New researches

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Facebook Roundup, July 19, 2022

Facebook Roundup, July 19, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WIRED: Meta Was Restricting Abortion Content All Along. “…Meta denies changing its policies after the decision—and pro-choice activists say that the censorship has been going on for years. Activists who spoke to WIRED say they have seen the company’s AI moderation system tag abortion content, in many cases about abortion pills, as ‘sensitive,’ decrease its visibility, or remove it altogether.”

Techdirt: Now That Rupert Murdoch Has Convinced Governments To Force Facebook To Pay For News, Facebook No Longer Wants Anything To Do With News. “This should surprise no one, but Joshua Benton, over at Nieman Lab, has a really fantastically well-reported article about how Facebook basically wants out of the news business entirely. It goes through multiple reasons why this is the case, but a big one is that Rupert Murdoch’s decade-long demands that Facebook and Google simply fork over some cash to news organizations (for sending them traffic) has finally had some modicum of success in Australia, and is now being considered elsewhere around the globe.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Verge: Meta warns employees of ‘serious times’ in internal memo listing key product bets. “Meta is warning of ‘serious times’ and preparing for a leaner second half of 2022, according to an internal memo circulated to employees this week. The note comes from chief product officer Chris Cox and outlines the company’s priorities and challenges to its business going forward.”

CNET: Meta’s Novi Service to Be Phased Out: What you need to know. “What little is left of Meta’s once-ambitous cryptocurrency project is limping to an end. A pilot program for Novi, a money-transfer service that uses a cryptocurrency wallet of the same name, will cease operating on September 1, according to a notice on its website. Novi operates only in Guatemala and the US.”

Gizmodo: Fired Employee Claims Facebook Created Secret Tool to Read Users’ Deleted Messages. “How ‘forgotten’ are your deleted internet posts anyway? That question has come under renewed scrutiny this week thanks to a new lawsuit filed by a fired Meta employee who claims the company set up a ‘protocol’ to pull up certain users’ deleted posts and hand them over to law enforcement. If the former employee’s claims ring true, the practice could call into question Meta’s previous communications about how it accesses certain user data.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Meta sues a site cloner who allegedly scraped over 350,000 Instagram profiles. “Meta is taking legal action against two prolific data scrapers. On Tuesday, the company filed separate federal lawsuits against a company called Octopus and an individual named Ekrem Ateş. According to Meta, the former is the US subsidiary of a Chinese multinational tech firm that offers data scraping-for-hire services to individuals and companies.”

WIRED: How to Avoid the Worst Instagram Scams . “SINCE MARK ZUCKERBERG snapped up Instagram for a mere $1 billion in April 2012, the app has grown into a social media juggernaut and one of Meta’s biggest assets. More than a billion people use Instagram every month, with influencers relying on it as a key source of their income. Any online congregation of this size is naturally a target for hackers and scammers looking to take advantage of people and make a quick buck.”

New York Times: An Irish regulator puts Facebook data policies back in spotlight.. “A draft decision by Irish regulators on Thursday threatened to block Facebook and Instagram from moving data about European Union users to the United States, the latest round in a yearslong dispute about protecting the data of European citizens from American spying.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Flinders University: Instagram pressure rising. “Flinders University body image experts are urging all Instagram users to apply a more conscious ‘filter’ to monitor their health and fitness posts. The researchers say people who follow in the footsteps of high-profile social media influencers and upload regular #fitspo and #cleaneating Instagram posts may be placing increased pressure on girls and women, as the posts may exacerbate bad feelings about themselves and their bodies.”

The Verge: Meta open sources early-stage AI translation tool that works across 200 languages. “Social media conglomerate Meta has created a single AI model capable of translating across 200 different languages, including many not supported by current commercial tools. The company is open-sourcing the project in the hopes that others will build on its work.”

Engadget: Meta’s first human rights report defends the company’s misinformation strategy. “Meta has released its first yearly human rights report, and you might not be shocked by the angle the company is taking. As CNBC notes, the 83-page document outlines the Facebook parent’s handling of human rights issues during 2020 and 2021, with a strong focus on justifying the company’s strategies for combatting misinformation and harassment.”

