Water Cycles, EJScreen, Twitter, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 14, 2022

Water Cycles, EJScreen, Twitter, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 14, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

USGS: New USGS diagram re-envisions how Earth’s most precious commodity cycles the planet. “Starting today, educators around the nation will have a more accurate and more comprehensive tool to explain the Earth’s water cycle with the unveiling of the new U.S. Geological Survey water cycle diagram.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

EPA: EPA Launches Updates to Environmental Justice Mapping Tool EJScreen. “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has updated and added new capabilities to EJScreen, the Agency’s public environmental justice (EJ) screening and mapping tool. EJScreen combines environmental and socioeconomic information to identify areas overburdened by pollution.”

Engadget: Twitter is testing a way for users to limit their mentions. “According to privacy researcher and engineer Jane Manchun Wong, the company is testing out the ability to block @ mentions entirely, or limit them to people who already follow you. (Literally, don’t @ me, bro.)”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

STV News: Controversial fracking site ‘renamed’ as ‘Liz Truss Career Memorial’. “A Blackpool fracking site was briefly renamed to take a jab at the Prime Minister earlier this week as it appeared as the ‘Liz Truss Career Memorial’ on Google Maps.”

Washington Post: How TikTok ate the internet. “More than just a hit, TikTok has blown up the model of what a social network can be. Silicon Valley taught the world a style of online connectivity built on hand-chosen interests and friendships. TikTok doesn’t care about those. Instead, it unravels for viewers an endless line of videos selected by its algorithm, then learns a viewer’s tastes with every second they watch, pause or scroll. You don’t tell TikTok what you want to see. It tells you. And the internet can’t get enough.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project: Elliptic: Over $4 Billion in Illicit Crypto Laundered via Cross-Chain Technologies. “Criminals have laundered at least US$4 billion-worth of illicit crypto proceeds using cross-chain technologies since 2020, new research by blockchain analysis firm Elliptic reveals.”

CNET: Mormon Church Data Breach Exposed Members’ Personal Information. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the target of a cyberattack earlier this year that exposed the personal information of some members and associates, the church said Thursday.”

Krebs on Security: Microsoft Patch Tuesday, October 2022 Edition. “Microsoft today released updates to fix at least 85 security holes in its Windows operating systems and related software, including a new zero-day vulnerability in all supported versions of Windows that is being actively exploited. However, noticeably absent from this month’s Patch Tuesday are any updates to address a pair of zero-day flaws being exploited this past month in Microsoft Exchange Server.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Penn State: AI language models show bias against people with disabilities, study finds . “The researchers found that all the algorithms and models they tested contained significant implicit bias against people with disabilities. Previous research on pretrained language models — which are trained on large amounts of data that may contain implicit biases — has found sociodemographic biases against genders and races, but until now similar biases against people with disabilities have not been widely explored.”

Yale School of Nursing: Ramos Explores How A Virtual Environment Can Produce Cardiovascular Health Gains IRL. “Using mixed methods, Dr. Ramos will conduct qualitative interviews and then test if the virtual environment is acceptable as prevention education. Using the American Heart Association’s Life Simple 7 Framework, Dr. [S. Raquel] Ramos is embedding information into the virtual environment to address issues, such as nutrition, physical activity, sleep, and nicotine exposure.” 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!

October 15, 2022 at 12:17AM
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Spider Silk, Resistant Bacteria, South Africa Languages, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, October 14, 2022

Spider Silk, Resistant Bacteria, South Africa Languages, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, October 14, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

UNSW Sydney: World wide web: global spider silk database a boon for biomaterials. “What’s stronger and tougher than steel, and more elastic than rubber, weight for weight? Spider silk is, and this incredibly versatile material could transform engineering, materials science and even medicine – if we could just work out how to produce it. Now a new global study that has catalogued web silk properties of almost 1100 spiders hopes to provide a launchpad for the design of future biomaterials that emulate this wonder of nature.”

EurekAlert: Researchers build a ‘Wikipedia’ for resistant bacteria. “In the future, even a small infection can become life-threatening for people if disease-causing bacteria become resistant to traditional treatment with antibiotics. Based on 214,000 microbiome samples, DTU researchers have created a freely accessible platform that shows where in the world different types of resistant bacteria are found and in what quantities.”

