Monday, April 4, 2022

Arab Immigration in Brazil, Twitter, TikTok, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, April 4, 2022

Arab Immigration in Brazil, Twitter, TikTok, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, April 4, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Brazil-Arab News Agency: Get to know the memories of Arab immigration. “The Digitization Project of the Memory of Arab Immigration in Brazil has completed its first phase and makes available 100,000 digitized pieces. They include pictures and content written by Arab immigrants in their early years in Brazil….They are books pages, magazines, journals and pictures made by the Arab immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and are made available digitally. You can read the accounts and thoughts of the immigrants of the time.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNBC: Twitter shares soar more than 25% after Elon Musk takes 9% stake in social media company . “Musk owns 73,486,938 shares of Twitter, which represents a 9.2% passive stake in the company, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission 13G filing released Monday. The stake is worth $2.89 billion, based Twitter’s closing price on Friday.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: How to Copy and Paste on Sites that Won’t Let You . Don’t use this for evil. “While surfing the Web, have you ever found a handy piece of information you want to add to the presentation you’re working on but can’t right-click to copy the text because the website has disabled it? Luckily, there are a few easy workarounds that let you copy and paste from any website you want.”

How-To Geek: How to Group Images in Google Docs. “When you use images in your document, you might want to keep them together. This allows you to move them as a group and resize that group to fit your document better. Here’s how to group images in Google Docs. As of this writing, Google Docs doesn’t offer an official method for grouping images the way that Microsoft Word lets you group shapes. But with a little magic from the drawing tool, you can create your group and use it in your document like any other image.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Los Angeles Times: A new front opens in Southern California’s grocery store labor dispute: TikTok – Los Angeles Times. “Labor disputes are as old as capitalism itself, but the battlefields they play out on are continually evolving. That’s a lesson that Ralphs learned this week when — after grocery workers across Southern California voted to authorize a strike — a digital activist threw a TikTok-shaped wrench in the chain’s efforts to preempt walkouts by hiring temporary ‘scab’ workers.”

Camden New Journal: Education pioneer Beryl Gilroy’s archive to be made public. “UNPUBLISHED manuscripts by an inspirational headteacher are to be made public in a new archive obtained by the British Library. Beryl Gilroy, who ran Beckford School in the 1970s, was one of the first black headteachers in this country. But she was also celebrated for a large body of fiction and non-fiction about women, children and migration.”

Chicago Sun-Times: Tracking down the family and the famous. “I know I’m not alone here. But I was pleasantly surprised Saturday to see the big front page treatment the Sun-Times gave Friday’s unlocking of the 1950 U.S. Census Bureau data by the National Archives. I thought the joy of plunging into old records and tracking down relations was a personal quirk. Apparently not.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

GovTech: Personal Data of 820,000 Students Exposed in NYC Hack. “In what seems to be the largest-ever breach of personal student data in the U.S., hackers accessed the online grading system of New York City public schools in January. Officials are furious with Illuminate Education.”

Ars Technica: Data-harvesting code in mobile apps sends user data to “Russia’s Google”. “Russia’s biggest Internet company has embedded code into apps found on mobile devices that allows information about millions of users to be sent to servers located in its home country. The revelation relates to software created by Yandex that permits developers to create apps for devices running Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, systems that run the vast majority of the world’s smartphones.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Older Americans are given the wrong idea about online safety – here’s how to help them help themselves. “We have found that older adults attempt to draw on personal experience to develop strategies to reduce privacy violations and security threats. For the most part, they are successful at detecting threats by being on the lookout for activities they did not initiate – for example, an account they do not have. However, outside experts have an inordinate amount of influence on those with less perceived ability or experience with technology.”

KnowTechie: No, cell phones don’t give you brain tumors, study finds. “Ever since cell phones became popular decades ago, there has been concern about their effect on our bodies. Specifically, there has been a lot of speculation that cell phone radiation could increase the risk of brain tumors. However, recent findings from a long-term study indicate no relationship between cell phone use and brain cancer.”

