Henry Kissinger, Introduction to Discrete Mathemathics, .Meme Domains, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 30, 2023

Henry Kissinger, Introduction to Discrete Mathemathics, .Meme Domains, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

Sorry this is late, got a migraine I couldn’t work through.

NEW RESOURCES

National Security Archive: Henry Kissinger: The Declassified Obituary. “This special posting also centralizes links to dozens of previously published collections of documents related to Kissinger’s tenure in government that the Archive, led by the intrepid efforts of William Burr, has identified, pursued, obtained and catalogued over several decades. Together, these collections constitute an accessible, major repository of records on one of the most consequential U.S. foreign policy makers of the 20th century.”

Wolfram Blog: Don’t Be Discreet and Learn Discrete Mathematics with Wolfram Language. “I am glad to announce the launch of Introduction to Discrete Mathematics, a free interactive course that aims to explore the world of integers and information. This course investigates the mathematical foundations of computation and information theory. It is designed to be compact and efficient, minimizing the number of redundant examples and amount of potentially distracting background material.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google’s .meme domain is here to serve your wackiest websites. “If you ever wanted to make your website sound a little more silly, now’s your chance. Google Registry just released a new top-level domain that lets you slap a big ol’ .meme at the end of your website.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 5 of the Best Websites to Learn Morse Code Online for Free. “Despite modern communication methods, the art of Morse code remains a timeless and valuable skill. Fortunately, the Internet offers many accessible resources that can help anyone learn Morse code from the comfort of their own home. If you’re ready to begin mastering this skill, check out our recommendations for the best websites to learn Morse code.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

GrepBeat: SaveOr Can Save Families Time And Turmoil From Cleaning Out Estates. “According to Durham-based startup SaveOr, all of our items can easily be categorized and tagged for family members, friends and charities to have after we’re gone, reducing the stress and difficulty for the family members and friends left behind of sorting through hundreds or even thousands of items. Founder and Duke University senior Matthew Scola created SaveOr after sorting through his great-grandparents’ house after they passed.”

Mashable: What do we owe our online dating matches?. “In an era where we’re finally recognising the more nebulous dating stages, like situationships and talking stages, we don’t seem to have come to a mutual understanding of how we end our online interactions when we decide they’re no longer for us. So, what exactly do we owe each other?”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Google Chrome emergency update fixes 6th zero-day exploited in 2023. “Google has fixed the sixth Chrome zero-day vulnerability this year in an emergency security update released today to counter ongoing exploitation in attacks. The company acknowledged the existence of an exploit for the security flaw (tracked as CVE-2023-6345) in a new security advisory published today.”

Vice: It Sure Looks Like a Hacking Campaign Messed Up People’s Spotify Wrapped. “Every year, Spotify Wrapped provides a rundown of everything its users listened to over the past year. It’s a fun, and sometimes embarrassing, reminder of the music that dominated your life. Excitement turned to confusion this year when some users got their Wrapped roundup only to discover their lists taken over by an artist they weren’t listening to: Lil Durk.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: Snowplow Parents Are Ruining Online Grading. “I’ve spent the past couple of weeks talking to teachers about their experiences with online grade books like Schoology and Infinite Campus, and many of their anecdotes were similar to what Miller shared: anxious kids checking their grades throughout the day, snowplow parents berating their children and questioning teachers about every grade they considered unacceptable, and harried middle and high school teachers, some of whom teach more than 100 kids on a given day, dealing with an untenable stream of additional communication.”

Reuters: Most online hate targets women, says EU report. “Women are the main targets of online hate, including abusive language, harassment and incitement to sexual violence, a European Union report said on Wednesday. This should encourage the EU and social media platforms to pay close attention to protected characteristics such as gender and ethnicity when moderating content, the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) said in its report.” Good evening, Internet…

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December 1, 2023 at 05:12AM
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eDNA Explorer, Google News, National Library of Australia, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, November 30, 2023

eDNA Explorer, Google News, National Library of Australia, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, November 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of California Santa Cruz: New eDNA Explorer provides a powerful new resource for conservation. “CALeDNA, a UC-wide consortium project to document California’s biodiversity, has launched a prototype of their new eDNA Explorer. This open-source tool provides a powerful and easily accessible platform for sharing, exploring, and analyzing data from projects that use environmental DNA.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google agrees to pay publishers in Canada and drops plans for blocking news. “Google announced today that it won’t pull links to Canadian news outlets after all, thanks to an agreement with the government of Canada over the contentious Online News Act or Bill C-18.”

National Library of Australia: Making history with Trove. “Australia’s much loved digital library Trove is inviting community-led, volunteer-run and rural and regional collecting organisations across Australia to make their significant digital collections and data available and findable in Trove. Following the budget announcement in April 2023, the National Library of Australia has announced that these organisations will not be asked to pay to showcase their digital content in Trove.”

NPR: Merriam-Webster’s word of the year definitely wasn’t picked by AI. “‘Authentic’ was selected as the 2023 word of the year by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, landing among the most-looked-up words in the dictionary’s 500,000 entries, the company said in a press release Monday.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Daily Beast: Elon Musk Tells Major Advertisers in Person: ‘Go F*ck Yourself’. “Elon Musk on Wednesday told advertisers who’ve abandoned X over his antisemitic and conspiratorial posts to ‘Go fuck yourself,’ throwing a normally calm media summit off the rails during its closing session. While appearing at The New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit, Musk accused major companies like Disney and The Washington Post of wanting to ‘blackmail me with advertising,’ denouncing them for abandoning his platform and speculating they will ‘fail’ for their decision.”

The Guardian:
‘Part of our history’: Ukraine hails return of Scythian gold treasures . “On Tuesday the collection, including a rare golden neck ornament and a solid gold helmet, was shown off in Kyiv. They are among 1,000 items lent in 2013 by four museums in Crimea for an exhibition in the Netherlands. The following year – with the artefacts still out of the country – Vladimir Putin annexed the Black Sea peninsula. Ukraine and the museums in Moscow-occupied territory both demanded the Scythian finds be sent back to them. After a lengthy battle the Dutch supreme court ruled in June that the items belonged to Ukraine. ”

CBS News: How algorithms determine what we’re buying for the holidays — and beyond. “We’ve all been there: Scrolling through social media and spotting the ads recommending something you never knew you needed, whether it’s the perfect pair of shoes, a gadget to solve an annoying problem or the ideal holiday gift for your mom. As shoppers log on for Cyber Monday sales and the holidays approach, you’re more likely to see gift ideas inspired by and advertised by algorithms, experts in the field of algorithmic commerce and online shopping say.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Irish Independent: Dublin riots: Elon Musk’s X did not take down ‘vile messages’ despite Garda requests, Justice Minister Helen McEntee says . “Helen McEntee says X, formerly Twitter, did not cooperate with Gardaí in taking down ‘vile messages’ last Thursday. A detective at Store Street last Saturday told Minister McEntee that An Garda Síochána had been engaging in real time with social media companies to seek the removal of hate messages and those relating to incitement to violence…. ‘They [other companies] were taking down their vile messages. X were not. They did not engage. They did not fulfil their own customer standards,’ she said.”

TechCrunch: Founder of spyware maker Hacking Team arrested for attempted murder: local media. “The founder of the infamous and now-defunct spyware maker Hacking Team was arrested on Saturday after allegedly stabbing and attempting to murder a relative, according to multiple news reports. David Vincenzetti, who launched Hacking Team in 2003, was arrested when police showed up to his apartment after his cousin called the police, local media reported, because he couldn’t reach his wife on the phone.”

