New researches

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Bev Purdue, LinkAce, Industrial Irradiation, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, December 16, 2020

Bev Purdue, LinkAce, Industrial Irradiation, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, December 16, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

State Archives of North Carolina: NCDC Additions: Governor Bev Perdue Speeches. “In support of the She Changed the World initiative, the State Archives of North Carolina is pleased to announce a new addition to the Governors Papers, Modern digital collection: Governor Bev Perdue’s Speeches.”

Found via Reddit: LinkAce. From the front page: “LinkAce is a self hosted archive to store and organize links of your favorite websites. Search through them with the help of tags and lists. The content stays available with the help of automated backups and monitoring.” Note that it is a self-hosted Web app, so you’ll need access to a server and some tech chops to use LinkAce. It’s free and open source.

International Atomic Energy Agency: Where Can You Find Industrial Irradiation Facilities? Visit a New Online Database. “The IAEA has recently published its updated Database on Industrial Irradiation Facilities (DIIF), featuring an interactive map with information on nearly 300 gamma irradiators and electron accelerators from around the world. DIIF is a tool to help organizations and companies find the facility most suitable for the irradiation of their products. Research groups and experts can also use the database to find training and collaboration opportunities in the field.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

ZDNet: Partial Gmail outage resolved: Users reported a variety of problems Tuesday. “Well, that didn’t take long. Google fixed multiple problems with its services this week but less than a day later network administrators and users started seeing another rash of Gmail problems.” Including me. If you tried to reach me yesterday and the email bounced, please try again.

Texas State Library and Archives: Texas Digital Archive is 5 years old. “The Texas Digital Archive was born with a special appropriation by the Texas Legislature in the 2015 session. Aside from an acute need (TSLAC staff had requested the project the two previous sessions), the impetus to act was the transfer to the Archives of the Governor Perry records. That records transfer in January 2015 included more than seven terabytes of data in electronic format. The project also launched with about 18 terabytes of digital audio files of recordings from Senate meetings. From that initial 25 terabytes of data, the Texas Digital Archive has grown to include 69 terabytes, representing over 5.4 million unique files.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Economist: Lessons from the year of online events. “In many respects, organisers of online events have to do the same things as ever, such as attracting a great speaker line-up and advertising the event to the right people. But when the audience has gathered and the mics go live, many things are very different. So what lessons have been learned in 2020 that can be applied to virtual events in future? We asked dozens of organisers and attendees for their input on what works, what doesn’t and what has made them go ‘wow’. Here’s what they told us.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

MENAFN: UAE- Emirates Literature Foundation partners with Google to put global focus on Arab authors. “The Emirates Literature Foundation, together with Google, has launched ‘Kateb Maktub’, an initiative that will vastly increase the presence and visibility of Arab authors online, ahead of World Arabic Language Day. The initiative is designed to boost the number of Arab author pages on Wikipedia, one of the world’s most visited websites with more than 1 billion visitors per month.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Everybody’s Libraries: Counting down to 1925 in the public domain. “We’re rapidly approaching another Public Domain Day, the day at the start of the year when a year’s worth of creative work joins the public domain. This will be the third year in a row that the US will have a full crop of new public domain works (after a prior 20-year drought), and once again, I’m noting and celebrating works that will be entering the public domain shortly.”

BBC: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech. “Big tech firms face yearly checks on how they are tackling illegal and harmful content under new rules unveiled by the European Commission. Fresh restrictions are also planned to govern their use of customers’ data, and to prevent the firms ranking their own services above competitors’ in search results and app stores.”

The Hacker News: New Evidence Suggests SolarWinds’ Codebase Was Hacked to Inject Backdoor. “A new report published by ReversingLabs today and shared in advance with The Hacker News has revealed that the operators behind the espionage campaign likely managed to compromise the software build and code signing infrastructure of SolarWinds Orion platform as early as October 2019 to deliver the malicious backdoor through its software release process.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Aerotime Hub: EASA to collect aircraft noise level data in single database. “On December 15, 2020, the EASA launched the Aircraft Noise Certificate or Equivalent Noise Documentation (ANC) database, where the aircraft operators will provide the necessary information about the noise levels. The collected data will be available to airports, air navigation service providers, and other European authorities for operational purposes.”

