New researches

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

Hawaii Photography, Google Maps, Twitter, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 2, 2022

Hawaii Photography, Google Maps, Twitter, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 2, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

KHON: PHOTOS: What Hawaii lei makers looked like in 1930s. “In 2021, the Hawaii State Archives launched a project to digitize what is physically in the building so everyone can access the files online from home. From people to parades, from buildings to boats, there are thousands of photos from the past that are now available to go through.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Google Maps Now Provides Aerial Views of Nearly 100 World Landmarks. “As part of its immersive view experience, Google Maps unveiled aerial views of nearly 100 global landmarks, the company announced Wednesday. Through the new photorealistic images, you can explore famous monuments in cities across the world such as Barcelona, London, New York and Tokyo.”

TechCrunch: Twitter tests a ‘tweets per month’ counter. “Twitter is testing a feature that lets you see how many times a user tweets per month. Reverse engineers spotted this in development about a month ago, but as of this morning, some Twitter users have shared that they have gained access to this feature.”

USEFUL STUFF

Alphr: How To Make Flashcards With Google Slides. “Google Slides is a relatively user-friendly app that works well on both Windows computers and MacBooks. Making digital flashcards involves several steps, from resizing the presentation and adding questions to customizing the deck with images and backgrounds.” Someone has far more patience with annotating screenshots than I do. The visual instructions here can only be described as “lavish”.

Lifehacker: You Can Make Your Smartphone Read Out Loud to You. “Why are you reading this article? Wait, don’t click away—what I mean is, why are you reading this article? Chances are, you visited this article from your smartphone, like so many of us do. Whether you have an iPhone or an Android, you can make your phone read text out loud to you, so you never need to read it yourself again.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

KYUK: KYUK to receive $350,000 grant to digitally preserve and catalog decades of archival material. “The KYUK station, our humble building in the center of town, is responsible for the largest collection of video and audio footage documenting the Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K) Delta. For decades, that collection was entirely physical: old tapes and VHS lining rows of shelves in the back of the building. Now, thanks to a $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, KYUK is bringing that archive into the 21st century and protecting it for future generations.”

Northwestern Now: 70 years of WGN Radio audio to be archived at Northwestern Libraries. “The archive, with materials covering 1941 to 2011, includes more than 15,000 items, primarily magnetic media (open reel tapes, compact cassettes, continuous-loop ‘carts,’ U-matic videocassettes and VHS tapes) as well as other media such as grooved discs, CDs and minidiscs. The bulk of the audio dates to the 1980s and 1990s, a period of innovation and surging popularity for the station.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg Law: Google, Apple Back Affirmative Action in Harvard Case. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc. and Apple Inc. are among nearly 70 companies filing a brief with the US Supreme Court in support of affirmative action programs being challenged at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Gotham Gazette: Combat Disinformation by Funding Independent News Media. “As proposed by the Federation of American Scientists, the Knight Foundation, and others, Congress should recast CPB as the Corporation for Public Media. Give it the funding to catalyze robust online local news media platforms, and then steer clear of political interference by empowering local governance.”

University of Montreal: Video games: posing in 3D. “What’s the best way to get 3D characters in videogames to look real and expressive? Two computer scientists at Université de Montréal have come up with answer: use simple bitmap sketches to make their poses more lifelike.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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August 3, 2022 at 12:25AM
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Alzheimer’s Research Datasets, California Evictions, Google Photos, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 2, 2022

Alzheimer’s Research Datasets, California Evictions, Google Photos, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 2, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Inside Precision Medicine: Data Trove Released by Seattle Alzheimer’s Disease Brain Cell Atlas. “Neuroscientists at the Allen Institute for Brain Science and their collaborators have released their first research data set on Alzheimer’s disease, in which they categorized cell types based on gene activity. The team hope this approach could ultimately identify new targets for better therapies.”

Berkeleyside: This new website will help you respond to an eviction notice. “Thousands of California tenants lose their homes every year because they fail to submit that initial answer in court. Failing to check the right box or file a timely response could, indeed, trigger a default judgment against them. A group of tenant advocates and attorneys this month launched a tool they hope will change that.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Google Photos Update Adds New Video Editor and Movie Maker. “Google unveiled new features and updates to Chromebooks on Wednesday that will include a new video editor and movie maker for Google Photos.”

How-To Geek: What’s New in Firefox 103, Available Now. “Firefox releases usually aren’t as feature-packed as new updates for Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, but today’s Firefox 103 update has a few helpful changes.”