News@Northeastern: Facebook Ad Algorithms May Be Harmful To Well-informed Democratic Society, Northeastern Research Scientist Tells European Parliament. “Northeastern University research scientist Piotr Sapiezynski recently told the European Parliament that Facebook’s ad delivery algorithms may be harmful both to political campaigns and to society at large. Sapiezynski testified during a hearing on draft legislation concerning transparency and targeting of political advertising in Brussels.”

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July 19, 2022 at 06:54PM
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Digital Equity Data Dashboard, Josquin des Prez, Global Brands Database, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, July 19, 2022

Digital Equity Data Dashboard, Josquin des Prez, Global Brands Database, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, July 19, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Microsoft Blog: A street-by-street view of digital inequity in the United States. “Today, Microsoft is releasing a new Digital Equity Data Dashboard to help create better understanding of the economic opportunity gaps in towns, cities and neighborhoods across the United States. The new tool was developed by our Chief Data Science Officer Juan Lavista Ferres and the Microsoft AI for Good Lab, and aggregates public data from the Census Bureau, Federal Communications Commission (FCC), BroadbandNow and Microsoft’s own Broadband Usage Data.”

Stanford News: Stanford professor of music unravels centuries-old authorship mystery. “Rodin, associate professor of music in the School of Humanities and Sciences, recently evaluated the authorship of the 346 pieces of music attributed to Josquin [ des Prez] (1450–1521) using an approach that blends scientific rigor with methods from the arts and humanities. As part of this massive undertaking, Rodin created the Josquin Research Project, a searchable, online database of music by Josquin and his contemporaries.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

UK Government: UK Intellectual Property Office joins WIPOS global brands database. “The Global Brands Database is an online resource made freely available by WIPO. It provides access to more than 50 million records, from some 71 national and international collections, in one place…. Initially, the UK will add around 3 million records, starting with existing registered trade marks.”

CNBC: Snapchat is finally coming to the web after more than a decade as a mobile app. “Snap, the parent of the popular photo and messaging app, said Monday that it’s debuting Snapchat for Web, allowing users to send messages and make video calls to their contacts from their computers.”

USEFUL STUFF

NPR: How to protect your privacy when using mental health care apps. “With online mental health services providing a convenient alternative to traditional methods of in-person therapy for many people, NPR asked digital privacy experts to weigh in on what you should know about protecting your privacy when using these types of platforms. The privacy tips here can apply to more than just online therapy services, but experts say these steps can help with privacy related to therapy apps as well.”

Online Journalism Blog: Twitter Spaces: a how-to guide for newsrooms. “Twitter’s new Spaces feature allows journalists to build a close connection with their audiences while expanding stories coverage. In a guest post for OJB, Catalunya Ràdio’s Carla Pedret shares her tips for using the platform.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Bend Bulletin: The Hen Party helped these women gain independence decades before the liberation movement. “From its start in the 1930s, the Hen Party was an early and localized precursor to the women’s rights movement that would sweep the nation 30 years later. Now, nearly 50 years after [Jean] Birnie’s death, her three adopted grandchildren — sisters Melissa Over, 68; Sharon Mascia, 78; and Sally Flury-Deitchler, 77 — want to make the Hen Party archive public. Their biological grandmother, a friend of Birnie’s, passed away before the sisters were born, and Birnie — whose only child died at a young age from a horseback-riding accident — unofficially became part of their family.”

Washington Post: Preservationists say Library of Congress makeover plan is ‘vandalism’. “A proposed change to the ornate Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress that critics say would remove the symbolic and functional heart of the 1897 Beaux-Arts masterpiece has landed the library on the D.C. Preservation League’s 2022 list of Most Endangered Places.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Vice: From Industrial-Scale Scam Centers, Trafficking Victims Are Being Forced to Steal Billions. “From industrial-scale scam centers in Southeast Asia, criminal syndicates have spent the pandemic perfecting an intricate romance-meets-investment fraud called Shāzhūpán (pig butchering scams). Teams of scammers use sophisticated scripts to ‘fatten up’ their targets, grooming individuals like [Cindy] Tsai and enticing them into investment schemes increasingly centered on cryptocurrency, before going in for the ‘slaughter’ and stealing their money.”