WWF: Google’s AI technology to identify animals impacted by bushfires. “Artificial intelligence and an army of new sensor cameras will be used to track the recovery of animals impacted by bushfires in one of the most extensive post-fire surveillanceprograms ever undertaken in Australia. WWF-Australia and Conservation International, supported with a USD 1 million grant from Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org, have launched An Eye on Recovery, a large-scale collaborative camera sensor project.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 17, 2020 at 02:53AM
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Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Montgomery C. Meigs, Chile Protests, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 15, 2020

Montgomery C. Meigs, Chile Protests, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 15, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

HistoryHub: New Online: Digital Edition of the Montgomery C. Meigs Papers. “The papers of army officer, engineer, architect, and scientist Montgomery C. Meigs (1816-1892) consist of 11,000 items (39,635 images), most of which were digitized from 51 reels of previously produced microfilm. Spanning the years 1799 to 1971, with the bulk concentrated in the period 1849 to 1892, the collection is composed mainly of correspondence, diaries, journals, notebooks, military papers, family papers, scrapbooks, drawings, maps, plans, sketches and studies, photographs, and other papers.”

Princeton University Library: New photographs in PUL’s digital archive document Chilean protests, Oct. to Dec. 2019. “Princeton University Library recently published a collection of photographs documenting the social upheaval and crisis in Chile that began in October 2019, compiled by graduate students Alejandro Martínez Rodríguez (Spanish and Portuguese) and Camila P. Reyes Alé (architecture), in collaboration with Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez, librarian for Latin American studies, Latino studies, and Iberian Peninsular studies.”

Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage: Center Launches Google Arts and Culture Collections Page and First Story. “The Center is pleased to join the platform to increase the public’s access to and awareness of some of the rich materials in our collection. The Center’s page opens with Lag Zo: Making on the Tibetan Plateau, which features fieldwork with nomadic ethnic Tibetan communities in China. In January, the Center will add a second feature, Discover Storied Objects from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (1967–2017), which shares the stories of some of the sculptures, pottery, costumes, and other crafts created at Center’s signature annual event.The site also includes a growing collection of images and videos from between 1965 to 2019.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: Webex beefs up its features to stay competitive with Zoom. “Cisco (CSCO) on [December 8] introduced a host of new features for Webex, its video conferencing software, aimed at improving the WFH experience. They include a tool that creates meeting highlights on verbal command, a mechanism for easily converting a phone call to a video call and others.”

InfoQ: Five Years of Lets Encrypt . “Five years ago, Let’s Encrypt broke out of its private beta and launched a public beta that allowed administrators to request a valid certificate that could be used for encryption with SSL (now TLS). After starting the private beta with 26,000 certificates issued, it has now grown to supporting over 230 million sites and has issued over a billion certificates.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

BuzzFeed News: After The US Election, Key People Are Leaving Facebook And Torching The Company In Departure Notes. “On Wednesday, a Facebook data scientist departed the social networking company after a two-year stint, leaving a farewell note for their colleagues to ponder. As part of a team focused on ‘Violence and Incitement,’ they had dealt with some of the worst content on Facebook, and they were proud of their work at the company. Despite this, they said Facebook was simply not doing enough.”

MeetingsNet: New One-on-One Networking Tool for Virtual Meetings, Remote Teams. “In brief, Twine pairs up people for condensed but productive one-on-one online conversations. Company cofounder and CEO Lawrence Coburn likens the experience to the chance encounters an attendee might have walking into a reception. However, unlike a cocktail party, Twine events are designed to cut through the small talk and get people to connect more deeply.”

BBC: The dead professor and the vast pro-India disinformation campaign. “A dead professor and numerous defunct organisations were resurrected and used alongside at least 750 fake media outlets in a vast 15-year global disinformation campaign to serve Indian interests, a new investigation has revealed. The man whose identity was stolen was regarded as one of the founding fathers of international human rights law, who died aged 92 in 2006.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Essex County Standard: University of Essex researchers launch innovative VR theatre study. “RESEARCHERS from Essex University are leading on an innovative study to explore the social impact of virtual reality theatre. A team from the uni, led by Dr Abigail Webb and Dr Rebecca Warren, are working with LIVR, an online library for immersive theatre content on the research. They hope to find out how immersive theatre, or shows viewed from home on VR a headset, impacts on viewers.”

