New researches

Monday, July 5, 2021

New Mexico Jobs, Connecticut Cannabis, Opera Browser, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 5, 2021

New Mexico Jobs, Connecticut Cannabis, Opera Browser, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 5, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

KRQE: New website connects New Mexicans to jobs, training opportunities. “Ready NM allows people to browse current job openings, learn about career fields, find career training and education programs near them, and access information about other resources such as scholarships and grants, childcare, and adult education services.”

State of Connecticut: Governor Lamont Launches Website Providing Updated Information on the Legalization of Cannabis in Connecticut. “Although the portion of the law permitting adults to possess and consume cannabis went into effect on July 1, there are several components that do not go into effect for another one to two years, most notably the establishment of retail sales, which are expected to begin toward the end of 2022 and will have a very specific licensing process and social equity requirement. The governor explained that this website is intended as a resource to provide Connecticut residents with the most up-to-date information about this ongoing process.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Opera Blogs: Meet the world’s first alternative browser optimized for Chromebooks. “We’re proud to announce that Opera is now the world’s first alternative browser optimized for Chromebooks. The Opera Browser brings many unique features previously unavailable on the Chrome OS platform, including a free, unlimited, no-log browser VPN, ad blocker, cookie dialog blocker and color themes.”

Tubefilter: YouTube TV Unveils $20 ‘4K Plus’ Add-On Package, Sports-Specific Features Ahead Of Olympics. “Ahead of the Olympics kickoff next month, YouTube TV is releasing a series of new features, including a 4K add-on package, as well as 5.1 Dolby Audio, which is gradually rolling out for free to all members.”

The Verge: Riot made some chill beats for creators to stream to. “League of Legends developer Riot is making something new — and very chill. The company just released an album called Sessions: Vi, which is packed with 37 lo-fi tracks from producers like Chromonicci, Junior State, Laxcity, and Tennyson. The idea, the company says, is to offer ‘stream-safe’ music that creators on platforms like YouTube and Twitch can use, without having to worry about copyright strikes.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Who Is rg_bunny1: An Instagram Whodunit. “It is the parlor game of the pandemic. Among a certain segment of the scrolling classes, art and literary division, firing up their tablets and smartphones each morning has taken on aspects of a whodunit. Rifling through Instagram feeds, they register with half yawns the sponsored posts and thirst traps, the Throwback Thursday selfies and banal memes of cats. All the while they are waiting to happen upon the latest clue from a particular account.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Wall Street Journal: Facebook, Twitter, Google Threaten to Quit Hong Kong Over Proposed Data Laws. “Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have privately warned the Hong Kong government that they could stop offering their services in the city if authorities proceed with planned changes to data-protection laws that could make them liable for the malicious sharing of individuals’ information online.”

Associated Press: Microsoft exec: Targeting of Americans’ records ‘routine’. “Federal law enforcement agencies secretly seek the data of Microsoft customers thousands of times a year, according to congressional testimony Wednesday by a senior executive at the technology company. Tom Burt, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for customer security and trust, told members of the House Judiciary Committee that federal law enforcement in recent years has been presenting the company with between 2,400 to 3,500 secrecy orders a year, or about seven to 10 a day.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Next City: LEARN-ing to Sustain a City’s Culture and Character. “The following is an adapted excerpt of ‘Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character,’ by Charles R. Wolfe with Tigran Haas, published by Rowman & Littlefield. In it, the authors lay out a comprehensive method (heavily dependent on context) for assessing how and why certain places are considered successful, authentic, or unique. As the world, and cities, respond to and grapple with climate change threats, public health crises, and powerful calls for social justice, understanding the through lines that connect a city to its past, to its essence, will be more important than ever.”

Ubergizmo: This App Scans Your Lego Bricks And Tells You What To Build . “If you’ve been collecting Lego for years, chances are you might be sitting on a box or two of random leftover bricks. What you want to build using those bricks is entirely up to you, but if you’re open to suggestions, then maybe you might want to take a look at the Brickit app that uses augmented reality to help give you some suggestions.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 6, 2021 at 12:00AM
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Neeva, Philippines Olympic Athletes, Francisco Franco, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, July 5, 2021

Neeva, Philippines Olympic Athletes, Francisco Franco, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, July 5, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Fast Company: Inside Neeva, the ad-free, privacy-first search engine from ex-Googlers. “Neeva is indeed a new search engine, officially launching today, that carries a subscription fee. Though it’s extremely similar to Google in many respects—with a few twists of its own—it dumps the web giant’s venerable ad-based business model in the interest of avoiding distractions, privacy quandaries, and other compromises. It’s free for three months—long enough for users to grow accustomed to it without obligation—and $4.95 a month thereafter.”

