New researches

Thursday, February 4, 2021

Raphael’s Artworks, Jon Burge, Catholic Church Records, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, February 4, 2021

Raphael’s Artworks, Jon Burge, Catholic Church Records, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, February 4, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Input: This tool lets you zoom in on Raphael’s breathtaking tapestries. “The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has released an online tool that allows viewers to take in the stunning beauty and mystery of one of the most impressive Renaissance artists, Raphael. Marking the painter’s 500th anniversary, this V&A virtual magnifying glass is a product of collaborative work with the Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation. The resulting program renders Raphael’s work in breathtakingly minute detail, down to the shafts of light and warmth or conversely, darkness on figures’ faces.”

WTTW: New Online Archive Documents Years of Police Torture Under Jon Burge. “It’s been nearly three decades since Jon Burge was fired from the Chicago Police Department, but a new archive unveiled Wednesday is documenting the years of ‘violence and terror’ carried out against dozens of police torture survivors. The Invisible Institute, a journalism nonprofit based on the city’s South Side, published the Chicago Police Torture Archive, an online ‘human rights documentation of former police Cmdr. Jon Burge’s violence against more than 100 Black men, from the 1970s to the 1990s.'”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Genealogy’s Star: Findmypast adds thousands of U.S. Catholic Church Records. “This is not just another set of records to look at. If you have ancestors in America who were Catholic, this may be the first time you could find birth, marriage, and death records for them without going directly to the Diocese and Parishes.”

TNW: Jeff Bezos will no longer be the CEO of Amazon in Q3 2021. “Amazon today announced that CEO and founder Jeff Bezos would transition out of his leadership role with the company and into an executive board position. Per a company memo first spotted by CNBC, Amazon intends Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy to be Bezos’ replacement.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 10 Best Sites For Free Google Slides Themes & PowerPoint Templates. “In this write-up, I have compiled a list of 50+ places to download Google Slides themes and/or PowerPoint templates for creating your best presentation. I am going to discuss the best 10 websites in detail and list the others for you.”

Review Geek: The Free Deskreen App Turns Your Old Tablet Into a Wireless Monitor. “How many monitors do you even need? One deciding factor can be the cost of another monitor. But what if you could use nearly any tablet or smartphone you already own? If you have $8 to spare for a dongle, the free Deskreek app promises to turn your old device into a second (or third) monitor for Windows, macOS, or Linux devices.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Los Angeles Times: They decided to make it the ‘Hollyboob’ sign because of Instagram ‘censorship’. “Two social media influencers who managed to make the Hollywood sign read ‘Hollyboob’ before being arrested on suspicion of trespassing Monday said they did so to challenge censorship on Instagram. One of them, they said, lost millions of followers — and part of her livelihood — when her accounts were shuttered for nudity. That their stunt also raised awareness for breast cancer and brought smiles to faces around the world, they said, were bonuses.”

Arizona State University: Free societies face long-term game of ‘cat-and-mouse’ in containing the spread of misinformation, disinformation. “The McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University recently convened media literacy experts to discuss how authoritarians are harnessing misinformation and disinformation to undermine democracy and freedoms around the world, impacting elections and public health — all while raising the notion of supporting local journalists.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Google settles with Labor Department over alleged hiring and pay discrimination. “Google will pay almost $2.6 million to settle claims of ‘systemic compensation and hiring discrimination’ at offices in California and Washington, the US Department of Labor said Monday. The department said it found pay disparities that affected Google female engineering employees, as well as female and Asian job applicants.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

HealthImaging: New database of FDA-cleared algorithms helps radiologists quickly navigate complex AI environment. “The American College of Radiology on Monday announced a new, searchable database of federally cleared algorithms to help radiologists navigate the complex artificial intelligence environment. The ACR Data Science Institute’s catalog includes 111 class 2 medical imaging AI algorithms cleared by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Radiologists can search for tools according to company, subspeciality, body area, modality, and clearance date to find what may best fit their clinical needs.”

EurekAlert: Supercomputer in your bedroom. “University of Sussex academics have established a method of turbocharging desktop PCs to give them the same capability as supercomputers worth tens of millions of pounds. Dr James Knight and Prof Thomas Nowotny from the University of Sussex’s School of Engineering and Informatics used the latest Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) to give a single desktop PC the capacity to simulate brain models of almost unlimited size.”

