New researches

Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Whitey Bulger, West Virginia Financial Aid, Lewis and Clark Trail, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, July 20, 2021

Whitey Bulger, West Virginia Financial Aid, Lewis and Clark Trail, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, July 20, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Boston Herald: FBI file on Boston serial killer James ‘Whitey’ Bulger declassified. “Months before sadistic Southie mobster James “Whitey” Bulger was recruited by the FBI, he was hunted for loan sharking where he was wiretapped and beat an agency mole, newly declassified records imply. Bulger ‘slapped around’ that informant, records suggest, over ‘debts’ the agency ordered deliberately left unpaid to spark anger. It’s all part of a 300-page, heavily redacted FBI file on a crazed crook linked to 11 murders, but traced to 19 or more.”

WOWK: New website helps West Virginia students navigate financial aid options. “When it comes to pursuing a college degree, the steps to finding financial aid can be overwhelming. The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission is trying to make that journey easier with a new website.”

National Parks Traveler: Mapping Out Your Lewis And Clark National Historic Trail Trek. “[The site] is designed to help you learn more about the host communities, local businesses, and attractions located along the 4,900-mile trail. Through the portal’s interactive map guide, travelers can plan themed trips and locate recommendations for lodging, historic places, sustainable communities, natural areas, and tribal lands.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Fossbytes: WhatsApp Alternative: Former CBO Of WhatsApp Launches New Private Social Media, HalloApp . “Two former employees have launched a WhatsApp alternative private social media app called HalloApp. Founded by Neeraj Arora and Michael Donohue, both key figures in WhatsApp before and after Facebook’s acquisition. Neeraj was WhatsApp’s chief business officer until 2018, and Donohue was its engineering director for nearly nine years.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Book Riot: Top Reviewers Or Bot Reviewers: The Goodreads Bot Problem. “Bots. Bots are what’s going at Goodreads. Since Goodreads is also used by non-account holders, it is a desirable internet space for advertisers. What happens is that a company or individual will pay for hundreds of positive reviews of their product, so that when a potential buyer sees the reviews, all they see are positive reviews and 5-star ratings. In the case of Goodreads, the product is books. These reviews can be written by a bot or a person with multiple fake accounts.”

Poynter: IFCN launches working group to address harassment against fact-checkers. “The International Fact-Checking Network, a global coalition of fact-checkers, has been monitoring the increasing number of harassment cases against its more than 120 verified signatory organizations operating in 62 countries. Incidents of harassment, ranging from online attacks to in-person threats, often lead to stress among the staff of these organizations beyond the norms of standard journalistic criticism. This effect is particularly pronounced in countries where the freedom of press and expression is systematically challenged.”

Bon Appétit: On TikTok, the “CEO of Chai” Is Making Tea—and Spilling It Too. “Kevin Wilson says that if you are bored at home, ‘forget that chai tea latte from Starbucks.’ In a TikTok video from April 2020, he shows how to do the ‘real thing,’ crushing cardamom and nutmeg, boiling them in milk, adding tea leaves, and stirring until he sees the ‘color of a happy brown boy.’ The video went viral, garnering over 889,000 views. Two weeks later the 30-year-old Californian pastor-turned-TikTok star had over 20,000 followers on the platform. Just over a year after that, with more than 200,000 followers and 4 million likes, Wilson considers himself the ‘CEO of chai.’ ”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: On the list: Ten prime ministers, three presidents and a king. “Spies for centuries have trained their sights on those who shape destinies of nations: presidents, prime ministers, kings. And in the 21st century, most of them carry smartphones. Such is the underlying logic for some of the most tantalizing discoveries for an international investigation that in recent months scrutinized a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers that included — according to forensics analyses of dozens of iPhones — at least some people targeted by Pegasus spyware licensed to governments worldwide.”

