New researches

Saturday, April 8, 2023

Iowa Veteran Services, Wolfram Language, Barbie Selfies, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 8, 2023

Iowa Veteran Services, Wolfram Language, Barbie Selfies, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 8, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Iowa Workforce Development: New IowaWorks Portal Will Ease Path For Veterans In Search Of New Careers. “Iowa Workforce Development today announced the launch of a new online portal that will make it easier for Veterans and their families to find a new career in Iowa. The new portal, http://www.IowaWorksForVeterans.gov, was created to help Veterans connect with one-on-one job search assistance and to aid employers with locating and hiring people who have experience from the armed forces.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Wolfram Blog: New in 13.2: The Beginnings of Astro Graphics. “Last year we released Version 13.1 of the Wolfram Language. Here are the updates in astro computation since then, including the latest features in 13.2.”

Digital Trends: Barbie selfie generator: how to use the barbie filter. “Here’s the good news: you don’t need to be a Photoshop pro to make your Barbie poster. Instead, all you need to do is visit the Barbie Selfie Generator website. It’s an official site created by Warner Bros., and using it is a piece of cake.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Politico: Russia is waging a disinformation war in the Middle East. “Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, the United States, United Kingdom and European Union all took quick and decisive action to counteract Russian propaganda, banning its state-sponsored television channels — Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik — from the airwaves, with YouTube also blocking their channels. In the Arabic-speaking world, however, Russian disinformation still hasn’t received the same attention — and as a result, Russia is doing a lot better on that front in the wider Middle East.”

TechCrunch: Twitter won’t let you retweet, like or reply to Substack links. “Twitter is censoring Substack links by making the posts impossible to reply to, like or retweet. While quote-tweeting works, simply pressing the retweet button surfaces an error message: ‘Some actions on this Tweet have been disabled by Twitter.'” This story is changing a lot – some people are accusing Twitter of offering malicious links and changing search results related to Substack. I am not interested in indexing all of EM’s antics but it looks like a security risk might have been introduced here.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Mother Jones: Alleged Fraudster Guo Wengui’s Social Media App Was a Big Security Risk, Ex-Employees Say. “A Twitter-knockoff chasing the anti-woke crowd, Gettr initially branded itself as being led by ‘former President Donald Trump’s team.’ Guo’s quiet influence over the platform highlights his success in using a fortune he made in Chinese real estate to buy his way into the MAGA movement.”

Engadget: Three Samsung employees reportedly leaked sensitive data to ChatGPT. “Soon after Samsung’s semiconductor division started allowing engineers to use ChatGPT, workers leaked secret info to it on at least three occasions, according to The Economist Korea (as spotted by Mashable). One employee reportedly asked the chatbot to check sensitive database source code for errors, another solicited code optimization and a third fed a recorded meeting into ChatGPT and asked it to generate minutes.”

Ars Technica: Florida officials deleted data, stats from dubious COVID analysis: report. “Florida health officials deleted key data and statistics from a state analysis on the safety of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, falsely making them appear unsafe for young men, according to draft versions of the analysis obtained by the Tampa Bay Times through public records requests.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Cornell Chronicle: AI tool gains doctors’ trust by giving advice like a colleague. “A new study led by Qian Yang, assistant professor of information science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, suggests that if AI tools can counsel the doctor like a colleague – pointing out relevant biomedical research that supports the decision – then doctors can better weigh the merits of the recommendation.” As long as they don’t hallucinate the citations, I suppose…

University of Missouri: Mizzou Team Developing AI-based Tool To Predict Trends In Steel Prices. “A multidisciplinary research team at Mizzou is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a tool that can predict the trend in steel prices. Sharan Srinivas, assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering (ISE), is the principal investigator on a sponsored project with Trinity Products, a Missouri-based steel supplier.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Check out Search Gizmos when you have a minute. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you.