Morocco World News: Indonesia Threatens to Block Whatsapp, Facebook, and Google. “Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information has threatened to ban all online services and sites, including digital giants like Whatsapp, Facebook, and Google, on July 21 if they fail to register with the country’s government.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: No, submitting junk data to period tracking apps won’t protect reproductive privacy. “As researchers who develop and evaluate technologies that help people manage their health, we analyze how app companies collect data from their users to provide useful services. We know that for popular period tracking applications, millions of people would need to input junk data to even nudge the algorithm.”

NewsWise: Life Gets Easier with ReadMe Program that Digitizes Documents and Images Developed Right Here in Thailand. “A team from Chula’s Faculty of Engineering have made use of AI Deep Tech to develop a program that scans documents and images into OCR documents. The program is more than 90% accurate when reading Thai scripts and Chula’s UTC is now ready for a spin-off to the market through Eikonnex AI Co. Ltd.” Good morning, Internet…

July 19, 2022 at 05:26PM
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Monday, July 18, 2022

Residential Sustainable Products Database, Phone Call Apps, AI-Based Chatbots, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 18, 2022

Residential Sustainable Products Database, Phone Call Apps, AI-Based Chatbots, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 18, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

GlobeNewswire: EEBA Launches Residential Sustainable Products Database in Partnership With Ecomedes (PRESS RELEASE). “The EEBA & ecomedes Sustainable Products Database allows builders, architects, engineers, and designers to search and compare products by category, brand, certifications, ecolabels, and performance criteria. Once selected, users can calculate the materials’ environmental impacts to evaluate how they help achieve their projects’ specific green rating systems, including the US Green Building Councils’ LEED programs, the International Living Future Institute’s Living Building Challenge, the Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Homes program, and more.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 8 Calling Apps to Make Free Phone Calls From Anywhere. “Ditch mobile calling plans and opt for calling apps to make free calls over Wi-Fi. They’ll also work over mobile data, but make sure you’ve got unlimited data so you don’t get hit with overages. While some of these apps give you your own number, others require both parties to have the same app. Either way, they’re free and you can call, text, and even video chat as much as you want.”

MakeUseOf: 8 Virtual AI Companions to Chat and Have Fun With . “Most of us already use AI assistants like Siri or Alexa for carrying out simple tasks. But, in case you don’t know, you can have a virtual AI companion and chat with them as you do with your friends. These AI chatbots can be fun to talk to and help you overcome loneliness. Below, we list the eight AI companion chatbots you should try out.” These chatbots are fun to play with, but please remember you should not assume any kind of privacy to your conversations.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: By signing stars, YouTube aims to replicate Twitch’s secret weapon: culture. “Despite stacking its deck with big names, YouTube accounted for just 14 percent of streaming hours watched in the first quarter of this year according to a report published by analytics firms Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet. Twitch, a vastly smaller platform than YouTube overall, nonetheless claimed 76 percent.”

New York Times: In Rome, a New Museum for Recovered Treasures Before They Return Home. “Last month, Italian officials inaugurated a new museum here whose title sets a lofty agenda: the Museo dell’Arte Salvata, or the Museum of Rescued Art. Rescued art is a broad term, it turns out, and the museum will showcase the myriad ways in which artworks can be salvaged — from thieves, from the rubble of earthquakes and other national disasters, from ancient shipwrecks in the Mediterranean or from the ravages of time by Italy’s expert restorers.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ABC News: California social media addiction bill drops parent lawsuits. “A first-of-its-kind proposal in the California Legislature aimed at holding social media companies responsible for harming children who have become addicted to their products would no longer let parents sue popular platforms like Instagram and TikTok.”

KnowTechie: Ring is giving your camera footage to police without a warrant. “Ring has been giving out its users’ camera footage to law enforcement, even without the owners’ consent or a court-ordered warrant. The Amazon subsidiary is apparently very friendly with law enforcement, giving out unwarranted user footage to cops at least 11 times this year.”

BBC: Firms ‘going to war’ against rivals on social media. “A growing number of unscrupulous companies are using bots or fake accounts to run smear campaigns against their competitors on social media, it is claimed. That’s the warning from Lyric Jain, the chief executive of Logically, a high-tech monitoring firm that uses artificial intelligence (AI) software to trawl the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to find so called ‘fake news’ – disinformation and misinformation.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NewsWise: Gender Plays Key Role in Influencer Call-Outs. ” Social media influencers stake their claim in the pop culture landscape by crafting aspirational personas and sharing intimate details of their lives with online audiences. … But in addition to their loyal fans, there is a legion of equally passionate ‘anti-fans,’ whose self-appointed mission is to hold these influential people accountable by calling out inauthenticity, unrealistic portrayals of ‘real life,’ and outright deception. Anti-fandom can serve a social function by allowing people to critique norm transgressions, but it can also be a destructive force, a Cornell-led research team proposes.”

