New researches

Monday, May 23, 2022

Ukrainian Tech Workers, Sanctions and Ecommerce, Cultural Warfare, More: Ukraine Update, May 23, 2022

Ukrainian Tech Workers, Sanctions and Ecommerce, Cultural Warfare, More: Ukraine Update, May 23, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Washington Post: Inside Ukraine’s new start-up life: Hallways, closets, bunkers. “Nearly three months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the country’s once booming tech community is trying to rebound back to life. As the war continues, tech founders and their employees have settled into new routines, working amid bombs, gunshots and air raid sirens. They build Power Points, take meetings and write emails and pitch decks from apartment hallways, bedroom closets and underground bunkers, trying to meet work deadlines regardless of the circumstances.”

The Guardian: Cosmopolitan no more: Russians feel sting of cultural and economic rift. “Three months into the war, Russia has become the most sanctioned country in the world, and almost 1,000 foreign brands – the majority of them voluntarily – have curtailed their operations there, according to records kept by the Yale School of Management. The exodus of companies continued this week with McDonald’s officially announcing it would leave Russia after three decades.”

Associated Press: New Twitter policy aims to pierce fog of war misinformation. “Starting Thursday, the platform will no longer automatically recommend or emphasize posts that make misleading claims about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including material that mischaracterizes conditions in conflict zones or makes false allegations of war crimes or atrocities against civilians.”

USEFUL STUFF

Search Engine Journal: How To Optimize YouTube Videos To Help Ukraine. “Optimize YouTube videos to #standwithukraine by incorporating video SEO best practices. Find tips for keyword research, custom thumbnails, and more.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

14 East: Cultural Warfare Continues Through Classical Music with Russia, Ukraine War. “The dirt scuffs up against the soles of Kharkiv-based violinist Vira Lytovchenko’s shoes as she walks across her basement floor to a lonely chair to practice. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, musicians across Ukraine have been forced to adapt while the rest of the world embarks on cultural warfare — the use of the arts as a cultural weapon.”

The Diplomat: How the War in Ukraine is Accelerating India’s Desire for Tech Autonomy. “In India, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has stipulated a loss of trust in both Russian and Western sources of technology as well as a new alertness over any major technological dependence on one partner country. New Delhi’s reinforced belief in self-reliance, or Atmanirbhar Bharat, might in the short run compromise its economic growth, but India’s domestic consensus for technological strategic autonomy is here to stay.”

Yale News: Zelenskyy calls on universities to help rebuild Ukraine’s higher ed system. “On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with presidents, chancellors, and provosts from America’s leading research universities — including Yale President Peter Salovey — to discuss his vision for rebuilding Ukraine’s higher education system, and how educators can help in the days and months ahead. The event, which was held over Zoom, was organized by the Association of American Universities (AAU).”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gizmodo: This Russian Botnet Is Capable of Manipulating Social Media Trends on a ‘Massive Scale,’ Report Claims. “A new report claims that a subcontractor working for Russia’s intelligence service has a botnet capable of manipulating trends on social media platforms on a ‘massive scale.’ The report, published Thursday by the cybersecurity firm Nisos, alleges that the Moscow-based firm 0day Technologies can spread disinformation at a frightening rate using a customizable suite that is tied to a malicious network. The company has previously worked with the Federal Security Service, one of Russia’s primary intelligence agencies.”

Bleeping Computer: Russian Sberbank says it’s facing massive waves of DDoS attacks. “Russia’s banking and financial services company Sberbank is being targeted in a wave of unprecedented hacker attacks. Earlier this month, the bank fought off the largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in its history. Sergei Lebed, vice president and director of cybersecurity at Sberbank, told the audience participating at the Positive Hack Days conference that thousands of internet users have been attacking the organization over the past months.”

Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group: Russia uses abducted Ukrainians for propaganda video claiming Ukraine is bombing ‘liberated’ Melitopol. “Almost a month after Russian soldiers seized Ihor Artyomenko from his home in occupied Melitopol, he and five other abducted Ukrainians have appeared in a Russian propaganda video. It is near certain that the men gave their supposed ‘confessions’ under torture or other forms of duress, with the video yet another extraordinary attempt by Russia to try against all evidence, to blame the Ukrainian Armed Forces for its bombing and shelling of civilians.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Vox EU: Russia’s e-commerce trade in the aftermath of the 2022 invasion: Evidence from high-frequency data. “Whether economic sanctions against Russia have real effects has been increasingly called into question. This column suggests that changes in e-commerce can demonstrate whether and how the 2022 Western sanctions contributed to de-linking Russia from the West. An analysis of trends in cross-border international online retail based on digitally recorded daily transactions data from 2,288 international and Russian companies shows substantial declines in Russia’s e-commerce transactions. About five weeks after the war started, revenues from e-commerce imports to Russia had fallen by half, with no signs of compensation by Russian retailers in the sample studied.”

Diálogo Americas: Russia Leads the Way in Disinformation Campaigns, Study Finds. “Russia is the leading promoter of disinformation, according to a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) that analyzed public Twitter datasets. Iran, China, and Venezuela also ranked high in the March 30 report, Understanding Global Disinformation and Information Operations. The study analyzed Twitter messages sent by state actors of various countries between October 2018 and March 2021. The think tank’s researchers analyzed the activities and content of Twitter-banned accounts within 90 days of an account previous tweet.”

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!

May 23, 2022 at 06:37PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/Iv2lnfA

Bronisław Piłsudski, Milan Cathedral, Africa Food Security, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, May 23, 2022

Bronisław Piłsudski, Milan Cathedral, Africa Food Security, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, May 23, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The First News: Extraordinary life of Józef Piłsudski’s older brother told in new website. “The extraordinary life of Józef Piłsudski’s older brother Bronisław is showcased in the first website dedicated to the man many regarded as a real king…. After being exiled to Sakhalin Island in the far east of the Russian Empire, Bronisław soon learned the language of one of the most mysterious peoples in the world, the Ainu, and set about documenting the life and culture of the island’s people.”

Google Blog: Milan Cathedral, up close and beautiful. “Milan Cathedral Remixed was made possible by Google Arts & Culture technology, in partnership with the Veneranda Fabbrica. This ambitious digitization project led to the capture of more than 50 stained glass windows in high resolution, bringing the Google Art Camera to a dizzying height of 30 meters. This captured the details of more than 2,000 stained glass window panels, many of which can’t be seen from ground level.”

PR Newswire: New Agricultural Data Tool Can Help Fight the Growing Food Crisis in Africa (PRESS RELEASE). “The Food Security Tracker for Africa provides free access to real-time data about the supply and demand of major crops, including corn, soy, wheat, and rice for African countries. By combining data on drought, crop conditions, prices, supply and demand all in one place, users will be able to develop more effective solutions and emergency response plans to the growing shortages of key agricultural commodities across the continent.”

The Verge: DeviantArt is expanding its system for flagging stolen NFT art. “DeviantArt is expanding its tool for detecting ripped-off crypto art, offering it to artists outside the platform. DeviantArt Protect, which launched last year for art posted on the site, will now be available for work that isn’t hosted there as well. Users can upload copies of art to Protect and have it matched against non-fungible token (or NFT) images minted to one of several public blockchains. If an identical or near-identical match is detected, they’ll receive an alert and can send takedown requests to major NFT markets like OpenSea.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NBC News: Celebrity-endorsed NFTs leave some investors ‘financially crippled’. “It’s a pattern that crypto critics, watchdogs and even some influencers point to as an ongoing problem: digital investments riding a wave of NFT enthusiasm and backed by high-profile endorsements that quickly lose value. In some cases, in the crypto world, it’s what’s known as a ‘rug pull.’ But more broadly, ad transparency experts warn, public figures are promoting NFTs often without having done due diligence or warning their fans about the serious financial risks.”

CNET: Google Maps’ New Feature Lets You Visit Restaurants From Home. “Google has a new feature for its Maps app that it’s rolling out this year called Immersive View — and it takes Street View to a new level. It works by using billions of photos to model buildings and trees in 3D using machine learning. Once it becomes available, you’ll be able to experience what a restaurant, neighborhood, landmark or popular venue is like, as if you’re already there.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times Magazine: The ‘E-Pimps’ of OnlyFans . “Spend enough time on social media, and you’ll encounter young people engaged in all sorts of schemes: running drop-shipping companies, minting NFTs, pumping crypto, selling real estate in the metaverse. Many are based in Miami. It’s a place where young marketing types have embraced a vision of what the internet is actually for that is at odds with Silicon Valley’s: less a utopian escape from reality than an infinite expansion of its strip malls.”

