Thursday, March 18, 2021

Black Women Composers Project, Facebook Groups, Dropbox, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, March 18, 2021

Black Women Composers Project, Facebook Groups, Dropbox, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, March 18, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Arizona State University: Introducing the Black Women Composers Project. “Now online and poised for growth, the Black Women Composers Project points to the ASU Library’s growing collection of over 160 newly available scores, including symphonies, operas, choral works, vocal music and chamber music, and features biographies, compositions and sound recordings belonging to 15 significant composers in the 20th and 21st centuries.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Facebook will warn you when you’re about to join a group that broke its rules. “Facebook will also limit the invite notifications for these groups to reduce membership and limit the distribution of their content, the social media giant said Wednesday. The moves are part of Facebook’s efforts to reduce the spread of harmful content such as hate speech and misinformation on its platform.”

PCWorld: Dropbox adds a free, limited password manager. “Last year, Dropbox launched a password manager as part of its paid Dropbox plans. On Tuesday the company said it’s making the technology available to those who use the free Dropbox plans, too. Unfortunately, the Dropbox solution isn’t as good as what other free password managers offer.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Euronews: Myanmar has endured more than a month of nightly internet shutdowns. “Myanmar has endured nightly internet shutdowns for more than a month as anti-coup demonstrations continue. Since the military seized power and detained elected leaders on February 1, at least 149 people have been killed, according to the UN. On Tuesday night, internet access in Myanmar was shut down for the 31st consecutive night, according to internet monitoring service Netblocks.”

Mashable: Inside the fight to close the Spanish-language disinformation gap on Facebook. “As Facebook continues its effort to reign in misinformation, some activists argue it isn’t enforcing its policies as adequately for Spanish-language posts in the U.S. — a failing that could impact the more than 59 million people who speak it.”

Reuters: Google to invest over $7 billion in U.S. offices, data centers this year. “Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Thursday it plans to invest over $7 billion in offices and data centers across the United States as it takes on a surge in internet traffic after pandemic restrictions drove more users and advertisers online. The company’s investment related to U.S. offices and data centers was over $10 billion last year and more than $13 billion in 2019.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

FBI: FBI Releases the Internet Crime Complaint Center 2020 Internet Crime Report, Including COVID-19 Scam Statistics. “The 2020 Internet Crime Report includes information from 791,790 complaints of suspected internet crime—an increase of more than 300,000 complaints from 2019—and reported losses exceeding $4.2 billion. State-specific statistics have also been released and can be found within the 2020 Internet Crime Report and in the accompanying 2020 State Reports.”

Ars Technica: Mimecast says SolarWinds hackers breached its network and spied on customers. “Email-management provider Mimecast has confirmed that a network intrusion used to spy on its customers was conducted by the same advanced hackers responsible for the SolarWinds supply chain attack.”

The Verge: Teen ‘mastermind’ behind the great Twitter hack sentenced to three years in prison. “Teenage Twitter hacker Graham Ivan Clark has pleaded guilty to last summer’s unprecedented bitcoin scam attack that involved the takeover of dozens of high-profile accounts on the social network, according to paperwork filed in Florida court on Tuesday. Clark, who was 17 when accused of leading the scam, will spend three years in prison as part of his plea deal.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Texas at Austin: We Need to Give More Credence to Personal Data as the Asset That It Is. “Consumers are in a tough spot. Whether someone has access to the internet is the modern-day version of the haves and have-nots. Consumers must also ‘Click to Accept’ to rules and policies not typically in their best interests. And if they say ‘No’ to these rules and policies, these internet users are banished to the have-nots. Consumers need a public policy to establish and exercise their digital rights. We deserve a digital Bill of Rights making possible a fair, transparent and empowering internet.”

Newswise: Health ads in users’ customized online sites may evoke negative reactions. “In a study, the researchers found that people who gained a feeling of control when they customized an online website were more likely to perceive the health message as a threat to their freedom, lowering the chance that they will adopt the message’s advice. On the other hand, when customization bolstered the users’ sense of identity, they did not resent the message as much and were more willing to consider the ads’ recommended behavioral changes, according to the researchers.”

The Guardian: Facebook’s long-awaited content ‘supreme court’ has arrived. It’s a clever sham. “Facebook faces a problem of two-sided economic incentives: dangerous and socially objectionable content is genuinely valuable to its bottom line, but so is the public perception that it’s proactively committed to maintaining a socially responsible and safe community. It designed the oversight board to escape this double-bind. Oversight by a legalistic body with the appearance of neutrality earns Facebook public goodwill and deflects blame for lax content moderation. But in designing the structure of the body itself, Facebook has virtually ensured certain financially beneficial outcomes: maximum content, even the dangerous and harmful, left online. The result is a win-win for Facebook.” Good morning, Internet…

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March 18, 2021 at 06:22PM
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Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Sofia (Bulgaria) Architecture, Vivaldi Browser, Cricut, More: Wednesday Evening ResearchBuzz, March 17, 2021

Sofia (Bulgaria) Architecture, Vivaldi Browser, Cricut, More: Wednesday Evening ResearchBuzz, March 17, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Visit Sofia (Bulgaria): Sofia Municipality is creating a digital archive of photos of old Sofia. “All photos were taken in the period 1976 – 1977 and are part of a proposal for a declaration of architectural monuments of culture from the period 1878 – 1944 in Sofia known as the ‘Blue Book’ of the NIICH. Photos of buildings located on 15 streets and squares have been published, and other photos will be added in the coming weeks.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BetaNews: Vivaldi 3.7 promises performance gains on desktop, improves Bookmark Manager on mobile. “Vivaldi Technologies has unveiled Vivaldi 3.7 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. The challenger web browser’s main focus in this new release is performance on desktop, while Android users gain improvements to the Bookmarks Manager as well as onboarding pages to introduce new versions as well as welcome new users to the app.”