Digiday: How a new tool that crowdsources California privacy law violation allegations creates gray areas for businesses. “California Attorney General Rob Bonta has been sending companies so-called ‘notice-to-cure’ letters when they are found by his office to be out of compliance with the state’s California Consumer Privacy Act. Now his Department of Justice is crowdsourcing Californians to do the same using a new tool allowing them to create letters to send to companies via email or snail mail notifying them that they may be in violation of the law if they don’t include a homepage link for people to opt out from data collection.”

Government Technology: Civil Rights Groups Pressure Feds for Social Media Reform. “Various civil rights organizations, including Color of Change and the Anti-Defamation League, are asking the Democrat-controlled White House and Congress to put an end to hate speech and misinformation on social media.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

SF Gate: Opinion: This San Francisco-based website is neo-Nazis’ favorite to spread their hatred. “For the past decade, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) research has been exposing the Internet Archive’s enabling of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other jihadi propaganda efforts and its function as a database for their distribution of materials, recruitment campaigns, incitement of violence, fundraising and even daily radio programs. We wrote that ISIS liked the platform because there was no way to flag objectionable content for review and removal — unlike on other platforms such as YouTube. Today, the Internet Archive enables neo-Nazis and white supremacists in the same ways, and its terms of use still deny responsibility for content uploaded to it.”

Wired: The Pentagon Is Bolstering Its AI Systems—by Hacking Itself. “THE PENTAGON SEES artificial intelligence as a way to outfox, outmaneuver, and dominate future adversaries. But the brittle nature of AI means that without due care, the technology could perhaps hand enemies a new way to attack.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 21, 2021 at 12:52AM
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Monday, July 19, 2021

Accessible Travel, Google News, WhatsApp, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 19, 2021

Accessible Travel, Google News, WhatsApp, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 19, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Travel Agent Central: Wheel The World Launches New Website. “The online travel marketplace allows travelers to browse and book places to stay, things to do, and multi-day tours in more than 50 destinations around the world while providing detailed information about accessibility that lets travelers make informed choices about how and where they can travel with ease.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

From Search Engine Land, an explanation as to why Google News has turned into a tire fire: Google tries to answer publishers questions on visibility concerns in Google News. “For the past couple of years, ever since Google launched the new Google News Publisher Center in December 2019, Google discontinued the application process to appear in these Google News. Before December 2019, publishers would fill out a form to apply to be in Google News. You would then get an email accepting your application or rejecting it, you were in Google News or out. That changed after December 2019 when Google changed the process to be completely automated, without human intervention.”

CNET: WhatsApp adds Joinable calls, a way to hop on group calls after they started. “WhatsApp is adding a new feature with the aim of making it easier for people to join group calls with family and friends. Joinable calls allow you to hop on a call that’s already started, or leave and rejoin the call as long as it’s still going.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

ProPublica: Testing the Air to Tell a Story: How We Investigated Air Pollution Near Florida’s Sugar Fields . “To collect reliable data, ProPublica and The Palm Beach Post collaborated with residents to set up their own air monitors. For four months, these PurpleAir sensors collected data. When the sensors detected a spike in pollution, reporters used a text bot to interview residents in real time about what they were experiencing. The result of these efforts is a stunning piece of multimedia journalism.”

New York Times: ‘Welcome to the Mesh, Brother’: Guerrilla Wi-Fi Comes to New York. “NYC Mesh is one of many fixed-wireless outfits in New York City. They range from community-owned models — like the D.I.Y. ‘internet in a box’ efforts led by the digital justice organization Community Tech NY, and the internet cooperative People’s Choice, started by former Spectrum strikers — to smaller for-profits like Starry, a Boston-based start-up rolling out flat-rate internet plans of $50 a month in large urban markets including New York City.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Google delays in-app billing crackdown after wave of US antitrust lawsuits. “Earlier this month, Google was sued by dozens of state attorneys general over its Play Store policies. Just over a week later, the company is essentially delaying the enforcement of one of its most significant upcoming changes: a decree that all Play Store apps must use Google’s in-app billing or face a ban. Developers can now request a six-month extension to the deadline.”