Resnicow and Associates: Howard University Acquires Extensive Collection of Gordon Parks Photographs Spanning Five Decades. “Howard University and The Gordon Parks Foundation today announced a historic acquisition of 252 photographs representing the arc of Gordon Parks’s career over five decades…. The Gordon Parks Legacy Collection, a combined gift and purchase, will be housed in the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Canadian Press: Glut of social media posts, political divisiveness a challenge for content moderators. “Leigh Adams has seen a steady rise of material for review since she began moderating user comments on websites roughly 14 years ago, but she says the volume only exploded in the last few years as the content’s nature became so divisive there’s only one word for it: ‘Bonkers.’ Misinformation, trolling and worse has always existed online, but Adams says she saw a shift after the U.S. elected Donald Trump president in 2016 that reached a new height when George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, was killed in police custody in May 2020, fuelling racial tensions just as the world was locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Vox EU: Using historical newspaper data to deal with measurement error. “Researchers typically collect newspaper-based data for use as outcome, treatment, or control variables in statistical analysis. This column argues that data generated from historical newspaper articles can also be used as a low-cost alternative for resolving measurement errors. The authors illustrate their framework by replicating two recent studies of how the boll weevil – a beetle that infests cotton crops – affected economic outcomes in the US South from 1892 to 1922.”

This Day Live (Nigeria): TETFund Targets Two Billion Pages of Research Materials. “The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has begun a two-billion pages drive to accelerate the ongoing digitisation of thesis across 100 least digitised institutions. Inaugurating the committee on yesterday in Abuja, the executive secretary, Sonny Echono, said the need for a National Academic Research Repository (NARR) necessitated the project, given that numerous research outputs were lying dormant in libraries across tertiary institutions in the country.”

VentureBeat: Can AI write an episode of Stargate? Google AI took on the challenge. “For the cult classic Stargate science fiction franchise, which spanned three series (SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe), character and plot development was helmed by Stargate co-creator Brad Wright. In 2021, Wright publicly posted a message on Twitter asking if it was possible for AI to write an episode of Stargate that would appear on SciFi insider site The Companion. None other than Laurence Moroney, AI lead at Google, responded by picking up the gauntlet to try and prove what AI could do.– though he wasn’t initially worried that AI would replace him or other writers.” Good morning, Internet…

May 23, 2022 at 05:29PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/fhJWKM0

Sunday, May 22, 2022

Old Laptop Recycling, Shadowsocks, Singapore Social Media Shenanigans, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 22, 2022

Old Laptop Recycling, Shadowsocks, Singapore Social Media Shenanigans, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 22, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

USEFUL STUFF

Slashgear: 12 Best Uses For Old Laptops. “If you’re the kind of person who just can’t seem to let go of old tech, don’t despair, but do check on your closet-dwelling laptop. There’s a chance that the chemical reactions in the battery have gone rogue, resulting in an explosion or a fire just waiting to happen. Multiple manufacturers have experienced swelling batteries over recent years and that’s a concern, even if your laptop hasn’t been plugged in for some time. Once you’ve ensured your old laptop isn’t plotting your imminent demise, you can start considering what you want to do with it.”

How-To Geek: How to Set Up Shadowsocks With Outline. “Shadowsocks is a powerful tool that can help you escape censorship, in particular the Great Firewall of China. As much as we like it, though, setting it up can be a bit tricky, which is why we’ve put together this guide on how to install Shadowsocks using an open-source program called Outline.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Star (Malaysia): Social media accounts of Singapore political leaders spammed by supporters of banned Indonesian preacher. “The social media accounts of a number of political leaders and government agencies in Singapore have been spammed by supporters of an Indonesian preacher who was denied entry into Singapore on Monday, CNA has reported.”