Ars Technica: Cricut backs off plan to add subscription fee to millions of devices [Updated]. “Yet another company that makes Internet-connected devices is drawing the wrath of customers by demanding a monthly subscription fee long after users have already sunk hundreds of dollars into its products. This time around, the company is Cricut, which just told customers they’ll lose the ability to upload more than a few patterns per month unless they start paying up.” Cricut backed off after several days of the Internet screaming at them.

USEFUL STUFF

Genealogy’s Star: Genealogy: Ethics, Ownership, Work Product, Plagiarism, and Privacy, Part One. “Over the past almost 40 years of doing genealogical research and interacting with the genealogical community, I have encountered the same issues over and over again. These issues are summarized by concerns involving ethics, ownership, work product, plagiarism, and privacy…. This post is intended to explore all five of these issues. Over the course of this series, I hope to address some of the day-to-day considerations involving genealogists and the four interrelated topics.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

E&E News: Interior scrubs old pro-Trump tweets . “The Interior Department has put away some Trump-era tweets that officials now say strayed too far into political territory. Citing restrictions on the use of government social media sites, Interior acknowledged to E&E News that it had scrubbed certain overtly pro-Trump messages from the official @Interior handle.” The tweets have been preserved, just deleted as active tweets.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Boing Boing: security.txt is like robots.txt, but for security policies. “Many websites have a robots.txt, a plain-text file that tells search engines to ignore certain files and folders on the site. Security.txt is a proposed standard to do likewise with security policies.”

Gothamist: NYPD Rejects City Council Request To Release More Internal Misconduct Records. “Over the last several months, the NYPD has insisted that it is working to increase transparency and accountability ahead of an April 1st state deadline for police reforms. But at a City Council hearing on Tuesday, the NYPD’s leadership declined to publish more comprehensive data on police misconduct investigations.”

Engadget: Apple will abide by Russian law by offering government-approved apps. “Apple has reportedly agreed to show Russian users a prompt to preinstall some apps when they’re first using an iPhone or other device. If a user doesn’t select one of the government-approved apps, it won’t be installed, according to newspaper Vedomosti. The company is said to have agreed to the measure to abide by a law that comes into effect on April 1st.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Next Web: We need more AI product owners, not data scientists. “In this article, I share my perspective on the importance and required skills of AI POs [AI Product Owner]. Instead of staffing AI Product development teams only with Data Scientists, AI POs increase the chances of successfully developing AI Products. The article describes how to build successful AI Product Teams, the role of an AI PO, and study resources to become one. First, let’s analyze the roles of a traditional Product Owner and an AI Product Owner.”

EurekAlert: 20 years of research on the use of virtual reality in education. “An analysis published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning highlights 20 years of research on the use of virtual reality (VR) in K-12 schools and higher education.” Good evening, Internet…

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March 18, 2021 at 05:36AM
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Wednesday CoronaBuzz, March 17, 2021: 38 pointers to updates, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Wednesday CoronaBuzz, March 17, 2021: 38 pointers to updates, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Please wear a mask (or even two). Wash your hands. Stay at home if you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – MEDICAL/HEALTH

Newswise / Mayo Clinic: Mayo Clinic’s Coronavirus Map now features forecasting on emerging COVID-19 hot spots. “The predictive modeling uses Mayo Clinic data analysis and expertise to forecast trends in COVID-19 cases and is based on modeling that Mayo Clinic has used to anticipate COVID-19 cases at its locations and to assist public health agencies. Predictive modeling is not available for Hawaii, Alaska, and U.S. territories.”

Nurse .org: ANA Launches Hub of COVID Vaccine Facts For Nurses. “Today, the American Nurses Association (ANA), along with 19 other leading nursing and healthcare organizations launched COVID Vaccine Facts for Nurses, an educational resource to bring ‘critical, current, and culturally sensitive COVID-19 vaccine information to the nation’s nurses on the frontlines of the pandemic and those caring for patients in every community across the country.'”

NEW RESOURCES – STATE-SPECIFIC

10 Boston: NH is Launching a New Vaccine Scheduling Website Wednesday. Here’s What to Know. “New Hampshire’s new vaccine scheduling and appointment management website is scheduled to launch on Wednesday morning, according to Gov. Chris Sununu. The Vaccine & Immunization Network Interface is scheduled to go live at 8 a.m. Wednesday as Phase 2A scheduling begins for state-managed fixed sites.”

