EmilyBlaster, Cloud Computing Security, Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, June 29, 2022

EmilyBlaster, Cloud Computing Security, Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, June 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Boing Boing: Literary Hub has an 90s style “Mathblaster” game based on Emily Dickinson. “Literary Hub’s new game ‘EmilyBlaster’ could be the most engaging way to make students that are interfacing with Emily Dickinson’s work for the first time view the classic poems in a new light. Although the potential for enticing students to read Emily Dickinson exists, the game was actually created to serve as a tie-in to the novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.”

SecurityWeek: New Database Catalogs Cloud Vulnerabilities, Security Issues. “Cloud security company Wiz has announced the launch of a new database whose goal is to keep track of vulnerabilities and other security issues affecting cloud services.”

Local Journalism Initiative: Knowledge Basket shares database of Indigenous information to care for lands and water. “The Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership has officially launched a new initiative titled the IPCA Knowledge Basket. It will provide resources through a database to communities and officials involved with Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA). These are lands and waters where Indigenous governments have the primary role in protecting and conserving ecosystems.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Roundtable: Google Adds Pros & Cons To Search Result Snippets. “Normally when someone sends me a sophisticated search result snippet from Google and I dig in, I find a reason for how Google came up with this snippet. But it seems like in this case below, Google is being a bit more sophisticated and showing pros and cons in the snippet without the web site having mentioned pros and cons specifically.” Today in “What could possibly go wrong”….

How-To Geek: What’s New in Mozilla Thunderbird 102. “Thunderbird 102 isn’t the complete overhaul that some fans might be waiting for — the ‘completely modernized UI’ is scheduled for Thunderbird 114 next year. However, this update is a step in the right direction, with a few design tweaks and new features.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNN: ‘Watchdog moms’ on TikTok are trying to keep minors safe. “Seara Adair, a mother of two young daughters from Atlanta, revealed in a TikTok video last year that she was sexually abused by a family member as a child. In the next few weeks, her follower count grew by tens of thousands, many of whom appeared to be minors. After that, she started using the popular short-form video app to educate her followers about various digital dangers. She posted about the risks of being approached by strangers online and the problematic content found hidden in the deep corners of TikTok and other platforms.”

Hyperallergic: Warhol Foundation Grants $3.9 Million to 50 US Arts Organizations. “A few common themes emerged from the organizations and projects that received funding in this cycle. Some initiatives are social justice-oriented, highlighting issues surrounding Indigenous land rights, climate change and sustainability, and racial inequity. Others hope to train an eye on forgotten figures who have been buried in the historical archive as a result of structural forces that worked against them in their lifetimes: Several grants will support major museums and institutions that are putting on an underrepresented artist’s first solo exhibition or retrospective.”

BusinessWire: GRAMMY Museum® Grant Program Awards $200,000 for Music Research and Sound Preservation (PRESS RELEASE). “The GRAMMY Museum® Grant Program announced today that $200,000 in grants will be awarded to 16 recipients in the United States to help facilitate a range of research on a variety of subjects, as well as support a number of archiving and preservation programs.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Russia fines Airbnb, Twitch and Pinterest for not storing data locally. “Russia has fined Airbnb, Twitch and Pinterest for violating the country’s personal data legislation, Reuters reports. On Tuesday, a court in Moscow ordered all three companies to pay fines of 2 million roubles (approximately $37,700) for not storing the data of Russian citizens within the country.”

Bleeping Computer: US, Brazil seize 272 websites used to illegally download music. “The domains of six websites that streamed and provided illegal downloads of copyrighted music were seized by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Department of Justice. 266 other websites part of the same network were also taken down in Brazil, with six individuals arrested in 30 search and seizure raids across the country.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: Democracy Is Asking Too Much of Its Data. “WE’VE ALLOWED OUR democracy to devolve into a game of musical chairs. The population of the United States has tripled, while states must fight over the same 435 seats and must see their fates determined by an algorithmic system plagued by arbitrary outcomes. It is time to enlarge the House of Representatives, a conclusion shared by a bipartisan committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.”

