New researches

Monday, January 23, 2023

South Dakota Audio, Google’s Area 120, Stop-Motion Video, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 23, 2023

South Dakota Audio, Google’s Area 120, Stop-Motion Video, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 23, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

DRG News: Audio files from the State Archives collections now available online; Files include KGFX founder Ida McNeil. “The South Dakota State Archives has been working to digitize select audio recordings and make them available in the South Dakota Digital Archives. State Archivist Chelle Somsen says they received a grant to preserve the recordings.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Area 120, Google’s in-house incubator, severely impacted by Alphabet mass layoffs. “Area 120, the Google in-house incubator responsible for products such as Checks, Tables, Stack and ThreadBite, has been significantly affected by broader layoffs at Google parent company Alphabet. A spokesperson tells TechCrunch via email that the majority of the Area 120 team has been ‘winded down,’ and that only three projects from the division will graduate later this year into core Google product areas.”

New York Times: Google Calls In Help From Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. Fight. “A rival chatbot has shaken Google out of its routine, with the founders who left three years ago re-engaging and more than 20 A.I. projects in the works.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Shoot a Stop Motion Video: A Beginner’s Guide. “Stop-motion video can satisfy the needs of hobbyist photographers wishing to dabble with video, YouTubers wanting interesting transitional content, or simply for something to do on a rainy day. How can you get started with stop-motion animation? There are just three key pieces of equipment that are required. Two of which you likely have already.”

PC World: The old Windows Photos app is better than the new one, and you can still use it. “What’s known as Microsoft Photos Legacy still resides within the Windows Store, and there’s one good reason that you might still prefer it over the latest version: its superior content search capabilities.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: Tech Workers Fight for Iran Protesters as Big Tech Plays It Safe. “Google’s Iran response has frustrated some employees, rights groups, and US lawmakers. They want the company to deepen its support, including by opening up cloud computing and software development tools to people inside Iran to help protesters communicate securely and circumvent government internet firewalls.”

CNN: Who is Shou Zi Chew? Mounting scrutiny on TikTok could put new spotlight on its CEO. “In Silicon Valley, it’s common for tech CEOs to be household names and the faces of the company’s they lead. Mark Zuckerberg is synonymous with Facebook and Jack Dorsey was the bearded face of Twitter, before Elon Musk acquired it. But Chew, who took over as TikTok CEO in April 2021, has largely stayed out of the spotlight at a time when the app he leads can’t seem to avoid it.”

Mashable: The ‘film Twitter take generator’ isn’t an AI. That’s why it’s so good. . “The film Twitter take generator is funnier than any ChatGPT nonsense I’ve seen — and that has a lot to do with the fact that it has nothing to do with AI. All it takes to have an awesome generator is someone with a vast knowledge of the subject matter. It also has the added benefit of being divorced from all the ethical questions surrounding AI.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Arizona State University: More internet matches are leading to happy marriages. “According to a 2013 study by social psychologist J. T. Cacioppo, the internet is responsible for roughly one in every three marriages. And those who use online dating end up being slightly more satisfied with their relationship and marriage than those who met in more traditional ways.”

Michigan Daily: I’m in a toxic relationship with Goodreads. “Ever since I downloaded Goodreads, every page turned has become a small step closer to completing my yearly reading goal. Keeping track of my reading is now a quantifiable task instead of an entertaining hobby. It has also made me extremely self-conscious of the books I enjoy reading, given that people can actively see the media I consume and silently judge me based on it. I’m hyper-aware of this, yet I refuse to delete Goodreads from my phone. I’m addicted to it. Goodreads seems to have me in a chokehold I can’t break out of.” Good afternoon, Internet..

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January 24, 2023 at 01:30AM
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Octosuite, Black Women in Physics and Astronomy, Indiana Department of Education, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, January 23, 2023

Octosuite, Black Women in Physics and Astronomy, Indiana Department of Education, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, January 23, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Bellingcat: Octosuite: A New Tool to Conduct Open Source Investigations on GitHub. “Octosuite is an advanced GitHub framework written in Python that uses GitHub’s Public API to make the process of investigating accounts and repositories on the platform more efficient, while also creating a set of automated and easily reproducible queries.”

