Monday, September 5, 2022

Solar Panel Investments, Eyes on the Solar System, Google Docs, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, September 5, 2022

Solar Panel Investments, Eyes on the Solar System, Google Docs, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, September 5, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Institute of Standards and Technology: Deciding Whether to Install Solar Panels on Your Home? A New NIST Web Tool Can Help. “Whether it’s to live more sustainably, save money or both, many people think about adding solar panels to their homes. Homeowners consider a number of factors, including which type of solar panel might work best for them, when deciding whether the investment is worth it. Now, an online software tool from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can help answer homeowners’ questions. The software is called [PV]2 — Present Value of PhotoVoltaics — and it analyzes the economic and environmental impacts of rooftop solar technology.”

NASA: Explore the Solar System With NASA’s New-and-Improved 3D ‘Eyes’. “NASA has revamped its ‘Eyes on the Solar System’ 3D visualization tool, making interplanetary travel easier and more interactive than ever. More than two years in the making, the update delivers better controls, improved navigation, and a host of new opportunities to learn about our incredible corner of the cosmos – no spacesuit required. All you need is a device with an internet connection.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

How-To Geek: Google Maps Can Be In Your Google Docs. “Google Docs has been building up its ‘chips’ support over the past few months, which are shortcuts available by typing the @ symbol into a document. Now there’s an updated chip for adding locations from Google Maps.”

Internet Archive Blog: Internet Archive Opposes Publishers in Federal Lawsuit. “On Friday, September 2, we filed a brief in opposition to the four publishers that sued Internet Archive in June 2020: Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House. This is the second of three briefs from us that will help the Court decide the case.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: Use This Free Tool to Restore Faces in Old Family Photos. “This online tool—called GFPGAN—first made it onto our radar when it was featured in the August 28 edition of the (excellent) Recomendo newsletter, specifically, a post by Kevin Kelly. In it, he says that he uses this free program to restore his own old family photos, noting that it focuses solely on the faces of those pictured, and ‘works pretty well, sometimes perfectly, in color and black and white.'” I tried this tool with a picture of my great-grandfather sitting on the running board of an old Ford with his three kids. It worked okay, but I think it would work better on pictures were the faces where closer-up.

WIRED: Anyone Can Be a VTuber. Here’s How to Get Started . “VTubers is short for Virtual YouTubers, but encompasses Twitch streamers who use a virtual avatar as well. Everybody can be Kizuna AI now, and there’s countless ways of doing so. If you’re looking for where to begin, many existing VTubers recommend starting from a basic and almost-free (or as low-cost as possible) way.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Variety: Amazon’s Delay for ‘The Rings of Power’ Reviews on Prime Video Part of New Initiative to Filter Out Trolls (EXCLUSIVE). “Starting around the time of the launch of the distaff baseball dramedy ‘A League of Their Own,’ which premiered its full first season on Aug. 12, Amazon Prime Video quietly introduced a new 72-hour delay for all user reviews posted to Prime Video, a representative for the streamer confirmed to Variety. Each critique is then evaluated to determine whether it’s genuine or a forgery created by a bot, troll or other breed of digital goblin.”

Straits Times: From Facebook to TikTok: S’pore politicians’ latest social media battleground. “First, Members of Parliament went on Facebook when many Singaporeans spent more time on the social networking site. In recent years, they took to Instagram. Today, they are also turning to TikTok. The Sunday Times explores the trend and allure of this social media platform.” This is an overview leading to a set of related stories.

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: How Fake GPS Coordinates Are Leading to Lawlessness on the High Seas. “A technology enabling the transmission of fake locations to carry out murky or even illegal business operations could have profound implications for the enforcement of international law.”

Google Blog: Announcing Google’s Open Source Software Vulnerability Rewards Program. “Today, we are launching Google’s Open Source Software Vulnerability Rewards Program (OSS VRP) to reward discoveries of vulnerabilities in Google’s open source projects. As the maintainer of major projects such as Golang, Angular, and Fuchsia, Google is among the largest contributors and users of open source in the world.”

