New researches

Friday, June 24, 2022

Los Angeles County Small Businesses, Open Access Plays India, Architizer, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 24, 2022

Los Angeles County Small Businesses, Open Access Plays India, Architizer, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 24, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Business Wire: LA Business Council Institute and USC Sol Price School of Public Policy Center for Economic Development Launch Groundbreaking Database of Over 31,000 Small Businesses in LA County (PRESS RELEASE). “Developed in collaboration with the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy’s Center for Economic Development, Compete4LA aims to help level the playing field for local businesses seeking to support the region’s major sports, entertainment, and cultural events, as well as major public infrastructure projects. The online database will host and maintain over 31,000 publicly accessible, verified business profiles for Los Angeles County businesses, featuring small firms under $1 million in annual sales and fewer than 20 employees, and other refining criteria.”

News Nine: Bhasha Centre’s new digital library aims to engage with theatre community, further collaborations between playwrights. “The Drama Library is a free-for-all, open-access digital library of ‘unpublished’ Indian plays from English to Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Urdu, Gujarati, Tamil, Arabic, Sindhi and Dakhni Arabic.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Architectural Digest: Material Bank Inks a Deal With Architizer, Continuing Its Acquisition Spree. “Less than two months ago, Material Bank completed a $175 million round of Series D funding, increasing its valuation to $1.9 billion. Now, the architectural, design, and construction materials marketplace is poised to incorporate a leading source of design ideas into its arsenal. This week, Material bank announced its acquisition of Architizer, bringing the industry’s biggest database of architectural projects into the fold. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.”

TechCrunch: Twitter to expand into long-form content with upcoming Twitter Notes feature. “In what could be one of Twitter’s more significant changes since doubling the character count from 140 to 280 characters, the company is preparing to launch a new feature that would support the direct publishing of long-form content on its platform.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Newsradio 1040: Iowa Hall of Pride Museum to Close, Transition to Online Platform. “The Iowa Hall of Pride is closing its physical location in downtown Des Moines and moving online. The Iowa High School Athletic Association says the Hall of Pride’s physical museum’s last day open to the public will be June 30th, after which its content will become exclusively available online.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: Japanese man loses USB stick with entire city’s personal details. “For many, after-work drinks are a common way of relaxing after a busy week. But one worker in Japan could be nursing a protracted hangover after he lost a USB memory stick following a night out with colleagues. Why? It contained the personal details of nearly half a million people.”

Euractiv: Italian data protection authority strikes another major blow to Google Analytics. “The decision is the last in a row against Google Analytics, which data protection authorities accuse of illegally transferring data to the United States, a country that is considered not to have an adequate level of data protection since the landmark Schrems II ruling of the EU Court of Justice in July 2020.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Brown University: “Shadow Plays: Virtual Realities in an Analog World,” Brown Library’s Digital Publications Initiative’s Second Born-Digital Scholarly Monograph, Published by Stanford University Press. “Shadow Plays: Virtual Realities in an Analog World, by Professor of Italian Studies Massimo Riva, explores popular forms of entertainment used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to transport viewers to a new world, foreshadowing present-day virtual, augmented, and extended reality experiences (VR, AR, XR). Published by Stanford University Press, Shadow Plays examines themes of virtual travel, social surveillance, and utopian imagination through six case histories and eight interactive simulations.”

NewsWise: Rensselaer Announces Institute for Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Computing. “The goal of the Institute is to become the primary academic center in the country for advancing new computational paradigms, including those that are a hybrid of conventional, neuromorphic, and quantum computing — combining bits, neurons, and qubits, which will make it possible to solve problems that current computing systems cannot. The new institute will allow Rensselaer to innovate using quantum computing and edge computing for networks and cyber-physical systems, and hacker-proof quantum communications.”

Harvard Business School: All Those Zoom Meetings May Boost Connection and Curb Loneliness. “Americans are lonelier than ever—a problem the COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated. Could interactions on platforms like Zoom and Twitch come close to replicating the real-life contact people crave? New research suggests that’s more likely to happen if the virtual experiences truly engage people on screen.” 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!