INTERPOL: INTERPOL unveils new biometric screening tool . “In mid-November, a fugitive migrant smuggler was subject to a police check… Wanted on organized crime and human trafficking charges since 2021, the smuggler presented himself as a fellow migrant under a false name, using a fraudulent identification document to avoid detection. The police check, however, was part of an INTERPOL operation that saw the Biometric Hub – a new tool that checks biometric data against the organization’s global fingerprint and facial recognition databases – used remotely for the first time.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

ABC News (Australia): Social media is starting to feel like a playground for adults, and yes, the games are just as repetitive. “More and more social media seems like an all-in adult version of children’s playground games, where nobody’s ever out, and where the game — and the joke — just goes around and around and never gets old. That new catchphrase that would run around the playground for a week or so before it’s replaced by another? That’s pretty much it.”

Northeastern Global News: From the Ice Bucket Challenge to MrBeast — does ‘stunt philanthropy’ make the world a better place? . “MrBeast, or James Donaldson as he is known in real life, is arguably the poster child of stunt philanthropy. With more than 215 million YouTube subscribers, he is one of the platform’s largest content creators — and a self-described philanthropist… Patricia Illingworth, a professor of philosophy and business at Northeastern University and author of ‘Giving Now: Accelerating Human Rights for All,’ considers Donaldson in her philanthropy and ethics courses, and says the YouTube star may not be the force for good that many — Donaldson included — make him out to be.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 30, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Kenya Treaties, Finland Research, Google Drive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 29, 2023

Kenya Treaties, Finland Research, Google Drive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 29, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Kenya News Agency: Govt Launches Treaty Database. “The Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the African Union (AU), and the government of Sweden, launched a project dubbed ‘Accelerating the Ratification and Domestication of African Union Treaties.’ This will establish and maintain a public website of treaties and international instruments to which Kenya is a party to.”

National Library of Finland: Finnish research data now under one roof. “Research data can be accessed more easily as Finnish research organisations are making their publications available in the Finna.fi search service. The VATT Institute for Economic Research has also made its publications, including research reports, available through Finna.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: Google investigating missing files on Drive, caused by desktop app. “Over the past few days, quite a few Google Drive users have noticed files go missing, and now Google is confirming that it is looking into the issue, which is caused by the desktop app.”

Search Engine Journal: Google To Curb Microtargeting In Consumer Finance Ads. “Google will update its personalized ads policy in February 2024 to prevent advertisers from targeting audiences for credit and banking ads based on sensitive factors like gender, age, parental status, marital status, or zip code. Google’s current policy prohibiting ‘Credit in personalized ads’ will be renamed ‘Consumer finance in personalized ads’ under the changes.”

CNN: Major brands are not only pausing ads on Elon Musk’s X. They’re stepping away from the platform altogether. “The blackout on X extends beyond these companies’ corporate accounts, in some cases. For instance, the most high profile accounts affiliated with Disney have gone dark on X, such as @StarWars, @Pixar, and @MarvelStudios, which were previously posting multiple times a day on the platform to their millions of followers. Instead, these brands have switched over to the Meta-owned rival Threads, where they have started actively posting.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Globe and Mail: Google ads for Canadian brands found on Russian adult web sites. “Ads for the Disney+ channel, including The Little Mermaid movie, were placed on an Italian porn website, whose name translates as ‘hamster porn.’ Adalytics found a recruitment ad for the FBI on the explicit Italian site as well as on an Iranian steel company’s website, which may be covered by U.S. sanctions. A report by the advertising research company also found ads for vodka, beer and alcoholic cocktails placed on search engines designed for children.”

WIRED: Palestinians Are Locked Out of Google’s Online Economy. “The internet has given some Palestinians a global audience, but many benefits of online life that billions around the world can take for granted simply don’t work for people in Gaza and the West Bank. In addition to YouTube’s partner program, money transfer services such as PayPal and ecommerce marketplaces, including Amazon, largely bar Palestinian merchants from entry. Google tools for generating revenue from web ads or in-app purchases are technically open to Palestinians but can, in practice, be inaccessible due to challenges verifying their identity or collecting payment.”

Tubefilter: A new platform is trying to take on Twitch and Kick by adding minigames to streaming sessions. “Noice, which describes itself as a “true multiplayer experience,” launched a closed beta on November 21. Like Twitch and Kick, the new platform is a home for streamers who want to publicly broadcast their gameplay. At launch, Noice is offering creator monetization with a favorable revenue split. Streamers will take home 70% of their earnings on the platform, with the other 30% going to Noice.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Okta Says Hackers Stole Data for All Customer Support Users. “Okta Inc. has discovered that hackers who breached its network two months ago stole information on all users of its customer support system — a scope far greater than the 1% of customers the company had previously said were affected.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

LiveScience: Smart glasses could boost privacy by swapping cameras for this 100-year-old technology. “Smart glasses of the future could swap out optical cameras for sonar, which uses sound to track the movements of its wearer, according to a new study. The sonar-based tech could improve accuracy and privacy, as well as make them cheaper to produce.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 30, 2023 at 01:15AM
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Maryland Vital Records, Google, Google Assistant, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, November 29, 2023

Maryland Vital Records, Google, Google Assistant, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, November 29, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Reclaim the Records: The Maryland Motherlode: Births, Marriages, Deaths, and Naturalizations. “MORE THAN FIVE MILLION RECORDS FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND ARE NOW ONLINE. These records include both the name/date indices as well as full vital records certificates, covering more than a century of Maryland history. They are now freely viewable in the ‘Maryland State Archives’ collection, at the Internet Archive.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Marketing Brew: Google’s working group for news publishers could shut down. “Rob Beeler, a publishing consultant and a former digital ad executive who said he was brought on by Google in 2021 to lead the group, told Marketing Brew that last month the tech giant suggested it would no longer participate in a consortium of publishers first convened to help understand Google’s Privacy Sandbox, its alternative to the third-party cookie.”

9to5 Google: Google Assistant ‘animal of the day’ going the way of the dodo. “Google Assistant has been winding down or consolidating features, especially voice experiences, over the past year, and the latest victim is the whimsical ‘animal of the day’ command.”

Associated Press: Former Google executive ends longshot bid for Dianne Feinstein’s US Senate seat in California. “A former California tech executive is ending her longshot campaign for the U.S. Senate seat once held by the late Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, she announced Tuesday. Democrat Lexi Reese said in a statement that she has been unable to raise the many millions of dollars needed for a first-time candidate to introduce herself to voters across the nation’s most populous state.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Kyodo News: Japan to recommend A-bomb photo archive for UNESCO heritage list. “The Japanese government decided Tuesday to recommend a collection of photos and videos depicting the devastation in Hiroshima after the August 1945 atomic bombing to a UNESCO documentary heritage program for 2025, the 80th anniversary of the U.S. attack. If accepted, it will mark the first time documents related to the atomic bomb have been added to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Memory of the World Register.”

Washington Post: Elon Musk boosts Pizzagate conspiracy theory that led to D.C. gunfire. (This link goes to a gift article.) “Elon Musk voiced support Tuesday for Pizzagate, the long-debunked conspiracy theory that led a man to fire a rifle inside a Washington, D.C., restaurant in 2016. The far-right theory, a predecessor to QAnon, alleged that the Clintons and Democratic Party leaders ran a secret satanic child sex ring in a D.C. pizzeria known as Comet Ping Pong…. After this story was published, a Washington Post spokesperson said the company had made the decision to pause its advertising on X.”

