New researches

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Night Train to Nashville, Sydney Ferry Rides, Twitter, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 18, 2023

Night Train to Nashville, Sydney Ferry Rides, Twitter, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 18, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum: Online Exhibit: Night Train To Nashville. “The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum was recently awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create an online version of its award-winning 2004–2005 exhibition, Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues 1945–1970. The online exhibit will revive, update, and preserve the significant story of Nashville’s pioneering R&B scene and its role in building the city into a world-renowned music center.”

Transport for New South Wales (Australia): Famous Sydney ferry views now accessible to the world on Google Street View. “‘Virtual visitors can look inside and outside the ferry, docked at Circular Quay – and also take a trip on two of Sydney’s most celebrated ferry routes, Circular Quay to Manly and Circular Quay to Taronga Zoo. These experiences are available on Google Street View from today.'”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NBC News: Top Twitter influencers say platform is getting worse under Musk. “Six Twitter users with follower counts from over 100,000 to several millions said they had experienced new kinds of technical glitches since Musk laid off about half of the company’s staff. Other issues they identified after Musk’s controversial moves include a perceived uptick in anti-transgender speech and sporadic loss of followers.”

USEFUL STUFF

Search Engine Land: Google ranking signals: A complete breakdown of all confirmed, rumored and false factors. “In this article, we’ll analyze all of the known, confirmed, rumored, and absolute myth-level Google ranking factors in an easy-to-read, highly condensed way.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

BBC: Nigeria elections 2023: How influencers are secretly paid by political parties. “A BBC investigation has discovered that political parties in Nigeria are secretly paying social media influencers to spread disinformation about their opponents ahead of general elections in February.”

CNBC: JPMorgan shutters website it paid $175 million for, accuses founder of inventing millions of accounts. “JPMorgan Chase on Thursday shut down the website for a college financial aid platform it bought for $175 million after alleging the company’s founder created nearly 4 million fake customer accounts.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Getty Images is suing the creators of AI art tool Stable Diffusion for scraping its content. “Getty Images is suing Stability AI, creators of popular AI art tool Stable Diffusion, over alleged copyright violation. In a press statement shared with The Verge, the stock photo company said it believes that Stability AI ‘unlawfully copied and processed millions of images protected by copyright’ to train its software and that Getty Images has ‘commenced legal proceedings in the High Court of Justice in London’ against the firm.”

Associated Press: US spies lag rivals in seizing on data hiding in plain sight. “As alarms began to go off globally about a novel coronavirus spreading in China, officials in Washington turned to the intelligence agencies for insights about the threat the virus posed to America. But the most useful early warnings came not from spies or intercepts, according to a recent congressional review of classified reports from December 2019 and January 2020. Officials were instead relying on public reporting, diplomatic cables and analysis from medical experts — some examples of so-called open source intelligence, or OSINT.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington State University: Fear can inspire remote workers to protect IT resources. “Fear of what could go wrong is the greatest motivator when it comes to getting remote workers to protect their employer’s information technology security, according to a recent study in Computers & Security. But it tends to work best when employees also have a solid understanding of the severity of potential security threats, including the knowledge of what to do when the worst happens.”

The Conversation: Twitter: how to remove Elon Musk and reinvent the company (the author is a Professor of International Business at the University of Manchester.) “What follows is a proposal that would make Twitter more financially sustainable and move it back towards open speech, within limits. It would remove many of the problems related to anonymous and bot accounts while allowing Musk to recoup at least a substantial amount of his investment.” Good afternoon, Internet..

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January 19, 2023 at 01:20AM
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TikTok, Twitter, Google Translate, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, January 18, 2023

TikTok, Twitter, Google Translate, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, January 18, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: More than half of US states have cracked down on TikTok access from government devices. “More than half of all US states have partially or fully banned TikTok from government devices, according to a CNN analysis, reflecting a wave of recent clampdowns by governors and state agencies targeting the short-form video app. The accelerating backlash by states against TikTok, which has at least 100 million users in the United States, extends to states governed by Republicans and Democrats, and spans all regions of the country.”