The Next Web: Scathing study exposes Google’s harmful approach to AI development. “A study published earlier this week by Surge AI appears to lay bare one of the biggest problems plaguing the AI industry: bullshit, exploitative data-labeling practices.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 19, 2022 at 12:52AM
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Western Fire Chiefs Association Fire Map, Voter Digital Literacy, Chrome OS Flex, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, July 18, 2022

Western Fire Chiefs Association Fire Map, Voter Digital Literacy, Chrome OS Flex, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, July 18, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Western Fire Chiefs Association: The Western Fire Chiefs Association Introduces Its Wildland Fire Map to Communities and News Sources, Protecting Lives and Land. “The WFCA Fire Map pulls data from the US Forest Service via National Interagency Fire Center IRWIN feed, and 911 Dispatch data via PulsePoint to track the location of the wildﬁre as they start and while they’re burning. The WFCA Fire Map is the ﬁrst map of its kind to pull such data from 911 Dispatch in relevant areas.” The map seems to cover a lot of western America – I saw fires denoted in several states including Wyoming, New Mexico, and California.

Poynter: MediaWise launches a free text message course to help voters prepare for the US midterms. “With less than four months until the U.S. midterms, the social-first digital media literacy initiative MediaWise at the nonprofit Poynter Institute has launched Find Facts Fast, a free multimedia messaging service that teaches voters how to quickly discover reliable and trustworthy information online.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google’s Chrome OS Flex is now available for old PCs and Macs. “Google is releasing Chrome OS Flex today, a new version of Chrome OS that’s designed for businesses and schools to install and run on old PCs and Macs. Google first started testing Chrome OS Flex earlier this year in an early access preview, and the company has now resolved 600 bugs to roll out Flex to businesses and schools today.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNN: Filipinos are buying books to preserve the truth about the Marcos regime. “Filipinos living abroad are snapping up books about the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, not just to read about history but to preserve it. The rush to buy books documenting Marcos’ destructive 21-year reign comes as his son, Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr., assumes office after a landslide election victory in May.”

Thoroughbred Daily News: Behind the Lens: Two Million Photographs, One Passionate Historian. “Two summers ago, when six-time Eclipse Award-winning photographer Barbara D. Livingston acquired the entire five-decade archive of noted 20th Century racetrack photographer Jim Raftery, she thought the hard part would be getting the 300 oversized boxes from Florida to New York in the middle of a pandemic.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NBC Sports: New Twitter account tracks Dan Snyder’s superyacht. “Commanders owner Dan Snyder, who possibly has opted to run out the clock with the House Oversight Committee by remaining on his superyacht through at least the November election or at most the commencement of the new Congress in January, cannot secure shelter from the prying eyes of social media. A new Twitter account tracks Snyder’s massive boat, the Lady S, wherever it may be.”

Texas A&M Today: Researchers To Enhance Security Of Next-Generation Wireless Systems. “Guofei Gu, professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, is the lead principal investigator of a research team that has received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Resilient and Intelligent Next-Generation Systems (RINGS) program to enhance the security of future wireless and mobile network systems.”

Reuters: South Africa’s Competition Watchdog Says Google’s Ad Practices Distort Competition. “South Africa’s Competition Commission, which has been probing online markets for over a year, has provisionally found that Google’s paid search results distort competition, making it a ‘de facto monopolist’ in general search.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Vox EU: Social media influences the mainstream media. “This column reports on a new research project, relying on nearly two billion tweets and an innovative empirical approach, which shows that not only does Twitter set the agenda of media coverage in a quantitatively meaningful way, it also influences mainstream media due to short-term considerations generated by advertising revenue-bearing clicks.”

NewsWise: Data Governance Mapping Project Finds Most Countries Struggle to Govern Data . “A new report from the George Washington University’s Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub finds that some 68 countries and the European Union struggle to govern various types of data in a comprehensive, democratic and accountable manner. The researchers argue that this failure has huge implications for governance of technologies — such as artificial intelligence and augmented/virtual reality — which comprise the next phase of the internet.”

