New researches

Thursday, February 17, 2022

Facebook Roundup, February 17, 2022

Facebook Roundup, February 17, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Meta rolls out vanish mode, payment splitting for US Messenger users. “Facebook Messenger rolled out new features — including splitting payments, vanishing messages and improved voice message recording controls — to iOS and Android users in the US on Wednesday, according to Meta.”

Bloomberg: Meta’s Clegg Promoted as Zuckerberg Steps Back From Policy. “Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has promoted his top policy executive, Nick Clegg, to an even greater role inside the company — a move that will mean less involvement in future policy decisions for the CEO and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.”

The Verge: Facebook rebrands News Feed after more than 15 years. “Meta is changing the name of Facebook’s News Feed, the primary part of the service that users scroll through to see what their friends and family have shared. Going forward, it’ll just be called the ‘Feed,’ according to a tweet from the company on Tuesday. The ‘News Feed’ name had been in place since the feature was first introduced more than 15 years ago.”

New York Times: Out With the Facebookers. In With the Metamates.. “So past Facebook values like ‘Be bold’ and ‘Focus on impact’? They are gone. In their place are ‘Live in the future,’ ‘Build awesome things,’ ‘Focus on long-term impact’ and ‘Meta, Metamates, me,’ Mr. Zuckerberg said on Tuesday.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TIME: Inside Facebook’s African Sweatshop. “Here in Nairobi, Sama employees who speak at least 11 African languages between them toil day and night, working as outsourced Facebook content moderators: the emergency first responders of social media. They perform the brutal task of viewing and removing illegal or banned content from Facebook before it is seen by the average user.”

New York Times: Meta and Salesforce present differing takes on the metaverse.. “Real world or virtual world? Take your pick. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, set its Super Bowl ad in the metaverse. In the ad, an animatronic dog and its friend, a pink-tentacled monster, are separated in their physical reality but reunited via the company’s Quest 2 virtual reality headsets.”

BuzzFeed News: Meta Wouldn’t Tell Us How It Enforces Its Rules In VR, So We Ran A Test To Find Out. “Facebook’s parent company declined to answer our questions about how it moderates content in VR, so we created a test Horizon World filled with content banned from Facebook and Instagram. Content moderators said the world was fine — until we told Meta’s PR team about it.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Texas Sues Facebook Over Its Use of Facial Recognition. “Texas is suing Meta, the parent company of Facebook, over the social network’s past use of facial recognition technology. The suit, filed Monday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, accuses Facebook of violating the state’s privacy laws by capturing biometric data on tens of millions of Texans without properly obtaining consent.”

Reuters: Meta’s Facebook to pay $90 million to settle privacy lawsuit over user tracking. “Facebook agreed to pay $90 million to settle a decade-old privacy lawsuit accusing it of tracking users’ internet activity even after they logged out of the social media website. A proposed preliminary settlement was filed on Monday night with the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, and requires a judge’s approval. The accord also requires Facebook to delete data it collected improperly.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

TechCrunch: How to ruin the metaverse? Build it around profit and centralization. “Reading back through a transcript from Facebook’s investor-disappointing fourth-quarter earnings call has solidified my perspective that we need a third-party, benevolent central entity for the metaverse. A sort of central digital clearinghouse that can transport me from place to place, inclusive of the platform-locked areas that will inevitably come to constitute a portion of our online selves.”

New York Times: Facebook Has an Innovation Problem. “Facebook can’t seem to do it. The company just doesn’t appear to know how to invent successful new stuff. Most of its biggest hits — not just two of its main products, Instagram and WhatsApp, but many of its most-used features, like Instagram Stories — were invented elsewhere. They made their way to Facebook either through acquisitions or, when that didn’t work, outright copying. But buying and copying other ideas is becoming increasingly difficult for Facebook.”