June 25, 2022 at 01:05AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/DQPWt0s

Ohio Department of Natural Resources, A Space Of Their Own, Cancer InFocus: Kentucky, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, June 24, 2022

Ohio Department of Natural Resources, A Space Of Their Own, Cancer InFocus: Kentucky, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, June 24, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Port Clinton News Herald: ODNR artifacts showcased in new online museum. “For many, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources brings thoughts of rippling streams, thick forests, and quiet deer. But the mission of the ODNR also steps out of the woods and into a museum as it focuses on preserving history as passionately as it preserves land. Inspired by that focus, ODNR Director Mary Mertz has unveiled the Cardinal Collection, an online museum highlighting ODNR artifacts.”

Indiana Daily Student: Eskenazi Museum of Art announces ‘A Space of their Own’ research project celebrating female artists. “The IU Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art announced the launch of ‘A Space of Their Own,’ an online research database celebrating the contributions of female artists, on June 13. ‘A Space of Their Own’ catalogs work by various female artists, particularly those represented in the museums’ collections. The launch includes artwork, essays, individual records and timelines accounting the work of several European and American women artists between the 16th and 19th centuries, according to the database’s webpage.”

University of Kentucky: Markey Cancer Data Portal Provides Digital Footprint of Cancer in Kentucky. “The University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center’s Community Impact Office recently launched Cancer InFocus: Kentucky – a new, online data mapping application that allows users to explore cancer incidence and mortality data alongside population demographics, social determinants of health and behavioral risk factors at various geographic levels across the Commonwealth.”

Catholic News Agency: Records of Jews who sought Vatican help during Holocaust to go public. “Relatives of Holocaust survivors and victims can now look through the files of more than 2,700 Jews who sought help through Vatican channels to escape Nazi persecution before and during the Second World War. The archives have gone public on the internet at the request of Pope Francis.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Google News launches a new desktop design with topic customization. “Google News is refreshing its desktop site with a new design that allows you to track global and local news on one screen. The redesign puts Your Briefing, Local news, and Top Picks section on a single page in different columns so it’s easier to catch up with news on topics and regions you care about.”

Engadget: Twitter revives its developer conference after a seven-year hiatus. “After a seven-year hiatus, Twitter is once again hosting an in-person developer conference. The company is bringing back Chirp, which will take place in San Francisco on November 16th. Chirp was the name of Twitter’s first-ever developer conference back in 2010, though the event was canceled in subsequent years. The last time the company hosted a live developer conference was Twitter Flight in 2015.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

ZDNet: You. com is taking on Google with AI, apps, privacy, and personalization. “It’s not that Google is the only game in town. Besides Baidu and Yandex, the likes of Microsoft and Yahoo have tried their luck too, with Bing and the eponymous search engine, respectively. The privacy-focused DuckDuckGo is another option. Yet, none of those has a market share of over 3% worldwide. Can a new entry do better than so many others before it? Richard Socher thinks so.”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Missouri Botanical Garden’s plant collection is going digital. “The Missouri Botanical Garden, in the middle of a multiyear effort to digitize hundreds of thousands of dried plant specimens, is now on the edge of further expanding its work. The Garden is hopeful it will soon land a grant from the National Science Foundation to digitally catalogue more than half a million specimens in its Africa collection to an online database for researchers around the world.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Microsoft Restricts Its Facial Recognition Tools, Citing the Need for ‘Responsible AI’. “Microsoft is restricting access to its facial recognition tools, citing risks to society that the artificial intelligence systems could pose. The tech company released a 27-page ‘Responsible AI Standard’ on Tuesday that details the company’s goals toward equitable and trustworthy AI.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT News: Mining social media data for social good. “Erin Walk, a PhD student in social and engineering systems, studies the impact of social media on the Syrian conflict.”

North Carolina State University: Volunteers Who Help Gather Data for Science Are Committed, But Not Diverse. “In a new study, North Carolina State University researchers found that while many volunteers who sign up to help crowdsource scientific findings are extremely motivated and committed, these projects aren’t attracting a diverse pool of volunteers. The findings could help researchers design and structure future projects, as well as point to priorities for volunteer recruitment.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Machine Learning Does Its Civic Duty By Spotting Roadside Litter. “If there’s one thing that never seems to suffer from supply chain problems, it’s litter. It’s everywhere, easy to spot and — you’d think — pick up. Sadly, most of us seem to treat litter as somebody else’s problem, but with something like this machine vision litter mapper, you can at least be part of the solution.” Good morning, Internet…

June 24, 2022 at 05:32PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/9K8Zwu2

Thursday, June 23, 2022

National Pollinator Week, AIDS Posters, Brave, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2022

National Pollinator Week, AIDS Posters, Brave, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

EPA: EPA Marks National Pollinator Week by Launching Pilot Projects and Resources Portal to Help Protect Vulnerable Species from Pesticides. “To enhance access to pollinator protection resources, EPA launched a webpage that provides information on best pest management practices, state managed pollinator protection plans, and mitigations, from EPA, federal partners, and scientific journals that offer lessons on protecting pollinators and their habitat. These resources will help empower farmers and others interested in pollinator protection to learn about and address the challenges facing pollinators.”

