New researches

Monday, October 25, 2021

OpenET, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Frances Haugen, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 25, 2021

OpenET, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Frances Haugen, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 25, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

NASA: OpenET: A Satellite-Based Water Data Resource. “OpenET uses open-source models and Google Earth Engine to provide satellite-based information on water consumption in areas as small as a quarter of an acre at daily, monthly and yearly intervals. Until OpenET, there was no single, low-cost operational system for measuring and distributing evapotranspiration data at the scale of individual fields across the western United States.”

Library of Congress: Introducing Unfolding History: Manuscripts at the Library of Congress. “They are found in collections that document our political, social, cultural, military, and scientific pasts. And there are a lot of collections: more than 12,000 of them, which together encompass more than 70 million items. Among them are the personal papers of presidents and artists, judges and activists, generals and poets, scientists and nurses, and transformative organizations like the NAACP and the Works Progress Administration. More are added every year. Unfolding History: Manuscripts at the Library of Congress is a new blog that aims to offer a wider window into those collections.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BBC: Frances Haugen says Facebook is ‘making hate worse’. “Whistleblower Frances Haugen has told MPs Facebook is ‘unquestionably making hate worse’, as they consider what new rules to impose on big social networks. Ms Haugen was talking to the Online Safety Bill committee in London. She said Facebook safety teams were under-resourced, and ‘Facebook has been unwilling to accept even little slivers of profit being sacrificed for safety’.”

Creative Commons: You can now rewatch the 2021 CC Global Summit Panel Presentations!. “Last week, we released the five keynotes from CC Summit 2021. This week, we’re back with seven panel presentations from the event. Our Summit panels this year featured thought leaders, pioneers and community members who shared their insights on emerging trends and innovations in Open. Whether you missed them live or want to replay them to soak up all the knowledge shared — there is something for everyone!”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 5 Useful Web Tools Every Student Should Use. “If you’re a student, there’s no way you can get by on books alone. In-person or online, students always end up with lots of bookmarked websites. Browser apps are great because you can use them anywhere, anytime. After all, why stop at cloud storage for files when you can keep your tools online, too? Here are the five browser-based resources that every student should bookmark.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: Inside Facebook, Jan. 6 violence fueled anger, regret over missed warning signs. “Facebook has never publicly disclosed what it knows about how its platforms, including Instagram and WhatsApp, helped fuel that day’s mayhem. The company rejected its own Oversight Board’s recommendation that it study how its policies contributed to the violence and has yet to fully comply with requests for data from the congressional commission investigating the events. But thousands of pages of internal company documents disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission by the whistleblower Frances Haugen offer important new evidence of Facebook’s role in the events.”

NBC News: ‘Carol’s Journey’: What Facebook knew about how it radicalized users. “In summer 2019, a new Facebook user named Carol Smith signed up for the platform, describing herself as a politically conservative mother from Wilmington, North Carolina. Smith’s account indicated an interest in politics, parenting and Christianity and followed a few of her favorite brands, including Fox News and then-President Donald Trump. Though Smith had never expressed interest in conspiracy theories, in just two days Facebook was recommending she join groups dedicated to QAnon, a sprawling and baseless conspiracy theory and movement that claimed Trump was secretly saving the world from a cabal of pedophiles and Satanists.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Blumenthal says Facebook’s calls for regulation are the ‘height of disingenuousness’. “Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Sunday balked at claims made by Facebook that it would support government regulation of social media platforms, calling it the ‘height of disingenuousness.'”