George Washington University: Study: Corrections on Facebook News Feed Reduce Misinformation. “Factual corrections published on Facebook’s news feed can reduce a user’s belief in misinformation, even across partisan lines, according to a new paper co-authored by a George Washington University assistant professor published this month in the Journal of Politics.”

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February 17, 2022 at 08:20PM
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NC ENVIROSCAN, International Council of Museums, Black Fashion Database, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, February 17, 2022

NC ENVIROSCAN, International Council of Museums, Black Fashion Database, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, February 17, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of North Carolina: UNC researchers develop mapping tool to protect populations from environmental chemicals. “NC ENVIROSCAN, a new online interactive mapping tool, helps North Carolina communities increase awareness of key environmental and societal factors that can impact health. Developed through a collaboration between the UNC Superfund Research Program (UNC SRP) and the Institute for Environmental Health Solutions (IEHS) in partnership with the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), this tool allows users to visualize trends across the state.”

: Launch of ICOM’s Online Library. “From the outset, the founders of ICOM wanted to create a resource centre specialising in museums and museology, with a twofold objective: to bring together all the documentation available on the subject and to make it available to museum professionals. Thanks to the contributions of ICOM members, the centre’s collections were rapidly expanded.”

The Eyeopener: Fashion Prof Creates Database For Black Designers In Canada. “The Black Fashion Database website is a virtual project that documents the successes of Black creators across Canada. From in-depth profiles with stylists, designers and professionals to historical photos of Black fashion in Canada, the link to the stand-alone site will reside on the community directory page of Fashion and Race database.”

Estes Park Trail Gazette: Estes Park Historian Laureate’s ‘From the Archives’ made available online. “From the Archives is a volume of essays on the early history of Rocky Mountain National Park and its adjacent community. The manuscript is based on documents from the National Archives in College Park Maryland, the Rocky Mountain National Park Research Facility, and other places, including the collections of the Estes Park Museum.”

Saskatchewan Polytechnic: Innovative digitization toolkit preserves Indigenous history. “When Chasity Berast, program head and instructor for the Saskatchewan Polytechnic Library & Information Technology program, was approached by Harry Lafond of Muskeg Lake Cree Nation to assist with creating a digital archive for their analog records, an idea was born. Rather than sending a student to archive Muskeg Lake Cree Nation’s records, Berast wanted to collaborate with the First Nation to create a digitization toolkit on best practices. Through this process Berast could test best practices while creating the toolkit and helping digitize Muskeg Lake Cree Nation’s archives.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google will shut down Currents, the work-focused Google Plus replacement. “Google has announced that it’ll shut down Currents, which was introduced in 2019 as a replacement for Google Plus for G Suite. In a blog post, the company says it’s ‘planning to wind down’ Currents, and that it’ll push the people who were using it to Spaces, which is sort of like Google Chat’s version of a Slack channel or Discord room.”

Screen Rant: How To Find Concerts & Other Live Events On Snapchat. “Snapchat is a great app for chatting with friends and watching funny videos, but did you know it can also help you find concerts and other live events with the help of Ticketmaster? If there’s one certainty in the tech space, it’s that smartphone apps are constantly changing. In a neverending attempt to hold the attention of as many users as possible, it’s crucial for apps to keep the experience fresh and lively.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Balkan Insight: Time Running Out for North Macedonia’s Priceless Video Archive. “Many of the video tapes stored in the archive of North Macedonia’s national broadcaster, Macedonian Television, MTV, could become useless in the next few years if they are not digitalised. Kiril Pancevski, who has been caring for the archives for some 40 years, told BIRN that some 15,000 hours of the archive have been digitalised. But, according to his estimate, another 33,000 hours, about two-thirds of the archive, must either be transferred into digital format or possibly lost forever.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Inside the Bitcoin Laundering Case That Confounded the Internet. “The arrests of Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan left the world of cryptocurrency incredulous: Could this goofy young couple have been Bitcoin’s Bonnie and Clyde?”