Poz: Viewing the History of HIV Through AIDS Posters . “Three recent art exhibitions emphasize the pivotal role played by HIV and AIDS posters since the virus emerged in the early ’80s. Donald Albrecht drew from the poster collection of the University of Rochester’s River Campus Libraries’ Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation to curate Up Against the Wall: Art, Activism, and the AIDS Poster, which was presented at the University’s Memorial Art Gallery. Andy Campbell worked with the ONE Archives and ONE Archives Foundation to curate Days of Rage, a multimedia online exhibition featuring activists and designers discussing their work. Theodore (ted) Kerr organized the online exhibition AIDS, Posters & Stories of Public Health: A People’s History of a Pandemic for the National Library of Medicine (NLM).”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WIRED: Brave Now Lets You Customize Search Results—for Better or Worse. “For instance, a Goggle (not to be confused with Google) can strip Pinterest pages from your search results; it can show only results from tech blogs or boost articles from either left- or right-leaning political news sources. Essentially, they put you in charge of the search results you see. The move is the first for a search engine.” I just spent a little time looking at this and oh boy, am I going to have some fun.

The Register: GitHub’s AI code assistant Copilot takes flight. And that’ll be $10 a month, please. “Microsoft’s GitHub on Tuesday released its Copilot AI programming assistance tool into the wild after a year-long free technical trial. And now that GitHub Copilot is generally available, developers will have to start paying for it. Or most of them will. Verified students and maintainers of popular open-source projects may continue using Copilot at no charge.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

University of Mississippi News: Professor Works to Make Theologian’s Historical Records Accessible. “University of Mississippi historian Jeffrey R. Watt has been working for 35 years to transcribe records kept by 16th century theologian John Calvin concerning the Consistory of Geneva. And thanks to two major grants to fund the painstaking work, he is closing in on the project’s completion.”

University of Vermont: University of Vermont Launches National Center for Community News. “The new Center for Community News is supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and UVM College of Arts & Sciences (CAS) donors. The $400,000 initiative builds on the successful Community News model in Vermont, which brings students together with professional editors to provide news reporting at no cost to local news outlets.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Social Security Numbers Stolen in Flagstar Bank Data Breach. “The personal information, including Social Security numbers, of more than 1.5 million Flagstar Bank customers was compromised in a data breach late last year, the company said. The Michigan-based bank, which operates 150 branches and is one of the country’s largest mortgage lenders, said in a disclosure to the state of Maine that its systems were hacked between Dec. 3 and 4 of last year but that the breach wasn’t discovered until earlier this month.”

RNZ: NZME makes final deal with Google about supplying news. “The pair have agreed on the terms for the supply of content to Google’s News Showcase, which they started in March. Chief executive Michael Boggs said the deal would support its digital development and journalism in the country.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Phys .org: Local economic data encourages legislators to open emails—but only Democrats. “Personalizing outreach to legislators to include the local economic impact of an issue can increase engagement with research among Democratic, but not Republican, legislators. The findings, published in the journal Implementation Science, support including economic evidence when communicating with legislators, but also signal the value of tailoring communication by political party.”

MIT News: Researchers release open-source photorealistic simulator for autonomous driving. “…scientists from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) created ‘VISTA 2.0,’ a data-driven simulation engine where vehicles can learn to drive in the real world and recover from near-crash scenarios. What’s more, all of the code is being open-sourced to the public.” Good afternoon, Internet…

June 24, 2022 at 12:24AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/Z3yRL7u

Book of St. Albans, Hidden in Plain Site, Your Future Guide, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2022

Book of St. Albans, Hidden in Plain Site, Your Future Guide, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Irish Central: 13th century manuscript Book of St. Albans goes online at Trinity. “One of the most finely illustrated medieval manuscripts, Matthew Paris’s Book of St. Albans has been digitized by the Library of Trinity College Dublin for the first time. The 13th-century masterpiece features 54 individual works of medieval art and has fascinated readers across the centuries, from royalty to renaissance scholars.”

