New researches

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Black Music History Library, Belarus Protest Arrests, National Library of Israel, More: Wednesday Evening ResearchBuzz, August 19, 2020

Black Music History Library, Belarus Protest Arrests, National Library of Israel, More: Wednesday Evening ResearchBuzz, August 19, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Crack Magazine: This collection of articles, books and podcasts traces the Black origins of music. “Organised chronologically, The Black Music History Library is an in-depth collection of reading material, documentaries, series, podcasts and more. The library traces the Black origins of music from the 18th century up until the present day, and makes note of key historians, musicologists and journalists too.”

Meduza: Anonymous IT specialists launch database of people arrested during opposition protests in Belarus. “According to the website’s creators, as of August 18, the database had collected information on 5,000 people arrested during the rallies from August 10–16. The website relies on data from volunteers, the Belarusian Prosecutor’s Office, and the news site Tut.by, as well as information ‘from lists created on Telegram channels.'”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Katz Center, University of Pennsylvania: National Library of Israel’s Suspension of Services. “One of the greatest treasures of Israel and of Jewish academic life internationally is the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. Recently, as a result of budget cuts and the Covid-19 pandemic, the library has announced that it will suspend public services and put its 300 employees on unpaid leave as of Monday, August 17. The many services that the library provides will cease, including the lending of books and teacher training, and there is great concern for the furloughed staff members and the larger circle of employees affected by the closure.” I’ve seen many national libraries cutting back on services, of course, but none that shut down so completely. Shocking.

InformationWeek: Google, Harvard, and EdX Team Up to Offer TinyML Training. “Online learning platform EdX; Google’s open-source machine learning platform, TensorFlow; and HarvardX have put together a certification program to train tech professionals to work with tiny machine learning (TinyML). The program is meant to support this specialized segment of development that can include edge computing with smart devices, wildlife tracking, and other sensors. The program comprises a series of courses that can be completed at home.”

USEFUL STUFF

ZDNet: Speed up your home office: How to optimize your network for remote work and learning. “Your network has become mission-critical. You need it to keep the paychecks coming and your kids need it to get through school. In this context, getting the most out of your network is essential. But what does that really mean? This comprehensive guide will help you answer that, and help guide you towards changes and improvements you might want to make. I’ll be covering three major topic areas that are inextricably related: understanding your bandwidth requirements, understanding your broadband provider’s offerings, and optimizing your home network.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Voice of America: US Global Internet Freedom Group Says Work Limited by Funding Dispute. “A U.S.-funded global internet freedom group says it has had to sharply curtail its work in a new funding dispute with the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Laura Cunningham, the acting chief executive of the Washington-based Open Technology Fund, in a letter… accused the agency and its leader, Michael Pack, of withholding $20 million in congressionally approved funds intended to promote internet access throughout the world, especially in such authoritarian countries as China and Iran.”

Current Affairs: The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free. “You want ‘Portland Protesters Burn Bibles, American Flags In The Streets,’ ‘The Moral Case Against Mask Mandates And Other COVID Restrictions,’ or an article suggesting the National Institutes of Health has admitted 5G phones cause coronavirus—they’re yours. You want the detailed Times reports on neo-Nazis infiltrating German institutions, the reasons contact tracing is failing in U.S. states, or the Trump administration’s undercutting of the USPS’s effectiveness—well, if you’ve clicked around the website a bit you’ll run straight into the paywall. This doesn’t mean the paywall shouldn’t be there. But it does mean that it costs time and money to access a lot of true and important information, while a lot of bullshit is completely free.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The National: Louvre Abu Dhabi joins global research project to analyse ancient mummy portraits. “Launched in 2013, the Appear Project focuses on the analysis of Romano-Egyptian funerary portraits, which were painted on wooden boards and used to cover the faces of subjects after mummification. The use of the portraits began during Roman rule in Egypt and extended towards the 3rd century. The portraits typically depict a single person, and the works were painted while the subjects were alive to be specifically used after their deaths. They bear personal details about the deceased, and their manner of dress and use of jewellery can also reveal their status in society.”

