speaker vibration data recorded by an Android smartphone’s own motion sensors—and did so without overcoming any safeguards or needing user permissions.

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Register: IBM says GenAI can convert that old COBOL code to Java for you . “IBM is giving its mainframe customers a tool infused with generative AI to translate COBOL code to Java as part of application modernization efforts. The watsonx Code Assistant for Z is set to be available sometime in Q4 2023. Big Blue says it can speed translation of COBOL to Java on its Z mainframes.”

The Feminist Institute: Preserving the International Museum of Women. “Our previous blog post highlighted the history of IMOW and its multiple digital exhibition initiatives. In this project feature, we’ll discuss our approach to capturing this born-digital resource and considerations to take when preserving digital projects that have reached obsolescence.” Good morning, Internet…

August 25, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Thursday, August 24, 2023

Poetry Book Society Bulletin, Microsoft Excel, WordPress, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 24, 2023

Poetry Book Society Bulletin, Microsoft Excel, WordPress, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

InPublishing: The Poetry Book Society launches digital archive. “Digital access to a fully-searchable modern archive of The Poetry Book Society Bulletin (PBS Bulletin) is now available to the society’s members, as well as poets, literature lovers and libraries worldwide. The archive, created in partnership with digital publishing services platform Exact Editions, offers nearly 25 issues’ worth of content dating back to 2017 and is accessible across web, iOS and Android devices.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel. “Microsoft is bringing popular programming language Python to Excel. A public preview of the feature is available today, allowing Excel users to manipulate and analyze data from Python.”

WordPress: More Control Over Your Domain—Introducing Forwarding . “Ever wished you could seamlessly guide visitors from one domain to another? That’s precisely what domain forwarding does. We frequently use it here at WordPress.com. For instance, when you type in ownyouridentity.online—a catchy and memorable URL, if we do say so ourselves—you’re taken straight to our page at WordPress.com/domains. Today, we’re happy to let you know that domain forwarding is available and easily accessible on WordPress.com.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Watch YouTube Videos Together With Friends: 7 Ways . “It’s a great joy to share a YouTube video with friends. It’s even better to watch it with them. Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible, especially if you live apart. So, we have compiled a list of ways to watch YouTube together with your friends. As well as helping you watch YouTube together, these services help you sync playback so that you and your friends are watching the same thing at the same time.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Boing Boing: This young zoologist wants to educate you about weird organisms, prehistoric creatures, evolution, and more. “Meet zoologist Lindsay Nikole, who is based in Torrance, California and who uses both short form (Instagram and TikTok) and long form (YouTube) social media to educate the public about animals of all kinds, as well as about ecosystems, evolution, and more.”

Hollywood Reporter: Bill Simmons, Alex Cooper, Emma Chamberlain and 36 More on The Future of Podcasting . “‘Podcasting has gone from being an industry that had a ton of speculative money thrown at it, to an industry that now has to figure out how to make money,’ notes Audacy’s Jenna Weiss-Berman when asked to describe how it has transformed over the last five years. Here, many of the top hosts, executives and agents in the business, all featured on THR‘s annual list of The 40(ish) Names to Know in Podcasting Now, weigh in with their hopes, plans and pet peeves.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Powered by technology, imposter scams drive new wave of fraud. “Computer-generated children’s voices so realistic they fool their own parents. Masks created with photos from social media that can penetrate a system protected by face ID. They sound like the stuff of science fiction, but these techniques are already available to criminals preying on everyday consumers. The proliferation of scam technology has alarmed regulators, police and people at the highest levels of the financial industry.”

Techdirt: Unregulated Data Brokers Using The Data They Over-Collect To Run Ads Opposing The Regulation Of Data Brokers. “We’ve noted a few times that there are two major reasons that the U.S. still hasn’t passed even a basic privacy law for the internet era or regulated data brokers. One, the government is corrupt, and has repeatedly buckled to the lobbying of multiple industries that find the current dysfunction very profitable. Two, the government loves the current lax system because it allows them to dodge warrants.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of British Columbia: People dislike AI art because it threatens their humanity: study. “AI-generated writing, photography, art and music have been skyrocketing in popularity, but that surging success has also triggered an enormous backlash, with many rejecting AI art — and even asserting that its proliferation marks the beginning of the end for humanity. So why do some people react so negatively to art made by artificial intelligence? According to a new study from the UBC Sauder School of Business, it’s because for some, it challenges what it is to be human.”

Iowa State University: Digital real estate listings with more photos, descriptions earn higher sale prices. “In a recently published study, [Professor Cheng] Nie and his co-authors highlight how specific features on Zillow influence people’s decisions when making offers and buying houses. Their analysis indicates listings with more ‘experience attributes’ increase the sale price of properties. Photos and descriptions like ‘upscale bathroom fixtures,’ ‘a sunlit kitchen,’ or ‘an exceptional lake view’ fall into this category. They signal the aesthetic and less tangible benefits of a property.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 25, 2023 at 12:35AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/WuoX5BL