GMA Online: New website introduces past, present Filipino Olympians. “The Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) and the Philippine Olympians Association (POA) joined forces to set in motion a website that aims to tell stories of past and present Filipino athletes that competed in the Olympics. Titled ‘The Living Archive of Olympians PH,’ the website specifies the year when an Olympian competed in the quadrennial meet, including the Winter, Summer, and Youth Olympics.” The version I explored was in English, translation unnecessary.

El País: Franco’s tyranny against railroad workers. “In 2011, a team of forensic anthropologists uncovered a 30-meter-long chain of graves in Gumiel de Izán, Burgos. … Ten years on, Public Works Minister José Luis Ábalos and the president of Spain’s state-owned railway operator Renfe, Isaías Táboas, have set up a website…and released a film called, Los hijos del hierro (or The children of steel) which documents the tyranny of the Francisco Franco dictatorship towards its enemies forced to work in this sector.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Facebook is testing a Twitter-like ‘threads’ feature on some public figures’ pages. “Get your spool-of-yarn emojis ready — threads might be coming to Facebook soon. Facebook has been spotted testing a new feature that gives public figures on Facebook the ability to create a new post that’s connected to a previous one on a related subject. This feature ties the posts together more visually so fans can more easily follow updates over time. When the new post appears on followers’ News Feeds, it will be shown as being connected to the other posts in a thread.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Create Your Own Facebook Avatar. “In your Facebook feed, you’ve probably seen your friends and family posting cartoon-style emojis. If you haven’t yet done so, you can also create a similar personalized avatar of your own. You can use avatars in your profile picture, along with in various other ways on the platform. In this article, you’ll find out how to create a Facebook avatar and share it with others.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The New Indian Express: Miscreants use markers on Google Map to take on Nalin Kumar Kateel over Pumpwell flooding. “The Pumpwell ghost has made a comeback to haunt state BJP president and Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel. Some miscreants have put misleading markers such as ‘Pumpwall – The Great Wall of Pumpwell’ and ‘Nalin Kumar Seasonal Lake’ on the Google Map and the screenshots of the map have since gone viral on social media. The markers are seen as a swipe at Nalin in the wake of the recent flooding at the Pumpwell Flyover following heavy rains.”

The Daily Beast: Trumpworld App Is Bankrolled by Fugitive Chinese Billionaire. “On Thursday, [Jason] Miller announced the launch of ‘Gettr,’ a new social media app aimed at conservatives that promises to be ‘cancel-free.’ Trump fans wary of social media censorship on more prominent platforms like Twitter and Facebook started to sign up for the platform after Politico reported on the existence of the new site. What’s not made clear to Gettr’s new users, though, is that the site received initial funding from a foundation owned by Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and his family.”

Aju Business Daily: Hanjin to demonstrate street view database service using cameras installed on delivery trucks . “The transportation and logistics service wing of South Korea’s Hanjin Group will kick-start a demonstration to build up the database of street images using cameras installed on delivery trucks. Filmed images will be processed for digital map and other information services including virtual reality and augmented reality.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gizmodo: Watch a Police Officer Admit He’s Playing a Taylor Swift Song to Keep Activist’s Video Off YouTube. “On Tuesday, a group of protesters showed up at the Alameda Courthouse in Oakland, California, for the pre-trial hearing for Jason Fletcher, a police officer who was charged with manslaughter for shooting and killing Steven Taylor, a Black man, inside of a Walmart last year. Along with Taylor’s family, advocates for justice gathered to listen to the hearing broadcast on the courthouse steps, as covid restrictions prevented them from entering the courtroom. That’s when a sheriff’s deputy showed up with some pop tunes.”