New-to-me, from Black Enterprise: Database Makes Black Women With Ph.D.s In Physics More Discoverable. “Out of the 2,000 physics Ph.D.s that are awarded in the U.S. each year, less than 0.5% of those are reportedly given to women of African descent. Doctor of Cosmology and University of New Hampshire professor, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, is tackling the lack of representation in scientific research through Cite Black Women+ in Physics and Astronomy Bibliography, a database that lists professional publications by Black women who hold Ph.D.s in physics-related disciplines.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Indiana Department of Education: Users Can Now View Longitudinal and Disaggregated Data In Just One Click. “The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) has deployed the first round of enhancements to its new Indiana Graduates Prepared to Succeed Dashboard (Indiana GPS) – a resource that is constantly evolving in response to the needs of Indiana’s students, communities and employers. The most recent enhancements allow users to drill down into longitudinal and disaggregated data, showing data over time by student population.”

Internet Archive: Public Domain Day Film Contest Highlights Works of 1927. “At Internet Archive we love to see how creative people can get with the material we make available online. As part of this year’s Public Domain Day celebration we asked the greater community to submit short films highlighting anything that was going to be made available in the Public Domain in 2023. For the contest, vintage images and sounds were woven into creative films of 2-3 minutes. Many of the films were abstract while others educational, they all showcased the possibility when public domain materials are made openly available and accessible for download.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 5 Fun Map Sites for Cool and Interesting Cartography. “There are portals that preserve old maps and show you how the world has changed, while others let you compare pretty much any two places on the planet. And you’ll be glad to know that there are communities to find like-minded map lovers to share your interests.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Search Engine Land: TikTok has a secret “Heating” (cheating?) button. “Six current and former employees of TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, as well as internal documents and communications reviewed by Forbes, TikTok and ByteDance staff use a practice called ‘heating’ to artificially boost the distribution of certain videos in addition to relying on the algorithm to determine what becomes popular.”

The Guardian: ‘That’s Africa, man’: how a young musician captured the music of Rwanda . “In 2018, [Michael Makembe] decided to travel all around Rwanda, visiting communities in remote places to collect voices, poems, songs and recordings of traditional instruments. In five years Makembe has amassed nearly 1,000 different sounds. He is hoping to open an audio museum this year where people can go and listen to them. He also wants to launch Sounds of Rwanda, an online library for a global audience.”

Deseret News: New genealogy platform unveiling, and connecting, the untold stories of our lives . “[Kendall] Hulet knows a thing or two about genealogy and search services having spent 14 years upgrading the search functions for family history giant Ancestry.com and launching his own mobile browser, Cake, a few years back. Now, Hulet is CEO of Storied, a newly announced rebrand of newspaper and record archive service World Archives which was acquired in 2020 by Charles Thayne Capital.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

EdSurge: Before Using Augmented and Virtual Reality Tools, Teachers Should Develop a Plan. “As an early adopter and enthusiast for immersive technology in schools, I’ve had the opportunity to share ways to use augmented and virtual reality to transform learning with educators around the world. I provide staff development and training, and many of the teachers I work with are enthusiastic about trying new tools…. But I’ve seen a lot of teachers dive in too quickly, selecting and using a tool without carving out time to think through how to implement it with fidelity.”

Margins: Google vs. ChatGPT told by aglio e olio. “Yes, Google is still the best search engine for most things, but the fact that many people are comparing OpenAI’s tech demo to Google’s flagship product should be causing alarm bells to go off. For a long time, Google’s claim to fame was to getting the users the answers they want faster than the competition. That doesn’t hold true for many types of queries anymore. More than half the time, I have to add `site:reddit.com` to get anything that is not SEO spam.”

The Hill: We need an open source intelligence center. “A government of multiple small efforts is insufficiently prepared to harness the current open source revolutionary potential. The volume and variety of open and commercial source materials, urgency of the geopolitical rivalry, and continued development of tools to exploit the data all necessitate a systematic effort to harness open and commercial source to support decision making. The answer, we believe, rests on standing up a standalone open source entity.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

WIRED: You Can Use This Silly Game to Do Some Serious Physics. “The game works like this: You start off with a rocket on a very small planet. Click on the rocket to start, then you can use the arrows on your keyboard to turn on the thruster, rotate the spacecraft, and find other planets and a few fun things that are mostly inside What If jokes. That’s it. That’s the game. It’s silly and fun, and I love it. But it turns out that you can use even a simple game to explore some key concepts in physics.” Good morning, Internet…