USA Today: Do Facebook, Twitter and YouTube censor conservatives? Claims ‘not supported by the facts,’ new research says. “Despite repeatedcharges of anti-conservative bias from former President Donald Trump and other GOP critics, Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube are not slanted against right-leaning users, a new report out of New York University found. Like previous research, ‘False Accusation: The Unfounded Claim that Social Media Companies Censor Conservatives,’ concludes that rather than censoring conservatives, social media platforms amplify their voices.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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February 4, 2021 at 11:02PM
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Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Black Power Movement DC, Ireland Restorative Justice, New Media Writing Prize, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, February 2, 2021

Black Power Movement DC, Ireland Restorative Justice, New Media Writing Prize, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, February 2, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

DCist: The Historian Behind ‘Chocolate City’ Wants You To Know How The Black Power Movement Reshaped D.C.. “[George Derek] Musgrove is the co-author, with Chris Myers Asch, of Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital. On Monday, the first day of Black History Month, Musgrove launched a new website that explores an antecedent to today’s Black Lives Matter movement and push for racial justice — the Black Power movement. Musgrove wanted to tell the story of how the District became a national center of Black Power organizing, just like New York, Los Angeles, Newark, and Chicago.”

Irish Legal News: New website explores use of restorative justice in Ireland. “The… website has been launched by the Restorative Justice: Strategies for Change (RJS4C) project and hosts the initial findings of its mapping exercise and its first tranche of case studies. The website also includes opinion pieces, wider resources and news from the project, which is viewed favourably by government ministers.”

British Library: The New Media Writing Prize collection is now available in the UK Web Archive. “The New Media Writing Prize was founded in 2010 and over the past decade has attracted a diverse and innovative range of works from all over the world. Its aim is to showcase and celebrate new and often experimental forms of digital storytelling, crossing formats and genres. The collection features shortlisted and winning entries for different categories awarded through the years (main prize, student prize, journalism prize and DOT award), from 2010 to the present.”

The Northern Echo: Finding love beneath the waterworks tree. “Whereas Vincent lived in the west end of town, and his father, William, became the town’s mayor in 1931, Alice lived in a terrace on Corporation Road and worked in an insurance office. These very different ends of town were united by the Greenbank Methodist Church, where both their families worshipped and where their eyes first met. The website also features Alice’s diary, so we can see the relationship developing from both sides.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BetaNews: 0patch fixes major Windows Installer bug before Microsoft. “Waiting for Microsoft to issue patches for bugs that have been discovered in its software can mean having to be very patient — some updates just seem to take forever to appear. More than this, the bug fixes can introduce new problems of their own, so it’s little wonder that third-party patching services such as 0patch have grown in popularity. And once again, 0patch has managed to beat Microsoft in releasing a patch for a serious vulnerability.”

CNET: Facebook’s oversight board asks for public comment on Trump case. “Facebook’s content oversight board is accepting public comment on the social network’s decision to indefinitely bar Donald Trump from posting to his account because of concerns the now-former president could incite violence like the Jan. 6 insurrection at Capitol Hill.”

Seton Hall University: Ceramics Exhibit Launched on Google Arts and Culture . “The Walsh Gallery has launched a new exhibit in Google Arts and Culture featuring some of the highlights of Seton Hall’s collection of ceramics. The exhibit draws from Wang Fang-yu’s Asian Art collection and Herbert Kraft’s Archeology and Anthropology collection to show connections between material cultures widely disparate in both time and place.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 4 Ways to Play Adobe Flash Games Without Flash. “Flash was a pillar of the internet through the 2000s and over a period of 20 years built a gaming legacy of unprecedented proportions, spanning tens of thousands of games. Now, as the websites hosting Flash content come down, many people are wondering, ‘will Flash’s gaming legacy suffer the same fate?’ In this article, we list a handful of projects intent on preserving Flash games for future generations.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wired: Two Paths for the Extremely Online Novel. “Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts and Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This ask the same questions about the internet. Their answers sound nothing alike.”