The Verge: How Twitter’s Child Porn Problem Ruined Its Plans For An Onlyfans Competitor . “In the spring of 2022, Twitter considered making a radical change to the platform. After years of quietly allowing adult content on the service, the company would monetize it. The proposal: give adult content creators the ability to begin selling OnlyFans-style paid subscriptions, with Twitter keeping a share of the revenue.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Florida Atlantic University: Digital Self-Harm Linked To Dramatic Rise In Youth Suicide Attempts . “Digital self-harm is defined as the online posting, sending or sharing of hurtful content about oneself anonymously. Since research is clear that traditional forms of self-harm (cutting, burning, hitting oneself) is linked to suicidal ideation and attempts, it stands to reason that youth who post cruel, embarrassing or threatening content about themselves (while their peers assume a third-party is the culprit) do so for similar dysphoric or abnormal reasons.” Good morning, Internet…

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September 5, 2022 at 05:31PM
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Sunday, September 4, 2022

New York City Flooding, Portugal Mammals, Google Play, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 4, 2022

New York City Flooding, Portugal Mammals, Google Play, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 4, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

City University of New York: New Data Dashboard Reporting Street-level Flooding In NYC Gives Government, Responders, The Public, And Researchers Real-time Information On Rising Waters. “Created in partnership with FieldKit, with funding from the New York State Empire State Development Corporation, the new mobile-ready web dashboard presents real-time data collected by the expanding FloodNet system of low-cost, open-source sensors in flood-prone areas across the city. Currently, FloodNet comprises 30 ultrasonic devices deployed in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island, from which readings are delivered to an interactive map and data visualization platform, allowing users to see the occurrence and depth of flood water at each sensor location.”

Phys .org: Largest database on mammals in Portugal now available. “The new public database includes 105,026 records of 92 species of terrestrial and marine mammals from 1873 to 2021 (of which 72% correspond to the period between 2000 and 2021).”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Roundtable: Google Provides Examples Of How To Improve Your Meta Descriptions. “Google has updated its meta descriptions help documentation to provide five examples of how to improve your meta descriptions. This was added yesterday, plus Google did some formatting updates to the page.”

Axios: Google brings Parler back to Google Play Store. “A year and a half after it was removed from Google’s Play Store, Parler, a Twitter alternative that attracts conservatives, has returned to the showcase for Android apps. Why it matters: Google removed Parler following the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, which was incited by misinformation and violent speech online.”

USEFUL STUFF

Slashgear: How To Copy And Paste On iPhone. “Whether you want to save important information or don’t want to type something out many times over, the copy and paste function on the iPhone is useful. It may seem like a simple task, but how it can be done may not be immediately obvious. There are a few different ways it can be done, depending on what it is you’re trying to copy and paste. If it’s words, for example, the process is different on the iPhone than copying and pasting pictures.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

BBC: Oldham Council removes video archive from YouTube over misuse. “A council has removed an online archive of its meetings after footage was edited and used ‘out of context’, its deputy chief executive has said. Oldham Council had previously allowed recordings of meetings to be made available for rewatching on YouTube.”

BuzzFeed News: Kids Yell “Poop” At Alexa, And These Musicians Profit. “It’s not surprising that there are songs about the most basic of human functions — what is the point of art if not to unite us through shared feeling? But connecting these songs with their ideal audience (children who can’t yet spell) took a technological leap: voice-enabled smart speakers like Alexa.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Rolling Stone: They Used Telegram to Organize a Dog-Fighting Ring. Now, They’re Facing Federal Charges. “A GRAND-JURY INDICTMENT filed in federal court last month reveals authorities conducted a years-long investigation into how a depraved group of individuals located in and around the greater Washington, D.C., area utilized the messaging app Telegram to operate an underground dog-fighting venture, regularly sharing tips on a variety of inhumane training methods and boasting about killing weaker dogs.”

New York Times: Investigators, Citing Looting, Have Seized 27 Antiquities From the Met. “Investigators in New York have seized 27 ancient artifacts valued at more than $13 million from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, asserting that the objects, acquired to showcase the glories of ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt, had all been looted.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

International Business Times: Century-old Family Photo Studio Preserves Ghana’s History In Black And White. “For 100 years, three generations of Bruce-Vanderpuijes have painstakingly amassed the world’s largest collection of 20th century Ghanaian photographs under one roof. They believe their Deo Gratias photo studio is the oldest in West Africa. From glass plates to digital files of nation-shaping events to intimate personal portraits, the family’s 50,000-image archive offers a unique glimpse into Accra’s transition from a colonial port into a bustling modern metropolis.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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September 5, 2022 at 12:52AM
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Scotland Cartography, Maine Coastal Flooding, Nevada Infrastructure Spending, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, September 4, 2022