The Verge: Trump’s social network has 30 days to stop breaking the rules of its software license. “The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) says former President Donald Trump’s new social network violated a free and open-source software licensing agreement by ripping off decentralized social network Mastodon. The Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) has 30 days to comply with the terms of the license before its access is terminated — forcing it to rebuild the platform or face legal action.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

Mother Jones: Nearly 100 Confederate Monuments Were Toppled Last Year. What Happened to Them?. “Earlier this year, in April, I started a five-week, 7,300-mile road trip through the South to document Confederate monuments that had been taken down since George Floyd’s death the previous spring. My goal was to create a record of an unraveling—this moment in time when long-held narratives about Southern pride and the memorialization of Civil War ‘heroes’ are literally being knocked off their pedestals. I’m photographing the spaces where the monuments once stood, as well as where they’ve ended up. I’m also pairing these photos with archival images of the monuments, sometimes commemorated on postcards, other times in state and university archives, or in the Library of Congress.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 26, 2021 at 01:16AM
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The Salzburg Festival, Digital Library of Idaho, Open Legal Blog Archive, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, October 25, 2021

The Salzburg Festival, Digital Library of Idaho, Open Legal Blog Archive, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, October 25, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

I wanted to let y’all know that while I will continue to index articles relating to Facebook’s controversies, I will no longer include articles that are primarily about Facebook features or updates. This includes WhatsApp and Instagram. (Articles that mention them briefly or as a small part of a larger whole will still be included.)

I try to maintain a healthy sense of my own importance in this world (minimal) and consequently this is not intended as A Gesture. Instead I want to make sure I am not encouraging anyone to use Facebook or any of its affiliates. The company is far, far worse than I imagined.

Deciding to completely ignore such a huge part of the Internet was not easy, but it was the only solution that would answer my conscience. I apologize for any inconvenience this causes.

NEW RESOURCES

The Mayor: The Salzburg Festival opens up to the world with free digital archive. “The rich treasure trove offers theatre pieces, opera and classical music performances by some of the most iconic names of the 20th century…. Representatives of the Austrian Media Library estimate that the content could fill an entire two months of non-stop watching. They include 453 recordings, 262 audio and 191 video. Apart from the performed theatre pieces and musical pieces, there are also rare rehearsals.”

Discovered while wandering through my Google Alerts: The Digital Library of Idaho. From the About Page: “This ‘collection of collections’ was developed over the course of the 2020-2021 academic year by a board of directors drawn from librarians from the University of Idaho, Boise State University, Idaho State University and the Idaho Commission for Libraries. The site currently features over 150 collections from 6 organizations from across the state that can be searched and browsed by subject matter, material type, date range, and location.”

Real Lawyers Have Blogs: Record of Legal Blogs Represents a National Archive of Our Law. “We’ve been stewing over an archive of legal blogs at LexBlog for a long time. Goes back to the early days of LexMonitor and to the current LexBlog.com site. Ratcheting things up, LexBlog is now backing the Open Legal Blog Archive, a database of all credible blog posts, worldwide, that will be both open and syndicated to various portals, worldwide. Legal information – and the law maintained in an open fashion for our society.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WSPA: 50,000 names added to the Slave Deeds of Buncombe Co. Project. “Buncombe County’s Register of Deeds has added 50,000 names to the Slave Deeds of Buncombe County Project research database. Buncombe Co. officials said this was possible because of a partnership with UNC Greensboro and a $294,000 grant. The database shows the deeds of slaves in 13 counties of N.C. from 1776 through 1865 and it is meant to help African Americans learn more about their past.”

NPR: White House delays the release of secret JFK assassination records, citing COVID-19. “The White House has announced that a trove of remaining records concerning the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy will not be released as planned, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Reuters: Tencent’s WeChat makes content searchable on Google and Bing. “Content from China’s most popular messaging app WeChat, including articles and videos on its popular public accounts page, a function similar to a news portal, has opened to external search engines, other than Tencent’s own Sogou search engine, in recent days.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wall Street Journal: Facebook’s Internal Chat Boards Show Politics Often at Center of Decision Making. “Many Republicans, from Mr. Trump down, say Facebook discriminates against conservatives. The documents reviewed by the Journal didn’t render a verdict on whether bias influences its decisions overall. They do show that employees and their bosses have hotly debated whether and how to restrain right-wing publishers, with more-senior employees often providing a check on agitation from the rank and file. The documents viewed by the Journal, which don’t capture all of the employee messaging, didn’t mention equivalent debates over left-wing publications. Other documents also reveal that Facebook’s management team has been so intently focused on avoiding charges of bias that it regularly places political considerations at the center of its decision making.”