Creative Review: How NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio makes stories out of stats. “Creating viral science graphics requires design, storytelling and a bit of careful rule-breaking. Mark SubbaRao, lead at NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio, tells CR how they turn complex data into compelling visual narratives.” Good morning, Internet…

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April 4, 2022 at 05:33PM
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Sunday, April 3, 2022

HouseNovel, MyHeritage, HathiTrust, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, April 3, 2022

HouseNovel, MyHeritage, HathiTrust, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, April 3, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Sun Current: Edina native founds real estate preservation platform. “The startup, called HouseNovel, digitally preserves real estate history in communities across the U.S., including Edina. Founded by Edina native Amanda Zielike and her husband, David Decker, the company launched last month, inviting visitors to its site to search a specific address, browse their communities and input their own stories to be captured in history.” This site was a bit of a slow load for me; be a little patient when running a search, as there’s a lot of data to load.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Genealogy’s Star: MyHeritage Announces New Census Helper Feature.. “We’re happy to introduce the Census Helper™, a useful and free tool that scans your family tree and compiles a list of your relatives who are very likely to be found in the 1950 U.S. census. This tool is available immediately for all MyHeritage users.”

HathiTrust: Introducing HathiTrust Digital Collection Principles. “The Collection Principles will lead us beyond our origins in mass digitization towards deliberate collection building and management essential for our 200+ members and the public that uses HathiTrust…. The principles recognize, and newly articulate, needs and opportunities in how we conduct our stewardship now and into the future. Based on these principles, we will orient our collections work toward justice, equity, and wide representation, and toward resilience in response to the changing economic, social, and environmental conditions in which we all work.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Duet on TikTok. “Some of TikTok’s most popular features include the ability to react and respond to other videos. ‘Duet’ is one way to do this—it’s sorta like reacting in real-time to another TikTok video. We’ll show you how it works.”

Lifehacker: How to Tell if You’re Chatting with a Bot. “From chatbots to Tinder bots (yes, really), bots are pretending to be human and having conversations with us—often without identifying themselves. Luckily, conversational AI hasn’t yet reached perfection, and it’s possible to detect a bot—though that may change soon enough as technology advances. For the time being, if you want to know if you’re dealing with a bot, there are a few strategies that should reveal the truth.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Radio Free Asia: China blocks use of Tibetan language on learning apps, streaming services. “Chinese government restrictions on use of the Tibetan language have now spread to video services and other online platforms, as Beijing continues to push the assimilation of China’s ethnic minorities into the dominant Han Chinese culture, according to Tibetan sources.”

New York Times: Want to See the Weirdest of Wikipedia? Look No Further.. “The Instagram account shares bizarre and surprising snippets from the vast, crowdsourced online encyclopedia, including amusing images (a chicken literally crossing a road) and minor moments in history (Mitt Romney driving several hours with his dog atop his car). Some posts are wholesome — such as Hatsuyume, the Japanese word for one’s first dream of the year — while others are not safe for work (say, panda pornography).”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Wyze Cam flaw lets hackers remotely access your saved videos. “A Wyze Cam internet camera vulnerability allows unauthenticated, remote access to videos and images stored on local memory cards and has remained unfixed for almost three years. The bug, which has not been assigned a CVE ID, allowed remote users to access the contents of the SD card in the camera via a webserver listening on port 80 without requiring authentication.”

Krebs on Security: Fake Emergency Search Warrants Draw Scrutiny from Capitol Hill. “On Tuesday, KrebsOnSecurity warned that hackers increasingly are using compromised government and police department email accounts to obtain sensitive customer data from mobile providers, ISPs and social media companies. Today, one of the U.S. Senate’s most tech-savvy lawmakers said he was troubled by the report and is now asking technology companies and federal agencies for information about the frequency of such schemes.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Algorithms, bots and elections in Africa: how social media influences political choices . “As mobile phones become commonplace, even in Africa’s poorest countries, the uptake of social media has become ubiquitous. Applications like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp and blogs form an integral part of today’s political communication landscape in much of the continent. These platforms are becoming a dominant factor in electoral processes, playing a tremendous role in the creation, dissemination and consumption of political content.”