Reuters: Paris pulls out the stops to restore Notre-Dame’s grand organ. “Workers will dismantle its five keyboards, pedalboard and the 109 stop knobs that control airflow to its 8,000 pipes, some as high as 10 metres. The organ which sits under the Gothic cathedral’s huge rose window, was completed in 1867, shortly after the spire, which crashed through the roof during the fire.”

Phys .org: Smartphones are lowering student’s grades, study finds. “The ease of finding information on the internet is hurting students’ long-term retention and resulting in lower grades on exams, according to a Rutgers University-New Brunswick study. The study, published in the journal Educational Psychology, found that smartphones seem to be the culprit. Students who received higher homework but lower exam scores—a half to a full letter grade lower on exams—were more likely to get their homework answers from the internet or another source rather than coming up with the answer themselves.” Good evening, Internet…

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

August 20, 2020 at 05:24AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/2Qa8UeU

Arizona’s Little Hollywood, Women’s Rights National Historical Park, Scientific American, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 19, 2020

Arizona’s Little Hollywood, Women’s Rights National Historical Park, Scientific American, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 19, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Sedona. biz: Sedona Heritage Museum Launches Online ‘Arizona’s Little Hollywood’ Photo Collection. “The Sedona Historical Society announces that their newest and third historic photo collection is now available for view and research as part of the Arizona Memory Project. Entitled ‘Arizona’s Little Hollywood’, the 80+ photos chosen represent only a portion of the photos held by the Society that capture memorable moments in Sedona’s film-making history.”

Business Wire: Iron Mountain and CyArk Commemorate 100th Anniversary of Women’s Right to Vote, Digitally Preserving the Birthplace of the Women’s Rights and Suffrage Movement (PRESS RELEASE). “Iron Mountain Incorporated, the storage and information management services company, and CyArk, a heritage preservation non-profit, announced they have digitally preserved three properties at the Women’s Rights National Historic Park: the Elizabeth Stanton House, Richard P. Hunt and Jane C. Hunt House and Wesleyan Chapel. This preservation initiative celebrates the movement’s founding members and commemorates the 100th anniversary of the 19th Constitutional Amendment ratification, guaranteeing women the right to vote…. Through new, online guided tours, visitors can now explore the sites by virtually navigating through the property models while experts provide voiceover commentary on historical highlights.”

Scientific American: Explore 175 Years of Words in Scientific American. “We invite you to dive in and explore a database of words that appeared prominently in the print history of Scientific American. Below, each year of that history is represented by a single word, which was selected through a text-analysis project that started with all 5,107 issues of the magazine. Words whose relative frequency peaked in each individual year were identified.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Google Maps update includes more colorful images and sidewalk info. “In addition to helping you find your way, the latest Google Maps update will help you know more details about any given area at a glance. Starting this week, Google will shade maps with colors based on satellite imagery so you can easily tell the difference between forests and beaches. The update will be available worldwide and will cover a variety of natural and manmade features.”

CBR: DC FanDome Unveils Twitter Emojis for Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and More. “As DC FanDome approaches, the upcoming virtual convention has revealed special Twitter emojis based on the characters of the DC Universe, as well as their adaptations, such as the Arrowverse or the DC Extended Universe.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

NBC News: How QAnon rode the pandemic to new heights — and fueled the viral anti-mask phenomenon. “While QAnon bubbled on the fringes of the internet for years, researchers and experts say it has emerged in recent months as a sort of centralized hub for conspiracy and alternative health communities. According to an internal document reported by NBC News this week, Facebook now has more than 1,000 of these QAnon groups, totaling millions of members.”

BuzzFeed News: Facebook’s Preferential Treatment Of US Conservatives Puts Its Fact-Checking Program In Danger. “Since at least late 2016, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has defended Facebook by insisting it should not be ‘an arbiter of truth,’ while creating a third-party fact-checking program to fill that role of umpire. But journalists and researchers at the dozens of organizations that make up Facebook’s fact-checking operation say the company is often just that. Some told BuzzFeed News they were surprised to learn their verdicts had been ignored or overruled by Facebook in a closed-door process with little transparency, and warned that this risks undermining the program’s credibility.”