Financial Times: Looming Twitter interest payment leaves Elon Musk with unpalatable options. “The bill for Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is coming due, with the billionaire facing unpalatable options on the company’s enormous debt pile, ranging from bankruptcy proceedings to another costly sale of Tesla shares.”

Android Police: Google Translate gets offline translation for 33 more languages. “Google has just expanded the offline translation functionality to a whopping 33 new languages, as announced by the company in a blog post.” From Basque to Zulu, full list in the post.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Vox: Are we too worried about misinformation?. “I think what has happened is there was a massive overestimation of the capability of mis- and disinformation to change people’s minds — of its actual persuasive power. That doesn’t mean it’s not a problem, but we have to reframe how we look at it — as less of something that is done to us and more of a supply and demand problem.” This quote kind of reflexively makes me mad, but since Alex Stamos said it I feel obligated to take it seriously and think deeply about it. Darn it. Lol.

HoldTheFrontPage: Websites take a back seat as publisher changes tack at nine regional titles. “A regional publisher is making nine titles ‘newsletter-led’ enterprises that will see their websites take a back seat. Reach plc has announced the move at its digital-only ‘Live’ titles covering Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Sussex and Hampshire.”

SFist: SF Police and Sheriff Unions Engaged in Bizarro Social Media Fight Over Staffing at SFO. SFO is San Francisco International Airport, I believe. “Immature posts from law enforcement unions are nothing new, but we can’t help but be amused by the new Twitter fight between SF Police Officers Association and the SF Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, who are publicly airing beef between them over who should staff SFO.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NPR: Here’s what’s at stake in Elon Musk’s Tesla tweet trial. “In 2018, before Elon Musk was making headlines for his role in running Twitter, he was making headlines for another Twitter-related controversy: allegedly using the platform to commit fraud…. Now, a civil trial stemming from those tweets is being watched as a window into Musk’s behavior, past and present, which means the trial could produce new controversies of its own.”

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project: LockBit Gang Using Musk’s Internet Services, Laundering BitCoin in Hong Kong, China. “A security strategist who spent months undercover on the darkweb published a report on Monday that offers insight into one of the world’s most notorious ransomware groups, claiming its members are using internet services owned by billionaire Elon Musk and laundering money through Hong Kong and China.”

ERR (Estonia): Hartman submits bill to amend museums law, create new folk culture database. “Wednesday in the Riigikogu’s first reading, Minister of Culture Piret Hartman (SDE) introduced a legislation that simplifies the procedures for removal of items from museum collections, amends the conditions of museum funding, and proposes the creation of a new folk culture database.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of York: Study reveals online fake reviewers suffer from pangs of conscience. “The study, led by the University of York, found individuals to be quite competent in writing compelling fake reviews in unpredictable ways, but it caused a moral dilemma for some. The researchers say the findings of the study could be used by websites to put in place better systems to detect fake reviews, which could appeal to the contributor’s moral obligation to be truthful.”

Canada NewsWire: Canadian Heritage funds projects to strengthen Canadians’ resilience against harmful online disinformation (PRESS RELEASE). “The Honourable Pablo Rodriguez, Minister of Canadian Heritage, and the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, today announced more than $1.2 million in funding for 16 research projects that help to counter and educate about online harms, misinformation, and disinformation. These projects were selected following an annual call for proposals that was launched in July 2022 by the Digital Citizen Contribution Program (DCCP).”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Dalhousie University: Dal researchers’ chance discovery could help extend battery life by replacing tape that causes self‑discharge. ‘”In commercial battery cells there is tape — like Scotch tape — that holds the electrodes together and there is a chemical decomposition of this tape, which creates a molecule that leads to the self-discharge,” says Michael Metzger, an assistant professor and the Herzberg-Dahn chair and in the Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science.’