Poynter: How the ICIJ made sense of 11.9 million documents to publish the Pandora Papers. “In early October, the group premiered its latest investigation: the Pandora Papers, a look at the world of offshore finance and the people — and countries — who suffer when illicit money goes offshore. More than 11.9 million financial records were secured in the Pandora Papers. Ensuing stories took readers behind the scenes of a financial company in South Dakota with international clients and an Ohio nursing home — the organizations and the humans behind the data. Journalists say the documents are just part of the reporting process. That’s where the journey begins.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Business Insider: Google worked with Facebook to undermine Apple’s attempts to offer its users greater privacy protections, complaint alleges. “Google worked with Facebook to undermine Apple’s attempts to offer its users great privacy protections, 12 state attorneys general alleged in an update to an antitrust lawsuit against the search engine.”

The Register: It’s ‘near-impossible to escape persistent surveillance’ by American ISPs, says FTC. “The US Federal Trade Commission on Thursday said many internet service providers are sharing data about their customers, in defiance of expectations, and are failing to give subscribers adequate choices about whether or how their data is shared. The trade watchdog’s findings arrived in the form of a report [PDF] undertaken in 2019 to examine the data and privacy practices of major US broadband providers, including AT&T Mobility, Charter Communications, Google Fiber, T-Mobile US, Verizon Wireless, and Comcast’s Xfinity.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

British Heart Foundation: Leading charities and health organisations urge people to register their defibrillators on new database to help save lives. “To help save more lives we, alongside Resuscitation Council UK, St John Ambulance and Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, we are urging people who look after defibrillators in places such as offices, communities, shopping centres and leisure centres, as well as in public places, to register them on a pioneering database called The Circuit: The national defibrillator network.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

London School of Economics: Designing a useful textbook for an open access audience – Q and A with Filipe Campante, Federico Sturzenegger and Andrés Velasco, authors of Advanced Macroeconomics: An Easy Guide. “Textbooks play an important role in defining fields of research and summarising key academic ideas for a wider audience. But how do you do this for an open access audience that is potentially unlimited? We talked to Filipe Campante, Federico Sturzenegger and Andrés Velasco¸ authors of the recently published LSE Press book Advanced Macroeconomics: An Easy Guide, about how the field has changed in recent times, what makes their approach to macro-economics distinctive, and what rationales and ambitions lie behind producing an open access textbook.” Good morning, Internet…

October 25, 2021 at 05:25PM
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Sunday, October 24, 2021

South Africa Law Enforcement, YouTube Music, Facebook, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, October 24, 2021

South Africa Law Enforcement, YouTube Music, Facebook, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, October 24, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

SA People News: Massive Database of Killings by South African Police Made Public. “On average, police in South Africa kill someone every day. Viewfinder has now published the police watchdog’s database on these killings, along with other complaints of police brutality and corruption: more than 47,000 cases registered between 2012 and 2020. The Police Accountability Tracker dashboard, which houses this data, allows anyone in South Africa to home in on their police station and to gauge what contribution officers there have made to the body count and case load.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

PC Magazine: Ad-Supported YouTube Music to Drop Videos, Add Background Listening. “Google is planning to shift its free YouTube Music tier into an audio-only experience. It will allow background listening for unpaid users, but limit video playback to Premium subscribers. The change, scheduled for Nov. 3, will start in Canada, 9to5Google reports. There are no details on when or how widely Google will roll out these changes yet.”

Axios: Scoop: Facebook exec warns of “more bad headlines”. “In a post to staffers Saturday obtained by Axios, Facebook VP of global affairs Nick Clegg warned the company that worse coverage could be on the way: ‘We need to steel ourselves for more bad headlines in the coming days, I’m afraid.'”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: 4 things to know before googling health issues. “As we come up on its two-year anniversary, the pandemic could still do some good — if we take the time and energy to learn from it. To start, three medical experts share what they would advise their own patients to do while searching for health information online.”

