New researches

Friday, July 1, 2022

Google Maps, Social Media Trolls, Crypocurrency Transactions, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 1, 2022

Google Maps, Social Media Trolls, Crypocurrency Transactions, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 1, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Roundtable: Google Maps Tests New Local Panel With Images At Top & Tabs For Reviews. “Google Maps is testing a new local listing interface where it shows more images in the top portion of the local listing and there are tabs to show the business overview on the left and the reviews on the right.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Techdirt: How The Internet Enabled A Mariners Fan And DoorDash Driver To Connect And Do Something Cool. “The internet is responsible for both good and bad outcomes in society, as is pretty much everything else. But the internet also is only as good or bad as those that make use of it. And sometimes, the internet enables really awesome stuff. Take the story of Sofie Dill, Seattle Mariners fan, and Simranjeet Singh, a DoorDash driver.”

Rest of World: A million-strong troll army is targeting Iran’s #MeToo activists on Instagram. “More than one million bots have flooded the Instagram accounts of prominent Iranian feminist activists, in a coordinated harassment campaign that started mid-April, according to a new report released by Qurium, a digital forensics nonprofit.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: EU reaches agreement on crypto regulation requiring personal data collection on every transfer. “The European Parliament and Council reached a provisional agreement to force crypto providers to provide identifying information on all digital asset transactions, despite an industry backlash. The so-called transfer of funds regulation, or TFR, seeks to strengthen anti-money-laundering requirements to ensure that crypto transfers can always be traced and suspicious transactions blocked.”

Ars Technica: A wide range of routers are under attack by new, unusually sophisticated malware. “An unusually advanced hacking group has spent almost two years infecting a wide range of routers in North America and Europe with malware that takes full control of connected devices running Windows, macOS, and Linux, researchers reported on Tuesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Wall Street Journal: Tech Giants Pour Billions Into AI, but Hype Doesn’t Always Match Reality. “After years of companies emphasizing the potential of artificial intelligence, researchers say it is now time to reset expectations. With recent leaps in the technology, companies have developed more systems that can produce seemingly humanlike conversation, poetry and images. Yet AI ethicists and researchers warn that some businesses are exaggerating the capabilities—hype that they say is brewing widespread misunderstanding and distorting policy makers’ views of the power and fallibility of such technology.”

Engadget: NOAA triples its supercomputing capacity for improved storm modeling. “Last year, hurricanes hammered the Southern and Eastern US coasts at the cost of more than 160 lives and $70 billion in damages. Thanks to climate change, it’s only going to get worse. In order to quickly and accurately predict these increasingly severe weather patterns, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Tuesday that it has effectively tripled its supercomputing (and therefore weather modelling) capacity with the addition of two high-performance computing (HPC) systems built by General Dynamics.”

EurekAlert: How technology can detect fake news in videos. “Researchers from the K-riptography and Information Security for Open Networks (KISON) and the Communication Networks & Social Change (CNSC) groups of the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) have launched a new project to develop innovative technology that, using artificial intelligence and data concealment techniques, should help users to automatically differentiate between original and adulterated multimedia content, thus contributing to minimizing the reposting of fake news.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of East Anglia: Rare Volumes Provide Contemporary Design Inspiration. “What kind of image do the words ‘rare books’ conjure up? Probably a man turning pages with white gloves in an atmosphere that’s reverent, hushed, and a bit stuffy. The Unlocking the Archive project, led by Dr Tom Roebuck and Dr Sophie Butler from UEA’s School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, has been about challenging that perception.”

I am linking to this because I have been Team Brown Noise since I knew about different noise colors, and I’m feeling vindicated. Yes, it’s petty, but it’s also Friday. Mashable: What is brown noise? TikTok suggests it’s better than white noise.. “Whereas white noise encompasses sounds from all over the spectrum, including low, mid-range, and high frequency notes, brown noise uses only low frequency and bass-heavy notes. This makes brown noise much deeper in sound than white noise and more ideal for those who find the high frequency notes in white noise uncomfortable.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 2, 2022 at 12:56AM
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Language Preservation, Death Sentences, National Education Summit, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, July 1, 2022

Language Preservation, Death Sentences, National Education Summit, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, July 1, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Preserving languages and the stories behind them. “Thanks to a collaboration with our global partners, ranging from language communities to national language institutes, you can now discover the languages of Maya, Tepehua, Sanskrit, Vurës, Kumeyaay/Diegueño, Potawatomi and Serravallese, spoken across Mexico, South Asia, the South Pacific, the United States and Italy.”