January 18, 2023 at 06:27PM
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Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Public Art Archive, W3C, UK Web Archive, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 17, 2023

Public Art Archive, W3C, UK Web Archive, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 17, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

PR Newswire: Public Art Archive Launches New Website to Make Public Art Available for All (PRESS RELEASE). “A project of the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF), a US Regional Arts Organization, the PAA is a singular platform for connecting with public art in any community. The site, publicartarchive.org, includes a public art documentation database with interactive maps, bringing thousands of public artworks to visitors across the country and beyond.” Give it a minute to load, it’s a little slow.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Computing: W3C rejects Google’s cookie plans for Chrome. “A division of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has rejected Google’s Topics API proposal which the search giant presented last year, claiming that it would help replace intrusive third-party tracking cookies in Chrome.”

UK Web Archive Blog: UK Web Archive Technical Update – Winter 2022. “As in previous years, the 2022 Domain Crawl continued to run right up until the end of the year. Overall, things ran smoothly, with only brief outages for upgrading the virtual server over time as the size of the frontier grew.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Bloomberg: Conspiracy Theories Prompt Top Finnish Health Authority to Quit Twitter. “The rampant spread of conspiracy theories on Twitter has pushed Finland’s top health authority to stop using the platform to disseminate its public-health messages.”

Associated Press: As Elites Arrive in Davos, Conspiracy Theories Thrive Online. “The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting — which will draw some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential figures to the Swiss mountain town of Davos this week — has increasingly become a target for bizarre claims from a growing chorus of commentators who believe the forum involves a group of elites manipulating global events for their own benefit.”

The Scotsman: Experts warn Scotland’s musical heritage under threat over BBC plans to drop piping show. ‘Award-winning musicians, academics and piping sector leaders have called for Pipeline to be saved due to the “critical” role played by its outside broadcasts in maintaining a public record of piping at festivals and contests, and the recording sessions traditionally offered by the BBC to musicians unable to make their own albums.’

SECURITY & LEGAL

Wall Street Journal: TikTok Tries to Win Allies in the U.S. With More Transparency. “Two years into negotiations with U.S. regulators about whether TikTok will be able to remain in the country, the popular video-sharing app is trying a new tack: increased transparency. In recent conversations with Washington lawmakers and civil-society organizations, TikTok has revealed details of a complex, $1.5 billion plan to reorganize the company’s U.S. operations, according to people familiar with the discussions.”

WION: Android phones to become expensive in India? Google refuses to pay fine over anti-competitive practices claims. “Google issued a warning over Android phones stating that smartphones will become more expensive in India because of the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) latest ruling. It is said that the costs might increase for app developers, equipment makers, and eventually consumers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: Algorithms Allegedly Penalized Black Renters. The US Government Is Watching. “SafeRent had argued that algorithms used to screen tenants aren’t subject to the Fair Housing Act, because its scores only advise landlords and don’t make decisions. The DOJ’s brief, filed jointly with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, dismisses that claim, saying the act and associated case law leave no ambiguity.”

Nikkei Asia: China trounces U.S. in AI research output and quality. “Nikkei worked with Dutch scientific publisher Elsevier to review academic and conference papers on AI, using 800 or so AI-associated keywords to narrow down the papers. Looking at quantity, the number of AI papers exploded from about 25,000 in 2012 to roughly 135,000 in 2021. This mirrors the AI boom that began around 2012, when deep learning came to the fore. China has consistently stood atop the heap in terms of the volume of papers, the study shows. For 2021, it produced 43,000 papers — roughly twice as many as the U.S.” Good afternoon, Internet…

January 18, 2023 at 01:19AM
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Inclusive Dermatology, DesignerBot, Nigeria Elections Trends, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, January 17, 2023

Inclusive Dermatology, DesignerBot, Nigeria Elections Trends, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, January 17, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Endpoints News: Galderma drives diversity in dermatology with online photo gallery sponsorship. “[Misty] Eleryan and fellow dermatologist Adam Friedman co-edited ‘The Full Spectrum of Dermatology: A Diverse and Inclusive Atlas,’ a database of more than 800 images of commonly diagnosed conditions across various skin tones published by healthcare communications company SanovaWorks. The original print version was published in 2021 and updated last year, and thanks to funding from Galderma, the group has launched an online database.”