April 9, 2023 at 12:53AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/0T81UVt

Tennessee Transportation Data, Edinburgh Port Leith, Microsoft Edge, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, April 8, 2023

Tennessee Transportation Data, Edinburgh Port Leith, Microsoft Edge, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, April 8, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Local 3 News: TDOT launches new tool making transportation data more accessible. “The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) has launched a new County Profile Tool you can use to see a variety of transportation-related information in your area.” Been a great week for state government transportation infrastructure projects.

Edinburgh Live: Incredible interactive new website brings parts of Edinburgh back to life. “Using historic street maps, vintage photos, newspaper clippings, post office directory data, and people’s own memories, Old Leith Rediscovered allows locals to explore Edinburgh’s famous port as it was at the end of the 19th century. The interactive site features a zoomable version of Charles Goad’s 1892 Fire Insurance Plan of Leith, which captured the streets and structures of the old Leith in extraordinary detail, giving information on everything from the names of businesses, what they did there and the construction materials used in individual buildings.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

How-To Geek: Microsoft Edge Now Has Bing’s Dall-E Image Creator. “Microsoft is cramming AI features into every app and service it can, from Office apps to its Bing search engine. The latest addition? A panel for the Bing Image Creator in Microsoft Edge.”

Engadget: Google’s WebGPU is coming to Chrome to boost online gaming and graphics. “Google will soon start rolling out WebGPU, a new feature that will allow Chrome browsers to use your graphics card to accelerate games, graphics and AI, the company announced. It’ll be enabled by default in Chrome 113 set to arrive in a few weeks for Windows PCs (via Direct3D 12), MacOS (Metal) and ChromeOS (Vulkan).”

The Verge: Google will shut down Dropcam and Nest Secure in 2024. “Google is ending support for the Dropcam and the Nest Secure home security system in one year, on April 8th, 2024. They are among the few remaining Nest products that haven’t been brought over to Google Home, and their demise hints that the new Google Home app might almost be here. At least, no more than a year away. Surely.”

USEFUL STUFF

Android Police: How to install Google ChromeOS Flex on any computer. “Chromebooks are a great alternative to traditional laptops and PCs. Running ChromeOS, they are cheap, powerful devices that provide all the functionality you could ask for. Even better, the best Chromebooks on the market are relatively inexpensive. But you don’t need to buy a Chromebook to try out ChromeOS. Google lets you experience the OS on your old laptop or PC through ChromeOS Flex.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

DPReview: DPReview closure: an update. “We’ve received a lot of questions about what’s next for the site. We hear your concerns about losing the content that has been carefully curated over the years, and want to assure you that the content will remain available as an archive. We’ve also heard that you need more time to access the site, so we’re going to keep publishing some more stories while we work on archiving.”

SF Gate: Major advertisers worry about Elon Musk’s ‘racist rhetoric,’ report says. “Top advertisers have reportedly pulled out of Twitter en masse since Musk’s takeover in October, and his behavior doesn’t appear to be winning back the biggest spenders. Major marketing executives expressed skepticism about the platform under Musk’s erratic leadership in a private email thread reported on Thursday by Semafor.”

MakeUseOf: Google Keep vs. Notion: Which Note-Taking App Is Better?. “If you’re looking for a new place to jot down notes and plan your to-dos, it’s likely you’ve come across two excellent options, Google Keep and Notion. Both are great solutions for your daily to-do lists and keeping tabs on your latest projects, which can make choosing between them difficult. Want to know which app is better for you? Keep reading for a quick comparison of Google Keep and Notion.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: New Batch of Classified Documents Appears on Social Media Sites. “A new batch of classified documents that appear to detail American national security secrets from Ukraine to the Middle East to China surfaced on social media sites on Friday, alarming the Pentagon and adding turmoil to a situation that seemed to have caught the Biden administration off guard.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Poynter: Everything about Twitter is meaningless. “Elon Musk’s attempt this week to delegitimize NPR by labeling the public media’s primary Twitter account ‘US state-affiliated media’ is an outright troll move that will further degrade Twitter’s value to its users and its advertisers.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of Western Australia: Aboriginal art and knowledge unlocks mystery of fairy circles. “Fairy circles – barren patches which make polka-dot patterns in dry and desert areas – were first described by scientists in Namibia in the 1970s, sparking global debate about the phenomenon. A paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, authored by a cross-cultural team of researchers and Aboriginal people from Australia’s Western Desert region, has challenged scientific theories by learning from Aboriginal people.” Good morning, Internet…