Scotland Cartography, Maine Coastal Flooding, Nevada Infrastructure Spending, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, September 4, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

British Library Maps Blog: The new Roy Military Survey Gazetteer. “The British Library and National Library of Scotland are pleased to announce the availability of a new gazetteer which allows all the names on the Roy Military Survey Maps of Scotland (1747-55, British Library Maps CC.5.a.441) to be searched and browsed. Through the hard work of a team of volunteers over the last six months, all 33,523 names on the Roy Map have been recorded.”

Kennebunk Post: ‘StoryMap’ helps visualize climate change impact. “Southern Maine Planning and Development Commission has released a couple of new tools designed to help coastal Maine communities visualize the future impact of flooding on their towns and help them address it.”

Governor of Nevada: State of Nevada, Governor Sisolak launch NevadaBuilds.com highlighting infrastructure investments. “Governor Steve Sisolak officially launched a website highlighting infrastructure investments coming to Nevada through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, NevadaBuilds.com.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Google will allow alternative payment systems for Play Store in more countries. “Google announced today it’s expanding the user choice billing program for Play Store — which lets users choose alternative payment systems for in-app purchases — to India, Australia, Indonesia, Japan and the European Economic Area. The company is calling all non-gaming developers globally to apply for this program, and if they qualify, they can use third-party payment systems in the above-mentioned regions.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Read a Blocked Website. “These tools can help you subvert most content blocks, though we strongly urge you to make sure you’re not breaking any laws before you use them. While everything we cover below is legal in the U.S., using these tools in other countries—or using them to access illegal content—could get you in deep trouble. Like, years in prison or massive fines levels of trouble. Do your research, and use them at your own risk.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Brandeis International Business School: Leveraging blockchain to reach the ‘unbanked’. “Users of [Professor Erich] Schumann’s Fincludio app — the name is a portmanteau of ‘finance’ and ‘include’ — choose which services they’re interested in and which banks they want to do business with. Their personal information, meanwhile, is stored securely in a digital wallet on their smartphone. After a user selects a bank, the bank will only receive viewing access to the personal information it is required by law to collect and verify.”

Northumbria University: Major New Project To Reveal New Insights Into 19th Century British And Other Immigrant Sailors In The U.s. Navy. “The ‘Civil War Bluejackets’ Project—so named because of the distinctive uniform worn by U.S. Civil War sailors—is a collaboration between historians at Northumbria University, Newcastle, and computer scientists at the University of Sheffield and the University of Koblenz-Landau. Funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, the project launches on 6 September 2022 with a call for citizen volunteers to help transcribe tens of thousands of Civil War ‘Muster Rolls’, documents that were carried on board U.S. ships and which capture the personal details of the c.118,000 men who fought on water for the Union between 1861 and 1865.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Singapore struggles to curb cryptocurrency enthusiasm. “The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said on Monday it is taking measures to reduce the harms caused by cryptocurrency, including conducting ‘customer suitability tests’ as part of its ongoing slow-motion crackdown on the alternative tender.”

New York Times: Sweeping Children’s Online Safety Bill Is Passed in California. “The bill, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, could herald a shift in the way lawmakers regulate the tech industry. Rather than wade into heated political battles over online content, the legislation takes a practical, product-safety approach. It aims to hold online services to the same kinds of basic safety standards as the automobile industry — essentially requiring apps and sites to install the digital equivalent of seatbelts and airbags for younger users.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Boing Boing: Using DALL-E to generate fashion. “Director Karen X. Cheng used DALL-E and several other software tools to generate outfits on a video of a woman walking down the sidewalk.”

University of Connecticut: Researchers to Expand the Encyclopedia of RNA. “The National Human Genome Research Institute has awarded genomics expert Brent Graveley and his team $5.6-million to continue to work on an enormous encyclopedia of human RNA molecules and the proteins that bind to them. The grant is jointly awarded to Graveley and Gene Yeo of the University of California, San Diego.”