Concordia University: Concordia launches the Applied AI Institute. “Climate change, smart cities, health care, transportation, aerospace, cybersecurity, privacy and trust — Concordia researchers have been applying artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to these problems for years. Now, they’re joining forces under the university’s newly launched Applied AI Institute.”

Agência FAPESP: Smartphone app helps communities monitor floods and supplies data for disaster prevention. “A smartphone app could change the way communities and governments deal with floods. People living in flood-prone areas can use it to receive early warnings and help the authorities with disaster prevention by contributing to the identification of high-risk areas.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



April 3, 2022 at 09:46PM
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Saturday, April 2, 2022

Indonesia Graphic Design, Yandex, Twitch, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 2, 2022

Indonesia Graphic Design, Yandex, Twitch, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 2, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

It’s Nice That: Grafis Nusantara shines a light on a forgotten part of Indonesian graphic culture. “With the new release of the Grafis Nusantara Zine and an online digital archive, this collection of stickers and labels from the 1970s through to the 1990s is set to bring Indonesian graphic history to the wider world.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: Yandex director general steps down two weeks early – TASS. “Elena Bunina is stepping down as director general of Yandex’s principal operating subsidiary, Yandex LLC, Russia’s biggest technology company, TASS news agency said on Saturday, before her tenure is due to expire on April 15.”

Kotaku: Twitch Pauses ‘Boost’ Feature After Porn Sneaks Onto Front Page. “Twitch just can’t seem to scrub porn off its platform. Thanks to the ‘Boost This Stream’ feature the Amazon-owned company introduced last October, viewers are paying to promote, or ‘boost,’ sexually explicit content onto the platform’s front page. Unsurprisingly, Twitch has paused the boosting feature indefinitely.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: How Civil War History Explains Memestocks. “Over the past century and a half, finance in the United States has been characterized by an ebb and flow of who feels Wall Street is for them, who feels (or is) excluded. Understanding how we got where we are now is one way to demystify the Reddit-based investing revolution, which is powered by a conspiracy theory along with a deep resentment of the way real power and wealth seem so out of reach for most people these days.”

NewsIn Asia: Sri Lanka imposes nationwide social media blackout. “The incident comes as the government declares a state of emergency, imposing curfews to counter widespread protests over the economic crisis.Real-time network data show that the restrictions are coming into effect across multiple providers around midnight, corroborating user reports of unavailability on leading network providers.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: Hackers hit popular video game, stealing more than $600 million in cryptocurrency. “In a brazen attack on popular video game Axie Infinity, hackers swiped $625 million in cryptocurrency, the game company’s executives said Tuesday, marking one of the largest crypto-thefts to date amid rising rates of such crime.”

AFP: France Punishes Google Over Contracts For App Developers. “French judges have ordered Google to rewrite the contracts it uses for app developers after officials said they were ‘imposing tariffs’ on startups.”

National Post (Canada): Law to make tech companies like Google pay for Canadian news content to be tabled within days. “Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez is poised to bring forward legislation within days to make digital giants compensate Canadian media outlets for reusing their news content. The bill is modelled on a law in Australia making tech companies, such as Google, pay for news content on their platforms.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Spotted on Twitter: Welcome to Open Address File UK. “Unlike most countries, in the UK, our address data is not maintained by the government and free. Instead, it’s owned and managed by private companies and public sector bodies, in a complex and costly tangle of intellectual property rights and contracts. As a result, the UK’s address data is difficult to correct, and expensive to use. This makes life harder for people and businesses. We want to fix that.”