CNBC: Viral video shows Malaysian police destroying 1,069 bitcoin mining rigs with a steamroller. “Malaysian authorities seized 1,069 bitcoin mining rigs, laid them out in a parking lot at police headquarters, and used a steamroller to crush them, as part of a joint operation between law enforcement in the city of Miri and electric utility Sarawak Energy. Assistant Commissioner of Police Hakemal Hawari told CNBC the crackdown came after miners allegedly stole $2 million worth of electricity siphoned from Sarawak Energy power lines.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

ZDNet: Google’s new cloud computing tool helps you pick the greenest data centers. “In another bid to make cloud computing eco-friendlier, Google has created a new tool to push customers who are picking their next cloud region towards choosing infrastructure that is more sustainable. When users browse through their options to manage cloud resources, Google will flag regions that have the lowest carbon impact highlighted with a leaf symbol and a ‘Lowest CO2’ label.”

Arizona State University: Team awarded NSF grant to teach virtual explorers about permafrost, Arctic climate change . “Scientists at Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, the Arizona Geological Survey at the University of Arizona, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder have been awarded almost $2 million from the National Science Foundation to develop a virtual reality teaching tool called Polar Explorer. In this web-based, immersive environment, undergraduate students will explore polar environments in the Arctic to learn about permafrost from their laptops, desktops or mobile devices.”

Mashable: Facebook’s response to Biden and his COVID misinfo criticism is a big miss. “Even if Facebook’s argument is that the company is doing everything correctly now, the fact is that the algorithm it created, which continues to award reactionary content — i.e. conspiracy theories, misinformation — that receives the most engagement, undermines positive efforts. Also, there’s plenty of damage done before corrective actions can be taken in the first place.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 20, 2021 at 03:28AM
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Greek Folk Music, 1978 Alpine World Ski Championships, Photo Layout Apps, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, July 19, 2021

Greek Folk Music, 1978 Alpine World Ski Championships, Photo Layout Apps, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, July 19, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Pappas Post: Unique Collection of Recorded Greek Folk Music Digitized. “A unique collection of recorded Greek folk music has been digitized and made available to the public by Harvard University’s Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature. The collection, named after Trinity College Classics Professor James A. Notopoulos, is particularly notable for its wealth of songs that use centuries-old musical and poetic techniques to narrate recent occurrences such as the Italian invasion, Nazi occupation and other events from World War II.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ski Racing: Colorado Snowsports Museum releases Garmisch 1978 world champs footage. “For the first installment of of the Colorado Snowsports Museum’s ‘Footage Fridays,’ the museum travels to Garmisch in 1978 for the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. This film features the men’s and women’s races. Notable athletes include Cindy Nelson (Hall of Fame Class of 2002), Phil Mahre, Bernard Russi, Jean-Claude Killy, Annemarie Moser-Pröll, and Pete Patterson.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: 5 best free photo layout apps . “Photo layout apps, which can help you quickly and easily create attractive photo collages and montages, are an absolute godsend for those of us who aren’t conveniently blessed with mad Photoshop skillz. After testing dozens of them, we can now bring you, in alphabetical order, the five best free photo layout apps out there. Choose one of these to take your design skills to the next level without having to even think about layer masks or lossy compression.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Hopefully this is a conversion issue, which is the only non-stupid explanation I can think of. From The Verge: Apple’s weather app won’t say it’s 69 degrees. “If you’re an iPhone user, the weather is always a particularly nice 70 degrees. Or 68 degrees. Any temperature but 69 degrees, actually, because it turns out that the built-in weather app on some versions of iOS — including the current version, iOS 14.6 — will refuse to display the internet’s favorite number, even if the actual temperature in a given location is, in fact, 69 degrees, along with several other (less meme-able) numerals like 65 and 71 degrees.”

