Digital Heritage Archive, Higher Education Options, YouTube, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, July 26, 2022

Digital Heritage Archive, Higher Education Options, YouTube, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, July 26, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me, from CBC: University of Calgary profs digitally preserve endangered heritage site in B.C.. “For Prof. Peter Dawson, digital preservation is the next best thing when a site cannot be preserved physically due to cost or environmental factors. Using a terrestrial laser scanner, Dawson and his team capture data on heritage sites to create virtual replicas that can be accessed online by the public. The Digital Heritage Archive focuses on ‘grassroots’ heritage sites like the Swiss village. These are sites meaningful to individuals and communities despite not having official designations of significance.”

PR Newswire: CCsmart.org Helps Americans Understand the Value of a Community College Education (PRESS RELEASE). “CCsmart is an evidenced-based and data driven website designed to make it easier to find reliable information about higher education pathways, from workforce training to associate degrees to transfer options to bachelor’s degrees. It also provides easy to understand information about financial options for various credential and degree options and aid options beyond just Pell Grants and the FAFSA.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: YouTube will start removing misinformation related to abortion. “YouTube on Thursday said it will no longer allow misinformation related to abortion on its platform, including false claims about the safety of the procedure and potentially unsafe instructions about how to self-induce an abortion.”

CNET: TikTok Now Lets Viewers Turn Captions On or Off on Any Video. “TikTok, the popular video sharing social media platform, said Thursday that viewers can now choose to turn auto-generated captions on or off on all videos. Before, creators had to enable captions on their videos in order for people to use them.”

USEFUL STUFF

Smashing Magazine: Powerful Image Optimization Tools. “Optimizing the size of images can have a bigger impact on performance than all other areas combined. In this article, Louis Lazaris covers different tools available for reducing the size of images.” Another excellent roundup from Smashing Magazine.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: Bookstagram Is Fueling an Unnerving Trend. “Readers and reviewers have never been more able to get their voices heard. The rise of Bookstagram and more recently BookTok have enabled bibliophiles to share recommendations, point out plot holes, and discuss fan theories on an unprecedented scale. Yet writers want you to know that it’s one thing to tell the world that you don’t like a book, and another thing entirely to tell its author.”

Library of Congress: “Wow, it’s WordStar!” Exploring a Beloved Early Word Processor and its Many Formats . “Over the course of our Junior Fellowship this summer, we have focused on a variety of streams of work around the Library of Congress’ Sustainability of Digital Formats website. The site contains an extensive list of commonly used file formats, wrappers, and encodings. There are thousands of these created by legacy equipment and software that present challenges in identification, preservation, and use. Among these is the file format produced by the now-defunct word processing platform WordStar.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CitizenLab: Hooking Candiru: Another Mercenary Spyware Vendor Comes into Focus. “Candiru is a secretive Israel-based company that sells spyware exclusively to governments. Reportedly, their spyware can infect and monitor iPhones, Androids, Macs, PCs, and cloud accounts. Using Internet scanning we identified more than 750 websites linked to Candiru’s spyware infrastructure.”

Daily Dot: EXCLUSIVE: Anti-vax dating site that let people advertise ‘mRNA FREE’ semen left all its user data exposed. “After the Daily Dot set up a test account on the platform, GeopJr was able to change the account’s private email address, username, and profile picture. GeopJr was also able to edit a public post made by the Daily Dot and change its wording. Other data such as the site’s backups could be downloaded or deleted. GeopJr was able to give away $15 per month subscriptions to Unjected as well as reply to and delete help center tickets and reported posts.”