Fast Company: New generative AI tool instantly builds presentation decks and PowerPoints. “This week, Beautiful.ai debuted DesignerBot, a generative AI tool that helps users automate presentation creation. Based on a text prompt, DesignerBot generates full templates, including layout and relevant text, photos, and icons—all editable by the user and exportable to PowerPoint.”

Leadership (Nigeria): Google Debuts Nigeria 2023 Elections Trends Hub. “In support of the upcoming 2023 Presidential elections, Google has unveiled a new portal, the Nigeria Elections Trends Hub, that will provide a platform for Nigerians to search and discover trending interests related to the presidential and vice presidential candidates, parties, and issues through the lens of Google Trends.” I am very interested in this election for two reasons: 1) Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and has grown tremendously over the last several decades, and b) This election is occurring in the midst of serious Silicon Valley turmoil. Content moderation has never been anywhere close to perfect in Africa and I’m concerned social media will seriously disrupt the Nigerian election cycle.

USEFUL STUFF

Smashing Magazine: Top Front-End Tools Of 2022. “Who doesn’t love a good front-end tool? In this roundup, you’ll find a nice list of useful front-end tools that were popular last year but are still bound to help you speed up and enhance your development workflow. Let’s dive in!” Some of these are high-level design items, but anybody can get use out of Text Cleaner, Fonoster, and Allinone.tools.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Ynet News: ‘Elon Musk oblivious to human suffering,’ says Israeli former Twitter staffer . “Israeli former executive says since takeover, there are irrational, capricious terminations, secret meetings, emails telling people to stay out of the building.”

AFP: Deepfake video used to falsely claim Donald Trump endorsed Nigerian presidential candidate Peter Obi. “A video viewed thousands of times on TikTok appears to show former US leader Donald Trump endorsing Nigerian presidential candidate Peter Obi ahead of the country’s general elections in February. However, AFP Fact Check found the clip was digitally altered.”

Oklahoma State University: OSU Library receives $1.2M grant to process Senator’s papers. “The Oklahoma State University Library was awarded over $1.2 million by the Senate Historical Office. This preservation partnership grant will fund the supplies, personnel and space needed to process, archive and make publicly available the papers of U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: TikTok slapped with $5.4 million fine over cookie opt-out feature. “France’s data protection authority (CNIL) has fined TikTok UK and TikTok Ireland €5,000,000 for making it difficult for users of the platform to refuse cookies and for not sufficiently informing them about their purpose.”

Financial Times: Social media platforms brace for hit to user numbers from age checks. “Social media companies expect age verification measures in the UK’s Online Safety Bill will reduce user numbers, hitting advertising revenue on platforms including TikTok and Instagram. The long-awaited legislation, which will begin its final stages in the House of Commons next week, would not only remove underage users from the platforms but also discourage individuals without identification or with privacy concerns, people involved with policy at leading social media companies said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT Technology Review: Inside the metaverse meetups that let people share on death, grief, and pain. “Death Q&A is a weekly hour-long session built around grappling with mortality, where attendees often open up about experiences and feelings they’ve shared with no one else. Bright, cartoon-like avatars represent the dozen or so people who attend each meetup, freed by VR’s combination of anonymity and togetherness to engage strangers with an earnestness we typically reserve for rare moments, if we reveal it at all.”

American Journal of Managed Care: YouTube Social Media Influencers Promote Inaccurate Birth Control Content, Study Finds. “Unplanned pregnancies could result from adopting social media influencers’ contraception advice, according to new research, which found the content largely inaccurate and incomplete. Researchers from the University of Delaware discovered that YouTube searches presented information about discontinuing birth control rather than safe sex or contraception. The study was published in Health Communication and highlights how for some young adults, social media has become a main source of sexual health knowledge.”