Death Penalty Information Center: On Anniversary of Furman v. Georgia, DPIC Census of U.S. Death Sentences Details 50 Years of Arbitrariness, Bias, and Error. “The census is the most comprehensive database of death sentences ever assembled, containing more than 9,700 death sentences…. In the census, DPIC has attempted to identify every death sentence handed down in the U.S. from the day Furman was decided through January 1, 2021 and track the status of each sentence.”

EVENTS

Smithsonian: Smithsonian Will Convene Thousands of Educators From Across the Nation This Summer To Discuss the Importance of Teaching Inclusive, Holistic and Well-Rounded Content. “Educators across the country are facing unforeseen challenges and rising levels of uncertainty in the classroom. As part of its 175-year commitment to education, the Smithsonian will host a free two-day National Education Summit to celebrate teachers and share instructional strategies and resources to ensure that every leaner has the opportunity to thrive.” The summit will have both in-person and virtual components. Registration is required.

Library of Congress: Why Web Archiving?: A Conversation with Web Archivists and Researchers. “On May 23, the Library of Congress hosted ‘#WhyWebArchiving: Preserving Internet Content for Research Use,’ a virtual event that brought together Library subject experts actively involved in building web archives with researchers that have utilized the Library’s web archives in their work…. A video recording of the panel is now available online, and you can also read about some of the highlights here.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Substack CEO says he’s ‘very sorry’ about laying off 13 people. “Substack is the latest tech company to announce layoffs, with the company’s CEO Chris Best tweeting on Wednesday that he’s letting 13 workers go. According to Axios, that’s around 14 percent of Substack’s workforce. In his letter and follow-up tweets, Best cites ‘market conditions’ as the reason behind the layoffs.”

Search Engine Journal: W3C Announces Major Change. “The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), the standards body in charge of web standards such as HTML and browser privacy, announced a significant change in how it will operate. Beginning on January 2023, the W3C will become a new public-interest non-profit organization.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 5 Competitor Monitoring Strategies and Tools for Your Online Businesses. “If you’re ready to take your competitive strategy to the next level, this post will help you get started with five strategies for monitoring competitors that are tailored for online businesses.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Museums + Heritage Advisor: ‘Don’t be afraid to fail’: digital storytelling experiments in small museums. “As part of this year’s Museums + Heritage Show the Director of Royal Crown Derby Museum and the Curator of Gawthorpe Textiles Collection share some of their learnings after bolstering their digital storytelling efforts.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Motherboard: TikTok Users Are Doxing the Supreme Court. “Some of these videos had thousands of likes, comments and views. Many of them have since been taken down by TikTok, but the same information is recirculating through smaller and smaller accounts in the same format: a slideshow of the justices’ portraits, with text over their faces.”

Bleeping Computer: OpenSea discloses data breach, warns users of phishing attacks. “OpenSea, the largest non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, disclosed a data breach on Wednesday and warned users of phishing attacks that could target them in the coming days. The online NFT marketplace says it has more than 600,000 users and a transaction volume that surpassed $20 billion.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NewsWise: These Red Flags Can Let You Know When You’re in an Online Echo Chamber. “Online echo chambers are virtual spaces that gather like-minded individuals. Prior research has shown that people are more likely to believe and share information they encounter in these spaces, because it confirms their existing beliefs. Echo chambers are also an ideal venue for hyperpartisanship, or rigid political ideology that shows a strong bias toward one perspective, while attacking another.”

BBC: New map of ancient trees an opportunity for conservation. “A new map shows there could be around two million trees with exceptional environmental and cultural value previously unrecorded in England. That’s ten times as many as currently on official records. This tree-map is sounding a rare note of optimism in the conservation world. But the Woodland Trust charity warns that these trees – known as ancient or veteran specimens – have ‘almost no’ legal protection.” Good morning, Internet…

July 1, 2022 at 05:27PM
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Thursday, June 30, 2022

WWII Refugees, Building Occupant Behavior, Gmail, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 30, 2022

WWII Refugees, Building Occupant Behavior, Gmail, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Jewish Chronicle: New site launched for Shoah stories . “The National Holocaust Centre & Museum has created a new website which tells the story of four refugees from Nazi Europe, using some of the objects they owned. Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary Journeys, set up jointly with the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and with sponsorship from the Arts Council, was launched on Tuesday to coincide with Refugee Week.”