Ars Technica: Two senators propose ban on data caps, blasting ISPs for “predatory” limits. “US Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) want to ban Internet data caps. The senators today introduced the ‘Uncap America Act,’ which would ‘prohibit predatory data caps that force families to pay high costs and unnecessary fees to access high-speed broadband,’ they said in a press release.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Johns Hopkins: AI Speeds Sepsis Detection To Prevent Hundreds Of Deaths. “Patients are 20% less likely to die of sepsis because of a new AI system developed at Johns Hopkins University that catches symptoms hours earlier than traditional methods, an extensive hospital study demonstrates.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of Central Florida: UCF Faculty Combines Harry Potter with Pharmacology Course to Improve Student Outcomes . “Incorporating interactive games in the course has proven to enhance academic success; the number of students who earned an ‘A’ in the class improved by almost 200% in the past three years, and there has been a 73% decline in the number of non-pass students (students who earn a ‘D’ or an ‘F’ in the class).” Good morning, Internet…

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July 26, 2022 at 05:31PM
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Medieval Manuscripts, Michigan Monkeypox Information, Library of Congress, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 25, 2022

Medieval Manuscripts, Michigan Monkeypox Information, Library of Congress, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 25, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Otago Daily Times: Medieval manuscripts enter 21st century. “A cache of medieval manuscripts, once owned by former publisher AH Reed, have been transferred to the digital age, writes Simon Henderson.”

Monroe News: State of Michigan creates monkeypox information website. “Created by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), the site provides information about the signs and symptoms of MPV, the number of cases in the state by county, treatment, and resources for the public.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Library of Congress: What’s new online at the Library of Congress – Summer 2022. New and updated collections, new datasets, over 500 new open access ebooks, newly-digitized books, and crowdsourced transcriptions.

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: BeReal Basics: How to Use the ‘Unfiltered’ Social Media App. “BeReal sends users a prompt at a random time each day, urging them to snap a picture and send it to their friends. You only have two minutes to respond, and a two-image collage is captured from your front and back cameras.”

Tom’s Hardware: How to Connect Your Raspberry Pi Pico W to Twitter via IFTTT. “We’ve already covered how to pass data to and from a Raspberry Pi Pico W to another web service, Anvil. But what if you just want to collect some data and send it off into the world? There are many ways to do this, but the simplest has to be IFTTT.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Balkan Transitional Justice: Fractured History: Why Kosovo Has No Proper Wartime Archive. “The Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms is still the main repository for records produced by various individual human rights activists in Kosovo from 1989 to 1999. Over the last two decades, very little has been done to collect archive materials related to the war. Since the war ended, the Kosovo State Archives hasn’t managed to create any proper archival collection. The head of the State Archives, Bedri Zyberaj said that the materials it holds related to the war are photographs and some articles from foreign newspapers about the conflict.”

TechRadar: I came across this unloved browser and now Google Chrome looks even worse. “From controlling how much of any given resource websites can use to built-in adblocker to its tight integrations with Discord, YouTube Music, and more directly through the browser interface, there are near endless ways users can augment their experience with Opera GX.”

CNET: How An NFT Trader Lost $150K Trying to Troll Twitter Bots. “Scams and frauds are ubiquitous in crypto, but sometimes the biggest losses are those people inflict upon themselves. On Wednesday, one NFT trader suffered a spectacular loss of 100 ether, or $150,000, because of a joke gone wrong.” It was a silly thing for them to do, but much respect to this person for 100% owning it.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Axios: Exclusive: White House cyber office taps Google exec. “The White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director has named Google executive Camille Stewart Gloster as a deputy national cyber director focused on workforce programs and supply chain security issues, according to an administration official familiar with the hire.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Augusta University: New collaboration teaches empathy via virtual reality. “LIVE [Learning through Interprofessional Virtual Experiences] uses virtual reality to train nurses through end-of-life simulation, which teaches them empathy and helps them practice techniques to better support their future patients and families.”

Search Engine Journal: $115M In Ad Spend Lost To Clickbait Sites, Report Finds. “Media investment analysis company Ebiquity found that clickbait and made-for-advertising (MFA) sites captured $115 million of their clients’ $1.47 billion ad budget from January 2020 to May 2022. This translates to 7.8% of their clients’ ad budget, rising to 9.8% for US clients.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 26, 2022 at 12:08AM
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Promise Programs, DALL-E, DoReCo Linguistics Database, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, July 25, 2022

Promise Programs, DALL-E, DoReCo Linguistics Database, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, July 25, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Diverse Issues In Higher Education: College Promise Launches Searchable Nationwide Database for Promise Programs. “The tool, MyPromise, has information about the more than 350 local and state Promise programs in the U.S., including funding levels, eligibility requirements, and number of semesters the Promise covers. The tool offers an interactive map and a comparison tool.”