BusinessWire: GRAMMY Museum® Grant Program Awards $200,000 for Music Research and Sound Preservation (PRESS RELEASE). “The GRAMMY Museum® Grant Program announced today that $200,000 in grants will be awarded to 14 recipients in the United States to help facilitate a range of research on a variety of subjects, as well as support a number of archiving and preservation programs.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

404 Media: Plex Users Fear New Feature Will Leak Porn Habits to Their Friends and Family . “Many Plex users were alarmed when they got a ‘week in review’ email last week that showed them what they and their friends had watched on the popular media server software. Some users are saying that their friends’ softcore porn habits are being revealed to them with the feature, while others are horrified by the potentially invasive nature feature more broadly.”

Gothamist: 4M NYers’ data and medical records were exposed in a breach. Here’s how to protect against ID theft.. “At least 4 million New Yorkers’ private information could be at risk of identity theft after a data breach at a medical transcription company that works with hospitals in New York, state Attorney General Letitia James said Tuesday. The company, Nevada-based Perry Johnson & Associates, works with Northwell Health, which has hospitals and clinics across the five boroughs and Long Island, as well as Crouse Health in Syracuse. About 9 million patients nationwide are affected by the breach, according to the attorney general’s office.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Carnegie Mellon University: Software Engineering Institute Establishes AI Security Incident Response Team . “The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University today announced the formation of the Artificial Intelligence Security Incident Response Team (AISIRT) to help ensure the safe and effective development and use of AI. AISIRT will analyze and respond to threats and security incidents emerging from advances in AI and machine learning (ML). The team will also lead research efforts in incident analysis and response and vulnerability mitigation involving AI and ML systems.”

The Atlantic: Substack Has a Nazi Problem. “The newsletter-hosting site Substack advertises itself as the last, best hope for civility on the internet—and aspires to a bigger role in politics in 2024. But just beneath the surface, the platform has become a home and propagator of white supremacy and anti-Semitism. Substack has not only been hosting writers who post overtly Nazi rhetoric on the platform; it profits from many of them.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

New York Times: Nom Nom Nom. What’s the Deal With Cookie Monster’s Cookies?. “The recipe, roughly: Pancake mix, puffed rice, Grape-Nuts and instant coffee, with water in the mixture. The chocolate chips are made using hot glue sticks — essentially colored gobs of glue. The cookies do not have oils, fats or sugars. Those would stain Cookie Monster. They’re edible, but barely.” Great read. Good morning, Internet…

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November 29, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Australia Wildlife Audio, Evernote Misinformation, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 28, 2023

Australia Wildlife Audio, Evernote Misinformation, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Queensland University of Technology: Google Australia and QUT launch A2O Search – a sound search engine to study Australian wildlife. “A2O Search will enable nonprofits, universities, and governments to easily search millions of hours of audio from the Australian Acoustics Observatory and will be open sourced to the broader research community to help influence decisions about land and wildlife management. Researchers can simply upload audio recordings of a species to find similar sounds across the database, filter by location and date, and download results for other systems.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Evernote is reportedly testing a severely restricted plan for free users. “Evernote is experimenting with severe restrictions to its free plan, which may nudge users to upgrade or quit the app entirely. According to a report from TechCrunch, some Evernote users were greeted with a pop-up message announcing that the free plan would be limited to a single notebook and 50 notes.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New Indian Express: Fake letters on social media keep leaders on tenterhooks. “Fake news, in the form of letters, being spread on social media platforms is not only creating confusion in political circles but also causing a big headache for the leaders.”

Business Insider: An image of Israel Kamakawiwoʻole shows Google search still can’t tell AI-generated pictures apart from genuine ones. “If you’re struggling to differentiate AI-generated images from real ones, you’re not alone. An AI-generated image of the late Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwoʻole is currently showing up as the top search result on Google when you search his name. Ethan Mollick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, spotted the change and shared a screenshot of it on X on Sunday.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: Judge to deliberate competition harm vs Google’s gains in search antitrust trial. “The U.S. Justice Department wrapped the evidentiary phase of its antitrust trial against Google a couple of weeks ago, with closing arguments set for May 2024. At its core is a question: Can a giant of industry engage in anticompetitive business practices legally, as long as those practices create a better product for that business and its own customers? Judge Amit Mehta reportedly says he has ‘no idea’ how he will rule in this landmark case that could decide not just the future of the internet, but also the future of antitrust law. And little wonder the judge is stumped.”

ABC News (Australia): New laws to prevent ‘iconic’ sport moments slipping behind paywalls. “New laws are being proposed to prevent iconic Australian sporting events from slipping behind online paywalls. The federal government wants to modernise Australia’s anti-siphoning scheme, which prevents subscription television from gaining rights to broadcast an event before free-to-air television has had the opportunity to acquire those rights first.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Brookings Institution: AI can strengthen U.S. democracy—and weaken it. “In this first part of a new series on the risks and possibilities of the confluence between AI and democracy, we provide an overview of three principal areas where AI may transform democratic governance and its execution. Subsequent installments of the series will offer deeper dives into these topics and policy recommendations for lawmakers.”

University of California Riverside: Online consumers shy away from sponsored product listings. “Consumers… tend to view sponsored listings with suspicion and often prefer to click on what are called ‘organic’ listings that appear high in their product search results but are not sponsored, said Mingyu ‘Max’ Joo, an assistant professor of marketing in UCR’s School of Business and lead author the study. Platforms and sellers expect the ‘sponsored” and ‘ad’ signs to be visually prominent. In fact, a sponsored listing can be detrimental when it replaces a seller’s organic listing that would have appeared in the top few positions in the search results.”

Tech Xplore: What if Alexa or Siri sounded more like you? Study says you’ll like it better. “One voice does not fit all when it comes to virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, according to a team led by Penn State researchers that examined how customization and perceived similarity between user and voice assistant (VA) personalities affect user experience. They found a strong preference for extroverted VAs—those that speak louder, faster and in a lower pitch.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ars Technica: DOS_deck offers free, all-timer DOS games in a browser, with controller support. “DOS_deck [provides] the most frictionless path to playing classic DOS shareware and abandonware, like Doom, Jazz Jackrabbit, Command & Conquer, and Syndicate, with reconfigured controller support and a simplified interface benevolently looted from the Steam Deck. You can play it in a browser, right now, the one you’re using to read this post.” It looks like only the Android table is available for the Epic Pinball game. Just in case you try to play the Excalibur table a couple times before you figure it out. >cough< Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 29, 2023 at 01:56AM
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Political Systems and Social Media, Seattle Gay News, CODART, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, November 28, 2023

Political Systems and Social Media, Seattle Gay News, CODART, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, November 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Centre for Economic Policy Research: The political economy of social media: A new eBook. “The emergence of social media has reshaped the way humans communicate, interact and coordinate with each other. Assessing the impact of this transformation on politics has been one of the great social science questions of the last or decade or so, and will continue to occupy researchers for a long time to come. A new CEPR eBook provides a snapshot of how economists have been trying to answer this question.”

King5: ‘A labor of love’: Seattle Gay News working to archive every old publication free for the public to view. “The new owner and publisher of Seattle Gay News (SGN), one of the longest-standing LGBTQIA publications in the country, has an ambitious goal: archive every single issue of the publication for the public to view online…. [Mike] Schultz said SGN’s new website lets you see archives of the publication dating back to the 1970s.” As far as I can tell this is a separate archive than the Seattle Gay News archive created by the state of Washington and launched in February.. I’m mentioning it because it looks like they might have different holdings.

