NYC Drag Shows, Car Wash Industry M&As, Twitter Bots, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, May 21, 2023

NYC Drag Shows, Car Wash Industry M&As, Twitter Bots, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, May 21, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Thrillist: New Website ‘See the Queens’ Helps You Find Drag Shows Near You. “See The Queens offers folks in New York City, Fire Island, and Long Island an ultimate guide to the local drag scene. By setting preferences like date, time, and neighborhood, users are able to peruse more than 300 drag shows and events every month.”

PR Newswire: Car Wash M&A Transaction Database Debuts to the Public (PRESS RELEASE). “Car Wash Advisory, a leading investment banking and M&A advisory firm focused exclusively on the car wash industry, has announced the debut of its publicly available and accessible database of historical car wash M&A transactions. This resource, which will be continually updated both on a historical and move-forward basis, provides a window into the largest and most meaningful M&A transactions in the car wash industry.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Business Insider: The college student who tracks Elon Musk’s private jet on Twitter is now monitoring the jet used by Ron DeSantis. “The college student who tracks Elon Musk’s private jet on Twitter has decided to give Florida governor Ron DeSantis the same treatment.”

CNBC: Neeva, co-founded by a former Google exec, to shut down its consumer search product and focus on A.I. . “Neeva, the privacy-focused search company co-founded by former Google executive Sridhar Ramaswamy, announced Saturday that it is shutting down its consumer search engine and will focus on exploring use cases for artificial intelligence.”

How-To Geek: ChatGPT Now Has an Official iPhone App. “Ever since ChatGPT took the world by storm, there has been a pile of unofficial mobile apps, some of which were outright scams. OpenAI has now released an official iPhone app for ChatGPT, with an Android version on the way.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Bleeping Computer: HP rushes to fix bricked printers after faulty firmware update. “HP is working to address a bad firmware update that has been bricking HP Office Jet printers worldwide since it was released earlier this month.”

WIRED: We Put Google’s New AI Writing Assistant to the Test. “Help Me Write is the first of a slew of generative AI features Google has planned for its productivity suite, under the umbrella branding of Duet AI for Workspace. I spent a few days testing it in Gmail and Google Docs to speed up wedding planning and uncover its boundaries. Though it can rapidly unspool drafts of polite emails to businesses or fluent essays on mundane topics, what I gained in time I sometimes lost through new headaches.”

ABC News (Australia): A record of Australia’s suburban history lives in this archive — and it was nearly lost. “The Box Hill Historical Society’s collection came close to destruction in April last year, after rewiring works in the town hall building caused a humidifier to malfunction, increasing the humidity levels within the archive’s rooms to nearly 90 per cent. Lead archivist Helen Harris had stopped by the archive on a Saturday and found condensation dripping through the building and paint beginning to melt.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: FBI misused database for January 6 riot searches: court. “A US court found the FBI improperly searched for information in a US database of foreign intelligence 278,000 times over several years, including investigating suspects in the January 6 Capitol riots, according to a ruling.”

The Register: Google Go language goes with opt-in telemetry . “The stewards of Google’s open source Go programming language (Golang) have reversed course and committed to implementing software telemetry on an opt-in basis rather than turning data collection on by default and requiring developers to opt-out.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Modern Diplomacy: Russia’s Unconventional Warfare: Moscow’s domination of the Information Space. “As much as Russia is a capable combatant in a hot conflict, it is in a cold conflict where Moscow has been the most damaging to the interests of the United States. In a cold conflict, unconventional warfare can include subversion, political, economic, or psychological warfare, as well as informational competition.”