CNBC: The Karat Black Card: The credit card just for social media influencers. “When you apply for the card, Karat doesn’t just assess the financials that a traditional bank or issuer would look at, such as your cash on hand and your income, but they also look at your social media stats. Depending on what platform you’re on, they’ll look at different types of data. If you’re a YouTuber, they’ll look at subscribers and ad share revenue. If you’re an Instagram influencer, they’ll look at followers, engagement rates and sponsorship deals.”

New York Times: Facebook Wants to Court Creators. It Could Be a Tough Sell.. “Facebook is seeking to overcome its slow start with creators as it tries to stay culturally relevant. The social network once regularly originated memes like Chewbacca Mom (featuring a woman laughing hysterically while wearing a mask of the Star Wars character) and the A.L.S. Ice Bucket Challenge (where people dumped ice water over their heads to raise awareness and money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis research). But those were years ago.”

Nieman Lab: “At first, Facebook was happy that I and other journalists were finding its tool useful…but the mood shifted”. “Since last year, New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose has been using Facebook’s data analytics tool, CrowdTangle, for a purpose the company doesn’t like — to show that the posts with the most engagement on Facebook are far more likely to come from right-wing commentators than mainstream news outlets. He tweets the most-engaged posts each day.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

HackRead: Misconfigured AWS bucket exposed 421GB of Artwork Archive data. “The team of IT security researchers at WizCase team discovered a misconfigured Amazon S3 bucket belonging to online art retail service Artwork Archive. The incident affected around 7,000 customers including galleries, artists, and collectors.”

The Register: You’ll want to shut down the Windows Print Spooler service (yes, again): Another privilege escalation bug found. “Microsoft has shared guidance revealing yet another vulnerability connected to its Windows Print Spooler service, saying it is ‘developing a security update.’ The latest Print Spooler service vuln has been assigned CVE-2021-34481, and can be exploited to elevate privilege to SYSTEM level via file operations.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Liam O’Dell: I’ve been verified on Twitter – now what?. “After a period of unsuccessful award entries for my journalism, it’s nice to know that someone at the social media platform considers my articles about a priest wanting to baptise an alligator and a Scottish hotel shaped like the poop emoji to be ‘notable’. Yet that’s kind of the point.”

ABC News: UN calls for global database of human gene editing research. “The World Health Organization issued new recommendations Monday on human genome editing, calling for a global registry to track ‘any form of genetic manipulation’ and proposing a whistle-blowing mechanism to raise concerns about unethical or unsafe research.”

Fast Company: IBM’s new AI tool figures out exactly how much carbon each tree can capture. “All trees suck up CO2 as they grow. But the type of tree and where it’s planted make a difference in how much carbon it can capture—and when companies pay for carbon offsets in forests, they’re often based on generic estimates that may not quite represent what’s actually growing in an area. A new tool in development from IBM uses AI to precisely map specific trees and better understand their climate benefit.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 20, 2021 at 12:08AM
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Sunday, July 18, 2021

Australia Missing Persons, Clippy, Google Drive, More: Sunday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 18, 2021

Australia Missing Persons, Clippy, Google Drive, More: Sunday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 18, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

r/UnsolvedMysteries: Introducing ‘Mapping The Missing Australia’, an interactive online mapping resource for individuals who are Missing within Australia.. “Mapping the missing is an interactive map database, listing Australia’s long-term missing persons. Using ERSI story maps, this Aussie resource helps draw comparisons and find patterns in cases of those who have been missing or locations unknown within the country. The online map database is a free service and can be run on computers and mobile phones.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: Microsoft is bringing back Clippy. “Saturday, Microsoft (MSFT) is announcing plans to replace its standard paperclip emoji with an image of big-eyed, happy helper Clippy. The move is part of a broader refresh of 1,800 emojis across all Microsoft apps and services, which will roll out later this year.”

Engadget: Google rolls out a new Drive desktop app for syncing files and photos. “Drive for desktop will replace the Backup and Sync app (which supplanted the Google Drive desktop app in 2018) as well as Drive File Stream, which is for business users. Given that Google Workspace is now available to everyone, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have separate sync methods.”