BuzzFeed News: TikTok Star Charles Gross Doesn’t Want To Be Messy For The Content Anymore. “Charles Gross may have built his entire social media persona around luxury fashion, but he wanted to lunch at a chain restaurant you’d find in an airport. From the videos he posts to his 1 million TikTok followers, I’d expected he’d choose the kind of hydrangea-filled French café that makes you pay for water and air, rather than Le Pain Quotidien (the harder-to-pronounce version of Panera Bread).”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WBUR: Extremists exploit gaming networks and social media to recruit and radicalize. “Alex Newhouse, deputy director at the Middlebury Institute Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, points out that the violence is not linked to the games themselves…. The problem, he says, is that the last two decades made it clear that games are social networks, not just content. With video games and the internet come platforms built to facilitate social interaction and relationships.”

ABC News: Dutch leader faces pressure over old-school text messages. “Mark Rutte is facing unusual political and public pressure after revelations that he has been deleting text messages about official matters for years. Critics accuse him of concealing state activity – but he says the messages just took up too much space in his years-old Nokia phone.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: Do browser extensions keep anyone away from fake news sites? Maybe a tiny bit. “As more companies and platforms adopt ways to figure out whether fact-checking, flagging questionable content, or some other form of alert works best to dissuade people from consuming misinformation, a new study finds that credibility ratings for news sites may offer a tiny ray of hope — if users actually use them.”

The Conversation: Social media can be a force for good in a crisis: lessons from Lagos. “We set out to assess the role that social media played in driving public engagement with Covid health measures in Lagos, Nigeria. We analysed public engagement on Twitter between January and August 2020 that related to the city’s lockdown protocols. One of our key findings was that the public responded most to public health information being shared by prominent individual social media influencers. These included sportspeople, comedians, musicians and business-people.”

Envirotech Online: Gemini Data Loggers sponsors Low Energy Buildings Database. “The Low Energy Buildings Database is the leading publicly accessible database on sustainable buildings and building practices in the UK. Gemini Data Loggers, manufacturer of the Tinytag range of data loggers, is sponsoring a project by AECB (Association for Environment Conscious Building) to upgrade the platform into an international repository for low energy buildings.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hack A Day: Bi-Color Filament Kicks 3D Printed Optical Illusions Up A Notch. “A new video from [Make Anything] shows off a nice combo that has a real visual impact: ambiguous shapes that look different depending on what angle they are viewed at, combined with an unusual filament that enhances the effect greatly.” Good afternoon, Internet…

May 23, 2022 at 01:10AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/anCjVDX

First Book Printed in Ukraine, Irish Archive Reconstruction, Census Undercounts, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, May 22, 2022

First Book Printed in Ukraine, Irish Archive Reconstruction, Census Undercounts, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, May 22, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Aleteia: The first book ever printed in Ukraine was this illustrated Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. “A priceless piece of Ukrainian Christian history, preserved for the better part of 500 years, is one of the latest exhibits to enter the world of digital art. Titled Apostol, or Apostolos, the work contains the texts of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. It was digitized and placed online for the world to view thanks to the Bodleian Library…. According to Bodleian, this is the first book that was ever printed in L’viv, Ukraine, between 1564 and 1581.”

The Guardian: Seven centuries of Irish archives painstakingly recreated after being destroyed in civil war. “In June 1922, the opening battle of Ireland’s civil war destroyed one of Europe’s great archives in a historic calamity that reduced seven centuries of documents and manuscripts to ash and dust. Now, on the eve of the disaster’s centenary, a virtual reconstruction of the building and its archives is to be unveiled. Historians, archivists and computer scientists have spent five years piecing together much of what had been thought lost for ever.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: The Enduring Afterlife of a Mass Shooting’s Livestream Online. “In a search spanning 24 hours this week, The New York Times identified more than 50 clips and online links with the Christchurch gunman’s 2019 footage. They were on at least nine platforms and websites, including Reddit, Twitter, Telegram, 4chan and the video site Rumble, according to The Times’s review…. The clips and links were not difficult to find, even though Facebook, Twitter and other platforms pledged in 2019 to eradicate the footage, pushed partly by public outrage over the incident and by world governments.”