Indiana University: #IDBoardReview Case Studies a Hit on Twitter. “Every evening, [Dr. Saira] Butt posts a case study on the @IUIDFellowship account and invites others to guess the diagnosis. (A brief warning: some of the photos that accompany the case studies are graphic, and may disturb the squeamish.) She responds to the suggestions, questions and guesses, and sometimes posts additional information, before finally revealing the correct diagnosis. She says she draws case studies from textbooks, the CDC website, and other Infectious Diseases resources, sometimes making minor alterations to the patients’ histories to further anonymize or vary them.” Good afternoon, Internet…

December 16, 2020 at 01:38AM
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EPA Superfund Sites, Civil Rights VR, Environmental Justice, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, December 15, 2020

EPA Superfund Sites, Civil Rights VR, Environmental Justice, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, December 15, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

EPA: EPA Celebrates Superfund – 40 Years of Cleaning Up and Transforming Communities Across the Country. “In honor of the 40th anniversary milestone, EPA invites the public to travel back to the 1970s with photos and videos showing the nation’s awakening to the public health crisis caused by land contamination — the precursor to the Superfund program’s creation… Beginning with the discovery that homes were built upon an industrial dump site at Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York, the nation turned its attention to the need to better manage hazardous waste, which led to the creation of the Superfund program.”

Nice, some of these I didn’t know about. Axios: Recreating racism in VR to fight real racism. “New virtual and ‘augmented’ reality technology is allowing users to experience 1960s civil rights marches, the agony of segregation for Black Americans, or life in a Japanese American internment camp.”

University of New Mexico School of Law: UNM Law Professor Launches Website to Promote Teaching and Practice in Environmental Justice. “Through the new website, instructors, students, and practitioners in the field of environmental justice may find teaching materials (such as syllabi and exercises), reference materials (such as agency policies and guidance), video case studies, useful websites, and direct access to a number of GIS tools to facilitate community research from any laptop.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WION: Google Maps removes ‘Road of Bones’ route after Russian driver freezes to death. “A few days ago, a Russian driver froze to death when his car broke down on an infamous road between the Yakutsk and Magadan cities. Following that, Google Maps has decided to make sure such an incident never happens again.”

Geospatial World: Mapbox, once an open-source competitor to Google Maps, is no longer free. “Mapbox GL JS, a JavaScript library for vector maps on the web, is no longer free. Mapbox announced on December 8th, 2020, that they are moving their Mapbox GL JS library from a BSD license to a new more commercial license.”

The Verge: Facebook launches its Collab music app to the public. “The app allows users to create short-form music videos by combining up to three independent videos. So, for example, three musicians could each play a different part of a song and combine them into one video. But each video that’s created is also posted to a public ‘Collab’ feed, where people can view and play along with it if they choose.”

Silicon Republic: Global Google downtime caused by ‘internal storage’ issue. “Google has stated that its global downtime was caused by an authentication system outage and issues with internal storage quotas.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNN: Here’s what people Googled this year as they tried to make sense of 2020. “Google (GOOGL) released its annual ‘Year in Search’ list Wednesday. The list acts as a sort of chronicle of the decades worth of newsworthy things that took place during this one weird year. The list features the year’s top trending searches, which had a high spike in traffic over a sustained period in 2020 compared to 2019.”

WatchPro: Jaeger-LeCoultre returns 360 degree 3D images in Google search results. “In November, Richemont, Kering, Farfetch and Alibaba Group announced the creation of a steering group with the lofty ambition to redefine luxury retail for this century. The latest initiative sees Richemont and Google working together to offer augmented reality presentation of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Master Control Chronograph Calendar directly from mobile search results.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gothamist: Advocates Accuse NYC Of Slow-Walking Promised Reductions To DNA Database. “Nearly 10 months after promising cuts to New York City’s controversial DNA database, city authorities have barely made a dent in reducing its scope, according to the city’s own records. In February, the NYPD promised to downsize the city’s DNA database, which advocates have criticized for perpetually retaining the genetic signatures of tens of thousands of residents, many of whom had their samples taken without consent.”

