New researches

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Mississippi Civil War Correspondence, Footy Skills Lab, Legally Blonde, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 7, 2021

Mississippi Civil War Correspondence, Footy Skills Lab, Legally Blonde, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 7, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Meridian Star: Documents digitized in Governors’ Letters Project, volunteers needed. “A documentary project led by a University of Southern Mississippi history professor that is digitizing more than 20,000 letters written to Mississippi governors during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods has launched its first 2,000 documents online. The project, which is a feature of USM’s prestigious Dale Center for the Study of War & Society, is also seeking volunteers for assistance with transcription of original documents.”

Google Blog, and I know it’s dated tomorrow, I’m time-travelling like that: Kick like a pro with Footy Skills Lab. “Three years ago, the [Australian Football League] and Google first teamed up to help footy fans better connect with the games and players they love. Since then, we’ve been thinking about ways we could improve access to Aussie Rules coaching and community participation – regardless of ability, gender, location, culture or socio-economic background. Today, we’re thrilled to launch Footy Skills Lab to help budding footy players in Australia and all around the world sharpen their AFL skills – straight from their smartphone.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Google celebrates Legally Blonde’s 20th birthday with stylish Easter egg. “It’s been 20 years since Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods blessed audiences with her bubbly personality, solid determination and undeniable style. Ahead of the July 13 anniversary of the film, Google is marking the occasion with what’s surely an Elle-approved Easter egg: her signature pink purse.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 10 Free Data Recovery Tools For Windows PC. “When you delete a file, you don’t actually ‘delete’ it. The system marks the area the file resides as reusable, removing the file from its index. This means that there is a period where it is possible to restore the file. To help you with your deleted data dilemma, we have for you 10 free data recovery tools for Windows, which will help from simple file recovery to a total partition rescue.”

Larry Ferlazzo: A Few Of The Best Resources For Lesson Planning. “The Internet is awash with lesson-planning resources. I thought that readers might appreciate a select few recommendations from me – resources that I think provide the most helpful overall guidelines. Let me know what you think I’m missing!”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Poynter: She was an intelligence analyst at the CIA. Now she writes about the dangers of ‘fake news.’. “As an intelligence analyst at the CIA, Cindy Otis was trained to assess how our country’s foreign adversaries deploy divisive rumors, destructive conspiracy theories and other kinds of disinformation against us. Several months after the 2016 presidential election — which saw both the concerted Russian campaign to undermine trust in democracy and a surge in domestically created false content — she decided to leave the agency and deploy her skills on a different front.”

Techdirt: Facebook Is Banning Anyone Charged With Participating In Capitol Hill Insurrection . “At the very least, this does raise some questions. Since it’s just based on charging, and not on conviction, what happens if the charges are dropped or the person is acquitted? That may be unlikely with many (if not all) of the January 6th folks, but it does raise some questions. And is the ban permanent? So far, the initial January 6th cases, against those who didn’t seem to do that much once in the Capitol, have involved relatively mild sanctions. Will that also include a lifetime ban from Facebook? Should it?”

Search Engine Journal: Google’s John Mueller Doesn’t See SEO Becoming Obsolete. “If Google’s machine learning algorithms could understand everything about websites on their own, there would be no need for SEO. Mueller doesn’t see the future of search headed in that direction, however. Here’s his full response.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Russian hackers reportedly attacked GOP computer systems. “Russian state hackers affiliated with the group Cozy Bear were reportedly behind an attack last week on Synnex, a contractor that provides IT services for the Republican National Committee (RNC), Bloomberg writes. The attack may have exposed the organization’s information. When asked by Bloomberg, a spokesperson for the RNC denied the organization’s systems had been hacked, but confirmed that one of its IT providers Synnex, had been exposed.”

The Register: Kaspersky Password Manager’s random password generator was about as random as your wall clock . “In March 2019, security biz Kaspersky Lab shipped an update to [Kaspersky Password Manager], promising that the application could identify weak passwords and generate strong replacements. Three months later, a team from security consultancy Donjon found that KPM didn’t manage either task particularly well – the software used a pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) that was insufficiently random to create strong passwords. From that time until the last few months of 2020, KPM was suggesting passwords that could be easily cracked, without flagging the weak passwords for users.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 8, 2021 at 03:08AM
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United States Lawmaking, Bird Song Identification, Pegasus Spyware, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, July 7, 2021

United States Lawmaking, Bird Song Identification, Pegasus Spyware, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, July 7, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Library of Congress: Library of Congress Adds ‘A Century of Lawmaking’ to Congress. gov. “The Library of Congress announced today that U.S. congressional records dating back to the days of printing presses and the telegraph are now easily accessible on mobile devices. With this latest update of Congress.gov — the official website for U.S. federal legislative information — the Library has transitioned over 33,000 bills and resolutions crafted by Congress between 1799 and 1873 (the 6th to 42nd U.S. Congresses) to a modern, user-friendly web format.”