NPR: These 14 states had significant miscounts in the 2020 census. “For the 2020 census, all states were not counted equally well for population numbers used to allocate political representation and federal funding over the next decade, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released Thursday. A follow-up survey the bureau conducted to measure the national tally’s accuracy found significant net undercount rates in six states: Arkansas (5.04%), Florida (3.48%), Illinois (1.97%), Mississippi (4.11%), Tennessee (4.78%) and Texas (1.92%).”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: How to Stay Informed Without Getting Paralyzed by Bad News. “Although technology can produce bad-news paralysis, online tools can also help you make productive contributions within your various roles. As an organization junkie who juggles four part-time jobs with college classes and a private life, here’s how I balance responsibilities.” Personally, I keep lots of tissues handy.

CNET: 10 Free Zoom Alternative Apps for Video Chats. “There are plenty of other video chatting options to use to stay in touch with friends, family and coworkers from around the globe. Below, you’ll find our ten favorite video conference and video chat apps that you can use for free right now. It should also be noted, however, that most of the apps listed here have seen security-related issues in the past, which the companies that own them (including Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google) have since patched.”

MakeUseOf: 5 Apps and Extensions to Make Google Calendar Better and More Productive. “A free Google or Gmail account also gives you Google Calendar, making it one of the most popular calendar apps on the planet. While it is loaded with features, it’s not perfect. These free apps and extensions make Google Calendar better and more productive than ever before.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Search Engine Land: Google search results spam for ‘Bill Slawski obituary’ shows the dark side of SEO. “We reported yesterday the sad news that Bill Slawski has died. It’s less than 24 hours later and no actual obituary has been published (either by a news site or funeral home). Yet, Google’s search results are littered with spammy results.”

University of Oxford: 50-year project reveals new insights about the evolution and influence of Voltaire’s thought. “This important work by researchers from the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford has uncovered new insights about the evolution and influence of Voltaire’s thought…. The project team now plan to digitise the entire collection of Voltaire’s work to enable detailed analysis by scholars and researchers from all over the world. This new challenge aims to establish a new cutting-edge digital hub for the humanities in Oxford with a focus on digital research.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNBC: New bipartisan bill would force Google to break up its ad business. “Advertising is a huge part of parent company Alphabet’s business. In Q1, Alphabet reported $68.01 billion in revenue, $54.66 billion of which was generated by advertising — up from $44.68 billion the year prior. The bill would ban companies that process more than $20 billion annually in digital ad transactions from participating in more than one part of the digital ad process, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.”

Ars Technica: Researchers find backdoor lurking in WordPress plugin used by schools. “The premium version of School Management, a plugin schools use to operate and manage their websites, has contained the backdoor since at least version 8.9, researchers at website security service JetPack said in a blog post without ruling out that it had been present in earlier versions. This page from a third-party site shows that version 8.9 was released last August.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

USC Viterbi School of Engineering: Students improve mobile app accessibility for people with disabilities. “Although a growing number of people are dependent on their mobile devices for everyday obligations, developers seldom seek to make their apps accessible to people with disabilities. Mobile apps don’t often pay heed to accessibility guidelines and this can make it more difficult for people with motor disabilities and older individuals to use the app, or even prevent them from carrying out those everyday obligations. Enter Ali Alotaibi and Paul Chiou, two Viterbi Ph.D. students who want to make the process of redesigning apps for accessibility convenient, too.” Good morning, Internet…

May 22, 2022 at 05:36PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/Nar532M

Saturday, May 21, 2022

ACM Archives, Android 13 Braille Support, Glitch, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 21, 2022

ACM Archives, Android 13 Braille Support, Glitch, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 21, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

This launched in early April, and where was I? Off somewhere eating bon-bons, apparently. Anyway, from ACM: World’s Largest Computing Society Makes Thousands of Research Articles Freely Available; Opens First 50 Years Backfile. “ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, today announced that its first 50 years of publications, from 1951 through the end of 2000, are now open and freely available to view and download via the ACM Digital Library. ACM’s first 50 years backfile contains more than 117,500 articles on a wide range of computing topics. In addition to articles published between 1951 and 2000, ACM has also opened related and supplemental materials including data sets, software, slides, audio recordings, and videos.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

XDA: Android 13 Beta 3 will bring native support for braille displays. “In a blog post on Thursday, Google announced that the upcoming Android 13 beta release would bring out-of-the-box support for braille display. For the unaware, a refreshable braille display is an electro-mechanic device that surfaces information by raising round-tipped pins through holes in a flat surface. It enables blind and deafblind users (who can’t use a screen reader) to access smartphones or computers.”