Pew (PEW PEW PEW!): On alternative social media sites, many prominent accounts seek financial support from audiences. “About a quarter (23%) of the prominent accounts on the seven alternative social media sites studied sought financial support from their audiences in June 2022, according to the analysis. The Center examined 1,400 prominent accounts – selected from those with large numbers of followers – on BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Parler, Rumble, Telegram and Truth Social, many of which position themselves as alternatives to more established social media sites.” Good morning, Internet…

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May 21, 2023 at 05:26PM
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Economics Observatory Data Hub, Writing/Coding Analysis, ChatGPT, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, May 20, 2023

Economics Observatory Data Hub, Writing/Coding Analysis, ChatGPT, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, May 20, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Economics Observatory: The Economics Observatory’s new Data Hub: a user’s guide. “We are pleased to announce the launch of our new Data Hub. The new tool is demand-driven, which means it’s all about you, the users. We have built two powerful and connected tools: a unified API that funnels live data from a range of national and international sources; and a chart-building workshop, where you can customise your visualisations.” Very polished, very easy to use, very impressive!

UMSL Daily: Badri Adhikari develops new online tool to help writers and coders gain insight into their writing process. “Process Feedback, a tool developed by Badri Adhikari, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, captures the work of a writer or coder as they are in the process of producing it and can provide them with analysis in charts and graphs to help them better visualize and understand how they went about performing the work and any patterns that exist.” I did not test the tool but I looked at a sample report and HOLY MACKEREL. The reports tell you things like how often you were typing versus inactive and, when active, what your average typing speed was. I do not have room to describe all the charts.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NBC News: New York City public schools remove ChatGPT ban. “New York City’s Department of Education will rescind its ban on the wildly popular chatbot ChatGPT — which some worried could inspire more student cheating — from its schools’ devices and networks. The news comes several months after the initial ban was announced.”

Mashable: Piracy-loving Twitter Blue users exploit new 2-hour video limit. “Twitter users have long been able to upload short, minutes-long videos. But, since Musk came along and acquired Twitter, longform has become a priority on a platform where shortform content reigns supreme. Twitter users that subscribe to Twitter Blue for $8 per month can now write tweets 10,000 characters long, far beyond that of the normal 280 character limit. And, as of Thursday, Twitter Blue subscribers can now upload long videos too. How long? two hours-long.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NYLON: Are ‘Core Trends Destroying Our Sense Of Personal Style?. “The pressure to look a certain way to garner likes and engagement via algorithm-driven trends on social media is at its peak. As a result, personal style is suffering.”

9to5 Mac: Apple shares its first ‘App Store Transparency Report’ with data on app rejections, gov requests, more. “Earlier this week, Apple shared an in-depth look at how the App Store helped prevent fraud and protect developers and customers alike. Now, the company has shared more details in what it’s calling the ‘2022 App Store Transparency Report.’ This report offers granular information on app removals and appeals, developer account terminations, government requests for app takedowns, and more.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. opens Twitter probe after Elon Musk’s team accused of breaking laws. “San Francisco officials are opening a new investigation aimed at Twitter’s Mid-Market headquarters after an explosive lawsuit from former senior employees alleged numerous instances where members of owner Elon Musk’s team knowingly broke local and federal laws. The six former employees say Twitter didn’t pay promised severance and that Musk’s team instructed staff to disable lights and install locks that wouldn’t open during an emergency at employee bedrooms at 1355 Market St., violating building codes.”

CBS News: Rep. Eric Swalwell says former 49ers fullback Bruce Miller threatened him on social media. “California Rep. Eric Swalwell has reported former San Francisco 49ers fullback Bruce Miller to the Capitol Police after he says Miller threatened him on social media. On Wednesday, the Democratic congressman from Dublin shared a screenshot of a direct message he says he received from Miller. The post said, ‘Almost time!!! Would you rather Guantanamo or just execution’ followed by laugh emojis.”