USEFUL STUFF

Digital Inspiration: Sort by Random – How to Randomize the Order of Rows in Google Sheets. “There are multiple ways to randomize the data rows in Google Sheet. You can either use the built-in SORT function of Google Sheets or create a menu-based function that lets you randomize data with a click.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Getty: Innovation in Prints and Drawings Is the Focus of New Getty Grants. “Prints and drawings are an unsung area of curatorial innovation and a place for museums to bring new forms of storytelling to their permanent collections. Nineteen new grants totaling over $1.55 million will support exhibitions, publications and digital projects that center the graphic arts as part of the Getty Foundation’s ongoing Paper Project initiative. Launched in 2018, The Paper Project funds professional development and experimental projects for curators around the world who study prints and drawings to make graphic arts collections more accessible and relevant to 21st-century audiences.”

New York Times: Are We in the Metaverse Yet?. “Crypto people say they’re building it. Gamers might already be living in it. The art world is cashing in on it. Web veterans are trying to save it. But what is it?”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: EXCLUSIVE Twitter sees jump in govt demands to remove content of reporters, news outlets. “In its transparency report published on Wednesday, Twitter said verified accounts of 199 journalists and news outlets on its platform faced 361 legal demands from governments to remove content in the second half of 2020, up 26% from the first half of the year.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

USGS: A Fixed Smartphone Network Offers Inexpensive Earthquake Early Warning Potential. “In late 2019, a research team assembled 82 smartphones, strapped them to walls and floors in buildings across Costa Rica and waited six months. After a careful analysis, they discovered that they had created an effective and inexpensive Earthquake Early Warning system that could provide communities with up to tens of seconds of warning that an earthquake occurred and shaking is imminent.”

PsyPost: The “Sci-Hub effect” can almost double the citations of research articles, study suggests. “Scientific articles that get downloaded from the scholarly piracy website Sci-Hub tend to receive more citations, according to a new study published in Scientometrics. The number of times an article was downloaded from Sci-Hub also turned out to be a robust predictor of future citations.”

Southern Poverty Law Center: ‘We Make Mistakes’: Twitter’s Embrace of the Extreme Far Right. “Twitter gave far-right extremists the platform they needed to plan an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, and the website, if it maintains its current approach, will likely enable politically motivated violence again in the future.” Good evening, Internet…

July 19, 2021 at 05:17AM
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Agritourism, TED Talks, YouTube, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 18, 2021

Agritourism, TED Talks, YouTube, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 18, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

KPAX: Agritourism industry sees opportunity with new website. “A labor of love 3 years in the making came to fruition this May with a first-of-its kind website offering a step-by-step guide for busting into the agritourism industry. Here, you’ll find advice from agritourism experts, videos and detailed podcasts so you can pop in the headphones and learn without missing a weed.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mashable: Clubhouse and TED will team up to deliver audio-only TED Talks. “Clubhouse is teaming up with TED to bring exclusive TED talks to your phone. The news was announced Sunday, and the first talks will launch Monday in the official TED Clubhouse room. These talks will only be available to Clubhouse users.” This is a week ago, playing catch-up as usual.

Tubefilter: YouTube Rolls Out Personalized Video Recommendation Feed ‘New To You’. “YouTube is introducing a video discovery feed it hopes will ‘help viewers discover creators or content that is new to them, and help them explore beyond their typical recommendations,’ Becka, a products manager, said in the platform’s most recent Creator Insider upload.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Sacramento Bee: How an octogenarian’s TikTok videos struck social media gold for Sacramento History Museum. “[Howard] Hatch is an octogenarian docent who has volunteered at the museum for 22 years. In a few short videos, he became a globally famous TikTok star, and the museum’s not-so-secret weapon. On camera, Hatch sports a denim apron adorned with a ‘CA Grown’ pin, thin wiry spectacles and a gentlemanly demeanor. He comes across as a clear outsider, and his own disbelief at the channel’s success just might be its biggest appeal.” You know what’s really funny? I first found this article via a newspaper in Malaysia!