Snopes: Did Google Maps Introduce a ‘Show Republicans’ Feature?. “This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events, as it originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature. The Rocky Mountain Oyster website’s ‘About’ section is a tongue-in-cheek text that touts dubious accomplishments, such as the site’s being ‘Colorado’s most fact-checked news source’ and its multiple Pulitzer Prizes for ‘Truthitude.'”

TNW: Signal is drama-free for now, but it should prepare for the worst. “Between its lack of vested business interests, its promise of end-to-end encryption via the open-source Signal protocol, and the recent changes to WhatsApp’s privacy policy that spooked its user base, Signal is now the new darling of the messaging world. The trouble is, it doesn’t yet have mechanisms to boot bad actors off its platform, like extremists who may seek to radicalize people by inviting them to private groups just by sharing a link to join.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: Amazon says government demands for user data spiked by 800% in 2020. “Amazon said it processed 27,664 government demands for user data in the last six months of 2020, up from 3,222 data demands in the first six months of the year, an increase of close to 800%. That user data includes shopping searches and data from its Echo, Fire and Ring devices.” Good afternoon, Internet…

February 3, 2021 at 02:18AM
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Monday, February 1, 2021

Black History, Documentary+, Sea Shanties, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, February 1, 2021

Black History, Documentary+, Sea Shanties, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, February 1, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Hill: How VR is bringing Black history to life for middle schoolers across America. “It’s a lot easier to bring down a statue than it is to put one up. But the Movers and Shakers of NYC found a way to cut through some of the red tape using a piece of technology most Americans have in their pockets. Using augmented reality, a new app allows students, teachers and the general public to learn Black history and pay tribute to the people who are often left out of textbooks. In addition to a catalog of monuments to women, people of color and the LGBT community, the Kinfolk app contains a digital archive of Black, Indigenous and Latin history.”

Mashable: Everything to know about Documentary+ . “Documentary+ features a range of docs in categories like music, politics, culture, true crime, science & nature, icons, sports, comedy, and cults. The streaming platform houses everything from Academy Award-winning films to festival favorites. While you can catch classic documentaries like The Imposter, Born into Brothels, Cartel Land, My Best Fiend, and Life, Animated, you can also find movies created by filmmakers including Spike Jonze, Terrence Malick, Brett Morgen, and Davis Guggenheim.” The service is 100% free. As in, “You don’t even have to create an account to watch content,” free.

Spotted via Reddit: Mainsail Café, a database of sea shanties and traditional nautical songs. The site contains information on almost 400 songs and over 120 albums. There’s also a collection of 47 printed items here. I get the impression this site is still filling out, but there’s already a lot to explore here, and there’s a great feature to pull random entries from the categories you’re exploring. One thing I noticed: no ads at all. Not even affiliate links in the album/book lists. Recommended.

Oklahoma Welcome: Digital Outdoor Oklahoma Archive Arrives! Outdoor Oklahoma Journal Blog Also Online. “This new digital archive includes every issue of the magazine’s entire 75 years, beginning as the Oklahoma Game & Fish News, then renamed Oklahoma Wildlife, and finally becoming Outdoor Oklahoma.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Facebook News launches in the UK, the first international market for its curated news portal. “As the United Kingdom prepares to sharpen its focus on how it regulates big tech companies, Facebook is taking a big step up in the role it plays in presenting media to the U.K. public, and into how it works with the country’s media industry. Today it is launching Facebook News in the U.K., Facebook’s first market outside of the U.S. for its dedicated, curated news portal — accessed, like the U.S. version, through a tab in the Android or iOS app menu.”

BBC: Silver surges as Reddit army turns to commodities. “Silver prices leapt to a eight-year high on Monday, amid social media calls to buy the metal and emulate the frenzy that drove up shares in US video games retailer GameStop. Shares in a handful of smaller Australian mining firms surged as small-time traders bought en masse.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Reuters: As Google eyes Australia exit, Microsoft talks Bing with PM. “Software giant Microsoft Corp is confident its search product Bing can fill the gap in Australia if Google pulls its search over required payments to media outlets, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday.”