CNET: A Virtual Tour Uncovers the Hidden History of Black Disenfranchisement. “[Old Lick Cemetery]’s disturbing story would likely remain a footnote in the city’s history were it not for a project called Hidden in Plain Site, the brainchild of creative agency BrownBaylor. It’s designed to resurface the lost narrative of marginalized Black people across the US with experiences you can view through a browser or virtual reality headset.”

Smithsonian Institution: Smithsonian’s New Digital Guide Brings the Future to People’s Fingertips June 22. “‘Your Future Guide’ is a first-of-its-kind digital experience that brings the milestone ‘FUTURES’ exhibition—the Smithsonian’s first exploration of the future—to audiences everywhere…. Closing July 6, ‘FUTURES’ showcases more than 150 awe-inspiring objects, ideas, prototypes and installations that fuse art, technology, design and history to help visitors imagine many possible futures on the horizon.”

NewsWise: You Can Help Scientists Study the Atmosphere on Jupiter. “A new citizen science project, led by researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities with support from NASA, allows volunteers to play an important role in helping scientists learn more about the atmosphere on Jupiter. Citizen scientists can help astrophysicists categorize tens of thousands of stunning images taken from the Juno spacecraft with just a web browser.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Lifehacker: Everything New in Chrome 103. “As reported by How-To Geek, Chrome 103 is arriving today for all Chromium-based browser users. While the list of new features is small this time around, there are three new options for desktop browsers, as well as one new change for Chrome on Android.”

Search Engine Land: Google adds LGBTQ+ owned attribute to business profiles. “Google has announced it has added a new attribute to Google Business Profiles for LGBTQ+ owned businesses. This new attribute can be added within your verified Google Business Profile and it makes it easier to find LGBTQ+ owned businesses in their own community.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Romania Insider: The National Archives will fully digitize its collection of photographs depicting Communist Romania. “Thousands of photographs of Communist Romania and of Romania as a Constitutional Monarchy between 1921-1947, managed by The National Archives are going to be scanned and digitized. The Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism and the Memory of the Romanian Exile will collaborate with the National Archives of Romania on this project.”

PR Newswire: The Jerry Garcia Foundation Partners with Starchive on Archive Project and Announces August 1st Concert to Celebrate Jerry’s 80th Birthday (PRESS RELEASE). “The Jerry Garcia Archive, a new community resource created to preserve the historical and artistic contributions of one of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest legends, will begin accepting community contributions this August and host a benefit concert to celebrate the launch.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

EFF: Daycare Apps Are Dangerously Insecure. “Last year, several parents at EFF enrolled kids into daycare and were instantly told to download an application for managing their children’s care…. Working at a privacy-oriented organization as we do, we asked questions: Do we have to use these? Are they secure? The answer to the former, unfortunately, was ‘yes,’ partly so that the schools could abide by health guidelines to avoid unnecessary in-person contact. But troublingly, the answer to the second was a resounding ‘no.'”

Sports Pro Media: Fifa and FifPro rollout social media moderation tool to combat online abuse. “Fifa and FifPro, the global soccer player’s body, are rolling out a social media moderation tool to combat online abuse during international tournaments, ahead of the Qatar 2022 World Cup. A recently published independent report commissioned by soccer’s global governing body used artificial intelligence (AI) to track more than 400,000 social media posts during the latter stages of the Euro 2020 and African Cup of Nations (Afcon) 2021 tournaments.”

Wall Street Journal: Canada to Compel YouTube, TikTok and Streamers to Boost Domestic Content. “This marks the second attempt in as many years by Canada’s Liberal government to compel digital platforms, including streaming companies like Netflix Inc., to prominently feature Canadian artists on their services when users with a Canadian internet-protocol address log in. As contemplated under the new measures, users who search for music, television programming, films or do-it-yourself video shorts would get results incorporating a certain quota of Canadian-made content.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

SlashGear: Study Shows Robots Using Internet-Based AI Exhibit Racist And Sexist Tendencies. “A new study claims robots exhibit racist and sexist stereotyping when the artificial intelligence (AI) that powers them is modeled on data from the internet. The study, which researchers say is the first to prove the concept, was led by Johns Hopkins University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Washington, and published by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).”