January 23, 2023 at 06:26PM
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Sunday, January 22, 2023

Sundance Film Festival, CNET, Illinois State Archives, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 22, 2023

Sundance Film Festival, CNET, Illinois State Archives, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 22, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

EVENTS

Lifehacker: You Can Attend Sundance Without Going to Utah. “The 2023 Sundance Film Festival returns to Park City, Utah this week, but you don’t have to travel to enjoy a packed schedule of movie screenings. After several years of partly virtual (or virtual-only) programming, it seems like online showings are here to stay.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: CNET pauses publishing AI-written stories after disclosure controversy. “In a staff call on Friday, CNET leadership told staff it was pausing all AI-generated content for now. Top executives at Red Ventures, the firm that owns CNET and other websites, also offered more details on the company’s AI tool.”

Illinois State Genealogical Society Blog: BIG NEWS from the Illinois State Archives- Death Certificates Database Updated to 1971!. “ISGS has just heard fantastic news from the Illinois State Archives Director, Dr. David Joens- The Illinois Death Certificates searchable database at ilsos.gov has been updated to include death certificate entries for the years 1951-1971!”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Wall Street Journal: Forget Google Maps: Why Paper Map Sales Are Booming. “Digital maps, while powerful, aren’t perfect navigational tools: Phone batteries die, cell signals fail. And though a smartphone can easily direct you to the quickest route, taking it often means you’ll miss the best scenery. A paper map, more like those made by early humans, can provide a bigger picture…. Perhaps that’s why paper maps are regaining popularity.”

Nevada Humanities: Nevada Humanities Awards More Than $194,000 in Major Project Grants (this link is to a PDF file.) “Thirty cultural organizations across Nevada have been awarded $194,110 in Major Project Grants by Nevada Humanities. These grants fund humanities projects across the state and benefit nonprofit organizations and government and tribal entities, including libraries, museums, and schools to fund public and educational programs in the humanities.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Hackers push malware via Google search ads for VLC, 7-Zip, CCleaner. “Hackers are setting up fake websites for popular free and open-source software to promote malicious downloads through advertisements in Google search results. At least one prominent user on the cryptocurrency scene has fallen victim to the campaign, claiming it allowed hacker hackers steal all their digital crypto assets along with control over their professional and personal accounts.”

WIRED: A Sneaky Ad Scam Tore Through 11 Million Phones. “Security researchers today revealed a new widespread attack on the online advertising ecosystem that has impacted millions of people, defrauded hundreds of companies, and potentially netted its creators some serious profits. The attack, dubbed Vastflux, was discovered by researchers at Human Security, a firm focusing on fraud and bot activity. The attack impacted 11 million phones, with the attackers spoofing 1,700 app and targeting 120 publishers. At its peak, the attackers were making 12 billion requests for ads per day.”

Ars Technica: Twitter hired experts for case against Musk—now Musk won’t pay them, lawsuit says . “Twitter was sued yesterday by a consulting firm that says it was never paid for work it did on the lawsuit that forced Elon Musk to complete his purchase of the company. Charles River Associates (CRA) says it was hired by Twitter in August 2022, shortly after Twitter sued Musk over his refusal to complete their $44 billion merger agreement. Musk finally completed the purchase in late October after it became clear that he was likely to lose in court.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Wyoming: UW Professors Develop Dashboard to Drive Education Decision-Making. “University of Wyoming College of Education faculty members have published a paper in the journal PLOS ONE describing the development of an interactive dashboard that combines data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

Search Engine Journal: GPT-4 Is Coming: A Look Into The Future Of AI. “GPT-4, is said by some to be ‘next-level’ and disruptive, but what will the reality be CEO Sam Altman answers questions about the GPT-4 and the future of AI.” Good afternoon, Internet…

January 23, 2023 at 01:06AM
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International Criminal Court, Twitter, AmazonSmile, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, January 22, 2023

International Criminal Court, Twitter, AmazonSmile, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, January 22, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