UPDATES

Reuters: German COVID-19 cases are growing exponentially again: RKI. ” Coronavirus infections are rising exponentially in Germany, an expert at the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases said on Tuesday, putting at risk plans to lift the lockdown and revive the economy.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

CNN: The ‘benefit year end’: A tough Covid anniversary for the unemployed. “Unhappy anniversary, jobless Americans. This week marks a year since the coronavirus pandemic began upending the US economy, costing millions of people their jobs and forcing them onto unemployment benefits. Those who are still out of work could soon start getting notices from their state unemployment agencies advising them that they are approaching their benefit year end date — which happens 52 weeks after an initial claim is filed.”

BBC: Covid-19 disruptions killed 228,000 children in South Asia, says UN report. “The disruption in healthcare services caused by Covid-19 may have led to an estimated 239,000 maternal and child deaths in South Asia, according to a new UN report. It’s focused on Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, home to some 1.8 billion people.”

HEALTH CARE / HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

Route Fifty: ‘Why Do I Put My Life on the Line?’ Pandemic Trauma Haunts Health Workers.. “Health care workers across the country say they feel underappreciated by their employers and disillusioned with the medical profession, according to ongoing research at the University of Washington in Seattle. More than half of the 300-plus doctors, nurses and other frontline health workers who participated in the study said the pandemic has decreased the likelihood they will remain in their profession.”

Politico: Major donors to South Florida hospital foundation got early vaccine access. “The fundraising foundation for the Baptist Health of South Florida hospital system told donors who could afford at least six-figure financial contributions on New Year’s Day that they were eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine, at a time when vaccine doses were in short supply in the rest of the state.”

BuzzFeed News: A Native American Tribe In Oklahoma Denied Black Citizens COVID-19 Vaccines And Financial Relief. “By the time the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma began distributing vaccines to tribal citizens, LeEtta Osborne-Sampson had already witnessed nearly two dozen members of her extended family die of COVID-19. She was relieved vaccine doses had finally arrived to protect those who remained. But when she showed up at the Indian Health Service clinic in Wewoka, the capital of the Seminole Nation, staffers refused to give her a shot. They told her that she wasn’t eligible because her tribal ID card identifies her as a Freedman, a Seminole citizen who is a descendant of enslaved Black people.”

Boing Boing: People are selling Moderna COVID-19 vaccine bottles on eBay. They’re empty though.. “People are selling empty Moderna vaccine bottles on eBay. Current “Buy it Now” prices range from $22 to $75. One bottle sold there for $282 at auction but that was back in January. I suppose it’s an interesting historical souvenir but as my son points out, there will likely be hundreds of millions of these manufactured so they aren’t likely to become a ‘rare collectible.'”

Washington State University: Doctor communication key to pandemic vaccine adoption. “Researchers from Washington State University and University of Wisconsin-Madison surveyed patients about the vaccine for the H1N1 virus, also known as the swine flu, which was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in 2009. They found that doctor-patient communication helped build trust in physicians, which led to more positive attitudes toward the H1N1 vaccine–and it was more than just talk; it correlated to people actually getting vaccinated.”

INSTITUTIONS

CNBC: Dungeons & Dragons had its biggest year ever as Covid forced the game off tables and onto the web. “With vaccination rates rising, an end to the pandemic appears to be in sight. The D&D brand is emerging in a strong position. Stalwart fans used lockdown to teach friends and family how to play, ushering in a new cohort of dice-rolling enthusiasts that will transition from socially distanced online chatrooms to crowded tables in the coming year.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

BBC: Airline removes boy, 4, with autism for not wearing Covid mask. “A four-year-old boy with autism was removed from a flight in the US after the airline refused to recognise his disability and insisted he should wear a face mask, his mother said. Spirit Airlines told US media that all their passengers except those aged under two must wear a mask.”

Poynter: Fox tells staff to stay home until September as its on-air personalities question coronavirus precautions. “In an email to staff on Tuesday, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch told staffers — including from Fox News — that they won’t be returning to the offices until after Labor Day. In an email obtained by Mediaite, Murdoch said, in part, ‘While we spent the last year working in new, and often remote, ways, you have continued to prioritize caring for each other. Similarly, the health and safety of our workforce has remained my priority. With that as the guiding principle, we are deferring our next possible phase one reopening date to no earlier than September 7, immediately after Labor Day.'”

WORLD / FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

NBC News: IRS pushes tax filing deadline by one month, to May 15. “The Internal Revenue Service is pushing back the tax filing deadline for all taxpayers from April 15 to May 15, the agency confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday. The IRS this year began accepting 2020 returns as late as Feb. 12 instead of its customary January start date. But it had kept the filing deadline at April 15, resulting in a shorter filing season.”

The Local Switzerland: Coronavirus: This tool shows when you will get vaccinated in Switzerland. “A new tool using official information from Swiss health authorities lets you see how long you’ll be waiting until you get the jab. At current rates, most of the general public us won’t be vaccinated until 2022.”

BBC: Covid: NHS warns of ‘significant reduction’ in vaccines. “The NHS has written to local health organisations warning of a ‘significant reduction in weekly supply’ of coronavirus vaccines from the week beginning 29 March for a month. It says there has been a ‘reduction in national inbound vaccines supply’.”

