WHO Open Data, The Browser Company, Zoonotic Disease Nevada, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 25, 2023

WHO Open Data, The Browser Company, Zoonotic Disease Nevada, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

World Health Organization: WHO releases data.who.int. “Data.who.int provides open access to WHO’s health data through a harmonized, consolidated and seamless experience. Starting with the data underlying WHO’s annual World Health Statistics report, the new website reimagines the indicator page – the most representative level of data presentation – with consistent, expressive and accessible visualization, while also presenting metadata to promote ease of accessibility, reference and use.”

TechCrunch: Arc browser’s new tool lets you remove some elements from a website. “The Browser Company, the company behind the web browser Arc, introduced a fun new tool today called Boosts. It lets you customize a website with new colors and fonts. But the best feature of this tool is that you can ‘Zap’ (read: remove) any element from a website like a sidebar or a trending topic box.”

KOLO (Nevada): Nevada launches website for kids to learn about zoonotic diseases. “One Health Nevada is an interactive website for kids to learn about how diseases spread between animals and humans and what people can do to keep themselves and animals healthy. The site is geared towards kids involved in 4-H, or those who own pets, livestock, enjoy hunting, fishing or being outdoors. They can also find health tips, activities and educational resources.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Hindu: Snowflake buys ex-Google executives built search engine Neeva . “Snowflake, a cloud data management firm, has purchased ex-Google executives built ad-free search engine Neeva for an undisclosed sum. The details of the transaction have not been spelled out, but the acquisition could give the cloud data management firm a lift as it aims to becomes an AI company.”

USEFUL STUFF

New York Times: To Mute or Unfollow? Experts’ Tips for a Mindful Approach to Social Media. “You don’t have to quit Instagram and TikTok cold turkey. Use these strategies — some practical, some more philosophical — to be online in a healthier or less harmful way.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Sky News: Sunak and Google CEO to meet for talks on AI threats. “Rishi Sunak and Sundar Pichai will meet on Friday for talks amid an intensifying debate about the threats and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence, Sky News learns.”

NARA: National Archives Awards $6.5 Million in Grants for Historical Records Projects . “Grants went to 17 edition projects to publish the papers of key American figures such as Frederick Douglass and Jane Addams, as well as cross-cutting projects such as the Chinese American WWII Veterans Online Resource and Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: An Android app started secretly recording users almost a year after it was listed on Google Play. “An Android recording app called iRecorder Screen Recorder began as an innocent screen recording app but turned evil nearly a year after it was first released, as detailed by Ars Technica. The app first came out in September 2021, but after an update the following August, it began recording a minute of audio every 15 minutes and forwarding those recordings, through an encrypted link, to the developer’s server.”

Moscow Times: Putin Signs Off on Sanctioned Tycoons’ Shared Yandex Stake – Reports. “President Vladimir Putin has agreed on the sale of a majority stake in the Russian side of splintered tech giant Yandex to three sanctioned billionaires and the state-owned VTB Bank, the news websites The Bell and Meduza reported Sunday, citing four unnamed sources close to the company.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Scripps Research: Scripps Research develops behind-the-scenes tool for better biomedical data discovery. “This new tool, called the Data Discovery Engine (DDE) Schema Playground, was described in a paper that published in BMC Bioinformatics on April 20, 2023. The DDE Schema Playground is a browser-based resource that empowers scientists to make their data more findable and accessible on the web, which has been a significant barrier in the past.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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May 26, 2023 at 12:47AM
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KinBank, ChatGPT Prompt Engineering, Merlin Bird ID App, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, May 25, 2023

KinBank, ChatGPT Prompt Engineering, Merlin Bird ID App, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, May 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Phys .org: Database stores names for family members in 1,200+ languages. “Fiona Jordan, professor of anthropology from the University of Bristol, has been working with colleagues from Australia, Finland, and Brazil to develop KinBank—a catalog of more than 1,200 languages and their words for family members—known as kinship terminology. It features more than 210,000 kinship terms ranging from cousins to great-grandparents.”

Vanderbilt University: Vanderbilt launches free online ChatGPT course, shaping the future of AI education. “Jules White, associate dean for strategic learning programs and associate professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University, is making ChatGPT more accessible and useful for the broader public with the launch of his free online Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT course on the Coursera platform.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Cornell Chronicle: Merlin milestone: App now helps ID birds worldwide. “The free Merlin Bird ID app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology just hit a major milestone: The digital field guide and ID assistant can now help users identify birds in any country – a grand total of 10,315 species.”