Reuters: U.S. FTC sharpens weapons to tackle Big Tech by dropping ‘consumer welfare’ guidance. “The U.S. Federal Trade Commission lowered the bar on when it decides to file antitrust lawsuits on Thursday by scrapping a 2015 statement that said it would be guided by the ‘promotion of consumer welfare’ when looking at new investigations.”

Ars Technica: Apps with 5.8 million Google Play downloads stole users’ Facebook passwords. “Google has given the boot to nine Android apps downloaded more than 5.8 million times from the company’s Play marketplace after researchers said these apps used a sneaky way to steal users’ Facebook login credentials.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Wayne Sutton: 2020 Was The Black In Tech Movement I Waited My Entire Life For, But I Was Too Depressed To Participate.. “What’s hard is even with all the data in the world that shows the monetary gains, the benefits, the innovation of having diverse teams, someone will ask, ‘why are you working on diversity?’ What’s hard is looking someone in the eye, knowing damn well they couldn’t care less about diversity, Black humans or LGBTQIA humans or Latinx humans. What’s hard is knowing the only reason people are even exploring a conversation about diversity or inclusion with you is that the manager or CEO asked them to, or they are afraid of negative press.” Good morning, Internet…

July 5, 2021 at 05:20PM
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Sunday, July 4, 2021

Jules Verne, YouTube, Snapchat, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 4, 2021

Jules Verne, YouTube, Snapchat, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 4, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Liverpool Echo: Birkenhead’s little known links to the father of science fiction. “John [Lamb] has used his research to create a new website, ‘Jules Verne and the Heroes of Birkenhead’ after finding no real reference of the author’s links to Merseyside online. His articles exploring the ties between his books and the area are being serialised and he said more will be revealed in the coming weeks.” Limited at the moment but more to come. The Web design is charmingly 1998. It even has a visitor counter.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NBC News: YouTube reinstates channel devoted to exposing conservative extremism. “YouTube said Monday that it had reinstated a channel run by Right Wing Watch that cataloged some of the most extreme statements of prominent conservatives, hours after the Google-owned video platform had banned the channel for violating its rules.”

USEFUL STUFF

Search Engine Journal: How to Find People to Follow on Snapchat. “Compared to platforms like Instagram and Facebook, where you can search for friends using tags, keywords, and phrases, Snapchat is an outlier. Here’s the question: is it still possible to easily find friends (old and new) on Snapchat to follow? The answer is yes. But first, let’s take a quick look at why Snapchat itself just might be even more influential than you think.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Slovak Spectator: Due to poor assistance, Slovak folk music might vanish from North America. “While Slovakia boasts of its rich folklore traditions, music in particular, some feel the country falls behind when it comes to keeping Slovak folk music alive across North America.”

Mashable: A look into a failed influencer deal to promote a cryptocurrency. “Over the past week, influencers who’ve promoted altcoins, highly volatile alternative cryptocurrencies, have sought to distance themselves from the coins they once supported.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Nieman Lab: Punitive laws are failing to curb misinformation in Africa. “In a recent study, we examined the changes made to laws and regulations relating to the publication of ‘false information’ in 11 sub-Saharan countries between 2016 and 2020. We also looked at how they correlate with misinformation, to understand the role they may play in reducing harm caused by misinformation.”

Bloomberg: Don’t Sue Me Like That: Anatomy of a Copyright Troll. “Just as there are patent trolls who acquire intellectual property on the cheap and then attempt to extract payments from large companies, there are those who take advantage of laws designed to protect the works of artists and authors. Their targets, typically, are small publishers who might not appreciate their own vulnerability until they’re hit with a complaint.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Borgen Magazine: The Reclaiming of Indigenous Education in Canada. “The First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities comprise the Indigenous peoples of what many call present-day Canada. These communities have faced centuries of Western colonialism, which wielded education as a one of its main weapons of domination. This pattern persisted into living memory and continues to negatively impact individuals and their greater communities. Today, reclaiming Indigenous education in Canada is seen as a pivotal step in preserving and recovering what was lost in decades past.”

Phys .org: Deep machine learning completes information about one million bioactive molecules. “The Structural Bioinformatics and Network Biology laboratory, led by ICREA Researcher Dr. Patrick Aloy, has completed the bioactivity information for a million molecules using deep machine-learning computational models. It has also disclosed a tool to predict the biological activity of any molecule, even when no experimental data are available.”