Make Tech Easier: 17 Google Messages Tips, Tricks, and Features You Should Know. “Android Messages, also known as Google Messages, is preinstalled on the majority of Android phones. The app’s simple appearance may mislead some users. If, however, you look closely, you will notice a plethora of hidden features and settings. Let’s take a look at how to set up and use Google Messages with various tips, tricks, and features.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: How Facebook neglected the rest of the world, fueling hate speech and violence in India. “In February 2019, not long before India’s general election, a pair of Facebook employees set up a dummy account to better understand the experience of a new user in the company’s largest market…. At first, her feed filled with soft-core porn and other, more harmless, fare. Then violence flared in Kashmir, the site of a long-running territorial dispute between India and Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, campaigning for reelection as a nationalist strongman, unleashed retaliatory airstrikes that India claimed hit a terrorist training camp. Soon, without any direction from the user, the Facebook account was flooded with pro-Modi propaganda and anti-Muslim hate speech.”

New York Times: A Eureka Moment, Recreated in Film. “The efforts by the Museum of Fine Arts to make art more accessible through technology is part of a larger trend, said Eric Longo, executive director of MCN, an association for museum professionals to share practices about emerging technologies (previously called the Museum Computer Network). ‘Most museums have increased the size of their digital teams,’ he said, and many museums now have tech labs and innovation incubators to develop and test new ideas.”

Bloomberg: Google Whistle-Blower Says Speaking Out Is Harder Than It Seems. “Facebook Inc. whistle-blower Frances Haugen has received plaudits from Congress and appeared prepared and confident in interviews and testimony. But her experience is far from typical for employees seeking to hold Big Tech accountable. Just ask Chelsey Glasson, who sued Google for discrimination.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: US Senate panel to hold hearing on social media impact on young users. “The US Senate will hold an Oct 26 hearing with tech firms TikTok, Snap’s Snapchat and Alphabet’s YouTube about their platforms’ impact on young users, the panel said on Tuesday (Oct 19).”

San Antonio Express-News: Human smugglers using TikTok, other social media to recruit drivers for Texas runs. “Increasingly, smugglers are turning to social media to recruit drivers because of its immense reach, and their pitches have been drawing people from the interior of Texas — even from out of state — to the southern border.”

Wired UK: All the ways TikTok tracks you and how to stop it. “Like Facebook and Instagram, TikTok’s money is made through advertising, which combined with its recommendations algorithm, requires hefty data collection. So what does TikTok know about you, what tracking does it do, and how can this be stopped?”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Engadget: Here’s how to deal with those badly written equations you find online. “Spend enough time on social media and it’s likely that you’ll see what I’ve started to call a Bad Math Scam. This is where an account, looking to juice their engagement figures, posts an equation with a challenge for people to solve it. Often, it’ll say something like ‘Only ‘80s Kids Can Do This’ or ‘Brain Power Challenge: Can You Do This Without a Calculator?’. The only problem is that the equation is so ambiguously-written that you can come up with multiple answers. Good afternoon, Internet..

October 25, 2021 at 12:24AM
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Saturday, October 23, 2021

Louisiana Life Sciences, Les Paul, Famine Tales, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 23, 2021

Louisiana Life Sciences, Les Paul, Famine Tales, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 23, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New Orleans City Business: Louisiana’s new website for the life sciences industry. “[The site] features an interactive resource guide with information about dozens of established life sciences entities that range from startups and incubators in New Orleans, Thibodaux and Lafayette to established research institutions in Baton Rouge, Shreveport and Covington, a news release said.”

American Songwriter: New Website Celebrates the Legacy of Les Paul. “There is no name better known to guitarists, songwriters, guitar collectors, and music fans than the name Les Paul. A website recently launched that is dedicated to the inventor, musician, and music technology pioneer who has become known as the ‘father of modern music’. It celebrates his remarkable life through hundreds of rare videos, photo galleries, behind-the-scenes experiences, and more.”