NPR: Unwelcome On Facebook And Twitter, QAnon Followers Flock To Fringe Sites. “The QAnon universe has two stars. There’s Q, the mysterious figure whose cryptic, evidence-free posts on anonymous online message boards spawned the baseless claim that a satanic cabal of pedophiles runs rampant in government and Hollywood. The other star is Trump, who was supposed to expose and defeat that cabal. But both figures have gone silent online…. And yet, even as the big social media platforms try to squash harmful misinformation and hate speech, the conspiracy has survived in the darker corners of the Internet.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: A Vast Web of Vengeance. “Outrageous lies destroyed Guy Babcock’s online reputation. When he went hunting for their source, what he discovered was worse than he could have imagined.”

The Verge: Amnesty International calls for a ban on facial recognition in New York City. “Amnesty International has launched a new campaign against facial recognition titled Ban The Scan — and is launching with a demand for New York City to halt police and government use of the technology.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

BBC: Like a good deal? Maybe a hagglebot can help. “Earlier this month, the Olympics for hagglebots was held: the 11th annual competition for artificial intelligence (AI) that has been trained to negotiate. Called the Automated Negotiating Agent Competition, it pits more than 100 participants from Japan, France, Israel, Turkey and the United States against one another, in five leagues.”

ScienceBlog: Space Music: Data Sonification Turns Images From Space Telescopes Into Tunes. “In a new project to make images of space more accessible, Kimberly Kowal Arcand, a visualization researcher from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and a team of scientists and sound engineers worked with NASA to turn images of the cosmos into music. The team uses a new technique called data sonification that takes the information captured from space telescopes and translates it into sound.” Good morning, Internet…

February 1, 2021 at 06:29PM
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Sunday, January 31, 2021

Holocaust Survivor Testimonies, Radical Software, Facebook, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, January 31, 2021

Holocaust Survivor Testimonies, Radical Software, Facebook, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, January 31, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Smithsonian Magazine: Hundreds of Holocaust Testimonies Translated, Digitized for the First Time. “On Wednesday, people around the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day—the anniversary of the January 27, 1945, liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Due to pandemic restrictions, survivors and educational groups couldn’t visit the sites of Nazi atrocities as they have in years past. But a new digital resource from the Wiener Holocaust Library in London offered an alternative for those hoping to honor the genocide’s victims while maintaining social distancing. As the library announced earlier this month, hundreds of its survivor testimonies are now available online—and in English—for the first time.”

New-to-me, from Garage: How ’70s Magazine “Radical Software” Predicted the Future. “In the spring of 1970, a group of self-proclaimed “hardware freaks” published the first issue of Radical Software, a print magazine that detailed emerging trends in video, television, and early computing. Its pages burst with enthusiasm—there are guides for creating neighborhood documentaries, comedic recipes for ‘video rabbit,’ and calls for new ‘information economies’ meant to liberate data from private ownership. In an article for Rhizome, artist Phyllis Segura (then Gershuny, co-founder with Beryl Korot) writes, ‘the underlying circumstances that led to Radical Software… [were] curiosity and confinement.’ Sound familiar?”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Facebook is working on how to keep ads away from crime and tragedy news topics. “Facebook has announced it’s working on “topic exclusion controls” with a group of advertisers to ensure ads don’t appear on the News Feed next to certain topics. Facebook said Friday that while developing these tools, it will also build in ‘safeguards to protect people’s privacy.'”

Politico: Zuckerberg’s pledge to depoliticize Facebook hits grassroots movements. “Facebook’s decision to permanently stop recommending political groups to its users is a major hit for movements that have grown to rely on social media to draw in first-time activists. But progressive grassroots organizers and digital campaign strategists saw something else in the tech giant’s announcement: a cop-out.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: How to learn calligraphy online . “Calligraphy may make you think of parchment scrolls and feather quills, but it’s also a popular modern art and crafts activity that millions of people around the world study and practice. This visual art can be a very rewarding hobby, offering a relaxing, almost meditative creative exercise. A few hours practice a week should give you some decent basic calligraphy skills within a matter of months. (Some talented calligraphers even turn their hobby into a profitable sideline by designing invitations, posters, flyers, and the like.)”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Verge: Google salvaged Robinhood’s one-star rating by deleting nearly 100,000 negative reviews. “Google is actively removing negative reviews of the Robinhood app from the Google Play Store, the company confirmed to The Verge. After some disgruntled Robinhood users organized campaigns to give the app a one-star review on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store — and succeeded in review-bombing it all the way down to a one-star rating — the company has now deleted enough reviews to bring it back up to nearly four stars.” This is nothing new. Yelp deleted many negative reviews of a dentist who killed a famous lion in 2015. Meanwhile if someone made a demonstrably false statement in a review of a local business during the same timeframe, Yelp couldn’t be bothered to remove it. Do not ask me how I know this.