Penn Medicine News: Machine Learning-Triggered Reminders Improve End-of-Life Care for Patients with Cancer. “Electronic nudges delivered to health care clinicians based on a machine learning algorithm that predicts mortality risk quadrupled rates of conversations with patients about their end-of-life care preferences… The study also found that the machine learning-triggered reminders significantly decreased use of aggressive chemotherapy and other systemic therapies at end of life.” Good morning, Internet…

January 17, 2023 at 06:29PM
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Monday, January 16, 2023

USITC Investigations, St. Louis Cardinals, Twitter, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 16, 2023

USITC Investigations, St. Louis Cardinals, Twitter, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 16, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

United States International Trade Commission: USITC Launches New Investigations Database System . “The United States International Trade Commission (USITC) today deployed the Investigations Database System (IDS), an innovative new data management tool that captures, manages, and displays USITC investigation-related information…. A major new feature is the ability to conduct quick searches and advanced searches of the centralized investigation database that generate in-depth search results across multiple practice areas, providing new perspectives and value-added insights for users.”

UniWatch: More Research Leads to Incredibly Comprehensive St. Louis Cardinals Uni/Logo Database. “Oliver has now created an incredible online database (similar to the Gridiron Uniform Database or Dressed to the Nines), in which Oliver ‘redrew all our uniform models and reincorporated all of our new research,’ to create the most comprehensive collection of the logos and uniforms of the Cards!”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Twitter may have deliberately cut off third-party clients like Tweetbot. “Since Thursday evening, many of the most popular apps you can use to scroll Twitter without going through the company’s own software, including Tweetbot and Twitterrific, have not worked, with no official communication from Twitter. On Sunday, The Information shared messages from Twitter’s internal Slack channels that suggest the company is aware of the outage and likely the cause of it as well.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Smithsonian: National Museum of American History Will Preserve Alexander Graham Bell’s Experimental Sound Recordings. “The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History will embark this fall on a new round of sound recovery to restore some of the world’s earliest recordings. … the work will focus on hundreds of records created by Alexander Graham Bell and his colleagues at Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., and at Bell’s property in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, between 1881 and 1892.”

Rolling Stone: Far-Right Superstars Are Failing on Rumble. Who’s Winning?. “The outsider streaming site that just partnered up with Donald Trump Jr. is growing — but not in the way most people think.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over social media use. “A prominent pro-reform law professor in Saudi Arabia is facing the death penalty for alleged crimes including having a Twitter account and using WhatsApp to share news considered ‘hostile’ to the kingdom, according to court documents seen by the Guardian.”

Discovered on Mastodon: Stable Diffusion Litigation. From the home page: “On behalf of three wonderful artist plaintiffs—Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz—we’ve filed a class-action lawsuit against Stability AI, DeviantArt, and Midjourney for their use of Stable Diffusion, a 21st-century collage tool that remixes the copyrighted works of millions of artists whose work was used as training data. Joining as co-counsel are the terrific litigators Brian Clark and Laura Matson of Lockridge Grindal Nauen P.L.L.P.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

ZDNet: Can AI detectors save us from ChatGPT? I tried 3 online tools to find out. “With the sudden arrival of ChatGPT, educators and editors are facing a worrying surge of automated content submissions. We look at the problem and what might be done.”

University of Calgary: Transdisciplinary UCalgary team investigates ethical use of AI in post-secondary. “New research shows that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in academic settings is leading to a decline in the integrity of academic work. As AI technology continues to advance, it is becoming easier and easier for students to cheat on assignments and exams.

Sounds convincing and attention grabbing, right? The only thing you need to know about the first paragraph of this story is that it wasn’t written by a human.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Washington Post: A Yorkie was dognapped. A man who hunted al-Qaeda came to the rescue.. “Most stolen dogs are never recovered, but what followed was an improbable effort to crack the identity of the dognapper. It brought together [Raquel] Witherspoon, neighbors, TV news, police and a former Marine Corps intelligence operator who offered skills he honed on the battlefields of Iraq to capture al-Qaeda fighters.” I didn’t know that Instagram trick. That’s a good one. Good afternoon, Internet…

January 17, 2023 at 01:59AM
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Investigative Journalism Foundation, California Driving, Michigan Mental Health, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, January 16, 2023

Investigative Journalism Foundation, California Driving, Michigan Mental Health, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, January 16, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

NiemanLab: “Canada’s ProPublica” is sharing the databases behind its hard-hitting stories. “A week after launching, [Investigative Journalism Foundation] has shown some political leaders have been breaking their party’s pledge to stop allowing lobbyists to attend cash-for-access fundraisers, taken a sobering look at the country’s public-housing system in partnership with The Walrus, and cataloged, alongside the National Observer, a lobbying blitz by Canada’s largest oil and gas group.”