The Verge: Glitch acquired by cloud service provider Fastly. “Fastly, a major provider of cloud services, announced today that it’s acquiring Glitch, the quirky and capable web coding platform. Glitch will continue to operate within Fastly, with Fastly planning to grow the team and enable Glitch apps to tap into its edge computing services.”

USEFUL STUFF

Digital Inspiration: How to Send WhatsApp Messages from Google Sheets with the WhatsApp API and Apps Script. “This tutorial describes how you can use the new WhatsApp API with Google Apps Script to send WhatsApp messages from Google Sheets. The same approach would also work for sending WhatsApp messages from Google Forms when new form submissions are received.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Lifehacker: WeWordle Is the Multiplayer Wordle That Is Currently Stressing Me Out. “If you’re the competitive type and simply texting your dad and friend group your Wordle score first thing in the morning isn’t doing it for you, you can try the newest iteration in the Wordle copycat universe: WeWordle. WeWordle lets you compete with others online—reminiscent of the olden days of Words with Friends, except with the added stressor of a super short time limit of fifteen seconds per turn.”

CNN: He started the Wikipedia page for the Buffalo shooting and many other tragic events. “After Jason Moore, from Portland, Oregon, saw headlines from national news sources on Google News about the Buffalo shooting at a local supermarket on Saturday afternoon, he did a quick search for the incident on Wikipedia. When no results appeared, he drafted a single sentence: ‘On May 14, 2022, 10 people were killed in a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York.’ He hit save and published the entry on Wikipedia in less than a minute.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: Clearview Settles Lawsuit, Agrees To Stop Doing Business In Illinois. “Not giving a damn about anything is starting to eat into Clearview’s profits. In addition to facing lawsuits in the US over state law violations, the company is getting smacked around by fines, bans, and the rolling out of ‘OFFICIALLY UNWELCOME’ mats elsewhere in the world.”

Music Business Worldwide: After Suing Google Over App Store Rules, Epic’s Bandcamp Can Continue Using Own Payment System… For Now. . “Last month, Bandcamp’s new parent company filed a motion against Google requesting a preliminary injunction to block the tech giant from removing the Bandcamp app from its app store. Today (Friday May 20), Epic and Google have filed a Joint Stipulation in a Californian court, with the latter company agreeing to not kick Bandcamp off its app store.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Thanks very much to Geoff K. for getting this on my radar: Bada Bing, Bada Boom: Microsoft Bing’s Chinese Political Censorship of Autosuggestions in North America. “We analyzed Microsoft Bing’s autosuggestion system for censorship of the names of individuals, finding that, outside of names relating to eroticism, the second largest category of names censored from appearing in autosuggestions were those of Chinese party leaders, dissidents, and other persons considered politically sensitive in China.”

Newswise: Chula UDC Creates QR Braille: a QR Code Locator for the Blind. “QR Braille for people with visual disabilities, adding braille beads into a frame around the QR Code, will make QR codes truly accessible to all. Ms. Suchitra Jirawanichkul, from the Center of Excellence in Universal Design, designed the QR Braille so that people can touch and spot a QR code’s position, then use a smartphone to scan for information, as well as listen to sounds. This helps increase and promote learning opportunities for those are visually impaired or blind.” Good afternoon, Internet…

May 22, 2022 at 01:01AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/4z9WPBl

History of Science, North Dakota Dementia Data, Free Online Paleontology Class, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, May 21, 2022

History of Science, North Dakota Dementia Data, Free Online Paleontology Class, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, May 21, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Jisc: Digital history of science collection ready to launch with nearly one million pages. “For the first time researchers, teachers and students can access digitally more than 90% of the British Association for the Advancement of Science – Collections on the History of Science (1830s-1970s). Free to Jisc members and affiliates, the move to digitise this collection, much of which was previously unpublished, began in 2020, when leading UK university libraries and archives were invited to put forward their archives.”