Getty Iris: Inside the Senior Communities Taking the Getty Museum Challenge. “The Getty Museum Challenge found its way to many senior communities by way of staff, often the activities directors who work to provide residents with entertainment like classes, day trips, and game nights. With early outbreaks of COVID-19 clustered in senior communities, these facilities were among the first to institute safety precautions such as prohibiting visitors and trips outside the grounds, limiting class sizes or canceling them altogether, and instructing residents to avoid gathering in groups—leaving staff scrambling to find ways to keep residents both busy and socially-distant.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Defense One: The Pentagon’s AI Factory Gets a Powerful New Tool. “The ‘factory’ that pumps out AI tools for the Pentagon is about to get a new tool of its own, one that leaders of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, or JAIC, hope will streamline their production and boost output. The JAIC has awarded a $100 million contract to Deloitte Consulting to create the Joint Common Foundation, or JCF — basically, a tool to help organize the factory, secure it against intruders, direct its workers, and test its products. ”

Taipei Times: Taiwan’s wildlife database the second-largest in Asia . “A database on biodiversity in Taiwan has compiled records of almost 10 million wildlife sightings, making it the second-largest wildlife index in Asia, with the vast majority of data coming from volunteers, the Council of Agriculture’s Endemic Species Research Institute said. The Taiwan Biodiversity Network, which was launched in 2007, has recorded 9.87 million animal and plant sightings, Ko Chih-jen (柯智仁), an assistant researcher at the institute, said… adding that India maintains Asia’s largest database with up to 19 million recorded sightings.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 20, 2020 at 01:09AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/32dMQWu

Mapping Arrest Records, Plan Your Vote, Helen Keller, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, August 19, 2020

Mapping Arrest Records, Plan Your Vote, Helen Keller, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, August 19, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Northwestern University: New Tool Maps Racial Disparity in Arrests Across the Country. “As communities across America have gathered in recent months to protest police abuses, researchers are taking a close look at how, where, and why racial disparities in policing occur. [Institute For Policy Research] sociologist Beth Redbird is one of them, and with graduate research assistant Kat Albrecht she’s compiled the data for a powerful new visual tool that shows how those disparities have grown over time. With their new police bias map, Redbird and Albrecht show county by county the extent to which Black Americans are arrested at a higher rate than White Americans — a trend that has only accelerated in recent decades. They also include data on the arrests of Asian Americans and American Indians, the latter of whom saw an increase in disparity that matches that among Blacks.”

NBC News: Plan Your Vote. “Mark your calendars. Everything you need to know about mail-in and early in-person voting, including the first day you can cast your ballot in the 2020 election.”

American Foundation for the Blind: American Foundation for the Blind’s Helen Keller Archive Launches Free Online Lesson Plans to Celebrate Centennial of Nineteenth Amendment. “Delving into the rich trove of information contained in the digital Helen Keller Archive, the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) today announced the official launch of a series of free lesson plans designed to teach middle and high school students about using digital and physical archives, the difference between primary and secondary sources, and how to use them appropriately in scholarly projects. A third lesson plan, released today – the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment – focuses on Helen Keller’s advocacy for women’s right to vote.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TNW: Twitter’s new API encourages devs to craft powerful third-party apps and useful bots. “Twitter‘s had a rocky relationship with third-party developers creating apps on top of the service. Over the years, it has introduced limitations for apps such as the active number of tokens and the number of actions (you know, tweets, retweets, likes, and DMs) within a time frame, making it difficult to craft things like alternative Twitter clients. But Twitter wants to put all that in the past, as it launched its new API last night. The company now wants to play fair with developers and even encourage them to make helpful bots.” Fool me once, etc etc. Pouring one out for ListiMonkey.

New Jersey Business: BPU Launches New Public Document Search Tool. “The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) unveiled its new Public Document Search tool, marking the first phase of its ‘E-Dockets’ project that will provide the public with greater access to official documents filed with the agency. Users can use the new tool to search the database in multiple ways, including by docket number, document title, party of record, or a keyword description, in order to retrieve all public documents filed within a particular docket.”

USEFUL STUFF

Gizmodo: How to Clean Up Your Social Media Accounts Without Deleting Them. “There are many reasons to avoid wanting a social media digital paper trail of your entire life. Maybe there are posts there you think your new employer won’t like, or that your new partner’s parents won’t like, or even ones that you don’t believe in anymore. But wiping the slate clean and starting again is only one of your options—you can still tidy up your existing accounts without deleting them.”