Ars Technica: Robotic dog will be on patrol in Pompeii. “The nearby volcano blackened the sky and swallowed the city in clouds of ash; centuries later, robot dogs now prowl the ruins, guarding the city’s dead against the ravages of time. That’s not a movie plot. It’s what’s actually happening at the 2,000-year-old Roman ruins of Pompeii, in Southern Italy. Boston Dynamics’ robot dog, Spot, will help archaeologists and preservation crews by patrolling the 66-hectare site for signs of erosion, damage, and looting.” Good evening, Internet…

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April 3, 2022 at 04:26AM
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Yandex Food Leak, Helping Ukrainian Refugees Stay in the United States, Ukrainian military Oscars, More: Ukraine Update, April 2, 2022

Yandex Food Leak, Helping Ukrainian Refugees Stay in the United States, Ukrainian military Oscars, More: Ukraine Update, April 2, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Bellingcat: Food Delivery Leak Unmasks Russian Security Agents. “Russian tech giant Yandex has blamed one of its employees for the hacking and subsequent leak of data from Yandex Food, a popular food delivery service in Russia. Among the many users affected are serving agents of Russia’s security services and military, who in several cases even ordered food to their places of work using their official email addresses.”

Deseret News: One month ago she woke up to a missile attack. Now, this teen is helping other Ukrainians stay in the U.S.. “On Thursday, Utah-based tech company SixFifty launched a new tool that effectively automates the incredibly long application for both temporary protected status and asylum. Founder and CEO of SixFifty Kimball Parker likens it to TurboTax — anyone looking to apply needs to enter personal information like a name and address, and the automated tool does the rest, translating the entries from Ukrainian to English. The applicant is later emailed a copy of their forms, whether it’s for asylum or temporary protected status. Parker says it’s best to apply with an attorney present, but it’s not necessary.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Deadline: Google Tells Publishers They May Be Demonetized For Certain Ukraine War Content. “A message sent late on Friday warned publishers that the demonetization extends to ‘claims that imply victims are responsible for their own tragedy or similar instances of victim blaming, such as claims that Ukraine is committing genocide or deliberately attacking its own citizens.’ Google also indicated that it may also demonetize for other reasons.”

CryptoPotato: Crypto Donations to Ukraine Top $100 Million. “As the war in Ukraine unfolds, the international cryptocurrency community has raised millions in donations to support its people. At present, the number of tallied funds raised for the invaded nation tops $100 million.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Jerusalem Post: In ‘Ukrainian military Oscars,’ Ukraine mocks Russia and promotes its army . “Ukraine has been using memes and humor on state social media accounts in its information warfare strategy during the Russia-Ukraine War, and its state social media accounts were notable prior to the war for their effective use of memes to advocate foreign policy positions. Many of the selections for the ‘Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Oscars’ utilizes pre-existing wartime memes and symbols used by Ukraine and its supporters.”

Grid: ‘A gruesome way of accounting’: The politics of body counts in Ukraine. “The use of casualties for political benefit has been particularly evident in this conflict — given that Ukraine has outside support in this element of the ‘information war’ and the extent to which Russia is doing everything possible to hide or minimize the truth of what is happening to its soldiers.”

Radio Free Asia: How Russia’s disinformation on Ukraine is spreading to democratic Taiwan, via China. “Russian and Chinese disinformation about Ukraine, which is ideologically linked to ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda on Taiwan, is breaking through into online discourse on the democratic island, a fact-checking organization based there has said.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Global News: Canadian intelligence flags Russian disinformation campaigns amid Ukraine war. “Canada’s electronic espionage agency is warning that Russian state-backed actors are seeding online disinformation around the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. While the news comes as no surprise to those familiar with Russian information warfare tactics, publicly releasing an assessment based on classified intelligence gathering is an unusual step for the Communications Security Establishment.”

Kyodo News: Japan ramps up online messaging on Ukraine to prepare for hybrid war . “Japan’s Defense Ministry has been ramping up its messaging on social media over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as it tries to prepare for ‘hybrid warfare,’ which combines conventional weapons and information warfare such as the manipulation of public opinion.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Task & Purpose: The real reason Ukraine’s information war is so successful. “Just as surprising as the current state of the ground war is how Ukraine has adeptly defended against Russian information warfare efforts. The current debate now is whether Ukraine has gone even further and achieved supremacy in the information domain; this is a reality that a month ago seemed unlikely, as Russia’s use of information and hybrid warfare to achieve its strategic objectives was regarded as vastly superior to that of Ukraine’s. The tables have turned. It’s also clear that Ukraine is engaging in propaganda to highlight its military successes, rather than its failures. Information doesn’t exist in a vacuum, however, and any praise or critique of the Ukrainian information warfare effort should consider that it is their current successes on the ground that are leading to victories in the information domain.”