Cornell Lab of Ornithology: What Bird is Singing? Ask the Merlin Bird ID App for an Instant Answer . “Hear a bird singing? Today with the free Merlin Bird ID app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, you can make a quantum leap in bird identification just by holding up your phone. As Merlin listens with you it uses AI technology to identify each species like magic, displaying in real time a list and photos of the birds that are singing or calling.”

TechCrunch: A new ‘digital violence’ platform maps dozens of victims of NSO Group’s spyware. “For the first time, researchers have mapped all the known targets, including journalists, activists, and human rights defenders, whose phones were hacked by Pegasus, a spyware developed by NSO Group.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BetaNews: Microsoft issues emergency patches for critical PrintNightmare security flaw. “Microsoft has released a series of out of-band security patches for the PrintNightmare bug that was recently exposed. The remote code execution vulnerability exits in the Windows Print Spooler; it affects all versions of Windows, and the company is even offering patches for the unsupported Windows 7.”

Poynter: Nigeria banned Twitter one month ago. Here’s how it’s impacting fact-checkers. “A month into Nigeria’s Twitter ban, fact-checkers aren’t seeing a feared drop off in the size of their audience, but are seeing restrictions on the reach of some of their content.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Iranian Disinformation Effort Went Small to Stay Under Big Tech’s Radar. “The first-of-its-kind discovery of the Iranian campaign by FakeReporter, an Israeli disinformation watchdog group, offers insight into how countries have miniaturized their disinformation campaigns in an effort to stay under the radar of tech companies that have become more aggressive in rooting them out.”

CNET: How fake reviews flood Amazon, fueled by Facebook groups like this one. “Valerie Zhong, the administrator of the Club Ki-Fair group on Facebook, made a simple commitment: Join her group and get free samples of household products. The generous offer promised to put hair care products, nail polishes and coffee makers into the hands of members. There was, of course, a catch. Club members had to buy the products and write a review for Amazon, where they were sold. Then, the purchases would be refunded.”

Counterpunch: Turning Memes into Money in El Salvador. “On June 5, President Nayib Bukele announced his plans to make El Salvador the world’s first country to accept Bitcoin, a popular digital cryptocurrency, as a form of legal tender. The nation’s legislative assembly, under the majority control of Bukele’s New Ideas party, passed the bill just three days later. Under the new legislation, Bitcoin must be accepted as payment by all private firms and by the nation’s tax authorities. The move puts El Salvador into uncharted territory, posing serious risks that likely outweigh any potential benefits.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Motherboard: Hackers Scrape 90,000 GETTR User Emails, Surprising No One. “On Tuesday, a user of a notorious hacking forum posted a database that they claimed was a scrape of all users of GETTR, the new social media platform launched last week by Trump’s former spokesman Jason Miller, who pitched it as an alternative to ‘cancel culture.’ The data seen by Motherboard includes email addresses, usernames, status, and location.”

Washington Post: Evidence found on a second Indian activist’s computer was planted, report says. “The two activists were jailed in 2018 and accused of plotting an insurgency against the government. A new forensic report concludes they also shared something else: They were both victims of the same hacker who planted evidence on their computers. The finding raises fresh doubts about a case that rights groups consider an effort to crack down on critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. More than a dozen activists have been imprisoned without trial under a stringent anti-terrorism law that rarely results in convictions.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT Sloan: Social media is broken. A new report offers 25 ways to fix it. “Researchers, policymakers, and users have identified several key issues with the social media ecosystem. These include vast power held by a few corporations, which hurts innovation and competition; the spread of false news and debates about the limits of free speech; how social media threatens privacy, election integrity, and democracy; and platform oversight and transparency.”

