By ResearchBuzz
NEW RESOURCES
Asheville Citizen Times: Word from the Smokies: New database contributes to study of George Masa’s photography. “Angelyn Whitmeyer might be the last person you would expect to contribute to ongoing research surrounding a Japanese photographer who found inspiration in the Great Smoky Mountains. And yet, the world is coming to know more about some sophisticated early images and an unlikely champion of Great Smoky Mountains National Park through Whitmeyer’s new George Masa Photo Database.”
TWEAKS AND UPDATES
Mother Jones: Mother Jones, The Center for Investigative Reporting Announce Merger of Storied, Trusted Investigative Newsrooms. “Two of America’s most storied and trusted investigative news organizations, Mother Jones and The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), are poised to merge and become a multimedia nonprofit news outlet, providing in-depth reporting across every platform where people get their news, from online and social media to video, radio, podcast, and print.”
AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD
TechCrunch: With AI Studio, Google launches an easy-to-use tool for developing apps and chatbots based on its Gemini model. “AI Studio is a web-based tool for developers that functions a bit like a gateway into the wider Gemini ecosystem, starting with Gemini Pro and then, at some point next year, also Gemini Ultra. Using the service, developers can quickly develop prompts and Gemini-based chatbots — and then get API keys to use them in their apps or get access to the code to work on it in a more fully featured IDE.”
Poynter: West African fact-checkers team up to correct falsehoods in coup-prone region. “The political landscape in West Africa has been undergoing dramatic changes since 2020, marked by a series of coups that have reshaped governance in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon. This trend of political upheaval extends to nearby Central African countries like Sudan and Chad, with visible signs of instability now emerging in Cameroon and Sierra Leone…. Meanwhile, the primary focus of fact-checkers in the region has shifted to accurately informing the public about the coups and actively correcting divisive falsehoods that often go viral.”
SECURITY & LEGAL
The Register: Nearly a million non-profit donors’ details left exposed in unsecured database. “The database is owned and operated by DonorView – provider of a cloud-based fundraising platform used by schools, charities, religious institutions, and other groups focused on charitable or philanthropic goals. Infosec researcher Jeremiah Fowler found 948,029 records exposed online including donor names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, payment methods, and more.”
Associated Press: Cambodia welcomes the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s plan to return looted antiquities. “Cambodia has welcomed the announcement that New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art will return more than a dozen pieces of ancient artwork to Cambodia and Thailand that were tied to an art dealer and collector accused of running a huge antiquities trafficking network out of Southeast Asia.”
Reuters: Judge says TikTok must turn meeting records over in U.S. states probe. “A state judge on Friday ordered TikTok to comply with a request from the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office for records in a multistate investigation into whether the app puts young people at risk. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said the attorneys general investigating since 2022 have discovered TikTok had an archive of tens of thousands of recorded internal Zoom meetings that the company initially failed to disclose for nearly a year and a half.”
RESEARCH & OPINION
University of Southern California: Copy and Paste: New AI Tool Helps Computers Interpret the World. “Popular augmented reality (AR) apps allow you to cut and paste an image of the sofa into a photo of your living room to see if you like it before buying. A team of researchers at USC Viterbi’s Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science has now developed a similar technique to copy virtual 3D objects and paste them into real indoor scenes. This creates an overall natural and realistic image in terms of spatial relationships, object orientations and lighting.”
The Ohio State University: Using AI to pinpoint hidden sources of clean energy underground. “As efforts to transition away from fossil fuels strengthen the hunt for new sources of low-carbon energy, scientists have developed a deep learning model to scan the Earth for surface expressions of subsurface reservoirs of naturally occurring free hydrogen.”
OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL
Utrecht University: Rembrandt broke new ground with lead-based impregnation of canvas for The Night Watch. “New research has revealed that Rembrandt impregnated the canvas for his famous 1642 militia painting ‘The Night Watch’ with a lead-containing substance even before applying the first ground layer. Such lead-based impregnation has never before been observed with Rembrandt or his contemporaries. The discovery, published today in Science Advances, underlines Rembrandt’s inventive way of working, in which he did not shy away from using new techniques.” Good afternoon, Internet…
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December 18, 2023 at 01:50AM
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