Virginia Evictions, Google, Twitter, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 29, 2022

Virginia Evictions, Google, Twitter, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Richmond Times-Dispatch: New database tracks Virginia eviction numbers. “The RVA Eviction Lab and the University of Virginia Equity Center have created the Virginia Evictor Catalog, which collects eviction data from courts. The databank is part of a partnership between the two organizations called the Virginia Housing Justice Atlas project.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Google Employees Brace for a Cost-Cutting Drive as Anxiety Mounts. “Google workers in Switzerland sent a letter this month to the company’s vice president of human resources, outlining their worries that a new employee evaluation system could be used to cull the work force.”

Economic Times: Google receives CCI notices after failing to pay penalties. “Technology behemoth Google has received demand notices from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for failing to pay – within the stipulated time – penalties imposed on it for anti-competitive practices, sources told ET on Wednesday.”

USEFUL STUFF

TechCrunch: This tool helps you trim your follow list on Twitter. “Twitter is a mess, but it’s still addictive. While some folks might have headed to Mastadon, those who stick around might still want to get the best out of the bird site. If you feel that your timeline is very cluttered, a new tool named Prune your follows can really help with that. The app shows you the people you follow in largely four categories: Overpopular (most followed), Underpopular (least followed), Overactive (accounts that tweet a lot) and Unactive [sic] (accounts that tweet only a few times a year).”

InfoWorld: How to create your own RSS reader with R. “Choose your feeds wisely, and your RSS reader will let you easily scan headlines from multiple sources and stay up to date on fast-moving topics. And while there are several capable commercial and open-source RSS readers available, it’s a lot more satisfying to code your own. It’s surprisingly easy to create your own RSS feed reader in R. Just follow these eight steps.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Ars Technica: Twitter rival Mastodon rejects funding to preserve nonprofit status. “Twitter rival Mastodon has rejected more than five investment offers from Silicon Valley venture capital firms in recent months, as its founder pledged to protect the fast-growing social media platform’s non-profit status.”

7Life: West Gate Bridge works: Three-hour delays on Melbourne freeway from Boxing Day until January. “Victoria’s transport department has blamed Google Maps for making traffic delays worse on the West Gate Bridge, as motorists are told they are facing delays of more than three hours.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Google, YouTube content providers must face U.S. children’s privacy lawsuit. “A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday revived a lawsuit accusing Alphabet Inc’s Google and several other companies of violating the privacy of children under age 13 by tracking their YouTube activity without parental consent, in order to send them targeted advertising.”

CNET: DOJ Investigating $372 Million in Missing FTX Funds, Report Says. “The probe, which is reportedly independent of the fraud case against FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, centers on more than $370 million that went missing mere hours after the cryptocurrency exchange declared bankruptcy.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Trove’s funding runs out in July 2023 – and the National Library is threatening to pull the plug. It’s time for a radical overhaul. “The repeated threats to the public’s access to nationally significant collections are part of a broader malaise. Australia’s national collecting institutions have been hobbled by funding cuts and debilitating efficiency dividends for decades, with the some of the deepest cuts occurring in the years since Trove was launched. Reduced access to these publicly funded resources is more than an inconvenience: it is an attack on democratic accountability.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 30, 2022 at 01:03AM
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Mara Cultural Heritage Digital Library, Pediatric RSV Care, Twitter, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, December 29, 2022

Mara Cultural Heritage Digital Library, Pediatric RSV Care, Twitter, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, December 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Goshen College: Shetler’s lifelong research enters new stage: Mara Cultural Heritage Digital Library website goes live. “Jan Bender Shetler, director of global engagement and professor of history at Goshen College, has spent the past 40 years of her life conducting and analyzing oral history research on cultural memory in Tanzania. This summer, her research entered a new phase with the official public launch of the Mara Cultural Heritage Digital Library (MCHDL).”

Newswise: Free Online Course Focuses on Pediatric RSV Care. “A new online course from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) is available at no charge to help nurses and other clinicians care for the influx of pediatric patients with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza and other respiratory-related illnesses.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Elon Musk Took Twitter from Troubled to Tanking. “With massive layoffs, users flocking to alternatives and advertisers pulling back spending on Twitter, Musk acquired an embattled platform and turned it into a collapsing circus for all of its 238 million users – and the rest of the world – to watch. ‘Twitter’s future is especially uncertain – and it doesn’t look good,’ said Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester.”