The Lowy Institute: Ukraine: This isn’t the information war you were looking for. “The war in Ukraine has illustrated how cyber and information warfare are primarily grey zone tools and arenas. We should stop thinking of grey zone activity as an ill-defined period between or leading into kinetic conflict. Rather, the grey zone is the constant backdrop against which conflict occurs, interacting with events. It is characterised by noise, turbulence and confusion. Waiting for clarity or clear space – or a point of culmination – misinterprets the nature of the information environment.”

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April 2, 2022 at 06:29PM
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Social Media Research Toolkit, Caregiving for Autistic Children, The Futures of Democracy, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, April 2, 2022

Social Media Research Toolkit, Caregiving for Autistic Children, The Futures of Democracy, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, April 2, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue: New Toolkit Offers Social Media Insights To Conflict Mediators. “As digital dimensions reshape the scope and intensity of violent conflicts, a new toolkit helps peacemakers to analyse social media activities and better understand how these insights can complement dialogue and mediation efforts.” This description isn’t as helpful as it could be. The toolkit gives you an overview of acquiring data from social media platforms, from what’s possible to a really nice Case Studies section. Plenty of resources but not as specific as step-by-step instructions.

World Health Organization: WHO’s training for caregivers of children with autism goes online. “The online training includes pre-recorded information sessions on topics such as using everyday routines as opportunities for children to learn, engaging with children through play and problem-solving. Sessions to help caregivers improve their own well-being are another important feature of the course. Quick tip videos, quizzes and reminders are included to support sustained learning. The training has been set up in such a way that caregivers can learn at their own pace, fitting the course into their schedules in a way that works for them.”

Arizona State University: PBS presents ‘The Futures of Democracy’ podcast. “PBS presents ‘The Futures of Democracy’ podcast, launching on March 30 and produced and hosted by Nicole Anderson, director of the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University, and Julian Knowles, professor of media and music, and chair of media and communications at Macquarie University, Australia. In this bi-weekly podcast series, world-renowned experts will examine the emerging challenges of possible futures for democracy in the 21st century. The project reflects upon the health and operation of our democracy as a common good in an environment that has profoundly shifted over the past 20 years. ”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google Search’s new highly cited label helps you get to the source of a story. “Google is adding a new ‘highly cited’ label to search results frequently sourced by other publications, the company is announcing today. Anything from local news stories, to interviews, announcements, and even press releases will be eligible for the new label being added to the search result’s preview image, so long as other websites are linking to it. More info is also being added to Search’s ‘rapidly evolving topics’ and ‘About this Result’ notices.”

Washington Post: The first census records of four American presidents … almost. “On Friday, the Census Bureau released the individual records collected during the 1950 Census. (Bureau policy is to maintain the privacy of census documents for 72 years.) There has probably never been a census release in which so many living Americans can trace their own roots, given the size of the baby boom and the extended life expectancy that boomers enjoy. And that offers us an interesting historical challenge: digging up the first census records of our first three baby-boom presidents.”

USEFUL STUFF

ZDNet: Microsoft To Do vs Google Tasks: The best list manager app for you. “Two of the biggest tech companies in the world have created similar, yet philosophically different solutions to managing your daily tasks. We take a look at which solution is best for the widest variety of users.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Capitol Hill Seattle Blog: Google Street View has gone dark for parts of Capitol Hill. “Maybe it is testament to the area’s nightlife bonafides. Maybe it is a momentary glitch in massive scale tech. But for some reason, large stretches of Capitol Hill are being rendered in fuzzy, overexposed nighttime scenes in the Google Street View system. It’s not an April Fools’ Day prank. The murky scenes appeared in December following an update to the neighborhood’s imagery. A Google spokesperson initially responded to our inquiry about the issue weeks ago but we haven’t heard back from her since.”

