New researches

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

North Carolina Cold Cases, LinkedIn, YouTube, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, August 31, 2022

North Carolina Cold Cases, LinkedIn, YouTube, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, August 31, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Carolina Public Press: As NC’s decades-old rape kits are tested, new DNA evidence emerges. “After having the largest backlog of untested kits in the entire country, North Carolina is methodically working through those kits — more than 16,000 of them…. The DNA from another 1,481 kits has already been uploaded to CODIS [Combined DNA Index System], awaiting a hit from a possibly unknown person. That information is now displayed publicly, including down to the law enforcement agency level, on a new website.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Journal: LinkedIn Improves Search Results For Posts. “Search results for posts were previously served by two indexes – one for posts in LinkedIn’s main feed and one for articles. The complex nature made it difficult to build upon, so LinkedIn decided to decouple the two indexes. LinkedIn reveals the entire process in excruciating detail in a new blog post.”

CNBC: YouTube appoints Mary Ellen Coe as Chief Business Officer, following departure of Robert Kyncl. “Long-time YouTube executive Robert Kyncl announced on Monday he’s departing the dominant social video platform in the U.S. after more than 12 years at the company. Google President of global customer solutions Mary Ellen Coe will take over the role of Chief Business Officer at YouTube starting in early October, the company confirmed. Kyncl will temporarily stay at YouTube to help with the transition.”

USEFUL STUFF

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: How to navigate and search ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks Database. “In the first installment of this multi-part video series, ICIJ’s training manager Jelena Cosic walks through the basics of how to search through more than 800,000 offshore entities from the Pandora Papers, Panama Papers and more.”

MakeUseOf: 7 Best YouTube Curators to Find Videos, Movies, and Documentaries Worth Watching. “Finding quality videos on YouTube has become a recurring joke these days, and let’s not even get started on the irrelevant recommendations that YouTube serves you. But that’s why we need video curators. These are the people (or algorithms) that crawl the deep recesses of YouTube’s library to find videos worth watching so that you can spend more time watching and less time searching.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Twitter labeled factual information about covid-19 as misinformation. “Many of the tweets have since had the misinformation labels removed, and the suspended accounts have been restored. But the episode has shaken many scientific and medical professionals, who say Twitter is a key way they try to publicize the continuing risk of covid to a population that has grown weary of more than two years of shifting claims about the illness.”

Bard College: Bard Graduate Center Faculty Member Aaron Glass Awarded $150,000 NEH Grant to Support Enhanced Accessibility for the Digital Publication of Indigenous Cultural Heritage Materials. “Bard Graduate Center Associate Professor Aaron Glass has been awarded a $150,000 Digital Humanities Advancement Grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) to support his collaborative project to create a critical, annotated, digitized edition of anthropologist Franz Boas’s landmark 1897 monograph on the Kwakwaka’wakw culture of the Pacific Northwest Coast.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Remote Scan of Student’s Room Before Test Violated His Privacy, Judge Rules. “A federal judge said Cleveland State University violated the Fourth Amendment when it used software to scan a student’s bedroom, a practice that has grown during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Bleeping Computer: FBI: Hackers increasingly exploit DeFi bugs to steal cryptocurrency. “The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning investors that cybercriminals are increasingly exploiting security vulnerabilities in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platforms to steal cryptocurrency. ‘The FBI has observed cyber criminals exploiting vulnerabilities in the smart contracts governing DeFi platforms to steal investors’ cryptocurrency,’ the federal law enforcement agency said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: The Animal Translators. “Machine-learning systems, which use algorithms to detect patterns in large collections of data, have excelled at analyzing human language, giving rise to voice assistants that recognize speech, transcription software that converts speech to text and digital tools that translate between human languages. In recent years, scientists have begun deploying this technology to decode animal communication, using machine-learning algorithms to identify when squeaking mice are stressed or why fruit bats are shouting.”