Digital Inspiration: Google Maps Formulas for Google Sheets. “You can bring the power of Google Maps to your Google Sheets using simple formulas with no coding. You don’t need to sign-up for the Google Maps API and all results from Google Maps are cached in the sheet so you are unlikely to hit any quota limits.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNN: Even TikTok has a white supremacy problem. “Nazis and white supremacists have been using TikTok to spread hate speech and recruit followers, the Anti-Defamation League said in a report Thursday. Extremists have used hashtags, captions and in some cases even manipulated video to spread their message, the ADL said. It found ‘dozens’ of accounts on TikTok that ‘use combinations of white supremacist symbols, terms and slogans as screen names or handles.'”

Fast Company: That guy yelling during the antitrust hearing this week? Google funds him. “While questioning Google CEO Sundar Pichai, [Jim] Jordan accused Google of siding with the World Health Organization over the American people, of backing Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and generally stifling conservatives’ access to information online. It was a surprising stance from the congressman, given that Google gave $10,000 to his reelection campaign in 2020, and has been funding him every cycle going back to 2012, according to Federal Election Commission filings. In this hearing, the attack dog truly bit the hand that was feeding him.”

City University of New York: BMCC Partners With Google And Pathstream To Offer Google’s First Federally Registered Apprenticeship Program. “Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) is working with Google to train five apprentices as part of Google’s first Department of Labor-registered apprenticeship program. Apprentices will complete two months of online coursework through BMCC to earn the Google IT Support Professional Certificate. Following the training, they will work for one year in Google’s Manhattan office, serving as IT Support Specialists. Google selected BMCC to serve as the program’s inaugural training provider in New York.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

EurekAlert: New tool improves fairness of online search rankings. “When you search for something on the internet, do you scroll through page after page of suggestions – or pick from the first few choices? Because most people choose from the tops of these lists, they rarely see the vast majority of the options, creating a potential for bias in everything from hiring to media exposure to e-commerce. In a new paper, Cornell University researchers introduce a tool they’ve developed to improve the fairness of online rankings without sacrificing their usefulness or relevance.”

Concordia University: Concordia postdoc builds a database to study the factors behind age-related sight loss . “Caitlin Murphy (GrDip 08, MSc 10) is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Concordia Vision Lab. Her research investigates the physiology of the retina in individuals with visual impairment using optical coherence tomography. She is currently building a database of images of individuals with visual impairment, which will allow researchers to pursue interdisciplinary projects on vision and aging. She also hopes it will help clinicians to better understand how vision loss impacts other areas of health.” Good morning, Internet…

August 19, 2020 at 05:17PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/3iU4xAR

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Forestry Research, Connecticut Collective Bargaining, State Historical Society of North Dakota, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, August 18, 2020

Forestry Research, Connecticut Collective Bargaining, State Historical Society of North Dakota, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, August 18, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Canadian Forest Industries: FPInnovations launches online library containing 50 years of research. “The search engine will comb through the full text of reports instead of just using a keyword or abstract search. Users can search by industry sector, author or publication edition in addition to keywords. A number of reports are free and searchable to the public, but FPInnovations members are able to access all reports and download reports specific to their own sector.”

Yankee Institute for Public Policy: Yankee Institute Statement: Yankee Institute Shines Light on Government with New Database. “Our new database is the first of its kind. It houses every state, municipal, and regional collective bargaining agreement in Connecticut, ensuring both that union members can access their own contracts — and that everyone can access the rules that govern their schools, police departments, towns, and state.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

State Historical Society of North Dakota: Online Databases And Indexes Available For Archival Research. “For the past ten or more years, we have had increasing questions on when, how much, and what of our collections would be put online. While not all our collections are available to be viewed on our website, there are increasing numbers of databases and indexes that allow researchers access to more information from a distance. In this new age of living around COVID-19, online access to collections, databases, and resources is especially useful. Below is a round-up of some useful sites that can assist your research from a distance. See what you can discover!” Genealogists, plenty of vital records stuff here.