Sydney Morning Herald: National Archives funding welcomed, but more needed. “When one of Australia’s most experienced public servants, David Tune, conducted an extensive review of the National Archives’ funding requirements he stressed that a piecemeal approach to saving the nation’s records would never be enough. Structural reform was essential. That is important to keep in mind, because while the federal government’s recently announced provision of $67.7 million to preserve the most at-risk items of Australia’s history is certainly welcome, much more is needed.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 5, 2021 at 01:15AM
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January 6, University of Maryland Photojournalism, AR Fireworks, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 4, 2021

January 6, University of Maryland Photojournalism, AR Fireworks, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 4, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Just Security: January 6 Clearinghouse. “Welcome to this all-source, repository of information for analysts, researchers, investigators, journalists, educators, and the public at large.”

University of Maryland Archives: Launch of the Diamondback Photos Digital Collection. “Users are able to search by term via the search box in the upper left corner. Users can also filter the collection by decade via the year range functionality in the left-hand column. The Diamondback photographs consist of images taken for UMD’s student newspaper, The Diamondback. Photographs include campus events, athletic games, and general campus life from the early 1970s to the late 1990s.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Android Police: Google celebrates the Fourth of July with an AR fireworks game straight out of 2005. “We here in the United States are sliding into a holiday weekend, with Independence Day falling on Sunday this year. Google has designed a new AR game to celebrate the occasion, combining fireworks, national landmarks, and Guitar Hero into one odd experience.”

Make Tech Easier: New Alexa Skill, Reading Sidekick, Helps Kids Learn to Read. “If there’s one thing parents wish they had more of, it would be time – time for themselves, time for their children, etc. They can get a little more of that time back with Reading Sidekick, an Alexa skill that reads with children. Parents can entrust Alexa with the task or sit with their children as they learn.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: How to see who is lurking on your WiFi. “The simplest way to remove unwanted WiFi users is to change your password — and don’t share the new one. But if you want to take things a step further and find out exactly who is on your network, there are several ways to access a list of the devices that are currently using your WiFi.”

Analytics India: All You Need To Know About Google’s Visual Inspection AI. “The newly launched Visual Inspection AI is a purpose-built tool to help manufacturers and related workers and businesses to inspect and reduce product defects and decrease quality control costs. Powered by Google Cloud Platform’s computer vision technology, Visual Inspection AI goes beyond the traditional methods of supporting manufacturing quality control through its general-purpose AI product, AutoML.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Quill & Pad: Evolution Of Social Media Watch Photographs Part 3: Storytelling, Collaboration, And A Bunch Of Boobs. “Yes, it’s already time for the latest update in my series of articles providing a completely subjective, unscientific, and unofficial history of watch photographs online. It was 2015 when I first wrote about the history of wristshots. More than five years passed before I penned a second installment that included both wristshots and other forms of watch photography. It’s only been six months since then, but the world of online watch imagery has been changing rapidly since late last year, both for better and worse in my view.” It’s always a pleasure to read an article by someone who so clearly loves and studies his subject. Jeremy Clockson could have written this.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Missouri Independent: Missouri Supreme Court: State can’t charge attorney fees for Sunshine Law requests. “In a win for transparency advocates, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that government agencies cannot charge for time attorneys spend reviewing public records that are requested under the state’s Sunshine Law. In a 6-0 decision, the judges ruled that a lower court erred by siding with Gov. Mike Parson in a lawsuit alleging his office improperly redacted records, charged exorbitant fees and knowingly and purposely violated the state’s open records law.”

Reuters: Danish media firms join forces to seek payment deal with Facebook, Google . “Denmark’s media industry is banding together to negotiate payments for news with Google and Facebook, the first attempt in Europe to collectively pursue claims with the tech giants.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Penn State News: $1.2 million NSF grant to create search engine for online privacy research. “A team of Penn State-led researchers recently received a $1.2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to build a search engine and other resources that can make the web safer for users by helping scientists scour billions of online documents to more efficiently collect and classify privacy documentation.”