Wired: This AI Helps Police Monitor Social Media. Does It Go Too Far?. “SINCE 2016, CIVIL liberties groups have raised alarms about online surveillance of social media chatter by city officials and police departments. Services like Media Sonar, Social Sentinel, and Geofeedia analyze online conversations, clueing in police and city leaders to what hundreds of thousands of users are saying online. Zencity, an Israeli data-analysis firm that serves 200 agencies across the US, markets itself as a less invasive alternative, because it offers only aggregate data and forbids targeted surveillance of protests.” Good morning, Internet…

July 7, 2021 at 06:27PM
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Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Florida Fashion, 5G Home Run Derby, Firefox Lite, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 6, 2021

Florida Fashion, 5G Home Run Derby, Firefox Lite, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 6, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

EVENTS

University of Miami: Explore Florida’s fashion trends throughout the years. “Although visions of shorts, tank tops, and flip-flops may come to mind when one thinks of fashion in South Florida, the University of Miami Libraries’ ‘Deep Dives’ series will show otherwise. Cristina Favretto, head of special collections, is hosting a webinar that will give an inside look at fashion-related rare books and other items in the archives.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Batters in the Home Run Derby will livestream using 5G helmet cameras. “If you’ve ever wanted to see a pro baseball player’s at-bat through their eyes, you’re about to get your chance. T-Mobile is marketing its 5G network by equipping players at the 2021 Home Run Derby with 5G point-of-view cameras on their helmets, including the catchers’ masks. Watch the live competition through a special T-Mobile website and you can witness both batting practice and the derby itself as if you were on the field, with 5G (hopefully) keeping everything in sync.”

Ubergizmo: Mozilla’s Firefox Lite Browser Has Been Killed Off. “The company has announced that they will be ending both development and support for Firefox Lite because they say that the current version of Firefox for mobile is fast enough. However, based on the comments and feedback users have been providing, the Lite version has also gotten a bit too big and bloated for a supposed ‘Lite’ app, which kind of renders it useless.”

The Register: GitHub Copilot auto-coder snags emerge, from seemingly spilled secrets to bad code, but some love it. “Early testers of GitHub’s Copilot, which uses AI to assist programmers to write code, have found problems including alleged spilled secrets, bad code, and copyright concerns, though some see huge potential in the tool.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: How to set up Notification Summary in iOS 15. “If you get a million app notifications a day, and have become numb to the important ones, iOS 15’s Notification Summary feature is about to be your new best friend. Notification Summary will let you zero in on what you might call your ‘important-but-overwhelming-due-to-constant-pestering’ apps, and receive a summary report of their notifications for you to review at a time of your own choosing.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

NiemanLab: The New York Times is using Instagram slides and Twitter cards to make stories more digestible . “Last summer, Vox’s Terry Nguyễn wrote about the ways that our Instagram feeds had changed in the wake of the Black Lives Matters movement. We started to see more PowerPoint-looking slides that were made to communicate information about the protests, and they’ve since been co-opted for just about every subject…. But slides like these, when done right and with care, make complex stories (about, say, a mutating virus!) more digestible and accessible.”

The Mayor (EU): Finland launches digital book collection to spark children’s interest in literature . “More specifically, a digital collection of 95 titles will be made available on Friday 9 July via the Ellibs platform. The audio and e-books will be available in both Finnish and Swedish. What is more, the collection has been carefully selected by library professionals specialising in children and young people’s literature.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Courthouse News: Judge Questions Fed’s Withholding of Records on Social Media Surveillance Programs. “A federal judge on Friday questioned whether the U.S. Department of Homeland Security can legally withhold records on its use of social media surveillance tools to monitor citizens and immigrants.”

BBC: Swedish Coop supermarkets shut due to US ransomware cyber-attack. “Some 500 Coop supermarket stores in Sweden have been forced to close due to an ongoing ‘colossal’ cyber-attack affecting organisations around the world. Coop Sweden says it closed more than half of its 800 stores on Friday after point-of-sale tills and self-service checkouts stopped working.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Verge: TikTok parent ByteDance has begun selling the video app’s AI to other clients. “ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company of video sharing app TikTok has started selling TikTok’s AI to other companies, the Financial Times reports (may require subscription). The company has a new division called BytePlus, and according to its website, its client list already includes US fashion app Goat, Singapore travel site WeGo, Indonesian shopping app Chilibeli, and India-based social gaming platform GamesApp.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 6, 2021 at 11:51PM
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Indigenous People Enslavement, Bernard Gotfryd Photography, Nebraska Newspapers, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, July 6, 2021

Indigenous People Enslavement, Bernard Gotfryd Photography, Nebraska Newspapers, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, July 6, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Brown University Library News: Announcement | Stolen Relations: Recovering Stories of Indigenous Enslavement in the Americas. “The Library has been contributing to a community-centered database project led by Professor Linford Fisher that seeks to document the many instances of Indigenous enslavement in the Americas between 1492 through 1900. Formerly entitled, Database of Indigenous Slavery Archive (DISA), the project is now named, Stolen Relations: Recovering Stories of Indigenous Enslavement in the Americas.”