OpenAI: DALL·E Now Available in Beta. “DALL·E, the AI system that creates realistic images and art from a description in natural language, is now available in beta. Today we’re beginning the process of inviting 1 million people from our waitlist over the coming weeks.”

EVENTS

Informationsdienst Wissenschaft: Big data on small languages: Release of the DoReCo online database. “On July 29, linguists working all over the world will gather in Berlin at Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft to celebrate the online release of the DoReCo data base, which provides access to audio recordings from more than 50 languages, along with their transcriptions, translations, and detailed linguistic analyses. Admission to the hybrid event is free, but registration is required.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: Google Search’s built-in timer and stopwatch have disappeared. “Google Search has long featured a collection of simple tools, but the stopwatch and timer has mysteriously disappeared in the past day or so. Searching for those terms today just returns a list of results, including a Knowledge Panel, for websites offering online timers and stopwatches. Previously, there would be a box underneath the search field with two tabs.”

MyHeritage Blog: 22 Historical Record Collections Added in June 2022. “We are proud to announce that we added 22 record collections with 12.8 million historical records from across the globe, including the U.S., Canada, Belgium, France, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Ukraine.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Conversation: Celebrity deepfakes are all over TikTok. Here’s why they’re becoming common – and how you can spot them. “Although deepfakes are often used creatively or for fun, they’re increasingly being deployed in disinformation campaigns, for identity fraud and to discredit public figures and celebrities. And while the technology needed to make them is sophisticated, it’s becoming increasingly accessible, leaving detection software and regulation lagging behind. One thing is for sure – deepfakes are here to stay. So what can we do about them?”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NilePost: UPPC to digitize Uganda’s national archive. “The Uganda Publishing and Printing Corporation (UPPC) has said it is in the process of digitizing the vast amount of information and documents in our stores and will build a national archive.”

Washington Post: Popular block game ‘Minecraft’ says no to NFTs and the blockchain. “Mojang Studios, the Microsoft-owned developer behind the wildly popular procedurally generated sandbox game “Minecraft,” announced Wednesday that NFTs and other blockchain products would not be supported by the studio or allowed in the game.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Thomson Reuters Foundation: Doxxing: a new tool of repression against Arab women. “In Tunisia and other Arab states, the malicious posting of personal information on social media – known as doxxing – is increasingly being used to harass and intimidate women, anti-government protesters and LGBTQ+ activists.”

Bleeping Computer: Convincing ‘YouTube’ Google ads lead to Windows support scams. “A scarily realistic-looking Google Search YouTube advertisement is redirecting visitors to tech support scams pretending to be security alerts from Windows Defender.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Michigan: Open source platform enables research on privacy-preserving machine learning. “The biggest benchmarking data set to date for a machine learning technique designed with data privacy in mind has been released open source by researchers at the University of Michigan. Called federated learning, the approach trains learning models on end-user devices, like smartphones and laptops, rather than requiring the transfer of private data to central servers.”

Newswise: Which Companies Could Become Maestros of the Metaverse?. “IFI CLAIMS – a Digital Science company dedicated to providing the world’s most trusted patent data for research, innovation and technology – says patent applications provide telling insights into the leaders of innovation.” Good morning, Internet…

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July 25, 2022 at 05:29PM
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Global Wildlife Conservation, Wolfram|Alpha, FestivalNet, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 24, 2022

Global Wildlife Conservation, Wolfram|Alpha, FestivalNet, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 24, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

ScienceDaily: New database to support conservation. “The database presents a valuable tool for planning conservation actions at any spatial scale and preventing species extinctions globally. This represents a large volume of literature that captures a wide variety of threats such as the collection of medicinal plants, hunting, pollution, and alien invasive species, that are particularly difficult to account for in global datasets.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Wolfram Blog: Wolfram|Alpha, Now in Español!. “The Spanish version includes all the math topics available in the English version. The wide diversity of math topics included in Wolfram|Alpha allows it to answer almost any question, from elementary math to differential equations and elliptic functions.”