Washington Post: Biden has proposed a new agency to turbocharge medical treatments. But there’s a fight over where it should live.. “There’s at least one proposal left over from the Trump administration that President Biden is set on reviving: the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). Under the administration’s debut budget proposal, the National Institutes of Health would receive $6.5 billion to launch an agency modeled after the military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). ARPA-H would accelerate the development of medical treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, cardiovascular disease and more.”

EurekAlert: New data science platform speeds up Python queries. “Researchers from Brown University and MIT have developed a new data science framework that allows users to process data with the programming language Python — without paying the ‘performance tax’ normally associated with a user-friendly language.” The new platform is free. Good morning, Internet…

July 4, 2021 at 05:26PM
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Saturday, July 3, 2021

Facebook, Google, CourtListener, More: Saturday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 3, 2021

Facebook, Google, CourtListener, More: Saturday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 3, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: Facebook tests prompts that ask users if they’re worried a friend is ‘becoming an extremist’. “Some Facebook (FB) users in the United States are being served a prompt that asks if they are worried that someone they know might be becoming an extremist. Others are being notified that they may have been exposed to extremist content.”

Search Engine Land: Google publishes SEO guide to HTTP status codes, network issues and DNS errors. “Ever wonder how your various HTTP status codes or how your network or DNS responds to GoogleBot may impact how well your site performs on Google Search? Well, Google has published a new guide and help document detailing how HTTP status codes and network or DNS errors impact your Google Search performance.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: How to find the documents behind big legal cases. “Earlier this year, I spent a month covering the trial for a dispute between Apple and Epic. The case was one of the biggest antitrust suits in recent memory, and it brought to light revelations about both companies and the larger tech industry, often in the form of legal filings. I (and other reporters) try to pick out the most relevant details from these filings for readers. But sometimes, the documents are worth checking out in their own right. A site called CourtListener makes that easier than it might sound — if you know how to look.”

CNET: Tokyo Olympics: Start date, COVID-19, full schedule, what you need to know. “Despite being postponed in 2020, all signs point to the Tokyo Olympics taking place in 2021. Here’s everything you need to know.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Daily Hive Vancouver: Chinese history museum amongst buildings destroyed by Lytton wildfire. “The devastating wildfire that quickly swept through the BC interior village of Lytton on Wednesday also wiped out the Lytton Chinese History Museum, just over four years after it opened.”

Indian Express: Enthusiasts encourage history and heritage through social media. “Every evening, without fail, literature, history and heritage enthusiasts get together on Clubhouse. The rooms, started by The Karwaan Club, are an initiative of Karwaan: The Heritage Exploration, a student-led history initiative. The club has more than 400 members, 1500 followers and welcomes anyone even slightly interested in exploring the past. Karwaan is not the first one, or the only one, to use social media to create a space where history can thrive.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Economic Times: India’s digital database for farmers stirs fears about privacy, exclusion. “A plan by India to build digital databases of farmers to boost their incomes has raised concerns about privacy and the exclusion of poor farmers and those without land titles.”

KTLA: Judge orders LASD to turn over misconduct, deputy shooting records after L.A. Times’ lawsuit. “A judge ordered the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to promptly turn over records on thousands of cases of deputy misconduct and on-duty shootings after finding the agency had failed repeatedly to honor a public records request filed by The Times.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Foreign Policy: The World Hasn’t Figured Out How to Stop ‘Revenge Porn’. “Under pressure from advocates, big online platforms have begun implementing their own policies. But victims and lawyers report the laws just aren’t working. Although the internet has no borders and content travels freely, remedies vary vastly across jurisdictions, and there is very little cross-border cooperation between law enforcement agencies. Meanwhile, the crime—which disproportionately affects women and people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual—is flourishing.”

Scientific American: See the Highest-Resolution Atomic Image Ever Captured. “Behold the highest-resolution image of atoms ever seen. Cornell University researchers captured a sample from a crystal in three dimensions and magnified it 100 million times, doubling the resolution that earned the same scientists a Guinness World Record in 2018. Their work could help develop materials for designing more powerful and efficient phones, computers and other electronics, as well as longer-lasting batteries.” Good evening, Internet…

July 4, 2021 at 04:30AM
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New Brunswick Art, Religion News Service, 0patch, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 3, 2021

New Brunswick Art, Religion News Service, 0patch, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 3, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

CKNI: Provincial Art Collection Goes Online. “New Brunswickers can now view the provincial art collection on their computer or smartphone. The province has launched collectionArtNB, a website showcasing the collection of works.”