Ars Technica: Musk contradicts Twitter safety chief, disavows statement as “fake news” . “…increasingly, Twitter trust and safety chief Ella Irwin seems more willing to confirm or deny rumors to media outlets, a move that’s possibly irking Musk. Over the holiday weekend, Musk tweeted to directly contradict a statement Irwin provided to Reuters, causing even more confusion over what’s going on at Twitter—and whether there’s tension brewing between Musk and Irwin.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: How to Use Your Smartphone to Cope With Vision Loss. “Whether you struggle to read distant signs or find yourself squinting to decipher small print, you probably have a gadget that can help. Too many of us ignore accessibility features, assuming they are only for the blind or severely vision-impaired, but they can also help folks with a wide range of vision loss issues.”

How-To Geek: How to Write an Awesome Stable Diffusion Prompt. “Stable Diffusion, a popular AI art generator, requires text prompts to make an image. Sometimes it does an amazing job and generates exactly what you want with a vague prompt. Other times, you get suboptimal outputs. Here are some tips and tricks to get ideal results.”

MakeUseOf: The Best Sites to Watch Movies for Free (Legally!). “Whether you’re looking for movies or TV shows, finding free videos to stream is totally feasible; it just requires that you know where to look. With that in mind, here are the best free online movie streaming sites to check out.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Search Engine Land: Google algorithm updates 2022 in review: Core updates, product reviews, helpful content updates, spam updates and beyond. “This year had different stresses accompanying the Google algorithm updates, fewer pandemic stresses, and more recession-related stress. We had ten confirmed Google algorithm updates this year, the same number of confirmed algorithm updates we had in 2021. This year, we had a brand new ranking system named the helpful content update, and we had two of them.”

Jerusalem Post: Google fixes error after labeling ‘Jew’ as an offensive slur. “The word ‘Jew’ was listed on Google as a verb marked offensive, defined as ‘to bargain with someone in a miserly or petty way’ for most of the day on Tuesday”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Center for the Study of the Public Domain: January 1, 2023 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1927 are open to all!. “On January 1, 2023, copyrighted works from 1927 will enter the US public domain. They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. These include Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse and the final Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, the German science-fiction film Metropolis and Alfred Hitchcock’s first thriller, compositions by Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller, and a novelty song about ice cream. Please note that this site is only about US law; the copyright terms in other countries are different.”

Ars Technica: No more TikTok on House of Representatives’ smartphones. “TikTok will no longer be allowed on any device managed by the US House of Representatives. On Tuesday, the House’s Chief Administrative Office announced the ban of the popular video-sharing app, a move that comes just a week after legislation that would bar TikTok from all federal devices was introduced.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: Shadowbanning is real: Here’s how you end up muted by social media. “Two decades into the social media revolution, it’s now clear that moderating content is important to keep people safe and conversation civil. But we the users want our digital public squares to use moderation techniques that are transparent and give us a fair shot at being heard. Musk’s exposé may have cherry-picked examples to cast conservatives as victims, but he is right about this much: Companies need to tell us exactly when and why they’re suppressing our megaphones, and give us tools to appeal the decision.” This URL links to a gift version of this article; you should be able to read it without a paywall. Good morning, Internet…

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December 29, 2022 at 06:29PM
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India Medicinal Plants, France Rent Costs, Reporting Fake Accounts, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 28, 2022

India Medicinal Plants, France Rent Costs, Reporting Fake Accounts, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 28, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Hindu Business Line: Database on medicinal plants. “A group of scientists from the North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat, Assam, have created a database of 6,959 medicinal plants found across India. The database sources information under four sections — traditional knowledge, geographical indications, phytochemicals, and chemoinformatics.”

From Le Monde, and Google-Translated from French: Real estate: a new interactive map of rents in France. “A ratio of 1 to 6 between the rents charged in the most upscale neighborhoods of the Ile-de-France region and those of small towns in rural areas. This is revealed by the new rent map just put online on the website of the Ministry of Housing and Ecological Transition. This interactive tool provides the price per square meter, charges included, everywhere in France, for unfurnished houses and apartments in the private rental stock.”

USEFUL STUFF

Social Media Examiner: How to Report Fake Accounts on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok. “Are people pretending to be you or your business on popular social platforms? Wondering how to report profiles that steal your content? In this article, you’ll discover how to find and report fake accounts.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Finding Community, and Freedom, on the Virtual Dance Floor. “During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, regular partygoers flocked to virtual clubs hosted on platforms like Zoom, but since physical venues have reopened, the popularity of these digital spaces has waned. Not so with VRChat. When much of the world was locked down, the platform’s daily user numbers steadily increased. That trend has mostly stuck, with numbers continuing to surpass prepandemic levels, according to data cited by the platform.”