Yahoo Sports: Shaquille O’Neal finally served in FTX lawsuit while covering Celtics-Heat in Miami . “O’Neal, who has been apparently ‘dodging’ lawyers representing FTX investors for months, was finally served a complaint Tuesday that’s part of a proposed class-action lawsuit filed against the failed cryptocurrency company, Adam Moskowitz, a lawyer representing the FTX investors, confirmed to People.”

Bloomberg: Microsoft to Add Bing Search to OpenAI’s ChatGPT in Battle With Google. “Microsoft Corp. is bringing its Bing search engine to OpenAI Inc.’s ChatGPT, further tightening ties with the artificial intelligence startup in a bid to challenge Google.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NPR: Ron DeSantis debuts presidential bid in a glitch-ridden Twitter ‘disaster’. “It was supposed to be a historic moment for Twitter: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would smoothly kick off his presidential candidacy on the social media platform. An uninterrupted conversation between DeSantis and Twitter CEO Elon Musk would be live-streamed on Twitter Spaces to mark the event. But instead, the live audio event was beset with technical malfunctions. After some 20 minutes of crashing and echoing and chaos, it abruptly ended.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: EU, Google to develop voluntary AI pact ahead of new AI rules, EU’s Breton says. “Alphabet and the European Commission aim to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) pact involving European and non-European companies before rules are established to govern the technology, EU industry chief Thierry Breton said on Wednesday.”

Dutch News: Dutch consumers group plans privacy case against Google. “Dutch consumers lobby group Consumentenbond said on Tuesday it is preparing a mass claim against Google for infringing the privacy of users. The watchdog claims that the American tech company is collecting a large amount of sensitive information about users, much of which consumers are unaware of.”

Omaha World-Herald: Bill passes to create video archive of Nebraska legislative activity. “Legislative Bill 254, introduced by State Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon, passed on a 48-0 vote. The measure would require the creation of a digital archive of video coverage of legislative debate and public hearings starting with the 2025 session.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Scientific American: People, Not Google’s Algorithm, Create Their Own Partisan ‘Bubbles’ Online. “A study published today in Nature found that Google’s search engine does not return disproportionately partisan results. Instead politically polarized Google users tend to silo themselves by clicking on links to partisan news sites. These findings suggest that, at least when it comes to Google searches, it may be easier for people to escape online echo chambers than previously thought—but only if they choose to do so.”

The Verge: A Google DeepMind AI language model is now making descriptions for YouTube Shorts. “Google just combined DeepMind and Google Brain into one big AI team, and on Wednesday, the new Google DeepMind shared details on how one of its visual language models (VLM) is being used to generate descriptions for YouTube Shorts, which can help with discoverability.”

The Packer: Survey measures impact of rising costs, stress, social media on food choices. “The survey showed 4 in 10 Americans (42%) said they have come across social media content about food and nutrition in the past year. Predictably, exposure to this content is inversely proportional with age, with Gen Z (71%) and millennials (58%) reporting the highest exposure, as compared to older generations, the survey said. Two-thirds said they trust that information at least a little (46%) or a lot (21%), the survey found.” Good morning, Internet…

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May 25, 2023 at 05:29PM
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Jean Sibelius, Equitable Biking Access, Opioid Response Planning, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, May 24, 2023

Jean Sibelius, Equitable Biking Access, Opioid Response Planning, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, May 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Library of Finland: The new website of the Jean Sibelius Works project. “The renewed trilingual website of the complete critical edition of Jean Sibelius’s works (JSW) contains information about this large-scale collaborative project involving the National Library, the Sibelius Society, and the German publishing house Breitkopf & Härtel, its activities and publications.”

People for Bikes: A New Tool for Equitable Bike Planning. “This interactive web application helps identify historically underserved communities based on a variety of factors…The tool also assesses climate, disaster, and environmental burdens, providing decision-makers with the necessary information to construct resilient bike infrastructure in the face of climate change and natural disasters.”