Science Daily: Underwater messaging app for smartphones. “Researchers have developed AquaApp, a mobile app for acoustic-based communication and networking underwater that can be used with existing devices such as smartphones and smartwatches.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

How-To Geek: “An Intense Hobby”: Meet the People Making New Retro Games. “It’s easy to think that consoles like the original NES, Sega Mega Drive, or even the Atari are nothing more than museum pieces, mere footnotes in video gaming history. However, there’s plenty of interest in retro gaming: And people are even making new games for these old consoles. Nowhere was this clearer than at Gamescom 2022 in Cologne, Germany, where a decent-sized section of a massive hall was dedicated to retro gaming.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 31, 2022 at 05:29PM
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Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Ohio Naloxone, Wolfram Arithmetic, OpenSea, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 30, 2022

Ohio Naloxone, Wolfram Arithmetic, OpenSea, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

WDTN: New website provides free naloxone to Ohio residents. “A new website will provide Ohioans with a simplified process for accessing naloxone, a lifesaving drug used in the event of an opioid overdose…. The new website makes requesting naloxone possible for all Ohioans, whether they are a first responder, community member or distribution site and enhances access to prevention and treatment information.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Wolfram: Wolfram|Alpha Pro Teaches Step-by-Step Arithmetic for All Grade Levels. “Now, Wolfram|Alpha Pro returns step-by-step solutions for long addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems, including ones involving decimals or negative numbers. We have also developed detailed step-by-step solutions for long division of whole numbers and negative numbers as well as—for the high-school level—multiplication and division of polynomials.”

Fortune: Trading volume on top NFT marketplace OpenSea down 99% since May. “What was once a red-hot market fueled by FOMO during the crypto bull market of 2021 is now just a trickle, with trading volume on the most popular NFT marketplace, OpenSea, down 99% in just under four months. On May 1, OpenSea processed a record $2.7 billion in NFT transactions, but on Sunday the marketplace recorded just $9.34 million worth, according to data compiled by DappRadar.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: The Best RSS Feed Readers for Streamlining the Internet. “RSS has been around awhile now, so there are a lot of very good RSS readers out there. Most of them feature built-in search and suggestions, so you don’t have to go hunting for feeds yourself. You just might discover some cool new sites to read. I’ve been using RSS for more than a decade and recently spent a few months trying almost a dozen RSS reader services. The picks below are the best RSS readers available.” I use both NewsBlur and Feedly daily, and recommend them both.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

On the Wight: Did someone press the button early? Google Maps showing many closed Isle of Wight roads (updated). “As you can see from our screen grabs above and below and from Dan’s short video below it almost looks as though someone has accidentally turned on the rolling road closures two weeks early for the Tour of Britain cycle race – due to take place next Sunday.”

Voice of America: VOA Greek Service Legacy Finds Home at City University of New York. “The physical and digital archive of the Greek broadcasting service of the Voice of America, one of the original language services of the network, is now donated to the Hellenic American Project (HAP), a nonprofit program under the Department of Sociology of Queens College in the City University of New York.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Nothing Is Protecting Child Influencers From Exploitation. “Children can now enter the public gaze of millions with as little as their first ultrasound scan. As early as 2010, studies indicated that a quarter of children had an online presence before their birth, curated by expectant parents. There is something deeply Kafkaesque about a child’s day-to-day existence becoming a vessel for logo-embroidered merch and licensing contracts. But whilst Jackie Coogan may have been able to take back at least a fraction of the money made from peanut butter tins with his face on them, the prospects seem bleak for today’s hashtag babies.”

The Verge: Snap agrees to $35 million settlement over privacy lawsuit . “Snapchat users in Illinois who used filters or lenses may be eligible for a payout. Illinois reached a $35 million settlement with Snap this month, according to the Chicago Tribune, in a class action lawsuit over how user data was collected.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of New South Wales: Unlocking the secret to private messaging apps. “Whether you’re sharing confidential information or swapping movie ideas with a friend, people are turning to private messaging apps that offer end-to-end encryption to protect the contents of their conversations. When data is shared over the internet, it often traverses a series of networks to reach its destination. Apps such as WhatsApp, owned by social media giant Meta (formerly Facebook), provide a level of privacy that even challenges Government agencies from accessing encrypted conversations.”