Scientific Data: A Global Building Occupant Behavior Database . “This paper introduces a database of 34 field-measured building occupant behavior datasets collected from 15 countries and 39 institutions across 10 climatic zones covering various building types in both commercial and residential sectors. This is a comprehensive global database about building occupant behavior.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Wondering Why Gmail Looks Different? New Design Rolls Out by Default. “Google is taking the next step to move people over to Gmail’s new layout, which brings together Gmail, Chat and Meet in one unified interface. Starting Tuesday, some people will see Gmail’s new look by default, the company said in a blog post.”

TechTarget: Tableau adds data storytelling tool in latest update. “Six months after the analytics vendor’s acquisition of Narrative Science comes Data Stories, a new tool aimed at enabling more employees within organizations to work with data.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

MIT Technology Review: Social media filters are helping people explore their gender identity. “Oliver Haimson, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan who studies transgender identity and experiences online, says that for trans, gender-nonconforming, or gender-curious folk, filters can be a way to play with gender expression without the investment and skill that makeup requires or the time, hormones, and luck it takes to grow facial hair. He explains that filters are an important and widely used tool for identity exploration.”

TechCrunch: Google and the Internet Archive are the first customers to gain commercial access to Wikipedia content. “Google is going to start paying for its use of Wikipedia information to help power its knowledge panels in Google Search. The search giant, along with the digital library the Internet Archive, are the first customers for the still relatively new commercial product launched by the Wikimedia Foundation — the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia. Its new service, Wikimedia Enterprise, offers access to Wikimedia content to companies that reuse and source Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects at a high volume.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Personal info on California gun owners wrongly made public . “The California Department of Justice on Wednesday acknowledged the agency wrongly made public the personal information of perhaps hundreds of thousands of gun owners in up to six state-operated databases, a broader exposure than the agency initially disclosed a day earlier.”

Entrackr: Indian government censors tweets critical of Indian internet censorship. “The government of India in 2021 ordered Twitter to take down tweets by the nonprofit Freedom House that discussed declining internet freedom in India. Twitter only disclosed this request on Sunday. The tweets promote Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2021 report. Entrackr has reviewed a copy of the disclosure by Twitter. This content is no longer visible in India, but much of it remains available on Twitter in other countries.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PR Newswire: University Of Maryland Medicine Launches Precision Health Study To Create Biggest And Most Diverse Research Database In State (PRESS RELEASE). “University of Maryland Medicine, the joint enterprise of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the University of Maryland Medical Center, and University of Maryland Medical System, today launched a landmark initiative called My Healthy Maryland Precision Medicine Research. The project aims to enroll 250,000 Maryland residents over the next decade who reflect the diversity of the state and want to play a pivotal role in helping researchers understand how genes and lifestyle affect an individual’s health.”

Inside Climate News: Rediscovered Reports From 19th-Century Environmental Volunteers Advance the Research of Today’s Citizen Scientists in New York. “After unearthing 200-year-old seasonal observations from across New York, a team of researchers found a window into the past of the state’s natural landscapes, and a key to understanding its future.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 1, 2022 at 12:53AM
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Facebook Roundup, June 30, 2022

Facebook Roundup, June 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: As Midterms Loom, Elections Are No Longer Top Priority for Meta C.E.O.. “Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, made securing the 2020 U.S. election a top priority. He met regularly with an election team, which included more than 300 people from across his company, to prevent misinformation from spreading on the social network. He asked civil rights leaders for advice on upholding voter rights. The core election team at Facebook, which was renamed Meta last year, has since been dispersed.”

CNET: Meta to Scrap Tool Researchers Use to Track Misinformation Online, Report Says. “CrowdTangle, a tool owned by Facebook parent Meta that monitors content on the internet, has played a vital role in disrupting misinformation on social media, but it reportedly won’t be around for much longer. Meta plans to shut down the platform, though no concrete date has been set, according to a Bloomberg report Thursday.”