EVENTS

CODART: CODART’s Anniversary Magazine and Symposium Recordings Are Now Available. “On 6 October 2023, CODART organized a public symposium on The Curator of the Future, at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which was attended by more than 170 international museum professionals, students and art-lovers. Recordings of the panel discussions and closing remarks by Warda El-Kaddouri are now available online. ”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Tumblr sheds Post Plus subscriptions as the platform downsizes. “Tumblr is doing away with Post Plus, the feature that lets creators charge users a subscription to access their content. Starting on December 1st, creators will no longer be able to enable Post Plus on their blogs. The discontinuation of Post Plus comes just weeks after a leaked memo revealed the platform’s plans to downsize after struggling to meet usage and revenue targets.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Android Police: Google Drive seems to have lost some user data, reports say. “It looks like Google Drive is experiencing some issues with disappearing files. Multiple users have taken to the Google Support forum to report that they lost access to some of the files that they’ve uploaded to Google Drive, with them seemingly fully gone from the cloud service. Google recommends you don’t make any changes to your Google Drive if you’re affected while the company investigates the issue.”

ABC News: Paris mayor says she’s quitting Elon Musk’s ‘global sewer’ platform X. “The mayor of future Olympic host city Paris says she is quitting X, accusing Elon Musk ‘s platform previously known as Twitter of spreading disinformation and hatred and of becoming a ‘gigantic global sewer’ that is toxic for democracy and constructive debate.”

University of Southern California: Records of Trailblazing Latino Journalist Association Find Home at USC Libraries. “The USC Libraries have acquired the records of CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California, the trailblazing professional association fostering diversity within the news media for more than a half century. Founded in 1972 in Los Angeles and formerly known as the California Chicano News Media Association, CCNMA was the first advocacy organization for journalists of color to incorporate. To this day, it promotes the advancement of Latino journalists through scholarships to high school and college students, educational programs, job fairs, and professional development opportunities.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: Slick videos or more ‘authentic’ content? The Israel-Gaza battles raging on TikTok and X. “When I open up my TikTok feed, two videos play one after the other. The first shows four Israeli soldiers dancing with guns, set against a blue sky. The other is a young woman speaking from her bedroom, with a prominent pro-Palestinian caption. TikTok’s algorithm will determine what kind of videos I want to see and recommend similar content, based on which of the two videos I watch until the end.”

Rolling Stone: We Spied on Trump’s ‘Southern White House’ From Our Couches. “We didn’t have to risk life and limb, posing as the help and smuggling information out through a well-funded spy ring. All we had to do was sign up for an online service, enter the address of Mar-a-Lago, and click a button. Within a few minutes, we had a report profiling thousands of visitors to Trump’s club over the course of an entire year, including details like where they likely live and work, their ages, incomes, ethnicities, education levels, where they were immediately before visiting, and where they spent their time on the property once they got there.”

CBS News: 2 N.J. emergency rooms diverting patients after Hackensack Meridian Health hit with potential cyber attack. “A ransomware attack on a health system in New Jersey is forcing two hospitals in the state to divert patients coming to their emergency rooms to other facilities. One of the hospitals is Hackensack Meridian Pascack Valley Medical Center in Westwood and the other is in Montclair.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: Opinion: Schools should ban smartphones. Parents should help.. “Understandably, individual schools and school districts — in Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania and elsewhere — are trying to crack down on smartphones. Students are required to store the devices in backpacks or lockers during classes, or to place them in magnetic locking pouches. In 2024, these efforts should go even further: Impose an outright ban on bringing cellphones to school, which parents should welcome and support.”

University of Arkansas Little Rock: UA Little Rock Receives $5 Million From U.S. Army To Combat Adversarial Information Campaigns. “The project, set to run through 2025, aims to identify research gaps in deviant socio-technical behaviors, shape an agenda focused on developing strategies that can counter emerging threats, and create tools for near real-time analysis of such threats.” 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.

November 28, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Royal Court Theatre, Secure AI System Development, Google Accounts, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 27, 2023

Royal Court Theatre, Secure AI System Development, Google Accounts, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

BroadwayWorld: The Royal Court Theatre Creates Digital Archive Allowing Open Access For All. “The Royal Court Theatre announced the launch of Living Archive, their first ever standalone online archive. The digital archive holds information on every play which has ever been presented on the Royal Court stages from when it opened its doors in 1956 to the present day, totalling almost 2000 works by over 1000 writers.”

CISA: DHS CISA and UK NCSC Release Joint Guidelines for Secure AI System Development. “…the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) today jointly released Guidelines for Secure AI System Development to help developers of any systems that use AI make informed cybersecurity decisions at every stage of the development process.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NPR: Google is deleting unused accounts this week. Here’s how to save your old data. “Starting Dec. 1, Google will start deleting ‘inactive’ accounts — that is, accounts that haven’t been used in at least two years. Google accounts give access to the company’s other products, including Gmail, Drive, Docs, Meet, Calendar, Photos and YouTube. That means emails, videos, photos, documents and any other content sitting in an inactive account are at risk.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Audrey Salkeld, Pioneering Historian of Everest, Dies at 87
. “Audrey Salkeld, a pioneering historian of Mount Everest who herself made it to within 8,000 feet of the summit, died on Oct. 11 in Bristol, England. She was 87…. In a tribute, Climbing magazine called Ms. Salkeld ‘the world’s pre-eminent expert in Everest history.'”

Rest of World: The end of anonymity on Chinese social media. “On October 31, Weibo, as well as several other major Chinese social media platforms including WeChat, Douyin, Zhihu, Xiaohongshu, and Kuaishou, announced that they now required popular users’ legal names to be made visible to the public. Weibo stated in a public post that the new rule would first apply to all users with over 1 million followers, then to those with over 500,000.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Pentagon’s AI initiatives accelerate hard decisions on lethal autonomous weapons. “Artificial intelligence employed by the U.S. military has piloted pint-sized surveillance drones in special operations forces’ missions and helped Ukraine in its war against Russia. It tracks soldiers’ fitness, predicts when Air Force planes need maintenance and helps keep tabs on rivals in space. Now, the Pentagon is intent on fielding multiple thousands of relatively inexpensive, expendable AI-enabled autonomous vehicles by 2026 to keep pace with China.”

Georgia Tech: Largest Study of its Kind Shows Outdated Password Practices are Widespread. “Three out of four of the world’s most popular websites are failing to meet minimum requirement standards and allowing tens of millions of users to create weak passwords. The findings are part of a new Georgia Tech cybersecurity study that examines the current state of password policies across the internet.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Forget dystopian scenarios – AI is pervasive today, and the risks are often hidden. “The Biden administration’s recent executive order and enforcement efforts by federal agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission are the first steps in recognizing and safeguarding against algorithmic harms. And though large language models, such as GPT-3 that powers ChatGPT, and multimodal large language models, such as GPT-4, are steps on the road toward artificial general intelligence, they are also algorithms people are increasingly using in school, work and daily life. It’s important to consider the biases that result from widespread use of large language models.”

PsyPost: People worse at detecting AI faces are more confident in their ability to spot them, study finds . “In new research published in Psychological Science, a team of scientists have shed light on a perplexing phenomenon in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI): AI-generated faces can appear more ‘human’ than actual human faces.”