StreetsBlog Cal: New Tool Helps Planners and Public Visualize Vehicle Miles Traveled. “Fehr & Peers has developed a new tool to help planner and the public ‘see’ how much driving people do, both locally and regionally, in California. This is useful for planning, for grant applications, for estimating traffic impacts from projects, and for estimating greenhouse gases from transportation.”

State of Michigan: State Launches New Workplace Mental Health Hub, Upcoming Webinar Series. “To further support mental health and wellbeing for more Michiganders, the state of Michigan launched Michigan.gov/WorkplaceMentalHealth, a centralized workplace mental health hub to share resources and strategies aimed at helping employees and employers across the state address mental health in the workplace.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

ReviewGeek: YouTube Tests Out Ad-Supported Free TV Channel Streaming. “At this point, it’s pretty clear that Google is going all-in on YouTube’s video streaming initiative. It’ll have the NFL Sunday Ticket starting next season, and now we’re hearing YouTube is testing a hub where it’ll offer cable-TV channels for free, but with ads.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: This App Uses AI to Generate Custom Playlists. “PlaylistAI is an app that uses AI to help you create playlists easily, and it is compatible with Spotify and Apple Music. It lets you specify the kind of music you’re looking for and creates custom playlists for you. Here are a few ways you can use PlaylistAI to expand your musical horizons.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Globe and Mail: Canadian companies inadvertently finance conspiracy-theory sites through ads placed on Google. “Google has placed ads from a host of Canadian companies – including airlines, banks, clothing and food stores – as well as public bodies such as Quebec City tourism – on sites that have raised alarm bells with groups tracking pro-Russian coverage and misinformation. The Globe found more than a dozen ads for Canadian companies appearing on American and French sites including for companies such as Scotiabank, Jetlines, Mattress Mart and Farm Boy.”

SWI: Swiss cinema adapts to energy crisis.”Cinémathèque Suisse has also developed scenarios to anticipate possible power cuts and enable it to continue its activities. Priority has been given to the ‘physical’ film collections, which must be stored at a certain temperature and humidity level, as well as to the digital archives stored on different servers.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Fake OnlyFans dating sites abuse UK Environment Agency open redirect. “Threat actors abused an open redirect on the official website of the United Kingdom’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to direct visitors to fake OnlyFans adult dating sites. OnlyFans is a content subscription service where paid subscribers get access to private photos, videos, and posts from adult models, celebrities, and social media personalities.”

BBC: US farmers win right to repair John Deere equipment. “Tractor maker John Deere has agreed to give its US customers the right to fix their own equipment. Previously, farmers were only allowed to use authorised parts and service facilities rather than cheaper independent repair options. Deere and Co. is one of the world’s largest makers farming equipment.”

The Print (Pakistan): Pakistan National Assembly bans entry of YouTubers, TikTokers, social media influencers into premises. “The Pakistan National Assembly Secretariat has banned the entry of YouTubers, TikTokers and other social media influencers into its premises, ARY News reported. The decision has been taken after an incident of misbehaviour with lawmakers by some unauthorised YouTuber/social media influencers at Gate No 1 of Parliament House on December 23 last year, as per the ARY News report.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Brookings Institution: ChatGPT: Educational friend or foe?. “In our own test, the first author (Kathy) gave the bot a complicated essay question that she asks her Honors psychology students to answer. It did a respectable job. Yet—the bot produced no more than a B- or C+ essay. Why? To date, the bot cannot distinguish the ‘classic’ article in a field that must be cited from any other article that reviews the same content. The bot also tends to keep referencing the same sources over and over again. These are issues that can be easily resolved in the next iteration. More centrally, however, is that the bot is more of a synthesizer than a critical thinker.”