Argonne National Laboratory: Soaking Up the Sun with Artificial Intelligence. “Solar absorbers are a material used to convert this energy into heat or electricity. Maria Chan, a scientist in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, has developed a machine learning method for screening many thousands of compounds as solar absorbers. Her co-author on this project was Arun Mannodi-Kanakkithodi, a former Argonne postdoc who is now an assistant professor at Purdue University.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



September 4, 2022 at 05:29PM
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Saturday, September 3, 2022

Florida Addiction Treatment, Shark Movement, Project Drawdown, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 3, 2022

Florida Addiction Treatment, Shark Movement, Project Drawdown, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 3, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

WUSF: An online tool to find addiction treatment launches in Florida. “The online assessment and treatment locator is called ATLAS, and it’s designed to serve individuals struggling with addiction or concerned friends and family who are searching on their behalf. Users can fill out a questionnaire to get recommendations about the types of treatments that may benefit them, depending on their situation. Those could involve outpatient or residential programs, as well as additional services like mental health care or medication-assisted treatment.”

Deeper Blue: A New Database Shows How Sharks Use The Ocean’s Depths. “While some species spend their entire lives in shallow waters close to shore on the continental shelf, others plunge hundreds of meters or more off the slope waters into the twilight zone, beyond where sunlight penetrates. This new understanding of how elasmobranchs — the scientific word for sharks, rays and skates — use the ocean will enable policymakers and resource managers the opportunity to examine the threats these animals face, and guide future management and conservation plans.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Earth .org: Project Drawdown: The World’s Leading Climate Solutions Database Is Growing. “Founded in 2014 by Author and Entrepreneur Paul Hawken in collaboration with over 200 researchers, Project Drawdown is one of the most influential research-backed databases of climate solutions on the planet. The project’s mission is to help the world reach ‘drawdown’ – the point in time where levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to decline – as quickly and as safely as possible.”

USEFUL STUFF

Search Engine Journal: How To Use TikTok Search To Find Content, Community, And Creators. “Global brands have been quick to realize the power of the TikTok algorithm as a way to engage with audiences of all ages and leverage sales with influencer partnerships. And with the average user spending over 90 minutes on the app daily, finding community through other creators has become an important part of TikTok’s appeal to its core audience. How does this work for digital marketers, though?”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Yahoo Life: Star of Netflix’s ‘How to Build a Sex Room’ says Pinterest removed her board about the series: ‘HTBASR is a sex-positive show’. “Melanie Rose is a luxury interior designer … who happens to have a passion for getting people in the mood. Rose hosts Netflix’s How to Build a Sex Room, a series in which she meets with people to discuss their intimacy issues, then gives a room in their home a sexy makeover…. But not everyone finds Rose’s work so straightforward. This week, Rose took to Instagram to share that a Pinterest board she’d been keeping with products, decorating ideas and other highlights from the show was removed by the platform.”

New York Times: Google Employee Who Played Key Role in Protest of Contract With Israel Quits. “A Google employee who became the most visible opponent of a company contract with the Israeli military said on Tuesday that she would resign after claiming Google had tried to retaliate against her for her activism. The employee, Ariel Koren, a marketing manager for Google’s educational products arm who has worked for the company for seven years, wrote a memo to colleagues announcing her plan to leave Google at the end of the week.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Swarms of Satellites Are Tracking Illegal Fishing and Logging. “FISHING BOATS KEPT washing up in Japan with dead North Koreans on board. Dozens were documented every year, but they spiked in 2017, with more than 100 boats found on the northern coasts of Japan. No one could explain the appearance of these ghost ships. Why were there so many? An answer arrived in 2020. Using a swarm of satellites orbiting Earth, a nonprofit organization called Global Fishing Watch in Washington, DC, found that China was fishing illegally in North Korean waters.”

The Register: That ‘clean’ Google Translate app is actually Windows crypto-mining malware . “Watch out: someone is spreading cryptocurrency-mining malware disguised as legitimate-looking applications, such as Google Translate, on free software download sites and through Google searches. The cryptomining Trojan, known as Nitrokod, is typically disguised as a clean Windows app and works as the user expects for days or weeks before its hidden Monero-crafting code is executed.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Ars Technica: Pixel art comes to life: Fan upgrades classic MS-DOS games with AI. “Last night, a Reddit user named frigis9 posted six images that featured detailed graphical upgrades to classic MS-DOS computer games such as Commander Keen 6 and The Secret of Monkey Island. The most interesting part is how they did it: by using an image synthesis technique called ‘img2img’ (image to image), which takes an input image, applies a written text prompt, and generates a similar output image as a result. ”