WIRED: How I Accidentally Broke My Doomscrolling Habit. “AS READERS OF this column know, there’s no shame in a mobile game. Despite the fact that at one point in my not-too-distant past I’d been embarrassed about my consumption of corny phone games, Merge Mansion captured my soul and in the process transformed my relationship with mobile gaming and social media. Tuning in to Merge Mansion made it possible for me to tune out doomscrolling.” Currently on level 3125 of Kitten Match and not ashamed.

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: A Home Made Sewing Machine May Be The Only One. “The sewing machine is a tool that many of us will have somewhere around our workshop. Concealed within it lies an intricate and fascinating mechanism. Some of us may have peered inside, but very few indeed of us will have gone to the effort of building our own. In case you had ever wondered whether it was possible, [Fraens] has done just that, with what he claims may be the only entirely homemade sewing machine on the Internet.” Good morning, Internet…

July 18, 2022 at 05:28PM
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Sunday, July 17, 2022

AR Apps, Current Events Vocabulary, FCC CORES Database, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 17, 2022

AR Apps, Current Events Vocabulary, FCC CORES Database, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 17, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

CNET: These Free AR Apps Glimpse a Metaverse Future if Artists Were in Charge. “These experiences give glimpses of what’s possible with AR, which you’ve likely interacted with through Instagram and other social media filters, or trying out digitized replicas of an Ikea couch in your living room…. They’re also a tease of what things look like if our destiny really is to live in a metaverse (debatable).”

NiemanLab: Lost for words? A new, free resource offers journalists guidance on thorny topics. “Using funding from Google News Initiative, the project brought together a long list of news leaders to write a style guide with more than 275 entries — including ones for ‘crisis pregnancy center,’ ‘opportunity gap,’ and ‘DREAMer’ — containing detailed definitions, notes on usage, and additional resources.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

In Compliance: FCC to Retire Legacy CORES Database. “The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced plans to discontinue access to its legacy online database for filing and tracking certain applications, including amateur radio applications and licenses.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 8 Sites and Extensions to Make Google Maps Even Better. “Google Maps is by far the most popular online mapping service used today. People love how easily they can look up directions or search around a specific location. On top of that, Google Maps is now also integrated with many other popular sites and services we use. However, there are ways to make Google Maps even better with these eight extensions and websites.”

MakeUseOf: The 9 Best Recipe Organizer Apps to Replace Your Cookbooks. “Recipe managers can help you find, create, and keep recipes in a single place. You can even save handwritten recipes without typing them in one by one. The following are some of the best recipe organizer apps for Android and iPhone that will make you want to do away with your cookbook altogether.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

India Today: Govt mulls IT law revision to make Google, Facebook share revenue with news outlets. “Tech giants, like Google and Facebook, may soon have to share the revenue earned by them by means of displaying content of news publishers on their platforms. The government is reportedly mulling revision in IT laws to effect this change.”

Ars Technica: Cryptocurrency flowing into “mixers” hits an all-time high. Wanna guess why?. “Mixers, also known as tumblers, obfuscate cryptocurrency transactions by creating a disconnect between the funds a user deposits and the funds the user withdraws. To do this, mixers pool funds deposited by large numbers of users and randomly mix them. Each user can withdraw the entire amount deposited, minus a cut for the mixer, but because the coins come from this jumbled pool, it’s harder for blockchain investigators to track precisely where the money went.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: Text Your Friends. It Matters More Than You Think . “Calling, texting or emailing a friend just to say ‘hello’ might seem like an insignificant gesture — a chore, even, that isn’t worth the effort. Or maybe you worry an unexpected check-in wouldn’t be welcome, as busy as we all tend to be. But new research suggests that casually reaching out to people in our social circles means more than we realize.”