Mother Jones: A Major Trump Forum Scrubs Its Archives of Thousands of Pre-Riot Posts. “In the days ahead of the January 6 Capitol riot, there were warnings, but no guarantee that the day would turn violent. But users of TheDonald.win, a major online pro-Trump forum, were preparing for a fight, posting maps of the Capitol and swapping messages about being ready to die. In the wake of the carnage, law enforcement identified TheDonald.win as a key planning platform for the insurrectionists. And on Inauguration Day, the forum established a new domain, rebranding as Patriots.win. Alongside that transition, thousands of posts from lead up to the riot have disappeared from the site as though they were never there.”

TechCrunch: Three-dimensional search engine Physna wants to be the Google of the physical world. “In June of 1999, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins invested $25 million into an early-stage company developing a new search engine called Google, paving the way for a revolution in how knowledge online was organized and shared. Now, Sequoia Capital is placing another bet on a different kind of search engine, one for physical objects in three dimensions, just as the introduction of three-dimensional sensing technologies on consumer phones are poised to create a revolution in spatial computing.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

AP: Russian hack brings changes, uncertainty to US court system. “Trial lawyer Robert Fisher is handling one of America’s most prominent counterintelligence cases, defending an MIT scientist charged with secretly helping China. But how he’ll handle the logistics of the case could feel old school: Under new court rules, he’ll have to print out any highly sensitive documents and hand-deliver them to the courthouse. Until recently, even the most secretive material — about wiretaps, witnesses and national security concerns – could be filed electronically. But that changed after the massive Russian hacking campaign that breached the U.S. court system’s electronic case files and those of scores of other federal agencies and private companies.”

Bleeping Computer: USCellular hit by a data breach after hackers access CRM software. “Mobile network operator USCellular suffered a data breach after hackers gained access to its CRM and viewed customers’ accounts. In a data breach notification filed with the Vermont attorney general’s office, USCellular states that retail store’s employees were scammed into downloading software onto a computer.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Netimperitive: Silver surfers now dominate social media growth. “Silver surfers are the fastest-growing segments among some of the top social platforms’ audiences; users over the age of 50 are growing more quickly than any other age group on Facebook and Snapchat, according to new research.”

Global News: USask Professor creates pig plotted map for locating wild boars on Google Earth. “Ryan Brook has been researching and tracking wild pigs and extremely invasive species across Saskatchewan and Western Canada for over a decade, recording over 54,000 wild pig occurrences over that span…. Brook took all of the data he’s collected over the years and used it to create a ‘pig-pointed’ map. The map can be downloaded and then layered over top of google earth, highlighting the presence of pigs in the provinces’ rural municipalities.” Good afternoon, Internet…

February 1, 2021 at 12:10AM
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Friday, January 29, 2021

ProRodeo Sports News, Boston Baroque, Spotify Audiobooks, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 29, 2021

ProRodeo Sports News, Boston Baroque, Spotify Audiobooks, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 29, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Spotted on Reddit and one of the more random things I’ve found lately: an emerging archive of ProRodeo Sports News, which is apparently a publication of the Professional Rodeo Cowboy’s Association. Issues are still being uploaded, and the archive is held at a Box.com site with issues organized into folders by year. Each issue is a single PDF file, looks like.