Washington Post: George Washington University apologizes for data project monitoring student and staff locations on campus. “George Washington University interim president Mark S. Wrighton apologized Friday to the campus community for the university’s failure to inform it in advance of a data analytics pilot program that monitored locations — though not individualized data — of students, faculty and staff last fall.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

City AM: Former Google boss launches $125m philanthropic fund to tackle AI issues. “Former Google boss Eric Schmidt has launched a $125m philanthropic fund to tackle so-called ‘hard problems’ in artificial intelligence including bias, harm and misuse, and conflict. The new fund, AI2050, will back reseach projects over the next five years, with the fuunds being offered to individual academics who specialise in the space.”

The Hindu: Ambedkar University launches centre for research on Indian languages. “The university said that CRA-ILIKS [Centre for Research and Archiving in Indian Languages and Indic Knowledge Systems] will have four components. It will build a Bhasha archive, a vast, multi-pronged and constantly growing digital collection propelled by a multilingual search engine and user-friendly interface on the web. It will be accompanied by a substantial programme of translation, transcription and curation. The multidisciplinary academic research and a publication programme will make the other two necessary components.” Good morning, Internet…

February 17, 2022 at 06:29PM
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Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Chrome OS Flex, Android Privacy, Google Drive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, February 16, 2022

Chrome OS Flex, Android Privacy, Google Drive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, February 16, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Ars Technica: Google turns old Macs, PCs into Chromebooks with Chrome OS Flex. “Chrome OS Flex is basically the official Google version of CloudReady, which Google acquired when it bought Neverware in 2020. Flex allows individuals, schools, or businesses to download Chrome OS onto a USB drive for free (CloudReady charges a fee and annual subscription rate to schools and businesses, respectively) and install it onto their Mac or Windows PC. The OS could also be booted from a USB drive instead of installed or launched via network deployment by an IT department.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Blog: Introducing the Privacy Sandbox on Android. “Today, we’re announcing a multi-year initiative to build the Privacy Sandbox on Android, with the goal of introducing new, more private advertising solutions. Specifically, these solutions will limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID. We’re also exploring technologies that reduce the potential for covert data collection, including safer ways for apps to integrate with advertising SDKs.”

The Verge: Google Drive’s new filters that make search easier are rolling out to everyone. “Search chips, a feature that’s supposed to make it easier to search for files in Google Drive, is becoming available to all Workspace users, including G Suite Basic and Business users. It was first released as a beta in November and should let you narrow down your search results by location, file type, date modified, people, tasks, and shared label.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

BuzzFeed News: Lyra Health, Which Provides Therapy For Google And Facebook Employees, Is Facing Concerns Over Privacy And Treatment. “In interviews with BuzzFeed News, 18 users, therapists, and former Lyra employees voiced concerns about some of the company’s business practices, including its productivity-based bonus structure for therapists and its use of patient data. Some of the people who spoke to BuzzFeed News for this story did so under the condition of anonymity because they feared repercussions from their employers or former employers.”

TIME: Why a Russian Invasion of Ukraine Would Be a Big Test for Google Maps. “With the prospect of a major European war greater now than at any point in recent memory, Google needs to be every bit as—if not more—aware of its response to the potential impacts of a Russian invasion of Ukraine as any sovereign nation. As one of the most powerful companies in the world, Google Maps is often treated as the ultimate authority in mapping. Google has the potential to legitimize the illegal actions of hostile nations.”

TechCrunch: Shortwave wants to bring back Google Inbox. “Google’s Inbox experiment was a glorious thing while it lasted. Launched as an invitation-only service in 2014, it was the company’s next-gen email client. Because it was so good, it’s no surprise Google shut it down in 2019. Thankfully, though, a group of ex-Google/Firebase employees is now resurrecting the Inbox experience — with a bit of the Slack user experience mixed in, too.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Dutch foundation seeks consumer damages over Apple, Google app payments . “Apple… and Google face a potential class action lawsuit in the Netherlands over app store charges, after a foundation headed by Dutch entrepreneur Alexander Klöpping began gathering claimants. The action, which still faces legal hurdles before any court hearing, reflects growing criticism over how much the two firms charge developers for payments on their app stores, while the Netherlands has become increasingly popular as a jurisdiction to pursue complaints against multinational firms.”