STATE / LOCAL GOVERNMENT

CBS News: At odds with national Republicans, GOP mayors welcome long-awaited COVID relief. “As President Biden embarks on his tour to push his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, GOP mayors are emerging as vocal defenders of the president’s plan as they prepare for an infusion of federal dollars to address financial woes brought on by the pandemic.”

CNN: Chicago surprises the city with the traditional green river for St. Patrick’s Day after saying the event was canceled. “The green river wasn’t supposed to flow for St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago this year, but the city surprised its residents by carrying on the tradition unannounced. To help curb crowds again due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Chicago officials canceled the annual dying of the Chicago River event — a longstanding St. Patrick’s Day tradition. On Friday, the Chicago Sun Times lamented the lack of green for the holiday this year. However, Saturday morning, Mayor Lori Lightfoot shared an image on her Twitter account announcing that the river was being be dyed that morning in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.”

FDA: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA takes steps to streamline path for COVID-19 screening tools, provides information to help groups establishing testing programs. “Testing remains an important cornerstone of our nation’s fight against COVID-19. This includes schools, workplaces, communities and other locations using testing to screen asymptomatic individuals who may still spread the virus. Screening involves testing asymptomatic individuals who do not have known or suspected exposure to COVID-19 in order to make individual decisions, such as whether an individual should participate in an activity, based on the test results. Today, we are providing information for test developers about a streamlined path to emergency use authorization for these important screening tools as well as information to help these groups as they set up testing programs.”

ABC News: More than 800 Massachusetts State Police employees decline COVID-19 vaccine. “More than 800 Massachusetts State Police employees declined to receive the COVID-19 vaccine despite being in the first stage of priority for the doses, police sources said. A total of 845 members of the MSP, including sworn personnel and civilian officers, declined to receive the vaccine at state police clinics. That’s about 30% of the force’s sworn and civilian officers.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

The Guardian: Masked moves and ballet in the bath: a year of digital dance. “At the beginning of the pandemic, the dance that appeared online was all about trying to connect. That’s what was moving about Birmingham Royal Ballet’s The Swan, or the Alvin Ailey company’s dancers performing Revelations in their New York apartments, or the companies doing their ritual daily class over Zoom and inviting us to watch or join in. It was a way of witnessing people apart but moving in harmony, absorbed in the same actions, finding a rhythm together, closing the distance.”

SPORTS

Deadspin: On the anniversary of sports shutting down due to COVID-19, what have we learned about sports, the virus, and ourselves?. “There are 6,629 cases of coronavirus associated with college sports according to the New York Times coronavirus tracker. And whether they contracted the virus in the locker room or elsewhere, they aren’t all fine. Justin Foster just ended his career at Clemson citing the effects of COVID. HBO’s Real Sports did this piece on college runner Natalie Hakala, who went from competing in track to using a wheelchair with long-term COVID. There is still research into what degree myocarditis impacts athletes. Former Ironman competitor Tamsin Lewis is still suffering effects from covid a year later. WNBA player Asia Durr’s basketball career is in jeopardy after getting the disease. These are just a few of those stories.”

K-12 EDUCATION

Route Fifty: Poll: Over Three-Quarters of Parents Support School Reopening. “An online Gallup poll conducted in mid-February found that 79% of overall respondents supported in-person schooling in their communities at that time. The share of people who felt that way was even higher among working parents (82%) and Republicans (94%). But even among parents who aren’t working and Democrats, majorities—71% and 62% respectively—said they thought it was time for kids to go back to classrooms.”

New York Times: Learning Apps Have Boomed in the Pandemic. Now Comes the Real Test.. “Venture and equity financing for education technology start-ups has more than doubled, surging to $12.58 billion worldwide last year from $4.81 billion in 2019, according to a report from CB Insights, a firm that tracks start-ups and venture capital. During the same period, the number of laptops and tablets shipped to primary and secondary schools in the United States nearly doubled to 26.7 million, from 14 million, according to data from Futuresource Consulting, a market research company in Britain.”

HIGHER EDUCATION

AP: Duke COVID-19 cases surge; fraternities blamed for many. “The vast majority of the 231 new cases reported from March 8 through Sunday occurred within the university’s undergraduate student population, which accounts for only about 0.06% of North Carolina’s population of 10.5 million people, but whose cases account for nearly 1.9% of the total number reported statewide last week. A total of 241 cases were reported during the entire fall semester.”

HEALTH

Business Insider: A baby girl born to a partially vaccinated healthcare worker has COVID-19 antibodies. “A baby girl born three weeks after her mom got the first dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine has antibodies against the virus, a February pre-print paper reported. After getting the shot, the mom, a healthcare worker in Florida, developed COVID-19 antibodies.”

CNN: Coronavirus strains first detected in California are officially ‘variants of concern,’ CDC says. “The variants may be about 20% more transmissible, the CDC said, citing early research. Some Covid-19 treatments may also be less effective against the strains. Still, the CDC didn’t say that vaccines would stop working against them.”