Texas A&M Today: Artificial Intelligence On The Hunt For Illegal Nuclear Material. “Millions of shipments of nuclear and other radiological materials are moved in the U.S. every year for good reasons, including health care, power generation, research and manufacturing. But there remains the threat that bad actors in possession of stolen or illegally produced nuclear materials or weapons will try to smuggle them across borders for nefarious purposes. Texas A&M University researchers are making it harder for them to succeed.” Good morning, Internet…

June 23, 2022 at 05:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/K9OMGBv

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Medieval Europe Isotopes, Occupied Lublin WWII, Data Journalism, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 22, 2022

Medieval Europe Isotopes, Occupied Lublin WWII, Data Journalism, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 22, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Scientific Data: Presenting the Compendium Isotoporum Medii Aevi, a Multi-Isotope Database for Medieval Europe . “Here we present the Compendium Isotoporum Medii Aevi (CIMA), an open-access database gathering more than 50,000 isotopic measurements for bioarchaeological samples located within Europe and its margins, and dating between 500 and 1500 CE.”

The First News: Haunting WWII photos taken by Wehrmacht soldier in Lublin reveal ‘ordinary lives’ of Hitler’s occupying forces. “Newly released photographs taken by a Wehrmacht soldier stationed in Poland during WWII throw a fascinating light on life during the war from a German perspective. The majority of the 69 photographs in the collection depict the life of the German occupiers in Lublin, showing amongst others their daily work, life in the barracks, integration events and walks through the city.”

EVENTS

Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas: Add mapping skills to your journalist toolkit with new online course from the Knight Center. “Maps are a powerful visual tool for journalists to analyze geographical data, identify patterns, and make sense of an overwhelming amount of data. We’ll explore their practical application in our new course, ‘Hands-on Mapping for Journalists: How to use geographical data to improve your stories’ which runs for four weeks from July 7 to Aug. 11, 2022.” This is not a free MOOC; it’s a smaller, more advanced course that costs $95.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

GlobeNewswire: Historical Big Wave Surf Television Archive Acquired by Opper Films (PRESS RELEASE). “Opper Films, home of the world’s largest historical surf film library, is stoked to announce the acquisition of twenty-two rare legendary surfing event titles and film footage from Larry Lindberg Productions, New York. Lindberg, a pioneer in sports television coverage in the early 1960s, was the first to package and produce televised surf competition for the major national television networks beginning with the 1965 Duke Kahanamoku Invitational Championships, the first event held at Sunset Beach, Hawaii.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Quickly Make a Resume on Your Phone. “If you do things the right way, there’s no way for a recruiter to tell whether your resume was created using your mobile phone or from your PC.”

How-To Geek: How to Track Projects and Reviews in Google Docs With Table Templates. “When using Google Docs, you might add a table to neatly organize information so that you can share it with your company or audience. To speed up the creation process, try a table template instead. A table is a terrific tool for structuring data, but what makes it even better is when the table is created for you. All you have to do is pop in your own details. In Google Docs, you can use table templates for products, reviews, projects, and content.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Google Chrome extensions can be fingerprinted to track you online. “A researcher has created a website that uses your installed Google Chrome extensions to generate a fingerprint of your device that can be used to track you online.”

New York Times: When Customers Say Their Money Was Stolen on Zelle, Banks Often Refuse to Pay. “While banks argue that they shouldn’t have to refund customers who inadvertently granted a scammer permission to use their accounts, they have also often been reluctant to refund customers like Mr. Oriach whose money was stolen. That could be a potential violation of the law.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

ZME Science: Who gets fired from social media posts? These researchers scoured hundreds of cases to find out. “The new study surveyed 312 news stories about people who had been fired because of a social media post. It didn’t just include people who were fired because of the content of their own social media posts, but also people who were fired based on others’ posts like for instance, videos of police engaging in racial profiling, which ultimately led to the policemen being fired.”