Galaxy Brain / The Atlantic: The “Hollow Abstraction” of Web3 . “I cannot stop watching videos of Web3 boosters failing to explain the usefulness of the technology. I realize this is petty, but the videos are deeply cathartic. I’m talking about two clips in particular, both of which were posted by Liron Shapira, a tech investor and writer, and a critic of crypto and Web3.” 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!

June 29, 2022 at 05:29PM
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Political Email, WordPress Plugins, Desk Work Exercise, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 28, 2022

Political Email, WordPress Plugins, Desk Work Exercise, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 28, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Axios: Scoop: Google moves to keep campaign messages out of spam. “Google has asked the Federal Election Commission to green light a program that could keep campaign emails from ending up in spam folders, according to a filing obtained by Axios.”

USEFUL STUFF

CogDogBlog: Useful Way to Taste a WordPress Plugin . “Think about it when you are looking to review or pick a WordPress plugin. All you have is what the authors write about it, maybe if luck a link to a demo. But this ‘trick’ Emma shared lets you actually take out of the Codex for a full test drive.”

MakeUseOf: How the Wakeout App Can Make Quick Workout Breaks More Fun. “Doing regular activity—even just standing—for a few minutes during extended periods of sitting time can help keep you feeling your best. However, when you’re engrossed in work, study, or a movie, it can be easy to forget to move. Wakeout is designed to get you moving regularly, and here’s how it works.”

How-To Geek: How to Play Adobe Flash SWF Files Outside Your Web Browser. “Adobe has ended any and all support for Flash. The company has now removed the download link to the Flash Player from its website, too. The program is still available on the Wayback machine for the time being.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Organization of American States: OAS and Foundation El Libro Total Make Available 80,000 Books in Spanish Free of Charge . “The Organization of American States (OAS) and Foundation El Libro Total today signed an agreement to disseminate more than 80,000 books digitized by the institution’s platform, free of charge, throughout the Americas and the world.”

Bloomberg: Google’s Cloud Customers Will Learn Their Gmail Carbon Footprint. “Google’s cloud-computing division is preparing to reveal the carbon footprint for its Workspace apps, including Gmail and Docs, as it builds out its suite of tools to help customers assess their impact on the environment.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: Period tracker Stardust surges following Roe reversal, but its privacy claims aren’t airtight. “TechCrunch ran a network traffic analysis of Stardust’s iPhone app on Monday to understand what data was flowing in and out of the app. The network traffic showed that if a user logs into the app using their phone number (rather than through a login service provided by Apple or Google), Stardust will periodically share the user’s phone number with a third-party analytics service called Mixpanel.”

CNN: ‘I’ve never experienced pain like that’: Influencers recount harrowing experiences with Daily Harvest crumbles, blast company’s handling of recall. “Instagram-friendly meal kit service Daily Harvest is facing a firestorm of online backlash over the voluntary recall of one of its products, after a slew of people who consumed it reported becoming ill with mysterious symptoms, including extremely elevated liver enzymes. The direct-to-consumer brand has long utilized a network of online influencers to promote its products. Now several influencers, who say they were sickened, say the company’s lackluster handling of the crisis is putting new responsibility on the influencer community to warn the public.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Rest of World: DALL·E mini has a mysterious obsession with women in saris. “[Fernando] Marés, a veteran hacktivist, began using DALL·E mini in early June. But instead of inputting text for a specific request, he tried something different: he left the field blank. Fascinated by the seemingly random results, Marés ran the blank search over and over. That’s when Marés noticed something odd: almost every time he ran a blank request, DALL·E mini generated portraits of brown-skinned women wearing saris, a type of attire common in South Asia.”

MIT Sloan School of Management: The promise of edge computing comes down to data. “Cloud adoption has rocketed as companies seek computing and storage resources that can be scaled up and down in response to changing business needs. But even given the cost and agility upsides to cloud, there’s rising interest in yet another deployment model — edge computing, which is computing that’s done at or near the source of the data. It can empower new use cases, especially the innovative artificial intelligence and machine learning applications that are critical to modern business success.” 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 29, 2022 at 12:18AM
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Pandora Papers, Australia/New Zealand Music Festivals, Google Hangouts, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, June 28, 2022

Pandora Papers, Australia/New Zealand Music Festivals, Google Hangouts, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, June 28, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: Sign up for a guided email tour of the Pandora Papers. “The Pandora Papers also explore how this shadow economy takes a global toll beyond lost tax revenue, harming everyday people and the public interest in often unexpected ways. To help readers navigate the vast scope of this investigation, this six-part guided tour will walk you through the most explosive stories and break down key findings, email-by-email over the next two weeks, right in your inbox.”