April 8, 2023 at 05:28PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/nNJBAqR

Friday, April 7, 2023

Pacific Food Trade Database, Google Earth, Google Live Translate, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 7, 2023

Pacific Food Trade Database, Google Earth, Google Live Translate, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 7, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Wollongong: Pacific Food Trade Database supports food system sustainability. “Researchers from the University of Wollongong (UOW) based Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS), led by food systems senior research fellow Dr Tom Brewer, have developed the Pacific Food Trade Database to assist regional analysis and decision making…. The database, which is open access and free to use, includes tonnage of imports and exports from 1995-2018 for 18 Pacific islands and territories.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

PC Magazine: Google Earth Just Added 2 More Years of Timelapse Imagery. “Google Earth has added satellite photos from 2021 and 2022 to its zoomable timelapse video of our planet.”

Gizmodo: Google is Finally Bringing Live Translate Captions to Chrome. “After nearly two years, Chrome browsers may soon finally get a feature that has thus far been restricted to Google Pixel phones. On Thursday, Reddit user and Chrome Canary beta tester Leopeva64 posted several screenshots and GIFs on the r/chrome subreddit showing off an upcoming Live Translate caption feature coming to Google’s browser.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Replace Siri With ChatGPT on Your iPhone. “Siri can control your iPhone, but it’s nowhere near as powerful as ChatGPT. Fortunately, you can add ChatGPT to your iPhone and talk to it with your voice, using Siri as a gateway to ChatGPT. Here’s how.”

Lifehacker: How to Spot a Fake-Ass Website. “A fake website is a scammer’s attempt to seem like a reputable business, when in reality, they don’t actually provide any goods or services: Their ‘business’ is to trick you into thinking they do, and to get you to pay for it. There are different types of fake websites to be aware of: those that try to mimic a reputable website, and those that create their own unique website.” If you’re not sure, the About page is often an indicator. Also the bios of any people on the site. Fake ones tend to be vague or a George Santos level of nonsensical.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: In A.I. Race, Microsoft and Google Choose Speed Over Caution. “In March, two Google employees, whose jobs are to review the company’s artificial intelligence products, tried to stop Google from launching an A.I. chatbot. They believed it generated inaccurate and dangerous statements.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Two alcohol recovery startups just got caught sharing private user data. “Online alcohol recovery startups Monument and Tempest got caught sharing confidential user data with advertisers without their consent, as originally reported by TechCrunch. Everything came to light after an internal review revealed a data breach impacting 100,000 users, forcing the companies to issue a formal disclosure to the user base. The violations started in 2017 and were ongoing until last month’s review.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Michigan: More harm perceived globally regarding online harassment. “Online insults and disrespect are perceived as more harmful by individuals outside the United States, especially when the content damages family reputation, according to a University of Michigan study. But there was consensus among all countries, including the U.S., that nonconsensual sharing of sexual photos was highest in harm.”

Cornell University: Teens who trust online information find it less stressful. “Surveying nearly 170 adolescents and young adults from the U.S. and U.K. early in the pandemic, the researchers found that those more trusting of the COVID-19 information they saw on Facebook, Twitter and TikTok were more likely to feel it was empowering, while those less trusting were more likely to find it stressful.”