Cornell Chronicle: Smart thermostats inadvertently strain electric power grids. “Smart thermostats – those inconspicuous wall devices that help homeowners govern electricity usage and save energy – may be falling into a dumb trap. Set by default to turn on before dawn, the smart thermostats unintentionally work in concert with other thermostats throughout neighborhoods and regions to prompting inadvertent, widespread energy-demand spikes on the grid.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Boing Boing: The Ai Promise Collection allows users to submit a personal promise in the form of a photographed note. “The Ai Promise Collection allows users to submit a personal promise in the form of a photographed note. There are currently 60 promises which you can click and view, such as #29, which states ‘I will never forget my dream.'” When you see Ai, you may think AI, but I believe “Ai” in Japanese means love/affection, which is the reference here. Good afternoon, Internet…

July 18, 2022 at 12:50AM
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Saturday, July 16, 2022

Historic Artists’ Sites of Long Island, TikTok, Google Maps, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 16, 2022

Historic Artists’ Sites of Long Island, TikTok, Google Maps, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 16, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Heckscher Museum of Art: Historic Artists’ Sites of Long Island Website Launched. “The website is an online guide to discover the living and working environments of some of America’s most influential artists. Visitors to the site can explore these homes and studios, experience the surroundings that inspired the artists, and gain insights into their creative processes. Many of these locations are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: TikTok’s global security chief is stepping down amid US user data controversy. “TikTok’s global chief security officer (CSO) will step down from that position and shift into a strategic advisory role. Roland Cloutier’s change in duties follows concerns about how the company is handling US user data.”

9to5Google: Google Maps to offer energy-efficient routes tailored to electric vehicles, hybrids, more. “While gas-powered vehicles are still all too common in the United States, there’s a growing number of hybrids and electric vehicles on the road, and quite a few diesel-powered ones as well. Suffice it to say the most efficient route for a traditional ICE car will not be the same as one for an electric. To that end, the latest beta update to Google Maps, version 11.39, includes preparations to specify the engine type of the vehicle you’re currently driving.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: Meet the Lobbyist Next Door . “Launched in 2020 by a pair of former Trump administration staffers, Urban Legend pledges on its website to ‘help brands run accountable and impactful influencer campaigns.’ Its more comprehensive mission, one rarely articulated in public, is slightly more ambitious. Staffed by a plucky 14-person team, Urban Legend keeps its largest asset carefully hidden away inside its servers: an army of 700 social media influencers who command varying degrees of allegiance from audiences that collectively number in the tens of millions.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Thousands of websites run buggy WordPress plugin that allows complete takeover. “Miscreants have reportedly scanned almost 1.6 million websites in attempts to exploit an arbitrary file upload vulnerability in a previously disclosed buggy WordPress plugin. Traced as CVE-2021-24284, the vuln targets Kaswara Modern WPBakery Page Builder Addons and, if exploited, it would allow criminals to upload malicious JavaScript files and even completely take over an organization’s website.”

Ars Technica: Hackers are targeting industrial systems with malware. “From the what-could-possibly-go-wrong files comes this: An industrial control engineer recently made a workstation part of a botnet after inadvertently installing malware advertising itself as a means for recovering lost passwords.”

Reuters: Google hit with $971,000 sanction for litigation misconduct in privacy suit. “A U.S. judge on Friday ordered Alphabet Inc’s Google to pay more than $971,000 in legal fees and costs as a penalty for litigation misconduct in a privacy lawsuit in California federal court.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Poynter: Opinion | Democracy dies behind a paywall. “Big Tech giants like Facebook and Google are gorging on the advertising revenue that once sustained news organizations, so the publications have tightened access to their products to get people to pay for it through subscriptions. While that strategy has helped bolster news organizations’ bottom lines at a time when a healthy free press is sorely needed, it has also had the dangerous side effect of leaving the vast majority of Americans in the dark.”

TechCrunch: Kids and teens now spend more time watching TikTok than YouTube, new data shows. “Kids and teens are now spending more time watching videos on TikTok than on YouTube. In fact, that’s been the case since June 2020 — the month when TikTok began to outrank YouTube in terms of the average minutes per day people ages 4 through 18 spent accessing these two competitive video platforms. That month, TikTok overtook YouTube for the first time, as this younger demographic began averaging 82 minutes per day on TikTok versus an average of 75 minutes per day on YouTube.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: It’s A Bird! It’s A Plane! It’s… A Live Air Traffic Plane Spotting Simulation . “By using publicly available information, software, and some ingenuity, [Information Zulu] has created a live simulation of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) for your simulated plane spotting pleasure.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 16, 2022 at 11:59PM
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Commercial Agriculture Imports, Apple Maps, Windows, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 16, 2022

Commercial Agriculture Imports, Apple Maps, Windows, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 16, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