Broadway World Boston: Boston Baroque Publishes Free Resource Library. “Boston Baroque has introduced its Resource Library, a digital archive of performance sources, including program notes written by Boston Baroque Founder and Music Director Martin Pearlman, orchestration charts, and more, for free on its website. With more than 30 composers and 235 musical works, the digital resource is a significant contribution to the early music field.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Tech Xplore: Spotify tests audiobooks of classics including ‘Persuasion,’ ‘Frankenstein’. “Streaming giant Spotify is extending its foray into audiobooks, dropping nine new public-domain classics narrated by celebrities including Hilary Swank and Forest Whitaker. The platform known best for its music has used podcasts to drive growth since 2019, and recently began bolstering its audiobook selection.”

Flickr Blog, and let me post this in January so it’s not too horribly out of date: Meet the winners of Your Best Shot 2020!. “This year, 18,000 Flickr members took the effort to join and submit an entry to our Your Best Shot 2020 group, making the contest a huge success. Thank you to everyone who engaged in the group in one way or another.”

USEFUL STUFF

Washington Post: Is that app spying on you? Here’s how to read iPhone privacy labels.. “While they’re a step forward, Apple’s labels are neither complete nor particularly simple. When I conducted a spot check, I found that some of the self-reported labels weren’t necessarily even always telling the truth. But if you take the time to read the labels, you might make some surprising discoveries.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Brown University: Announcement | Four New Projects Selected for Brown’s Digital Publications Initiative. “The University Library and the Dean of the Faculty, together with the Digital Publications Advisory Board, are pleased to announce the selection of the next four long-form scholarly works to be developed as part of Brown’s Digital Publications Initiative.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Senate to hold hearing on the stock market after Reddit GameStop squeeze. “Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), the incoming chair of the Senate Banking Committee, announced Thursday that he plans to hold a hearing on the ‘current state of the stock market’ in the wake of unprecedented volatility around GameStop, AMC, and other stocks.”

Arizona State University: What the future of online content moderation might look like. “Future Tense, a partnership between New America, Slate and Arizona State University, recently brought together experts and professionals in the technology and public policy space to discuss the future of online content moderation and what it might look like in the coming years. During a conversation with Jennifer Daskal, New America ASU Future Security Fellow and professor and faculty director of the Tech, Law and Security Program at American University, technology policy leaders and professionals offered suggestions on what they think the Biden administration can do to promote effective online content moderation while remaining ethical and promoting growth and vigorous, free discourse on the internet.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Search Engine Journal: YATI & ERNIE: Machine Learning in Yandex and Baidu. “Over a similar time frame to Google, Yandex has released similar projects into their ranking processes such as MatrixNet, Palekh, its second (more refined) iteration of Korolyov, and most recently, YATI. Baidu has also been involved in developing machine learning technologies for search, with their more prominent ML model being ERNIE.”

TechCrunch: MIT researchers develop a new ‘liquid’ neural network that’s better at adapting to new info . “A new type of neural network that’s capable of adapting its underlying behavior after the initial training phase could be the key to big improvements in situations where conditions can change quickly – like autonomous driving, controlling robots, or diagnosing medical conditions.” Good afternoon, Internet…

January 30, 2021 at 04:29AM
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Retro Mobile Gaming Database, Art & Soul of Mosul, Professor’s Press Pass, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, January 29, 2021

Retro Mobile Gaming Database, Art & Soul of Mosul, Professor’s Press Pass, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, January 29, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

North Carolina State University: Tracing the History of Mobile Games . “NC State’s Mobile Gaming Research Lab is launching the Retro Mobile Gaming Database (RMGD). The RMGD is an online, publicly searchable database of early mobile games, intended for use by game scholars, students interested in games, and game enthusiasts. And if there are games missing from the database, we want you to tell us about them.”

Google Blog: Mosul’s Art & Soul comes to life. “Some of us only know of the Iraqi city of Mosul as a place where many have suffered. But there is much more to the city than its recent history. Once a thriving trade centre, Mosul endured years of conflict but also renewal. Mosul, which is nestled in the ‘cradle of civilization,’ has a heritage that dates back to the 25th century BCE, and includes the breathtaking Great Mosque of Al-Nuri. To shed light on its art and history while supporting contemporary Mosulian artists, we’re launching The Art & Soul of Mosul on Google Arts & Culture, in partnership with Iraqi community radio station Al-Ghad Radio.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Poynter: Our new Professor’s Press Pass delivers timely classroom lessons for journalism educators. “I remember wishing there was a wire service or app for teachers that would pick out the juiciest trends in journalism and deliver them on a silver platter to beleaguered professors. The Professor’s Press Pass is that tool. The service costs $12 a month or $100 a year, and your subscription goes directly back to creating more content for classrooms. A new classroom discussion topic is added each Friday, and I’ll give you a sneak peek in Alma Matters every issue.” Three samples are freely available online.