Lulu Cheng Meservey has a blog/Substack called Flack. I’m putting it like that because efforts to denote that information with more brevity (like Lulu Cheng Meservey (Flack) or Lulu Cheng Meservey / Flack) looked like pejorative assessments and not statements of fact. At any rate: “Please just take the checkmark away!” How Twitter devalued its top status symbol and what it can do now. “While the legacy blue checkmark was positioned as a luxury good, the new Twitter Blue became marketed like an inferior good. Twitter’s messaging antagonized and humiliated influential users, made the product feel like it was made for arriviste social climbers instead of respected power users, and framed it as a cheap imitation of an old status symbol rather than a fresh offering with useful benefits. In this post, we’ll look at why Twitter Blue wasn’t positioned for success and what it can do now to win over users.” Good afternoon, Internet…

April 8, 2023 at 12:42AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/8eYNI0y

Digital South, 2023 National Book Festival, Twitter, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, April 7, 2023

Digital South, 2023 National Book Festival, Twitter, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, April 7, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

SEARCH GIZMO OF THE DAY: Gossip Machine
Gossip Machine uses Wikipedia page views to surface potential “news days” in a given year (2016-2023) for any topic with a Wikipedia page. It analyzes daily page views and flags dates with significantly higher-than-average views, then provides you with pre-filled Google News and Google Web search links.

NEW RESOURCES

Daily Tar Heel: New website creates a virtual space for American South collaboration. “The goal of the Digital South website is to create a virtual space to encourage partnership between scholars – students, staff, faculty or anyone using digital scholarship — to research or teach about the American South. Rolando Rodriguez, an academic library associate at UNC, said visitors can see ongoing projects, explore a particular project’s page and spark conversations regarding southern history through the website.”

EVENTS

Library of Congress: Save the Date! 2023 National Book Festival. “Mark your calendars! Join us at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Saturday, Aug. 12 from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the 2023 Library of Congress National Book Festival.” Several of t he events will be livestreamed.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Twitter shut off its free API and it’s breaking a lot of apps. “All of these issues are further complicated by the fact that Twitter seems to have communicated very little with any of its developers about these changes or what they mean. Most of the employees who worked in developer relations were cut during the company’s mass layoffs. And the company’s developer forums are filled with posts from confused developers looking for answers. The company no longer has a communications team, and its press email auto-responds with a poop emoji.”

New York Times: Senior Twitter Lawyer Resigns, the Latest in a Series of Executive Departures. “The lawyer, Christian Dowell, rose to the top of Twitter’s legal department in recent months after the company’s legal leaders resigned or were fired by Mr. Musk. Mr. Dowell had been intimately involved in Twitter’s recent negotiations with the Federal Trade Commission, two people familiar with those discussions said.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Gizmodo: Google CEO Says an AI Chatbot Is Coming to Search… Eventually. “Following in the footsteps of competitor Microsoft—which added the same tech behind ChatGPT to Bing earlier this year—Google is on its own path to include a chatbot in its own search engine. When? Well, CEO Sundar Pichai was delightfully vague on the timeline.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: India startups call for antitrust probe of Google in-app billing fee. “Top startups in India have called on the country’s competition watchdog to launch an inquiry into Alphabet’s Google for allegedly bypassing an antitrust directive by charging a high service fee for in-app payments, a filing shows.”

Hindustan Times Tech: Internet firms to lose safe harbour on not removing content flagged by govt notified fact checker. “Internet firms like Google, Facebook and Twitter may lose protection under safe harbour if they fail to remove content identified by the government-notified fact-checker as false or misleading information, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Thursday.”

Bloomberg: Vietnam Warns TikTok, Social Media Apps Over ‘Toxic’ Content. “Vietnam’s communications ministry said TikTok isn’t doing enough to remove toxic and false content and warned that the government could soon take measures to restrict operations of the popular social media platform and others seen as violating national laws.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Adelaide: AI art vending machine seeks human connection. “The chassis is made of concrete and an annex cage contains a camera, display screen, and microphone. The camera recognises when a person is standing in front of it, and once they’ve pushed the button to start, the machine greets them and initiates a spoken conversation. Users can then collaborate with the machine to create an artwork gift, which is determined by the ‘opinion’ the machine forms of the user.”