CBC: Google stops responding directly to data requests from Hong Kong government. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google said on Friday it would no longer provide data in response to requests from Hong Kong authorities following the enactment of a new national security law imposed by China. The U.S. tech giant had not produced any data since the sweeping new law took force in June and would not directly respond to such requests henceforth, it added.”

Tom’s Guide: Google Chrome is making this controversial change to keep you safe. “With Chrome 86, Google is expected to tweak the address bar so that it only shows the website’s domain, not the full address of the web page you are on. Google is making the move in order to make it easier for users to spot when they’ve landed on a phishing site.” ICK.

USEFUL STUFF

The Quint: Fortnite Fallout: Epic Games’ War Against Apple & Google Explained. “American video games and software developer Epic Games has sued Apple and Google for their monopolistic and anti-competitive policies and removing its highly-rated multiplayer game Fortnite from their respective app stores. The game was first removed by Apple citing Epic Games’ violation of Apple’s App Store guidelines. Google followed suit.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Winnipeg Free Press: Neil Young sets sights on ‘corrupt’ Facebook, Google. “In the midst of his battle against President Trump, Neil Young has decided to take on a couple of other sizable entities —Facebook and Google. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has announced he’ll be spending thousands of dollars to disconnect his popular Neil Young Archives music site from the two online giants.”

Search Engine Journal: Why Google Showed Capitalism in Search for Socialism and Racism . “A former NYTimes reporter and novelist accused Google of having an ideological bias. He cited a search for ‘socialism and racism’ that returns results that include ‘capitalism.’ Google explained why this happened. And then removed the disputed search results.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

MyNorthwest: After numerous ‘red flags,’ AG Ferguson sues federal agencies over Seattle National Archives facility. “When the federal government decided, without any public process, to close and sell the Seattle facility of the National Archives and Records Administration earlier this year, a lot of people were taken by surprise. One of those blindsided by the decision was Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson…. On Monday, Ferguson’s office filed a lawsuit against three of the four federal agencies involved in the secret decision to close and sell the federal facility, which has been a fixture in Seattle’s Sand Point neighborhood since the early 1960s.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNET: Facebook says AI can help you spend less time getting an MRI scan. “The two images from an MRI scan of an injured knee look similar, but there’s a major difference: One was created more quickly with the help of artificial intelligence. Facebook researchers and doctors from NYU Langone Health say they were able to speed up MRI scans with the help of AI. The pictures were so clear that most doctors couldn’t distinguish an AI-created scan from a traditional one.” Good evening, Internet…

August 19, 2020 at 05:35AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/348WZWV

Catholic Australia, National Museum of Computing, Microsoft Browsers, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 18, 2020

Catholic Australia, National Museum of Computing, Microsoft Browsers, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 18, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Catholic Leader: Revisit Australia’s Catholic history all the way back to 1788. “With the global health crisis impacting the [Australian Catholic Historical Society]’s decades tradition of recounting Australian Catholic history, the society has published a fascinating collection of the history of the Catholic community in Australia on their website. The online library includes a timeline with links that stretches back to 1788 – the year the first Mass was celebrated in Terra Australis – newsreel footage dating back 1932 when thousands marched through Melbourne for St Patrick’s Day, and hours worth of links to online historical accounts of the Catholic Church, including video, podcast, journals and other internet entries.”

The Register: The sun is shining, the birds are singing. You can shut the curtains and tour The National Museum of Computing in VR. “The world’s largest collection of working historic computers, kept at England’s wartime code-cracking nerve centre of Bletchley Park, has thrown open its doors – virtually – so anyone anywhere can view it. With but a click, you will be whisked away to a 3D render of the Buckinghamshire hoard, then zoomed down into the museum’s entrance lobby. From there, you can navigate the long white halls of computing history in Google StreetView style.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BetaNews: Microsoft is finally ditching Internet Explorer and legacy Edge. “With Internet Explorer having shown its age for a very long time, and with Microsoft pushing out the new Chromium-based version of Edge, it is little wonder that the company is ready to kill off its older browsers. Microsoft has now set out its timetable for sunsetting legacy Edge in Windows 10 and the dropping of support for Internet Explorer. The changes start later this year, and in twelve months’ time the process of moving on will be complete — from Microsoft’s point of view, at least.”