AccessWire: FestivalNet(R) Updates Largest Database of Festivals and Fairs in North America (PRESS RELEASE). “From spring to winter, FestivalNet® covers 18,000 events around North America, each of which attracts hundreds or thousands of patrons, vendors, and visitors, creating opportunities in each host city, and a chance to experience new and exciting exhibits, games, food, and entertainment.”

USEFUL STUFF

KnowTechie: PicWish is one of the best image background removers out there. “This free image background remover and photo editor has a solid number of features. And even better, there are bulk editing options for those large jobs. Previously, you’d have to spend hours in Photoshop or offload the bulk work to someone on Fiverr.”

Gizmodo AU: Your Complete Guide to Google’s Best Time Waster, Google Earth. “Google Earth feels like a mixture between a mapping application and an educational tool, letting you pull off some really neat things with a render of the globe. What can you do with Google’s 3D world exploration tool, I hear you ask? Well, let’s explain.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

9to5Google: Carbon, a new programming language from Google, aims to be C++ successor. “Carbon, the latest programming language to be built within Google, was unveiled today as an experimental successor to C++.”

California State University San Marcos: Photographer’s Donated Collection Helps Preserve History of Region. “Thanks to the wisdom of [Bill] Dendle, the diligence of [Dan] Rios and the help of some history-loving friends, Rios’ life’s work as a photojournalist now belongs to the Cal State San Marcos library in perpetuity. Donated in 2018, the Dan Rios Papers, as the library’s Special Collections department has coined it, consists of an estimated one million images that were originally stashed in more than 40,000 envelopes and almost 200 boxes. The collection also contains large- and medium-format prints, contact sheets and hundreds of letters that Rios received over the years from readers who were affected by his photos.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NBC News: Neopets says its website was hacked. “Neopets, a website where users take care of virtual made-up species of ‘pets,’ was hacked this week. On Wednesday, the Neopets Twitter account said it is aware that ‘customer data may have been stolen’ and that it’s launched an investigation ‘assisted by a leading forensics firm.'”

US Department of Justice: Man Arrested For Leading Role In $10 Million Tech Support Fraud Scheme That Exploited Elderly Victims . “Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced charges against VINOTH PONMARAN for participating in a conspiracy that for several years exploited elderly victims by remotely accessing their computers and convincing victims to pay for computer support services they did not need, and which were never actually provided. In total, the conspiracy generated more than $10 million in proceeds from at least approximately 7,500 victims.”

Reuters: Uber admits covering up 2016 hacking affecting 57 million passengers and drivers. “Uber Technologies Inc on Friday accepted responsibility for covering up a 2016 data breach that affected 57 million passengers and drivers, as part of a settlement with US prosecutors to avoid criminal charges.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 25, 2022 at 12:11AM
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SQL For App Developers, Black Nurses in Segregated Bermuda, Microsoft Office, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 24, 2022

SQL For App Developers, Black Nurses in Segregated Bermuda, Microsoft Office, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 24, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

PR Newswire: Cockroach Labs Releases Free “SQL for App Developers” Courses to Bridge Education Gap (PRESS RELEASE). “Most SQL courses available today are designed for database administrators, operators, and data scientists–this six-course SQL program was designed for app developers by app developers to fill that gap.”

Bernews: Emancipation Website & Art Exhibition Launch. “Earlier this week, the Department of Culture unveiled an exhibition entitled ‘Pioneers Who Persevered: Black Nurses in Segregated Bermuda,’ which is currently on display at the Bermuda Society of Arts. ‘The exhibition is partially virtual and links to a new Emancipation website developed by the Department, which chronicles key milestones in Bermuda’s history,’ a spokesperson said.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bleeping Computer: Microsoft starts blocking Office macros by default, once again. “Microsoft announced today that it resumed the rollout of VBA macro auto-blocking in downloaded Office documents after temporarily rolling it back earlier this month following user feedback. The change comes after the company improved its user and admin support documentation to make it easier to understand the available options when a macro is blocked.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Hamilton College: Saving a Small Nation’s History. “In 2019, a team of Hamilton College staff and students traveled to the island of Nevis, birthplace of the College’s namesake Alexander Hamilton, to collaborate with staff members from the Nevis Historical and Conservation Society. Their goal was to digitize records in fragile physical condition and/or of significant historical value, including minutes of the Nevis Council, baptismal records from Anglican churches, and the only known printed copy of the Laws of Nevis (ca. 1773).”