SmartCompany: Google AI spots 20,000 undeclared pools in $14 million tax windfall for French government. “Artificial intelligence (AI) software developed by Google has found thousands of undeclared swimming pools in the backyards of France, resulting in the owners of those pools being slugged a hefty tax bill totalling $14.5 million.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 31, 2022 at 12:52AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/aNfqBt1

British Royal Air Force Records, Snapchat, FCC Broadband Maps, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 30, 2022

British Royal Air Force Records, Snapchat, FCC Broadband Maps, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Fold3: New British Royal Air Force Records! . “We are pleased to announce a new collection of military records from the United Kingdom. The UK, British Air Force Lists, 1919-1945 contains a list of people who served in the British Royal Air Force between the end of the First and Second World Wars.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mashable: Snap’s new Dual Camera actually is a little different from BeReal. “On Monday, Dual Camera launched for Snapchatters using iOS on at least an iPhone XS/XR globally, with an Android rollout expected in the coming months. The mode allows users to capture content via the front and back cameras simultaneously, and though it sounds eerily similar to the Gen Z-beloved BeReal, Snap promises that it’s not exactly the same.”

Techdirt: New FCC Broadband Maps Are A Bit Of A ‘Train Wreck’ “The FCC launched a new data collection portal in June, and gave ISPs until September 1 to provide updated broadband availability data. But smaller ISPs in particular say they’re struggling to meet the new requirements for data collection and transparency, and pretty clearly won’t be ready for launch.”

NBC News: Twitch will allow partners to stream on other platforms now. “Twitch has lifted its exclusivity agreement and now allows partners to create live content for other platforms like YouTube and Facebook, NBC News has confirmed. Twitch partners, who must meet certain criteria to monetize their channel and access exclusive support from the platform, had been long bound to an exclusivity agreement that only allowed them to stream on Twitch.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 10 Useful Command-Line IrfanView Tools for Working With Images. “These days, image editors are a dime a dozen. Beyond new filters, few tools offer exciting features. What if you could integrate image editing directly into your batch jobs or Windows scripts? If you’re familiar with IrfanView and think it’s only a simple image viewer and screenshot app, then we invite you to take another look. You can run all the script commands presented below from the command prompt or Windows Terminal, so long as you are working from the IrfanView directory. Let’s see how it’s done.”

How-To Geek: Google Forms vs. Microsoft Forms: Which Should You Use?. “You can create a form or quiz easily using both services. The interfaces are comparable with no standout differences. So when it comes down to what one service offers over the other, a certain feature might be the tie-breaker you need to decide between them. Let’s look at how Google Forms and Microsoft Forms differ.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Dartmouth University: Dartmouth to Digitize Rare ‘Lobby Card’ Collection. “Dartmouth and its Media Ecology Project have signed an agreement with a prominent film poster and lobby card collector to digitize his significant collection of material related to film history. Under the agreement, Dwight Cleveland—a Chicago-based collector and real estate developer with an interest in historic preservation—will provide access to his collection of more than 10,000 rare and valuable lobby cards from the silent film era to MEP Director Mark Williams.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: The Twitter whistleblower just got a subpoena from Elon Musk. “Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko, the former Twitter security chief whose explosive disclosures alleged serious security flaws and misleading practices within the company, has received a subpoena to appear for a deposition in the ongoing lawsuit between Twitter and Elon Musk.”

BBC: The sudden silencing of Guantanamo’s artists. “Until the end of 2017, Guantanamo detainees were allowed to take their art with them when they were released, or give it to their lawyers to take out. The artists could bring their work to meetings with their lawyers, who would submit it along with their meeting notes to a team which vetted it for classified material or national security issues…. Then in late 2017, under the Trump administration, it became clear that art was no longer being allowed out.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: QAnon Accounts Found a Home, and Trump’s Support, on Truth Social. “NewsGuard, a media watchdog that analyzes the credibility of news outlets, found 88 users promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory on Truth Social, each to more than 10,000 followers. Of those accounts, 32 were previously banned by Twitter.”