Library of Congress: Free to Use and Reuse: The Photographs of Bernard Gotfryd. “In his work, you’ll find film stars such as Dustin Hoffman on the set of ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ novelists, painters, singers and songwriters, politicians at podiums and any number of passionate people at street protests. Gotfryd, who died in 2016 at the age of 92, left the bulk of his photographs to the Library and designated that his copyright should expire at his death.”

EVENTS

Nebraska Library Commission: NCompass Live: History Nebraska: Taking History Online. “As a strategic goal of our agency, History Nebraska is undertaking significant efforts to provide access to historical collections for Nebraskans, regardless of where they live. One such initiative is to digitize our newspaper collections through a partnership with Newspapers.com. We have also been scanning microfilmed probate records from county courthouses, select manuscript collections, and some county and community histories. For years, we have been digitizing our vast photograph collections, as well as our audio/visual collections. Tune in to learn how and when we plan to make these available to the public.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: How to Access the Hidden Symbols on Your iPhone’s Keyboard. “The iPhone keyboard has a hidden superpower—beneath its usual letters, numbers, and symbols lie a treasure trove of less common but still useful symbols. The next time you want to tell someone how hot or cold it is, for example, you don’t need to type ‘degrees’ or do a Google search for the degree symbol.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

ABC News: Twitter restricts account of expert who mocked China leader. “A New Zealand academic says Twitter temporarily restricted her account after she mocked Chinese President Xi Jinping. University of Canterbury Professor Anne-Marie Brady is an expert on China’s attempts to exert political influence around the world and has been an outspoken critic of its ruling Communist Party. Last week, she sent tweets poking fun at the party’s 100th anniversary celebrations.”

Editor & Publisher: The Podcast Revolution. “In conversations with people who podcast, you’ll hear the word ‘intimate’ used a lot to describe the relationship between listener and the voices emanating from their earbuds. It’s as if there’s no one else in the equation, as if you’re being told a story just for you. For news organizations increasingly reliant on audience more than advertising, audio is proving to be a platform that makes those connections, builds trust and familiarity, and solidifies those relationships.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Pro-Trump social media site Gettr hacked. “A social media site launched last week by a senior adviser to former President Donald Trump was briefly hacked on Sunday, with account profiles being defaced with pro-Palestinian messages.”

TechCrunch: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Ridiculous Lawsuit Against Facebook Gets Tossed Out Of Court. “As you may recall, last summer we wrote about what we referred to as an ‘insanely stupid’ lawsuit that Robert F. Kennedy had filed against Facebook on behalf of his wacky anti-vax organization ‘Children’s Health Defense’ (CHD). The issue, of course, is that Facebook blocked CHD from posting the usual conspiracy theories and medical disinformation that RFK Jr. has been known to spread.”

Reuters: Exclusive: White House order pushes antitrust enforcement throughout U.S. economy. “The White House is working on an antitrust executive order that aims to push government agencies to consider how their decisions will impact competition in an industry, according to two sources familiar with the matter.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

BSA TechPost: Confronting AI Bias: A Transatlantic Approach to AI Policy. “BSA supports legislation that would require organizations to perform impact assessments prior to deploying high-risk AI systems. To advance these conversations, we recently launched the BSA Framework to Build Trust in AI, a detailed methodology for performing impact assessments that can help organizations responsibly manage the risk of bias throughout an AI system’s lifecycle.”

EurekAlert: New chatbot can explain apps and show you how they access hardware or data. “Chatbots have already become a part of our everyday lives with their quick and intuitive way to complete tasks like scheduling and finding information using natural language conversations. Researchers at Aalto University have now harnessed the power of chatbots to help designers and developers develop new apps and allow end users to find information on the apps on their devices.”