PR Newswire: New Tool Aims to Help Local Leaders Curb Opioid Crisis at Community Level (PRESS RELEASE). “The tool provides geographic-specific information on the potential need for opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment and recovery services and the locality’s capacity to meet that demand.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

AFP: Climate scientists flee Twitter as hostility surges. “Scientists suffering insults and mass-spam are abandoning Twitter for alternative social networks as hostile climate-change denialism surges on the platform following Elon Musk’s takeover.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

PetaPixel: Photographer Creates Lifelike Social Media Influencer Using Only AI. “A photographer whose work has transitioned to being ‘80% AI’ has generated a lifelike social media influencer using artificial intelligence (AI). Antti Karppinen did not use his camera at all during his latest project for Finnish energy giant Helen where he created a children’s character called Ellen.”

News24: Unknown individual renames Eskom HQ as ‘MegaGravy Train Park’ on Google Maps . “Eskom’s famous headquarters, Megawatt Park in Sunninghill, Johannesburg, has been renamed Eskom MegaGravy Train Park on Google Maps. The renaming of the headquarters by an unknown individual pokes fun at the embattled power utility.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

FTC: Scammers are hijacking job ads. Here’s how to spot the fakes. “Scammers are taking outdated ads from real employers, changing them, and posting them on employment websites and career-oriented platforms like Indeed or LinkedIn. The modified ads seem to be real job offers with legitimate companies. They’re not. In fact, their goal is to trick you into sharing personal information. So how do you know if you’re dealing with a scammer?”

Bleeping Computer: Google launches bug bounty program for its Android applications. “Google has launched the Mobile Vulnerability Rewards Program (Mobile VRP), a new bug bounty program that will pay security researchers for flaws found in the company’s Android applications.”

Search Engine Journal: Vulnerability in WordPress Google Analytics Plugin Hits +3 Million Websites. “The National Vulnerability Database announced that a popular Google Analytics WordPress plugin installed in over 3 million was discovered to contain a Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Stanford University: Assessing Political Bias in Language Models. “…new research from Stanford University has quantified exactly how well (or, actually, how poorly) [Large Language Models] align with opinions of U.S. demographic groups, showing that language models have a decided bias on hot-button topics that may be out of step with general popular sentiment.”

Medical XPress: AI tool outperforms human emergency call handlers in identifying stroke, new study shows. “A team of researchers from Denmark has developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) framework to address the number of strokes that go unrecognized by human emergency call handlers. The framework outperformed emergency call handlers in recognizing stroke for both sexes and across all age groups studied, indicating its potential as a supplementary tool for early and precise stroke identification in the future.”

STAT News: Social media risks for youth mental health highlighted in new surgeon general report. “Amid what he called the worst youth mental health crisis in recent memory, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory Tuesday warning about social media’s impact on developing young brains.” Good morning, Internet…

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May 24, 2023 at 05:29PM
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Prompt Engineering, Malta Ship Graffiti, Flipboard, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, May 23, 2023

Prompt Engineering, Malta Ship Graffiti, Flipboard, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, May 23, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

TNW: OpenAI is offering a free class in prompt engineering for devs. “As with all skills, prompt engineering takes practice. And, seeing how quickly this technology has come into mainstream use, experts are few and far between. But one AI company is offering free training right now. A short course in prompt engineering has been developed in partnership with OpenAI and is available via the DeepLearning.AI website.”

Times of Malta: Heritage Malta launches website on historic ship graffiti. “The platform serves both as a digital archive and an educational resource, providing enthusiasts, historians, and the public with an unprecedented opportunity to explore and understand the graffiti. The site houses a vast collection of images, in-depth descriptions, and historical context for various ship graffiti discovered in Malta and Gozo.” This is graffiti OF ships, not graffiti ON ships.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Flipboard becomes first app to support Bluesky, Mastodon and Pixelfed all in one place. “Social magazine app Flipboard is continuing its investment in the federated social web with today’s news that it’s integrating with decentralized social networks Bluesky and Pixelfed.”

Engadget: LinkedIn starts rolling out new verification and anti-scam features. “After previewing new verification features last month, LinkedIn is now rolling them out to give job-seekers confidence that they’re dealing with real companies and jobs. At the same time, the work-oriented social media site has introduced warnings for messages that may look like scams. The latter feature arrives amidst a spate of fake accounts on the site, according to LinkedIn’s latest transparency report.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WCMH: Ohio farmer known for ‘It ain’t much, but it’s honest work’ meme dies at 76. “An Ohio farmer known by many through a meme has died, but not without leaving behind a legacy in the agricultural world alongside his internet fame.” Read about this guy, he was all about soil science and no-till agriculture.