Georgetown University: Massive Data Institute partners with leading data scientists at Howard and Morgan State Universities. “The Massive Data Institute (MDI) at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy is partnering with researchers at Howard University and Morgan State University to develop the Environmental Impact Data Collaborative (EIDC), a data and computing infrastructure that will support community groups, policymakers and scholars in their efforts to make environmental policy more effective and just.”

The Guardian: ChatGPT is making up fake Guardian articles. Here’s how we’re responding. “Huge amounts have been written about generative AI’s tendency to manufacture facts and events. But this specific wrinkle – the invention of sources – is particularly troubling for trusted news organisations and journalists whose inclusion adds legitimacy and weight to a persuasively written fantasy.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

The Verge: This AI clock uses ChatGPT to generate tiny poems that tell the time. “ChatGPT has been one of the internet’s favorite toys for months now, but people are still finding novel and fun ways to use the AI chatbot. Case in point is this rhyming E Ink clock created by designer and blogger Matt Webb. It uses ChatGPT to create a short two-line rhyme that also tells the time for every minute of the day.” Good morning, Internet…

April 7, 2023 at 05:28PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/b3FcGC9

Thursday, April 6, 2023

Ballotpedia, Louisiana Infrastructure Projects, Yandex, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 6, 2023

Ballotpedia, Louisiana Infrastructure Projects, Yandex, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 6, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Ballotpedia News: Ballotpedia launches database of asset management companies that contract with state pensions. “Ballotpedia publicly launched a new database on April 4 designed to help interested parties better understand the relationships between state pension funds and asset management firms. Over the course of several months last year, Ballotpedia researchers compiled the names of all asset management companies that handle state pension money and the total assets under management by each company for each state.”

State of Louisiana: Gov. Edwards Unveils Online Dashboard for Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) Projects. “The map can be filtered by category, program, agency, parish and congressional district. The site also features BIL implementation progress and priorities, resources and guidelines on how you can become involved, an archive of news and announcements, reference tools for upcoming events, and deadlines for open funding opportunities.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Meduza: Yandex launches beta-version of Shedevrum, an AI app that generates ‘artwork’. “The IT giant Yandex has launched a beta-version of Shedevrum, an AI-powered app that generates images using a neural network method.”

Dartmouth College: Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive to Mark 150,000 Tracks. “This spring, 21 years after the archive’s modest launch, it will surpass 150,000 tracks dating back to the early 1900s, encompassing radio broadcasts, religious services, personal histories, Yiddish and Klezmer music, and more.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: ChatGPT invented a sexual harassment scandal and named a real law prof as the accused . “One night last week, the law professor Jonathan Turley got a troubling email. As part of a research study, a fellow lawyer in California had asked the AI chatbot ChatGPT to generate a list of legal scholars who had sexually harassed someone. Turley’s name was on the list.”

Penn Today: Penn Libraries receives archive of writer, activist, and historian James G. Spady. “The University of Pennsylvania Libraries recently acquired the archive of James G. Spady, a writer, historian, and activist who shed light on understudied aspects of African American history, and whose legacy and intellectual output made him a salient and influential African American figure in his own right.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: Twitter could be facing slew of fines in Germany over illegal hate speech. “Elon Musk’s Twitter could be on the hook for a pipeline of multi-million dollar penalties for failing to take down illegal hate speech in Germany. Fines could even stack up to billions if the federal government acts on the scores of cases of content moderation inaction that have already been reported to it and German courts confirm the law has been breached.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Saskatchewan: Medieval monks’ moon-watching sheds light on volcanoes and climate change. “An international research team including the University of Saskatchewan (USask) has used meticulous medieval-era records scribed by monks about the colour of lunar eclipses to develop a new, deeper understanding of volcanoes and climate change.”

Reuters: King Charles backs research into monarchy’s slave links. “King Charles has given his support to research that will examine the British monarchy’s links to slavery, Buckingham Palace said on Thursday, after a newspaper report said a document showed a historical connection with a transatlantic slave trader.”