International Criminal Court: International Criminal Court Launches French and Spanish Versions of Case Law Database. “Today, 20 January 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) launched the French and Spanish versions of the ICC Case Law Database (CLD). The CLD is an easily searchable database of the Court’s jurisprudence providing free access to the entire case-law of the ICC in English, and to the available translations in French and Spanish. Users can search for ICC jurisprudence based on several criteria, including full-text and keywords. The CLD contains all judicial decisions, judgments, and orders issued by any Chamber or the Presidency of the Court, including separate and dissenting opinions.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNBC: Twitter is down to fewer than 550 full-time engineers. “Twitter’s full-time headcount has dwindled to approximately 1,300 employees, including fewer than 550 full-time engineers by title, according to internal records viewed by CNBC. Around 75 of the company’s 1,300 employees are on leave including about 40 engineers. The company’s trust and safety team, which makes policy recommendations, design and product changes with the aim of keeping all of Twitter’s users safe, is down to fewer than 20 full-time employees.”

Engadget: Amazon is shutting down the AmazonSmile charity program in February. “Whenever people use the AmazonSmile website to make a purchase, the company donates 0.5 percent of what they paid to the charity of their choice at no additional cost to them. As a parting donation to participating organizations, Amazon will give them the equivalent of three months what they earned in 2022 through the program.”

CNET: Microsoft Is Shutting Down Its Social VR Platform AltspaceVR. “AltspaceVR, a social virtual worlds platform acquired by Microsoft in 2017, will shut down on March 10. In a blog post on Friday, the AltspaceVR team said they’re shifting focus to ‘immersive experiences powered by Microsoft Mesh,’ the tech giant’s cloud-based AR/VR platform.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 7 Best Ways to Track Flights. “There are different methods to track flights, and in this post, we are going to list some of the best ways to do that. These include tools, a search engine, and one of iOS’s built-in apps. Let’s take a look at these in detail.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

9to5Mac: Tapbots readies ‘Ivory’ client for Mastodon as Tweetbot era unceremoniously ends. “In an update published on its website, Tapbots apologized to Tweetbot users and thanked them for their years of support. The Tapbots team, however, also teased that even though Tweetbot is no longer, they’re continuing their work on the Ivory client for Mastodon.”

The Wrap: ‘Kim’s Video’ Review: Pursuit of a Legendary VHS Archive Becomes a True-Life Comic Mystery . “Video stores started to close by 2008 when the near-mythical Mr. Kim offered his collection of 55,000 movies to any institution that would keep it intact. The town of Salemi, Sicily, acquired the archive, and in 2012 there was an article in The Village Voice by Karina Longworth that attempted to figure out what had happened to it, but the final fate of the collection is at last revealed in ‘Kim’s Video,’ a documentary by director David Redmon and his filmmaking partner Ashley Sabin that plays like an expert comic thriller.”

NPR: A rocky past haunts the mysterious company behind the Lensa AI photo app. “A Belarussian millionaire living in Cyprus. A dinner with the CEO of Snap. A six-figure patent troll case. They are all part of the history of Prisma Labs, a largely obscure artificial intelligence startup that spent years under the radar until November, when the company introduced ‘Magic Avatars.’ The feature in Prisma’s Lensa app has allowed millions to turn mundane selfies into dazzling AI-generated animated portraits of fairy princesses and astronauts. And it has brought in tens of millions of dollars.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: India releases guidelines for social media influencers accepting paid promotions. “As the market of social media influencers is getting bigger in India, the South Asian nation has introduced endorsement guidelines to limit unfair trade practices and misleading promotions on the web. On Friday, the Department of Consumer Affairs held a press conference to announce new guidelines to make it mandatory for social media influencers to disclose promotional content in accordance with the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.”

NY Jewish Week: A serial flasher crashed a live chat with Orthodox women. Now its influencer organizer is sleuthing him out.. “A Brooklyn-based Orthodox activist wants her community to be the last one targeted by a possible serial flasher who crashed an online chat she was leading last week. Adina Miles-Sash, who is known to her 61,000 followers as Flatbush Girl, also says her community’s reaction to the flashing incident underscores the changes needed if women are to feel respected and secure.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

UChicago News: UChicago launches accelerator for data science and emerging AI startups. “The University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Data Science Institute today announced the launch of Transform, a new accelerator for startup companies focused on the breakthrough technologies of data science and artificial intelligence.”