Mashable: AI bot trolls politicians with how much time they’re looking at phones. “Launched Monday, [Dries] Depoorter’s system monitors daily livestreams of government meetings on YouTube to assess how long a representative has been looking at their phone versus the meeting in progress. If the AI detects a distracted person, it will publicly identify the party by posting the clip.” Good morning, Internet…

July 6, 2021 at 05:33PM
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Monday, July 5, 2021

Georgia Catholicism, Important Objects, Accessibility Tools, More: Monday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 5, 2021

Georgia Catholicism, Important Objects, Accessibility Tools, More: Monday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 5, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Digital Library of Georgia: Two mid-twentieth-century collections, now digitized and available freely online, recall Atlanta neighborhoods lost to urban renewal, and Georgia’s growing Catholic community. “Two new collections of digitized films and slides documenting the growth of Georgia’s Catholic community between 1938-1979 are now available freely online from the Digital Library of Georgia.”

Illinois News Bureau: Illinois artist’s virtual ‘Museum of Us’ lets everyone tell their stories. “Artist Jorge Lucero recently invited people from around the world to meet via Zoom and share an object that was important in their lives – telling their stories through their belongings and turning the grid of video teleconferencing boxes into a cabinet of curiosities.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 10 Best Accessibility Tools For Designers. “Instead of creating everything from scratch, here’s a list of cool accessibility tools for designers. From creating color combinations according to WCAG standards to adding different reading modes to your website, these tools are a must-haves for every designer. Take a look at the list to know about each tool in detail.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Atlantic: The Internet Is Rotting. “This absence of central control, or even easy central monitoring, has long been celebrated as an instrument of grassroots democracy and freedom. It’s not trivial to censor a network as organic and decentralized as the internet. But more recently, these features have been understood to facilitate vectors for individual harassment and societal destabilization, with no easy gating points through which to remove or label malicious work not under the umbrellas of the major social-media platforms, or to quickly identify their sources. While both assessments have power to them, they each gloss over a key feature of the distributed web and internet: Their designs naturally create gaps of responsibility for maintaining valuable content that others rely on.”

NASA: NASA Invites You to Create Landsat-Inspired Arts and Crafts. “For almost 50 years, Landsat satellites have collected images of Earth from space, representing the longest continuous space-based record of our planet’s surface…. In September, Landsat 9 is scheduled to launch and continue this legacy. In honor of the launch, we invite you to get creative and show us what Landsat means to you! Create art or make a craft that’s inspired by a favorite Landsat image or the satellite itself, and share it with us on social media.”

Ars Technica: Old school: I work in DOS for an entire day. “It’s the July 4 holiday weekend in the US, which means Ars staff gets a well-deserved holiday to catch up on this summer’s Steam sale (or maybe just to rest). As such, we’re resurfacing a few classics from the Ars archives, including this somewhat masochistic experiment. Back in 2014, Ars’ Editor Emeritus Sean Gallagher decided to celebrate the 20th anniversary of MS-DOS’s end-of-life by working in the operating system within a modern context. It… went about as smoothly as you’d expect.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Fast Company: This tool helps anyone with an old marijuana conviction clear it from their record. “Nearly one out of every three American adults has a criminal record—and when thet fill out an application for a job, a new apartment, a loan, or even to attend college, there’s a good chance that their record might mean that they’re rejected. But in many cases, it’s possible to have the record expunged, meaning that it will no longer show up on background checks. However, the process is complicated and expensive, and thus out of reach of most people. A new tool from Checkr, a company that works to make employer background checks more fair, makes those expungements easier.”

Reuters: Google Must Face Voice Assistant Privacy Lawsuit – U.S. Judge. “A federal judge said Google must face much of a lawsuit accusing the company of illegally recording and disseminating private conversations of people who accidentally trigger its voice-activated Voice Assistant on their smartphones.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

News@Northeastern: Who Is At Fault When Autonomous Systems Behave In Unpredictable Ways?. “In Tempe, Arizona, a few years back, a self-driving car failed to identify a woman jaywalking across the street in time to stop, and fatally struck her. The human driver, meant to be supervising the vehicle, had been watching a TV show on her cell phone at the time. And the artificial intelligence system within the car wasn’t designed to slam on the brakes to reduce the severity of an unavoidable accident, the way a human driver would. So, who is at fault for this pedestrian’s death?”

Engadget: Researchers retrofit microscopes to take 3D images of cells in real-time. “There’s a limit to what you can learn about cells from 2D pictures, but creating 3D images is a time-intensive process. Now, scientists from UT Southwestern have developed a new ‘simple and cost-effective’ device capable of capturing multi-angle photos that can be retrofitted onto existing lab microscopes. The team say their solution — which involves inserting a unit of two rotating mirrors in front of a microscope’s camera — is 100 times faster than converting images from 2D to 3D.” Good evening, Internet…

July 6, 2021 at 05:28AM
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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…

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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