The Next Web: Chrome’s upcoming version will protect you from sketchy web forms. “Hackers often steal your personally identifiable data from unsecured web forms. Google is now trying to prevent that through a new feature in Chrome‘s upcoming version. Starting Chrome M86, the browser will warn you when you’re trying to submit an insecure form.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Film Stage: Watch Movies Side-by-Side with Screenplay with New Extension for Netflix. “The new tool ScreenplaySubs created by Egan Bisma is a nifty extension for Chrome and Firefox which a viewer can install, then head here for a list of films to watch on Netflix to toggle the screenplay on and off for select films. While more movies will be added on a weekly basis, the first batch includes The Social Network, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, Marriage Story, The Irishman, Zodiac, and Silver Linings Playbook (it looks Uncut Gems, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Steve Jobs are on their way too).”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Peninsula: National libraries have potential to play crucial role in promoting interaction between nations: Al Kuwari. “National libraries have the potential to play a crucial role in promoting constructive interaction and sharing knowledge between nations, said H E Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kuwari, Minister of State and President of Qatar National Library, while speaking at a virtual forum recently. Qatar National Library and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) held the forum on ‘Cultural Diplomacy: The Role of National Libraries in Developing Nations,’ and brought together government leaders, foreign ministers, high commissioners and independent policy advisers.”

New York Times: Toxic Trade-Offs at Facebook. “Beginning in 2017, Facebook started a revamp to emphasize personal posts and interactions and to steer us away from aimlessly scrolling past news articles and puppy videos in the news feed. Among the changes was pushing people to Facebook Groups, or online forums of like-minded people. For many people, groups can be a wonderful resource and social outlet. But they also have become places for people to wallow in fake health treatments, plot violence or spread false theories like QAnon.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Magnum reviewing archive as concerns raised about images of child sexual exploitation. “Magnum Photos, one of the world’s most celebrated photographic agencies, is to re-examine the content of its archive of more than 1 million images after accusations it made available photographs that critics said may show the sexual exploitation of minors.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Fast Company: Prince Harry: Social media is dividing us. Together, we can redesign it. “We have an opportunity to do better and remake the digital world, to look at the past and use it to inform the future. We must take a critical eye to the last two decades, where advancements in technology and media have outgrown many of the antiquated guardrails that once ensured they were being designed and used appropriately. It shouldn’t be seen as a coincidence that the rise of social media has been matched by a rise in division amongst us globally. Social media’s own algorithms and recommendation tools can drive people down paths toward radicalism and extremism that they might not have taken otherwise.”

Reuters: Reuters applies AI technology to 100 years of archive video to enable faster discovery, supported by Google DNI. “Reuters today announced that it has used artificial intelligence (AI) technology to enhance its entire video archive – nearly one million clips dating back to 1896 – supported by the Google Digital News Innovation (DNI) Fund. This new innovation will enable users of Reuters Connect here the most comprehensive digital platform powering the news, to access time-code accurate speech-to-text transcripts of historic archive videos – from the Wright brothers first flight in 1903 to significant moments of World War II—in 11 languages and with unprecedented levels of data.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 19, 2020 at 01:16AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/3283t5C

Yup, I sure did put a post in the wrong place

Yup, I sure did put a post in the wrong place
By ResearchBuzz

Not 100% yet. LOL. Apologies. Much love.

August 18, 2020 at 08:26PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/3aEvgia

Korea Occupation, Doncaster Rovers, Bing, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 18, 2020

Korea Occupation, Doncaster Rovers, Bing, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 18, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Hankyoreh: S. Korea to release records showing Japan’s mobilization of Korean girls and women into forced labor. “On the 75th anniversary of Korea’s liberation by US forces from Japanese the colonial occupation, the National Archives of Korea, the National Library of Korea, and the Northeast Asian History Foundation have released records from the colonial occupation related to the poorly known issue of the labor conscription of women and children. The archives also contained newspaper articles and other documents that were published in support of their conscription.”