Washington Post: Senators unveil children’s online safety bill after months of pressure on Silicon Valley. “Co-sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), the Kids Online Safety Act would require online platforms to provide parents and minors younger than 16 with ‘easy-to-use’ tools to keep them safe, limit screen time and protect their data. It would demand companies create tools to allow parents to track how much time their kids spend on a service, or to opt out of features such as autoplay that might extend time online. Companies would also have to offer parents and minors the ability to modify tech companies’ recommendation algorithms, allowing them to limit or ban certain types of content.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: “It’s O.K. to abandon ship”: How to critically evaluate scientific claims before pursuing a story. “Our inboxes are full of them — press releases, pitches, and other media calling some scientific event ‘a breakthrough,’ ‘a game-changer,’ or ‘a paradigm-shifter.’ Scientists, investors, and analysts flood our Twitter feeds, cheerleading a preprint or singing some company’s praises, even when there is little to no data to back up those claims. Figuring out whether something is newsworthy can be hard. But, as science journalists, we need to examine these statements, and decide: Is this worth covering? If so, how do we do so objectively, without accidentally becoming a mouthpiece for hyperbolic claims?”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Mashable: 11 extraordinary underwater photographs that bring the depths to you. “The winners of the annual Underwater Photographer of the Year competition have been announced, annually diving into the dark depths to introduce us to a world beneath the surface of oceans, pools, rivers, and lakes. Celebrating underwater photography since 1965, the UK competition features 13 categories including wrecks, portrait, wide angle, macro, behaviour, and marine conservation.” Good afternoon, Internet…

February 17, 2022 at 01:30AM
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Mission Messenger, Unredacter, 2022 Tax Season, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, February 16, 2022

Mission Messenger, Unredacter, 2022 Tax Season, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, February 16, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Digital Library of Georgia: Issues of the Mission Messenger Now Available Freely Online. “19th and 20th-century issues from the journal of the largest group of Protestant women in the world have just been digitized. Mercer University Special Collections and Archives have partnered with the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) to digitize Mercer’s run of the Mission Messenger from 1895-1921, published monthly by the Woman’s Baptist Missionary Union of Georgia (WBMU), more commonly known today as simply the Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU).”

Daily Swig: New tool can uncover redacted, pixelated text to reveal sensitive data. “The tool, called Unredacter, was released by Bishop Fox today (February 15). To demonstrate that pixilation is ‘a no-good, bad, insecure, surefire way to get your sensitive data leaked’, it was designed to take redacted pixelized text and reverse it back into its reveal the supposedly hidden ‘clear text’.”

KDKA: IRS Launches Resource Page That Offers Latest Guidance On Tax Filing Season. “The page provides you with the latest information affecting the 2022 tax season, and provides updates on the efforts by the agency to address the inventory of previously filed tax returns.”

Tennessean: Enslaved people’s records show a grim, but needed, look at what made Nashville | Opinion. “The spreadsheet, more than 14,000 rows deep with data, might bore you – until the names stop you cold: Eliza, age 3; Peter, 11; Martha Foster, 1. After each, it reads ‘child of Albert and Betsy.’ On Nov. 1, 1852, it says, John Nichol sold Albert and Betsy, along with Eliza, Peter, Martha Foster and their other five children to Bradford Franklin. Davidson County legally recorded this enslaved family as property, bought and sold. Metro Archivist Ken Fieth has spent some 25 years compiling a searchable spreadsheet, available here. Transaction by transaction, it lists buyer, seller, enslaved person’s name, gender, age and relatives (if known).”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Windows Central: ‘No politics’ button now exists in LinkedIn, other new features coming soon. “LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky recently spoke to the Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern in a video interview, wherein the networking platform was discussed in-depth and a feature you may not even know you had was focused on. Midway through the WSJ’s video, Stern details how you can find the ‘allow political content’ button.”