The Guardian: ‘Cultural vandalism’: row as Kew Gardens and Natural History Museum plan to move collections out of London. “London’s ageing buildings, crumbling storage space, and soaring land prices mean a move beyond the M25 is the only realistic way to protect the capital’s swelling backroom collections of scientific and cultural treasures while improving researchers’ access to them, say senior museum staff. The total price-tag for the venture could top half a billion pounds. But this vast rehousing project has not been universally welcomed.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 28, 2023 at 01:59AM
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Australia Radio History, Twitter, Web Searching, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, November 27, 2023

Australia Radio History, Twitter, Web Searching, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, November 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Radio World: Australia Marks a Century of Radio Broadcasting. “The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia is reflection on Australian radio’s first century with ‘Radio 100,’ an online exhibit telling 100 years of radio history in the country in five chapters over 100 days.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Sydney Morning Herald: ‘Sombre occasion’: X reprimanded after Voice referendum. “X has had its status as a signature to the Australian code of practice on disinformation and misinformation revoked following a complaint that it didn’t allow the reporting of misinformation during the Voice to parliament referendum.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: How to Make Your Web Searches More Secure and Private. “There are ways to increase your privacy on Google’s platforms, like using privacy-focused browsers, privacy-focused alternatives to Google Maps, auto-deleting your web history after a certain time period, or simply limiting the amount of data the company collects in the first place by opting out of features like web-based email and location awareness. (And you should know that using your browser’s incognito mode isn’t as sneaky as you think it is.) If you’re serious about getting off the data collection grid, there’s a bevy of other privacy focused search options at your disposal. So if you want to use a search engine that doesn’t keep track of your queries, serve your data to advertisers, or change your search results based on what it thinks you’ll like, you’ve got some options.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Guam Daily Post: Humanities Guåhan to archive and digitize resource center. “Humanities Guåhan received an award from the National Endowment for the Humanities Pacific Islands Cultural Initiative to fund the coestablishment of the Pacific Islands Humanities Network. This funding will go toward developing a new digital resource center to preserve and enhance accessibility to valuable educational and cultural resources related to Guåhan, Micronesia and the broader Pacific region, according to Humanities Guåhan.”

Asia One: Mongolia urges Russia, other nations to return cultural artefacts. “Mongolia on Monday (Nov 20) called for more support from Russia, Britain and other countries to repatriate hundreds of cultural artefacts, some dating back over two millennia. Key artefacts include a letter from Mongolia’s first prime minister declaring independence from China’s Manchu dynasty, currently held at the British Library in London, the Mongolian government said in a statement.”

BBC: The job sharing apps that feel like online dating. “The idea behind Switzerland-based WeJobShare is that instead of having to find a friend or colleague to share a job with, you can instead match up with a complete stranger, and therefore considerably increase the pool of potential candidates.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Echo Ekhi’s Blog: I’m Declaring War Against “What If” Videos: Project Copy-Knight. “They are very easy to make: pick a fanfic, copy all the text into a text-to-speech generator, mix the resulting audio file with some generic art from the fandom as the background, give it a snappy title like ‘What if Deku had the Power of Ten Rings’, photoshop an attention-grabbing thumbnail, dump it onto YouTube and get thousands of views…. In short, an industry has emerged from the systematic copyright theft of fanfiction, for profit.”

CBS News: Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa hacked by Iranian-backed cyber group. “The Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa said on Saturday that one of their booster stations had been hacked by an Iranian-backed cyber group. Matthew Mottes, the chairman of the board of directors for the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, confirmed to KDKA-TV that the cyber group, known as Cyber Av3ngers, took control of one of the stations. An alarm went off as soon as the hack had occurred.”

TorrentFreak: Rightsholders Reported Five Million Unique ‘Pirate’ Domain Names to Google. “Over the past several years, copyright holders have asked Google to remove URLs from five million unique domains. These include blatant pirate sites such as The Pirate Bay, but also legal streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+. What stands out most is that a tiny fraction of all domains are responsible for the majority of the trouble.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Tech Xplore: Creating artistic collages using reinforcement learning. “Researchers at Seoul National University have recently tried to train an artificial intelligence (AI) agent to create collages (i.e., artworks created by sticking various pieces of materials together), reproducing renowned artworks and other images. Their proposed model was introduced in a paper pre-printed on arXiv and presented at ICCV 2023 in October.”

The Hill: Science is littered with zombie studies. Here’s how to stop their spread.. “Since 1980, more than 40,000 scientific publications have been retracted. They either contained errors, were based on outdated knowledge or were outright frauds. Identifying these inaccuracies is how science is supposed to work. Finding and correcting publications — and keeping the scholarly record up to date — is part of the process. Yet these zombie publications continue to be cited and used, unwittingly, to support new arguments. Why? Almost always it’s because nobody noticed they had been retracted.”

University of Reading: Machines meet museums: Report unpacks AI in heritage sector. “Nearly a quarter of UK heritage organisations are using artificial intelligence (AI) tools, according to a recent survey commissioned by The National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF). The rise of AI in the heritage research led to the NLHF commissioning Dr Mathilde Pavis, of the University of Reading, to conduct research unpacking emerging uses of AI across museums, galleries, libraries and archives, and support the heritage sector in planning for the AI revolution.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 27, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Google Drive, CSS Grid, Checking Broken Links, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 26, 2023

Google Drive, CSS Grid, Checking Broken Links, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: WhatsApp for Android will again use Google Drive space for backups. “Android users on WhatsApp won’t have a free ride anymore when it comes to backups. The change comes after five years of Android users’ backups not counting toward Google Drive storage limits at all — something that was never true for iOS users.”

USEFUL STUFF

Josh W Comeau: An Interactive Guide to CSS Grid. “CSS Grid is one of the most amazing parts of the CSS language. It gives us a ton of new tools we can use to create sophisticated and fluid layouts. It’s also surprisingly complex. It took me quite a while to truly become comfortable with CSS Grid! In this tutorial, I’m going to share the biggest lightbulb moments I’ve had in my own journey with CSS Grid. You’ll learn the fundamentals of this layout mode, and see how to do some pretty cool stuff with it. ”

Hongkiat: How to Check Broken Links Using Google Sheets. “By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have a Google Sheet that lets you list as many URLs as you want in one column. The column next to it will show you the HTTP status of each URL. This will help you understand if the page is accessible, redirected, broken, and so on.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Vice: People on TikTok Are Quitting Vaping to Protest Child Labor in Congo. “Dozens of people have been convinced to quit vaping. Not because of the health concerns or the cost, but in solidarity with the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. ‘I know these are the last words you thought you’d ever hear me say in my f––ing life, but I’m quitting vaping,’ creator Kristina (@itskristinamf) said in a TikTok that reached 1.5 million views. ‘I’m officially f––ing done.'”

SF Gate: ‘Straight through the bushes’: Google Maps misleads Californians into the desert during dust storm. “Shelby Easler, her brother Austin and their significant others were headed back to Los Angeles on Nov. 19 when they used Google Maps. Instead of taking the Interstate 15 — the major highway connecting Southern California to Sin City — the app suggested they take an alternate route to avoid the dust storm that caused major Sunday traffic delays…. Google Maps took the car far off the major highway and into Nevada’s fierce deserts on an off-roading trail. Easler’s car were not the only bushwackers. In Shelby’s viral TikTok, a trail of cars closely follows behind them. ”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Politico: Europe’s grid is under a cyberattack deluge, industry warns. “Thousands of cyberattacks have inundated Europe’s energy grid since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a top industry leader is calling for help as officials and researchers fret that not nearly enough is being done.”

The Conversation: The vast majority of us have no idea what the padlock icon on our internet browser is – and it’s putting us at risk. “Do you know what the padlock symbol in your internet browser’s address bar means? If not, you’re not alone. New research by my colleagues and I shows that only 5% of UK adults understand the padlock’s significance. This is a threat to our online safety.”

Kotaku: YouTuber Accuses Casetify Of Copyright Theft, Has Receipts. “There’s a brilliant trick map makers use to prevent plagiarism, called ‘trap streets.’ They deliberately put an entirely fictional road, or even entire imaginary towns (‘paper towns’), so that if someone lifts their work without permission it’s immediately identifiable to them. Something very similar is at the center of claims that a billion dollar phone case company has ripped off YouTuber JerryRigEverything.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: It’s Time to Log Off. “Scrolling through social media can feel like a nightmare these days. You’re reading about the horrors of the Israel-Hamas war, and then you’re reading about the horrors of the war between Ukraine and Russia. You’re learning about the latest devastating climate news. Democracy is under threat in America. It can feel like everything is falling apart. This, of course, can have a significant effect on your mental health.”