The Oregonian: U.S. coronavirus infections may have been twice the official number, according to antibody study. “A new study that looks at the presence of coronavirus antibodies in nearly 62,000 life insurance applicants found that before the devastating holiday surge, the number of asymptomatic or undiagnosed coronavirus infections in the U.S. may have been twice as high as the official tally of cases overall.”

BBC: Festivals: ‘Grave concerns’ over drug safety this summer. “If lockdown is lifted as planned, large events are expected to go ahead from 21 June onwards in England – with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland aiming for a similar timescale. Charities are worried ‘pent-up’ energy could increase the amount people take. They’re also concerned about the strength of the drugs and the lack of testing to identify bad batches.”

New York Times: The U.S. Is Opening Up. For the Anxious, That Comes With a Cost.. “A new survey from the American Psychological Association found that while 47 percent of people have seen their stress rise over the pandemic, about 43 percent saw no change in stress and 7 percent felt less stress. Mental health experts said this fraction of the population found the quarantine protective, a permission slip to glide into more predictable spaces, schedules, routines and relationships. And the experts warn that while quarantine has blessed the ‘avoidance’ of social situations, the circumstances are poised to change.”

TECHNOLOGY

Neowin: IDC: Pandemic shifted consumer spending to wearables market. “The analyst firm IDC has reported that 444.7 million wearables units were shipped in 2020, representing an increase of 28.4% compared to 2019; according to IDC, this was a result of lockdowns which caused people to build up more disposable income. IDC also said the market saw a year-over-year increase in 4Q20 of 27.2% driven by the availability of new devices and reduced prices.”

Mashable: Tinder will give 500 lucky matches free COVID tests. “With the United States finally turning a corner with the coronavirus pandemic, singles are taking to dating apps (and the vaccine line) to find potential dates. With safety top of mind for many, Tinder will send 500 matched couples (1,000 users) home COVID-19 test kits from Everywell.”

Neowin: You can now find COVID-19 vaccination locations in the US using Apple Maps. “In the past year or so, multiple tech companies have integrated tooling in their software to help customers stay safe during the ongoing pandemic. One such organization is Apple, which has been rolling out multiple features related to curbing the spread of COVID-19. Back in July 2020, Apple Maps began to notify users to self-quarantine if they’ve recently traveled internationally. Now, the software has been updated to show locations of COVID-19 vaccination centers in the US.”

RESEARCH

Texas A&M Today: Texas A&M Research Uncovers First Known COVID-19 UK Variant In Animals. “The United Kingdom variant (B.1.1.7) of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been detected for the first time in a dog and a cat from the same household in Brazos County, Texas, as part of a study led by researchers at Texas A&M University.”

Medical XPress: New study finds slow walkers four times more likely to die from COVID-19: study. “Slow walkers are almost four times more likely to die from COVID-19, and have over twice the risk of contracting a severe version of the virus, according to a team of researchers from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre led by Professor Tom Yates at the University of Leicester.”

OUTBREAKS

Washington Post: After weeks of declining cases, echoes of hot spots emerge in Upper Midwest, New York City area. “Caseloads are down nationally and tens of millions of people are fully loaded with antibodies to the virus, with more than 2 million people getting doses of vaccine every day. But the virus continues to pose a real and present threat, with about 55,000 new infections daily. Michigan has seen a rise in hospitalizations and positive test results. Minnesota’s numbers are creeping up, as are Maryland’s and New Jersey’s. Many places, including New York City and surrounding counties, are no longer seeing steady declines in cases, despite intensive vaccination efforts.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

NBC News: Ammon Bundy refuses to wear a mask in court, arrested for missing trial. “Anti-government activist Ammon Bundy was arrested in Idaho on Monday after he refused to wear a mask in court, thus preventing him from entering and making him a no-show for his own trial, officials said. Ammon Bundy was due in a Boise courtroom at 8:15 a.m. for the beginning of his trial on misdemeanor trespassing and resisting arrest charges stemming from an August incident at the Idaho Statehouse.”

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March 18, 2021 at 12:56AM
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Law School Scholarships, Santa Fe Trail, CLAGSNews Digital Archive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 17, 2021

Law School Scholarships, Santa Fe Trail, CLAGSNews Digital Archive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 17, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

ABA Journal: Afternoon Briefs: Lawyer gives frank reply to Justice Barrett; new site has law school scholarship information. “A database of law school scholarships, with search filters for things like award amounts, essay requirements and locations, was announced today by AccessLex, a nonprofit that focuses on increasing access to legal education. The Law School Scholarship Databank lists almost 800 offerings, according to its website.”

KNSS: Historic maps digitized for the 200th anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail. “A collection of historic trail maps has been digitized and is available online in time for the 200th anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail…. The historic Santa Fe Trail marked its beginnings when William Becknell’s trading expedition left Boonville, Missouri, on September 1, 1821, for Santa Fe, Mexico. The expedition followed days after Mexico separated from Spain’s 300-year rule. The Santa Fe Trail became the primary trade route between the new nation of Mexico and the United States.”