Notre Dame News: Gender-diverse teams produce more novel, higher-impact scientific discoveries, study shows. “New research from the University of Notre Dame examines about 6.6 million papers published across the medical sciences since 2000 and reveals that a team’s gender balance is an under-recognized, yet powerful indicator of novel and impactful scientific discoveries.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Newswise: Print, Recycle, Repeat: Scientists Demonstrate a Biodegradable Printed Circuit. “According to the United Nations, less than a quarter of all U.S. electronic waste gets recycled. In 2021 alone, global e-waste surged at 57.5 million tons, and only 17.4% of that was recycled…. But now, a team of researchers from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley have developed a potential solution: a fully recyclable and biodegradable printed circuit.” Good morning, Internet…

August 30, 2022 at 05:26PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/d3f0wJc

Monday, August 29, 2022

Twitter, Heroku, Niche Creators, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 29, 2022

Twitter, Heroku, Niche Creators, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: You Can Now Listen to Podcasts on Twitter. “Podcasts are now available to stream directly from the Spaces tab on Twitter, the social media giant said in a blog post Thursday. Starting today, you can head over to your Spaces tab, which is essentially Twitter’s answer to audio-chat app Clubhouse, and listen to popular podcasts from around the world.”

TechCrunch: Heroku announces plans to eliminate free plans, blaming ‘fraud and abuse’. “After offering them for over a decade, Heroku today announced that it will eliminate all of its free services — pushing users to paid plans. Starting November 28, the Salesforce-owned cloud platform as a service will stop providing free product plans and shut down free data services and soon (on October 26) will begin deleting inactive accounts and associated storage for accounts that have been inactive for over a year.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Niche internet micro celebrities are taking over the internet. “Niche internet micro celebrities are people online who are known to a small but often dedicated group and they represent a growing variant of the attention economy. Online fame is a consequence for a niche internet micro celebrity, never the goal. They rarely make money from their social accounts, choosing instead to post for the fun of it. The term is often used in a tongue in cheek way.”

Clemson University: Summer institute to reconstruct South Carolina’s “Black Archive”. “Clemson English professors Susanna Ashton and Rhondda Thomas will join Furman faculty members Gregg Hecimovich and Kaniqua Robinson to lead a summer institute entitled ‘Reconstructing the Black Archive: South Carolina as Case Study, 1739–1895.’ The three-week residential institute is designed for more than 20 higher education faculty to study ways of reconstructing Black histories, using South Carolina as a case study. The institute is supported by a $198,317 grant from the NEH.”

Wall Street Journal: How Google Remapped the World: The Tech Behind. “Google Maps has transformed the way that we navigate the world, make decisions, and think about our privacy in the 17 years since its launch. Here’s an inside look at how it works and what’s next.” 8:31 video, captioned.

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Inside the World’s Biggest Hacker Rickroll. “The elaborate high school graduation prank—dubbed The Big Rick by its architects—was one of the largest rickrolls to ever take place, taking months of planning to pull off.”

Inside Imaging: Copyright bot wrongly attacks White House photographer. “Former White House photographer, Pete Souza, who spent two terms documenting US president Barack Obama, has been threatened with copyright litigation for publishing his own public domain pictures.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Scientists want to bridge public divide. “There’s a disconnect between the goals and the delivery of scientific outreach and its actual impact. In recent years, communication around diseases like COVID-19 and a growing mistrust in science have made that gap even more apparent. To better understand where these disconnects occur, Northwestern University scientists conducted a survey of 530 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty and staff at U.S. academic institutions to examine their motivations and barriers to participation in science outreach.”