USEFUL STUFF

Genealogy’s Star: Using the Internet Archive for Serious Genealogical Research. “You may have noticed that I am doing a lot more videos than blog posts. This video shows how the fantastic Internet Archive… can be used for serious genealogical research.” The video is auto-captioned only, but the audio is good enough that the auto-captioning is pretty precise.

Mashable: 7 of the best robocall blocking apps and tools for avoiding phone spam . “Phone manufacturers like Apple and Google offer opt-in silencing services that prevent unknown numbers’ calls from ringing, too. But if you don’t think those tools are powerful enough — most don’t actually stop robocalls; they just identify their sources or send them directly to voicemail — you’ve also got the option of downloading a robocall blocking app that’s purpose-built to stop scammers in their tracks.” Excellently-annotated, extensive overview.

The Online Journalism Blog has turned into one of my “treat” feeds. I know when I see its icon in NewsBlur that I’m going to get something good. Online Journalism Blog: VIDEO: JavaScript Journalism and interactivity. “Some of the best interactive storytelling involves the use of JavaScript — what has sometimes been called ‘JavaScript Journalism’. This video, made for students on the MA in Data Journalism at Birmingham City University, explains what JavaScript journalism is, the story formats that are often created with JavaScript, some useful JavaScript libraries, and how to get started.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Rest of World: The overworked humans behind China’s virtual influencers. “When Akuma laughs, that’s the laugh of the actor who plays him; when Luo waves, it’s because a real person is waving. And when they go off-script to complain about exhaustion, overwork, or low pay, that’s a real person complaining about their actual working conditions – underscoring that virtual celebrities are subject to the same concerns and issues as human influencers.”

NiemanLab: Two new bots can help newsrooms prioritize accessibility and alt text. “The Objective recently spoke with Patrick Garvin about his Accessibility Awareness and Alt Text Awareness Twitter bots that provide information on web accessibility and encourage the use of alt text, respectively. With more than a decade of experience in visual journalism, user experience, and front-end development, Garvin shares how prioritizing accessibility is possible for all newsroom employees, not just tech staff.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MakeUseOf: Why Cataloging Apps Are a Better Type of Social Media. “Cataloging social media platforms such as Letterboxd, Backloggd, and alternatives put the focus on a specific topic, such as video games or films amongst other forms of media. These cataloging apps are a better type of social media for multiple reasons.”

Retraction Watch: Crystallography database flags nearly 1000 structures linked to a paper mill. “The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) added notes to 992 structures in its database, according to a notice posted to its website in May. And a crystallography researcher tells us the impact on the field could be significant.”

MIT News: Study finds Wikipedia influences judicial behavior. “Using a randomized field experiment, researchers found that Wikipedia articles on decided cases, written by law students, guide both the decisions that judges cite as precedents and the textual content of their written opinions.” Good morning, Internet…

August 2, 2022 at 05:32PM
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Monday, August 1, 2022

Olympics in France, National Transportation Atlas Database, Google, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 1, 2022

Olympics in France, National Transportation Atlas Database, Google, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 1, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

International Olympic Committee: Publications from all previous Olympic Games in France now digitised by the Olympic Studies Centre. “As the 24-month countdown to the Olympic Games Paris 2024 approaches, the IOC’s Olympic Studies Centre is not only collecting publications related to the next edition of the Olympic Summer Games, but is also fast finishing the process of digitising all the publications of the Organising Committees (OCOGs) of past Olympic Games hosted in France, namely Paris 1900 and 1924, Chamonix 1924, Grenoble 1968 and Albertville 1992.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bureau of Transportation Statistics: BTS Updates Datasets to National Transportation Atlas Database. “The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics today released its summer 2022 update to the National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD), a set of nationwide geographic databases of transportation facilities, networks, and associated infrastructure.”

Bloomberg: Google Delays Phasing Out Ad Cookies on Chrome Until 2024. “Google said it will delay a plan to phase out third-party cookies on its Chrome browser until late 2024, a move that will upend how ads are targeted on websites.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNBC: Google CEO tells employees productivity and focus must improve, launches ‘Simplicity Sprint’ to gather employee feedback on efficiency. “The Alphabet company had its regular all-hands last Wednesday, and the tone was somewhat urgent as employees expressed concern over layoffs and CEO Sundar Pichai asked employees for input, according to attendees and related internal documentation viewed by CNBC. Google’s productivity as a company isn’t where it needs to be even with the headcount it has, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in the meeting.”