MIT Technology Review: Chinese gamers are using a Steam wallpaper app to get porn past the censors. “Online porn is banned in China, so people there have to get creative to access it. Steam is one of the only popular global platforms still available in the country, and its community features, international high-speed servers, and increasingly hands-off approach when it comes to sexual content have made it an inevitable choice. Chinese users now make up at least 40% of Wallpaper Engine’s global user base, MIT Technology Review estimates.”

MarketingBrew: Reddit’s advertising policy seems to differ from subreddit to subreddit. “R/mileycyrus. r/mensrights. r/daftpunk. r/floridaman. These are the subreddits where, for one reason or another, Reddit doesn’t appear to allow advertising, according to a third-party tool. The results, pulled from the 2,500 most popular subreddits run through an API called Pushshift, show that despite spending the last decade courting advertisers and trying to address brand-safety concerns, Reddit’s actual brand-safety approach appears to be cautious, making it seem somewhat unpredictable and inconsistent.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: South Carolina lawmakers want to banish abortion talk from the Internet. “Known as the ‘Equal Protection at Conception—No Exceptions—Act,’ the bill would ban any website from hosting or publishing any information about accessing or self-inducing abortion ‘knowing that the information will be used, or is reasonably likely to be used, for an abortion.'”

Associated Press: Secret Service Jan. 6 texts erased despite Congress’ request. “Secret Service text messages from around the time of the attack on the U.S. Capitol were deleted despite requests from Congress and federal investigators that they be preserved, the agency confirmed Tuesday in response to a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 committee.”

Engadget: T-Mobile will pay $350 million to settle lawsuits over massive data breach. “If you were a T-Mobile customer in August 2021, you may get a few dollars from the carrier in the near future. It has agreed to settle a consolidated class action lawsuit filed against the company over a data breach that exposed the personal information of 76.6 million ‘current, former and prospective customers.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Texas at Austin: New Partnership Will Scale Up Investment in Ethical AI Research and Innovation. “AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas at Austin and the MITRE Corporation, a nonprofit dedicated to solving problems for a safer world, have formed a partnership that includes accelerating innovative ethical artificial intelligence (AI) research currently underway by interdisciplinary teams of researchers who are part of UT Austin’s Good Systems research grand challenge.”

Washington State University: ‘Nomadic broadband’ helps rural first responders stay connected. “The nomadic system taps a variety of wireless technologies and unused TV and radio wavelengths to provide high‑speed internet in Washington’s rugged, rural Ferry County, where digital connectivity is the sparsest in the state. In an emergency, that void can leave residents and first responders in the dark.”

Cornell University: Preventing scrollers’ remorse: How to know what users want. “A new model can help online media companies figure out what gives users long-term satisfaction – not just the instant gratification of continual scrolling – which may result in less time spent on the platform, but fewer users who quit entirely.” 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!

July 24, 2022 at 05:32PM
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New York Unemployment Statistics, Multilingual Picture Database, Google Play, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 23, 2022

New York Unemployment Statistics, Multilingual Picture Database, Google Play, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 23, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

State of New York: Governor Hochul Announces Launch of New Online Dashboards to Expand Access to Unemployment Data. “The Local Area Unemployment Statistics dashboard, a joint effort between New York State and the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, provides monthly and annual employment, unemployment, labor force, and unemployment rate data for New York State, labor market regions, metropolitan areas, counties, workforce investment regions, and municipalities of at least 25,000 people. The Unemployment Insurance dashboard contains weekly data on benefits paid, beneficiaries, and initial claims sorted by region, industry, and program.”

