New researches

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Limerick Castles, Southeast Asia Maps, Pollen Photomicrography, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, September 6, 2022

Limerick Castles, Southeast Asia Maps, Pollen Photomicrography, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, September 6, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Big shout to Twitter user @osint_unleashed who found this: the Limerick castles database. From the project about page: “Joseph Lennon is an historian and a graduate of Limerick Institute of Technology and the University of Limerick, and currently based in the National University of Ireland Galway. For over a decade, Joseph has been compiling a comprehensive archive of images documenting the castles and tower houses of Limerick. This fieldwork has taken him to the four corners of the county and beyond; including to Castle Lishen and Kilbolane, once part of Limerick but now in County Cork.”

Leiden University: Online platform Historical Maps of Southeast Asia launched. “On August 30, the online platform Historical Maps of Southeast Asia was launched. The platform provides access to over 1,400 digitised maps of Southeast Asia from the collections of the National Library Board Singapore (307 maps), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library – Yale University (150 maps), Bodleian Libraries – University of Oxford (387 maps ) and Leiden University Libraries (UBL) (593 maps).”

The Mainichi: Pollen image database at Japanese univ. offers unique microcosm of natural wonders . “An image database is now open for anyone wanting to marvel at electron microscopic images of a vast and visually eclectic range of pollens, that all appear as just tiny grains to the unassisted human eye. Dubbed ‘Kafun search’ (pollen search), the database was developed at Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University to showcase the pollens of 118 plant families, 391 genera and 634 species as of Aug. 21, and the number is rising.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: Google Docs Features to Help You Ace Your College Papers. “Google Docs can be great for writing school essays and other projects. From citations to research to collaborating with classmates, take advantage of these helpful features for your college papers.”

MakeUseOf: 4 Ways to Have Alexa Translate Languages. “Through the power of AI, Amazon Alexa has evolved to become the voice assistant that seems like it can do everything. And it’s not just limited to telling you the latest weather updates and turning your lights off. Alexa can also be used as an effective translation tool. We’ll show you a number of ways that Alexa can translate words, phrases, and even whole conversations.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Artnet: Watch John OIiver Marry a Cabbage Live on TV to Capture the Absurdity of A.I.-Generated Art . “While Open AI is researching responsible public deployment for the platform, Oliver and his show’s team took to Midjourney, one of many public-access A.I.s that have popped up recently, to demonstrate the power of the text-to-image phenomenon. And in the show’s consummately absurd fashion, they did this by envisioning a new Marvel protagonist named Roast Beef Superhero.”

University of Oxford: Oxford University project aims to preserve Second World War memories. “A project led by the Faculty of English at the University of Oxford is looking for contributions to a free online archive of family stories, anecdotes, memories, and digitized objects relating to people’s experiences of the Second World War.”

NBC News: Search for missing Native artifacts led to the discovery of bodies stored in ‘the most inhumane way possible’. “Since the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990, federal law has required institutions that receive federal funding to catalog their collections with the National Parks Service and work toward returning them to the tribal nations they were taken from. But the University of North Dakota has no entries in the federal inventory, even though its administrators acknowledge it has possessed Indigenous artifacts since its inception in 1883.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Microsoft Defender falsely detects Win32/Hive.ZY in Google Chrome, Electron apps. “A bad Microsoft Defender signature update mistakenly detects Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Discord, and other Electron apps as ‘Win32/Hive.ZY’ each time the apps are opened in Windows. The issue started Sunday morning when Microsoft pushed out Defender signature update 1.373.1508.0 to include two new threat detections, including Behavior:Win32/Hive.ZY.”

TechCrunch: A huge Chinese database of faces and vehicle license plates spilled online. “While its contents might seem unremarkable for China, where facial recognition is routine and state surveillance is ubiquitous, the sheer size of the exposed database is staggering. At its peak the database held over 800 million records, representing one of the biggest known data security lapses of the year by scale, second to a massive data leak of 1 billion records from a Shanghai police database in June. In both cases, the data was likely exposed inadvertently and as a result of human error.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Texas at Austin: Sharing on Social Media Makes Us Overconfident in Our Knowledge. “Social media sharers believe that they are knowledgeable about the content they share, even if they have not read it or have only glanced at a headline. Sharing can create this rise in confidence because by putting information online, sharers publicly commit to an expert identity. Doing so shapes their sense of self, helping them to feel just as knowledgeable as their post makes them seem.” I publicly commit only to reading really fast.

Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): More so than adults, U.S. teens value people feeling safe online over being able to speak freely. “Teens and adults in the United States differ on a key issue tied to online speech and its consequences. A majority of teens ages 13 to 17 say a welcoming, safe online environment is more important than people being able to speak their minds freely online, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. A separate survey of Americans 18 and older shows that adults’ views on the same question are more evenly divided.” Good morning, Internet…

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September 6, 2022 at 05:31PM
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Monday, September 5, 2022

Constitutional Law Journal, Midwest US Gardening, NASA Missions, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 5, 2022

Constitutional Law Journal, Midwest US Gardening, NASA Missions, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 5, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Elon University: Students launch new constitutional law journal. “Led by inaugural Editor in Chief Esther Bouquet L’23, We the People – Elon Law’s Constitutional Law Journal aspires to promote the contribution of intelligent discussion and analysis of the U.S. Constitution and constitutional law-related issues.”

Purdue University: New website places gardening solutions at users’ fingertips, regardless of thumb color . “The Purdue Plant Doctor website is a mobile-friendly one-stop shop where gardeners can navigate the bewildering maze of insect, disease and abiotic problems that affect the hundreds of landscape trees, shrubs and flowers used in Midwestern landscapes.”

EVENTS

Lifehacker: How to Watch NASA Crash a Spaceship Into an Asteroid. “In a first-of-its-kind mission, NASA is planning to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid on September 26 (Earth time), and you’ll be able to stream it live.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Associated Press: How Archives went from ‘National Treasure’ to political prey. “It was the setting for ‘National Treasure,’ the movie in which Nicolas Cage’s character tries to steal the Declaration of Independence. It has long been among the most trafficked tourist destinations in the nation’s capital. But what the National Archives and Records Administration has never been — until now — is the locus of a criminal investigation of a former president.”

BBC: Floppy disks in Japan: Minister declares war on old-fashioned technology. “Japan’s digital minister has ‘declared war’ on floppy disks and other retro tech used by the country’s bureaucrats. Around 1,900 government procedures still require businesses to use the storage devices, plus CDs and mini-discs, Taro Kono said.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Who Pays for an Act of Cyberwar?. “THIS SUMMER MARKS the fifth anniversary of the most expensive cyberattack ever: the NotPetya malware, released by Russia in June 2017, that shut down computer systems at companies and government agencies around the world, causing upward of $10 billion in damage due to lost business, repairs, and other operational disruptions.”

The Guardian: Surrey police accused of using ‘phantom’ traffic units on Waze app. “Surrey’s police force has been accused of operating ‘phantom units’ after traffic officers admitted to providing misleading data to a satnav app. Officers said on Twitter that they falsely reported their locations as stationary on the Waze traffic app, which suggests they may be operating a speed trap, when they were in fact driving.”

Rolling Stone: The Monkees’ Micky Dolenz Would Like a Word With the FBI. “The Monkees may not be seem like the kind of band that would attract the FBI’s attention, especially during a time when groups like Country Joe and the Fish and the MC5 were leading the movement against the Vietnam War. But the Monkees were one of the most popular bands in America in 1966 and 1967, and they sprinkled anti-war sentiments into songs like ‘Ditty Diego-War Chant’ and even ‘Last Train to Clarksville,’ a song about a man headed off to war that fears he’ll never see his love again.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Arizona State University: ‘News addiction’ can cause stress, anxiety, study says. “The obsessive urge to keep up with that news can lead to stress, anxiety and worsening physical health, according to a study in the journal Health Communication. The study found that 16.5% of 1,100 people polled in an online survey showed signs of ‘severely problematic’ news consumption, which led them to focus less on school, work and family, and contributed to an inability to sleep. Just more than 73% said they experienced mental health issues ‘quite a bit’ or ‘very much,’ and 61% reported their physical health suffered.”