Google Blog: Join us in the AI Test Kitchen. “One of our most promising models is called LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), and as we move ahead with development, we feel a great responsibility to get this right. That’s why we introduced an app called AI Test Kitchen at Google I/O earlier this year. It provides a new way for people to learn about, experience, and give feedback on emerging AI technology, like LaMDA. Starting today, you can register your interest for the AI Test Kitchen as it begins to gradually roll out to small groups of users in the US, launching on Android today and iOS in the coming weeks.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

CogDogBlog: Do Look at Don’t Look At My Photos. “The idea is to do the opposite of flickr’s Explore or Interestingness, to try to find some of the obscure photographers in the mix. The whole thing is a bit of duct tape JavaScript tapping into the flickr API. Every hour a server script updates the site’s single page to find a new photographer to feature.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 30, 2022 at 12:10AM
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Museum Exhibitions, Dell, Anti-Disinformation Efforts, More: Ukraine Update, August 29, 2022

Museum Exhibitions, Dell, Anti-Disinformation Efforts, More: Ukraine Update, August 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Museums + Heritage Advisor: Six months on, Ukraine remains in focus. “This week marks six months since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, an attack which has continued to devastate the country, its museums and cultural sites among the collateral…. In March, Arts Council England (ACE) provided new guidance for museums planning to work with companies and artists from Russia and Belarus in response to the invasion. Now in August, the pace of support through exhibitions shows no signs of slowing down.”

Reuters: Dell Ceases All Russian Operations After August Offices Closure . “Dell Technologies Inc. said on Saturday it had ceased all Russian operations after closing its offices in mid-August, the latest in a growing list of Western firms to exit Russia. The U.S. computer firm, a vital supplier of servers in Russia, has joined others in curtailing operations since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.”

Reuters: Google to roll out anti-disinformation campaign in some EU countries. “Google’s Jigsaw subsidiary will launch a campaign next week to tackle disinformation in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic about Ukrainian refugees based on research by psychologists at two British universities.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

WIRED: Their Photos Were Posted Online. Then They Were Bombed. “Analysts and online sleuths, such as journalists at the investigative news outlet Bellingcat, have developed and professionalized open source investigation techniques for years. Open source intelligence, also known as OSINT, involves the use of public data—such as social media posts, flight tracking data, and satellite images, among other sources—to let anyone investigate events worldwide, from potential war crimes to human rights violations. Piecing together small details from multiple sources of information can allow investigators to understand a clearer picture of events on the ground.”

BBC: Gamescom: The Ukrainian video game makers who kept working in a war zone. “Like many colleagues in the video game industry, Iryna Bilous and Nika Avayan recently arrived at the world’s largest gaming conference, Gamescom in Germany, to show off their latest title to fans. But for these two Ukrainians, the road to the trade fair has been anything but a normal journey.”

Motherboard: Kaspersky Employees Say They Were Asked to Resign Because They Wanted To Leave Russia . “In the wake of the invasion, at least two employees told Motherboard they asked to be relocated outside of Russia. A third source who still works at the company also told Motherboard that some Kaspersky employees were asked to resign after those employees asked to live and work somewhere else.”

Fast Company: Inside Russia’s cartoonish propaganda website made for kids. “It has been almost six months since the world watched in horror as Russia invaded Ukraine, under the false pretext of protecting Russia from potential aggression. But Russia’s very own presidential website may have been laying the groundwork for years.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Russia’s Yandex to sell off news service as state tightens grip on online media. “Russia’s largest internet company is to sell off its news and blogging services to the state-controlled social media platform VK in a deal that will increase direct state control over the news many Russians see online.”

Bleeping Computer: Russia’s ‘Oculus’ to use AI to scan sites for banned information. “Russia’s internet watchdog Roskomnadzor is developing a neural network that will use artificial intelligence to scan websites for prohibited information. Called ‘Oculus,’ the automatic scanner will analyze URLs, images, videos, and chats on websites, forums, social media, and even chat/messenger channels to locate material that should be redacted or taken down.”

Jerusalem Post: Russia’s state watchdog restricts TikTok, Zoom and other IT companies . “Russia’s state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said on Friday that it was taking punitive measures against a string of foreign IT companies including TikTok, Telegram, Zoom, Discord and Pinterest, according to Russian media.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Foreign Policy: Information Warfare in Russia’s War in Ukraine. “Strategic propaganda campaigns, including those peddling disinformation, are by no means new during warfare, but the shift toward social media as the primary distribution channel is transforming how information warfare is waged, as well as who can participate in ongoing conversations to shape emerging narratives.” This article is partially-paywalled, but enough is available that it’s worth a link.