Johns Hopkins University: Tax Loopholes Abound, But AI Could Shut Them Down. “To eliminate tax loopholes that cost the federal government billions of dollars every year, tech and law experts are working together to create artificial intelligence that can find loopholes better than a legion of blue-chip tax accountants.” Good afternoon, Internet…

April 7, 2023 at 12:46AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/qEDcolT

5-Meters-Per-Pixel Mars, Wisconsin Highway Maps, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, April 6, 2023

5-Meters-Per-Pixel Mars, Wisconsin Highway Maps, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, April 6, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

SEARCH GIZMO OF THE DAY: Pam’s Pin
Convert a street address to a location-based Twitter search.

NEW RESOURCES

Caltech: Scientists Unveil a 5.7 Terapixel Global Image of Mars. “The mosaicked image—comprising more than 5.7 trillion pixels (5.7 terapixels)—was generated at the Murray Lab by merging 110,000 individual images taken by the Context Camera (CTX) aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It covers 99.5 percent of the surface of Mars between 88° South and 88° North.”

Wisconsin Department of Transportation: Explore transportation history with WisDOT’s online highway map archive. “The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) today released an online archive of Wisconsin’s Official State Highway Map over the past 100 years. The first edition of the state highway map was printed in 1918 for public distribution. Since then, Wisconsin residents and visitors reference the highway maps to reach their destination or simply explore the wonders across the state.”

Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh: College launches climate change digital archive. “The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (‘the College’) has launched a climate change digital archive, which documents the experiences of healthcare workers on the impact of climate change on health.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google is trying to make sure apps let you delete your account. “The company is adding a data deletion requirement to the Play Store’s rules. The requirement should make it easier to delete an account regardless of whether you’ve gotten rid of the app.”

Android Police: Google Drive kills controversial file limit just weeks after it was discovered. “In an attempt to optimize its server infrastructure, Google silently introduced a controversial file creation limit of five million items. While this number is likely only reached by a small percentage of the total user base, it’s an unexpected limitation that some of those paying for Google One’s higher tiers found themselves in, with backlash quickly hitting Google.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Hamilton Spectator: Suspended by Google, a Hamilton-area arborist is learning a ‘scary’ business lesson. “Springtime for Westwood Tree Care is generally filled with the roar of chainsaws and wood chippers. This season, however, a series of digital hiccups led to the suspension of Westwood’s Google profile — a move that decimated business for a month.”

CBS News: Twitter labels NPR as “state-affiliated media . “National Public Radio has been labeled as ‘U.S. state-affiliated media’ on Twitter, marking the public radio outlet’s account with the same icon placed on outlets like Russia’s state-owned news agency TASS or China’s New China News Agency, the official state news agency of the People’s Republic of China.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

SwissInfo: Google, Facebook and others to face tougher regulations. “The Swiss government plans new legislation to make big online platforms like Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter more transparent and give users more rights.”

Politico: Disconnected: Eurocrats go unlisted in EU phone book. “Under a new policy, the European Commission has removed the names of lower-level staff from the EU WhoisWho directory. The online database used to have email addresses and phone numbers for officials up and down the ranks of the EU executive. But that apparently made them too easy prey for those seeking to influence EU policy. So now only their bosses — heads of unit and above — will be included in the public-facing directory.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Harvard Business Review: Research: How People Feel About Paying for Social Media. “Regardless of intent, users are now faced with subscription fees to social media apps that they have become accustomed to using for free. That begs the question: What do users expect from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat in the newly reconstructed social media ecosystem that is anchored by subscription fees?”

Cornell University: Study uncovers social cost of using AI in conversations. “In addition to greater efficiency and positivity, the group found that when participants think their partner is using more AI-suggested responses, they perceive that partner as less cooperative, and feel less affiliation toward them.”