Houston Chronicle: Inside the viral video trend that made Houston-area school children the face of Iranian propaganda . “Iranian state-sponsored media and pundits have been sharing a video of Houston-area children singing a popular new religious song that includes references to Iran’s supreme leader — and mentions soldiers and martyrdom.”

National Geographic: Rising seas threaten the Gullah Geechee culture. Here’s how they’re fighting back.. “Latitude, topography, and proximity to the Atlantic Ocean make the stretch of coastline from Jacksonville, North Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida—called the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor— particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise, storm frequency and intensity, higher temperatures, and a warmer, more acidic ocean.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Mainichi: YouTuber elected to Japan’s upper house intends to stay overseas, skip August Diet session. “Yoshikazu Higashitani, otherwise known as Gassy, is a popular YouTuber who exposes celebrity scandals and ran on the NHK Party ticket in the recent upper house election. He intends to remain in Dubai, claiming that returning to Japan will result in his arrest. House of Councillors members each serve six-year terms.”

Bleeping Computer: Ransom payments fall as fewer victims choose to pay hackers. “In Q2 2022, the average ransom payment was $228,125 (up by 8% from Q1 ‘22). However, the median ransom payment was $36,360, a steep fall of 51% compared to the previous quarter. This continues a downward trend since Q4 2021, which represented a peak in ransomware payments both average ($332,168) and median ($117,116).”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: Residential schools banned native languages. The Cree want theirs back.. “Across Canada, the often brutal residential school system, designed to assimilate Indigenous people into White, European culture, succeeded in breaking the tradition of passing on languages from generation to generation — and put the survival of some in jeopardy. But now, 25 years after the last residential school was shuttered, some Indigenous communities — including the one here that Pope Francis visited Monday — are reviving and relearning their native languages.” Please be advised that the first few paragraphs in this story have references to sexual abuse.

Analytics India: The Societal Dangers of DALL-E 2. “The early tests by OpenAI and the red team have demonstrated seemingly worrisome results, including gender biases, reinforced racial stereotypes and overly sexual images.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 1, 2022 at 05:32PM
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Office of Legal Counsel Memos, Colorado Mental Health Providers, Jerry Garcia, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 1, 2022

Office of Legal Counsel Memos, Colorado Mental Health Providers, Jerry Garcia, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 1, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Knight First Amendment Institute: Newly Released Office of Legal Counsel Opinions from 1952-1971 Illuminate Government Policy During Civil Rights Era. “The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University today published for the first time a set of Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos authored between 1952 and 1971 pertaining to desegregation policies and civil rights law.”

KRDO: State launches new online directory to find behavioral health specialists in Colorado. “This online directory helps people to find behavioral health providers licensed by the [Colorado Behavioral Health Administration] and to search for specific services or use a guided search to identify providers or resources that best meet their needs. Searches can be specific and narrowed down by criteria such as location, days of operation, language support, payment types accepted, and more.”

Asbury Park Press: Jerry Garcia Archive launches online to celebrate life and legacy of Grateful Dead icon. “The Jerry Garcia Archive, a collaborative venture between the Jerry Garcia Foundation and online storage platform Starchive, will serve as an online resource, a digital library of Garcia information and fan submissions.”

Shetland News: Team behind new online dictionary of Shaetlan hopes for lively community participation . “SPEAKERS of the local language now have the chance to actively help collect and record words and phrases relevant to Shaetlan, thanks to a new initiative by language group I Hear Dee. Creating an interactive dictionary with the help of the local community also enables the new online tool to become a representative snapshot of contemporary local speech as it will include local versions of today’s words and expressions.” Shaetlan is a dialect of Scots spoken in Shetland. Shetland is an archipelago in the extreme north of Scotland.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

PC Gamer: Google denies rumor that Stadia is shutting down. “Google has formally denied a rumor that its Stadia(opens in new tab) gaming service will soon be closed down, saying that it is still ‘working on bringing more great games to the platform.'” If I were Google I’d say the same thing no matter what my intentions were. You can always abruptly cancel it and cite “extraordinary market conditions” etc. Who can gainsay that?