Stanford Internet Observatory: How Unmoderated Platforms Became the Frontline for Russian Propaganda. “In an essay for Lawfare Blog, Samantha Bradshaw, Renee DiResta and Christopher Giles look at how state war propaganda in Russia is increasingly prevalent on platforms that offer minimal-moderation virality as their value proposition.”

August 29, 2022 at 09:12PM
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Mining Wikipedia’s Page View Counts With Gossip Machine

Mining Wikipedia’s Page View Counts With Gossip Machine
By researchbuzz2

Researching famous people has always been a favorite search puzzle of mine. Google works to a point, and there are little search tricks you can use to narrow down your results, but digging down into substantive news and information about celebrities and the well-known is difficult via a general search engine. If they’re really, really famous it gets even more tough.

Thinking about this, I mused about famous people, and about references to them, and where those references appear, like Wikipedia. Wouldn’t there be a way to gauge public interest in a famous person via Wikipedia?

I came up with a hypothesis: why would a Wikipedia page get an unusually high number of views? Because more people are interested and looking at it, of course. And why are they looking? Because they were reminded of the page’s topic, probably through a news story or similar happening.

Therefore, Wikipedia page view counts aren’t just page view counts, they’re fossilized attention. They’re markers in time for when a topic has an unusual level of interest.

So why not find those markers and translate them to news searches?

That’s what Gossip Machine does. You can use it at https://researchbuzz.github.io/Gossip-Machine/ .

Enter the topic you’re interested in, the year you want to search, and how newsworthy you want the date to be ( When the setting is “VERY Newsworthy,” days must have at least 190% of an average day’s pageviews, while the “Gossip Fiend” setting requires only 150%.)

Gossip Machine goes through every day of a year’s worth of page counts and returns the days that match your settings, along with links to Google News and Google Web searches for that date.

Let’s do a couple of examples. The default search for Gossip Machine is for Snoop Dogg in 2016, with VERY Newsworthy dates to be found. I click the “Fire Up the Gossip Machine” button and get a list of 2016 dates when Snoop’s page had an unusual level of interest and visits. Each date has a link to do a Web search or a News search. Gossip Machine also tells you the average page view count so you can be prepared for the odd results you might get for topics with a low view count.

I clicked on the July 17 news search to see what was going on that day, and yeah, that looks pretty newsworthy!

Clicking on the Web link might bring you links to other news stories or multimedia.

Do you see how that Wikipedia page view count – a marker of increased interest – can super-focus your search results?

It doesn’t work just for people, either. You can search for things like medical conditions, locations (remember, you’re looking for things that people might look up on Wikipedia, so the name of a California city might work better than a really general search like California itself) or even events.

Gossip Machine also does an initial search to find your topic page so don’t worry about getting the name exactly right. If, for example, you look up magic mushrooms in the year 2020, Gossip Machine will get you topical page results, having resolved your query to the topic Psilocybin mushroom:

You’ll note that in this example this topic’s page has a much lower view count than Gossip Machine recommends for good results. It’s still worth checking at least one or two links in the set of results, especially if they’re grouped together around a single date like this one is. In this case there was certainly relevant news:

I don’t think I’m quite done with Gossip Machine. If there’s an interest I can add more sources besides Google News and Web search, and I’ve been thinking about adding a triangulation feature – find the most popular dates that two different Wikipedia pages have in common and get the news for those.

What do you think?

August 29, 2022 at 07:20PM
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Repustar, NASA STEM Activities, Duolingo, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 29, 2022

Repustar, NASA STEM Activities, Duolingo, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me, from Poynter: Repustar debuts a tip line tool for US fact-checking organizations. “Repustar, a fact-checking organization that crowdsources fact checks, is partnering with journalism and fact-checking outlets in the US to provide both fact checks to the public and verifiable claims to fact-checkers. It aims to rollout the service globally in 2023. The remotely operated startup is also responsible for FactSparrow, a Twitter bot that users can tag under tweets with claims they would like to be checked, and The Gigafact Project, a fact-checking editorial platform.”