CryptoPotato: FTX Seeks to Claw Back $250M From SBF and Execs in New Lawsuit. “Bankrupt cryptocurrency entities FTX, FTX.US, and Alameda Research have filed a lawsuit against former executives Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), Nishad Singh, and Gary Wang for lavishly spending FTX Group’s assets on the acquisition of stock clearing firm Embed Financial Technologies. The move is the first formal action from FTX CEO John Ray against the company’s former management. The lawsuit, filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, seeks to claw back the funds spent during the acquisition.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

USC News: AI helps place drones in remote areas for faster emergency response . “USC researchers are exploring the use of AI-powered decision-making to deploy life-saving equipment in data-scarce settings like rural neighborhoods to enable faster emergency response times, improve the design of emergency response systems and potentially save lives. Results from a recent study show the potential for AI to help emergency responders make informed and efficient decisions in settings where data is limited.”

Phys .org: The importance of social media in corporate social responsibility. “A new study by Dr. Lucie Kvasničková Stanislavská from Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, has found that social media is an increasingly important tool for companies to communicate their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts.”

Nature: Why AI’s diversity crisis matters, and how to tackle it. “Artificial intelligence (AI) is facing a diversity crisis. If it isn’t addressed promptly, flaws in the working culture of AI will perpetuate biases that ooze into the resulting technologies, which will exclude and harm entire groups of people. On top of that, the resulting ‘intelligence’ will be flawed, lacking varied social-emotional and cultural knowledge.” Good morning, Internet…

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May 20, 2023 at 05:30PM
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Flemish Art Scholarship, Twitter, Google Maps, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 19, 2023

Flemish Art Scholarship, Twitter, Google Maps, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 19, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

CODART: Documents, Videos, and Aftermovie of CODART 24 Now Online. “From 12 to 14 March 2023, the CODART 24 congress took place in Antwerp. The theme of CODART 24 was Flemish Art: Local and Global. In partnership with the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), CODART organized two congress days that addressed the impact of Flemish art on museums worldwide. In addition, excursions and in-depth study visits in and around Antwerp were an important part of the program. A list of participants, the complete congress folder, the network document, and the slides of the CODART slide show are now available for downloading on our website.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Jetpack Blog: The End of Twitter Auto-Sharing. “It took a few weeks, but Twitter finally shut off our API access. Though we were in limbo for a bit, we can now confirm that our services have been disconnected and Twitter is no longer part of Jetpack Social.”

Evening Standard: Google Maps makes wheelchair accessibility information visible to everyone. “Google Maps provides wheelchair accessibility information for more than 40 million places worldwide, including public transport, pubs and restaurants…. However, this wealth of information was previously locked behind filters and opt-in settings. Google is changing that today by making it visible to everyone by default.”

Associated Press: False claims of a stolen election thrive unchecked on Twitter even as Musk promises otherwise. “In an interview this week, Twitter owner Elon Musk said users making false claims of stolen elections ‘will be corrected’ on the platform.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

PC Magazine: The Best Mastodon Apps for 2023. “Mastodon looks and feels like Twitter but is a beast all its own, and the death of third-party Twitter apps has driven some of those developers to the decentralized, open-source Mastodon. There are now dozens of Mastodon apps to try across numerous platforms. For this article, we tested 18 different Mastodon client applications across mobile, web, and desktop.”

Universität Zürich: Johanna Spyri and Heidi archives included in the Memory of the World Register of UNESCO. “The Johanna Spyri and Heidi archives in Zurich have been added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World International Register. The decision by the Executive Board of UNESCO acknowledges the collections’ universal importance. The University of Zurich will be working with both institutions to promote the academic study of the collections.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg Law: Supreme Court Spares Social Media Liability Shield in Google Win. “The US Supreme Court left in place a broad liability shield for social media companies for content posted by users, insulating Twitter Inc., Facebook Inc. and Google LLC from claims that they provided assistance to Islamic State terrorists.”

Ars Technica: Malware turns home routers into proxies for Chinese state-sponsored hackers. “Researchers on Tuesday unveiled a major discovery—malicious firmware that can wrangle a wide range of residential and small office routers into a network that stealthily relays traffic to command-and-control servers maintained by Chinese state-sponsored hackers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Science Daily: Joyful music could be a game changer for virtual reality headaches. “Cybersickness — a type of motion sickness from virtual reality experiences such as computer games — significantly reduces when joyful music is part of the immersive experience, the study found. The intensity of the nausea-related symptoms of cybersickness was also found to substantially decrease with both joyful and calming music.”