Edugraph: Jadavpur University and University of Exeter join hands for digital archive of famine tales. “It’s a digital tale of two famines, told through art, connecting two continents with a shared history. Jadavpur University and University of Exeter, England, are collaborating on a project to document and also artistically depict the history of famines in India and Britain. The project, Famine Tales: Famine and Dearth in India and Britain 1550-1800, is being funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), UK.”

EVENTS

Associated Press: The Facebook Papers. “COMING MONDAY: The Facebook Papers represents a unique collaboration between 17 American news organizations, including The Associated Press. Journalists from a variety of newsrooms, large and small, worked together to gain access to thousands of pages of internal company documents obtained by Frances Haugen, the former Facebook product manager-turned-whistleblower.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Washington Post: New whistleblower claims Facebook allowed hate, illegal activity to go unchecked. “A new whistleblower affidavit submitted by a former Facebook employee Friday alleges that the company prizes growth and profits over combating hate speech, misinformation and other threats to the public, according to a copy of the document obtained by The Washington Post.”

CNBC: Spotify begins allowing more creators to upload podcasts as it continues to embrace video. “Spotify announced Thursday it is opening up its video podcasting feature to more creators. It may help the company attract more paying subscribers and boost engagement. The move shows Spotify continues to embrace video on top of its audio offering.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

NiemanLab: The New York Times hopes to hook listeners on audio. Will a new standalone app do the trick? . “The new app will feature the Times’ own podcasts alongside narrated versions of news, opinion, and magazine articles across a handful of publishers. For those who aren’t participating in the closed beta, nothing will change for the moment. The Times is not putting any podcasts behind a paywall or making them exclusive to the new app with this announcement; you can still listen to The Daily or The Ezra Klein Show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and wherever else you like to hit play.”

New York Times: Eating Disorders and Social Media Prove Difficult to Untangle. “On Tuesday, executives from YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat are scheduled to testify before a Senate subcommittee about the effects of their products on children. They are expected to face questions about how they moderate content that might encourage disordered eating, and how their algorithms might promote such content.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Government of Canada: Competition Bureau obtains court order to advance an investigation of Google. “The Bureau is investigating whether Google has engaged in certain practices that harm competition in the online display advertising industry in Canada. This industry is made up of various technology products that are used to display advertisements to users when they visit websites or use apps.”

Wired: New Sex Toy Standards Let Some Sensitive Details Slide. “Security researchers who specialize in sex toys have been pointing out the potential risks of ‘teledildonics’ for years. To them, the new ISO standards—which don’t address privacy and barely touch on security—are something of a missed opportunity.” Good afternoon, Internet…

October 24, 2021 at 02:44AM
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Radiohead, Creative Commons, TikTok, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, October 23, 2021

Radiohead, Creative Commons, TikTok, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, October 23, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Pitchfork: Radiohead’s Discography Is Now on Bandcamp. “The majority of Radiohead’s catalog is now available on Bandcamp. Fans can listen to or purchase all nine of the band’s studio albums, the 2001 live album I Might Be Wrong, the King of Limbs remix album, 2007’s In Rainbows Disk 2, and the reissues OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017 and Kid A Mnesia. Find Bandcamp’s announcement below.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Creative Commons: The 2021 CC Global Summit Keynotes Are Here!. “We have exciting news…we published the keynotes from the 2021 CC Global Summit! Alongside the 170+ sessions that took place at this year’s virtual event, we hosted five keynotes from global leaders in the open movement, who shared their work in open data, science and health, software and law. We’re excited to share these recordings of the keynotes with you today!”

TikTok: TikTok’s most influential creators now feature on one big influential list. “The heart of TikTok is creators: the people responsible for the dance videos, the comedic clips, and the life hacks you didn’t know you needed. Now, the platform is uplifting its most influential creators with a new initiative, The Discover List.”

The Register: Not just deprecated, but deleted: Google finally strips File Transfer Protocol code from Chrome browser. “The Chromium team has finally done it – File Transfer Protocol (FTP) support is not just deprecated, but stripped from the codebase in the latest stable build of the Chrome browser, version 95.”