North-West University: Spelling checker tool for SA languages now available to download for free. “The Spelling Checkers for South African Languages, a spelling and hyphenation checker tool for ten of South Africa’s official languages, excluding English, is now available to download for free from the website of the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR).”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Journal: Goodbye Google Webmaster Guidelines, Hello Google Search Essentials. “Google is officially rebranding the Webmaster Guidelines as ‘Search Essentials,’ which comes with a simplified refresh consisting of only three sections. In addition to making the former Google Webmaster Guidelines easier to understand, Google’s motivation behind the refresh is to move away from the term ‘webmaster.'” Good. I’ve always hated that term and tried to use “Web wrangler”.

9to5 Google: Google Fiber launching 5 and 8 Gig service in early 2023 from $125/month. “Google Fiber will offer symmetrical upload and download speeds at 5 and 8 Gig. The 5 Gig plan will cost $125 per month, while it is $150/month for 8 Gig. It will come with a Wi-Fi 6 router (people can also use their own), up to two mesh extenders, and professional installation.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Smithsonian Magazine: The Smithsonian Returns a Trove of Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. “In a joint ceremony today, the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art (NMAfA) collectively transferred ownership of 30 Benin bronzes, 29 of which come from the Smithsonian, to the people of Nigeria. Of the 29 items, 20 will be returned to Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) and nine will remain, loaned to the NMAfA for later display.”

Washington Post: With U.S. nudges, Google and others aim to help Iranian protesters. “… the White House has relaxed sanctions and made it clear to other tech companies that they want them to serve those in Iran that are not connected to the government.”

ABC News: China quashes social media about protest banners in Beijing. “China’s internet censors moved quickly to scrub social media posts Thursday after reports that banners criticizing the Communist leadership were hung from a busy intersection in the capital Beijing.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Sky News: Elon Musk being investigated by federal authorities, Twitter reveals in court filing. “Elon Musk is being investigated by federal authorities over his conduct in his $44bn (£39bn) takeover deal of Twitter, the social media company has said in a court filing.”

Reuters: Exclusive-Google Faces EU Antitrust Charges Over Its Adtech Business – Sources. “Alphabet unit Google could face EU antitrust charges next year over its digital advertising business, putting the company at risk of its fourth fine in the EU of more than a billion euros, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.”

Houston Chronicle: St. Luke’s Health record system is still offline a week after ransomware attack at parent company. “A cyber attack against a major U.S. nonprofit health system has snarled patient services for more than a week at six St. Luke’s Health hospitals in Houston, where online records systems have been shut down and doctors have resorted to cumbersome backup options.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NPR: Eyeballs and AI power the research into how falsehoods travel online. “What sorts of lies and falsehoods are circulating on the internet? Taylor Agajanian used her summer job to help answer this question, one post at a time. It often gets squishy.” 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!

October 14, 2022 at 05:26PM
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TikTok, Smartphone Video, Study Tools, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 13, 2022

TikTok, Smartphone Video, Study Tools, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 13, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

Hi! I’ve started a TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@researchbuzz

But if you don’t like TikTok I’ve started a YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ResearchBuzz

I expect my video content will be about how to Gizmos work, though if I find something cool to talk about I’ll do that too. You never know.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: TikTok wants to be Amazon, plans US fullfillment centers and poaches staff. “In the past few weeks, TikTok has posted a series of job listings that, as Axios reported, mark TikTok’s first major move into US e-commerce—unpredictably, by building Amazon-like fulfillment centers.”

USEFUL STUFF

Social Media Examiner: Creating Quality Videos With Smartphones. “Want to produce professional-grade videos without a costly camera? Wish your Reels, TikTok, and YouTube videos looked amazing? In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know to create quality videos using your smartphone.”