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 8 Free Alternatives to Google Forms. “Many people love Google Forms because it’s an easy-to-use, free online form builder that makes polling your audience simple. However, its simplistic design and lack of features can make it difficult to customize to your exact data collection needs. If you’re looking for an alternative to Google Forms that offers more flexibility without breaking the bank, check out these online form builders that are free to use.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Lexington Herald-Leader: ‘We could lose history.’ Appalachian archives soaked in record Kentucky flooding. . “A good bit of Appalachian history and arts got soaked in the record flooding in Eastern Kentucky. In Whitesburg, water may have breached the vault at Appalshop, where the arts and media collective stored more than 20,000 items, including decades worth of film, oral histories, videotapes of musical performances, photo collections and other records.”

NPR: What is a recession? Wikipedia can’t decide. “Wikipedia has frozen edits to its page for ‘recession,’ halting a frenzy of changes to the entry after the Biden administration insisted that the U.S. economy has not entered a economic downturn.”

Middle East Eye: Iran: Outrage after government puts Google on Safe Search for all Iranians. “Iranians have reacted with incredulity to a move by the government to forcibly activate Safe Search on Google for all citizens, accusing officials of treating them like children. Iran’s communications minister, Isa Zarepour, confirmed the new restriction earlier this week, saying his government had activated Safe Search following requests from Iranian families.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Stuff NZ: NZ code to tackle disinformation: what have Google and Meta really agreed to do?. “Let’s be frank, these are not businesses that see any need to answer questions, let alone be meaningfully accountable to the public, and that makes any strong faith in self-regulation unlikely.”

The New Yorker: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants. “This rejection of the social-graph model has allowed TikTok to circumvent the barriers to entry that so effectively protected early social-media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. By separating distraction from social connection, TikTok can directly compete for users without the need to first painstakingly build up an underlying network, link by link.” Terrific, thoughtful writing here.

University of Michigan: Moderating online content increases accountability, but can harm some platform users . “Marginalized social media users face disproportionate content removal from platforms, but the visibility of this online moderation is a double-edged sword. A new University of Michigan study about two online platforms—Reddit and Twitch—suggests that greater visibility means increased accountability, but the actions can also bring more attention to the offensive content, further harming marginalized people.” Good morning, Internet…

August 1, 2022 at 05:30PM
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Sunday, July 31, 2022

Great Salt Lake, South Dakota Missing Persons, Google Doodles, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 31, 2022

Great Salt Lake, South Dakota Missing Persons, Google Doodles, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 31, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

USGS: New one-stop shop webpage for all things Great Salt Lake. “On the website, users can see how changing lake levels, which recently reached a new historic low, affect local wetlands, biology, economics, safety, recreation and land use. Both current and historical USGS data from the Saltair and Saline gaging stations automatically populate the site’s diagrams with up-to-date lake level information.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Government of South Dakota: New South Dakota’s Missing Persons Clearinghouse Website Released. “The new page also allows for greater searchability to the user. There are improved and added filters that allow searches by gender and race. Expanded descriptors include height, weight, hair color, eye color, and more narrative information such as the person’s last known location and what the person was last seen wearing. The user also will be able to arrange the page through multiple options including most recent, least recent, and alphabetical.”

CNET: Google’s New Multiplayer Doodle Game Celebrates Petanque. “Google’s latest multiplayer game is set to appear on the company’s search page on Sunday and pays homage to Petanque, a sport similar to bocce and lawn bowling. Invented in the South of France in 1907, Petanque is a leisure activity played by friends, as well as a competitive sport played around the world.”

Reuters: Indonesia Blocks Yahoo, Paypal, Gaming Websites Over Licence Breaches. “Indonesia has blocked search engine website Yahoo, payments firm PayPal and several gaming websites due to failure to comply with licensing rules, an official said on Saturday, sparking a backlash on social media.”

USEFUL STUFF

SlashGear: How To Use An Old iPhone As A Dash Cam. “If you’re particularly frugal or want better features with minimal investment, you can utilize an old iPhone as a dash cam instead of tossing it. In this article, we will take you through how to use an old iPhone as a dash cam.”

MakeUseOf: Top 100% Legal Streaming Services That Don’t Cost a Dime. “With the cost of virtually everything rising for the foreseeable future, it’s understandable that some folks will be looking to cut back. Luckily, there are a bunch of streaming video platforms that offer quality content for free. All of the services listed below are 100% legal and free of charge.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

University of Southern California: #LastSeen: Searching for forgotten photographs of Nazi deportations . “USC Dornsife’s Center for Advanced Genocide Research is the only non-German partner in the first major international initiative to gather and analyze images showing Nazi deportations during World War II — and they want the public’s help.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CarScoops: New Jersey Allegedly Using Social Media To Fine Modified Diesel Trucks. “The owner of a 2008 Dodge Ram 2500 with a modified diesel engine has taken to Facebook to warn others that the state of New Jersey may be trawling social media, looking for trucks that do not comply with emissions regulations.”

