New researches

Sunday, August 7, 2022

Math-Learning Tools, US Capitol Visitor Center, Jazz on The Ed Sullivan Show, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 7, 2022

Math-Learning Tools, US Capitol Visitor Center, Jazz on The Ed Sullivan Show, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 7, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

UChicago News: New startup offers students free online tools to learn math. “Through the startup’s free, ad-supported web-based tool, students can learn concepts, solve problems, check their work, and collaborate with teachers and classmates—all digitally.”

PRWeb: Envision Innovative Solutions Announces Release of Augmented Reality App for U.S. Capitol Visitor Center (PRESS RELEASE). “Envision Innovative Solutions, an extended reality technology developer, announced the release of ‘Who Are the People,’ a free augmented reality (AR) app the company developed for the U.S. Architect of the Capitol. Users can interact with statues displayed in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center by using their camera phone to virtually place statues in any location and experience interactive content paired with audio from museum curators.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Jazz Journal: The wealth of jazz on the Ed Sullivan Show. “The Ed Sullivan Show, which ran on CBS TV in the US every Sunday night from 1948-1971, is well known for appearances by The Beatles and other pop bands, but it also hosted many jazz performers, thus inadvertently forming a valuable historical archive of performances by leading jazz artists. Performances by several of these artists are now available on the official YouTube channel of The Ed Sullivan Show.”

9to5Google: ‘New Google.com’ adds weather, news, and other cards, enters wider testing [U]. “The Google homepage has historically been known for providing a clean interface that primarily offers a Search field. Google Search is now testing a row of cards on desktop web for an experience that’s similar to Discover.” Or, if you’re old like I am, similar to the Excite portal back in 1999-2000.

USEFUL STUFF

Firefox Add-Ons Blog: Translate The Web Easily With A Browser Extension. “Online translation services provide a hugely valuable function, but for those of us who do a lot of translating on the web, the process is time-consuming and cumbersome. With the right browser extension, however, web translations become a whole lot easier and faster. Here are some fantastic translation extensions for folks with differing needs.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Guardian: From celebrity jets to Pelosi’s Taiwan trip, flight trackers are the sleeper hit of the summer. “Want to watch a top-secret government flight live? Track a drug kingpin’s movements in real time? Or know how much Taylor Swift’s jets are polluting the air? They’re all streaming live on the sleeper hit of the summer: online flight trackers.”

News18 (India): Army Undertakes Projects to Archive War Histories, Plans to Complete Them by April Next Year. “As per sources in the government, the projects have been initiated by the Army’s Training Command (ARTRAC). The Mhow-based Army War College will be the nodal authority for the projects and Delhi-based think tank United Services Institution of India (USI) will support the research work on the military history content as an expert body.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Twitter confirms zero-day used to expose data of 5.4 million accounts. “Twitter has confirmed a recent data breach was caused by a now-patched zero-day vulnerability used to link email addresses and phone numbers to users’ accounts, allowing a threat actor to compile a list of 5.4 million user account profiles.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Dezeen: Gluon “using 3D data to save” the Nakagin Capsule Tower. “Japanese digital consultancy Gluon is combining data from laser scanning with 20,000 photographs to create an augmented reality model of the Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo, which is currently being demolished. Named the 3D Digital Archive Project, the team aims to use digital technology to create an extremely accurate virtual model of the metabolist residential block designed by Kisho Kurokawa.”

TechCrunch: Google’s ‘quantum supremacy’ usurped by researchers using ordinary supercomputer. “To be clear, no one is saying Google lied or misrepresented its work — the painstaking and groundbreaking research that led to the quantum supremacy announcement in 2019 is still hugely important. But if this new paper is correct, the classical versus quantum computing competition is still anybody’s game. You can read the full story of how Google took quantum from theory to reality in the original article, but here’s the very short version. Quantum computers like Sycamore are not better than classical computers at anything yet, with the possible exception of one task: simulating a quantum computer.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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August 8, 2022 at 12:51AM
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Canadian Women Film Directors, DuckDuckGo, Clubhouse, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, August 7, 2022