WIRED: Tips and Tools to Help Students Study, Take Notes, and Focus. “WITH A NEW academic year rolling around, students of all ages will be looking for help and guidance with their work—and there are a wealth of options on mobile app stores and the web to help you succeed. Here we’ve picked out some of the best apps and services across multiple categories, including time management, homework help, note-taking, and more. Put them together and you’ve got a comprehensive toolkit for making sure that this year is a good one.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NPR: The White House is turning to TikTok stars to take its message to a younger audience. “When President Biden hosted a celebration with lawmakers on the South Lawn last month to mark the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats’ signature spending package, there was an unique group of guests joining them. More than 20 influencers — content creators with devoted followers on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube — received special invitations.”

Iran International: Iranians Protest Song Receives 95,000 Submissions For Grammy Award. “The song ‘Baraye…’ — which means ‘For the Sake Of’ in Persian — received 95,000, or over 83 percent, of the 115,000 total submissions for the award following a campaign on TikTok urged users to nominate the song, which is the de-facto manifesto of the protests.”

MakeUseOf: Why People Watch YouTube Videos at Faster Playback Speeds. “YouTube launched a feature called video playback speeds in 2010 to allow users to control how quickly or slowly they want to watch their preferred content. Ever since more users have increased their playback speeds when watching videos, and here’s why.” Guilty of 1.25x.

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Russian-speaking hackers knock multiple US airport websites offline. No impact on operations reported. “More than a dozen public-facing airport websites, including those for some of the nation’s largest airports, appeared inaccessible Monday morning, and Russian-speaking hackers claimed responsibility. No immediate signs of impact to actual air travel were reported, suggesting the issue may be an inconvenience for people seeking travel information.”

Internet Archive Blog: Internet Archive Files Final Reply Brief in Lawsuit Defending Controlled Digital Lending. “On Friday, October 7, the Internet Archive filed a reply brief against the four publishers that sued Internet Archive in June 2020: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Washington: Analysis of #BlackLivesMatter social media content points to the power of positivity in online activism and large-scale social movements. “Drilling down into the dataset according to date enabled the team to identify instances where emotions spiked, presumably in connection with events. For example, anger and sadness peaked in tweets with pro-BLM hashtags in the days following Floyd’s death and prior to the first weekend of protests. Positivity, meanwhile, rose in the days leading up to that weekend and afterward became the most frequently expressed emotion through the rest of the month.”

Illinois State University: Going Open Access: A tale of two journals. “While Open Access can provide solutions to some issues in scholarly publishing, there is no universal solution that is best for every journal and publisher. Two prominent journals, which transferred to Open Access (OA) in very different ways, can help illustrate how it can be implemented differently depending on the needs of the journal, publisher, authors, and readers.” 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!

October 14, 2022 at 12:11AM
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Digital Transgender Archive, Essence Book Project, Agricultural Phosphorus, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, October 13, 2022

Digital Transgender Archive, Essence Book Project, Agricultural Phosphorus, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, October 13, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

UC Irvine School of Humanities: Resources for Resilience: Introducing the Digital Transgender Archive and the Homosaurus. “The Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is an open-access, primary source digital archive that [Dr. K.J.] Rawson created to address the barriers that researchers face when conducting historical research on transgender topics. This presentation will discuss those barriers and the new possibilities for historical discovery that digital archives like DTA can open up for researchers.”

Spotted via a mention in Fine Books & Collections Magazine: the Essence Book Project. “The Essence Book Project is a computational database of Essence Magazine’s bestsellers’ list for fiction, which was published monthly from 1994-2010 and includes nearly 500 discreet works of fiction, most of which were written by and about Black people.”

ScienceDaily: Database tracks agricultural phosphorus use world-wide. “Researchers have released a study quantifying cropland phosphorus budgets around the world, which will help in identifying nutrient management gaps in different regions in food production and consumption systems. This new database will help countries and regions to evaluate their performances in addressing phosphorus pollution and scarcity challenges, and guide actions towards a more sustainable future.”

Pix 11: New NYC Parks tool helps you find fall foliage. “NYC Parks has created the #FallForNYC Fall Foliage Tracker, a website that tracks popular trees’ colors…. From Maple, to Sweetgum, to Ginkgo trees, the tracker is going to be able to tell you all about the different kinds of species of trees you’ll find in the city and when they’re expected to be at their peak.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: Google approves Trump’s Truth Social for play store. “Alphabet Inc’s Google has approved former United States President Donald Trump’s social media app Truth Social for distribution in the Google Play Store, a company spokesperson has said. Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), which operates Truth Social, is expected to make the app available in the Play Store shortly, Google said on Wednesday.”