EVENTS

City University of New York: From Newsletter to Scholarly Record: Unveiling the CLAGSNews Digital Archive . “Join members of CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies and the Mina Rees Library for an unveiling of 35 years of scholarship now publicly accessible, downloadable, and shareable across the world, in the CUNY Academic Works repository. The digital CLAGS Archive illustrates the impact of queer scholarship from the oldest LGBTQ Research Center in the United States, as well as its ongoing alliance with a university library.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mashable: Google and Headspace collaborate on new mindfulness resources for kids. “Headspace and Google have teamed up to launch a new resource for families and educators interested in practicing mindfulness with their young children. Headspace Breathers, a weekly video series led by children’s mindfulness expert Samantha Snowden, will lead viewers through ‘practical and creative exercises and tips’ for teaching children and parents how to recognize, communicate, and manage emotions, according to a Tuesday press release. The videos hope to address the added stress of digital learning, social distancing, and increased screen time at home.”

CBS News: After years of trying to curb QAnon messaging, Twitter has now suspended more than 150,000 accounts. “While Twitter monitored, collected data and tried to suppress the reach of QAnon accounts, it had stopped short of outright banning them. That changed after the Capitol riot. On January 12, six days after the insurrection, Twitter publicly disclosed it had suspended 70,000 accounts. A Twitter spokesperson now tells CBS News the number has more than doubled — with more than 150,000 accounts suspended for engaging in ‘sharing harmful QAnon-associated content at scale.'”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNET: China appears to be blocking Signal messaging app, report says. “Popular encrypted social media app Signal has become ‘unusable’ for some in China, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, suggesting that the app may have been blocked in the world’s most populous country.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: More U.S. states join Texas-led antitrust lawsuit against Google. “Four more states have joined a lawsuit filed by Texas and others against Alphabet Inc’s Google that accuses it of breaking antitrust laws to boost its already dominant advertising business, the Texas attorney general said on Tuesday.”

CBC: Facebook phishing scams target Indigenous artists’ business pages. “In addition to [Tara] Kiwenzie, CBC News found dozens of other Indigenous artists and businesses across the United States and Canada had been affected by the same scam in recent weeks. The fake accounts were reported to Facebook, but Kiwenzie and others said they were initially told the accounts did not violate the social media platform’s community standards.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Fierce Biotech: Clinical trial firms tap social media ‘influencers’ for virtual trial recruitment drive. “As the hype around so-called siteless trials continues unabated, two trial tech firms are joining forces to tap social media influencers to help push more patients into studies. The pair: decentralized clinical research company Thread and trial recruitment firm CureClick. They say their new pact will allow sponsors and contract research organizations to ‘access the power of patient activist-driven crowdsourcing to improve recruitment’ in virtual trials.”

University of California: UC secures landmark open access deal with world’s largest scientific publisher. “The University of California today (March 16) announced a pioneering open access agreement with the world’s largest scientific publisher, Elsevier, making significantly more of the University’s research available to people worldwide — immediately and at no cost…. Under the four-year deal, all research with a UC lead author published in Elsevier’s extensive portfolio of hybrid and open access journals will be open access by default.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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March 17, 2021 at 11:54PM
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Washington Air Pollution, Dictionary of Irish Biography, Wikipedia, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, March 17, 2021

Washington Air Pollution, Dictionary of Irish Biography, Wikipedia, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, March 17, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Washington State Department of Health: New interactive mapping tool can pinpoint pollution hotspots in effort to improve health equity. “The Washington State Department of Health (DOH), in collaboration with the University of Washington, announces new interactive mapping tools to help utilities improve environmental health equity as they transition to cleaner energy generation. These tools identify communities in Washington that are disproportionately impacted by fossil fuel pollution and vulnerable to climate change impacts so that these inequities can be addressed.”

The Irish Times: Read all about us: The Dictionary of Irish Biography is now open access . “On March 17th, the most comprehensive and authoritative biographical dictionary yet published for Ireland, the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB), is moving to an open access model, making its entire corpus of nearly 11,000 biographies, spanning over 1,500 years of Irish history, freely available to all through a new website…”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mashable: Wikipedia wants to charge Google, Amazon, and Apple for using its content. “A new report by Wired looks into a brand new division under the Wikimedia umbrella called Wikimedia Enterprise. In a first for the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Enterprise will offer a paid service targeting Wikipedia’s biggest users: Big Tech companies. Wikimedia Enterprise, according to the organization, will provide a commercial product that tailors Wikipedia’s content for publication on services provided by Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon — services that millions upon millions of people use every day.”

Tubefilter: YouTube To Exclusively Broadcast 21 Major League Baseball Games This Season. “YouTube is back up to bat with Major League Baseball. The duo’s long-running partnership will see YouTube exclusively air 21 games from the upcoming season.”

The Verge: Facebook will court independent writers to its Substack competitor with paid deals. “Facebook wants to be a part of the newsletter business, and it’s willing to pay for it. Axios reports today that the company will soon start testing its newsletter product, which will integrate with Pages. As part of that test, Facebook will also court writers, some of whom the company will pay.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNET: Twitter’s ‘Memphis’ moderation misstep gets a fix. “Twitter has fixed a bug that temporarily blocked people who tweeted out the word ‘Memphis.’ Over the weekend, Twitter’s moderation system appeared to automatically hand out a 12-hour suspension to anyone who tweeted out the name of the city in Tennessee.”