The Atlantic: AI’s Spicy-Mayo Problem. “In recent months, the members of the AI underground have blown up the assumption that access to the technology would remain limited to a select few companies, carefully vetted for potential dangers. They are, for better or worse, democratizing AI—loosening its constraints and pieties with the aim of freeing its creative possibilities.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 27, 2023 at 01:34AM
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Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania, Google Docs, Bug Bounties, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, November 26, 2023

Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania, Google Docs, Bug Bounties, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, November 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Pennsylvania Historic Preservation: PennDOT’s New Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania GIS Map. “From stone arches and covered bridges to metal trusses and cable suspension bridges, Pennsylvania has a diverse collection of bridge types across its landscape. This includes over 400 historic bridges, bridges that are eligible for listing, or are listed, in the National Register of Historic Places. To showcase this collection, PennDOT created the Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania web map, an interactive GIS layer with locational and basic historical information about each bridge.”
TWEAKS AND UPDATES

ZDNet: What are Google Docs Building Blocks, and how do you use them?. “Google is always thinking of ways to improve your experience with its cloud-based office suite. And with every new iteration, the tools become more and more useful. A case in point is Building Blocks. This is yet another new feature added to Docs, which gives you an assist on creating things like Meeting Notes, Email Drafts, Product Roadmaps, Review Trackers, Project Assets, and Content Trackers.”

The Register: Microsoft’s bug bounty turns 10. Are these kinds of rewards making code more secure?. “Microsoft’s bug bounty program celebrated its tenth birthday this year, and has paid out $63 million to security researchers in that first decade – with $60 million awarded to bug hunters in the past five years alone, according to Redmond.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Wildlife Forever: Wildlife Forever To Build National Mapping Tool For Improved Access To Invasive Species Decontamination Locations. “Wildlife Forever and a coalition of fishing industry stakeholders and federal partners will be designing a new online platform to identify watercraft inspection and decontamination stations across the country. In addition, the new website will feature state-specific aquatic invasive species information for boaters traveling across multiple states. This national resource aims to centralize information for traveling boaters and supports AIS objectives of the newly introduced MAPWaters Act.”

New York Times: For brides on social media, diet ads are becoming unavoidable. “After Lauren Aitchison became engaged in March 2022, she began seeing targeted ads for wedding content everywhere, with marketing phrases such as ‘shredding for the wedding’ and ‘bridal boot camp.’ ‘My Pinterest boards were already quite full,’ she jokes. ‘It wasn’t a massive surprise to my algorithm.’ Up until then, Aitchison, 34, had been inundated by general diet ads as well as wedding ads from bridal jewelry brands, but something switched once she posted about her engagement.”

Mashable: How TikTok became a place for tattletales. “We are all guilty of gossiping, perhaps during pillow talk with your partner, by the watercooler at work, or on the phone with your mum. If you say you have never gossiped, I don’t believe you. What happens when our private conversations are made public? In an age when people are filmed in public without their consent, the line between public and private is becoming increasingly blurred. But, how would you feel if a stranger recorded and posted these conversations online, inspiring an internet-wide manhunt against you?”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CBC: Meta ban has been rough, but Google ban would be worse, say small news outlets, analysts. “Small news outlets and media and internet experts say the Online News Act, also known as Bill C-18, has had a serious impact so far, and it may be about to get much worse.”

WIRED: Hard Drives, YouTube, and Murder: India’s Dark History of Digital Hate. “Today more than half the population of India—759 million people—are online. The country has 467 million active YouTube users—the most in the world. The users are no longer predominantly urban. Nobody has tapped into this proliferation better than right-wing groups dedicated to fostering communal disharmony, moving from hard disks filled with videos and laptops in temples to the vast reach of YouTube and WhatsApp.”

Virginia Tech: Are your Cyber Monday purchases legit? There’s (going to be) an app for that. “Receiving a bogus designer handbag or imitation Wagyu beef might infuriate a Cyber Monday consumer, but a knock-off respirator or a fake pacemaker could imperil them. Virginia Tech researcher Emma Meno is developing a mobile app to empower buyers to ensure their purchases are legitimate. In a study published for Micromachines earlier this fall, Meno and a team of researchers described their work to date.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of New Mexico: Drones for Ducks: Researchers develop AI to measure migratory bird populations. “Every winter, wildlife managers are challenged to count the migratory waterfowl that fly down into refuges. Creating the counts is difficult and often involves scaring birds into the air to be counted by making loud sounds or soaring past them in low-flying airplanes. Researchers at The University of New Mexico, in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Department of the Interior, are working to develop a machine-learning model prototype that can count the birds using images taken by drones in a project titled Drones for Ducks.”

The Guardian: Preserving our digital content is vital. But paying $38,000 for the privilege is not. “Storing online data in perpetuity is not just about photos and texts but thoughts and ideas. Platforms such as WordPress are starting to act, but it must be at a realistic price.”

The Conversation: Queer archives preserve activist history and provide strategies to counter hate . “Since 2020, I have been helping to build a 2SLGBTQ+ Community Archive in Hamilton, Ont. My students and I are often amazed at just how long 2SLGBTQ+ communities have been resisting very similar kinds of backlash, hate and violence to what we’re seeing today. Anyone concerned about 2SLGBTQ+ struggles today can learn from the history of resistance and activism preserved in these archives.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 26, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Twitter, Interactive Timelines, 3D Models, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 25, 2023

Twitter, Interactive Timelines, 3D Models, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: X May Lose Up to $75 Million in Revenue as More Advertisers Pull Out. “Internal documents viewed by The New York Times this week show that the company is in a more difficult position than previously known and that concerns about Mr. Musk and the platform have spread far beyond companies including IBM, Apple and Disney, which paused their advertising campaigns on X last week. The documents list more than 200 ad units of companies from the likes of Airbnb, Amazon, Coca-Cola and Microsoft, many of which have halted or are considering pausing their ads on the social network.”

Business Insider: Former Google engineer and Trump pardonee Anthony Levandowski relaunches his AI church. “Anthony Levandowski, a pioneer of self-driving cars and controversial Silicon Valley figure, announced the return of his AI-dedicated church in an episode of Bloomberg’s AI IRL podcast. Levandowski started his ‘Way of the Future’ church in 2015 while he was working as an engineer on Google’s self-driving project Waymo.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: Creating an Interactive Timeline With CSS and JavaScript. “Timelines are powerful visual tools that help users navigate and understand chronological events. Explore how to create an interactive timeline using the dynamic duo of CSS and JavaScript.” A very easy walkthrough with basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Hongkiat: 50 Sites to Download Free 3D Models – Best Of. “3D printers have immensely revolutionized the art and manufacturing industry. With advancements in 3D printer technology, it is now not very difficult to own one, even in your home or office…. So, if you want to create 3D furniture, a mechanical component, or even human or animal figurines, here are 50 of the best websites to download 3D models for free. Take a look.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Guardian: ‘We will coup whoever we want!’: the unbearable hubris of Musk and the billionaire tech bros. “Contemporary billionaires appear to understand civics and civilians as impediments to their progress, necessary victims of the externalities of their companies’ growth, sad artefacts of the civilisation they will leave behind in their inexorable colonisation of the next dimension. Unlike their forebears, they do not hope to build the biggest house in town, but the biggest underground lair in New Zealand, colony on the moon or Mars or virtual reality server in the cloud.”