Canadian Women Film Directors, DuckDuckGo, Clubhouse, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, August 7, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Toronto: Triumph and frustration: Database documents the history of Canadian women film directors. “Until recently, few resources existed to tell the story of Canadian women who make movies – and those that did exist were hard to find. Margaret Fulford, a librarian at the University of Toronto’s University College, set out to correct that. A lifelong film buff and feminist, Fulford was inspired to create such a resource after attending a 1980s festival showcasing women’s films. Much later, she decided to devote her first year-long research leave to create a database of Canadian women filmmakers.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bleeping Computer: DuckDuckGo browser now blocks all Microsoft trackers, most of the time. “DuckDuckGo announced today that they will now be blocking all third-party Microsoft tracking scripts in their privacy browser after failing to block them in the past.”

CNET: Clubhouse Will Let You Create Your Own Curated House. “Clubhouse is rolling out a feature that will allow you to create your own curated ‘house’ within the app, Clubhouse co-founder and CEO Paul Davison said in a series of tweets Thursday.”

Daily Journal Online: New Missouri State Archives’ YouTube channel is launched. “Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has announced the launch of a new YouTube channel curated by the Missouri State Archives, a division within his office. The platform offers the public unprecedented access to historic films created by Missouri state government, along with recordings of the State Archives’ Thursday Evening Speaker Series and other Missouri history-related content.”

USEFUL STUFF

ZDNet: How I installed ChromeOS Flex in 30 minutes. “Before you follow in my tracks, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First, moving your PC from Windows, macOS, or whatever to ChromeOS Flex is a one-way trip. Everything — applications, photos of mom, your QuickBooks files — on your old drive is going to get vaporized. If you want to keep anything, back up your important files to another computer, cloud storage, or a Network-Attached Storage (NAS). Otherwise, kiss it all goodbye.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Ars Technica: Tonight we’re gonna log on like it’s 1979. “Teletypes may have killed a lot of forests by emitting every line to hard copy instead of a screen, but there’s something to be said for the permanence of paper. While working on building a functional Silent 700 Model 765 ASR teletype, I came across a set of teletype transcripts from several users logging on to The Source, one of the earliest online services, and a complete photocopy of the service’s user manual.”

Philadelphia Jewish Exponent: Jewish Exponent Archives Find New Life At Gratz College. “Since the 1950s, the Jewish Exponent has kept its archives of clippings and photos in these filing cabinets in its 2100 Arch St. office in a room known lovingly as ‘the morgue.’ These archives will no longer just be accessible to the Exponent staff, housed in a room with a name connoting lifelessness. In mid-July, the Jewish Exponent archives found a new home and renewed purpose at Gratz College’s Melrose Park campus, where the library staff will organize, digitize and put online the publication’s archives over the next 12-plus months.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

DefenseNews: White House aims to release overdue security strategies within weeks. “Amid pressure from U.S. lawmakers, the White House is weighing a September rollout for its long-delayed National Security Strategy, now being rewritten to emphasize Russia alongside China following the country’s invasion of Ukraine, Defense News has learned.”

The Register: Bloke robbed of $800,000 in cryptocurrency by fake wallet app wants payback from Google . “Last October, California resident Jacob Pearlman downloaded an Android version of a cryptocurrency wallet app called Phantom from the Google Play app store. That was four months before San Francisco-based Phantom Technologies actually released an Android version of its digital wallet. The free Phantom Wallet app that Pearlman downloaded early from Google Play was a fake. And when he connected his actual Phantom wallet to the app, it cost him a small fortune.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Stanford News: New Stanford animation simulator focuses on finding interesting outcomes. “Simulators can jumpstart the work of animation, but often return an overwhelming array of options for the animator to sort through. A new browser refines those options to a more manageable number.”

Phys .org: International researchers confirm museum shrunken head as human remains. “Researchers from Western University have verified the authenticity of a South American tsantsa (shrunken head) as human remains, an important step in the global effort toward decolonization and preserving and understanding Indigenous history.”