The Register: In a trial run, Google Chrome to corral netizens into groups for tailored web ads rather than target individuals . “Google’s cookie banishment plan followed shortly after its Privacy Sandbox announcement, a set of proposals since augmented with suggestions from other ad tech firms – there have been about 30 of them to date – that redefine how online ads get auctioned and how behavioral ad targeting can work without the privacy risks.”

BusinessWire: MyHeritage Releases Color Restoration Feature to Bring New Life to Faded Color Photos (PRESS RELEASE). “MyHeritage, the leading global service for discovering your past and empowering your future, announced today the release of color restoration for faded color photos. A major enhancement to MyHeritage’s advanced suite of photo tools, color restoration revives the authentic colors in faded photos, with exceptional results.” This is a freemium model — you can restore ten photos for free. You’ll need a subscription for more.

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 6 of the Best Raspberry Pi Alternatives. “When it comes to single-board computers, Raspberry Pi is the undisputed champion. The $35 microcomputer has amassed enthusiasts worldwide, thanks to its ability to perform PC-based functions at a fraction of the price of commercial equipment. Sure, it’s not the most powerful or the cheapest microcomputer, but its explosive success has attracted many imitators. If you are looking for single-board computers that are not Raspberry Pi, here are some of the best Raspberry Pi alternatives to check out.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNET: AMC, GameStop stock are on a Reddit-fueled roller coaster. Why, and what happens next. “Over the past few months, a bunch of Reddit users have worked to push up the value of shares for video game retailer GameStop, despite Wall Street investors betting the company will fail. In the process, they sent the stock up more than 14,300% (you read that right), with some wild fluctuations. Then they started spreading their strategy to struggling movie chain AMC, too. In their wake, these online market players have upended Wall Street, creating a drama filled with memes, app trading disasters and weird internet lingo as big-time investors have lost billions of dollars.”

The Verge: Exclusive: Google workers across the globe announce international union alliance to hold Alphabet accountable. “Google workers across the world are coming together to form a global union alliance. The newly formed coalition, called Alpha Global, is comprised of 13 different unions representing workers in 10 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Switzerland.”

Boing Boing: The bizarre internet mystery of an Avril Lavigne song that doesn’t exist. “For the last 20 years or so, I have had a healthy ambivalence towards Avril Lavigne. I don’t get worked up over manufactured pop stars and pop songs; sometimes they’re fine, they have a purpose, whatever. If I happen to be exposed to the music, maybe it’ll be tolerable, who knows. But I recently learned about the Avril Lavigne song ‘Dolphins’ and I’m utterly, utterly captivated.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Ars Technica: A “no math” (but seven-part) guide to modern quantum mechanics. “My goal in this seven(!)-part series is to introduce the strangely beautiful effects of quantum mechanics and explain how they’ve come to influence our everyday world. Each edition will include a guided hike into the quantum mechanical woods where we’ll admire a new—and often surprising—effect. Once back at the visitor’s center, we’ll talk about how that effect is used in technology and where to look for it.”

Neowin: Unsurprisingly, live streaming grew more than 70% in 2020. “Live streaming on platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming grew by a whopping 78.4% year-on-year in 2020, according to the latest data shared by Streamlabs in partnership with Stream Hatchet. The report focuses on the fourth quarter specifically but also provides a look at the entire year.”