TechCrunch: Mastodon creator Eugen Rochko talks funding and how to build the anti-Twitter. “Mastodon’s success has somewhat taken its creator by surprise. Rochko didn’t jump into this project as a power user of social media, nor is he prone to sharing much about himself. When we spoke, he dialed into our video chat from an undisclosed location. He’s never even used Instagram. If growth hackers look at building audience or revenue as an end in itself, Rochko seems to be the opposite when it comes to development. This week we spoke with Rochko about the early days of Mastodon, its recent surge in users and how advertising may or may not factor in its future.”

Ars Technica: Twitter sells blue checks, Tumblr allows nudes: 2022’s biggest Big-Tech U-turns. “During a year that seemingly shook Twitter up for good—adding an edit button and demoting legacy verified users by selling off blue checks—it’s easy to overlook how many other tech companies also threw users for a loop with some unexpected policy changes in 2022.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Comcast agents mistakenly reject some poor people who qualify for free Internet. “People with low incomes can get free Internet service through Comcast and a government program, but signing up is sometimes harder than it should be because of confusion within Comcast’s customer service department.”

CNET: TikTok Under Pressure as Biden Administration Scrutinizes Chinese Ownership. “The Chinese owners of TikTok may be facing pressure to divest. The security concerns of the popular social media platform have led some Biden administration officials to ‘push for a sale of the Chinese-owned company’s U.S. operations to ensure Beijing can’t harness the app for espionage and political influence,’ according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal citing unnamed sources.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Engadget: OpenAI releases Point-E, which is like DALL-E but for 3D modeling. “OpenAI, the Elon Musk-founded artificial intelligence startup behind popular DALL-E text-to-image generator, announced on Tuesday the release of its newest picture-making machine POINT-E, which can produce 3D point clouds directly from text prompts.” I’m putting this under Research & Opinion instead of New Resources because it’s early days for this software. This is maybe an alpha version.

Georgia Tech: Cheerful Chatbots Don’t Necessarily Improve Customer Service. “GT researchers conducted experimental studies to determine if positive emotional displays improved customer service and found that emotive AI is only appreciated if the customer expects it, and it may not be the best avenue for companies to invest in.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 29, 2022 at 01:57AM
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Mastodon Web Space Search

Mastodon Web Space Search
By ResearchBuzz

As Twitter continues to do whatever it’s doing, I’ve been spending more time on Mastodon. I quite like it but I’m still pondering how to search Mastodon space.

With Twitter, of course, it’s easy — everything’s in one place. All you have to know is Twitter’s search syntax. With Mastodon, however, you have to find the instances you want to search first. Then you have to search them.

This search puzzle is something that’s been itching the back of my mind so I broke down and put it together this morning. Mastodon Web Space Search uses the Instances.social API to find Mastodon instances either by language or keyword. It then gives you a list of the instances it found (it only finds those with more than 200 active users), lets you choose up to ten of them, and makes you a Google search. There are three steps.

Step One – Search Term

Enter the query you want to use to search the Mastodon instances you find. This will be done via Google so you can use any Google syntax you like. Just don’t make it very long — Google has a query limit of 32 words and a great deal of that will be taken up by the Mastodon instances you’re searching.

Step Two – Find Mastodon Instances by language OR keyword

For step two you’ve got two options, but the first of the two is very simple.

If you want to find Mastodon instances by language, just enter the two-letter language code. You can get a list of language codes here. Please note that just because a language exists doesn’t mean that there are any Mastodon instances out there using it.

If you have a more specific interest and you want to search by keyword, use the second option, Active Instances by Keyword. I encourage you to treat this as a one-word query, as multiple word queries might narrow your search too much. There doesn’t appear to be a standard vocabulary for describing instances, so you might have to experiment a little. (If you find things aren’t updating when you specify new keywords to search, just reload the page.)

Step Three – Make Your Google Search

Once you’ve specified how you want to find Mastodon instances, filled out the search form, and clicked the button, you’ll get a list of instances that match your search. Here’s a list from a search for the keyword science:

Each listing shows the name of the instance, the number of active users, and a brief description. Tick the boxes of the ones that look interesting (up to 10, though in this case you could tick all of them) and click the Search the Web space of these Mastodon instances. button. It’ll bundle the instances you chose into a Google search that’ll open in a new tab. Here’s a few of those instances with a search for geology:

Geology is a relatively general search term, but I found when I looked up instances by keyword I could do more specific terms like volcanology or tectonics and also get decent results (though there were fewer of them, of course.)