Texas A&M: Could Online Gaming Social Networks Have A Positive Impact On Mental Health?. “Informal social networks like those found in online gaming could play a key role in a person’s mental wellbeing, helping them cope with various stressors and seek formal help for conditions such as anxiety or depression.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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May 20, 2023 at 12:29AM
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Hearst Newsreels, Arizona Groundwater, Google Calendar, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, May 19, 2023

Hearst Newsreels, Arizona Groundwater, Google Calendar, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, May 19, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New from the UCLA Film & Television Archive: https://newsreels.net/. The Web site does not use an encryption certificate and I could not find any announcements anywhere but Facebook and Twitter, so I was not hopeful. Sounds like a great collection, though. From the front page: “In 1981, the Hearst Corporation donated its newsreel collection to the University of California. In cooperation with the UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Packard Humanities Institute is developing this website as part of a joint project to make the Hearst newsreel collection more easily accessible to the public.” Newsreels cover 1929-1967. I just watched Elizabeth Arden talk about the return of the natural waistline in 1930. Ma’am, mine never went anywhere.

USGS: New Online Maps for Exploring Groundwater Levels in Arizona. “New interactive maps that can address different questions about groundwater availability in Arizona were released today by the U.S. Geological Survey. Called the Arizona Groundwater Explorer, or AGEx, the maps provide water managers, decision-makers, and the public, information on historical, current, and change in groundwater levels in Arizona to help sustainably manage this shared resource.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: New Google Docs Calendar template lets you collaborate on invites. “Following Gmail last year, Google Docs is adding a new Calendar event template that lets you ‘collaborate with others to draft calendar invites.'”

Search Engine Land: Google defines which languages translated search results will show up in Google Search. “As you may know, Google Search may translate the title link and snippet of a search result snippet for results that aren’t in the language of the search query. Google has now updated its help document it initially added a year and a half ago to include which languages this works for.”

ZDNet: Deleted Twitter messages are reappearing for some users. “Say you deleted some Twitter messages. Perhaps, you just wanted to get rid of some blunders. Maybe, you tweeted some things you regretted, or you needed to erase some tweets that would land you in a lot of trouble with your boss. Well, you’d better check your Twitter feed. Those messages you thought were long gone may have reappeared.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

University of Florida: Sharing Underground Railroad’s oral histories. “Under the guidance of the National Park Service and the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, UF staff and students in the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program will record the oral and family traditions of Underground Railroad descendants and representatives.”

Bloomberg: Google to Phase Out Cookies for 1% of Chrome Users in Early 2024. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google will phase out third-party cookies for 1% of the users of its Chrome browser in the first quarter of 2024, a key step in a plan that will upend how advertisements are targeted on websites.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: This is catfishing on an industrial scale. “Liam is one of hundreds of freelancers employed all over the world to animate fake profiles and chat with people who have signed up for dating and hookup sites…. Often recruited into ‘customer support’ or content moderation roles, they found themselves playing roles in sophisticated operations set up to tease subscription money from lonely hearts looking for connections online.”

New York Times: Extremism Finds Fertile Ground in Chat Rooms for Gamers. “A report, released on Thursday by the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, underscored how deeply rooted misogyny, racism and other extreme ideologies have become in some video game chat rooms, and offered insight into why people playing video games or socializing online seem to be particularly susceptible to such viewpoints.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Caltech: Reviving the Past with Artificial Intelligence. “While studying John Singer Sargent’s paintings of wealthy women in 19th-century society, Jessica Helfand, a former Caltech artist in residence, had an idea: to search census records to find the identities of those women’s servants. ‘I thought, “What happens if I paint these women in the style of John Singer Sargent?”‘… To recreate a style from history, she turned to technology that, increasingly, is driving the future.”