The Conversation: Why it’s important to think about social media use as a form of dissociation, rather than addiction. “What if, instead of people becoming ‘addicted’ to social media – as users often characterize their excessive engagement – they’re actually dissociating, or becoming so engaged that they lose track of time? I’ve researched people’s social media use for four years as a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington, and my collaborators and I decided to design a study to test this theory.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 7, 2022 at 05:30PM
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Saturday, August 6, 2022

Sierra Club San Francisco Bay, Holocaust Survivor Testimonies, Google Chrome, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 6, 2022

Sierra Club San Francisco Bay, Holocaust Survivor Testimonies, Google Chrome, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 6, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Sierra Club San Francisco Bay: Earliest Yodelers Digitized & Online. “The first five years of our Chapter’s Yodeler newsletter have been digitized and are now accessible online here through the Sierra Club Colby Library’s Internet Archive. Published between 1939 and 1944, these early issues of the Yodeler offer a glimpse into early activities at our Chapter, from regional conservation news to tips for camping in the Sierra Nevada.”

WFMJ: Digitized Holocaust survivor testimonies available on Youngstown Jewish Federation Website. “Newly digitized recordings of the testimonials of Holocaust survivors are now available on the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation’s website. The Federation’s Jewish Community Relations Council teamed up with the Mahoning Valley Historical Society to digitize numerous analog audio and video recordings of these testimonies contained in the Dr. Saul Friedman Collection.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Lifehacker: Everything New in Chrome 104. “Google’s latest update, Chrome 104, is here. Assuming you have the surprisingly generous system requirements, you can update your browser today to take advantage of its new features and changes. The biggest UI changes are for Chromebook users running Chrome OS, but all Chrome users will benefit from the security patches.”

9to5 Google: Google Assistant’s IFTTT integration is changing and requires setting up again. “For quite some time now, Assistant has supported IFTTT, but Google is now warning people about ‘upcoming changes’ to the third-party integration. Some functionality is being removed and all users need to set up IFTTT again.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: How to Set Medication Reminders on Your Phone. “Some medications come in packs organized by day, and you can always snag a cheap pill box like this one ($10), but it’s also easy to set up medication reminders on your phone. We’ll run through a few different ways you can have your Android or iPhone remind you to pop that pill and track your medications.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Input Magazine: Dior’s debut digital clothing arrives through Gran Turismo 7. “Dior is revving up for its first digital clothing project. The luxury label has partnered with racing game Gran Turismo 7, one of the longest running franchises in the gaming world, to bring its styles to the virtual world. The digital collection was designed by Kim Jones and will include avatar skins and a customized vintage car.”

It’s Nice That: Dark Igloo makes emailing fun with a Contact Us page that doubles as a 3D video game. “10 years ago, the Brooklyn-based studio switched its Contact Us page for an 8-bit mini game. Now, it’s launched an addictive 3D update where users can collect coins to increase email character count.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Nigeria asks Google to block banned groups from YouTube. “Nigeria asked Google to block the use of YouTube channels and livestreams by banned groups and terrorist organizations in the country, Information Minister Lai Mohammed said on Thursday.”

Bloomberg: Google Sued for Nixing Free Workspace Software to Early Adopters. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google was sued by an early adopter of its Workplace cloud productivity software who claims the company reneged on a promise to provide it with free access to the program for life.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Stanford News: Stanford-based initiative WastewaterSCAN will monitor wastewater for COVID-19, monkeypox, influenza A, and RSV genetic markers to help guide public health responses. “Researchers at Stanford University and Emory University have launched a nationwide initiative to monitor monkeypox, COVID-19, and other infectious diseases in communities by measuring viral genetic material in wastewater. The effort will also provide health officials and the public with free, high-quality data, which is critical to informing public health decision making.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 6, 2022 at 11:57PM
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Bronzeville Milwaukee, Minnesota Crime Data, India History, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, August 6, 2022

Bronzeville Milwaukee, Minnesota Crime Data, India History, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, August 6, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Milwaukee’s historical Bronzeville lives on at a new website and app dedicated to preserving its stories. “Telling the stories of Milwaukee’s African American families and businesses in a new way is the goal of a project just launched by [Patricia] Diggs and Kitonga Alexander, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. ‘Milwaukee Bronzeville Histories’ is a website and mobile app that will allow people to learn about the past — and the present — as they walk the northside neighborhood. It went live in time for Bronzeville Week, which begins Saturday.”