I tried doing a Google search of GLAM library with Mastodon instances in English and I was happy with the results:

I’m only just barely getting started exploring and searching Mastodon instances, and I suspect I’ll be tweaking this as I learn more. In the meantime, I’ve found some interesting people to follow, and even a couple of searches I might turn into Google Alerts.

 

December 29, 2022 at 12:37AM
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BooksForTopics, Google Advertising, Earthquake Alerts, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, December 28, 2022

BooksForTopics, Google Advertising, Earthquake Alerts, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, December 28, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Bookseller: BooksForTopics relaunches children’s book listing website. “BooksForTopics has relaunched its website which features children’s booklists sorted by age or topic. The BooksForTopics website is popular among primary schools, providing booklists covering the National Curriculum and reading-for-pleasure recommendations — with everything from diverse and inclusive reading lists and books for reluctant readers to key curriculum topics and year group reading lists.” I believe the site is UK-based.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Marijuana Moment: Google Ends Ban On Advertising Certain Hemp And CBD Products In Parts Of U.S.. “Google will no longer ban the advertising of certain hemp and CBD products in select parts of the U.S. starting next month. The internet giant announced last week that it would be updating its ‘Dangerous Products and Services and Healthcare and Medicines’ to permit the cannabis advertising in California, Colorado and Puerto Rico.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The 7 Best Apps for Earthquake Alerts and Tracking on iPhone. “Some of these apps allow you to keep track of earthquakes worldwide, whereas others can actually warn you with alerts if they detect any dangerous seismic activity around you. So, here are seven of the best iPhone apps you can install for earthquake alerts and tracking.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

ProPublica: Porn, Piracy, Fraud: What Lurks Inside Google’s Black Box Ad Empire. “Google’s embrace of publisher confidentiality means roughly 1 million publishers can remain anonymous to companies and individuals who buy ads on its network to reach customers. This opens the door to a range of abuses and schemes that steal potentially billions of dollars a year and put lives and livelihoods at risk due to dangerous disinformation, fraud and scams.”

Bloomberg: A Look at the Gold Rush to Become the New Twitter. “Amid the dysfunction comes an increasing number of alternatives vying to lure Twitterati. Some were created out of the ashes of Twitter, while many are getting a fresh start after languishing in the shadows for years. Here’s a look at the alternatives for those seeking a Plan B, and how they stack up against the Blue Bird.”

The Verge: Please don’t film me in 2023. “In a clip that’s been viewed more than 20 million times, two friends sit on a New York City stoop, observing — and recording — the people walking by. One person appears to bend down to hide from a passing emergency vehicle, looking genuinely concerned. Another stands near-motionless for a time, seemingly unable to move. It’s unclear if they’re having a medical issue, but the clip is presented as amusing. The intention is to stitch together a tapestry of things the creator considers odd. Instead, it ends up feeling like an unnecessary intrusion into a stranger’s walk home.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Cabinet minister’s Twitter account hacked to promote cryptocurrencies. “The Twitter account of the British education secretary appears to have been hacked. The profile picture was changed to one showing Elon Musk and several tweets were posted promoting a cryptocurrency event.”

WIRED: Elon Musk and the Dangers of Censoring Real-Time Flight Trackers. “Aircraft operators are required to report detailed information on their flight path to various national regulators, including the Federal Aviation Administration. That data is generally a matter of public record and is published to various websites popular amongst airline enthusiasts.”

New York Times: For Sale on eBay: A Military Database of Fingerprints and Iris Scans. “The shoebox-shaped device, designed to capture fingerprints and perform iris scans, was listed on eBay for $149.95. A German security researcher, Matthias Marx, successfully offered $68, and when it arrived at his home in Hamburg in August, the rugged, hand-held machine contained more than what was promised in the listing. The device’s memory card held the names, nationalities, photographs, fingerprints and iris scans of 2,632 people.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Mirage News: Social media and eating disorders: dangerous two-way street. “The influence of social media on the risk and development of eating disorders is well-documented – but does this go both ways? A new research paper from the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Thompson Institute is examining that relationship in reverse, with a new question: How are eating disorders affecting the way people interact with social media?”