Statistics Netherlands: CBS develops experimental database of supply chains in the Dutch economy. “Production chains play a major role in the Dutch economy, but they are vulnerable to disruptions. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) is developing a database to understand the production chains for Dutch companies. The database is still in the experimental phase, but some initial analyses have recently been published.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Boing Boing: Uncle Apple educates kids through rap songs that slap. “When Georgia-based singer/songwriter Kyle Lucas isn’t making his own music, he’s making catchy rap songs for kids under the moniker ‘Uncle Apple.’ Inspired by his niece (who gave him the nickname) and two nephews, Kyle started creating these fun and educational songs to teach kids important stuff like washing hands, learning colors, and getting outside.” Good morning, Internet…

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May 19, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Indie Video Game Publishers, Butterflies Worldwide, NY Citizen Preparedness, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 18, 2023

Indie Video Game Publishers, Butterflies Worldwide, NY Citizen Preparedness, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 18, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Game World Observer: This free database of indie game publishers contains over 100 companies filtered by budget and more. “Unifiq Games founder Seyed Nasrollahi has created a free database of active indie publishers and investors. This spreadsheet should help game developers find companies they could pitch their projects to.”

WAMC: Global butterfly database launched. “The Vermont Center for Ecostudies is part of a collaborative launching a digital platform that identifies and catalogues butterflies from around the world. The Center is working with the University of Ottawa and Espace pour la vie in Montréal to launch eButterfly, a database that includes nearly 20,000 butterfly species – all currently known species on the planet.”

Governor of New York: Governor Hochul Announces New York State Citizen Preparedness Corps Trainings Now Online in Multiple Languages. “Governor Kathy Hochul today announced the New York State Citizen Preparedness Corps program is now offering online training to New Yorkers in English and with subtitles for 12 additional languages.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: Google Colab adding Codey for AI-powered code generation . “At I/O 2023, Google announced Codey as a ‘family of code models built on PaLM 2’ and it’s soon coming to Google Colab. Aimed at machine learning, education, and data analysis, Google Colab lets you write and execute Python in a browser.”

USEFUL STUFF

PC Magazine: How to Securely Dispose of a Printer. “We all know it’s important to wipe our personal data before selling or discarding a computer or smartphone. Do you have to worry about privacy when getting rid of a printer?” I don’t believe in clickbait so I’ll tell you up front the answer is “it depends,” but if you’ve got a multi-function printer or one with memory you’ll appreciate this article.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Rolling Stone: Professor Flunks All His Students After ChatGPT Falsely Claims It Wrote Their Papers. “Texas A&M University–Commerce seniors who have already graduated were denied their diplomas because of an instructor who incorrectly used AI software to detect cheating.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NBC News: Intel leak suspect was warned about mishandling classified info, prosecutors say. “The Air National Guardsman accused of one of the most significant intelligence leaks in years was warned repeatedly by superiors about his handling of classified information, prosecutors said Wednesday, alleging that he may have shared sensitive secrets with people outside the United States.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): How U.S. adults on Twitter use the site in the Elon Musk era . “Six-in-ten U.S. adults who have used Twitter in the past year say they have taken a break from the platform recently. And a quarter of these users say they are not likely to use Twitter a year from now, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. The Center’s new analysis of actual behavior on the site finds that the most active users before Musk’s acquisition – defined as the top 20% by tweet volume – have seen a noticeable posting decline in the months after. These users’ average number of tweets per month declined by around 25% following the acquisition.”

Farmers Weekly (New Zealand): Waste not want not in database project. “A Plant & Food Research effort to match up food processors grappling with waste byproducts with innovators seeking animal feed solutions will help keep thousands of tonnes out of landfills in coming years. The research agency is using the Canterbury region as the test bed for a database to match up processors with potential end users, with a view to eventually rolling out the project nationally.”