Minnesota Department of Public Safety: Minnesota Crime Data Explorer gives detailed information on criminal activity with just a few clicks. “Minnesota Crime Data Explorer is easy to use and more detailed than previous reports, largely due to a change in crime reporting using the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)…. The new online tool incorporates NIBRS and adds to the existing annual uniform crime report published each year. It allows users to query, filter and sort crime data; view trends in charts and graphs; and export graphics and spreadsheets. The visual options make the data more accessible and easier to understand.”

The Hindu: Google launches ‘India Ki Udaan’ to mark 75 years of Independence . “Capturing the milestones India has achieved in its journey of 75 years since Independence, software giant Google on Friday unveiled a vibrant online project drawing from rich archives and featuring artistic illustrations to tell the story of the country. Named ‘India ki Udaan’, the project executed by Google Arts & Culture celebrates the country’s achievements and is ‘themed on the unwavering and undying spirit of India over these past 75 years’.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Chrome Unboxed: Add-ons for Google Classroom are (finally) available. “Starting today, add-ons for Google Classroom are available for education customers using the ‘teaching and learning’ and ‘education plus’ editions of Google Workspace for Education.”

ReviewGeek: Google Debuts Google Meet, Not to Be Confused With Google Meet. “Starting today, Google is combining its Meet and Duo apps into a single app for voice and video calls. The search giant confirmed the change in June, adding the best of Google Meet’s features into Google Duo, and is now changing the name to Google Meet. Are you still with me? It’s confusing, I know. Google Meet already exists as a Zoom competitor for businesses. Still, between now and September, users will start to notice the Google Duo app change into Google Meet with a new name and logo.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: Retweets Ruined Twitter. Here’s How to Get Rid of Them. “Glance at the trending section right now—I’m sure half of it is ‘someone said something stupid/offensive/wrong and people are mad,’ or some variation on that. I, for one, think Twitter would be a better place without retweets, so I figured out how to not see retweets anymore. It made my timeline a lot calmer, and my life less stressful. Here’s how you can do it, too.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: You, Too, Can Strike It Rich on YouTube!. “YouTube automation has led to a cottage industry with online influencers offering tutorials and opportunities for fast money. But, as is often the case with promises of quickly made fortunes in online businesses, the YouTube automation process can be a money pit for aspiring internet entrepreneurs and a magnet for poseurs selling unhelpful services.”

The Construction Index: Funding secured for Irish navvy archive. “The archive will include an array of documents and recordings of the many Irish emigrants who became known as the generation that built Britain. It will be digitised from records and interviews already gathered by Irish historian Ultan Cowley for a book who wrote more than 20 years ago, chronicling the tales of those who crossed the Irish Sea to work in UK construction. Irish construction workers at the time were widely labelled as ‘navvies’, the pejorative term used for the manual labourers who dug the canal network (the navigators) in the 18th and 19th centuries.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Mint (India): Govt issued 105 orders to block social media content under new IT rules . “According to information shared by the minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a written reply to Rajya Sabha, 94 directions to block content were issued to YouTube between December 2021 and April 2022.”

Reuters: Trump Social Media Deal Can’t Close on Time, Needs Extension, Buyer Says . “Digital World Acquisition Corp, the blank-check company taking former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Truth Social app public, on Friday announced a special meeting of shareholders to approve an extension to the cut-off date to complete the merger.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PetaPixel: MegaPortraits: High-Res Deepfakes Created From a Single Photo. “Researchers from Samsung Labs have developed a way to create high-resolution avatars, or deepfakes, from a single still frame photo or even a painting.”