The Music Network: That Festival Site to Launch New Era For Australian and New Zealand Music Festivals. “Officially launching this month, the new site is the creation of 21-year-old founder Jack Malloch, who wanted to develop a one-stop place for festival lovers to easily find information about both upcoming and past music festivals. Data has been gathered for more than 95 festivals, featuring a massive 900 lineups, 19,000 artists, and 30 years of music. Information on ticket prices, set times, and festival maps can be found, with key announcement dates also provided.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Google Hangouts is shutting down this fall. “Hangouts holdouts will have to finally say goodbye to Google’s most resilient chat app later this year. On Monday, the company announced it would start migrating consumer Hangouts users to Chat before the former is no longer available after November 2022.”

ZDNet: Google makes Earth Engine available to all businesses and governments. “For the past decade, researchers in academia and the nonprofit world have had access to increasingly sophisticated information about the Earth’s surface. Now, any commercial or government entity will have access to Earth Engine.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 8 of the Best Reddit Clients for iOS and Android. “Whether you are a Reddit lurker or spend hours a day on the site, finding the best experience on your smartphone is important, but finding the best Reddit clients for iOS and Android isn’t always easy. This list includes the best Reddit clients for your mobile in no particular order.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNET: Twitch, YouTube Debaters Are Talking People Out of Dangerous Conspiracy Theories. “Debaters like [Hunter] Avallone spend hours each day discussing politics and current events, often pulling their viewers from the brink of the misinformation abyss. They’ve become an informal part of an alliance of fact-checkers and researchers who are fighting to promote facts about COVID-19, election security and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Scoop Empire: Egypt’s Enduring Cassette Culture. “To rewind and get a better sense of the history of cassette culture in Egypt and its stubborn perseverance in the digital age, I spoke with Andrew Simon, a historian of popular culture and media in the Middle East who has taken a particular interest in Egyptian cassette culture. In his recently published book entitled Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt, Simon explores these questions and more in a thoroughly enjoyable deep-dive into Egyptian cassette culture and its cultural and political implications.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BusinessWire: CYBER.ORG Launches Project Access, a National Effort to Increase Access to Cybersecurity Education for Students with Disabilities (PRESS RELEASE). “Through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Cybersecurity Education and Training Assistance Program (CETAP) grant, CYBER.ORG is pioneering a series of camps this summer in Arkansas, Maine, Virginia, and Michigan to introduce blind and vision impaired students to key cybersecurity topics, help them develop cybersecurity skills, and explore the possibility of a career in a growing industry.”

Associated Press: Company buying Trump’s social media app faces subpoenas. “The company planning to buy Donald Trump’s new social media business has disclosed a federal grand jury investigation that it says could impede or even prevent its acquisition of the Truth Social app.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CSUDH: Student Podcast Brings Ancient Maya to Life. “What’s the best way to make an ancient civilization accessible to a wide audience? Ask Jackeline and Lesli Hernandez, and they will tell you that podcasting is the key. The two sisters, who both graduated from CSUDH in May with degrees in anthropology, started the podcast ‘Uncovering the Ancient Maya’ in Spring 2022 to provide accurate, historical insights about the Maya to the general public.” The sisters started the podcast with three episodes, but it looks like other students will help it continue.

Phys .org: Research finds that Google searches may be a predictor of domestic violence. “…a study just published in the European Journal of Population finds that Google searches are an effective tool to track and predict domestic violence, especially in times of crisis, such as the period that followed the COVID-19 outbreak. And policymakers could use these results to better devise surveillance/monitoring systems to contain, minimize, and even anticipate surges in domestic violence.”

Grocery Business Canada: Sunkist uses citrus fruit sorter that’s powered by Google AI. “The sorting and grading of citrus fruit just got a lot easier thanks to the fully-automated Sunsortai machine, a next-generation sorter from Sunkist Research and Technical Services. The revolutionary new sorter uses Google AI technology to assess the inherent quality of each piece it processes, including any potential defects.” 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!