KSHB: Prosecutor won’t charge reporter who uncovered database flaw. “A Missouri prosecutor will not charge a St. Louis Post-Dispatch journalist who exposed a state database flaw that allowed public access to thousands of teachers’ Social Security numbers.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Daily Beast: Russian Sock Puppet Crew Faked Texas Guv Tweet About Biden Blackmail. “Since 2014, Secondary Infektion, a disinformation crew attributed to Russia by cybersecurity officials at Facebook and Reddit, has littered the internet with fake government documents and forged screenshots of nonexistent social media posts. Despite the group’s long pedigree and deep catalog of content, its forgeries and fakes have largely failed to move public opinion or organic engagement on social media. The content, however, offers a glimpse of how Moscow has tried to undermine Ukraine’s pro-Western government with provocation forgeries similar to those now expected by U.S. intelligence.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: French watchdog says Google Analytics poses data privacy risks. “Google Analytics, the world’s most widely used web analytics service developed by Alphabet’s Google (GOOG), risks giving U.S. intelligence services access to French website users’ data, France’s watchdog CNIL said on Thursday.”

Mashable: Crypto ‘romance scammers’ stole $139 million from victims in 2021. “‘A newly released data spotlight shows that in 2021 reported losses to romance scammers were up nearly 80 percent compared to 2020, and the total reported lost over the past five years has now reached $1.3 billion,’ cautions the FTC. ‘According to the spotlight, consumers who paid romance scammers with cryptocurrency reported losing $139 million in total in 2021, more than any other payment amount.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNET: Thank you Wordle, it’s been fun. “I know many people play Wordle and don’t share their scores at all. I like the sharing because it makes it into a game within a game. One old friend started trying to guess my words by working backwards from my grid pattern. He’s amazingly good at it. The puzzles calm me. They’re a milestone, a marker in what still feels like endless days waiting for my life to feel more on-track. Wordle is a game I’ve been playing on my infinite pandemic commute. My personal waiting game.”

Analytics India: Google AI researchers present a new method to train models, ‘DeepCTRL’. “Google Cloud AI researchers have offered a unique deep learning training approach that incorporates rules so that the strength of the rules may be controlled at inference. DeepCTRL (Deep Neural Networks with Controllable Rule Representations) combines a rule encoder and a rule-based objective into the model, allowing for a shared representation for decision-making. Data type and model architecture are unimportant to DeepCTRL.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

MakeUseOf: What Is RF Energy Harvesting? . “While many innovations have sought to improve this experience through things like solar panels, they’re typically not the most effective or aesthetically pleasing option. Here’s why RF harvesting technology can be the key to the cordless smart home experience.” Good morning, Internet…

February 16, 2022 at 06:29PM
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Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Chrome, AirTags, YouTube Playlists, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, February 15, 2022

Chrome, AirTags, YouTube Playlists, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, February 15, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bleeping Computer: Google Chrome emergency update fixes zero-day exploited in attacks. “Google has released Chrome 98.0.4758.102 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, to fix a high-severity zero-day vulnerability used by threat actors in attacks.”