Yale Insights: Is Elon Musk Right about the Bot Problem on Twitter?. “When he announced that he was buying Twitter, Elon Musk said his goals included ‘defeating the spam bots.’ Two months later, he withdrew his offer, claiming that the company had failed to make data on bots available to him. We asked Prof. Tauhid Zaman, who has studied the impact of bots, how much they skew the experience of Twitter users.” Good morning, Internet…

August 6, 2022 at 05:31PM
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Friday, August 5, 2022

Glaciology Notebooks, British Library Endangered Archives, GitLab, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 5, 2022

Glaciology Notebooks, British Library Endangered Archives, GitLab, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 5, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Colorado Boulder: Rare glacier research notebooks now available digitally. “Over 140 documents from notebooks and reports that feature first-person accounts of glacial landscapes from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are now available to the public through the CU Digital Library. These expedition notebooks and reports come from the Roger G. Barry glaciology collection, which was donated to the CU Boulder Libraries’ Archives from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in 2017. The contents include glacier and ice discoveries from early expeditions to Alaska and U.S. National Parks, daily logs documenting observations such as weather and occasional interactions with indigenous communities.”

British Library Endangered Archives Blog: New online – July 2022. “This month we are highlighting four pilot projects that have recently been made available online, from Indonesia, Kenya, Russia, and Tunisia.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Register: GitLab U-turns on deleting dormant projects after backlash. “GitLab has reversed its decision to automatically delete projects that are inactive for more than a year and belong to its free-tier users. As revealed exclusively yesterday by The Register, GitLab planned to introduce the policy in late September. The biz hoped the move would save it up to $1 million a year and help make its SaaS business sustainable. This news did not go down well.”

Ars Technica: Winamp, the best MP3 player of the 1990s, just got a major update. “… last week, for the first time in four years, Radionomy released a new version of Winamp. The release notes for Winamp 5.9 RC1 Build 1999 say that the update represents four years of work across two separate development teams, delayed in between by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

USEFUL STUFF

Social Media Examiner: Twitter Spaces: A Live Audio Guide for Marketers. “Plan to launch your own Twitter space? Wondering how it all works? In this article, you’ll get a complete primer for Twitter Spaces so you can master everything from hosting and joining to promoting and analyzing audio events.” If you want to market with it, fine, but putting that aside this is a thorough overview of how Twitter Spaces works.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

AFP: ‘Golden age’: Marcos myths on Philippine social media. “Ferdinand Marcos Junior appears on the cusp of victory in next week’s presidential polls, with his seemingly unassailable lead fuelled by a decades-long misinformation campaign to revamp the family brand. The clan’s comeback from pariahs in exile to the peak of political power has been built on a relentless barrage of fake and misleading posts on social media.”

Chicago Daily Herald: Hoffman Estates allows Obama Library archives to stay for four more years. “While no firm date has been announced for the completion and opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Library near the University of Chicago, its future contents will stay in Hoffman Estates for four more years.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Independent: Parliament shuts TikTok account after MPs’ fears over firm’s links to China. “Parliament has shut its TikTok account after MPs raised concerns about the social media firm’s Chinese links. A number of MPs hit by Chinese sanctions for speaking out against ‘gross human rights violations’ had protested against the recent creation of the social media account.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Rensselaer: Consumers Are Likely To Be Susceptible to Slick Graphic Design of Trading Platforms. “Research conducted by Gaurav Jain, a behavioral economist and assistant professor at Rensselaer, and John Chen, an undergraduate student studying biology in Rensselaer’s accelerated B.S./M.D. program, explored how certain graphic designs on decentralized finance (defi) apps can target an investor’s inexperience to elicit decisions that are quick and uninformed, using an investor’s intuition rather than information.”