WIRED: China Tried to Keep Kids Off Social Media. Now the Elderly Are Hooked. “Gao Xiangjin used to know all the names of players in the American baskeball leagues, but since relations between the US and China soured, once-daily NBA broadcasts are now far less frequent. So Gao started watching China’s men’s basketball instead, until reports about corruption turned him off earlier this year. He now watches China’s women’s basketball, not on television, but on Douyin, the original, Chinese version of TikTok. Gao is 69 years old, one of a growing cohort of elderly people who have moved away from television and gravitated to Douyin, China’s most popular short-form video app.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

RTE: Regulator concerned over spread of disinformation on social media. “Ireland’s media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, said it remains concerned about the spread of violent imagery, hate speech and disinformation on social media platforms following last night’s unrest in Dublin. There has been much focus on the role played by social media in the riots, with anti-immigrant rhetoric and misinformation being spread on some platforms.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Science Daily: AI trained to identify least green homes. “‘Hard-to-decarbonize’ (HtD) houses are responsible for over a quarter of all direct housing emissions — a major obstacle to achieving net zero — but are rarely identified or targeted for improvement. Now a new ‘deep learning’ model trained by researchers from Cambridge University’s Department of Architecture promises to make it far easier, faster and cheaper to identify these high priority problem properties and develop strategies to improve their green credentials.”

Hixie’s Natural Log: Reflecting on 18 years at Google . “Someone who wanted to lead Google into the next twenty years, maximising the good to humanity and disregarding the short-term fluctuations in stock price, could channel the skills and passion of Google into truly great achievements. I do think the clock is ticking, though. The deterioration of Google’s culture will eventually become irreversible, because the kinds of people whom you need to act as moral compass are the same kinds of people who don’t join an organisation without a moral compass.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ars Technica: GameMaker throws shade at Unity, makes its 2D engine free or $100 for most. “If you’re making a game with GameMaker for release on consoles, you have to pay for an ongoing $80-per-month Enterprise package. If you’re trying to sell a game on other platforms (PC, mobile, browser), there’s a one-time $100 fee. If you’re just messing about or making something that’s not for sale, it’s free. And GameMaker’s asset bundles are free now, too. And some existing subscribers might now get a free commercial license. There is, notably, no mention of ‘run-time’ or per-install fees.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 26, 2023 at 01:08AM
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Library of Congress, Snapchat, Twitter, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 25, 2023

Library of Congress, Snapchat, Twitter, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Library of Congress: What’s new online at the Library of Congress – November 2023. “Interested in learning more about what’s new in the Library of Congress’ digital collections? The Signal shares updates on new additions to our digital collections and we love showing off all the hard work of our colleagues from across the Library. Read on for a sample of what’s been added recently and some of our favorite highlights.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: Snapchat is testing an ad-free subscription. “Snapchat has started testing an ad-free paid subscription plan in Australia. For $US10.50 a month, the new Snapchat+ tier enables consumers to use the platform without disruption from Story or Lens ads. However, the app notes that users may still see sponsored places or My AI responses.’

TechCrunch: Elon Musk says X will show headlines on the platform again. “Elon Musk said that X, formerly Twitter, will start showing headlines in preview cards with URLs on the platform again after removing titles last month. In a post on X, Musk said in an upcoming update, the company will overlay the title in the upper portion of the image of a URL Card. He didn’t mention any specific timeline for rollout or give an example of what might the card look like.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 7 of the Best Spotify Alternatives for Music Streaming . “Spotify’s one of the top music streaming services, but it’s facing some serious competition. But, Spotify might not always have the artists you want or even the quality you prefer. If you’re ready to try something new, check out some of the best Spotify alternatives to see which one fits your needs the best.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: ‘Who’s That Wonderful Girl? Could She Be Any Cuter?’. “‘Nanalan’ hasn’t been on TV in years, but it’s the hottest show on TikTok. A Canadian children’s program that made its debut in 1999, it has had a resurgence in recent weeks, thanks to its growing popularity on the social media platform, where it has been watched millions of times.”

Edinburgh Reporter: Pioneering project captures stories of LGBTQ+ youth. “LGBTQ+ young people across Scotland have lent their voices to a first-of-its-kind social history project that will preserve their experiences, stories and hopes for the future. This is part of LGBT Youth Scotland’s (Un)Seen, (Un)Heard initiative, which is capturing, collating and conserving the stories of LGBTQ+ young people to create a new permanent archive within the National Library of Scotland and increase visibility, provide connection across generations, strengthen communities and inform policymakers.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Business Insider: Do Kwon’s Extradition Approved by Montenegro Court. “A court in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, has approved the extradition of Terra founder Do Kwon to either South Korea or the United States, according to an update posted on the judiciary’s website. Kwon was arrested in the country in March after being caught in Podgorica’s airport with falsified documents.”

Mashable: ‘Gay furry hackers’ breach nuclear lab, demand it create catgirls . “Idaho National Laboratory (INL), one of the largest nuclear labs in the US, confirmed this week that it has been hacked. The group behind the data breach was self-described ‘gay furry hackers’ Sieged Security aka SiegedSec, who have demanded the INL put its efforts and resources into creating real-life catgirls. They probably aren’t being serious, but they did hack into a huge nuclear lab, so who knows.” Posterity, are you starting to appreciate the weirdness?

RESEARCH & OPINION

Nature: ChatGPT generates fake data set to support scientific hypothesis. “In a paper published in JAMA Ophthalmology on 9 November1, the authors used GPT-4 — the latest version of the large language model on which ChatGPT runs — paired with Advanced Data Analysis (ADA), a model that incorporates the programming language Python and can perform statistical analysis and create data visualizations. The AI-generated data compared the outcomes of two surgical procedures and indicated — wrongly — that one treatment is better than the other.”

Slate: How Google Really Works. “Obviously, governments don’t sue companies just to put private company information in the hands of the public. Nor should they. But, in this case, federal prosecutors have brought a convincing case that Google—arguably the most powerful company on the internet—abused one of its many monopolies. While monopolization cases are rare and notoriously difficult to win, the public has already won to some degree. At least we can see Google for what it really is.”

Virginia Tech: How certain media talk about AI may have everything to do with political ideology. “In the recently published research “Partisan Media Sentiment Toward Artificial Intelligence,” authors from the Virginia Tech Pamplin College of Business – Angela Yi, Shreyans Goenka, and Mario Pandelaere – examined the varied reactions to AI by analyzing partisan media sentiment. Their work was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. The researchers found that articles from liberal-leaning media have a more negative sentiment toward AI than articles from conservative media.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

WIRED: Go on a Psychedelic Journey of the Internet’s Growth and Evolution. “Security researcher Barrett Lyon, who makes visualizations of the internet’s network infrastructure, is back with a new piece chronicling the rise of the IPv6 protocol.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 25, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Charles Darwin, ChatGPT, Flipboard, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 24, 2023

Charles Darwin, ChatGPT, Flipboard, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National University of Singapore: All surviving drafts, including three rediscovered pages, of Origin of Species revealed. “On the 164th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s magnum opus, all known surviving pages of the rough draft of Origin of species have been published online. Three recently rediscovered pages from Darwin’s draft of Origin of Species have been published for the first time together with all the other known surviving pages in a new online edition. These documents are added to Darwin Online, a scholarly portal dedicated to Charles Darwin and helmed by Dr John van Wyhe, at the NUS Department of Biological Sciences.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Lifehacker: You Can Now Try ChatGPT’s ‘Chat With Voice’ Feature for Free . “OpenAI rolled out voice chat to ChatGPT Plus users back in September. The feature replaces the text-based ChatGPT interface with something more like a voice assistant: As you speak to ChatGPT, you’ll see a waveform reacting in kind. The assistant will automatically recognize when you’re done talking, and will switch into a ‘thought bubble’ interface as it responds to your question or request. The company always planned to bring voice chat to free users, and while it took a couple months, the feature is finally here.”