Northeastern Global News: Can ‘digital traces’ from internet searches and social media predict outbreaks of COVID-19?. “A team of scientists including Northeastern University machine learning expert Mauricio Santillana says internet users’ ‘digital traces’ can be adopted to alert public health officials to sharp increases in COVID-19 at the county level one to six weeks ahead of a major outbreak.” Good morning, Internet…

January 22, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Saturday, January 21, 2023

Food Insecurity Tracking, Wikipedia Update, Google Doodle Contest, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 21, 2023

Food Insecurity Tracking, Wikipedia Update, Google Doodle Contest, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 21, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Conversation: Inflation hasn’t increased US food insecurity overall, according to our new tracker . “We are experts on food and agricultural economics. Together we have created a new data dashboard that tracks U.S. food insecurity – the technical term for having trouble getting enough nutritious food – based on publicly available information.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Wikimedia Foundation: Wikipedia Gets a Fresh New Look: First Desktop Update in a Decade Puts Usability at the Forefront . “The updated interface, which comes on the heels of English Wikipedia’s 22nd birthday (January 15), prioritizes usability and modernizes the Wikipedia experience to make it easier for everyone to access, explore, and share knowledge. The update is rolling out today on English Wikipedia and is already live on 94% of the 318 active language versions of Wikipedia for all desktop users.”

CNET: Google’s 2023 Doodle Contest Asks Schoolkids What They Are Grateful For. “Google has revealed that the theme of the 2023 Doodle for Google contest will be ‘I am grateful for …’ The annual contest challenges schoolkids from kindergarten through the 12th grade to design their own variation of the company’s famous logo in a way that reflects what they are grateful for in their personal lives.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hackaday: Mod, Repair And Maintain Your Cassette Tapes With 3D Printed Parts. “The benefit of 3D printers is that they have made it relatively easy to reproduce just about any little plastic thing you might happen to break. If you’re one of the diehards that still has a cassette collection, you might find these 3D prints from Thingiverse useful to repair and maintain any broken tapes you may have.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNBC: Google to lay off 12,000 people — read the memo CEO Sundar Pichai sent to staff. “Google said on Friday that it will be laying off 12,000 people from its workforce, adding to the slew of major U.S. tech companies cutting jobs amid fears of an oncoming recession. Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, said in an email sent to the company’s staff Friday that the firm will begin making layoffs in the U.S. immediately.”

New York Magazine: Elon Musk and the Sad Mod Theory of Social-Media CEOs. “The tales of internal chaos combined with Musk’s own hypervisible and constantly trollish behavior on Twitter itself have helped to create a sense that the service itself is changing rapidly. A look back at Musk’s first few months in charge, however, suggests a leader struggling with a strange and confusing sort of impotence and taking it out on the people over which he has actual control.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NPR: T-Mobile says breach exposed personal date of 37 million customers. “The U.S. wireless carrier T-Mobile said Thursday that an unidentified malicious intruder breached its network in late November and stole data on 37 million customers, including addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth.”

TechCrunch: India’s top court rejects Google plea to block Android antitrust ruling in major blow. “Google has been dealt a significant blow in one of its key overseas markets. India’s Supreme Court on Thursday declined to block an antitrust order that requires the Android-maker to make a series of changes that could topple its financial viability.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

USGS: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law helps USGS Pilot New Search Tool for Subsurface Data & Samples Across the Country. “This application, named the National Index of Borehole Information (NIBI), will allow natural-resource managers, industry and researchers to discover and access borehole – and core sample holdings from the USGS and state geological surveys through a single portal.”

The Atlantic: What Happens When AI Has Read Everything?. “Artificial intelligence has in recent years proved itself to be a quick study, although it is being educated in a manner that would shame the most brutal headmaster. Locked into airtight Borgesian libraries for months with no bathroom breaks or sleep, AIs are told not to emerge until they’ve finished a self-paced speed course in human culture. On the syllabus: a decent fraction of all the surviving text that we have ever produced.” Good afternoon, Internet…

January 22, 2023 at 01:33AM
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Chicago Black Social Culture Map, Lisa OS, Massachusetts Child Development, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, January 21, 2023

Chicago Black Social Culture Map, Lisa OS, Massachusetts Child Development, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, January 21, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Chicago Sun-Times: Preserving the legacy of Chicago’s Black social culture. “In my high school senior memory book, several pluggers from early 1990s teen parties crowd a plastic sleeve. They are documents of warehouse parties from a time when the West Loop wasn’t the West Loop, and when the South Loop didn’t exist as a moniker. I save everything, which is great because the Chicago Black Social Culture Map (CBSCM) is collecting local artifacts like the ones I have stored in my parents’ basement.”