The Next Web: Skyrim modders are using AI to generate new spoken dialogue. “If you’re unimpressed by some of Skyrim’s hilarious dialogue, a new AI app called VASynth lets you take over the scriptwriting. The tool uses voice samples from Bethesda games to convert text into speech. You can generate dialogue in the style of many voices from the publisher’s back catalog, including Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Morrowind.” Good morning, Internet…

January 29, 2021 at 06:26PM
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Thursday, January 28, 2021

Punk Planet, Vintage Australia Films, Facebook Oversight Board, More: Thursday Evening ResearchBuzz, January 28, 2021

Punk Planet, Vintage Australia Films, Facebook Oversight Board, More: Thursday Evening ResearchBuzz, January 28, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Pitchfork: Every Issue of Punk Planet Is Available on the Internet Archive. “You can now read all 80 issues of Punk Planet for free on the Internet Archive. Founded by writer and editor Dan Sinker, the Chicago music and politics zine ran as a print publication from 1994 until 2007. In addition to music features and reviews, Punk Planet covered topics like feminism, politics, human rights, and labor. Issues included interviews with Sleater-Kinney, Nick Cave, Ralph Nader, and countless other cultural icons.”

National Film and Sound Archive of Australia: Priceless Collection Of 100-year-old Films Digitally Restored. “The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) has digitally restored The Corrick Collection, containing 135 of the world’s earliest films, which formed part of the Corrick Family Entertainers variety act over 100 years ago. A selection of these priceless films will have a world premiere at Ten Days on the Island from 5-21 March 2021, to celebrate the Corricks’ connection with Tasmania. Further national and international screenings will be announced in coming months. Additionally, five films from The Corrick Collection are now available to audiences worldwide on the NFSA’s YouTube channel.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NBC News: Facebook’s ‘Oversight Board’ overturns 4 cases in first rulings. “The board, a group of 20 journalists, politicians and judges from around the world, was formed last year and has been tasked with passing judgment on the social media giant’s handling of the most difficult content issues. It claims total independence from Facebook, and Facebook has said that the decisions it makes will be binding.”

Neowin: Microsoft introduces WorkLab, an insider into how it creates the future of work. “Microsoft is launching a new digital publication, WorkLab, to highlight research, science-based insights, and stories around the future of work. Through the publication, Microsoft will share the thinking and processes that influence the creation of products and features.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Black, Deaf and Extremely Online. “Variations and dialects of spoken English, including what linguists refer to as African-American English, have been the subject of intensive study for years. But research on Black ASL, which differs considerably from American Sign Language, is decades behind, obscuring a major part of the history of sign language.”

Getty: Can Art and Science Solve the Most Complex Challenges of the 21st Century?. “Forty-five cultural, educational, and scientific institutions throughout Southern California received over $5 million in exhibition research grants by the Getty Foundation to prepare for the next edition of the region-wide arts initiative Pacific Standard Time, scheduled to open in 2024. The landmark series will return with dozens of exhibitions and programs focused on the intertwined histories of art and science, past and present. Together, they address some of the most complex challenges of the 21st century—from climate change and environmental racism to the current pandemic and artificial intelligence—and the creative solutions these problems demand.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Google Blog: New campaign targeting security researchers. “Over the past several months, the Threat Analysis Group has identified an ongoing campaign targeting security researchers working on vulnerability research and development at different companies and organizations. The actors behind this campaign, which we attribute to a government-backed entity based in North Korea, have employed a number of means to target researchers which we will outline below.”

CNET: Facebook reportedly considers hitting Apple with antitrust suit. “Facebook may file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, The Information reported Thursday, alleging that Apple abused its power through its App Store rules. The social network’s potential suit apparently says Apple forces outside developers to stick to rules that its own apps don’t have to follow.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

VentureBeat: What it takes to create a GPT-3 product. “Granted, a disruptive technology might need more time to create a sustainable market, and GPT-3 is unprecedented in many respects. But developments so far show that those who stand to benefit the most from GPT-3 are companies that already wield much of the power in AI, not the ones who want to start from scratch.”

Wired: This AI Could Go From ‘Art’ to Steering a Self-Driving Car. “YOU’VE PROBABLY NEVER wondered what a knight made of spaghetti would look like, but here’s the answer anyway—courtesy of a clever new artificial intelligence program from OpenAI, a company in San Francisco. The program, DALL-E, released earlier this month, can concoct images of all sorts of weird things that don’t exist, like avocado armchairs, robot giraffes, or radishes wearing tutus. OpenAI generated several images, including the spaghetti knight, at WIRED’s request.” Good evening, Internet…

January 29, 2021 at 07:01AM
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