90 Min: FIFA racism study names Marcus Rashford & Bukayo Saka as biggest targets of social media abuse. “FIFA’s study into racist abuse on social media during Euro 2020 and this year’s Africa Cup of Nations has revealed nearly half of the players who made it to each competition’s semi-final were targeted.” Good afternoon, Internet…

June 23, 2022 at 12:27AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/uPnS52K

Posterwar, Air Raid Alerts, Sponsoring Refugees, More: Ukraine Update, June 22, 2022

Posterwar, Air Raid Alerts, Sponsoring Refugees, More: Ukraine Update, June 22, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

It’s Nice That: Posterwar supports Ukraine with a downloadable archive of 80 posters and counting. “As it stands today (21 June), the Posterwar archive features 82 posters from countries across the world – Sreenihal [Pouka] counts submissions from: Ukraine, Italy, Finland, Portugal, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany, Bulgaria, India, Brazil, Colombia, Iceland, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and the US. But this extensive selection looks likely to expand quickly, with the campaign also allowing visitors to submit their artwork directly to the site (after downloading the correct templates). What’s more, Posterwar lets anyone download their preferred poster – or posters – to publicly display their support of Ukraine, either online or in person.”

Jerusalem Post: Israel’s Red Alert inspires new site that helps Ukrainians stay safe in war . “Ukrainians wanting to keep track of air raid siren alerts, maps of ongoing battles and damaged infrastructure, and searching for shelters and Wi-Fi will soon have a new website and alert system to use to stay safe and informed amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.”

Fast Company: This new platform matches Ukrainian refugees with American sponsors. “Two months ago, as millions of Ukrainians had been displaced by the Russian invasion, the U.S. government announced a unique new program: Any American can sponsor a Ukrainian for temporary refuge, with room for as many as 100,000 placements. In the past, similar ‘humanitarian parole’ programs were often limited to immediate family. Most of the first applicants, unsurprisingly, had personal connections to the people they sponsored—friends, family, employees. But a new website is designed to now help connect potential sponsors with Ukrainians they’ve never met.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

iNews: How Russia’s propaganda machine has adapted to a long war in Ukraine, explained by data. “Just like the country’s military, Russia’s vast propaganda machine has had to adapt to the realities of a long and protracted war in Ukraine rather than the lightning-fast victory the Kremlin expected.”

TechCrunch: Yandex shifts focus to ya.ru as it heads for media exit in Russia. “TechCrunch has learned that Russia search giant Yandex is to switch from using yandex.ru as its main front page for Russian-speaking users to ya.ru — a less trafficked domain it’s owned since 2000 that, historically, has only hosted a basic search engine page. Imagine if Google decided to de-emphasize google.com in favor of a less popular domain it also owns and you’ll get an inkling of how big a shift this looks to be for the Russian internet landscape.”

Politico: Google Russia files for bankruptcy . “Google’s local subsidiary in Russia filed for bankruptcy because Moscow’s measures against the U.S. firm have made it impossible to do business, the firm said Friday.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Guardian: Russian palaces, villas and yachts linked to Putin by email leak – in pictures, maps and video. “An investigation by the the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the news website Meduza has identified a group of 86 apparently unconnected companies or not for profit organisations that appear to hold over $4.5bn (£3.7bn) of assets where a common private email address, LLCInvest.ru, appears to be in use.”

BBC: Ukraine to ban music by some Russians in media and public spaces. “Ukraine’s parliament has voted in favour of banning some Russian music in media and public spaces. The ban will not apply to all Russian music, but rather relates to music created or performed by those who are or were Russian citizens after 1991. Artists who have condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine can apply for an exemption from the ban.”

Poynter: No, CNN did not fake Ukrainian war footage. “Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine beginning Feb. 24, misinformation about the situation has spread rapidly. For example, this tweet claims that CNN was faking war footage in Ukraine.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: How Russia’s vaunted cyber capabilities were frustrated in Ukraine. “A quiet partnership of the world’s biggest technology companies, U.S. and NATO intelligence agencies, and Ukraine’s own nimble army of hackers has pulled off one of the surprises of the war with Russia, largely foiling the Kremlin’s brazen internet hacking operations.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: How Ukraine Is Winning the Propaganda War. “As the conflict in Ukraine drags on, the country’s communications strategy has become slicker and more professional, say academics studying information warfare. Ukraine has also shifted its strategy away from amplifying exaggerated myths to focusing on the courage of ordinary people who are committing small, achievable acts of bravery in the face of the Russian invasion.”

Latvia Posts English: Latvian experts have returned from work in Ukraine to digitize cultural heritage in wartime. “The Ministry of Culture, in cooperation with the Riga Technical University (RTU), has provided assistance to Ukraine in the preservation of cultural monuments. From June 6 to 16, Dr. UNCHCO expert, member of the board of SIA ‘ARCHItrāvs’ Dr. Bruno Deslandes, Associate Professor, Department of Geomatics, RTU Faculty of Civil Engineering Maris Kalinka and Kirill Gorovojs, PhD student at RTU Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology (DITF).”