WIRED: Meta Made Millions in Ads From Networks of Fake Accounts. “Between July 2018 and April 2022, Meta made at least $30.3 million in ad revenue from networks it removed from its own platforms for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB), data compiled by WIRED shows. Margarita Franklin, head of security communications at Meta, confirmed to WIRED that the company does not return the ad money if a network is taken down. Franklin clarified that some of the money came from adverts that didn’t break the company’s rules, but were published by the same public relations or marketing organizations later banned for participating in CIB operations.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Meta clamps down on internal discussion of Roe v. Wade’s overturning.. “Meta told its workers on Friday not to openly discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion on wide-reaching communication channels inside the company, people with knowledge of the situation said.”

Motherboard: Facebook Is Banning People Who Say They Will Mail Abortion Pills. “Facebook is removing the posts of users who share status updates that say abortion pills can be mailed and in some cases temporarily banning those users. When exactly Facebook started removing these and similar posts is unclear. But Motherboard confirmed Facebook removed such posts on the same day that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the United States.”

MIT Technology Review: Facebook is bombarding cancer patients with ads for unproven treatments. “Evidence from Facebook and Instagram users, medical researchers, and its own Ad Library suggests that Meta is rife with ads containing sensational health claims, which the company directly profits from. The misleading ads may remain unchallenged for months and even years. Some of the ads reviewed by MIT Technology Review promoted treatments that have been proved to cause acute physical harm in some cases. Other ads pointed users toward highly expensive treatments with dubious outcomes.”

CNET: How Meta Is Trying to Put an End to Fake Facebook Reviews. “People may see fewer reviews on Facebook that disingenuously bolster business on the platform, thanks to a new Community Feedback policy. The Community Feedback policy targets reviews on the social network that are fake, incentivized, fraudulent or offensive to ensure that real customers are writing real reviews, according to a blog post from parent company Meta on Monday.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Facebook Settlement in Tracking Lawsuit Gets Preliminary OK From Court. “More than a decade after Facebook was accused of tracking users even after they logged off the social media platform, a district court in California has given preliminary approval for a $90 million class-action settlement.”

The Independent: Meta removes ‘large numbers’ of upskirting images found on Facebook. “Facebook owner Meta said it has removed a large number of groups and accounts which were sharing upskirting content following a BBC News investigation into the issue. The TV report found images and videos of upskirting being shared on the social media platform. It said some content which was reported to Facebook by the investigation was not immediately removed, with the site saying it did not appear to breach its community standards.”

CNET: Facebook Parent Meta Settles Lawsuit Alleging Discriminatory Housing Ads. “Facebook parent company Meta on Tuesday reached a settlement with the US Department of Justice over a lawsuit that alleged the social network allowed landlords and home sellers to run housing ads that excluded people based on race, sex, religion and other characteristics.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: Facebook Oversight Board says company should be much more transparent. “More than a year after its creation, the Facebook Oversight Board argued in the first of what are to be annual reports that the social media company should be far more transparent about how it decides which posts and accounts to leave up and which to take down.”

The Atlantic: Sheryl Sandberg and the Crackling Hellfire of Corporate America. “During her 14 years at the company, she’s done so much damage to our society that we may never recover. The simple truth is that you cannot simultaneously dedicate yourself to making untold fortunes for a giant corporation and to championing a social good.”

June 30, 2022 at 08:21PM
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Ukraine at Cannes, Destroyed Cultural Heritage, Yandex in Ireland, More: Ukraine Update, June 30, 2022

Ukraine at Cannes, Destroyed Cultural Heritage, Yandex in Ireland, More: Ukraine Update, June 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Museums+Heritage: 12 museums among cultural sites damaged or destroyed in Ukraine confirms UNESCO . “According to a new count, 152 cultural sites in Ukraine have been partially or totally destroyed since the beginning of the war. Last week UNESCO published an updated assessment of the damage caused to cultural sites in Ukraine since 24 February 2022, when the Russian offensive began. According to the checks carried out by its experts, 152 cultural sites have been partially or totally destroyed as a result of the fighting, including 30 historical buildings, 18 cultural centres, 15 monuments, 12 museums, seven libraries and 70 religious buildings.”