BBC: Why was my tweet about football labelled abusive?. “Online hate has been in the headlines again recently due to an avalanche of racist posts directed at three players who missed penalties in England’s defeat to Italy in the Euro 2020 final.” Warning: the article quotes abusive language.

Ars Technica: Creepypasta and the search for the ghost in the machine. “It was the music, they said, that drove the children to madness. The eerie, detuned soundtrack to Pokémon Red’s Lavender Town contained harmful sonic irregularities played at such high frequencies that only the youngest players could hear them. In extreme cases, these could alter brain chemistry and trigger psychosis—after playing the game, hundreds of Japanese children put down their Game Boys, climbed on to the roof, and jumped to their deaths. None of this is true, of course.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Poynter: Defamation was considered a well-settled area of law. Then came social media.. “When Ed Henry’s legal team arrives at court to carry out defamation lawsuits against Fox News, CNN and NPR over his sexual misconduct allegations, it will have to prove there was a reckless disregard for the truth. In other words, the former Fox News personality must demonstrate that the media companies intentionally lied and avoided learning the facts about the alleged situation.”

TechCrunch: Twitter appoints resident grievance officer in India to comply with new internet rules. “Twitter has appointed a resident grievance officer in India days after the American social media firm said to have lost the liability protection on user-generated content in the South Asian nation over non-compliance with local IT rules.”

TASS: Russian media watchdog demands Google unblock video on Russian MP’s YouTube channel. “Russia’s mass media watchdog Roscomnadzor said on Sunday it has demanded Google LLC unblock a video on the YouTube channel of Russian Senator Alexei Pushkov. The video host removed a Post Scriptum program from the Alexei Pushkov official channel. The video is now available on RuTube.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNET: Black teen kicked out of skating rink after facial recognition error. “Public outcry against facial recognition software is on the rise this week as the parents of a Black teenager consider legal action against a Detroit-area roller-skating rink, accusing the rink of racially profiling their daughter with the technology. The rink banned teen Lamya Robinson on Saturday, according to a report from Fox 2 Detroit, accusing her of participating in a public brawl, after the rink’s facial recognition software wrongly identified her as a previous patron.”

Neowin: Google is making on-device machine learning easier on Android later this year. “The usage of machine learning (ML) has become quite common across various applications for multiple use-cases. While on-device ML is preferred over its server-based counterpart for a number of reasons such as low latency and lack of dependency on internet connectivity, it also has numerous drawbacks. Google says that it will be addressing these challenges with the Android ML Platform, coming later this year.”

New York Times: ‘They’re Killing People’? Biden Isn’t Quite Right, but He’s Not Wrong.. “You could also blame individuals themselves for believing in lies and not doing due diligence and checking their facts. After all, deciding to forgo a vaccine is a personal choice, even if it is an unfortunate one. But the ability to resist social media juggernauts pales in comparison to the tremendous power of these platforms to amplify bad information. Attempting to stop falsehoods by claiming to offer good information is like using a single sandbag to hold back an impossibly fetid ocean.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 19, 2021 at 12:56AM
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Saturday, July 17, 2021

Innu Language, Microsoft Office, Google Knowledge Panels, More: Saturday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 17, 2021

Innu Language, Microsoft Office, Google Knowledge Panels, More: Saturday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 17, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Saltwire: New Innu language app is another tool in maintaining Indigenous langauge. “A very important part of any culture is language. For many First Nations in Canada maintaining their languages has been difficult, and the Innu are no exception. A new tool recently released, an Innu-aimun conversation app, is part of an effort by the Innu groups of Labrador and Quebec, in conjunction with researchers from Memorial University and Carleton University, to help keep the language alive.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: How to Use Microsoft Office on Chromebook for Free. “As you know, Chrome OS is a different operating system from your regular Windows, and you can’t install Windows applications on it. So if you want to use Microsoft Office on your Chromebook, you won’t be able to install the Microsoft Office software, but there are ways to get around it. Here’s how you can run Microsoft Office on a Chromebook for free.”