Religion News Service: Religion News Service and Presbyterian Historical Society announce new archival images Instagram account. “Religion News Service (RNS) and Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS) are pleased to announce the launch of a new Instagram account that will feature digitized archival RNS images. PHS is in the process of digitizing select images from its collection of over 60,000 RNS images from 1945 to 1982.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BetaNews: 0patch comes to the rescue with free micropatches for Windows PrintNightmare vulnerability. “While Microsoft has acknowledged that there is a security flaw in Windows Print Spooler that could lead to remotely compromised systems, the company has only offered workarounds rather than a patch. And so 0patch — no stranger to helping out in such situations — has stepped up to the plate and issued free micropatches of its own.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 7 Chrome Extensions that Automate Boring Browsing Tasks. “Working in today’s fast-paced world can be daunting. There is so much to do with so little time available. Thankfully, automation is fast becoming a solution available to everyone. Activities such as filling out forms and job registrations are no longer tedious. Complex activities like scouring the Internet for information are now automated, thanks to browser automation extensions! If you are looking for ways to automate your daily repetitive browsing tasks, these Google Chrome extensions will automate your Web experience.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Fast Company: These alternatives to Gmail, Google Docs, and Drive will protect your privacy. “Other companies like Skiff, Vivaldi, Brave, and DuckDuckGo are all trying to pick away at the kind of all-encompassing tools that Google offers, but with privacy as a core value. In doing so, they’re taking advantage of both a broader privacy awakening in the tech industry and improvements in the technology that protects user data. But while their goals seem noble, they also face the same fundamental challenge: Beating the likes of Google on features other than privacy is harder than it looks.”

PetaPixel: Photographer Turns Abandoned Monuments into Futuristic Art. “Yang Xiao is a self-described urban explorer, traveler, designer, and architectural and light painting photographer. Originally from China but currently based in Spain, Yang used her project, ‘Eternal Monuments in the Dark,’ to combine her all her passions — travel, light-painting photography, and grand architectural pieces from past generations. It took her nine years to collect imagery from over 40 countries with the common denominator of abandoned monumental and architectural pieces, designed in brutalist and Soviet modernist style, which became popular in the post-war period.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: After Biden Meets Putin, U.S. Exposes Details of Russian Hacking Campaign. “Two weeks after President Biden met President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and demanded that he rein in ransomware attacks on U.S. targets, American and British intelligence agencies on Thursday exposed the details of what they called a global effort by Russia’s military intelligence organization to spy on government organizations, defense contractors, universities and media companies.”

Ars Technica: US hits anti-robocall milestone but annoying calls won’t stop any time soon. “The nation’s largest phone companies have met a federal deadline to deploy a new anti-robocall technology, but unwanted calls and scams will continue to be an annoying problem for Americans for the foreseeable future.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Hristo Georgiev: Google turned me into a serial killer. “As I was scrolling through my inbox today, I stumbled upon an e-mail from a former colleague of mine who wanted to inform me that a Google search of my name yields a picture of me linked to a Wikipedia article about a serial killer who happens to have the same name as mine.”

Google AI Blog: A Dataset for Studying Gender Bias in Translation. “To help facilitate progress against the common challenges on contextual translation (e.g., pronoun drop, gender agreement and accurate possessives), we are releasing the Translated Wikipedia Biographies dataset, which can be used to evaluate the gender bias of translation models. Our intent with this release is to support long-term improvements on ML systems focused on pronouns and gender in translation by providing a benchmark in which translations’ accuracy can be measured pre- and post-model changes.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 4, 2021 at 12:08AM
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Housmans Bookshop and Peace News, Virginia Traffic Stops, German POW News Journals, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 3, 2021

Housmans Bookshop and Peace News, Virginia Traffic Stops, German POW News Journals, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 3, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Islington Gazette: How a radical Kings Cross bookshop was HQ to McLibel and spawned Pride marches. “An exhibition celebrating 5 Cally Road’s role in radical politics goes on show this month, sharing people’s memories of marching against nuclear bombs, fighting for gay liberation and being spied on by undercover police. Housmans Bookshop and Peace News has been a centre for social change activism since it was opened in the heart of King’s Cross in 1959 by Vera Brittain.”