EOS: New Landslide Reporting Tool Uses Social Media and AI. “The team used machine learning to train the tool to identify landslides in photographs. For this, the geologists independently carried out an assessment of 11,737 images and manually marked each one as landslide or not a landslide. The resulting artificial intelligence tool can detect landslide reports with an accuracy of 76%. The tool is currently up and running and is intended to be used for disaster management, landslide research, climate change analysis, and global and national database studies.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



September 4, 2022 at 12:24AM
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Mining Safety, Illinois State University, New Jersey Disaster Relief, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, September 3, 2022

Mining Safety, Illinois State University, New Jersey Disaster Relief, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, September 3, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Department of Labor: US Department Of Labor Launches App To Provide Miners Access To Health, Safety, Miners’ Rights Information. “The app allows miners to easily use the tool at mine sites and outside of working hours to search for best safety and health practices and find resources on understanding their rights and responsibilities under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977. The app also sends users notifications of mining accidents and how to prevent them.”

Illinois State University: Historic Illinois State alumni and marketing publications digitally preserved . “With 110 years of material to look through, each issue contains valuable insight into the evolving sociopolitical landscape of the country. One magazine which was disconnected from these previous publications, The Statesman, ran for just four issues between 1969 and 1971. It offers great insight into views on the Vietnam War, race relations on campus, marijuana, and other markedly countercultural perspectives of the era.”

North Jersey: Need help after a major storm? A year after Ida, NJ launches a new website for that. “Gov. Phil Murphy announced a new resource website… on Thursday to help victims of future storms navigate federal and state disaster relief programs. The site will be geared toward providing residents, small businesses, local governments and nonprofit organizations with a directory of resources to prepare for and recover from disasters.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Library of Congress: LC Labs Letter: Recap of 2022 Summer Fellow Projects. “As summer draws to a close, the LC Labs and Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI) teams are grateful for the time we shared with students and recent graduates from around the country who joined us for summer fellowships. This month’s newsletter highlights some of our favorite moments!”

9to5 Google: You can download Hangouts history via Google Takeout until January 1. “The only way to use classic Hangouts today is the website, but that’s set to go away in November. Ahead of that, Google is advising people to download Hangouts history via Takeout ‘because some of [their] conversations or portions of conversations won’t automatically migrate from Hangouts to Chat.'”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

TechCrunch: Google, YouTube outline plans for the US midterm elections. “Google and its video sharing app YouTube outlined plans for handling the 2022 U.S. midterm elections this week, highlighting tools at its disposal to limit the effort to limit the spread of political misinformation.”

New York Times: Katie Gregson-MacLeod Sang About a ‘Complex’ Love. TikTok Responded.. “Vulnerability is contagious, and TikTok, which allows users to both imbibe and amplify at the same time, is an optimal accelerant. The success of ‘Complex’ reflects the evolving priorities of TikTok, which in its first couple of years was best known as an accelerant for dance trends, novelty songs and meme-able comedy, but is now just as often a home for sorrow. The shift reflects a partial maturation of the medium somewhere beyond pure escape.”

WINA: Petition launched to bring The Hook archives back online. “The publishers of C-Ville Weekly, who also published The Hook before it was shut down in 2013, transferred ownership of its website/archive to an anonymous buyer last year. Earlier this year, the buyer removed the website/archive from the internet. The publishers of C-Ville Weekly’s have so far refused to explain why they made the decision to sell.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

City A.M.: Google heads to court over billion pound competition row for Play Store. “Google will have to defend itself at trial over a £1bn consumer claim about Play Store, a competition judge has decided. A Competition Appeal Tribunal ruling this week found that consumer champion Liz Coll is authorised to bring an opt-out collective claim against the tech giant for alleged competition infringements.”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: New law, less sunlight: Missouri takes down contract website. “Gov. Mike Parson’s administration shut down access Monday to a website that allows Missourians to track who is winning potentially lucrative state contracts. In an announcement posted on an Office of Administration’s procurement website, officials say a new law is forcing them to remove contract award information from public access for privacy reasons. The new law, which was signed by Parson, went into effect Sunday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: Trans Researchers Want Google Scholar to Stop Deadnaming Them. “[Tess] Tanenbaum is one of many academics that have urged Google in recent years to give people more agency over how their names appear on its service. She and other critics of Google Scholar say it subjects trans academics and researchers to deadnaming, the unwelcome and even traumatic mention of a transgender person’s name from before they transitioned.”