KnowTechie: Apple is covering its ass by introducing new AirTag safety features. “Apple’s AirTags have been the target of some controversies over the last few months. Users have been complaining that the tracking devices are being used for malicious, stalking purposes. The company has responded with the announcement of several new upcoming AirTag safety features.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 6 Free Tools to Improve YouTube Playlists and Create Playlists Without an Account. “Once you master the basics of making YouTube playlists, you’ll want to do more with these compilations. These tools let you do more with YouTube, like creating a playlist when you don’t have an account, copying someone else’s playlist to make it your own, search within any playlist, or even to create playlists with friends for a party.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: There were almost two internets. Then, the CIA destroyed one.. “In Mashable’s new three-part episode of our series on the digital age’s dark side, Kernel Panic, we explore a startlingly advanced computer network developed in Salvador Allende’s Chile of the 1970s. Called Project Cybersyn, the network was a centerpiece of Allende’s effort to modernize the Chilean economy. It was developed in parallel with the American networks that would become the internet, at a moment in time in which President Nixon was trying to undermine the Chilean economy and overthrow Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist leader in Latin America.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: Roblox: The children’s game with a sex problem. “A naked man, wearing just a dog collar and a lead, is led across the floor by a woman in a bondage outfit. Two strippers dance next to a bar. A group has gathered around a couple openly having sex, watching and occasionally commenting. One man is wearing a Nazi uniform. This isn’t happening in the real world, it’s taking place on a children’s gaming platform.”

CNN: Google’s advertising tech targeted in European publishers’ complaint. “Google (GOOG) on Friday was targeted in an antitrust complaint by the European Publishers Council over its digital advertising business, potentially strengthening EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager’s investigation into the issue.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Fox 17: New Mexico to house federal database on wildfire research and information. “Throughout the last few years, we’ve witnessed firsthand the devastation that wildfires can do in this country. However, when the fires aren’t active, there are people on the ground researching and studying ways to restore our forests, but also prevent devastation. Now, that information will be shared through a federal database based in New Mexico.”

Yale Insights: The Digital Tool That Helps Robert Shiller Understand the Past. “We asked the Nobel Prize-winning Yale economist to reflect on an unexpected source of research information and inspiration. He writes that Google Ngram Viewer can provide important insights about how people saw economic events as they unfolded.”

New York University: NYU team releases open-source database from Woven Planet to help visually impaired pedestrians navigate cities. “A new dataset released by a New York University Tandon School of Engineering research team and Woven Planet Holdings, Inc., a Toyota subsidiary dedicated to building the safest mobility in the world, promises to help visually impaired pedestrians and autonomous vehicles (AVs) alike better navigate complex urban settings.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

CNET: Three new Frank Lloyd Wright houses built for the internet. “Three houses Frank Lloyd Wright designed but never built have been brought to digital life. The home contractor review site Angi had the houses modeled, and it published the results online in January, as reported by Wallpaper Magazine on Wednesday.” Good afternoon, Internet…

February 16, 2022 at 01:47AM
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Site Renewables Right, Black Lives Matter, Jewish News of Northern California, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, February 15, 2022

Site Renewables Right, Black Lives Matter, Jewish News of Northern California, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, February 15, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

PV Magazine: The Nature Conservancy releases map to help site renewables. “…the Site Renewables Right map, released today by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), is intended to help companies, state agencies, and communities quickly plan, permit, and purchase renewable energy in ways that helps conserve natural areas. The map is intended to be used early on in the development process to inform due diligence analyses by power purchasers and to support application of state and federal renewable energy siting guidance.”

NPR: Artwork from the Black Lives Matter memorial has a new home: the Library of Congress. “The fence that once stood between protesters and the White House at Lafayette Park during the summer of 2020 (also known as the Black Lives Matter memorial), displayed hundreds of signs, posters and artwork left by protesters following the murder of George Floyd…. Now, thanks to the help of activists and archivists, the pieces of artwork that once served as a memorial of the movement are being displayed in a new online exhibit on the Library of Congress’ website.”

Jewish News of Northern California: Digitizing J.’s archives was a mission to save Jewish history . “It was September 2011 and my first day in the office. I’d just been hired as J.’s editor and was getting the grand tour. I met the staff, admired my new desk, then stepped into the lunchroom and stopped in my tracks. There, atop a bunch of file cabinets, were dozens of large, black leather-bound volumes. Some were neatly lined up, others were stacked carelessly on top of each other. There were years printed on the spines: 1902, 1903, 1904, all the way to 2010. Some of the oldest covers had hardened and become detached from the inside pages….This was our history, the lived history of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish community as recorded in the pages of its community newspaper. And those pages were literally crumbling away.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

MakeUseOf: Firefox 97 Has Arrived: Here’s What’s New, Changed, and Fixed. “Firefox 97.0 has launched, and, of course, it comes with some tweaks, as can be expected. In the update you’ll find retired colorway themes, new scrollbars, and more. This guide will give you the lowdown on the new browser, including what’s new, what’s changed, and what has been fixed.”