Washington Post: Musk appeasement of Putin and China stokes fears of new Twitter policies. “The person most likely to own Twitter next month has proposed solving the war in Ukraine by letting Russia keep territory, won praise from a top Chinese diplomat for suggesting China take control of Taiwan, and welcomed a widely followed celebrity back to Twitter who had just had his Instagram account suspended for threatening Jews — all within the past week. Billionaire industrialist Elon Musk’s moves have heightened alarm about what he will do with Twitter, which he has faulted for being too restrictive about legal but false or hateful speech.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNBC: Facebook whistleblower, former defense and intel officials form group to fix social media. “A Facebook whistleblower, two former U.S. defense secretaries, several past lawmakers and intelligence chiefs are forming a new group to address the harmful impacts social media can have on kids, communities and national security. The Council for Responsible Social Media, publicly launched on Wednesday, is a project of the cross-partisan political reform nonprofit Issue One, which focuses on strengthening U.S. democracy and works with many former members of Congress on solutions.”

WIRED: As Stadia Shutters, Developers Are Left to Face the Fallout. “Game developers throughout the industry all tell the same story—that up until the shutdown announcement, working with Stadia was business as usual. One developer had been emailing with Google about Stadia’s SDK updates just days before the news. Another told WIRED that they were days away from launching their game when they saw [Phil] Harrison’s post.”

The Wrap: How BeReal Founders Built a Social Media App So Hot, Even TikTok Is Sweating. “BeReal has shot from 10,000 daily active users in March 2021 to more than 15 million today — helping to snag the company a $600 million valuation, according to the Financial Times.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

North Carolina State University: New Computational Tools to Help Target Sex, Labor Trafficking Operations. “Researchers from North Carolina State University collaborated with a counter-human trafficking organization, Global Emancipation Network, to develop computational models that can help fight human trafficking. The models draw on publicly available data to identify massage businesses that are most likely to be violating laws related to sex trafficking and labor trafficking.”

Brookings Institution: The Supreme Court and social media platform liability. “Over a quarter of a century after its 1996 enactment, the liability shield known as Section 230 is heading to the Supreme Court. Section 230(c)(1) provides, with some exceptions, that ‘No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Lancaster University: Research explores how WhatsApp and Zoom calls can help young children communicate . “Lancaster University researchers will look at how infants and toddlers learn to communicate using TV streaming, digital books and family Zoom calls in their everyday home lives. Toddlers, Tech and Talk, a ground-breaking project led by researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University, is the most in-depth study to date into how the daily exposure of babies and very young children to digital technologies influences how they speak and interact with others.” 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!

October 13, 2022 at 05:32PM
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California Child Care, MassDOT, Google Cookies, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 12, 2022

California Child Care, MassDOT, Google Cookies, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 12, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

PR Newswire: California Child Care Resource & Referral Network Launches MyChildCarePlan.org to Help Families Find Child Care (PRESS RELEASE). “Using the site’s search tool, parents and families are able to learn what child care providers are in their neighborhood, which have space and availability, their approaches to care, languages spoken, experience in meeting medical and special needs, and more. Data is collected through state records and by local child care specialists, meaning the information on the site is reliable, unbiased, and free to use for both parents and providers.”

WWLP: MassDOT launches new website to track projects. “A new website launched on Tuesday allowing Massachusetts residents to see where government funds are being spent on infrastructure projects.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: Google to offer publisher first-party cookie support. “Google has just announced its plans to launch a number of features aimed at helping publishers monetize their websites and increase their emphasis on first-party data relationships. The features include support for ads personalization with publisher first-party cookies in Google Ad Manager and AdSense.”