MakeUseOf: How to Claim Your Google Knowledge Panel . “To claim your Google Knowledge Panel, you’ll need to be verified on Google. This is primarily because Google wants to ascertain that you are the authentic owner or authorized representative of the entity featured in the panel. In this article, you will learn how to get verified on Google, so you can claim your Google Knowledge Panel.” Note that organizations have knowledge panels as well as people, and this article applies to them as well.

Mashable: How to go live on Instagram . “Going live on Instagram is a great way to share a special moment, to allow others to experience an event remotely, to spread good news, or to simply get things off your chest. When you broadcast live on the social platform, anyone who follows you can tune in to watch your video, and after you’ve finished the recording, you can choose to publish the clip to Instagram’s IGTV platform.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

ABC News (Australia): The social media sleuths obsessed with tracking China’s wandering elephants. “The elephants became an overnight internet sensation earlier this year and have been dominating people’s daily conversations in China. Millions of Chinese have expressed their fondness towards the herd online, with some watching the animals eating, napping and showering through 24/7 live streams and daily updates from state media.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Georgia Tech: New Open-source Tool Gives Cybersecurity Pros an Integrated Approach to Combat Malware. “A new open-source cybersecurity technique called Forecast from the Georgia Institute of Technology is able to identify the capabilities that malware is planning to use in an attack before those capabilities are deployed. The all-in-one tool then predicts or ranks the likelihood of each possible staged attack – in less than five minutes on average.”

BBC: Under the skin of OnlyFans. “OnlyFans, a social media platform best known for explicit content, has boomed during the pandemic. But from receiving terrorism videos to racial abuse and rape threats, a BBC investigation based on the experiences of dozens of women reveals concerns about how the British-run site is structured, managed and moderated.”

Daily Dot: ‘Uncensorable’ Freedom Phone raises a host of security questions. “Though people might understandably be drawn to a phone that prioritizes privacy and free speech, multiple reports have raised security concerns and questioned whether the Freedom Phone is being upfront with customers. The Freedom Phone appears to be a rebranding of the Umidigi A9 Pro, a roughly $120 phone made by Chinese tech company Umidigi, according to a report Thursday from The Daily Beast.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Liam O’Dell: Twitter responds to the #VerifyDisabledTwitter campaign. “In what feels like a very frustrating case of déjà vu, I am again submitting a request to Twitter to have my account verified. Almost a month after the first attempt, nearly 100 fellow disabled activists have told me they’ve had their requests rejected too. After some help from my good friend Poppy Field, the #VerifyDisabledTwitter campaign was launched.”

Good E-Reader: New AI tool Katarite to automate audiobook creation. “Audiobooks are all the rage these days and there are a greater number of audiobooks produced now than ever before. However, unlike print or e-books, audiobooks require a human voice actor to actually read out the stories. It is this that might change soon thanks to a new tool named Katarite that has been jointly developed by Parksha and Otobank.” Good evening, Internet…

July 18, 2021 at 06:17AM
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Indigenous Tasmania, Google Maps, Emoji, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 17, 2021

Indigenous Tasmania, Google Maps, Emoji, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 17, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Tasmania Examiner: Australian first historical website to illuminate Tasmania’s Indigenous history. “[The site] was believed to be the first site of its kind in Australia and tells the history of the Stoney Creek people who lived in the Tamar Valley for a thousand generations. The website was developed by historian and academic Dr Michael Powell and Indigenous historian Dr Aunty Patsy Cameron. More than 30 Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics, scholars and community members also contributed to the website.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Yahoo News: Google Maps updates Ben Nevis route after complaints about ‘potentially fatal’ path. “Google has updated a Ben Nevis route in its mapping service after complaints it had suggested a ‘potentially fatal’ path for walkers. The tech giant denied its map offered dangerous directions for people on foot but did admit driving routes could be misinterpreted at the mountain in Scotland.” According to the article I linked to a few days ago, locals attempting to contact Google about this were ignored. Glad to see that news articles about the problem got them to change things before someone died.