Intel 471: How cybercriminals are using messaging apps to launch malware schemes. ” Apps like Discord and Telegram have underlying elements that allow users to create and share programs or other types of content that’s used inside the platform. These programs, colloquially known as ‘bots,’ or other content allows for users to share media, play games, moderate channels, or any other automated task a developer can devise. Cybercriminals have figured out how to leverage this for their own begotten gains.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Siberian Federal University: Russian Scientists Have Taught a neural network to read handwritten Letters of the Russian Alphabet . “SibFU scientists have developed a new convolutional neural network (CNN) capable of recognizing images of handwritten letters with high accuracy. The resulting algorithm transforms the image and recognizes the letter encrypted in it. According to the scientists, the algorithm’s accuracy is 99 %.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 1, 2022 at 12:41AM
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Beyoncé Emoji, Snapchat, Google Play, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 31, 2022

Beyoncé Emoji, Snapchat, Google Play, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 31, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Culture Map Houston: Beyoncé rules the internet with historic Twitter emoji celebrating her wildly anticipated new album. “Now, in honor of the news that broke the internet this summer, Twitter has released a new fandom emoji in honor of Houston’s icon. Notably, this is only the second time ever that Twitter is creating an emoji for a fandom: BTS, the insanely popular K-Pop act, received the first custom fandom emoji in 2017 when the group reached 10 million followers.”

Variety: Snapchat Will Pay Indie Music Artists Up to $100,000 Monthly for Top-Performing Songs. “Snap has announced the Snapchat Sounds Creator Fund: Its first fund designed to support emerging and independent artists who distribute their music on the app via DistroKid.”

TechRadar: You’re finally getting the Google Play Store and apps you deserve. “A new day is coming for your Android apps. Google is implementing new Play Store rules for developers as it attempts to stamp out intrusive ads, impersonators, and VPNService misuse.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Rest of World: Werewolf erotica is the latest global gig work trend . “The emerging web novel industry spans the globe, taking a business model from Asia, assembling a global supply chain of authors in lower-income countries, and paying them to churn out thousands of words a day for English-speaking readers in the West. Rest of World spoke to four current and former employees at these platforms, who described how the art of novel writing is broken down into a formula to be followed: take a popular theme like werewolves, sprinkle it with certain tropes like a forbidden romance, and write as many chapters as you can.”

Hollywood Reporter: Finding Overlooked Midcentury Beauty in South L.A.. “Frustrated by circular conversations about gentrification with no clear solutions offered, [Jerald] Cooper realized that many people in his community didn’t even know the architectural significance of the buildings around them. ‘You want to save the hood, but what are the basic things that you could know?’ recalls the architecture aficionado of what led to him launching his Instagram account … which documents for its 63,000 followers midcentury modern architecture in Los Angeles, as well as other cities.”

CNN: The online ad market is in decline and it’s dragging down tech giants with it. “Much of contemporary Silicon Valley was built on advertising dollars. That dependence made even the most powerful companies look at least somewhat vulnerable this week after reporting their latest earnings results.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Daily Record (Maryland): Database key to judges’ names must be disclosed, Md. high court says. “Maryland’s Administrative Office of the Courts must disclose the alphanumeric key used to identify District Court judges in the public Judiciary Case Search database, the state’s top court ruled Thursday. In its 5-2 decision, the Court of Appeals said disclosing a code that contains otherwise publicly available information – judges’ names – is in keeping with the presumption that court records are open to the public.”

Washington Post: The GOP went to war against Google over spam — and may win. “It’s unclear what impact Google’s spam filters have had on the GOP’s fundraising, if any. Nevertheless, Republicans have waged a pressure campaign that has included public Twitter offensives and private discussions with Google chief executive Sundar Pichai. GOP lawmakers have introduced draft legislation in both chambers of Congress.”

Krebs on Security: A Retrospective on the 2015 Ashley Madison Breach. “The leak led to the public shaming and extortion of many Ashley Madison users, and to at least two suicides. To date, little is publicly known about the perpetrators or the true motivation for the attack. But a recent review of Ashley Madison mentions across Russian cybercrime forums and far-right websites in the months leading up to the hack revealed some previously unreported details that may deserve further scrutiny.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

News@Northeastern: Northeastern Launches AI Ethics Advisory Board To Help Chart A Responsible Future In Artificial Intelligence. “With the AI Ethics Advisory Board, [Cansu] Canca, co-chair of the board and AI ethics lead of the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern, and a group of more than 40 experts hope to chart a responsible future for AI.”