Ars Technica: Pioneering Apple Lisa goes “open source” thanks to Computer History Museum. “As part of the Apple Lisa’s 40th birthday celebrations, the Computer History Museum has released the source code for Lisa OS version 3.1 under an Apple Academic License Agreement. With Apple’s blessing, the Pascal source code is available for download from the CHM website after filling out a form.”

WWLP: New site breaks down Mass. early childhood systems. “The Rennie Center for Education and Research Policy and the Massachusetts Early Childhood Funder Collaborative unveiled Early Childhood 101, an interactive website that maps out all the various ways in which young kids and parents interact with programs and services like health care, housing support, employment assistance and more.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Al-Jazeera: Crypto giant Genesis files for bankruptcy, after FTX collapse. “Genesis, one of the biggest cryptocurrency lenders, has filed for bankruptcy in the United States, becoming the latest casualty of the global crypto meltdown. Genesis Global Capital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late on Thursday in New York, with a court filing estimating the lenders’ assets and liabilities to both be in the range of $1bn-$10bn.”

The Verge: Discord acquires Gas, the popular app for teens to compliment each other. “Gas has polls that ask users to vote for things like the most beautiful person they’ve met or the classmate that isn’t afraid to get in trouble. It has soared in popularity among high schoolers since launching in August. One of the co-creators of TBH, a very similar teenager app acquired and shut down by Facebook, created Gas, which has caught the attention of more than 1 million daily active users and 30,000 new users per hour in October.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Vanity Fair: SBF, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and the Spectacular Hangover After the Art World’s NFT Gold Rush. “If Blockchain Twitter’s sleuthing bears out—and they really do seem to have the receipts—what we’d have is a major Yuga Labs investor inflating the value of Yuga Labs’ most valuable asset by bidding it up at auction. With Bankman-Fried now facing charges of fraud, money laundering, and campaign finance violations, his trove of Bored Apes remains in the FTX wallet. The old link to the NFT collection now goes to a claims agency.”

The Root: Docuseries Chronicling the Rise of Black Twitter Coming to Hulu. “According to Deadline, Insecure executive producer Prentice Penny is directing Black Twitter, a three-part docuseries for Hulu. Based on Jason Parham’s story for Wired, A People’s History of Black Twitter, the project follows ‘the rise, the movements, the voices and the memes that made Black Twitter an influential and dominant force in nearly every aspect of American political and cultural life.'”

CNBC: Google is delaying a portion of employee bonus checks. “Google executives are deferring a portion of employees’ year-end bonus checks, according to documents viewed by CNBC, as the company moves toward permanently pushing back payouts. In past years, employees received their full bonuses in January. However, Google will pay qualifying full-time employees 80% of their bonus checks this month and the remaining 20% in March or April, the documents say.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Australia’s media regulator to get new powers to crack down online misinformation. “The media regulator will gain new powers to impose a compulsory code of conduct against misinformation on digital platforms, Michelle Rowland has announced. The communications minister revealed on Friday that the Australian Communications and Media Authority will also be given new information-gathering powers to assess how platforms, including social media companies, respond to misinformation and disinformation.”

University of Waterloo: OneButtonPIN increases security for blind and low-vision tech users. “Working closely with blind and low-vision (BLV) users, researchers at the University of Waterloo and the Rochester Institute of Technology have developed a new authentication method that could help BLV technology users more securely access their devices. The new method, OneButtonPIN, allows users to input PIN codes using a single large button and a series of haptic vibrations.”

FedScoop: NTIA launches probe into discriminatory data practices and civil rights. “[The National Telecommunications and Information Administration] will focus its inquiry on discriminatory data practices related to: online job discrimination based on demographic characteristics; apps that collect and sell location data about user movement, particularly dating and religious apps; and the heightened cost of data breaches on low-income communities.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

inews: Never mind Prince Harry, the Royal Family’s censorship of its archives is the real scandal. “Prince Harry’s very public divorce from the Royal Family does raise questions about how much the monarchy will be able to keep a lid on its secrets. But I suspect that the bigger historical pressure is just around the corner – the growing demand for full independence by the King’s Caribbean dominions, the new focus of historians on British culpability for colonialism, and the passionate demand for restitution and reparations by some Black Brits are likely to lead to a rise in requests for archival material that covers the House of Windsor’s personal involvement in Commonwealth history.” Good morning, Internet…