USEFUL STUFF

Women and Hollywood: Indigeneity in All Its Complexity: Web Series and Podcast Picks. “Storytelling, through different forms of media, is an effective tool in dismantling media-based prejudice against Indigenous communities. By expressing their own individual stories, Indigenous creatives reclaim the narrative and establish themselves as complex individuals, and reject the one-dimensional, or even caricatured, characters and plot lines so often employed by the media. This week’s web series and podcast picks focus on works by Native creators who shed light on the unique experiences of being Indigenous.”

MakeUseOf: How to Create a Finsta Account (and Why You Might Want To) . “Instead of being a platform where we can casually share authentic moments of our lives, Instagram has become an unspoken competition of who has the most aesthetically pleasing feed or the most followers. This means most people have a super-finicky approach to filtering what photos are Insta-worthy or not and what moments make it to their carefully curated feeds. If you want to regain the tension-free experience of simply sharing realistic, imperfect moments with your followers, then you need a Finsta. In this article, we’ll walk you through what a Finsta account is, why you probably need one yourself, and help you learn how to create one.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: Instagram’s become an essential tool for activists. But it’s a double-edged sword.. “Before Patrice Ingram shuts off her bedside light, before she closes her eyes to prepare for the day ahead, she checks Instagram. She’s not floating through a numbing sea of glamorized self-portraits and intricately posed interiors. Instead, she’s navigating the direct messages for Mutual Aid Philly, the volunteer-run organization dedicated to getting Philadelphia’s residents the help they need.”

BBC: China: The patriotic ‘ziganwu’ bloggers who attack the West. “Guyanmuchan is among a new crop of bloggers known as the ‘ziganwu’, whose rise in fame on Chinese social media has been inextricably linked with the ascendancy of Chinese nationalism. Their name refers to the infamous ‘wumao’ army of trolls who are paid to spread state propaganda – but the difference is that the ‘ziganwu’ do it for free.”

CNET: Google moves forward with Matter for smart home developers. “At the Google Smart Home Developer Summit today, the company announced new tools and features for developers ready to jump into building devices compatible with Matter, the open smart home application protocol promising to serve as a new, universal language for the connected home.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: With Coercion and Black Boxes, Russia Installs a Digital Iron Curtain. “Russia’s boldest moves to censor the internet began in the most mundane of ways — with a series of bureaucratic emails and forms. The messages, sent by Russia’s powerful internet regulator, demanded technical details — like traffic numbers, equipment specifications and connection speeds — from companies that provide internet and telecommunications services across the country. Then the black boxes arrived. The telecom companies had no choice but to step aside as government-approved technicians installed the equipment alongside their own computer systems and servers.”

Kyiv Post: Facebook sues Ukrainian hacker for selling millions of users’ data. “Facebook is suing a Ukrainian national suspected of scraping and selling information from 178 million users on the platform in 2018-2019, according to American publication Insider. According to the court documents, the hacker accessed and sold user IDs and phone numbers, violating the terms of service of Facebook.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Harvard Gazette: Are Google and smartphones degrading our memories?. “Harvard psychologist updates influential book with latest in research on ability to recall.” Good afternoon, Internet…

October 23, 2021 at 09:35PM
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Friday, October 22, 2021

Fryderyk Chopin, Deirdre O’Donoghue, Facebook, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 22, 2021

Fryderyk Chopin, Deirdre O’Donoghue, Facebook, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 22, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Chopin Forever: a digital retrospective on Google Arts & Culture. “Did you know that Chopin was a child star? He was writing and composing poetry at the age of 6, and performed his first public concerto at the age of 7. By the time he was 12, Chopin had already performed in the drawing rooms of countless Polish aristocrats and created multiple original compositions This is just a snippet of what you’ll discover through ‘Chopin Forever’, an original online retrospective dedicated to the life, legacy and music of Chopin — brought to life through a collaboration between The Fryderyk Chopin Institute, twelve partners in 6 different countries and Google Arts & Culture.”