The Drum: Digital effort to preserve Ukraine’s cultural artifacts amid war wins Grand Prix at Cannes. “On the second day at Cannes Lions, the Digital Craft Lions Grand Prix — which spotlights the best technological craft in the industry — was awarded to Virtue Worldwide New York for a project designed to protect and preserve Ukrainian cultural artifacts amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It was selected among 661 entries to win the top award in the category.”

Independent (Ireland): Russia-based tech giant Yandex pulls the plug on Irish subsidiary. “Yandex, the Russian tech giant, is shutting down its Irish entity less than six months after registering it here. The company is often referred to as Russia’s Google with its business spanning search, cloud computing and transport apps.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Task & Purpose: Ukraine’s new (and probably fake) war hero is a goddamn goat. “To paraphrase Mark Antony, ‘Cry havoc, and let slip the goats of war.’ Or something like that, because this latest dispatch from the war in Ukraine is about a goat supposedly taking out a platoon of Russian soldiers. The goat in question, at least according to The Telegraph, wandered into a group of Russian soldiers rigging some grenades around a hospital. The goat, carrying on with its goat business, then supposedly prematurely set off the boobytrap. It presumably walked away unscathed, leaving 40 wounded Russian troops in its wake.”

Motherboard: Ukrainians Will Write Your Message on Munitions Aimed at Russians for Donations. “A Ukrainian Telegram account is offering to write a message of your choice on artillery shells that will then be fired at Russian in exchange for $40 per message. The account claims that the funds it raises will go towards arming Ukrainian soldiers.”

Marine Corps Times: Ukraine lessons take center stage in Marines’ new information warfare plan. “The Marine Corps wants all troops to treat information as a core function of waging war. And the Russia-Ukraine conflict is providing a heavy underline to its efforts. On Thursday, the service released its eighth Marine Corps doctrinal publication, this one focused on information.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Ukraine arrests cybercrime gang operating over 400 phishing sites. “The Ukrainian cyberpolice force arrested nine members of a criminal group that operated over 400 phishing websites crafted to appear like legitimate EU portals offering financial assistance to Ukrainians.”

New York Times: Lithuania blames Russia for cyberattacks, citing threats over cargo restrictions.. “Just days after Moscow threatened retaliation against Lithuania for placing restrictions on cargo traffic to the isolated Russian territory of Kaliningrad, computer hackers ‘linked to the Russian state’ attacked dozens of Lithuanian government and private organizations, the Baltic nation’s deputy defense minister said.”

Bleeping Computer: Russia fines Google for spreading ‘unreliable’ info defaming its army. “Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecommunications watchdog, has fined Google 68 million rubles (roughly $1.2 million) for helping spread what it called ‘unreliable’ information on the war in Ukraine and the failure to remove it from its platforms.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Brookings Institution: Russia’s narratives about its invasion of Ukraine are lingering in Africa. “The information spaces in Africa and other regions of the Global South like India and China have been heavily targeted by Russian disinformation and propaganda campaigns in recent months and years. In the case of Africa at this moment, Russia’s objectives are not only to justify its invasion of Ukraine, but to sway African countries to support Russia’s actions and secure Russia’s influence over the region, especially as the country becomes increasingly isolated from the United States and Europe.”

BBC: Tracking where Russia is taking Ukraine’s stolen grain. “There’s mounting evidence that Russian forces in occupied areas of Ukraine have been systematically stealing grain and other produce from local farmers. The BBC has talked to farmers and analysed satellite images and shipping data to track where the grain is going.”

Center for European Policy Analysis: The Quickest Route to Peace in Ukraine. “As ever, the Kremlin’s information warfare would not work without the impatience, short attention span, and anxiety in Western democracies, which the Kremlin knows very well. It has learned to exploit this with some skill.”

June 30, 2022 at 06:50PM
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Irish Traditional Music New York, New Jersey Environmental Threats, Colorado Environmental Justice, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, June 30, 2022

Irish Traditional Music New York, New Jersey Environmental Threats, Colorado Environmental Justice, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, June 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Irish Traditional Music Archive: From the Bridge: a view of Irish traditional music in New York launched Wednesday 29 June 2022. “The online exhibition showcases rare recordings, stories and photographs relating to New York’s remarkably rich Irish traditional music heritage. The ‘at-risk’ multimedia materials have now been preserved by ITMA and will be freely accessible online to a global audience thanks to the generosity of collectors, performers, their families, and our funders.”