The Verge: Google is going to test its 3D video chat booth with more companies. “Google is bringing Project Starline, its next-gen 3D video chat booth, to more companies starting later this year. As part of an early access program, ‘enterprise partners,’ including Salesforce and T-Mobile, will begin using Starline, with Google deploying units of the booth in ‘select partner offices’ for testing, according to a blog post.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Cairo Scene: The Arab Kissing Archive Reclaims On-screen Intimacy In Arab Film. “The Instagram account acts as a digital archive, posting snippets of kissing scenes from films made all over the Arab world, documenting titles, actors and filmmakers in the process. The project began in January 2022, with the anonymous founders amassing a dedicated Instagram following and a feed of Arab cinema’s remarkable pecks and smooches while reclaiming a cinematic narrative that is often forgotten.”

De Montfort University: Researcher working with environmental TV network to make archive available digitally. “A researcher from De Montfort University, Leicester (DMU) is set to digitise decades of environmental journalism and films to bring them to a wider audience. Dr Hiu Man Chan, Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries at DMU, is working with charity Television for the Environment (tve) to help make its archive available as a teaching and learning resource for a new generation of sustainable activists.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Under New Order, Europeans Can Complain to U.S. About Data Collection. “President Biden on Friday signed an executive order giving Europeans the ability to protest when they believe their personal information has been caught in America’s online surveillance dragnet, a key step toward reaching a broader agreement over the flow of digital data.”

Bleeping Computer: 2K Games warns users their stolen data is now up for sale online. “Video game publisher 2K emailed users on Thursday to warn that some of their personal info was stolen and put up for sale online following a September 19 security breach. 2K confirmed on September 20 that its help desk platform was hacked and used by the attackers to target customers using fake support tickets that pushed Redline Stealer malware via embedded links.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Royal College of Physicians: Addressing colonial and exploitative histories in the RCP Archive, Heritage Library and Museum collections. “October is Black History Month. In this blog the Archive, Heritage Library and Museum Services (AMS) team reflect on the racism, colonialism and other exploitative histories present in the collections, and how we are beginning to address these legacies. This post contains potentially distressing discussion of enslavement and historic medical experimentation.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Penn State: Computer games may be a key to ecological learning, study says. “Computer games are an effective way to teach ecological issues and build pro-environment policy support, according to published research by an interdisciplinary group of Penn State scholars.” 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!

October 13, 2022 at 12:47AM
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A (Hopefully Final) New Home for ResearchBuzz Gizmos

A (Hopefully Final) New Home for ResearchBuzz Gizmos
By ResearchBuzz

For me 2022 was the Summer of JavaScript. I had used it in the distant past to make things like bookmarklets, but I was more imitating other people than making my own code. This past May I decided to really learn JavaScript, to see if I could create things out of it.

Five months later, I’m still learning and growing, but I’m also making – twenty-two ResearchBuzz Search Gizmos now live in what is hopefully their final home, a WordPress installation at SearchGizmos.com .

The WordPress installation means I can use tags, categories, and related posts to make the Gizmos easier to explore and find. There’s also an RSS feed and newsletter sign up if you want to get updates on new  Gizmos.

There will also be some advertising, which I regret, but existing in this world requires money and lately it requires more money every day. I’m sorry. I will try to be as transparent about it as possible. I’m also maintaining my red line of no sponsored posts.

What am I going to do next? More Gizmos. I have a whole file full of notes for MegaWikiGladys and Grim Libs and Tea Worldwide and Lookup the Hookup and more. I have a list of JavaScript skills I want to master. I have a bookmarks folder as long as your arm that’s stuffed with APIs I want to explore. In other words: Fall of JavaScript, Winter of JavaScript, and Spring of JavaScript.

If you have a spare minute, please drop by SearchGizmos.com and take a look around. I really think you’ll like it.

Thanks for reading.

October 12, 2022 at 06:36PM
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UK Photojournalism, Human Rights Reporting Gateway, North Carolina Voters, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, October 12, 2022

UK Photojournalism, Human Rights Reporting Gateway, North Carolina Voters, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, October 12, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Science and Media Museum: National Science And Media Museum Collaborates With Google Arts & Culture To Unveil Newly Digitised Archive Images In Ai-powered Experiment . “The National Science and Media Museum has collaborated with Google Arts & Culture to digitise nearly 100,000 new images from the Daily Herald Archive, part of the Science Museum Group Collection.”