BuzzFeed News: YouTube Is Facing An Identity Crisis As Its Creators Burn Out. “In the latter half of the 2010s, to be a prominent YouTuber was to consistently push the envelope of what you could create without getting banned, chasing the glorious high of a video that would get tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of views. YouTube financially rewarded creators who went viral. So creators pushed themselves to do bigger stunts, pull off weirder or more outrageous pranks, and became embroiled in seemingly constant hostile feuds with one another. This created one of the most toxic cultures on the internet.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Found to Unfairly Block Rival Payments on India Store. “The Competition Commission of India found Google discriminated against developers in its Play store billing policy, according to documents seen by Bloomberg News. The findings come after a months-long investigation triggered by protests from developers, who’ve complained the U.S. internet giant charges an unfairly high fee in return for using Android app stores and its proprietary payments service.”

SC Media: Cybercriminals target mobile as consumers embrace digital transactions. “With 75% of potential cyberattacks targeting mobile digital transactions, it seems clear that bad actors are going after mobile financial transactions as they see those as easier and more lucrative, according to a cybercrime report from LexisNexis Solutions. The findings were based on an analysis of transaction data from the LexisNexis Digital Identity Network in the second half of last year, which analyzed 35.5 billion transactions.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Baltimore Sun: Last year, Maryland started shielding certain arrest records from view. It’s putting the public in danger.. “Case Search, the Maryland judiciary’s online archive of court cases and ‘the primary way that the public may search for records of court cases,’ according to its website, goes even further to block information from the public. As of January 2021, criminal and traffic cases that prosecutors abandon or dismiss, or the defendant is acquitted or found not guilty, are suppressed from view in the archive, leaving no public record of the arrest. This goes beyond automatic expungement in that (1) a dismissed case instantly disappears and (2) any count not resulting in conviction also disappears.”

Simon Fraser University: Google autocomplete helps mislead public, legitimize conspiracy theorists: SFU study. “Google algorithms place innocuous subtitles on prominent conspiracy theorists, which mislead the public and amplify extremist views, according to Simon Fraser University researchers.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



April 2, 2022 at 06:18PM
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Friday, April 1, 2022

1950 Census, Toronto Traffic Collisions, Colorado Reading Programs, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, April 1, 2022

1950 Census, Toronto Traffic Collisions, Colorado Reading Programs, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, April 1, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Associated Press: ‘Gold mine’ of census records being released from 1950. “The records released by the National Archives and Records Administration will be indexed into a searchable website. The digitized, handwritten forms have information about household members’ names, race, sex, age, address, occupations, hours worked in the previous week, salaries, education levels, marital status and the country in which their parents were born. The website will include a tool allowing users to fix any incorrect names or add missing names.”

Toronto Star: Our most dangerous streets: Huge new collision database points to Toronto’s postwar suburbs. “A Star analysis of a huge new database of Toronto traffic collisions is shining a bright spotlight on a distinctly suburban problem. The new data set, much larger and more complete than any previously available records, offers a comprehensive account of nearly 500,000 collisions reported to Toronto police between 2014 and 2021, most mapped to the nearest intersection.”

Chalkbeat Colorado: Did this Colorado transparency law make it easier to understand how schools teach reading?. “Colorado has unveiled an online database showing what reading programs schools use in kindergarten through third grade, part of a broader state effort to improve how schools teach reading. At a time when lawmakers in many states want teaching materials publicly posted in order to limit what schools teach about race, gender, and history, the reading database is a very different example of curriculum transparency.”

University of Arkansas: Law Students Create National Survey of State Law Privileged Communications for Human Trafficking Service Providers. “[Savannah] Luna and [Alex] Millsap worked tirelessly to research and review existing resources and communications protected by state law privilege. The result is the National Survey of State Law Privileged Communications for Human Trafficking Service Providers, an extensive online tool accessible to all those who need it.”