TechCrunch: Flipboard stops tweeting, launches new podcast about decentralized social apps. “Social magazine app Flipboard had already committed to joining the ‘fediverse’ — the decentralized social web, which includes apps like Mastodon. Now, it’s doubling down on those ambitions with an announcement that it will stop tweeting while also launching a new podcast devoted to exploring the topic of decentralized social media.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: A Complete Guide to Tab Management in Google Chrome. “Are you having a difficult time organizing your tabs in Google Chrome? In this guide, we’ll explore some solutions to stay on top of your Google Chrome tabs and upgrade your productivity online. Learn how to manage Chrome tabs better in this helpful guide.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Kyiv Independent: Ukraine elected to UNESCO World Heritage Committee for the first time. “Ukraine was among the nine countries elected to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee during the Nov. 22 vote for the first time in history. The country submitted its candidacy in July last year. Ukraine is joining the other 20 members and will hold the seat on the Committee for the period 2023-2027.”

AFP: Internet out: India deploys shutdowns in name of security. “With the world’s largest biometric ID database, a pioneering digital payment system for daily transactions and a flagship space and satellite programme, India knows the power of connected technology. But when trouble brews with political unrest or sectarian violence, authorities are quick to sever internet service to stem disinformation — cutting off millions of people who depend on the web for communication, information and business.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Digital payment platforms can easily be misused for drug dealing. “Digital payment platforms such as Venmo work great for sharing a dinner bill with friends, buying gifts at a pop-up shop or making payments without cash or credit cards. But these digital payment platforms have a dark side: They can be misused for drug dealing and other illicit activity, suggest researchers from the University of California, Davis. And social media apps such as TikTok and Instagram can act as marketing tools for digital drug dealing.”

Imperial College London: Altering our language can help us deal with the intelligence of chatbots. “Were these LLMs to be used by bad faith actors, for example scammers or propagandists, people could be vulnerable to handing over their bank details in pursuit of connection, or being swayed politically. Now a new paper sets out recommendations to prevent us over-empathising with AI chatbots to our detriment.”

UCLA: Using Google Trends To Detect Revenue Misreporting. “You don’t need an advanced degree in accounting or finance to grasp the head-scratching mismatch of reporting strong sales growth when your products seem to be less popular, as measured by Google search volume. Indeed, the researchers found that MUP [“managing revenue up”] firms in their study had 165% higher odds of subsequently restating (correcting) their initial reported revenue, compared with firms that didn’t set off a MUP alarm.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

On GitHub, discovered via Boing Boing: Awesome Engineering Games. “A curated list of some of the best engineering games on PC. All titles are rated Very Positive or higher on Steam. Games are divided into broad categories based on the type(s) of engineering they’re most related to, such as civil engineering & city-building, transportation & route-building, computer science & electrical engineering, etc. See the Table of Contents for a full breakdown of categories.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 25, 2023 at 01:24AM
via ResearchBuzz https://researchbuzz.me/2023/11/24/charles-darwin-chatgpt-flipboard-more-friday-afternoon-researchbuzz-november-24-2023/

Enhancing Our Heritage Toolkit 2.0, Twitter, Google Contacts, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 24, 2023

Enhancing Our Heritage Toolkit 2.0, Twitter, Google Contacts, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

UNESCO World Heritage Convention: New Tool to assess the effectiveness of World Heritage management. “UNESCO and the Advisory Bodies to the World Heritage Committee – ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property), ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) and IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature)- have released a newly revised toolkit for assessing the effectiveness of management systems of World Heritage properties. Enhancing Our Heritage Toolkit 2.0 offers a World Heritage-specific methodology of management effectiveness assessment that can be applied to cultural, natural and mixed sites.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Fortune: Inside Linda Yaccarino’s X all-hands after Elon Musk’s platform sues Media Matters: ‘By all means, put your heads together to bring new revenue into the company’. “At a hastily-assembled all-hands meeting on Monday, X Corp CEO Linda Yaccarino urged staff to find new sources of revenue as advertisers paused business with X following a Media Matters report on antisemitic content on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Yaccarino spoke shortly after X sued the media watchdog group on Monday in a defamation lawsuit that claims the report relied on manufactured content and was designed to ruin X. Elon Musk, owner of X , did not attend the meeting.”

9to5 Google: Google Contacts now lets you set reminder notifications for any date. “Earlier this year, Google Contacts introduced a birthday reminder, and those notifications can now be set for all saved dates…. Of course, Google Contacts has long let you add any ‘Significant date’ to a contact, and now those can have a reminder with notifications.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Mashable: This app wants reading to be a social experience — for the best reasons . “Fable [is] a social community app for readers featuring an array of book clubs and a FYP with a Twitter-like stream of thoughts only to do with reading. Founded by Padmasree Warrior, former CTO at Cisco, Fable is like one big digital book club, with niche pockets for all kinds of readers, free and shoppable e-Books, and tons of personalized reading suggestions.”

WIRED: Twitter’s Former Head of Trust and Safety Finally Breaks Her Silence. “From Israel vs. Hamas threats to Donald Trump’s ‘wild’ posts, Del Harvey helped make the platform’s hardest content moderation calls for 13 years. Then she left in 2021 … and disappeared.”

Government of British Columbia: Public engagement begins for new South Asian Canadian museum. “A new website will provide British Columbians with opportunities to share their vision for a new museum to highlight the history, culture and contributions to B.C. from Canadians of diverse South Asian heritages.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gothamist: LLCs might soon have to list their owners. Should New Yorkers get a look?. “Gov. Kathy Hochul will soon have to decide on a bill that would allow the public to know the true owners behind limited liability companies in New York — a measure that is spurring a lobbying battle among some of her biggest campaign supporters.”

Reuters: YouTuber sues Google Spain for wrongful dismissal. “A Spanish YouTuber is suing Google Spain, a unit of Alphabet Inc, for wrongful dismissal in a case that could set a precedent for content creators’ labour rights, Spanish union UGT said on Thursday. The lawsuit seeks to demonstrate an employment relationship between Jota, a creator of political satire content whose real name has not been disclosed, and Alphabet’s YouTube because he regularly provided his services and received remuneration derived from advertising revenue, UGT said.”

Ars Technica: Thousands of routers and cameras vulnerable to new 0-day attacks by hostile botnet. “Miscreants are actively exploiting two new zero-day vulnerabilities to wrangle routers and video recorders into a hostile botnet used in distributed denial-of-service attacks, researchers from networking firm Akamai said Thursday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Waterloo: Revolutionizing the way air quality data is shared. “Shahan Salim, a PhD candidate in the School of Public Health Sciences and a member of the Waterloo Climate Institute’s COP 28 delegation, has designed, in partnership with UNICEF in Mongolia, a platform to use data from low-cost air quality sensors to monitor and predict adverse outcomes related to air pollution exposure in underserved communities.”

University of Innsbruck: Univer­sity of Inns­bruck focuses on Mastodon. “The communications team at the University of Innsbruck will increasingly rely on the microblogging service Mastodon for science communication. Mastodon is a non-commercial and data protection-friendly platform with functions similar to the former Twitter. For this purpose, an instance has been created at social.uibk.ac.at on university servers, which is open to the university’s organizational units. The active use of X will be significantly reduced.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

NPR: Oklahoma restricted how race can be taught. So these Black teachers stepped up. “The schoolchildren arrived at the community center’s cafeteria on a Saturday morning, their parents in tow. Some adults came without children, because they, too, wanted to learn the African American history that a new law has made many Oklahoma schoolteachers too afraid to teach.” 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.

November 24, 2023 at 06:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/IbX2Pje