Doncaster Free Press: Video archive of 1,000 Doncaster Rovers matches from 1980s to now goes live. “The archive officially begins from 1980 onwards but also includes clips from the 1950s and 1960s including scores of games at the club’s former Belle Vue home. Now [Andrew Webb] is appealing for fans with footage of games not yet available to get in touch or upload the clips onto YouTube.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bing Blogs: Search on Bing to support your local Parent Teacher Association. “We’re excited to offer parent-teacher associations a new fundraising tool this school year that’s free and easy to use. Give with Bing is a new fundraising opportunity from Microsoft that makes it easy to support nonprofits, simply by searching the web with Bing. Now our catalogue includes PTA groups from around the country, because while things may look different this school year – the learning must go on.”

Search Engine Journal: New Google Search Console Insights For Content Creators. “Google Search Console Insights, a new experience tailored for content creators and publishers, is now being tested with select users. Search Console Insights gives content creators access to new data that goes above and beyond what’s available in the regular version of Search Console. Site owners can use the data to better understand how their content is resonating with users.”

CNET: TikTok launches Twitter account to ‘set the record straight’. “TikTok has set up an information hub and Twitter account in an effort to combat misinformation and rumors about its social media platform in real time. TikTok said Monday it will use the sites to ‘shine a light on the facts and set the record straight.'”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Guardian: Facebook algorithm found to ‘actively promote’ Holocaust denial. “An investigation by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a UK-based counter-extremist organisation, found that typing ‘holocaust’ in the Facebook search function brought up suggestions for denial pages, which in turn recommended links to publishers which sell revisionist and denial literature, as well as pages dedicated to the notorious British Holocaust denier David Irving. The findings coincide with mounting international demands from Holocaust survivors to Facebook’s boss, Mark Zuckerberg, to remove such material from the site.”

CREW: EPA Destroys Water Quality Records, Deceives Archivist. “The Environmental Protection Agency illegally destroyed records, deceived the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) about that destruction, and falsely blamed the coronavirus pandemic to escape accountability, according to internal documents uncovered by CREW.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: Blocking TikTok Opens a Can of Worms for Facebook, Google. “Selling Bytedance Inc.’s operations in several major English-speaking markets to Microsoft Corp. raises the hope that TikTok might suffer the sort of benign neglect that’s neutered other Microsoft-owned media assets, such as LinkedIn and Skype. Facebook lost no time in launching a copycat video-sharing service to compete. The decision opens a Pandora’s Box that digital platforms might one day wish had been kept closed. By citing data privacy and foreign influence to justify its restrictions, the U.S. has thrown a spotlight on issues that Silicon Valley’s social media companies have done well to keep in the shadows as they’ve grown to world-spanning power.”

Wall Street Journal: U.S. Government Contractor Embedded Software in Apps to Track Phones. “A small U.S. company with ties to the U.S. defense and intelligence communities has embedded its software in numerous mobile apps, allowing it to track the movements of hundreds of millions of mobile phones world-wide, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Anomaly Six LLC a Virginia-based company founded by two U.S. military veterans with a background in intelligence, said in marketing material it is able to draw location data from more than 500 mobile applications, in part through its own software development kit, or SDK, that is embedded directly in some of the apps.”

Stockholm Center for Freedom: Turkey investigated 14,186 social media accounts, taking legal action against 6,743 of them in first 7 months. “Turkish police investigated 14,186 social media accounts in the first seven months of 2020, taking legal action against 6,743 of them on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda, inciting the public to hatred and enmity, instilling fear in and causing panic among the public or containing provocative content, Turkey’s Interior Ministry announced in a statement on Friday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Texas at Austin: Effective New Tool Created for Discerning Fake News. ” We hear a lot about fake news, but do we know it when we see it Research from The University of Texas at Austin has found that although Facebook users may be too quick to believe or share misinformation, flagging fake news can make a significant difference. In fact, the study, published online [August 13] by Information Systems Research, shows that platforms can reduce the extent to which their users fall for and spread fake news articles by deploying a better designed fake news flag.”

The Verge: Scientists rename human genes to stop Microsoft Excel from misreading them as dates. “There are tens of thousands of genes in the human genome: minuscule twists of DNA and RNA that combine to express all of the traits and characteristics that make each of us unique. Each gene is given a name and alphanumeric code, known as a symbol, which scientists use to coordinate research. But over the past year or so, some 27 human genes have been renamed, all because Microsoft Excel kept misreading their symbols as dates.” Good morning, Internet…

August 18, 2020 at 05:07PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/3g9iskI