Washington Post: Ready or not, mass video deepfakes are coming. “While many Americans were blissfully engaging in quaint analogue activities like going to the beach, a start-up named Midjourney offered ‘AI art-generation,’ in which anyone with a basic graphics card could with a few keystrokes create stunningly real images. To spend even a few minutes with it — there’s Gordon Ramsay burning up in his Hell’s Kitchen; here’s Gandalf shredding on a guitar — is to experience a technology that makes Photoshop look like Wite-Out. Midjourney has gathered more than a million users on its Discord channel.” Good afternoon, Internet…

September 6, 2022 at 12:46AM
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Go Beyond Site:Edu With Super Edu Search

Go Beyond Site:Edu With Super Edu Search
By researchbuzz2

If I were ever limited to one search modifier on Google, I’d make it site:edu.

Why? Because edu is one of the few major domain names (along with gov and mil) that requires authentication of some sort. Edu Web space in general is less plagued with spam and bots the way general Web space is. Further, it’s filled with teachers and researchers and scientists and all manner of people in various stages of discovery. Edu Web space is a rich resource for mining.

Which makes the site:edu modifier useful for its simplicity, but also frustrating in its simplicity. You’re searching all edu Web space with no filtering at all. You can search for individual schools (site:ncsu.edu) or even groups of schools (site:ncsu | site:duke.edu | site:unc.edu) but that’s still a crude and time-consuming way to explore this marvelous space.

This search problem has bothered me for a long time and I’ve made various limited, failed attempts to address it. I hadn’t thought about it for a while and certainly not since I started learning JavaScript. Then I came across an API from the US Department of Education and thought, “You know what? I wonder…”

So I wondered all weekend and made Super Edu Search. There are two versions, a state-based version at https://researchbuzz.github.io/Super-Edu-Search/ , and a zip/radius based version at https://researchbuzz.github.io/Super-Edu-Search/index2.html . Both versions require a free Data.gov API key, which you can get at https://api.data.gov/signup/ .

Super Edu Search uses data from the Department of Education to refine your edu Web space search. You can limit the university space you’re searching by ownership type (public, private non-profit, private for-profit), by Minority/Gender Emphasis (including HBCU, Tribal College/University, Men-Only, and Women-Only), and by religious affiliation (66 options!)

After you click the Search Edu Space button, Super Edu Search sends your parameters to the Department of Education API, which returns a JSON result of matching universities. Super Edu Search parses that, slices the returned domain names into groups of 15, and turns them into Google search URLs. When I do a search for “climate change” in the Web space of all Hawaiian universities, I get two links.

Click a link and a Google search result will open in a new tab:

These results look very different than the Web spaces of, say, all the universities in Iowa:

There are other ways you can explore this space, too. Say you’re interested in learning more about the successor of John Paul I, who was recently beafied. (Unfortunately John Paul I himself was Pope for only a short time so he’s a terrible search example.) I did a search for intitle:”John Paul II” in the Web space of all Roman Catholic-affiliated universities in Illinois.

I get a reasonable number of results (3 pages) and they’re very information-rich.

One limitation: the total dataset at the Department of Education has something like 6500 institutions in it. I’ve limited your search results to 200, though, for two reasons: a) I don’t want Data.gov mad at me, and b) You and I both know you’re not going to go through several hundred generated URLs.

In my testing I’ve found Super Edu Search interesting for all kinds of searches. Regional things like state government legislation/controversies/concerns (search public Florida universities for “don’t say gay”), famous people in their home state, all kinds of agricultural concerns, sports – anything that might have specificity in the filtered spaces available.

The data I’m filtering by here is only a fraction of what the Department of Education offers via its API. I feel like I’ve found a shiny new toy box to play with. Stay tuned.

September 5, 2022 at 07:07PM
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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…

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…

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…

September 4, 2022 at 05:29PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/rTu9tsH

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…

September 4, 2022 at 12:24AM
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