EVENTS

Northeastern University: Panel: “Digital Archives, Anti-Racism, and Critical Metadata Practices”. “Please join us for a virtual panel hosted at Northeastern University on April 14, 12–2pm (Eastern), on the topic of antiracist metadata practices. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required, RSVP here. This two-hour virtual event brings together four leading scholars and archivists for a conversation on anti-racist metadata practices in digital archives.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

University of Wyoming: UW’s Global Vegetation Project Develops Online Educational Materials. “The Global Vegetation Project, started in 2020 by the University of Wyoming Biodiversity Institute, recently published K-12 educational materials on its website. The Global Vegetation Project was developed to fill a need for more resources to teach vegetation ecology online. The vision for this project is to curate a global database of open access vegetation photos that can be used by educators around the world.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

High Country News: How a California archive reconnected a New Mexico family with its Chinese roots . “When I met Aimee [Towi Mae Tang] on Zoom for the first time in February 2021, she showed me a wrinkled notebook full of anecdotes about her family history, the fruit of more than a decade of research…. She wondered if I, a Chinese immigrant working as a journalist in Albuquerque, could help answer some of her questions. I was new to Albuquerque, a sprawling city of a half-million people, few of whom looked like me, and I often felt lonely and out-of-place. I agreed to help her; perhaps, I thought, I might find my own sense of connection in the history of this family and my city’s long-vanished Chinatown.” A wonderful read.

Reuters: Taiwan puppeteers look to NFTs to keep their art alive. “A group of Taiwanese puppeteers are looking to use non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, to help bring their traditional art form into the modern era and keep it relevant for a new audience.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Russian-linked Android malware records audio, tracks your location. “A previously unknown Android malware has been linked to the Turla hacking group after discovering the app used infrastructure previously attributed to the threat actors. Turla is a Russian state-supported hacking group known for using custom malware to target European and American systems, primarily for espionage.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Food & Beverage: New study examines social media’s role in reducing food waste. “Social media campaigns can play a role in people’s food waste behaviours but work best when combined with other intervention tools, according to a new Fight Food Waste CRC report.”

Stanford Medicine Scope: Bringing principles of ethics to AI and drug design. “Over the years, researchers have used AI to analyze troves of biological data, scouring for differences between diseased and healthy cells and using the information to identify potential treatments…. But with AI’s potential in drug development comes a slew of ethical pitfalls — including biases in computer algorithms and the philosophical question of using AI without human mediation. This is where the field of biomedical ethics — a branch of ethics focused on the philosophical, social and legal issues in the context of medicine and life sciences — comes in.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

NASA: What Sounds Captured by NASA’s Perseverance Rover Reveal About Mars. “The result of the recordings: a new understanding of strange characteristics of the Martian atmosphere, where the speed of sound is slower than on Earth – and varies with pitch (or frequency). On Earth, sounds typically travel at 767 mph (343 meters per second). But on Mars, low-pitched sounds travel at about 537 mph (240 meters per second), while higher-pitched sounds move at 559 mph (250 meters per second).” Good afternoon, Internet..

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



April 2, 2022 at 03:27AM
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Asset Whistleblowers’ Portal, Mapping Damaged Cultural Heritage, Verifing OSINT, More: Ukraine Update, April 1, 2022

Asset Whistleblowers’ Portal, Mapping Damaged Cultural Heritage, Verifing OSINT, More: Ukraine Update, April 1, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Agency on Corruption Prevention (Ukraine): Ukraine launches a new web portal for whistleblowers to report the assets of persons involved in Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. “The Ukrainian Task Force on the Training, Freezing, and Confiscating Assets of those Involved in Russia’s War Crimes has launched a Whistleblower Portal on the Assets of Persons Involved in the Russian Aggression against Ukraine. If you have information about the property of the aforementioned people, We call on you to file a whistleblower report on their property abroad.” The organizers behind the portal ask that you only file reports about property that isn’t already covered by OSINT (news reports, etc.)