Emojipedia: New Emojis in 2021-2022 . “A saluting face, biting lip, coral and a low battery are among the emojis up for approval later in the year. These are currently draft candidates for the next emoji release versioned Emoji 14.0. Other inclusions on the draft list are consistent gender options for pregnancy and royalty, ‘heart hands’, and the ability to choose from 15 different handshake combinations.”

TechCrunch: Twilio’s new tools will let anyone add live video and audio to their apps. “Twilio, a company best known for its tools that help developers build text message/phone-call-powered apps, is branching out into a new category: livestreaming. This morning the company announced Twilio Live, a platform meant to help developers more easily integrate live video/audio features into their apps.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: How to change your iPhone’s text size for a specific app. “Sometimes you want the text in your app to be smaller, so you can fit more content on a single screen. Sometimes you want it to be bigger, especially if you’ve been putting off buying those reading glasses. But until recently, if you had an iPhone, you had to pick a single text size as a standard for all your apps. Not anymore.”

ABC 10: How to watch the Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony. “This year’s Olympic Summer Games, already postponed a year because of the pandemic, will be held without fans cheering from the stands after a state of emergency was declared in Tokyo in an effort to fight a surge in COVID-19 cases. Here is everything you need to know about the opening ceremony and how you can watch it live, on TV and online.”

Mashable: How to create a GIF from a TikTok video . “Gone are the days of screen recording a video on your phone and uploading it to a sketchy GIF-making website, choosing the start and end times, adjusting the frame rate, blah blah blah you know the struggle. Making GIFs can be a huge pain. GIFing on TikTok is refreshingly easy, and only takes a few taps. Here’s how to do it.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Facebook: Taking Action Against Hackers in Iran. “Today, we’re sharing actions we took against a group of hackers in Iran to disrupt their ability to use their infrastructure to abuse our platform, distribute malware and conduct espionage operations across the internet, targeting primarily the United States.”

Tom’s Guide: Update Google Chrome now to fix this dangerous zero-day flaw . “Few details are yet available about the zero-day flaw. Google’s Chrome blog post yesterday (July 15) notes that it involves ‘type confusion in V8,’ the JavaScript rendering engine used by Chrome, and that ‘Google is aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2021-30563 [the flaw’s catalogue number] exists in the wild.'”

Motherboard: Samsung Washing Machine App Requires Access to Your Contacts and Location. “A series of Samsung apps that allow customers to control their internet-connected appliances require access to all the phone’s contacts and, in some cases, the phone call app, phone’s location, and camera. Customers have been furious about this for years.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Los Angeles Review of Books: Archival Futures: The Archive as a Place and the Place of the Archive. “ONE CERTAINTY THAT has always guided historians is the possibility of traveling to work in an archive. The time and costs involved in such research trips set the timelines of their research projects. But, confronted with an unprecedented pandemic, can we still stick to the old certainties that such research trips are central to what we write and teach? In an increasingly uncertain and digitizing world, where the relationship between past, present, and future thins out, it is time to rethink the relationship between historical writing and the archive. Specifically, the notion of the archive as a place requires revision.”

EurekAlert: Beautiful VR setting could reduce pain in unpleasant medical procedure. “Dr Wojciech Krajewski and colleagues at the Wroc?aw Medical University in Poland recruited 103 patients, with a mean age of 66 years, who were listed for rigid cystoscopy with just local, intraurethral anaesthesia. Some were for a first diagnosis and others required follow up having experienced the procedure in the past. Individuals were randomised to undergo classic cystoscopy or the procedure with VR goggles and headphones presenting an image of the Skógafoss waterfall in Iceland.” Good evening, Internet…

July 18, 2021 at 03:48AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/3wK6beV