June 28, 2022 at 05:31PM
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Deaf and Disabled Performers Australia, First Ladies Fashion, Royalty-Free Sound Effects, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 27, 2022

Deaf and Disabled Performers Australia, First Ladies Fashion, Royalty-Free Sound Effects, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 27, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

IF Australia: CGA and Showcast launch database for Deaf and disabled performers. “The Casting Guild of Australia (CGA) has partnered with casting resource Showcast to create a dedicated platform to showcase Deaf and disabled performers. Hosted on Showcast’s website, the database will be made available to casting directors, agents and producers, and include self-taped video footage of individual performers, as well as a headshots and CVs.”

WWD: Untold Stories of Designers Who Dressed First Ladies Is Focus of New Virtual Exhibition. “Eight unsung and primarily lesser-known seamstresses, dressmakers and fashion designers, who dressed first ladies for some essential public appearances, are getting their due in the new digital exhibition, ‘Glamour and Innovation: The Women Behind the Seams of Fashion at the White House.'”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The 11 Best Places to Find Royalty-Free Sound Effects for Your YouTube Videos. “When making YouTube videos, you need to ensure that you have the right to use particular sound effects. Many websites allow you to download royalty-free sound effects, but not all sites are created equal. This article introduces the best places to find royalty-free sound effects for your YouTube videos.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Associated Press: Why captions are suddenly everywhere and how they got there. “In recent years, smartphone apps like Otter; Google’s Live Transcribe; Ava; InnoCaption, for phone calls; and GalaPro, for live theater performances, have emerged. Some are aimed at people with hearing loss and use human reviewers to make sure captions are accurate. Others, like Otter and Live Transcribe, instead rely on what’s called automatic speech recognition, which uses artificial intelligence to learn and capture speech.”

Mashable: A centuries-old secret society is hanging out in Facebook groups. “Centuries ago, Rosicrucians were only able to maintain their society through their ability to be invisible. But over the past several hundred years, the world has changed — and, along with it, so has the need for Rosicrucians to stay shielded from the public. Now, they’re finding new ways to connect, by pivoting away from secrecy with the help of the most public tools they could find: Facebook, Zoom, and YouTube.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Hill: Federal government getting ready to open its books and show us the receipts. “As members of Congress and staff dig into President Biden’s 2023 budget request, they have a new tool for tracking when, where, and how the president is authorizing federal agencies to spend money — but Congress, and the public, needs to know this new tool exists. It comes in the form of apportionment transparency, an instrument designed to reinforce Congress’s power of the purse.”

ITPro Today: My Body, My Data Act Tackles Online Privacy in Wake of Roe v. Wade Decision. “Government action to protect reproductive health data is already in the works in the form of the My Body, My Data Act, which was introduced simultaneously in the Senate and House of Representatives on June 16. If enacted, the legislation will create a national standard to protect personal reproductive health data by restricting the data that can be collected and retained. Additionally, the legislation would prevent the data from being disclosed or misused.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Heriot Watt University: New project helps Amazon create dataset to advance multilingual language understanding research. “Researchers at the National Robotarium, hosted by Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh, have created a Spoken Language Understanding Resource Package (SLURP) aimed at making it easier for AI and machines to understand spoken questions and commands from humans. One of the items included in the package is an open dataset in English spanning 18 domains. Amazon recently localised and translated the English-only SLURP dataset into 50 typologically diverse languages, creating a new multilingual dataset called MASSIVE.”