June 22, 2022 at 07:01PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/k7uXz6o

Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project, Virginia Cold Cases, Luxembourg Online Dictionary, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, June 22, 2022

Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project, Virginia Cold Cases, Luxembourg Online Dictionary, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, June 22, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Winnipeg Free Press: Portal into Indigenous tuberculosis history puts stories in new light. “On Tuesday, the [Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project’] launches … a collection of resources that brings the history of Manitoba’s Indigenous sanatoriums and Indian hospitals to light, and aims to help communities track down information that has long eluded them.”

Virginian-Pilot: First version of Virginia cold-case database includes killings unsolved for years — with plans to expand. “The tool defines cold cases as a homicide, missing person or unidentified person case that has remained unsolved for at least five years. The cases on the website date back as far as 1973. The website only details cases investigated by state police but will later include cold case submissions from local law enforcement agencies, [Danica] Roem said.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

RTL Today: Luxembourg Online Dictionary launches new website . “According to the latest statistics, an average of 2,700 people visit the Luxembourg Online Dictionary (LOD) on a daily basis. To improve the user experience, the website’s content and accessibility have recently been redesigned.”

Poynter: Fact-checkers extend their global reach with 391 outlets, but growth has slowed. “Since last year’s census, we have added 51 sites to our global fact-checking map and database. In that same 12 months, another seven fact-checkers closed down. While this vital journalism now appears in at least 69 languages on six continents, the pace of growth in the international fact-checking community has slowed over the past several years.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 8 Zoom Alternatives to Make a Free Conference Call. “Zoom works great for conference calls, but you’re limited to 100 people and just 40 minutes in the free version. This isn’t always ideal, especially for longer meetings. Luckily, there are a variety of Zoom alternatives that don’t have as many restrictions in their free versions. Plus, some don’t even require people calling in to have an account.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Cannabiz: Google and Facebook urged to drop ban on cannabis advertising. “David Beckham-backed UK firm Cellular Goods has launched a petition urging Google, Facebook, Instagram and others to end the ban on the sale and advertising of CBD and CBG on their platforms. The company, which specialises in wellness consumer products formulated with lab-made cannabinoids, has joined forces with seven other firms to call for an end to the ban.”

The Guardian: ‘The worst person you know’: the man who unwittingly became a meme. “Josep Maria García got the shock of his life when he found his image associated with the phrase online.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: German Competition Regulator Launches Probe Into Google Maps. “Germany’s cartel office said it was launching proceedings against Google Germany and parent company Alphabet Inc on Tuesday to examine possible anti-competitive restrictions imposed by the Google Maps platform.”

Bloomberg: Google Avoids More Fines After Ending French Dispute Over News. “The French competition authority said Google significantly improved commitments it initially offered last year, which now address its concerns and have been made binding, ending the case. The Alphabet Inc. unit made promises last year in the wake of a 500 million euro ($527 million) fine for failing to follow an earlier order to thrash out fair deals with publishers. The company also agreed to withdraw its challenge against the penalty.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Sex Creators – A New Marginalized Profession that needs to be understood. “Don’t be quick to judge the marginalized ‘Sex Creator’ profession! A lecturer at Chula’s Faculty of Law urges all parties to understand the changing social context, and the government to regulate rather than suppress those in this profession while ensuring protection for all genders, and promoting sexual health and legal freedom of expression.”

Phys .org: Algorithm finds that thousands of artificial levees are missing from US database. “To better understand how artificial levees affect modern rivers in the United States, it is important to have a reliable, updated database of levee locations. However, the existing National Levee Database developed in 2006 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fails to capture many of the nation’s smaller structures. In a new study, Knox et al used machine learning to detect the artificial levees that are missing from the database.”

Tech Xplore: A model for the automatic extraction of content from webs and apps. “Content management systems or CMSs are the most popular tool for creating content on the internet. In recent years, they have evolved to become the backbone of an increasingly complex ecosystem of websites, mobile apps and platforms. In order to simplify processes, a team of researchers from the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) has developed an open-source model to automate the extraction of content from CMSs.” Good morning, Internet…

June 22, 2022 at 05:34PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/RvW8JK0