Scientific Data: The Multilingual Picture Database . “In this paper we present the Multilingual Picture (Multipic) database, containing naming norms and familiarity scores for 500 coloured pictures, in thirty-two languages or language varieties from around the world. The data was validated with standard methods that have been used for existing picture datasets. This is the first dataset to provide naming norms, and translation equivalents, for such a variety of languages; as such, it will be of particular value to psycholinguists and other interested researchers. The dataset has been made freely available.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google’s adding the app permissions section back to the Play Store after removing it. “Google says it’s rolling back its decision to remove a section from the Play Store that listed which permissions an app uses. The company had more or less replaced that info with its Data Safety section, which is supposed to give you an idea of what data apps are collecting and how that data is used. The problem, as several commentators pointed out, is that the information in the Data Safety section came from developers, whereas the app permissions section was generated by Google.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: The 22 most useful free iPhone apps, according to Reddit . “Redditors are providing an online public service by recommending extremely helpful iOS apps that are absolutely free. There are adventure apps, sleep apps, education apps, sleep apps, mental health apps, food apps, sleeeep apppppps. Yeah, you get the point. Check out our compilation of the best free iPhone apps that Redditors love.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NiemanLab: YouTube hit Channel 5 News is “reporting for people who don’t watch the news”. “Since hitting the road in 2019, [Andrew] Callaghan’s work has evolved beyond a parodic presentation of small-town news. He recently reported from Ukraine, interviewing the mayor of Lviv and refugees in the country and across the border in Poland. Much of the money that Channel 5 brings in is spent on operating costs for the traveling production, and the rest is split evenly between Callaghan and two collaborators.”

Poynter: Sri Lanka’s protests faced an information war. “Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa absconded via military aircraft to Singapore last week following protracted countrywide protests by Sri Lankans frustrated with what they saw as years of rank corruption, government overreach and economic mismanagement by the country’s ruling family. Rajapaksa’s resignation was the culmination of a financial crisis, mounting public criticism, hundreds of days of protests and an information war, in which state-sponsored media cast doubt on the legitimacy, viability and safety of the protests, at times under the guise of support.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Twitter Worker Accused of Spying for Saudi Arabia Heads to Trial. “While working at Twitter from 2013 to 2015, Ahmad Abouammo was responsible for helping celebrities, journalists and other notable figures in the Middle East promote their Twitter accounts. He handled requests for Twitter’s coveted blue verification badges and arranged tours of the San Francisco headquarters. But the Justice Department says he misused his access to Twitter user data, gathering the personal information of political dissidents and passing it to Saudi Arabia in exchange for a luxury watch and hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

CNN: Justice Department seizes $500K from North Korean hackers who targeted US medical organizations. “The US Justice Department seized approximately half a million dollars that North Korean government-backed hackers had either extorted from US health care organizations or used to launder ransom payments, deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Tuesday as she touted an aggressive US strategy to claw back money for victims of ransomware attacks.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Brigham Young University: Unboxing videos on YouTube: What parents need to watch for. “Videos of a child influencer opening a toy and demonstrating how to play with it have become wildly popular on YouTube, many garnering tens of millions of views from children around the globe. In fact, Walmart has a line of toys based on the reviews of a prominent kid YouTuber, Ryan Kaji of Ryan’s World. Unbeknownst to child viewers, however, is the fact that many of the toys shown in unboxing videos are paid for or provided by a brand, with the goal of influencing children.”

BBC: Blake Lemoine: Google fires engineer who said AI tech has feelings. “Last month, Blake Lemoine went public with his theory that Google’s language technology is sentient and should therefore have its ‘wants’ respected. Google, plus several AI experts, denied the claims and on Friday the company confirmed he had been sacked.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 24, 2022 at 12:21AM
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Global Plastics Policy Centre, National Gallery, Scientist-Artists: Embracing Duality, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 23, 2022

Global Plastics Policy Centre, National Gallery, Scientist-Artists: Embracing Duality, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 23, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

EurekAlert: One-stop policy shop opens, with solutions to end plastic pollution. “An invaluable new resource to help tackle plastic pollution on land and in the ocean is going live today. The Global Plastics Policy Centre (GPPC) online platform is the latest development from the University of Portsmouth’s Revolution Plastics research initiative. Free to all, it is a ‘one stop shop’ of independent, evidence-based advice on plastic policy.”