PetaPixel: The Smithsonian is Shifting to a Future of Digital Museum Experiences. “The Smithsonian’s collection of historical artifacts is so large that only 1% of its 150 million piece collection is showcased at any given time. Mixed with age and fragility, the museum is quickly virtualizing its collection to be viewed online. The goal of the Smithsonian Digitization Program Office (DPO) is to digitally scan these historical artifacts and publish those scans online for future generations to enjoy and interact with.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

The Scotsman: Great Scottish books to get Scots translation. “Works such as Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and Peter Pan are to get the Scots treatment in a new project designed to promote the language. Braw Beginnings is being run as part of Scotland’s Year of Stories, with Scots language ambassador Alistair Heather leading the work for VisitScotland.” 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 28, 2022 at 12:34AM
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Setting Up a GitHub Full of Search Gizmos

Setting Up a GitHub Full of Search Gizmos
By ResearchBuzz

When I applied for the Bellingcat Tech Fellowship, it served to make me very aware of what I don’t know. I mean, I realize I know exactly nothing at least three times a day doing ResearchBuzz, but the lack of real programming ability felt more like an internal missing Lego block than a mere fact of ignorance.

So at the beginning of May I resolved to start learning JavaScript. So I got a good shot of JavaScript under my belt, took a brief detour to SQL so I could understand a couple of concepts, and am now playing around with JavaScript and Python. I’m learning enough that I’m getting ideas that I want to implement.

(Though I’m still terrible. If you feel compelled to email me and tell me I’m not a good programmer, I assure you I already know and don’t need a reminder.)

Consequently I’m making a bunch of experimental Google filters with JavaScript and HTML, and I’m keeping them on GitHub. I’m also hosting them on GitHub Pages so you can try them. My GitHub’s at https://github.com/ResearchBuzz , and my GitHub Page site’s at https://researchbuzz.github.io/ .

Here are the applications you can try at https://researchbuzz.github.io/ . None of them require API keys or any kind of registration, and you’re always welcome to grab the files from GitHub and make your own copies. I find they work fine when I host them locally on my machine.

Stay tuned, I suspect the more I learn the more I’ll make.

Twitter Receipts: — https://researchbuzz.github.io/Twitter-Receipts/index.html

Twitter Receipts has you enter a Twitter handle and a date, then queries The Wayback Machine for the closest snapshot of the Twitter handle to that date. The Wayback Machine page opens in a new URL. Sometimes the API is a little slow so give it a few seconds.

Back That Ask Up: — https://researchbuzz.github.io/Back-That-Ask-Up-/

Enter a Google News query and the number of days/months/years’ worth of the most recent news items you want to eliminate. BTAU will construct a date-restricted search query in Google News and open it in a new window.

The Anti-Bullseye Name Search: — https://researchbuzz.github.io/The-Anti-Bullseye-Name-Search/

TABNS takes a name and generates a Google search that searches for the name in reverse order (Lastname Firstname) and specifically excludes the most common expression of firstname lastname. It changes the tenor of the search results completely, surfacing many more legal- and data- based results. It also removes a lot of commercial clutter from your search (Amazon, eBay, Pinterest, etc) and gives you the option of adding focusing keywords to the name search.

Sinker Search: — https://researchbuzz.github.io/sinker-search/index.html

Sinker Search takes full advantage of Google’s 32-word query limit by letting you choose an emphasized word in your search which will be repeated until Google’s query limit is reached.

Blogspace Time Machine: — https://researchbuzz.github.io/blogspace-time-machine/index.html

A Google filter for exploring recently-created (current month) content in blogspace, with the option of seeing the same search in blogspace from one, three, five, ten, or fifteen years ago.

Blog Shovel: — https://researchbuzz.github.io/Blog-Shovel/index.html

A Google filter unearthing blog content, from the early days of the Web until now. For much older content than the Blogspace Time Machine (goes back to 1995.)

June 27, 2022 at 09:17PM
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California Heatwaves, WWII Facial Recognition, Archive File Formats, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, June 27, 2022

California Heatwaves, WWII Facial Recognition, Archive File Formats, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, June 27, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

UCLA: New Online Mapping Tool Helps California Prepare for Extreme Heat. “The online mapping tool developed by UCLA and the Public Health Alliance of Southern California allows users to find information about temperature extremes, explore vulnerable populations, understand community health situations and seek out state resources such as air conditioners for low-income households.”