GroundUp: Restoring UCT’s burnt archives will take years. “After the flames that gutted the Jagger Library at the University of Cape Town (UCT) on 18 April 2021 were finally extinguished, the archives were thought to be lost….Now, 14 months later, at Maitland House in Mowbray, the painstaking process of rebuilding the collection is underway.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Launch And Track Your Model Rockets Via Smartphone. “Building and flying model rockets is great fun. Eventually, though, the thrill of the fire and smoke subsides, and you want to know more about what it’s doing in the air. With a thirst for knowledge, [archy587] started building a project to monitor the vital stats of rockets in flight.” Good morning, Internet…

July 31, 2022 at 05:28PM
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Saturday, July 30, 2022

Connect Alabama, Quick Indoor CO2 Tool, Twitter, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 30, 2022

Connect Alabama, Quick Indoor CO2 Tool, Twitter, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

WSFA: Alabama launches new substance abuse, mental health app. “A new tool is now available to those who may be struggling with substance abuse and mental health. Connect Alabama is a new app that was created through a partnership with the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Alabama Department of Mental Health…. Alabamians can now access resources related to mental health, substance use, and prevention in the palm of their hand.”

Safety+Health: NIST launches tool to help assess ventilation and indoor air quality. “The free Quick Indoor CO2 tool, or QICO2, calculates carbon dioxide levels based on the user’s desired ventilation rate and information about a building and its occupants.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Elon Musk-Twitter Trial to Start Oct. 17. “Twitter and billionaire Elon Musk will go to trial from Oct. 17 to 21, a Delaware Chancery Court schedule confirmed Friday, over the Tesla CEO’s attempt to back out of a $44 billion deal to buy the company. The setting of the dates comes a week after Twitter partially blamed a revenue shortfall on ‘uncertainty’ linked to Musk’s rocky takeover bid.”

The Verge: The Twitter Blue subscription is getting more expensive. “The add-ons in the Twitter Blue package range from extremely useful (an undo tweet window to fix typos, a customizable navigation bar, a list of Top Articles shared by people you follow, and ad-free access to articles on sites including The Verge) to trivial (the ability to choose from different app icons) to questionable (NFT hexagon profile pics).”

USEFUL STUFF

PetaPixel: GFP-GAN is a New Free AI Tool That Can Fix Most Old Photos Instantly. “A newly-released artificial intelligence (AI) model called the ‘Generative Facial Prior’ (GFP-GAN) can repair most old photographs in mere seconds, and it can do it for free.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Slashgear: This Rising Instagram Alternative Is Promising Everything Meta Can’t. “Starting off as an iOS app late in 2021, Glass calls itself ‘a sustainable home for photographers.’ But it’s a far cry from Instagram or any other platform of its kind. To start, you get a clean chronological feed with full-screen photos and no other UI distractions.”

Gamerant: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down. “Google Stadia hasn’t been as successful as the Internet super-giant wanted it to be. While the game streaming service did end up getting its foot in the door for a little while, it hasn’t been making waves since its release, and many have theorized that Google would end up scuttling the service entirely in the relatively near future.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNBC: Elon Musk countersues Twitter over merger, but details aren’t yet public. “Elon Musk countersued Twitter on Friday, intensifying the conflict between the Tesla CEO and the social networking company he agreed to buy, but the lawsuit is not yet available to the public.”

Washington Post: Secret Service’s ‘ludicrous’ deletion of Jan. 6 phone data baffles experts. “Experts are divided over whether the disappearance of phone data from around the time of the insurrection is a sign of incompetence, an intentional coverup, or some murkier middle ground. But the failure has raised suspicions about the disposition of records that could provide intimate details about what happened on that chaotic day, and whose preservation was mandated by federal law.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Massachusetts Amherst: New Open-Access Book On Microplastic Pollution Highlights The Need For Better Science And Management. “In ‘Microplastic in the Environment: Pattern and Process,’ editor Michael S. Bank, senior scientist at Norway’s Institute of Marine Research and professor of contaminants and complex systems at UMass Amherst, tackles an extraordinarily complex problem that has recently come to popular attention: the problem of microplastics.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 31, 2022 at 12:58AM
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