USDA: New USDA Database Will Replace Three Import Manuals and the Fruit and Vegetable Imports Requirement (FAVIR) Database. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has developed a new database called ‘Agricultural Commodity Import Requirements’ (ACIR). ACIR gives users a simple search interface for finding and displaying import requirements for agricultural commodities.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Apple Insider: Apple Maps gets more detailed 3D data for three more countries. “France, Monaco, and New Zealand all now have updated terrain and road details as Apple Maps’ new map data reaches sixteen unique locations. New in Apple Maps are better highlighted areas, redesigned name labels, updated terrain information, improved visual clutter, as well as the addition of 3D models in locations for those three countries.”

Ars Technica: Report: Microsoft will return to releasing new Windows versions once every 3 years . “Rather than updating a single version of Windows for many years as it did with Windows 10, Microsoft plans to return to a schedule where it releases a new major version of Windows roughly once every three years, putting a hypothetical ‘Windows 12’ on track for release at some point in the fall of 2024.”

USEFUL STUFF

Online Journalism Blog: VIDEO: An introduction to HTML and CSS for data journalists. “In this video — first made for students on the MA in Data Journalism at Birmingham City University and shared as part of a series of video posts — I provide an introduction to the aspects of HTML and CSS that are helpful for those starting out with data journalism. It is best watched alongside the previous video on responsive web design.” The video is hosted on YouTube and the captions are auto-generated. The English ones are pretty good with only a few errors.

Search Engine Journal: Twitter Analytics – Uncover The Best Twitter Marketing Insights. “Do you need insight into your Twitter engagement Twitter Analytics allows you to dive into the data behind your top Tweets, audience growth, and conversations. Continue reading to find out how to access Twitter Analytics and what insights you can use to improve your Twitter marketing.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: The Tech Magic That Unleashed Your Best. “Last week, our On Tech editor, Hanna Ingber, shared a story of her kiddo stumbling upon a design app that unlocked his amazing taste for interiors. We asked for your own tales of surprising ways in which technology helped you unleash creativity or discover new joys. You guys (sniff), the responses were lovely. We’re sharing a selection of them today.”

CNET: Google Search Glitch Means You’re Not Seeing New Content From Websites . “Google said Friday that it’s experiencing ongoing indexing issues preventing new content and articles from appearing in Search. This means that when you’re searching for terms on Google, any articles recently published won’t appear in Search. Google says an update will come within 12 hours.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CoinTelegraph: US Treasury calls for public comment on digital asset policy, following Biden’s executive order . “The United State Department of the Treasury has requested comments from the public on the potential opportunities and risks of digital assets in compliance with President Joe Biden’s executive order from March.”

Engadget: FCC chair proposes raising broadband standard to 100Mbps. “The FCC’s 25Mbps broadband standard seemed fast in 2015, but that was seven years ago — and the agency’s current leadership believes it’s time to raise that baseline. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has proposed raising the minimum definition of broadband to 100Mbps for downloads and 20Mbps for uploads.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Penn State: Delayed diagnosis inspires student to create AI tool for mental health. “Each year, Loc Phan, a physics major in the Eberly College of Science, would travel from his urban home in Ho Chi Minh City to the rural Vietnamese province of Vinh Long and visit family members. One summer, Phan said he observed something different about one of his relatives. The events that followed ignited a journey of seeking change that brought him to the Nittany AI Challenge and gave him the chance to create a tool for mental health in rural communities.”

Sanger Institute: World’s largest database for predicting cancer treatment response based on cancer proteins . “Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) in Sydney, Australia, have completed a protein map for 949 cancer cell lines across over 40 cancer types, which have been tested with 650 different treatments. Advanced computational methods were then used to predict the response of cancer cells to treatment.”

Harvard Business Review: Is Data Scientist Still the Sexiest Job of the 21st Century?. That noise you hear is me cringing at the headline. “In our research for the original article, many data scientists noted that they spend much of their time cleaning and wrangling data, and that is still the case despite a few advances in using AI itself for data management improvements. In addition, many organizations don’t have data-driven cultures and don’t take advantage of the insights provided by data scientists. Being hired and paid well doesn’t mean that data scientists will make a difference in their employers. Even so, the job has changed — in both large and small ways.” Good morning, Internet…

July 16, 2022 at 05:26PM
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