KX News: ND Health Department debuts ‘Alzheimer’s and Dementia Data’ website dashboard. “North Dakota has the fourth highest mortality rate for Alzheimer’s disease in the United States (U.S.) at 52.9 per 100,000 North Dakota residents. The rate for the U.S. is 37 per 100,000 residents. In 2016, according to the dashboard, there were 405 deaths in the state from Alzheimer’s and dementia. In 2020, that number jumped to 505.”

EVENTS

BusinessWire: Smithsonian Institution and Varsity Tutors Team Up for a Free Paleontology Class for Learners Around the World (PRESS RELEASE). “Varsity Tutors, a Nerdy Inc. (NYSE: NRDY) company, and one of the nation’s largest platforms for live online tutoring and classes, today announced a new collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution that will give people around the world free access to Smithsonian content. On Tuesday, May 24th at 7 pm ET, the Smithsonian will spotlight select content from the National Museum of Natural History in a large group online class hosted by Varsity Tutors, “Live from the Smithsonian: Living in the World of Dinosaurs”.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google reports increased Black and Latinx representation in the US. “The company saw its ‘largest increases in representation of Black and Latinx Googlers in the US ever’ at 20 percent and 8 percent respectively year over year, according to chief diversity officer Melonie Parker. Google also reported improved leadership representation of Black, Latinx and Native American employees by 27 percent, Parker says. But some data shows there is still more work to be done.”

Engadget: TikTok has been testing minigames ahead of a ‘major’ gaming push. “After entering into a partnership with Zynga last year, TikTok has been testing a pair of mobile minigames on its platform in Vietnam, Reuters has reported. The move could soon allow users to play games directly on the app in what Reuter’s sources called a ‘major push’ into gaming.” Right when Zynga is merging with Take-Two.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: All Those Celebrities Pushing Crypto Are Not So Vocal Now. “The Super Bowl was nicknamed the ‘Crypto Bowl’ this year because so many ads — which cost as much as $7 million for 30 seconds — featured the industry, several of them starring boldface names. But after investors watched hundreds of billions of dollars disappear in a sell-off this month, those famous boosters now face intensifying criticism that they helped drive vulnerable fans to invest in crypto without emphasizing the risks.”

MIC: These elderqueer influencers are showing me how to live my best life. “Since I am on my merry way to becoming an elderqueer myself, it seems more important to me than ever to have queer elders of my own. I am finding them in the absolute last place I thought I would — social media. Here are the elderqueer influencers that are helping find the hope and skills to survive and thrive in a world where it still doesn’t always feel safe to be out.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Politico: GOP senators’ private meeting with Google turns tense over email bias claims. “Republican senators laid into a Google executive at the Capitol Wednesday over allegations that the company’s filters target GOP emails as spam. It quickly turned confrontational.”

IP Watchdog: CAFC Gives Google Second Shot at PTAB in Challenge of Communications Patents. “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today vacated and remanded three decisions of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that had found Google failed to prove the relevant claims of IPA Technologies, Inc.’s patents to be unpatentable.”

CNBC: Crypto industry wields its influence in Washington after pouring over $30 million into campaigns . “U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., called on New Yorkers to support the cryptocurrency market in a March op-ed in the New York Daily News titled, ‘A liberal case for cryptocurrency.’… Torres failed to mention two upcoming fundraisers industry backers were throwing for him in April.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Amsterdam: Virtual Reality as a means to improve education . “The 4D Research Lab (4DRL) is going to use Virtual Reality (VR) technology to introduce students to archaeological sites, laboratories, museum displays and historical places that have limited access. The Virtual Past Places, Reinventing the Classroom (ViPP) project has received a grant of 165,000 euros for this purpose via the SURF incentive scheme. The Lab will also make use of the advantages that VR offers in the provision of learning materials.”

WIRED: Why It’s So Hard to Count Twitter Bots. “Counting Twitter bots has become a point of contention in Elon Musk’s ongoing $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Last Friday, the billionaire tweeted that he was putting his purchase ‘temporarily on hold’ until the company provided details to back up its claim (as stated in its latest SEC filing) that fewer than 5 percent of ‘monetizable daily active users’ on Twitter are spam or fake. Musk also outlined a plan to count bots himself that involved sampling 100 @Twitter followers to see how many were bots and said the approach suggests over 20 percent of accounts are fake. But accurately quantifying the percentage of bots on Twitter is a lot more difficult, according to experts.”