McGill University: What AI-generated COVID news tells us that journalists don’t. “AI can help identify biases in news reporting that we wouldn’t otherwise see. Researchers from McGill University got a computer program to generate news coverage of COVID-19 using headlines from CBC articles as prompts. They then compared the simulated news coverage to the actual reporting at the time and found that CBC coverage was less focused on the medical emergency and more positively focused on personalities and geo-politics.”

Creative Commons: Patrick J. McGovern Foundation Funds New CC Initiative to Open Large Climate Datasets . “Today, Creative Commons (CC) is excited to announce one million US dollars in new programmatic support from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation (PJMF) to help open large climate datasets. The twelve-month grant will enable CC to conduct key climate data landscape analyses and expand our work, bringing people together to create policy and practices to open data that advances climate research and innovation.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 28, 2022 at 06:32PM
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FediScope, YouTube, Linux Mint, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 27, 2022

FediScope, YouTube, Linux Mint, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 27, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Spotted on Mastodon: FediScope. “FediScope lets you find fediverse accounts for people in a field using Wikidata. You can then compile a custom CSV and import it into Mastodon.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Tubefilter: The amount of classical music in YouTube videos is up 90% year-over-year. “Though electronica, pop, hip hop, and alternative are still the most-common genres chosen by Epidemic Sound users, one of the oldest forms of music on record made a huge comeback in 2022. Classical music downloads rose 64% year-over-year on the Epidemic Sound platform, and those tracks appeared in videos around the world. In 13 of the 15 content categories tracked by Epidemic Sound, classical was the fastest-growing soundtrack choice of 2022.”

9to5 Linux: Linux Mint 21.1 “Vera” Is Now Available for Download. “The highly anticipated Linux Mint 21.1 ‘Vera’ release has started appearing today on various of the official download mirrors of the Ubuntu-based distribution, which means that an official release announcement is upon us.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Verge: Podcasting could be in for a rocky 2023. “It feels like 2022 was the year when podcasting came back to earth. After years of go-go growth, podcast hits going mainstream, major corporate investment, and hype about the market to come ($4 billion by 2024!!), optimism about the industry hit the wall of an uncertain economy. M&A took a breather, advertising got tighter, and companies started laying off audio employees after years of frenzied hiring. What does 2023 have in store?”

11 Alive: Students work to preserve Atlanta’s Krog Street Tunnel. “— Wedged between Wylie Street and Dekalb Avenue, the Krog Street Tunnel stands. More than 100 years old, the tunnel is a permanent passage between Inman Park and Cabbagetown. But as Curt Jackson knows, what’s inside the tunnel is ever changing…. That’s why the PhD student spends every Saturday at the tunnel, camera in hand along with a team of Georgia State University students.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Los Angeles Times: Who’s protecting social media’s child stars? Inside the explosive lawsuit against one YouTuber’s empire. “The lawsuit offers an unsettling glimpse into a largely unregulated world of social media, where children spend long hours cranking out videos and branded content. Kids can make millions of dollars and become online celebrities, but because the content is made in the privacy of their own homes, child labor laws — which do apply to social media influencers — are not consistently enforced.”

Financial Times: Cyber attacks set to become ‘uninsurable’, says Zurich chief. “The chief executive of one of Europe’s biggest insurance companies has warned that cyber attacks, rather than natural catastrophes, will become ‘uninsurable’ as the disruption from hacks continues to grow.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: AI Is Now Essential National Infrastructure. “Soon, a comprehensive digital infrastructure—which includes national computing power, a distributed cloud, and an interoperable set of applications and machine-readable legislation—will be as important to a country as roads, rail, and public water supply. In 2023, more and more countries will accelerate the building of such nationwide digital architectures, allowing them to deliver more AI-powered responsive services that cater to the individual and help the population at large.”

The Daily Star (Bangladesh): World Cup revealed our media’s vulnerability to fake news. “In the first two weeks since the World Cup kicked off in Qatar, fact-checkers in Bangladesh debunked at least 10 different fake or misleading news stories, eight of which are related to the football tournament, in top newspapers and TV channels…. Why is our media so vulnerable?”