USEFUL STUFF

ZDNet: Best Linux distros for beginners 2022: You can do this!. “For those of you who haven’t met me before, I’ve been using Linux as a desktop operating system since 1993, two years after Linux was created. And, long before that, I was using Unix as a desktop. Since then, I’ve used dozens of different Linux distributions, and I ran the Desktop Linux site for many years. Today, although I also run Windows and macOS, the Linux desktop is my main desktop. In short, I know the Linux desktop. So, with all that, here are my suggestions for the best desktops for beginners.”

New York Times: Fine-Tune and Prune Your Phone’s Contacts List. “Your phone’s contacts app can be easy to treat as a simple address book. But the default versions usually included in Apple’s iOS 15 and Google’s Android 12 can be much more useful — providing specific ringtones, travel directions, birthday reminders and more — if you take the time to flesh out the entries for your favorite people. Here’s a quick guide.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: Tears of joy emoji might be experiencing a renaissance. “The laughing crying emoji might be coming back into vogue. According to an Emojipedia analysis of over 2.16 billion tweets, the face with tears of joy emoji has returned to its spot as Twitter’s number one emoji by the slimmest of margins, just barely surpassing the loudly crying face .”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Queensland University of Technology: Google’s search dominance a risk to consumers. “The GOOGLE trademark is still firmly in the grip of its owner Alphabet Inc. even though ‘to google’ is the ubiquitous vernacular for ‘to conduct an online search’, but a QUT data scientist says this familiarity could more negatively affect consumers than other trademarks in the same position.”

BBC: Lawmakers allege ‘secret’ CIA spying on unwitting Americans. “Two US senators have raised concerns that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is again spying upon unwitting Americans. The agency has ‘secretly’ conducted warrantless surveillance through a newly disclosed programme, Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich alleged.”

South Dakota Public Broadcasting: Measure requiring schools post teaching materials online fails in committee. “A legislative measure requiring k-12 schools to post teaching materials online has died in committee. The bill would also require schools to post employee professional development and orientation materials, and a catalog of all books and resources at a school’s library. Under the measure, a school could be sued if it doesn’t comply.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNET: Social Media Should Censor Itself, Without Government Intervention, Most Americans Say
. “Surveys released by polling firm Ipsos on Monday show that a majority of Americans support content moderation on social networks, including putting warning labels on misinformation, deleting incitements to violence and suspending or banning offending accounts. Only 19% of Americans believe tech companies should do nothing and allow incitements to violence to be posted. Even fewer people, just 17%, believe social media companies should do nothing and allow posts containing misinformation or bullying.”

Arizona State University: Study: Life experiences as valuable as training when collecting some scientific data. “Citizen science engages people who don’t identify as researchers in science investigations. Engagement can include everything from helping figure out what questions to ask, to gathering data and contributing to analysis. Cindi SturtzSreetharan, associate professor at Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change, recently conducted a study with fellow anthropologists that compared observations made by community volunteers and those made by trained research assistants.” Good morning, Internet…

February 15, 2022 at 06:32PM
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Monday, February 14, 2022

Language Analysis, Open-Source Arabic Learning, Unimproved Airstrips, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, February 14, 2022

Language Analysis, Open-Source Arabic Learning, Unimproved Airstrips, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, February 14, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Maryland: UMD Graduate Students Create AI-Powered Tool to Extract Threatening Language. “A paper recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) explains the science behind a new, online tool that can help users determine what share of a speech, article or other text uses threatening language.”