Motherboard: I Asked ChatGPT To Control My Life, and It Immediately Fell Apart. “After 35 years of living in relative control of my decisions, I had decided to see what would happen if I asked AI to control my life instead. Years of suboptimal performance, both personally and professionally, and numerous failed attempts at self-improvement had convinced me there had to be a better way, and I wondered if the collective knowledge hidden inside OpenAI’s hit tech product could help me.” I have rarely laughed so hard at an article. Good afternoon, Internet…

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May 19, 2023 at 12:27AM
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Crimea Military Installations, Ireland Missing Persons, Generative AI, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, May 18, 2023

Crimea Military Installations, Ireland Missing Persons, Generative AI, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, May 18, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Kyiv Independent: Investigative Stories from Ukraine: Journalists map military facilities in Russian-occupied Crimea . “Crimea.Realities, a project of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, launched an interactive map showing 233 active and frozen military facilities in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia since 2014. They include military airfields, naval bases, docks, arsenals, supply warehouses, military towns, military units, rotations of air defense locations, training grounds, and military-industrial enterprises.”

Ireland Department of Justice: Coronial data on unidentified remains is published for the first time. “The department established a Forum in July 2021 alongside An Garda Síochána’s Missing Persons Unit and Forensic Science Ireland (FSI) to facilitate information exchange on unidentified remains. The Unidentified Remains database has been compiled following an analysis of Coroners records.”

EVENTS

Berkeley News: Generative AI meets copyright law. “On Wednesday, April 26, Pamela Samuelson, Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law at UC Berkeley, delivered the final of four Distinguished Lectures on the Status and Future of AI, co-hosted by CITRIS Research Exchange and the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Group (BAIR). Samuelson’s talk explores a particularly controversial topic in the legal community: whether the texts and images generated by artificial intelligence (AI) should be protected under copyright law.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Adobe’s new AI automates PDF accessibility tags. “The company says its Sensei-powered software will indicate the correct reading order for assistive technology, saving companies time and — more to the point — making PDFs more readable for people with disabilities. Adobe says the AI can quickly go through stockpiles of old documents lacking the proper structure.”

Associated Press: At least 80 calls to National Archives since 2010 about mishandling classified information. “The National Archives has been called more than 80 times in the past decade-plus about classified materials found in the papers of former members of Congress and other U.S. officials, according to newly released congressional testimony.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Skift: Expedia Asked Google to Crack Down on Bait and Switch Hotel Rates. “Expedia Group told Google that the bait and switch tactics that some online travel agencies deploy in Google’s price comparison feature, Google Hotels, is ‘screwed up’ and Google made some satisfactory changes. That’s according to Expedia Group CEO Peter Kern, who discussed the issue with Skift last week, and mentioned it at the company’s partner conference in Seattle, as well.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNBC: Here’s what happened during OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s first congressional hearing on artificial intelligence. “Artificial intelligence regulation should not repeat the same mistakes Congress made at the dawn of the social media era, lawmakers at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on privacy and technology made clear Tuesday.”

Associated Press: Montana becomes 1st state to ban TikTok; law likely to be challenged. “Montana became the first state in the U.S. to completely ban TikTok on Wednesday when Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a measure that’s more sweeping than any other state’s attempts to curtail the social media app.”

Moscow Times: Amsterdam Court Rejects Sanctioned Yandex Founder’s Appeal Against Mansion Squatters. “Russian tech billionaire Arkady Volozh’s latest effort to evict a group of squatters from his luxurious Amsterdam mansion has been struck down in court, lawyers for the opposing parties told The Moscow Times’ Russian service Tuesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Guardian: ‘She has stories to tell’: digital scan of Titanic wreck could reveal its secrets. “The unique 3D view of the entire vessel, seen as if the water has been drained away, could reveal fresh clues about how she came to sink on her maiden voyage in 1912. The scans also preserve a “digital twin” of the ship, which is rapidly being destroyed by iron-eating bacteria, salt corrosion and deep ocean currents.”