AFP: Iraqi conservators strive to preserve ancient manuscripts. “In a country that bears the scars of decades of conflict and has seen antiquities and cultural heritage regularly plundered, the House of Manuscripts’ collection has managed to survive. It was safely stashed away in the Baghdad suburbs, while the national museum was ransacked in the turmoil following the 2003 US-led invasion…. The collection, now ensconced in the national museum in the capital Baghdad, includes books, parchments and calligraphy boards, some of them damaged by humidity, pests and centuries of use.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 28, 2022 at 01:44AM
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AI-Powered Audio Processing, Google, Mastodon, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, December 27, 2022

AI-Powered Audio Processing, Google, Mastodon, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, December 27, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Ars Technica: Make your noisy recording sound like pro audio with Adobe’s free AI tool. “Recently, Adobe released a free AI-powered audio processing tool that can enhance some poor-quality voice recordings by removing background noise and making the voice sound stronger. When it works, the result sounds like a recording made in a professional sound booth with a high-quality microphone.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Roundtable: Calmer Christmas Weekend For The Google Search Results. “It seemed a lot calmer this past weekend, Christmas weekend, than we had it a while in the world of Google search volatility. This is a good thing since we really want to see the two Google ranking algorithm updates wind down before year-end.”

USEFUL STUFF

Graham Macphee: Using Mastodon to power my blog comments. “Since my article earlier this year about integrating my blog’s comments with Twitter, I’ve now switched to power my blog comments with discussions happening on Mastodon.”

WIRED: What Music Did You Stream in 2022? Here’s How to Find Your Recaps. “THE END OF the year traditionally brings with it a flurry of recaps and year-in-reviews from music streaming services. After all, whichever service you use, it’s been carefully logging all your listening habits over the past 12 months. Not only does that mean apps can serve up music you like and might like, they’re also able to tell you, in forensic detail, the tunes that you played over the year. However, each streaming service approaches this end-of-year summary slightly differently.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Wall Street Journal: YouTube Stars Cash In Video Rights for Millions of Dollars. “Justin Watkins for more than a decade has made YouTube videos of himself playing and commenting on games such as Roblox, for an audience of mostly young children. His YouTube channel called Thinknoodles is a hit, with millions of subscribers, but he was surprised by the pitch he received from a startup: Would he accept more than $2 million in exchange for the advertising revenues from his thousands of old videos?”

News24: Tutu infinity and beyond: Mourning period ends, but Arch’s legacy to live on in ‘Heirloom Project’. “The [Archbishop Tutu IP Trust and the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation] plan to move forward in protecting his work and legacy through a new global digital journey called the Heirloom Project. It will be a single-site, accessible and usable global digital archive called ‘The Heirloom Project’, which will eulogise Tutu in collaboration with South African and international universities associated with him.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bank Info Security: Hacker Claims to Have Scraped 400M Twitter User Records. “A member of a criminal data breach forum claims to have obtained the emails and phone numbers of 400 million Twitter users in a posting that urges social media CEO Elon Musk to buy the data set for an unspecified price.”

Reuters: Chinese academic database fined by antitrust watchdog. “China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has fined China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) 87.6 million yuan ($12.6 million) for abusing a ‘dominant market position’, the watchdog said on its website on Monday.”

Los Angeles Times: Emails reveal Sam Bankman-Fried’s courtship of federal regulators. “Before his mid-December arrest, cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried repeatedly claimed that he was a responsible business leader who sought more regulation of cryptocurrency and wanted his industry to be part of the mainstream financial system. But now that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Justice Department are prosecuting the 30-year-old for fraud, the extensive professional relationships he cultivated with current and former federal regulators risk embarrassment for all involved.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: The AI content flood . “Here are just three examples: automatically post ChatGPT-powered summaries of news stories moments after they’re published by major news brands, divided by region. Or pick a topic like cooking, and use ChatGPT to populate a recipe site from scratch. Or pick a city, and have the AI argue in favor or against a political position in context of the local community.” There is already so much shallow, low-effort stuff online that I’m discouraged from the get.

The Register: Study finds AI assistants help developers produce code that’s more likely to be buggy. “Computer scientists from Stanford University have found that programmers who accept help from AI tools like Github Copilot produce less secure code than those who fly solo.” I have used ChatGPT for things like generating JavaScript code snippets. It will cheerfully and confidently produce code that is so wrong even I can look at it and know it’s not right.

PsyPost: Study finds parasocial relationships on YouTube can help reduce prejudice towards people with mental health issues. “After watching a video meant for participants to build a relationship with the video creator and a video where the creator talked about his/her mental health issues, experimental groups scored lower on explicit prejudice assessments compared to controls who only watched the relationship-building video. Implicit prejudice levels were not affected. The study was published in Scientific Reports.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 27, 2022 at 06:32PM
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