Flood Magazine: KCRW Announces Audio Documentary Series on Deirdre O’Donoghue. “Hosted by Tricia Halloran of KCRW’s ‘Brave New World,’ the series will feature interviews with artists recollecting their time on the DJ’s original radio series ‘SNAP!’ (an acronym for “Saturday Night Avant Pop”), including Julian Cope, Michael Stipe, Henry Rollins, Syd Straw, Glass Eye’s Brian Beattie and Kathy McCarty, Dave Newton of Mighty Lemon Drop, David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven, and many of the other artists who squeezed into her studio to perform on her late night show.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Politico: Facebook lobbying surges to $5M amid whistleblower uproar. “The $5.1 million spree outpaces the company’s big tech peers Google, Amazon and Microsoft. In fact, the only entities that outspent Facebook on lobbying for the quarter were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Realtors, Business Roundtable and the drug lobby PhRMA, according to disclosures filed late Wednesday.” That’s for a quarter of the year. A quarter.

CNET: Google cuts subscription-based service fees for Play Store apps in half . “Effective Jan. 1, Google is decreasing the service fee it collects from subscription-based apps in the Play Store from 30% to 15%, the company announced Thursday via its blog for Android developers. The new rate will be effective for all apps on day one, the announcement reads — that’s a change from the current structure, which requires subscription-based apps to retain their customers for a year in order to enjoy a lower rate.”

ZDNet: This new Google Docs feature will let you add a lot more stuff to your documents. “Google has announced the Docs ‘universal @ menu’ as a way for adding everything from tables, images, to formatting by typing ‘@’. This feature is an expansion of existing ‘smart chips’ integrations. Google earlier this year launched smart chips, a new @ tag tool for linking information from other Workspace apps to a Docs file. It’s Google’s bid to change the word-processing experience.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: New political ad strategy in Virginia: Promoting news articles in Google search results. “Democratic Virginia governor candidate Terry McAuliffe’s campaign is using Google ads to promote articles from news organizations, but swapping the original headlines on the search results page with ones written by the campaign itself — a novel political advertising method.”

Financial Times: Facebook confronts growth problems as number of young users in US declines. “Internal documents show that the number of US Facebook users under 30 is in decline and that Instagram, which has been phenomenally popular since being bought by Facebook in 2012 for $1bn, appears to be reaching the limits of its growth among younger users in key markets, raising serious questions about the company’s future. Now, one of the company’s solutions to its growth challenges — encouraging users to open multiple accounts — is causing technical, reputational and legal headaches.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NBC News: Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline. “The ransomware group REvil was itself hacked and forced offline this week by a multi-country operation, according to three private sector cyber experts working with the United States and one former official.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Reuters: AI can see through you: CEOs’ language under machine microscope. “Executives, beware! You could become your own worst enemy. CEOs and other managers are increasingly under the microscope as some investors use artificial intelligence to learn and analyse their language patterns and tone, opening up a new frontier of opportunities to slip up.”

Mashable: Twitter study says its algorithm favors right-wing parties and news outlets. “A Twitter study and accompanying blog post, published Thursday, show that the company’s algorithm tends to favor right-leaning news outlets and right-wing political parties. In other words, long-disputed claims of anti-conservative bias on social media couldn’t be further from the truth.” Good afternoon, Internet…

October 23, 2021 at 12:59AM
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Canada Cities Pollution, Armenia Photography, Employment Policy Gateway, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, October 22, 2021

Canada Cities Pollution, Armenia Photography, Employment Policy Gateway, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, October 22, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Vancouver is Awesome: New database shows Canada’s highest-polluting cities, what needs to change. “The Municipal Energy and Emissions Database (MEED) offers near-instant access to the pollution profiles of over 4,000 Canadian towns and cities. With $80,000 in funding from Ottawa, the tool is a creation of Sustainability Solutions Group (SSG) — a cooperative of experts that helps cities plan their way through the climate crisis — and whatIf? Technologies.”