Breaking Defense: Ukraine War: Vast hacker ‘militias’ do little damage – but can rally mass support, says study . “‘Hacktivist’ groups like the IT Army of Ukraine claim hundreds of thousands of members, but their cyber attacks are less about tangible results than online agitprop, says a forthcoming study from CSIS exclusively previewed by Breaking Defense.”

ProPublica: The Newest College Admissions Ploy: Paying to Make Your Teen a “Peer-Reviewed” Author. “A group of services, often connected to pricey college counselors, has arisen to help high schoolers carry out and publish research as a credential for their college applications. The research papers — and the publications — can be dubious.” Good morning, Internet…

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May 18, 2023 at 05:27PM
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1970s Greenwich Village, Peel Art Gallery, CNET, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 17, 2023

1970s Greenwich Village, Peel Art Gallery, CNET, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 17, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Greenwich Society for Historical Preservation: New Historic Image Collections Show Greenwich Village in the 1970s and More. “Our new Riccardo Spina Collection shows photos from a longtime resident who was born in Greenwich Village in the 1950s and raised in the neighborhood before eventually moving to the Netherlands.”

Region of Peel (Ontario Canada): PAMA launches a new online open access collections catalogue. “The Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives (PAMA) has launched a new online collections management system known as an open public access catalogue (OPAC). The catalogue is an automated research tool that will allow the public to search for information in the PAMA art gallery, museum and archives collections.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WIRED: CNET Published AI-Generated Stories. Then Its Staff Pushed Back. “IN NOVEMBER, VENERABLE tech outlet CNET began publishing articles generated by artificial intelligence, on topics such as personal finance, that proved to be riddled with errors. Today the human members of its editorial staff have unionized, calling on their bosses to provide better conditions for workers and more transparency and accountability around the use of AI.”

Ars Technica: Google’s new “inactive account” policy won’t delete years of YouTube videos. “A day later, Google now says there will be no digital burning of Alexandria. YouTube’s creator liaison, Rene Ritchie, clarified on Twitter that Google has ‘no plans to delete accounts with YT videos.'” I have no evidence for my suspicion that this policy is a poorly-planned plan to save money.

The Scotsman: Google testing ad blocker ban on video streaming platform YouTube. “Google has revealed that it is experimenting with a new feature to try and thwart YouTube users who use ad blockers. The new software will block users from using the video streaming platform if they have an ad blocker enabled on their browser.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNBC: Google plans to use new A.I. models for ads and to help YouTube creators, sources say. “The company has given the green light to plans for using generative AI, fueled by large language models (LLMs), to automate advertising and ad-supported consumer services, according to internal documents.”

The Verge: It looks like Google’s working on a dashcam feature for Android phones. “Google appears to be working on a native dashcam recording feature for some Android phones that could run in the background for up to 24 hours, and it sounds pretty great.”

Glossy: Elizabeth Arden uses generative AI for new virtual store launch. “Launching on Tuesday, the immersive VR store created by experiential e-commerce firm Obsess allows users to click through a virtual space based on Elizabeth Arden’s historic Fifth Avenue salon with its iconic red door. It features product information alongside a mini online museum on the history of the brand.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Motherboard: Homeland Security Uses AI Tool to Analyze Social Media of U.S. Citizens and Refugees. “Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is using a tool called Babel X that can link a person’s Social Security number to their social media posts and location data, according to an internal CBP document obtained by Motherboard.”

WIRED: ChatGPT Scams Are Infiltrating the App Store and Google Play. “There are paid versions of OpenAI’s GPT and ChatGPT for regular users and developers, but anyone can try the AI chatbot for free on the company’s website. The scam apps take advantage of people who have heard about this new technology—and perhaps the frenzy of people clamoring to use it—but don’t have much additional context for how to try it themselves.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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May 18, 2023 at 03:09AM
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