News@Northeastern: Unprecedented Data Collection Project, ‘A Huge Missing Piece Of The Study Of The Internet,’ Now Underway. “Thanks to a $15.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the team has begun to recruit volunteers for the online data collection project, which will involve monitoring the online experiences of tens of thousands of volunteer users through a web browser extension researchers are building, then documenting and analyzing the results.” Good morning, Internet..

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



September 3, 2022 at 05:29PM
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Friday, September 2, 2022

Air Travel Transparency, Alberta Teachers, Google Chrome, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 2, 2022

Air Travel Transparency, Alberta Teachers, Google Chrome, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 2, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Good Morning America: New online dashboard helps fliers navigate flight delays and cancellations. “The U.S. Department of Transportation debuted its airline customer service dashboard today, which details airlines’ ‘commitments’ to passengers in the event of ‘controllable’ cancellations and delays within the airline’s control, such as mechanical or staffing issues.”

CBC: Alberta’s searchable teacher registry to go live this week. “Starting later this week Albertans will be able to search an online database and find out the names and professional standings of 162,000 teachers and teacher leaders dating back to 1954. The province’s new teacher registry will have information about what certificates teachers hold, what the status of those certificates is and when they were issued.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

How-To Geek: What’s New in Chrome 105, Available Now. “Google Chrome version 105 arrived on August 30, 2022. This latest release gains better picture-in-picture support for Android, more tools for web apps to feel native, and some under-the-hood goodies.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Online creators are de facto therapists for millions. It’s complicated.. “In real life, mental health information and care are sparse. In the United States, 1 in 3 counties do not have a single licensed psychologist, according to the American Psychological Association, and Americans say cost is a top barrier to seeking mental health help. On the internet, however, mental health tips are everywhere: TikTok videos with #mentalhealth in the caption have earned more than 43.9 billion views, according to the analytics company Sprout Social, and mentions of mental health on social media are increasing year by year.”

Input Magazine: The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s ‘high five’ photos. “I love the aughts fashion, the use of the word ‘victim,’ and the fact that ‘finger-guns’ gets a hyperlink in the last caption. The woman in the photo gives an Oscar-worthy performance in the final image — she looks like she’s on the verge of tears — and her male counterpart couldn’t look more smug. The pictures are endearing and capture a kind of humanity you don’t find in your average stock photo…. A quick search of ‘high five wikipedia photo’ shows that the images are an object of fascination for many others besides me.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Over 1,000 iOS apps found exposing hardcoded AWS credentials. “Security researchers are raising the alarm about mobile app developers relying on insecure practices that expose Amazon Web Services (AWS) credentials, making the supply chain vulnerable. Malicious actors could take advantage of this to access private databases, leading to data breaches and the exposure of customers’ personal data.”

The New Arab: Saudi Arabia: Woman receives 45 years prison sentence over social media use. “A Saudi court has sentenced a woman to 45 years in prison for allegedly damaging the country through her social media activity, according to a court document obtained on Wednesday. It was the second such sentence that has drawn scrutiny of the kingdom this month.”

Straits Times: Popular Thai YouTuber flees abroad after alleged $77 million forex scam. “A popular Thai YouTuber who claimed to be a successful forex trader has reportedly fled abroad after allegedly cheating thousands of investors out of two billion baht (S$77 million). Ms Natthamon Khongchak, better known as Nutty the YouTuber, defrauded over 6,000 victims, according to Mr Phaisal Ruangrit, a lawyer who campaigns to help fraud victims.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: Most local election offices still aren’t on social media, new research finds. “In our research as scholars of voter participation and electoral processes, we find that when local election officials not only have social media accounts but use them to distribute information about voting, voters of all ages — but particularly young voters — are more likely to register to vote, to cast ballots, and to have their ballots counted.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

CNET: Hear James Webb Telescope Images Translated Into Ethereal Music. “There are many ways to observe the universe. There’s been much fanfare around the first image and data releases from the next-gen James Webb Space Telescope. On Wednesday, NASA gave space fans a new way to experience Webb’s observations with a series of audio tracks.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



September 3, 2022 at 12:12AM
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Ireland Genealogy, Crowdsourced Graphic Design, California Literacy Resources, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, September 2, 2022

Ireland Genealogy, Crowdsourced Graphic Design, California Literacy Resources, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, September 2, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

IrishCentral: Did your ancestors come from Armagh? Massive amount of new records released online. “Are you searching for family history in Co Armagh? We might have another breadcrumb to add to your trail. Roots Ireland has just added 26,210 Armagh records to their database. Dating from the 17th to the 20th centuries, the historic Irish records contain census substitutes, church records, and headstone records.”