TechCrunch: Sunshine Contacts may have given out your home address, even if you’re not using the app. “In November, former Yahoo CEO and Google veteran Marissa Mayer and co-founder Enrique Muñoz Torres introduced their newly rebranded startup Sunshine, and its first product, Sunshine Contacts. The new iOS app offers to organize your address book by handling duplicates and merges using AI technology, as well as fill in some of the missing bits of information by gathering data from the web — like LinkedIn profiles, for example. But some users were surprised to find they suddenly had home addresses for their contacts, too, including for those who were not already Sunshine users.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Toronto Star: What I’ve learned countering vaccine disinformation on social media. “I got my rude awakening when I became a mother in 2017. Parenthood was an entirely new phenomenon, so I joined several online parenting or ‘mom’ groups on social media. These groups were my first encounter with sensational, provocative and unscientific information. This is when I realized we were amidst a war — a war on science.” Good morning, Internet…

December 15, 2020 at 06:26PM
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Monday, December 14, 2020

Bath Iron Works, Google Data Centers, Gmail, More: Monday Evening ResearchBuzz, December 14, 2020

Bath Iron Works, Google Data Centers, Gmail, More: Monday Evening ResearchBuzz, December 14, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Portland Press Herald: BIW unveils Legacy Vault, an online historic archive. “General Dynamics Bath Iron Works on Monday unveiled its Legacy Vault, a publicly available repository of historical information, images and stories that provide insight into the critical role the shipyard and its employees have played for the state of Maine and for the U.S. Navy.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Blog: A new podcast explores the unseen world of data centers . “Even at Google, only about one percent of employees ever get to set foot inside a data center. So to demystify these warehouse-scale computing facilities, a small team of Googlers and I spent the last year exploring them. Through the process, we got to know the people who design, build, operate and secure these buildings. We connected with outside experts and community members whose lives intersect with this infrastructure that keeps the digital economy moving. And today, we’re releasing the result of all this work: a new six-episode podcast called Where the Internet Lives.”

Neowin: Gmail now lets users edit Microsoft Office files in attachments. “Google has announced a handful of new capabilities for the tools in Google Workspace, formerly known as G Suite. The improvements are coming to Gmail, Google Docs, and Sheets, and they’re rolling out today, for the most part.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: How to Use Meet Now: Skype’s Free Zoom Alternative. “Zoom meetings are very popular, but the free, personal meeting plans have a 40-minute time limit. Microsoft has introduced a free Zoom alternative called ‘Meet Now,’ which supports up to 50 users, unlimited calls and no time limits. If you’re a meeting organizer, Meet Now only supports Windows 10, and you should have a Skype account. However, the recipients can easily attend the video conference on Android, iPhone, or Mac and don’t need a Skype account.”

Mashable: How to get in-stock alerts for everything from toilet paper to a PS5 . “As coronavirus cases crippled the U.S. in the spring, cleaning wipes and soap were also hard to get online and in store. With store shelves left bare, Amazon prices surged. Then I was introduced to the stripped-down website that sends you alerts when a popular item is in stock.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

NiemanLab: The rise of the journalist-influencer. “Forgive me if this sounds like a case of the hammer seeing everything come up nails, but as someone who covers the creator economy by day, I’ve noticed that the difference between influencers, creators, and journalists seems to shrink every time I look.”

New York Times: The New Influencer Capital of America. “It’s no secret Atlanta is one of the nation’s great culture capitals, home to many power brokers in music, fashion and the arts — a city that, since the 1980s, has produced some of the biggest names in rap, R&B and hip-hop, and over the last decade, seen explosive growth in its entertainment industry (thanks, in part, to Georgia’s generous tax credits). This mighty metropolis is also now where some of the internet’s most important creators are living and working today.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Search Engine Journal: WordPress 5.6: The Good, the Meh and the Ugly. “WordPress 5.6 has been released with dozens of improvements and new features. Code named Simone (honoring singer Nina Simone), WordPress 5.6 has been met with a positive response, possibly because it didn’t break anything. The substance of what’s new in WordPress 5.6 can be described as mostly good, some meh and one issue that’s ugly.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT Technology Review: How our data encodes systematic racism. “Non-white people are not outliers. Globally, we are the norm, and this doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Data sets so specifically built in and for white spaces represent the constructed reality, not the natural one. To have accuracy calculated in the absence of my lived experience not only offends me, but also puts me in real danger.” Good evening, Internet…

December 15, 2020 at 06:14AM
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Hong Kong Textbooks, Women in Jazz Media, South Africa Expertise, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, December 14, 2020

Hong Kong Textbooks, Women in Jazz Media, South Africa Expertise, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, December 14, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

I don’t usually cover outages but this one is so large I think it merits a mention. TechCrunch: Gmail, YouTube, Google Docs and other services go down simultaneously in multiple countries. “Not much more to update yet but we’re seeing and getting word from others that multiple Google services have gone down. Gmail, YouTube, Google Drive and Google Docs are all experiencing outages, with dozens, even hundreds, of reports we’ve seen so far coming in from across Europe, the US, Canada, India, South Africa, countries in Central and South America, Australia and likely more.”