Asbarez: UCLA Promise Armenian Institute, Armenian Film Foundation Partner to Support Film and Photography Projects . “The Promise Armenian Institute announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Armenian Film Foundation to collaborate on a range of projects that will support Armenian film and photography at the University of California, Los Angeles. On November 18, the Promise Armenian Institute will host ‘Aftermath: the Armenian Earthquake of 1988,’ the first online exhibit of the Armenian Image Archive, which will celebrate the work of Asadour Guzelian.”

International Labour Organization: ILO launches new online database on employment policies and strategies to promote an inclusive job-rich recovery. “Aimed at governments, social partners, research institutions, practitioners and other development stakeholders, the Employment Policy Gateway enables users to search existing national policies and strategies for employment promotion by region, country and themes. This allows comparisons of national policies across countries and supports research and analysis on existing policy instruments.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: Donald Trump’s new social media SPAC, explained. “Trump announced Wednesday night that he has a new company called Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) and that he would be merging this new company with a SPAC called Digital World Acquisition Company (DWAC). If completed, the deal would turn Trump’s new media company into one that’s publicly traded on the Nasdaq. And it would give TMTG enough money to get a new Twitter clone off the ground called ‘Truth.’ The surprise deal is already turning DWAC into a meme stock, and it raises a fair number of questions.” I promise I will not let this particular topic take over the newsletter, but I will always have time for thorough, cogent explanations of financial/investment issues.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Politico: The tech billionaire aiding the Facebook whistleblower. “The Facebook whistleblower whose disclosures have shaken the world’s largest social network has drawn behind-the-scenes help from a big player in the online world: Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire tech critic who founded eBay.”

CNN: Facebook kept its own oversight board in the dark on program for VIP users. “Facebook failed to provide crucial details about its ‘Cross-Check’ program that reportedly shielded millions of VIP users from the social media platform’s normal content moderation rules, according to the company’s oversight board.”

Washington Post: For teens, navigating the mental health pitfalls of Instagram is part of everyday life. “Danielle Wagstaff, a lecturer in psychology at Federation University in Australia, co-authored a 2019 paper linking Instagram use with adverse mental health symptoms in women…. But teens are savvy media consumers and they’re coming to their own conclusions about the apps that expand their worlds and pricks at their brains. Teens say they understand how the algorithm works, and they’re doing their best to blunt its effects.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: CFPB Orders Tech Giants to Turn Over Information on their Payment System Plans. “Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a series of orders to collect information on the business practices of large technology companies operating payments systems in the United States. The information will help the CFPB better understand how these firms use personal payments data and manage data access to users so the Bureau can ensure adequate consumer protection.”

The Register: Facebook fined £50m in UK for ‘conscious’ refusal to report info and ‘deliberate failure to comply’ during Giphy acquisition probe. “The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has smacked Facebook with a £50m ($68.7m) fine for ‘deliberately’ not giving it the full picture about its ongoing $400m acquisition of gif-slinger Giphy.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Media Matters: Instagram’s suggestion algorithm is promoting accounts that share misinformation. “A Media Matters analysis found that Instagram’s ‘similar account suggestions’ feature, a drop-down widget that appears on users’ profiles and suggests accounts to follow, reliably shepherds users who show an interest in anti-vaccine misinformation and other harmful content (some of which the platform claims to ban) toward similar types of content.”

Axios: By the numbers: Media masters. “Of the top 15 most active state legislators on Twitter and Facebook this year, four come from Pennsylvania, and Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Fla.) made both lists, according to data from Quorum. Why it matters: As Donald Trump showed, social media has become increasingly important for politicians at all levels to raise their profile and communicate directly with voters.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

Consumer Reports: Meet NumWorks, the Modern Graphing Calculator. “Most of the graphing calculators in students’ backpacks are made by Texas Instruments, and they look a lot like models going back to when these gadgets were introduced in the 1980s. But as the school year gains steam, NumWorks, a calculator startup launched a few years ago, is expanding on a cult following among high school teachers, along with a slice of tech innovators who say they like the company’s consumer-friendly approach to repairs and tinkering.” Good morning, Internet…

October 22, 2021 at 05:32PM
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