Brunel University: National Gallery creates immersive experience for families on Roblox. “A magical augmented reality family trail at the National Gallery has been adapted into a free at-home experience for Roblox, the global online platform connecting millions of people through shared experiences. The Keeper Council is a family-friendly experience launching this summer where aspiring museum ‘keepers’ from all over the world learn about the Gallery’s paintings and curate their own art collections.”

EVENTS

Vanderbilt University: Attend ‘Scientist-Artists: Embracing Duality’ virtual event on July 27. “Now more than ever, people are recognizing and exploring how art and science interact and influence each other, within research fields and scientist-artists themselves. Join Kendra Oliver, assistant professor of pharmacology and director and founder of ArtLab, for our next Lab-to-Table Conversation, in which we will explore how a group of self-identified scientist-artists are embracing this particular duality.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Twitch builds toward a ‘layered’ safety approach with new moderator tools. “On Twitch, interconnected channels already informally share information on users they prefer to keep out. The company is now formalizing that ad hoc practice with a new tool that lets channels swap ban lists, inviting communities to collaborate on locking serial harassers and otherwise disruptive users out before they can cause problems.”

9to5 Google: Google Photos website starts showing the backup quality of every image. “The tweaks and small additions to Google Photos continues with the Info pane on the web getting a rather useful ‘Backed up’ section.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Engadget: Twitter welcomes more users but finds it harder to make money. “In the last three months, Monetizable Daily Active Users (mDAU) climbed from 39.6 million to 41.5 million, while global reach leapt from 189.4 million in April to 196.3 million today. Unfortunately, those increasing user figures did not see a boost in the company’s bottom line, and revenue was $1.18 billion, which is slightly down both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter.”

BBC: Snapchat owner hit as advertising slump hits sales. “Shares in the owner of social media platform Snapchat have plummeted after it missed revenue expectations and warned it faces ‘incredibly challenging’ conditions. The firm says advertisers cut spending as they face supply chain disruptions.”

CNN: Here today, gone tomorrow: China’s vanishing livestreamers. “The 30-year-old livestreamer, also known as Austin Li, was — until recently — one of China’s biggest internet celebrities, with 64 million followers on Taobao, an online shopping platform. He once sold 15,000 lipsticks within five minutes in a sales competition against Alibaba founder Jack Ma, winning himself the nickname ‘China’s lipstick king.’ But the superstar salesman has gone silent after his popular livestream show was abruptly cut off on the eve of the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre this year.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

University of California Riverside: UCR practices for cyber threats against special archives. “It began with angry social media messages before ballooning into full threats and a takeover of UC Riverside computer systems controlling fire sprinklers at Tomas Rivera Library. That was the scenario of a cultural heritage preservation and cybersecurity drill held Wednesday, July 13 that included 25 participants from campus departments and off-campus partners who reacted in real-time to a fictional threat to the campus. It was first drill of its type on campus aimed at preserving irreplaceable heritage and special collections against cybersecurity threats, said Jason Espinoza, director of UCR’s Office of Emergency Management.”

The Register: Albanian government websites go dark after cyberattack . “According to a statement from the Albanian National Agency for Information Society (AKSHI), the websites of the Prime Minister’s Office and Parliament have both been pulled as has, critically, the e-Albania portal used by residents and foreigners alike to access public services. The latter is particularly alarming since the Albanian government closed many in-person services in favor of the e-Albania portal in May 2022.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Melbourne: Bringing A Living Archive To Life . “Working with Indigenous partners and students in Australia and the US, we are engaging in creative practices, including storytelling through possum-skin cloak-making, intercultural collaborations and supporting the research through teaching and learning. These steps aim to enliven archived collections by making and doing, finding new ways to support Indigenous knowledges and stories.”

Tech Xplore: Aboriginal language could help solve complex AI problems. “An Aboriginal language could hold the key to solving some of the most challenging communication problems between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) systems. A new paper, published by Frontiers in Physics and led by UNSW Canberra’s Professor Hussein Abbass, explains how Jingulu—a language spoken by the Jingili people in the Northern Territory—has characteristics that allow it to be easily translated into AI commands.” Good morning, Internet…

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July 23, 2022 at 05:31PM
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