January 21, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Friday, January 20, 2023

Anne of Green Gables Manuscript, Seto Graves in Russia, Mapping Dark Tourism, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 20, 2023

Anne of Green Gables Manuscript, Seto Graves in Russia, Mapping Dark Tourism, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 20, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Confederation Centre of the Arts: New digital exhibition explores Anne of Green Gables manuscript. “The Anne of Green Gables Manuscript: L.M. Montgomery and the Creation of Anne officially launched online today. The digital exhibition will allow people to explore Montgomery’s original text, see what was written on the back of pages, and find out how famous moments were developed or revised. The interactive website includes never-before-seen material, such as Montgomery’s publishing contract for the novel.”

ERR (Estonia): New database helps Setos find graves of relatives on Russian side of border. “Taking care of relatives’ graves is an extremely important part of Seto culture. However, in recent years, many Setos living in Estonia have been unable to get to their ancestors’ burial sites on the Russian side of the border to ensure their upkeep. Now, a new database has been established to help keep track of the Seto and Estonian graves in neighboring Petserimaa.”

University of Rochester: The ethics of dark tourism. “[Julia Granato] offers a history of the collection and treatment of human remains in the West, and a discussion of the recent phenomenon of ‘dark tourism’—the visiting of sites that commemorate or offer reminders of tragedy or death…As part of her research, Granato has created a virtual component—an interactive map of dark tourism sites in the western world.”

KPTV: New dashboard allows Portlanders to see city’s response to reported homeless camps. “City of Portland’s Homelessness and Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program has launched a new website that will allow Portlanders to see how crews are responding to reported homeless campsites. The dashboard launched on Wednesday and gives the public the ability to see in detail how reports are being handled.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress: Say Hello to the New Jetpack Mobile App. “We know inspiration doesn’t wait for you to be sitting at your desk. It can strike anywhere. With the new Jetpack mobile app, you have the freedom to snap a photo to post while out on a walk, begin drafting your Bloganuary entry on your morning commute, or make tweaks to your content while on your lunch break. Inspiration, we’re ready for you!”

Engadget: Twitter’s new developer terms ban third-party clients. “In case there was any doubt about Twitter’s intentions in cutting off the developers of third-party apps, the company has quietly updated its developer agreement to make clear that app makers are no longer permitted to create their own clients.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

PressGazette: Why Tiktok is one of the ‘main priorities’ at BBC News for 2023. “In January 2022, two BBC News social and digital bosses told Press Gazette the broadcaster had stayed off Tiktok because they did not have the resources to create bespoke content properly – and it would not be true to the BBC brand to do ‘light news’. However, by March after Russia invaded Ukraine, the broadcaster realised there was an opportunity to combat disinformation about the war.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: How British theatre censorship laws have inadvertently created a rich archive of Black history. “Between 1737 and 1968 British theatre censorship laws required theatre managers to submit new plays intended for the professional stage to the Lord Chamberlain’s Office for examination and licensing…. In essence, this meant that the government collected, monitored and frequently censored new dramas. In this way, the licensing of plays has inadvertently produced an extensive historical archive of surveillance and censorship. This includes records of early Black theatre-making, at a time when the British state did not routinely collect and preserve the work of Black playwrights.”

BuzzFeed News: Thousands Of Fake Twitter Accounts Were Made To Support Andrew Tate. “Escaping content featuring misogynist influencer Andrew Tate can be hard on social media — and according to new research, that’s because thousands of accounts posting favorable content about him are actually bots. The Center for Countering Digital Hate announced on Wednesday that it had found 4,621 fake Twitter accounts created to promote Tate. The bot accounts tweeted 15,202 times in support of the former kickboxer, who is in pretrial detention in Romania.”

Stanford University: What DALL-E Reveals About Human Creativity. “To explore just how creative these models really are and what they can teach us about the nature of our own innovative propensities, we asked four authorities on artificial intelligence, the brain, and creativity (and we also asked GPT-3, a language-generating model that’s a close cousin to DALL-E) to explain what they think of DALL-E’s capabilities and artistic potential.” Good afternoon, Internet…

January 21, 2023 at 01:11AM
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