NEW RESOURCES

Hong Kong Free Press: Activist sets up online archive to highlight ‘political’ editing of Hong Kong school textbooks. “A pro-democracy activist and his newly-founded group Education Breakthrough have set up an online archive dedicated to highlighting what they describe as politically motivated changes to Hong Kong school textbooks aimed at showing China in a better light.”

Jazz Journal: Women in Jazz Media to support female writers. “Fiona Ross, a singer and jazz writer, has set up the Women in Jazz Media group to raise the profile of women who work in jazz media – journalists, photographers, publishers and editors – and encourage greater female participation.”

CapeTalk 567AM: Help boost women’s voices in the media with this innovative database. “In South Africa, like almost everywhere else in the world, statistics show that a woman is interviewed in the news as an expert only once for every four times that a man is. Less than 20% of sources quoted in the news are women, says NPO Quote This Woman +. In order to change that reality, Quote This Woman + was born, a group of volunteers that curated a database of women experts that journalists can access when they’re looking for somebody to quote, and to help close the gender gap.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ghacks: Google tests Chrome Labs feature in Chrome to promote experimental browser features. “Google is running an experiment currently in the company’s Chrome web browser to promote certain experimental features to users of the browser. Experienced users know that they may activate experiments on the chrome://flags page; problem is, there are a lot of them and it is quite difficult to keep an overview and stay up to date with recent additions or changes.”

USEFUL STUFF

Popular Science: Your guide to every Google app’s privacy settings. “It’s difficult to avoid Google apps, but using them doesn’t necessarily mean handing over all your data and online activity to the tech giant—you can still work within the Google ecosystem while maintaining a respectable level of privacy. Your options vary depending on the app you’re using, but Google also provides a central dashboard you can use to see the information it holds about you—and wipe it from the record.”

MakeUseOf: How to Make Pixel Art: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide. “Pixel art is a form of digital art that was born from the need to communicate imagery on the limited storage space of 8 or 16-bit computers and video game consoles. Sometimes, the process of creating pixel art is called ‘spriting,’ which comes from the word “sprite.” This is a computer graphics term used to describe a two-dimensional bitmap that is integrated into a larger scene (usually a video game). Are you interested in creating some pixel art of your own? Here’s everything you need to know to get started.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wall Street Journal: In India, Facebook Fears Crackdown on Hate Groups Could Backfire on Its Staff. “Adherents of Bajrang Dal, which has been deemed a militant religious organization by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, have been convicted of hate crimes and religiously motivated killings, and some Facebook communities devoted to it celebrate images of people beaten or killed for their alleged offenses against Hinduism. There were more than 5.5 million interactions this year from a handful of groups and pages devoted to Bajrang Dal, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned analytics tool.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Hackers can use WinZip insecure server connection to drop malware. “WinZip is currently at version 25 but earlier releases check the server for updates over an unencrypted connection, a weakness that could be exploited by a malicious actor. Martin Rakhmanov of Trustwave SpiderLabs captured the traffic from a vulnerable version of the tool to show that unencrypted communication.”

Seattle Times: US looking into possible computer hacks of federal agencies. “Hackers got into computers at the U.S. Treasury Department and possibly other federal agencies, touching off a government response involving the National Security Council. Security Council spokesperson John Ullyot said Sunday that the government is aware of reports about the hacks. ‘We are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation,’ he wrote in an email.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Slate: Facebook Kowtowed to Conservatives and Got Nothing in Return. “Facebook has spent much of the past four years kowtowing to conservatives, treating right-wing news outlets with kid gloves even as they flouted its rules and spread disinformation, while bending over backward to avoid offending the Trump administration. By almost all accounts, the company hoped that playing nice would stave off any kind of serious regulatory crackdown on its business, or at least spare it some angry presidential tweets (while, of course, keeping Republican eyeballs glued to its news feed). This strategy seems to have failed rather badly.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ars Technica: Stroll down memory lane with this 1996 instructional video on How To Internet. “The Internet Archive’s extensive library is a veritable treasure trove of digital content, including media from now-defunct formats like VHS, with the goal of preserving our cultural heritage. Case in point: a 1996 video, Everything You Need To Know About… Introduction to the Internet (listed as 95021 in what one assumes is a series), was recently uploaded to the archive.” 1996 is the year my first book came out. I’m old. Get off my lawn. Good morning, Internet…