Human Rights Watch: US Launches Promising Human Rights Reporting Tool. “On September 30, the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor launched a new reporting tool, the Human Rights Reporting Gateway, that gives the public a way to alert the US government of gross violations of human rights. The State Department hopes the information uploaded will help its staffers determine which foreign security forces should not receive US assistance.”

Meredith College: New Website Aims to Make Voting Easier in North Carolina. “As Election Day 2022 fast approaches, a new tool has been launched to make the process easier for North Carolina voters. The site… was created by Meredith College Associate Professor of Political Science Whitney Ross Manzo and UNC-Chapel Hill Associate Professor of Public Policy Rebecca Kreitzer. According to Manzo and Kreitzer, between 35-60% of eligible American voters don’t vote in an average election. One of the reasons is that the process of voting is complicated and time-consuming. The new website is meant to take some of the confusion out of the process.”

Patch: RI Launches Website To Help Residents Pay Energy Bills. “The Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources (OER) and Department of Human Services (DHS) launched a website together Tuesday to provide a one-stop resource for helping state residents pay their energy bills, Gov. Dan McKee said.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NME: Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks shortly after killing Stadia. “The laptops in question, the Acer Chromebook 516 GE, Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming Chromebook and Asus Chromebook Vibe CX55 Flip, are ‘built for cloud gaming’ – a brag that Google Stadia can no longer make.”

New York Times: Misinformation Swirls in Non-English Languages Ahead of Midterms. “More multilingual fact-checking groups are pushing back against misleading translations, manipulated images and outright lies that jump platforms and cross borders.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

BBC: TikTok profits from livestreams of families begging. “Displaced families in Syrian camps are begging for donations on TikTok while the company takes up to 70% of the proceeds, a BBC investigation found. Children are livestreaming on the social media app for hours, pleading for digital gifts with a cash value. The BBC saw streams earning up to $1,000 (£900) an hour, but found the people in the camps received only a tiny fraction of that.”

WIRED: 5 Future Scenarios for Google Lens. “Wanting to better understand what’s in store for Google Lens, I visited the company’s San Francisco office and sat down with Lou Wang. He is a director of product management at Google who’s worked for years on Lens.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Mainichi: Japan YouTuber Diet member’s prolonged overseas absence opens can of legal worms . “Japanese YouTuber ‘GaaSyy,’ who was elected to Japan’s House of Councillors on the ticket of the NHK Party, remains overseas and has not attended Diet sessions, with reports earlier this year that he was residing in Dubai. The head of the chamber’s Committee on Rules and Administration has requested that he quickly return to Japan and appear in the Diet.”

The Guardian: Uffizi Galleries sue Jean Paul Gaultier over use of Botticelli images. “The matter came to light earlier this year after the Uffizi in Florence was notified of the garments being advertised by Jean Paul Gaultier on its website and social media. The painting by Sandro Botticelli is the centrepiece of the Botticelli Rooms at the world-famous galleries and, according to Italian law, any use of the country’s publicly owned art to sell merchandise requires permission and payment of a fee.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Score a discount on Amazon? You might’ve unwittingly paid more. “More than a quarter of vacuum cleaners sold on Amazon have at some point pretended to offer a discount when they had actually just increased the price, according to new research. By pairing a price increase with the introduction of a previously unadvertised ‘list price’ for a product, Amazon signals to shoppers that they are receiving a discount when they actually pay 23% more, on average, for their new vacuum than they would have just a day earlier. Days after the price hike, the price drops and both the list price and misleading discount claim disappear.”

New-to-me, from Georgetown College: Academic Journal Founded by College Professor Provides Focal Point for Disability Studies. “The Journal of Philosophy of Disability, launched last year by Joel Michael Reynolds, is celebrating the publication of its second issue this November. Founded to examine questions of ‘disability, broadly construed,’ it is the official journal of the Society for Philosophy and Disability and the first of its kind in a field defined by its intrinsic interdisciplinarity.” 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!

October 12, 2022 at 05:31PM
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