WIRED: It’s Time to Teach AI How to Be Forgetful. “Intelligent forgetting is just one dimension of psychological AI, an approach to machine intelligence that also incorporates other features of human intelligence such as causal reasoning, intuitive psychology, and physics. In 2023, this approach to AI will finally be recognized as fundamental for solving ill-defined problems.” Good morning, Internet…

January 16, 2023 at 06:32PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/jPZMOly

Sunday, January 15, 2023

Investigative Journalism Tools, Metra Train Tracker, TED-Ed, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 15, 2023

Investigative Journalism Tools, Metra Train Tracker, TED-Ed, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 15, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Inside AFP: Fighting disinformation: AFP shares tools in videos. “From finding the origin of a video online to using archives to identify old versions of web pages, reading foreign languages with a smartphone or using mapping tools, these videos demonstrate tools used by AFP journalists around the world in their investigations. A dozen videos are already available in English and French on AFP’s YouTube channels and on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, sharing key tips for online verification.” Every video I looked at was thoroughly capitioned.

Railfan & Railroad Magazine: Metra Rolls Out New Online Train Tracker. “[The site] was launched on Tuesday and now lets users check train departures from specific stations and look at trains on a real-time map to see where exactly they are.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Larry Ferlazzo: TED-ED Animated Videos Are Now In Five Languages. “Over the years on this blog, I’ve shared a fair number of both English and Spanish-language TED-Ed animated videos. They’ve just announced an expansion to three other languages, and now have five separate channels.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: How to use your phone to find hidden cameras. “Want to make sure your privacy is being respected? There are a couple of ways you can kinda, sorta find out if there are any hidden cameras in your space.” The one comment at this writing offers a third method.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Library of Congress: Library of Congress Awards Second Round of More than $500,000 to Support Contemporary Cultural Field Research within Diverse Communities. “The Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center is pleased to announce the second recipient cohort of the Community Collections Grant program. Launched by the Library’s Of the People: Widening the Path initiative, this series of grants is awarded to individuals and organizations working to document cultures and traditions of Black, Indigenous and communities of color historically underrepresented in the United States and in the Library’s collections.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Politico: DOJ antitrust chief cleared to oversee Google probes. “The Justice Department has cleared antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter to oversee investigations and litigation involving Google, potentially paving the way for him to lead a federal antitrust case challenging the search giant’s dominance of the online advertising market, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.”

Motherboard: Researchers Could Track the GPS Location of All of California’s New Digital License Plates. “A team of security researchers managed to gain ‘super administrative access’ into Reviver, the company behind California’s new digital license plates which launched last year. That access allowed them to track the physical GPS location of all Reviver customers and change a section of text at the bottom of the license plate designed for personalized messages to whatever they wished, according to a blog post from the researchers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Locus Magazine: Commentary: Cory Doctorow: Social Quitting. “In some ways, this shouldn’t surprise us. All the social networks that preceded the current generation experienced this pattern: SixDegrees, Friendster, MySpace, and Bebo all exploded onto the scene. One day, they were sparsely populated fringe services, the next day, everyone you knew was using them and you had to sign up to stay in touch. Then, just as quickly, they imploded, turning into ghost towns, then punchlines, then forgotten ruins.”

PR Newswire: Mars Petcare and the Broad Institute create open-access database of dog and cat genomes to advance preventive pet care (PRESS RELEASE). “Mars Petcare is partnering with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a world leader in the genetic and molecular analysis of diseases, to create one of the largest open access cat and dog genome databases in the world. Genomes from 10,000 dogs and 10,000 cats enrolled in the MARS PETCARE BIOBANK initiative will be sequenced over the next 10 years. Insights from the open access database can help advance individualized pet health care for future generations of dogs and cats.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

This is Colossal: Hapless Hangups and Silly Spoofs Abound in the 2022 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. “In this year’s juried contest, 5,000 entries from 85 countries amounted to fierce competition, showcasing ‘seriously funny’ images in an effort to highlight the diversity of the world’s wildlife and raise awareness of the need for conservation. In partnership with the Whitley Fund for Nature, the contest contributes 10% of revenue toward conservation efforts in countries across the Global South.” Good afternoon, Internet…

January 16, 2023 at 01:37AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/d2plno7