The Sand Paper: New State Website Assists in Addressing Environmental Threats to Public Health. “A new website created by New Jersey’s Department of Health and Department of Environmental Protection provides municipal-level reports to help local governments and residents better understand and address environmental threats to public health. The Healthy Community Planning New Jersey site… allows access to reports detailing environmental, health and demographic indicators for each town in the state.”

Colorado State University: Colorado launches environmental justice tool developed by three CSU organizations. “This week marks the launch of Colorado EnviroScreen, the interactive online environmental justice tool to help disproportionately impacted communities and designed by three Colorado State University entities for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). More specifically, EnviroScreen identifies the Colorado communities that have been most impacted by systematic barriers to health and wellness and the cumulative impact of environmental pollution.”

EVENTS

University of Texas at San Antonio: UTSA’s virtual conference will share best practices and current trends in STEM librarianship. “This summer, UTSA Libraries will host the annual STEM Librarians South Conference from 12:30 to 5 p.m. on July 28 and from noon to 5 p.m. on July 29. The conference will feature a series of online presentations and will bring together information professionals and academics from across the United States to discuss current research, ideas, insights and best practices that advance STEM research and education.” Registration is required but the conference is free to attend.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: Firefox now automatically removes tracking parameters from URLs to enhance privacy. “According to an article from Bleeping Computer, companies like Facebook, Marketo, and HubSpot use custom URL query parameters to track links on clicks. Companies do this in order to provide users with a more personalized ad experience online. Called Query Parameter Stripping, these sites can no longer track what links you click when browsing on Firefox; once you’ve enabled the feature.”

New York Times: Crypto Crash Widens a Divide: ‘Those With Money Will End Up Being Fine’. “Enthusiasts promote the digital coins — which are exchanged using networks of computers that verify transactions, rather than through a centralized entity like a bank — as a means for people of all backgrounds to achieve transformational wealth outside the traditional finance system. But for all those supposedly egalitarian principles, crypto’s collapse has revealed a yawning divide: As employees of crypto companies lose their jobs and ordinary investors suffer huge losses, top executives have emerged relatively unscathed.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WKYC: Ohio’s LGBTQ news media through the decades. “The Gay People’s Chronicle published a guide to safe sex during the height of the AIDS crisis. It was delivered to each member of Cleveland City Council as a reminder that they represented everyone. Even President Obama took out a campaign ad during the 2008 election.”

NBC News: The rockstars of Minecraft are giving teens something to root for online . “Without as many traditional Internet A-listers as years past, VidCon, an annual social media conference for creators and their fans, seemed unusually quieter this year. That is, unless you were at the Dream SMP panel on Thursday. Two hours before the group, made up of Minecraft players, was expected to show up, screams had already broken out from the packed audience of about 2,000 fans. That doesn’t include the 135,000 people who livestreamed the panel from their homes.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: China Unveils New Regulations Requiring Sites To Pre-Censor All Comments. “…China has pushed out a draft of revisions to its regulations regarding online commenting. And, while some of it is unclear, it appears to include a provision saying that services that enable comments need to have tools in place to review every comment before it can be viewed on the site.”

Rest of World: Argentina’s Supreme Court backs Google, says “right to be forgotten” can infringe on freedom of information. “The Argentine Supreme Court denied celebrity Natalia Denegri’s petition to have content about a scandal she was involved in more than 25 years ago removed from search engines on Tuesday. It is the first ruling by a Supreme Court in Latin America on the ‘right to be forgotten,’ which allows the public to control their online history.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Tampa Bay Times: As your dead relative, I don’t want Amazon’s Alexa to mimic me. “Listen. I have passed on, and that is sad. But I implore you. I do not want this. For starters, this is the beginning of at least six to 10 horror movies, and you know it. This is demon-level behavior. This opens the portal in the basement. Yes, this brings me back into the house, but not the way you want me. Oh, at first, you think it’s me, but then things start to get weird and the kitchen chairs fly across the room.”