NiemanLab: California State University’s student journalists launched a wire service to share their work with each other. Here’s how they did it.. “Cal State Student Newswire launched in March 2020 as a wire service for student publications in the California State University system. Over the last year, it’s evolved from a wire service to an experimental, collaborative initiative to produce journalism across all CSUs.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Smart doorbells on business premises make your property more attractive to burglars, warns researcher. “Installing a smart doorbell on your abode could actually increase your home’s attractiveness to burglars, researchers from Britain’s Cranfield University have said. The defence ‘n’ security-focused institution’s findings fly in the face of heavy marketing from companies such as Amazon’s Ring, whose video-enabled doorbell product has been touted around the world as a security-enhancing gadget.”

GovExec: New Bill Would Increase Transparency of Presidential Records. “Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, will introduce the ‘Presidential Records Preservation Act,’ which would update the ‘1978 Presidential Records Act’ by requiring the president, vice president, and other senior White House officials to ‘make and preserve records’ that document the president’s official activities. The ‘Federal Records Act,’ which oversees record keeping in the executive and legislative agencies, the judiciary and a few executive offices, has a similar provision.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: A.I. Is Not What You Think. “When you hear about artificial intelligence, stop imagining computers that can do everything we can do but better. My colleague Cade Metz, who has a new book about A.I., wants us to understand that the technology is promising but has its downsides: It’s currently less capable than people, and it is being coded with human bias.”

TechCrunch: 4 signs your product is not as accessible as you think. “For too many companies, accessibility wasn’t baked into their products from the start, meaning they now find themselves trying to figure out how to inject it retrospectively. But bringing decades-long legacy code and design into the future isn’t easy (or cheap). Businesses have to overcome the fear and uncertainty about how to do such retrofitting, address the lack of education to launch such projects, and balance the scope of these iterations while still maintaining other production work.”

KMBC: There’s an app that will help track this year’s cicada emergence in many states. “Coming in late April or early May, the largest hoard of 17-year cicadas ever will emerge from their underground homes in dozens of states across the U.S. Researchers are asking you not to ignore the whistling and buzzing mating calls this year, but instead, photograph and identify where they’re found.” Good morning, Internet…

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March 17, 2021 at 05:33PM
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Tuesday, March 16, 2021

1968 Kansas City Uprising, Google Play, Facebook, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, March 16, 2021

1968 Kansas City Uprising, Google Play, Facebook, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, March 16, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Missouri System: A New Online Exhibit Brings Insight Into The 1968 Kansas City Uprising. “Eight Days in April recalls the events of the 1968 Uprising in Kansas City through photos, audio, and video found directly on the online exhibit and through links to additional sources. This most recent iteration of the exhibit paints a picture by highlighting Kansas City’s past policies on segregation, and builds a timeline depicting the events leading up to and during the Uprising.” I didn’t know anything about this part of Kansas City’s history. KSHB has an extensive article.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Google Play drops commissions to 15% from 30%, following Apple’s move last year. “The Android-maker said on Tuesday that starting July 1, it is reducing the service fee for Google Play to 15% — down from 30% — for the first $1 million of revenue developers earn using Play billing system each year. The company will levy a 30% cut on every dollar developers generate through Google Play beyond the first $1 million in a year, it said.”

BBC: Facebook to pay News Corp for content in Australia. “Facebook has agreed to pay Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia for journalism from its local mastheads. The deal was secured just weeks after Australia passed a controversial world-first law aimed at making tech platforms pay for news content.”

USEFUL STUFF

Wired: How to Export Your Passwords From LastPass. “There are several other password services we think are better than LastPass, and one of them is also free. If you’d like to switch, have a look at our updated Guide to the Best Password Managers. Once you’ve decided where you want to take your passwords, you will need to export your data out of LastPass and import it into the new service.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

BBC: Wildfires: Cambridgeshire archive saves couple’s wedding album . “An American couple whose 1960s wedding album was destroyed by wildfire have rediscovered their photos in archives held by an English council. Chris and Lindy Date, who married in Cambridgeshire in 1963, lost their home when fires swept through California in August 2020…. The council had been given the archive by a photographic company in the 1980s.”

The Guardian: Hunting for books in the ruins: how Syria’s rebel librarians found hope. “These young Syrians cohabited with death night and day. Most of them had already lost everything – their homes, their friends, their parents. Amid the chaos, they clung to books as if to life, hoping for a better tomorrow, for a better political system. Driven by their thirst for culture, they were quietly developing an idea of what democracy should be. An idea that challenged the regime’s tyranny and Islamic State’s book burners.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project: FinCEN Warns Art and Antiquities Traders of New AML Measures. “The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a so-called Blue Box Notice on Tuesday to inform art and antiquities traders that they will be held to the same reporting standards as financial institutions are under the 1970 Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). This means that they will have to submit suspicious activity reports (SARs) for antiquities trade.”