December 14, 2020 at 06:22PM
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Sunday, December 13, 2020

Unspoken Symphony, WWII New Mexico, MLB Film Clips, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 13, 2020

Unspoken Symphony, WWII New Mexico, MLB Film Clips, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 13, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Parents: This Website Turns Your Child’s Artwork Into Music—Inspired by a Teen Who Is Nonverbal. “Many nonverbal people use art and music when they can’t express themselves verbally, but it goes beyond just communicating. From boosting self-esteem to improving depression and anxiety to stimulating the brain, there’s no doubting the benefits of art and music for a person’s health. For Riley, markers, paint, and paper are a go-to form of self-expression. By uploading a piece of her art to Unspoken Symphony, a unique melody can be created just for her.”

Albuquerque Journal: ‘From Ranches to Rockets’: Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum exhibit on Tularosa Basin goes online. “The New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum has moved the exhibit ‘Home on the Range: From Ranches to Rockets’ online. The exhibit explores the incredible transformation of the Tularosa Basin during World War II.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Sports Video Group News: MLB Film Room Powered by Google Cloud Adds 700,000 New Videos. “Major League Baseball today made over 700,000 new videos available on MLB Film Room powered by Google Cloud for fans and media to search through, watch, create their own highlight reels and easily share with their personal communities by embedding on their websites, posting to Twitter, Reddit and Facebook or sending via email and text.”

9to5 Google: Google Search adds 50 new 3D Animals, including many more dogs. “One highlight of this year has been the immense popularity of AR creatures from Google that helps replicate the great outdoors inside. Google Search has now added 50 new 3D animals in the biggest drop yet.”

The Grio: Obama partners with ATTN: for new Instagram series about presidency. “Barack Obama has a new series on Instagram. The 44th U.S. president is partnering with ATTN for a five-part video series based on his best seller, ‘A Promised Land.'”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNET: Google’s 2020: Search giant clashes with DC over antitrust, misinformation. “The year about to end will be remembered at Google for the federal government ratcheting up its fight with the tech giant. Long-standing antitrust woes coalesced into a once-in-a-generation lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice. Lawmakers circled around the company as it failed to corral election misinformation running rampant on YouTube, Google’s video arm. An unprecedented pandemic spawned hoaxes that drew ire from all corners. Pichai was called to task in Washington. Google’s battles with the government didn’t prevent it from launching new products, including its flagship Pixel 5 phone and a next-generation Nest smart speaker. But those announcements were at times overshadowed by the controversy Google faced at a corporate level.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TRT World: Turkey fines social media giants for not complying with new law. “Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) slapped multiple social media giants with fines totalling $3.8 million each, for their continued failure to hire local representatives.”

London School of Economics: Book Review: Legal Protection for Traditional Knowledge: Towards A New Law for Indigenous Intellectual Property by Anindya Bhukta. “In Legal Protection for Traditional Knowledge: Towards A New Law for Indigenous Intellectual Property, Anindya Bhukta underscores the value of traditional knowledge and argues that legal systems need to ensure better protection of this knowledge, with a particular focus on India. This book is an ideal primer for readers looking to find out more about the laws concerning traditional knowledge, writes Gayathri D Naik, and Bhukta’s proposals for a new legal approach embody his in-depth research and knowledge of the subject.”

ZDNet: Microsoft exposes Adrozek, malware that hijacks Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. “Named Adrozek, the malware has been active since at least May 2020 and reached its absolute peak in August this year when it controlled more than 30,000 browsers each day. But in a report today, the Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team believes the number of infected users is much, much higher.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Pew: Social media continue to be important political outlets for Black Americans. “Across Pew Research Center surveys, Black social media users have been particularly likely to say that these sites are personally important to them for getting involved with issues they care about or finding like-minded people. They are also likely to express positive views about the impact of these platforms for holding powerful people accountable for their actions and giving a voice to underrepresented groups.”

Engadget: Google used a 64-camera rig to train its portrait lighting AI. “Google’s Portrait Light feature can make some of your more mediocre photos look a lot better by giving you a way to change their lighting direction and intensity. The tech giant launched the AI-based lighting feature in September for the Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5 before giving older Pixel phones access to it. Now, Google has published a post on its AI blog explaining the technology behind Portrait Light, including how it trained its machine learning models.”