NASA: New Aeronautics Activities for the Back-to-School Season. “Kids are going back to school across the country – and NASA Aeronautics is here to help educators engage them with educational Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) activities related to our flight research. Part of NASA’s agency-wide Back to School campaign for the 2022-2023 school year, this updated aeronautics-focused STEM engagement portfolio includes topics that span the breadth of the agency’s work in aeronautics for students of all ages.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

KnowTechie: Duolingo will now teach you elementary-level math. “Duolingo is expected to launch its flagship math (or maths, depending on what side of the Atlantic you live on) course today. Duolingo Math is a dedicated app for iOS and iPadOS. It re-uses the company’s gamification mechanics to teach third-grade maths.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: How to Tell If You’re Eligible for Student Loan Forgiveness. “This week, the White House announced a sweeping plan to forgive the student loan debt of millions of Americans. The initiative will cancel up to $10,000 in debt for some borrowers and $20,000 for others. Here’s how to see if you’re eligible for loan forgiveness, how you can get your hands on the money, and a look at how the program will effect student loans in the future.”

WIRED: How to Use the Emergency SOS Feature on Your Smartphone. “Emergency SOS works in a similar way across mobile platforms, as we’ll outline below. Whether you’re dealing with a medical emergency or other safety concerns, its main purpose is to let emergency services and your trusted contacts know that you’re in trouble and where you are.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Reuters: Jack Dorsey says his biggest regret is Twitter became a company . “‘The biggest issue and my biggest regret is that it became a company,’ Dorsey tweeted in response to a question about whether Twitter turned out the way he had envisioned. Dorsey stands to receive $978 million if the agreement for billionaire Elon Musk to buy Twitter is completed.”

ArtsHub: Is social media the new curators’ portfolio?. “Social media platforms such as Instagram have greatly impacted the visibility of curators but can it give them some leverage in their professional practice?” I know what the word curate means but I didn’t entirely grasp what an art curator does. The Art Gallery of South Australia helped me understand.

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: How much trouble is Twitter in with regulators?. “An explosive whistleblower disclosure by Twitter’s former head of security this week exposes the company to new federal investigations and potentially billions of dollars in fines, tougher regulatory obligations or other penalties from the US government, according to legal experts and former federal officials.”

SF Chronicle: I tracked thieves stealing my car in S.F. Then I saw firsthand what police can — and can’t — do next. “In San Francisco, a city rife with gadget-lovers and plagued by high property crime, the technology would seem to be a game changer. But in reality, situations like my stolen Subaru can often be mired in unforeseen complications. The response by police has at times been thwarted by legal constraints — for example, an officer generally can’t enter a home just because the Find My iPhone app says your cell is inside — and at other times by what victims say feels like apathy.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Engadget: Federally funded studies must be freely accessible to the public, White House says . “The White House has updated its policy on federally funded research. Going forward, the results of studies funded by the government must be made public right away. Until now, researchers who receive federal funding have been allowed to publish their findings in academic journals exclusively for one year, effectively adding a paywall to their work. Agencies will need to update their policies accordingly by December 31st, 2025.”

Mashable: Virtual rapper FN Meka underscores how AI perpetuates racial stereotyping. “On Aug. 12, AI-powered rapper FN Meka signed a record deal with Capitol Records, becoming the first digital artist to sign with a major label. Eleven days later, the deal was terminated amidst calls that the character promoted ‘gross stereotypes’ of Black culture, as reported by the New York Times.” There are so many great rappers out there who don’t get enough recommendation. Why make a fake one? Good morning, Internet…

August 29, 2022 at 05:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://researchbuzz.me/2022/08/29/repustar-nasa-stem-activities-duolingo-more-monday-researchbuzz-august-29-2022/