New York Times: A Panorama of Design. “Coming to the rescue of leaflets, typefaces and ticket stubs is the People’s Graphic Design Archive, a crowdsourced database that recently went live after eight years of development. The digital archive, which currently contains about 5,000 items, allows anyone, anywhere in the world, to upload — and thereby keep — any piece of ephemera.”

California Department of Education: State Superintendent Thurmond Announces Access to Free Literacy and Biliteracy Learning Tool for California Families. “The Footsteps2Brilliance bilingual early literacy program for birth through third graders is accessible 24/7 via the Internet from the smartphones, tablets, and computers that families already own. This resource expands free access to all children and families statewide, creating a much-needed bridge between school and home. The $27 million digital literacy partnership will provide free learning resources in English and Spanish.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Twitter’s Latest Feature Could Make Tweeting Less Intimidating. “Called Twitter Circle, the feature lets users tweet to a smaller group rather than all of their followers. When users compose a tweet, they’ll see an option to share a tweet with Everyone or their Twitter Circle. Users can add up to 150 people to their Twitter Circle and edit who is in the group.”

Boing Boing: Dall·E’s new outpainting feature extends images. “Astonishing, alarming and as incoherent as ever, the AI’s brush now fills in spaces beyond the original canvas, replicating the artist’s style and subject.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

City College of New York: CCNY to expand blockchain and crypto research and teaching. “Rosario Gennaro, professor of computer science in The City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering, is the recipient of a five-year $850,000 grant to further CCNY’s contributions to the advancement of blockchain systems.”

Washington Post: The Biden White House gets feisty on Twitter. “‘We’ve never hesitated to call out hypocrisy, and we’re not going to stop now,’ said White House spokeswoman Alexandra LaManna…. The White House also recently hired Megan Coyne as deputy director of platforms in its Office of Digital Strategy. Coyne garnered widespread attention among Democrats for bringing humor and punchiness to a New Jersey state-run account with tweets that went viral.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Microsoft finds TikTok vulnerability that allowed one-click account compromises. “Microsoft said on Wednesday that it recently identified a vulnerability in TikTok’s Android app that could allow attackers to hijack accounts when users did nothing more than click on a single errant link. The software maker said it notified TikTok of the vulnerability in February and that the China-based social media company has since fixed the flaw, which is tracked as CVE-2022-28799.”

CTV: B.C. company wins defamation case against customer who posted bad Google, Yelp reviews. “A ‘disgruntled customer’ who posted reviews on Google and Yelp accusing a B.C. business of fraud has been ordered to pay $90,000 worth of damages for defamation by the province’s Supreme Court.”

FTC: FTC Sues Kochava for Selling Data that Tracks People at Reproductive Health Clinics, Places of Worship, and Other Sensitive Locations. “The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against data broker Kochava Inc. for selling geolocation data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices that can be used to trace the movements of individuals to and from sensitive locations.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Motherboard: An AI-Generated Artwork Won First Place at a State Fair Fine Arts Competition, and Artists Are Pissed. “A man came in first at the Colorado State Fair’s fine art competition using an AI generated artwork on Monday. ‘I won first place,’ a user going by Sincarnate said in a Discord post above photos of the AI-generated canvases hanging at the fair.”

Tech Xplore: New algorithm based on the behavior of gulls improves edge computing. “The seagull algorithm encodes the migratory and attack behavior of gulls in such a way that it can be used to solve problems such as the assigning and routing of computational resources. The use of the simulated annealing algorithm in conjunction with the seagull algorithm will help the system avoid the local maximum and premature convergence problems, which are often the bane of other approaches to similar problems.” Not clear on edge computing? IBM has an overview. Good morning, Internet…

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September 2, 2022 at 05:29PM
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