University at Buffalo: Study explores how QAnon went from fringe to mainstream on Twitter. “QAnon’s journey from a fringe phenomenon in 2017 to a mainstream presence on Twitter represents an evolution that arrived by tapping into an interconnected media system, according to a recently published paper by a University at Buffalo communication researcher.” Good morning, Internet…

April 6, 2023 at 05:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/N4JefPH

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

MnDOT Digital Library, Google, Twitter, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 5, 2023

MnDOT Digital Library, Google, Twitter, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 5, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Minnesota Department of Transportation: MnDOT Library launches digital library. “The MnDOT Digital Library is a public repository of publications produced by MnDOT, including documents originally created in a digital format and those that have been digitized. It features 12 collections that include research reports, State Aid publications, annual reports, photographs, state highways maps, photographs and historical publications.” Currently over 2200 items are available in the library with plans to add more.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts. “Hundreds of Google employees staged a walkout at the company’s London offices on Tuesday, following a dispute over layoffs. In January, Google’s parent company Alphabet announced it was laying off 12,000 employees worldwide, equivalent to 6% of its global workforce.”

Mashable: Twitter cuts many app developers’ API access, even those willing to pay $42,000 per month. “When Twitter rolled out the pricing for its paid API tiers last week, many indie developers announced they would have to shut down apps they had made for the platform…. Now, the Elon Musk-owned company has seemingly cut off API access to even some of the largest Twitter-based apps – including some that wanted to pay the exorbitant new fees which start at $42,000 per month.”

USEFUL STUFF

Social Media Examiner: How to Make Your Social Media Content More Accessible. “Want to reach more people on social media? Looking for a guide to make your social media content more inclusive and accessible to everyone, regardless of their abilities? In this article, you’ll discover how to produce accessible captions, videos, images, and ads for social media content so you can market to more people.” VERY thorough.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Little Black Book: Belgium’s Biggest Christian Health Funds Turns to OnlyFans to Fight against Disinformation . “The campaign aims to make young people not only resilient to deception but also to position CM as the partner for reliable information that tells them where things stand. To make this point, they created a content series on OnlyFans, a platform that differs from other social media due to its uncensored nature and often sexual focus. Under the name ‘OnlyFacts’, false views and tips are addressed and replaced with reliable health advice.”

New York Times: Want an A in His Class? You Better Go Viral.. “In January, Matthew Prince, a public relations executive at Taco Bell who teaches at Chapman University in Southern California, was telling 80 students what to expect from his influencer marketing course as he walked them through the syllabus projected onto a screen at the front of the lecture hall. This semester, he said, things would be a little different: If anyone in the class could create a TikTok video that received one million views before he did, the final exam would be canceled.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: Genesis Market: Popular cybercrime website shut down by police. “One of the world’s biggest criminal marketplaces used by online fraudsters to buy passwords has been closed down in a global law enforcement crackdown. Genesis Market sold login details, IP addresses and other data that made up victims’ ‘digital fingerprints’. Often costing less than $1, the personal information let fraudsters log into bank and shopping accounts.”

Gizmodo: More Ex-Tweeps Sue Twitter for Alleged Illegal Layoffs. “Twitter owner Elon Musk is facing yet another lawsuit claiming he was too busy trying to fire half the company he didn’t give his former tweeps the legally required two months of notice. On Tuesday, ex-Twitter contract workers filed a proposed class action lawsuit against the blue bird app and their former employer TEKsystems Inc. The former contractors claim Twitter did not grant them the mandatory 60 days advance notice before laying them off.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PsyPost: Having camera on during online classes increases social appearance anxiety, which decreases learning of students. “Three experiments on university students and young people showed that having one’s camera turned on during online classes increased social appearance anxiety and decreased learning. Participants who had a chance to view themselves on screen reported even higher social appearance anxiety. The study was published in Applied Cognitive Psychology.”

The Verge: Why journalists can’t quit Twitter. “The other day, the company’s old press email address started responding to reporters’ queries with an automated emoji. Musk tweeted about it, and reporters soon gleefully confirmed it with screenshots of their own. The company was symbolically shitting all over them, and journalists couldn’t get enough of it.” I’d like to teach the world to sing / in perfect harmony / and also how to use some feeds / ’cause RSS is free. (Burma shave.) Good afternoon, Internet…

April 6, 2023 at 12:43AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/defkZFs