BBC: Conjoined twins separated with the help of virtual reality. “Three-year-olds Bernardo and Arthur Lima underwent surgeries in Rio de Janeiro, with direction from Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. The teams spent months trialling techniques using virtual reality projections of the twins, based on CT and MRI scans.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 6, 2022 at 12:25AM
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Supp Ukraina, World Media, Ukraine Game Jam, More: Ukraine Update, August 5, 2022

Supp Ukraina, World Media, Ukraine Game Jam, More: Ukraine Update, August 5, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

It’s Nice That: A new identity makes language learning a safe, friendly experience for Ukrainian children. “Language Supp Ukraina is an initiative of free online language platforms; it supports children from refugee families who have fled Ukraine in learning a new language and, in this instance, with Polish lessons, to help aid in the transition to a new country.”

The Odessa Journal: The online library of world media columns about the Russian-Ukrainian war has been launched. “A selection of covers can be found by the link. They can be searched by time, country, or edition. Columns are available on the website in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and other languages.”

EVENTS

US Department of State: Gamers Around the World Celebrate Ukraine’s Cultural Heritage at the United With Ukraine Game Jam. “This videogame development competition was organized by GovTech Poland, in cooperation with the Cultural Heritage Center from the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Over two days, the jammers, representing 22 countries, came together virtually, and in person, to create working prototypes for new video games that celebrate and support Ukraine’s cultural heritage.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: UK sanctions British blogger over videos from Ukraine. “Blogger Graham Phillips was added to the UK sanctions list on Monday, according to the Foreign Office. He is the only British national sanctioned in relation to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to public records.”

Reuters: Russia’s Yandex says investments could pick up as revenues rise. “Russian internet giant Yandex reported on Tuesday a jump in second-quarter revenue and profit, saying efforts to save cash had helped it weather external challenges and that investments may accelerate in the coming quarters.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNBC: Meta takes down Russian troll farm. “Meta says that it’s continuing to crack down on bad actors across its social media sites. The company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, reported Thursday that it had taken down a Russia-based troll farm from Instagram earlier this year that had been churning out phony posts about the war in Ukraine.”

BBC: Ukraine war: How Russia uses social media to steal sunflower seeds. “The BBC has seen significant evidence that Russian forces in occupied areas of Ukraine have been systematically seizing not only Ukrainian grain, but also sunflower seeds from local farmers. We have spoken to farmers who have lost their crops, and tracked messages in private and public social media groups showing how the seeds are transported from southern and eastern occupied parts of Ukraine to Russia.”

NPR: The Ukrainian women who make art in the face of war. “Stories of war are being told now by some of Ukraine’s leading female artists at New York’s Fridman Gallery, as well as a gallery in Kyiv. The women are activists as well as artists, and are responding in paint, photographs and videos to the Russian invasion, and earlier conflicts over the annexation of Crimea. The powerful, haunting works prove that art is not just about pretty pictures.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: Did Russia mess up its cyberwar with Ukraine before it even invaded?. “Jan. 14 was a rough day for the Ukrainian government: Destructive malware wiped out computers at two agencies, and hackers temporarily took down dozens of agency websites and left a message on the Foreign Ministry site to ‘Be afraid and expect the worst.’ Now, though, Ukrainian officials say that the assault was a huge miscalculation on the Russians’ part.”

Moscow Times: Ex-Yandex Head Takes EU to Court Over Sanctions. “The former head of Russia’s top tech firm Yandex Tigran Khudaverdyan has challenged sanctions against him over the Ukraine war in a European Union court. Khudaverdyan filed a lawsuit on June 7 demanding the European Council lift its ‘discriminatory and disproportionate’ sanctions against him. The lawsuit was first reported by TV channel RTVI on Monday evening.”

Bleeping Computer: Movie torrents hijacked to send tips on bypassing Russian censorship. ” A team of Ukrainian cyber-activists has thought of a simple yet potentially effective way to spread uncensored information in Russia: bundling torrents with text and video files pretending to include installation instructions.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Dispatch: It’s Not Just Ukraine. “Through increased meddling in Moldova, Georgia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Putin has made it clear that he can pull the trigger and defrost frozen conflicts whenever he pleases. The U.S. and Europe must send information warfare teams to counter Moscow’s weaponization of secessionist movements.”