Times of Israel: Google engineer identifies anonymous faces in WWII photos with AI facial recognition. “Walking past the countless photos of Holocaust survivors and victims at Warsaw’s POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in 2016, New York-native Daniel Patt was haunted by the possibility that he was passing the faces of his own relatives without even knowing it…. he set to work creating and developing From Numbers to Names (N2N), an artificial intelligence-driven facial recognition platform that can scan through photos from prewar Europe and the Holocaust, linking them to people living today.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Chrome Unboxed: ChromeOS can now open 7z, ISO, RAR and many other newly supported archival formats. “Most notably among the above newly supported formats are ISO and 7z. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve already received 7-zip folders from others or transferred them myself (RAR is a thing of the past for me), and simply couldn’t open them. I think the more users see that ChromeOS can do what Windows can – at least for the basics, the more they will be willing to invest in it or integrate it as a part of their workflow.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: Stardust is the first period tracker app to offer end to end encryption. “…period tracking app Stardust, which combines traditional menstruation tracking with the movements of our moon and the planets, has come out ahead of many others by announcing itself as the first recognized app to offer end-to-end encryption for all users.”

MakeUseOf: Identify Bird Sounds With BirdNET-Pi on Raspberry Pi. “You may well have seen various bird species in your backyard or garden, but there may well be many more roosting nearby that you have only heard. To identify them, you don’t need to be an expert in ornithology, however: all that’s required is a Raspberry Pi equipped with a mic and the BirdNET-Pi software.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Challenges of the Future Confront the Art World. “Should the British Museum return the ancient sculptures known as the Parthenon Marbles to Greece? Is the art world contributing to global warming? Is the hot market for digital art known as NFTs over? These are among the most vexing challenges facing the art world today, especially the question of how — or even whether — to return what many view as plundered art, like the Parthenon Marbles, to their rightful owners.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TorrentFreak: Digital Trails: How Bungie Identified a Mass Sender of Fake DMCA Notices. “In response to persons unknown sending large numbers of fake DMCA notices to YouTube while impersonating its anti-piracy partner, Bungie filed a lawsuit in the US seeking millions in damages. At the time the name of the ‘Doe’ defendant was unknown. This is how a Bungie investigation followed digital breadcrumbs to track down and identify that person by name and physical address.”

Bleeping Computer: LGBTQ+ community warned of extortionists abusing dating apps. “According to the FTC, the criminals pose as potential romantic partners on LGBTQ+ dating apps, sending explicit photos to their targets and asking them to reciprocate. If they fall for it, the victims get blackmailed into paying a ransom, usually in untraceable gift cards, under the threat of having sexual imagery they shared with the scammers leaked to their family, friends, or employers.”

Reuters: Exclusive: Google Hit With Antitrust Complaint by Danish Job Search Rival. “Google was hit with an antitrust complaint on Monday after a Danish online job-search rival took its grievance to EU regulators, alleging the Alphabet unit had unfairly favoured its own job search service. The complaint could accelerate EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager’s scrutiny of the service, Google for Jobs, three years after it first came under her microscope.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

World Bank: 70% of 10-Year-Olds now in Learning Poverty, Unable to Read and Understand a Simple Text. “As a result of the worst shock to education and learning in recorded history, learning poverty has increased by a third in low- and middle-income countries, with an estimated 70% of 10-year-olds unable to understand a simple written text, according to a new report published today by the World Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF, UK government Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), USAID, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”

TechRadar Pro: Why this chess grandmaster left Google behind. “When [Tal] Shaked arrived at Google in 2004, the company had just 3,000 employees and looked nothing like the sprawling megacorporation it is today. He was brought on as a junior engineer to work on Google Search. At the time, Google’s search rankings were not powered by any form of intelligence. Instead, a dedicated team of engineers was tasked with managing a complex rule-based system designed to serve up the best and most relevant results to users.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Dalhousie University: ‘It takes a village to build a whale’: Dal’s Blue Whale Project set to soar this fall. “Since 2017, Dalhousie’s Blue Whale Project has left a big impression on everyone who’s encountered it, from students and faculty to community members and volunteers. Now, just months away from the blue whale arriving at its final resting place in Dal’s Steele Ocean Sciences Building, there is a buzz of excitement around the university.” 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!