Chytomo: Russia has Already Damaged More than 100 Cultural Heritage Sites in Ukraine. “The Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine has confirmed that more than cultural heritage sites in Ukraine have been damaged, Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko wrote on his Telegram channel.” A user-generated Google Map shows damaged sites.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: World heritage at risk amid Ukraine war, UNESCO says. “Dozens of valuable churches, historical sites and museums have been damaged by the war in Ukraine, the United Nations’ cultural agency said on Friday, adding that it was particularly worried about the northern city of Chernihiv…. UNESCO’s first, preliminary list of totally or partially damaged sites featured 29 religious sites, 16 historical buildings, four museums and four monuments, it said.”

Ars Technica: Mystery solved in destructive attack that knocked out >10k Viasat modems. “Viasat—the high-speed-satellite-broadband provider whose modems were knocked out in Ukraine and other parts of Europe earlier this month—has confirmed a theory by third-party researchers that new wiper malware with possible ties to the Russian government was responsible for the attack.”

The Guardian: ‘Embarrassing’: Russia scrambles to copy banned social media platforms. “As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, opportunistic developers have rolled out a suite of locally made social networks to replace services such as Instagram that have been blocked by the government, or YouTube, which is under growing pressure. Many appear to be hasty imitations or include obvious attempts at surveilling ordinary Russians, as the Kremlin tries to censor news about the war and further clamp down on dissent under the country’s president, Vladimir Putin.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Verifying Images of the War in Ukraine. “Before The Times can use footage from independent sources for its Ukraine reportage, its reporters and editors make sure they can verify its authenticity. The Visual Investigations team, which produces in-depth video journalism, such as how a U.S. military drone struck the wrong target and an analysis of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, finds and analyzes many of the files. Below, learn how Visual Investigations verifies content from Ukraine.”

The New Republic: Are These Satellite Images War Propaganda?. “Maxar boasts that the News Bureau is a vehicle for ‘social good and global transparency,’ offering services ‘that are powerful complements to good journalism, providing indisputable truth at a time when credibility is critical.’ The company’s images have indeed proven an effective tool; during the buildup to the war in Ukraine, they’ve served as an important counterpoint to Russian disinformation. But Maxar is by no means a neutral player when it comes to global conflict, and thus there are limits to what these images alone can tell us. Sometimes they may provide not an ‘indisputable truth’ but a distorted understanding of the story.”

Washington Post: From Russia with money: Silicon Valley distances itself from oligarchs. “A Putin youth leader-turned-investor once touted connections to wealthy Russians. Now she denies knowing ‘anyone.’”

Vice: Russian Oligarchs Keep Getting Screwed Over by Yacht Selfies. “Partying can be dangerous in the age of Instagram. Ask any oligarch. Their decades of fancy living at the highest possible level of luxury have turned out to be enormously useful for investigators tracking down the assets of Russia’s sanctioned elite. That’s because, in multiple cases, a few careless Instagram posts have blown up the best defense for their secret empires: Anonymity.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Times: China accused of hacking Ukraine days before invasion. “China staged a huge cyberattack on Ukraine’s military and nuclear facilities in the build-up to Russia’s invasion, according to intelligence memos obtained by The Times. More than 600 websites belonging to the defence ministry in Kyiv and other institutions suffered thousands of hacking attempts which were co-ordinated by the Chinese government, according to Ukraine’s security service, the SBU.”

Reuters: U.S. targets Russia’s technology sector in fresh sanctions. “The United States on Thursday imposed fresh sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, targeting operators in the technology sector in an effort to prevent Moscow from evading sanctions and expanding Washington’s sanctions authorities.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: How Russia’s unanswered propaganda led to the war in Ukraine. “Russian propaganda has grown bolder and unanswered for years, leading to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine while serving to mislead and deceive Russians. The democratic world now appears to have united and become more cohesive in its support of Ukrainians, strengthening Ukraine. Russia, meantime, is weakened. But the war could have been avoided altogether if the West had taken more decisive action much earlier.”

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April 1, 2022 at 10:55PM
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