August 5, 2022 at 09:01PM
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Cash for Clunkers, UCLA Law, Google, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, August 5, 2022

Cash for Clunkers, UCLA Law, Google, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, August 5, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Drive: We Found the Full List of All 677,081 Cars Killed in Cash for Clunkers. “The federal scrappage scheme that destroyed almost 700,000 supposedly gas-guzzling vehicles had basic criteria: no cars could be 25 years old or older, the cars must manage 18 mpg combined or worse, driveable, and its rebate and scrap value must be applied to a car that would be registered and insured for one continuous year after purchase. What was taken off the roads has hopefully been recycled several times over, but the truth isn’t lost, as we’ve dug up a little-known, long-lost complete report on every car CFC destroyed.”

UCLA Newsroom: UCLA Law launches project to track attacks on critical race theory. “UCLA School of Law’s Critical Race Studies Program has created an innovative project to track and analyze legislative, regulatory and administrative efforts to block or undermine the teaching of a more complete history of the United States in schools across the country. Critical race theory, or CRT, is the study of systemic racism in law, policy and society.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Blog: How we’re improving search results when you use quotes. “The snippets we display for search results (meaning the text you see describing web content) will be formed around where a quoted word or phrase occurs in a web document. That means you can more easily identify where to find them after you click the link and visit the content. On desktop, we’ll also bold the quoted material.” An excellent update.

Associated Press: Musk response to Twitter lawsuit to be made public by Friday. “Elon Musk’s answer to Twitter’s lawsuit over his attempt to back out of a $44 billion deal to buy the social media company will be made public by Friday evening at the latest, a judge ruled Wednesday.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Gizmodo: The Notorious Hacker Who’s Trying to Fix Social Media. “Over the past two decades, social media has taken over the world and become a menace to democracy. Can a pseudonymous hacktivist get it back on the right track?” I’m on CounterSocial and I like it a lot. Became a Pro user in May and I’m pleased to report that my credit card has suffered no injury. It’s not a place to be if you just want to splash around in outrage, but if you like to hang out and share news and have conversations and post music and pet pictures, it’s great.

NBC News: Dozens of fake news websites and social media accounts pushed pro-China talking points. “A Chinese marketing firm hosted a ring of at least 72 fake news sites in 11 languages with corresponding fake social media personas that pushed Chinese government talking points, according to research published Thursday.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Russian accused of money laundering and running $4B bitcoin exchange extradited to US. “A Russian national accused of running a multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange that allegedly profited from various hacking and extortion schemes has been extradited from Greece and is on his way to the US, according to the suspect’s lawyer.”

Reuters: EU antitrust regulators quiz developers on Google app payments – sources . “EU antitrust regulators have asked app developers whether Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) unit Google’s threat to remove apps from its Play Store if they use other payment options instead of its own billing system has hurt their business, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.”

NBC News: Class-action suit filed against Equifax after millions of scores were affected by glitch. “A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Equifax following a report that millions of credit scores were affected by a technical glitch in the credit bureau’s reporting system.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Michigan: How Social Media Usage & Online Navigation Changes During A Crisis. “As part of the Social Responsibility Series, Paul Resnick, PhD, joins Michigan Minds to share insight on the use of social media during times of national crisis, the impact of digital search filters, and how users can stay informed about misinformation.” Podcast with accompanying article.

University of Melbourne: How Data Expertise Is Fostering Endangered Languages. “The PARADISEC digital archive model revitalising endangered languages around the Pacific has now been taken up in North America by the Cherokee Nation.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Texas A&M Today: Texas A&M Team Translates Thousands Of Pages Of Math Into Braille. “When Texas A&M University Mathematics Lecturer Vanessa Coffelt wanted to further accommodate coursework for students who are blind or visually impaired, the staff at Texas A&M’s Department of Disability Resources accepted the challenge. They worked closely with the Department of Mathematics to create a Braille translation — more than 2,300 pages worth.” Good morning, Internet…

August 5, 2022 at 05:28PM
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