June 27, 2022 at 05:31PM
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Brendan O’Regan, Repurposing Old Smartphones, Downloading Movies, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 26, 2022

Brendan O’Regan, Repurposing Old Smartphones, Downloading Movies, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 26, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Clare Herald: New website showcases life of Brendan O’Regan. “Brendan O’Regan’s many achievements include setting up the world’s first duty-free airport retail outlet at Shannon Airport. In economic terms, he initiated Ireland’s first programme of foreign direct investment in manufacturing, based on a favourable enterprise climate. Internationally, he is acknowledged as the father of the €70 billion a year airport duty-free business.”

USEFUL STUFF

CNET: Turn Your Android Into a Wireless Mouse and More. Here’s How. “If your phone’s too old to command a high trade-in value, or you’re looking to save some money on a webcam, a Google Home, a wireless mouse, or you just like to tinker, there are some pretty ingenious ways to repurpose your old device and turn it into something you’ll actually want to use.”

MakeUseOf: How to Legally Download Movies to Watch Offline for Free. “Almost all of us now use streaming services to catch the hottest new movies and TV shows. However, streaming still has one major flaw… you need an internet connection. Which means they aren’t all that convenient when you’re traveling. Fortunately, many of the best streaming services now allow you to download movies to watch offline; and all for free, as part of your normal account. So, in this article, we’ll show you how to download movies to watch offline, free and legally.”

How-To Geek: The Best Raspberry Pi 4 Alternatives. “A semiconductor shortage combined with a surge in popularity has led to a significant supply shortage of Pi 4s. Manufacturers say the device won’t be back in stock until April next year, and in the meantime, the few that are around tend to be priced at a premium — up to 400% more than its intended retail price. But alternatives are available. Some may be slightly expensive, and others may not have the power a Pi 4 has, but they are all in stock and ready to go straight into your next project.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Wall Street Journal: The Surprising Reason Your Amazon Searches Are Returning More Confusing Results than Ever. “If you want to be reminded just how tiny you are, you could travel to a remote part of the world and behold the night sky, or stand atop a mountain and contemplate its immensity, or you could try to find the best garlic press on Amazon… Granted, there are many more stars in the night sky than the 300 or so garlic presses visible on Amazon’s U.S. site. But wading through page after page of those listings, for items with tens of thousands of collective reviews, is, like many searches on Amazon, increasingly an exercise in frustration, despair and confusion.”

Input Magazine: Inside the subreddit dedicated to busting shoplifters. “Because others don’t understand the thrill of busting shoplifters, people like [Alex] McLeod are increasingly turning to Reddit to find people who do. He’s one of the many shoplifting-prevention staff employed by corporations across North America who’s joined r/LossPrevention, a 55,000-member hub for corporate employees battling crime.”

WIRED: Charity TikTok Videos Put an Uncomfortable Spin on Morality. “The hashtag #honestytest has 51.5 million views on the platform—among other tests, creators drop bundles of cash in front of people as a ‘social experiment,’ filming them to see if they’ll pocket the money (some of these people are experiencing homelessness; many of these videos are clearly staged). Ultimately, ‘dishonest’ people are embarrassed in front of millions of viewers, while ‘honest’ people are rewarded financially.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Google says attackers worked with ISPs to deploy Hermit spyware on Android and iOS. “A sophisticated spyware campaign is getting the help of internet service providers (ISPs) to trick users into downloading malicious apps, according to research published by Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) (via TechCrunch). This corroborates earlier findings from security research group Lookout, which has linked the spyware, dubbed Hermit, to Italian spyware vendor RCS Labs.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

BBC Sport: Homophobia large portion of online abuse aimed at footballers and basketballers – study. “Homophobia is responsible for a large portion of abuse aimed at footballers and basketballers in the men’s and women’s game, according to a new report. Of more than 1,500 abusive posts included in the report, homophobic abuse was 40% of posts targeted at male footballers, 27% of that sent to female football players, 46% of the abuse aimed at male basketballers and 19% of that posted to female basketball players.”

Phys .org: A quest to digitize 1 million plant specimens. “The Australian National Herbarium in Canberra is imaging nearly a million plant specimens using an automated system developed by Netherlands company Picturae. CSIRO Group Leader for Digitization & Informatics, Pete Thrall, who oversees digital assets at the National Research Collections Australia, managed by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, said the project would help inform bushfire recovery and biosecurity.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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June 27, 2022 at 12:26AM
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