May 21, 2022 at 05:30PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/F5oICud

Friday, May 20, 2022

Open Source Software Packages, Wisconsin Startups, Chicago Programs for Teenagers, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 20, 2022

Open Source Software Packages, Wisconsin Startups, Chicago Programs for Teenagers, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 20, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

BusinessWire: Algolia Partners with Openbase to Launch Ultimate Search Engine for Open-Source Packages (PRESS RELEASE). “While other searching platforms typically result in hundreds of packages (including many that are irrelevant to developers’ needs), the new search engine that Algolia implemented for Openbase enables developers to filter results based on the specific frameworks that they use, such as React, Vue, Node or Django. For power users, the search functionality offers advanced filtering by the last commit to the project, GitHub stars, TypeScript support and more.”

BizTimes (Wisconsin): NVNG launches online, statewide database of startups to increase national exposure. “Madison-based NVNG Investment Advisors has launched an online database that aims to encapsulate all of the state’s startups. Called +Venture Wisconsin, the database was created to increase exposure of Wisconsin companies to national and international venture capital communities.”

City of Chicago: Mayor Lightfoot and First Lady Amy Eshleman Launch the My Chi. My Future. Mobile App to Connect Teens With Out-of-School Activities. “Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot and First Lady Amy Eshleman today announced the launch of the My CHI. My Future. (MCMF) mobile app, a significant investment and resource designed to help teens easily find out-of-school programs, events, resources, jobs, and more. This is the first app of its kind nationwide created by a city government.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: DHS Puts Disinformation Governance Board on Pause. “The US Department of Homeland Security paused the newly minted Disinformation Governance Board less than a month after its formation. A review and assessment of the board will be conducted after it was ‘grossly and intentionally mischaracterized,’ the department said Wednesday.”

FindMyPast: Unearth workhouse records amid 200,000 new additions this week . “Discover two new indexes entirely exclusive to Findmypast. If that’s not enough, explore more than quarter of a million newspaper pages, freshly added to our archive. Here’s a rundown of everything that’s new.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 10 Best Web Highlighters for Desktop in 2022. “Have you used any web highlighters? It helps us improve our productivity by copying and pasting important texts you’ve found online automatically, saving good articles in your directory, and highlighting important sentences on articles so that you can remember them when looking back. In this article, I’ll introduce you to 10 useful web highlighters for the desktop.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Feds Warn Employers Against Discriminatory Hiring Algorithms. ” Hiring algorithms can penalize applicants for having a Black-sounding name, mentioning a women’s college, and even submitting their résumé using certain file types. They can disadvantage people who stutter or have a physical disability that limits their ability to interact with a keyboard. All of this has gone widely unchecked. But now, the US Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have offered guidance on what businesses and government agencies must do to ensure their use of AI in hiring complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MakeUseOf: What It’s Actually Like to Be a Reddit Moderator. “When you think of Reddit, you might picture a website full of memes and funny videos. But there’s a lot more to Reddit than meets the eye. In fact, Reddit is one of the most popular websites in the world, with millions of users and billions of page views every month. And behind the scenes of every subreddit, there are moderators. These are the people who keep the subreddit running smoothly and make sure that the content is up to snuff. So what’s it actually like to be a Reddit moderator?”

The Conversation: How the metaverse could change the purpose and feel of cities. “As more of our daily activities take place online, we believe it’s time to consider how this may eventually play out; if tomorrow’s city dwellers prefer the metaverse to brick-and-mortar stores and other urban amenities, what will it mean for cities and what purposes will cities ultimately serve? As professors in the departments of urban environment and digital culture we delve into this question and examine how the metaverse could profoundly change our relationships with urban spaces.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Goldsmiths University of London: Impact of advert music on subconscious revealed. “Unlike previous studies, which only used a few tracks, the new research used an entire database of ad music tracks. This enabled the team to model and quantify the effect of different tracks on people’s subconscious. Drawing on over 600,000 consumer responses, the study found the right music can increase the emotional response to a video by up to 16.4%.” Good afternoon, Internet…

May 21, 2022 at 12:43AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/7oG2Oyz