Washington Post: The lawsuits against Facebook don’t go far enough. “The problem is not that Facebook makes profit — even large profits. The problem is that its increasingly interconnected apps and interfaces work to reconfigure everyday flows of social information to suit a business model that treats all content suppliers the same. For sure, Facebook did not intend this consequence. But when its business model sought to maximize content traffic by whatever means, and there happened to exist disinformation merchants who also just wanted to maximize traffic, those goals were destined to interact in a marriage made in hell.” Good morning, Internet…

December 13, 2020 at 10:11PM
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Friday, December 11, 2020

Pesticide Exposure, Google, Timnit Gebru, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 11, 2020

Pesticide Exposure, Google, Timnit Gebru, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 11, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Beyond Pesticides: Chemicals to Avoid: Groundbreaking Database of Illnesses from Pesticide Exposure Launched. “Beyond Pesticides’ relational Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database further serves the purpose of demonstrating how pervasive pesticides exposure and how exposure can impact human health with numerous adverse health outcomes. Those exposed to pesticides do not only develop one symptom or disease, but can develop multiple, interconnected diseases. Studies find that pesticide exposure can cause oxidative stress leading to various illnesses, including neurodegenerative, cardiovascular, or oncological diseases.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Politico: Google will end political ad ban this week. “Google’s decision — which marks the return of political ads on high-profile sites like YouTube and Google search pages — comes days before the Electoral College votes will be tallied, as well as one month before the Georgia Senate runoffs, leaving campaigns and committees some time to get their digital strategies back on track.”

Gizmodo: Google To Investigate Shady Departure of Black AI Ethicist Timnit Gebru. “After more than 2,200 employees signed a letter on Monday condemning Google’s reported decision to terminate a Black artificial intelligence ethicist, the company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, apologised on Wednesday for the way the departure had been handled and said that the incident was being investigated.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

NHK World-Japan: Google discusses partnerships with Japanese media. “Google has started negotiating with Japanese media companies to sign them up as partners in its new program called Google News Showcase. The recently launched project involves Google paying news publishers to deliver their stories.”

The Advertiser: Man frozen to death after Google Maps wrong turn. “A teenager froze to death in brutal -50C weather after his sat nav told him to take a wrong turn on Russia’s notorious Road of Bones. The Google Maps instructions sent him on a disused shortcut across the world’s coldest inhabited region, according to reports.”

AlleyWatch: Vincent Raises $2M for its Search Engine for Alternative Investments. “Vincent has built a comprehensive search engine for alternative asset investment opportunities, allowing investors to build tailored searches based on their preferences and portfolio requirements. Opportunities can be filtered by asset class, investment minimums, liquidity, and potential returns across real estate, private equity, art, collectibles, and venture. 15,000 unique investors have already searched more than 100,000 times since the company launched its private beta in July.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Scammers create Instagram click farm, leave their operation exposed online. “Instagram is a playground of deception. Filters, lighting and clever angles can make the humdrum look amazing. On Wednesday, a pair of researchers said the deceit extended beyond artfully edited photos to inflated follower counts, which can make accounts appear to have more reach than they actually do. Behind the artificial numbers: a click farm operation that boosted performances by using tens of thousands of fake IG accounts.”

CNN: The legal battle to break up Facebook is underway. Now comes the hard part. “The groundbreaking lawsuits filed against Facebook on Wednesday by state and federal officials represent the gravest regulatory threat the social media giant has ever faced. The suits threaten to remake Facebook’s social media empire by carving out two of its most popular applications, Instagram and WhatsApp, each with well over a billion users. Facebook has responded by vowing a lengthy court fight — and accusing regulators of flip-flopping on the acquisitions years after they approved them.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Rice University: Bad news for fake news: Rice research helps combat social media misinformation. “Rice University researchers have discovered a more efficient way for social media companies to keep misinformation from spreading online using probabilistic filters trained with artificial intelligence.”

EurekAlert: New computational method validates images without ‘ground truth’. “A realtor sends a prospective homebuyer a blurry photograph of a house taken from across the street. The homebuyer can compare it to the real thing — look at the picture, then look at the real house — and see that the bay window is actually two windows close together, the flowers out front are plastic and what looked like a door is actually a hole in the wall. What if you aren’t looking at a picture of a house, but something very small — like a protein?” Good afternoon, Internet…

December 12, 2020 at 03:54AM
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