NYU Abu Dhabi: Online Platform Provides Open-source Resources to Learn Arabic. “The new website, titled MAWARIDARABIYYA, is a plethora of materials and links aimed at empowering a learner to easily find specific lessons, courses, and online resources to meet their needs. Some of these materials include educational technology tools, popular books in the field of teaching Arabic as a foreign language, names of organizations and conferences, scholarships and programs, language centers and programs, as well as Youtube channels that focus on teaching Arabic and shedding light on Arab culture.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Flying: Avidyne Expands Database to Include Backcountry Airstrips. “Flying into the backcountry and landing on an unimproved strip next to a lake where the fish normally die of old age is on many a pilot’s bucket list. The Avidyne Corporation, Jeppesen and the Recreational Aviation Foundation are making it easier to find these out-of-the-way places by including them in the new Jeppesen Nav Databases for GPS. The new database will feature unimproved airstrips on both private property and public lands.”

KnowTechie: Vivaldi’s latest version 5.1 is here for desktop and Android. “Since the Vivaldi browser is popular for two-level tab stacks and other browsing features among desktop and Android users, Vivaldi 5.1 has arrived with more exciting features and options to streamline web browsing. The latest version of this browser supports horizontal scrolling tabs, a reading list, and the quick settings panel for the start page on desktops. Users can enjoy more theme colors and performance improvements on Android.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: The Complete Guide to Todoist Filters. “If you’re already using Todoist to keep track of your life, you might wonder how you can make it even more useful. The simple answer: Todoist filters. These have the power to streamline and better organize all your tasks, especially when you’ve added so many to-dos that you don’t even know where to start. The good news is you can use built-in filters or create your own. Read on to learn more.”

Mashable: Free online resources for kids that celebrate Black history and culture. “The ones below represent a variety of tools from national museums and educational nonprofits. They educate and engage children in Black history and culture through interactive events, entertaining videos, and content that profile Black visionaries and leaders. Whether you’re a parent or a teacher, head on over to these websites to spark children’s curiosity or continue their education.”

Wired: How to Set Up Lock Screens on All Your Devices. “Lock screen security is what stands between strangers, thieves, snooping colleagues, overcurious housemates, and all other unauthorized visitors and your private data. Think about it: Once your phone is unlocked, access to your social media, your emails, your documents, your photos, and much more is just a few taps away. Thankfully, the makers of the major operating systems have been working hard to strike the right balance between protection and convenience when it comes to lock screens. Here’s how to stay safe without making logging in an overly onerous task.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

NPR: Which skin color emoji should you use? The answer can be more complex than you think. “Heath Racela identifies as three-quarters white and one-quarter Filipino. When texting, he chooses a yellow emoji instead of a skin tone option, because he feels it doesn’t represent any specific ethnicity or color. He doesn’t want people to view his texts in a particular way. He wants to go with what he sees as the neutral option and focus on the message.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: ‘Hackers helped me find my lost Bitcoin fortune’. “One estimate from crypto researchers Chainalysis suggests that out of the 18.9 million Bitcoins in circulation, as many as 3.7 million have been lost by owners. And in the decentralised world of crypto-currency no-one is in charge – so if you forget your wallet login details there aren’t many places you can turn to.”

Sydney Morning Herald: Google’s ‘anti-journalism’ approach bad news for democracy: ACCC boss. “Outgoing competition boss Rod Sims has accused Google of anti-journalism sentiment and warned that any attempt by it to avoid legislation would undermine democracy, as the search giant agitates against the introduction of laws in the US that would force it to negotiate with news outlets for use of their content. Mr Sims said without the creation of Australia’s news media bargaining code, Google and social media giant Facebook would not have agreed to pay sizeable amounts to local publishers for their content, a contribution which he says currently amounts to more than $200 million per year in payments.” Good afternoon, Internet…

February 15, 2022 at 01:55AM
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