VentureBeat: Roboflow expands open-source datasets for better computer vision AI models. “In an effort to help developers more easily benefit from labeled datasets and machine learning models for computer vision, Roboflow today announced an expansion of its datasets and AI models as part of its Roboflow Universe initiative, which could well be one of the largest such open-source repositories available. Roboflow claims that it now has over 90,000 datasets that include over 66 million images in the Roboflow Universe service launched in August 2021.” Good morning, Internet…

June 30, 2022 at 05:32PM
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Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Lead Free NC, Nebraska Rural Response Council, Google Scholar, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 29, 2022

Lead Free NC, Nebraska Rural Response Council, Google Scholar, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

NC Child: Creep, crawl, explore & grow safely. “This week, Lead Free NC is launching a new database that provides parents, realtors, and renovators with easy access to information about whether a home contains risks from lead-based paint.”

Farm & Ranch: Nebraska launches farm crisis website. “The Nebraska Rural Response Council, sponsor of the Rural Response Hotline, has a new website with information on resources available to farmers in crisis. Since 1984, the Rural Response Hotline has been providing information and resources in times of crisis.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Scholar Blog: 2022 Scholar Metrics Released. “Scholar Metrics provide an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. Today, we are releasing the 2022 version of Scholar Metrics. This release covers articles published in 2017–2021 and includes citations from all articles that were indexed in Google Scholar as of June 2022.”

B&T: Pinterest Appoints Former Google Executive Bill Ready As CEO. “Image sharing service Pinterest have announced that Bill Ready will be taking over the role of chief executive officer, after Ben Silbermann announced his resignation following 12 years of tenure. Silbermann will remain with Pinterest, however he will be moving on to the position of executive chairman, with his responsibilities significantly reduced.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NiemanLab: The Los Angeles Times gets a fully staffed “burner account”. “Unlike other social teams — including the Times’ own audience engagement staff — the 404 does not create content to amplify existing journalism. And readers won’t see work by the 404 on the Times’ website. Instead, the 404 has been tasked with ‘continually inventing new types of experimental content’ in hopes of reaching younger, more diverse audiences who are not already reading or engaging with The L.A. Times.”

New York Times: The Rise of the 0.5 Selfie. “Unlike a traditional selfie, which people can endlessly prepare and pose for, the 0.5 selfie — so named because users tap 0.5x on a smartphone camera to toggle to ultra-wide mode — has become popular because it is far from curated. Since the ultra-wide-angle lens is built into the back cameras of phones, people can’t watch themselves take a 0.5 selfie, creating random images that convey the whimsy of distortion.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: FCC Commissioner urges Google and Apple to ban TikTok. “‘TikTok is not just another video app. That’s the sheep’s clothing.’ That’s what Brendan Carr wrote in his tweet along with a copy of the letter he sent Apple and Google, asking the companies to remove TikTok from their app stores.”

Australian Financial Review: Apple and Google hit with class actions by Australian app users . “Apple and Google Android users in Australia are suing the California-based technology giants, alleging they used their market power to force app developers to use their payment systems, resulting in higher prices for consumers. Twin legal actions allege Apple and Google have ‘a substantial degree of power in the markets for the purchase’ of apps via the App Store and Google Play Store respectively, and the in-app purchase of content.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Swansea University: Swansea To Lead International Research Network On Violent Online Political Extremism. “The amount of online content promoting violent politics is increasing. Although initial concern on this issue was centred around violent jihadists, such as so-called ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS), VOX-Pol’s focus covers all groups who employ or advocate physical violence against other individuals and groups to forward their political objectives.”

Phys .org: Online platform designed to improve reproducibility, scientific collaborations. “For centuries, scientists relied on a pen or pencil and trusty lab notebook to make sure their experiments could be understood and replicated by colleagues. Now, as experiments may involve dozens of steps and hundreds of materials, produce gigabytes of data that require supercomputers to process and are shared with collaborators around the globe, the lab notebook may no longer suffice. In a recent study, the researchers report on the development of an online platform that can help genomic researchers track experiments from conception to publication, keeping exacting records for quality control purposes and easing potential reproducibility efforts.” Good afternoon, Internet…

June 30, 2022 at 12:21AM
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