CNN: What it’s like to live in the robocall capital of America. “[Melinda] Walsh lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which receives the most robocalls per person in the United States, according to data from YouMail, a robocall-prevention service that tracks robocall traffic across the country. The city averaged 39 robocalls per resident in February, YouMail found. That’s more than two and a half times the national average, which is about 14 to 15 calls monthly for each person, according to YouMail.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Verge: The Climate Controversy Swirling Around NFTs. “Individual pieces of crypto art, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), are at least partially responsible for the millions of tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions generated by the cryptocurrencies used to buy and sell them. Some artists — including those who have already benefited from the craze — think it’s a problem that can be easily solved. Others think the proposed solutions are a pipe dream.”

The Register: A Code War has replaced The Cold War. And right now we’re losing it . “Like the Cold War, the Code Wars won’t have much of a body count and might never flare into outright violence. But when we peel back the cool surfaces, we witness the same titanic battles for power and control, this time using cyberspace as a platform for dominance – just as, militarised by ICBMs, outer space became the premier platform for dominance in the Cold War.” Good evening, Internet…

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March 17, 2021 at 05:53AM
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Vietnam-France Historical Interaction, Google, Instagram, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 16, 2021

Vietnam-France Historical Interaction, Google, Instagram, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 16, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Vietnam+: Digital library traces Vietnam-France cultural, historical interaction. “Formed under cooperation between the National Library of Vietnam and the BnF, the library brings together more than 2,000 remarkable documents, from collections of the two national libraries and their partners… The website is available in both French and Vietnamese. The documents include prints, manuscripts, maps, drawings and photographs, testifying the interaction of culture, history and science between the two countries from the 17th to the 20th century.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Blog: These global projects expand the reach of fact-checks. “Journalists can play a fundamental role supporting an evidence-based discourse by listening to their audiences’ concerns and providing corrective information about misconceptions that circulate online and offline. To support this work, the Google News Initiative launched a $3 million Open Fund in January. Over a three-week window, we received more than 309 applications from 74 countries. Today, we are announcing the 11 projects that were selected through an extensive review process that included a 17-person project team and an expert jury reviewing the highest-scoring applicants.”

CNET: Instagram adds new restrictions, warnings on direct messages to help protect teens. “Instagram on Tuesday said it’s introducing new features aimed at protecting young people on the photo-sharing app, including prompts about ‘potentially suspicious’ direct messages and restrictions on messages between teens and adults they don’t follow. ”

USEFUL STUFF

Ubergizmo: Free Alternatives to Zoom That Are Privacy-Friendly. “Zoom emerged as a popular video conferencing tool amidst the pandemic. It is still a decent choice to go with even with all the privacy and security concerns revolving around it. However, there are potentially better options to Zoom that are also free-to-use, and you might want to consider them for a better user experience and privacy. In this article, I’m going to mention the best free alternatives to Zoom.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Arab News: Turkey free speech advocates pin hope on new app. “Clubhouse is a San Francisco-based app that was launched last year and requires newcomers to be invited by existing users before they can join. It offers a selection of audio chat rooms that are divided by topic. Turkish citizens, in particular, have been drawn to the medium for political expression.”

The Verge: Stream It Yourself. “Twitch is usually thought of as a place for streaming video games. And while that reputation is deserved — yes, a lot of people stream their gaming on Twitch — the site also has a surprising breadth of channels. Makers & Crafting is one of them; the category was created in 2018, after Twitch renamed ‘Hobbies & Crafts’ to better represent the many pros who streamed in it (in their words). According to Twitch Tracker, a website that logs Twitch statistics, the category averaged 520 viewers in September 2018, the month it was created. As of January 2021, Makers & Crafting was averaging 1,520 viewers, or about three times more.”

Techdirt: Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Rhythm Action Gatsby. “From the name alone, you can probably guess what the game is: rhythm action games are a popular genre, and hey, why not make one for The Great Gatsby? The premise is presented as a joke, with the designer describing it as ‘the way F. Scott Fitzgerald would have wanted his legacy to be maintained’ — but the game doesn’t just lean on this one bit of amusing silliness, nor does it cut any corners in fulfilling its promise. Rather, it’s full of handcrafted original material.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: China’s tech giants fall under regulator’s pressure. “China’s tech giants are coming under increasing pressure from regulators worried about their growing influence. By Monday, Tencent had shed more than $60bn (£42bn) from its market value as its share price slid over concerns of greater regulator scrutiny. Media reports suggest that rival tech giant Alibaba may have to sell some of its media assets under the crackdown.”

ZDNet: Microsoft investigates potential ties between partner security firm, Exchange Server attack code leak. “The suspected state-sponsored Chinese hacking group Hafnium was originally attributed to exploitation of the zero-days. Now, however, proof-of-concept (PoC) code has been released and more advanced persistent threat (APT) groups are attempting to capitalize on the situation. Ransomware, too, is now being deployed in some attacks.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

AP: Israeli experts announce discovery of new Dead Sea scrolls. “Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday announced the discovery of dozens of new Dead Sea Scroll fragments bearing a biblical text found in a desert cave and believed hidden during a Jewish revolt against Rome nearly 1,900 years ago.” Good afternoon, 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!



March 17, 2021 at 12:07AM
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