WDBJ: New website tracks traffic stops in Virginia. “With each traffic stop, state law requires the officer to collect, and the law enforcement agency to report, several pieces of information, including: the race, ethnicity and gender of the person who was stopped, the reason for the traffic stop and whether or not the officer, or the citizen, used physical force. Anyone can view the statistics online, and officials with the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services are now analyzing the data collected so far.”

Wyoming News Now: German POW news journals get digitized. “The state library just completed the digitization of 5 titles of German POW camp newspapers from World War 2. These newspapers were from the Douglas and Cheyenne war camps. They depicted camp life for prisoners, as well as news that was coming in from Europe at the time. Captured by allies in northern Africa, these prisoners were held in Wyoming, in several camps that were operational from 1942 to 1945.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

MIT News: Letter from President Reif: A new future for edX. “After a thorough and thoughtful process, and with the support of the senior leadership of MIT and Harvard, the edX board has agreed to sell the assets of edX to 2U, Inc., a publicly traded company that provides a platform for lifelong learning. Through this acquisition, edX will become a 2U subsidiary as a ‘public benefit company,’ which will allow edX’s long-standing commitment to the public good to be embedded in its new charter.”

9to5 Mac: ‘OldOS’ developer launches new website that gives classic macOS widgets a new life. “The same developer behind the now incredibly popular ‘OldOS’ TestFlight app for iPhone, Zane Kleinberg, is back with a new tool that lets you use classic macOS widgets through a web browser. Kleinberg explained how classic macOS widgets, first introduced in Tiger, were made entirely out of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This enabled him to revive several old Apple-designed widgets, including calculator, world clock, unit converter, stickies, and the tile puzzle.”

Vox: Google is starting to warn users when it doesn’t have a reliable answer. “Google is testing a new feature to notify people when they search for a topic that may have unreliable results. The move is a notable step by the world’s most popular search engine to give people more context about breaking information that’s popular online — like suspected UFO sightings or developing news stories — that are actively evolving.”

USEFUL STUFF

Search Engine Journal: Just Say No to Hackers: How to Harden Your WordPress Security. “In this column, you’ll learn how to harden your WordPress site against different types of vulnerabilities, though the scope of this article is wider and applies to all types of web applications.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: 5 trends that have shaped TikTok so far this year . “TikTok has been growing in popularity year over year, but for an app that’s been around for a while now it’s surprising just how many new trends are still popping up on it every day. We sorted through it all so you don’t have to. Here are five of the biggest trends that have shaped TikTok this year — so far.”

PC Magazine: Facebook, Google, TikTok, Twitter Pledge to Tackle Online Abuse of Women. “Four of the world’s largest tech companies have pledged to tackle online abuse and improve women’s safety. Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Twitter this week announced a set of commitments at the UN Generation Equality Forum in Paris, promising to build better ways for women to curate their safety online and enhance reporting systems.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Mozilla: Take control over your data with Rally, a novel privacy-first data sharing platform. “Today, we’re announcing the Mozilla Rally platform. Built for the browser with privacy and transparency at its core, Rally puts users in control of their data and empowers them to contribute their browsing data to crowdfund projects for a better Internet and a better society.”

Bleeping Computer: REvil ransomware hits 200 companies in MSP supply-chain attack. “A massive REvil ransomware attack affects multiple managed service providers and their clients through a reported Kaseya supply-chain attack. Starting this afternoon, the REvil ransomware gang targeted approximately six large MSPs, with thousands of customers, through what appears to be a Kaseya VSA supply-chain attack.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

New York Times: Is This Some Kind of Code? You Can Solve the …. “In a 2015 paper, ‘Fun With Fonts: Algorithmic Typography,’ the Demaines explained their motivations: ‘Scientists use fonts every day to express their research through the written word. But what if the font itself communicated (the spirit of) the research? What if the way text is written, and not just the text itself, engages the reader in the science?’ Inspired by theorems or open problems, the fonts — and the messages they compose — can usually be read only after solving the related puzzle or series of puzzles.” Good morning, Internet…

July 3, 2021 at 06:23PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/3dFxJLH