MIT Technology Review: How to preserve your digital memories. “I recently published a short story about new policies recently announced by Google and Twitter that allow the companies to remove inactive accounts. Google said the decision was based on security concerns, and experts I spoke with said that these sorts of policies are likely to become the norm. It got me thinking about my own email records, and the systems that we have—or, more precisely, don’t have—for preserving our digital lives.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Comedian Uncle Roger silenced on Chinese social media after jokes about China. “A Malaysian comedian better known for mocking attempts by Western chefs at Asian cooking has had his Chinese social media account suspended after making jokes about China. Nigel Ng, who uses the name Uncle Roger, is the latest comedian to feel the consequences of jokes that could be perceived as reflecting negatively on China under increasingly intense censorship and rising nationalism.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PsyPost: Social media dependency is linked to a reduced preference for freedom, study finds. “Social media dependency is associated with a reduced preference for freedom, according to new research published in Psychological Reports. The study suggests that people who are heavily dependent on social media may use it as a way to escape from the uncertainties and challenges of the real world.”

Mirage News: Survey: 7 in 10 Parents Say Social Media Image Editing Apps Negatively Affect Children’s Body Image. “According to a new national survey conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of The On Our Sleeves Movement For Children’s Mental Health, 69% of parents of children younger than 18 think social media image editing apps and filters have a negative influence on their child(ren)’s body image.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Slashgear: This Awesome Raspberry Pi Project Can Track The International Space Station . “Around the web, there are various tools that allow users to track the International Space Station’s orbit. The European Space Agency, for instance, shows the station’s approximate location, as well as where it was 90 minutes back and where it will be an hour and a half in the future. An enterprising Raspberry Pi user, however, has been able to emulate the effect of this high-tech software using a humble ePaper display and some Python coding.” Good evening, Internet…

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May 24, 2023 at 05:01AM
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Police Use of Force Legislation, Organ Donation Data Dashboard, Moog Synthesizers, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, May 23, 2023

Police Use of Force Legislation, Organ Donation Data Dashboard, Moog Synthesizers, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, May 23, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Duke University: Wilson Center Creates Database to Track Police Use of Force Legislation. “In the first year following [George] Floyd’s death, 1,489 bills relating to police violence were proposed. However, only 169 became law. That is just one of the findings in a database created by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice to better understand lawmaking in response to calls for reform.”

US Department of Health and Human Services: HRSA Announces Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Modernization Initiative. “Today, HRSA is posting on its web site at Organ Donation and Transplantation (hrsa.gov) a new data dashboard to share de-identified information on organ donors, organ procurement, transplant waitlists, and transplant recipients.”

Engadget: Moog celebrates 70th anniversary with musical web app. “It’s hard to believe, but iconic synth manufacturer Moog is turning 70. Synthesizers didn’t become mainstays in popular music until the 1970s, but Bob Moog started manufacturing and selling theremins in 1953, with actual synths following in 1963. To celebrate the anniversary, the company launched a web app filled with interactive experiences for music historians and casual fans alike.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Google’s Photo App Still Can’t Find Gorillas. And Neither Can Apple’s.. “Google’s and Apple’s tools were clearly the most sophisticated when it came to image analysis. Yet Google, whose Android software underpins most of the world’s smartphones, has made the decision to turn off the ability to visually search for primates for fear of making an offensive mistake and labeling a person as an animal. And Apple, with technology that performed similarly to Google’s in our test, appeared to disable the ability to look for monkeys and apes as well.”

Dazed: Grimes calls song made by AI-cloning her voice a ‘masterpiece’. “Last month, Grimes urged fans to create songs using her AI-generated voice through her new website Elf.Tech, where anyone can upload themselves singing and have their voice generated in the style of the artist, free of charge. Now, an LA-based artist called Kito has released a new track ‘Cold Touch’ using the software – and, according to Grimes, it’s a ‘masterpiece’.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Keen Gamer: The Art Of Abandonware Preservation. “Despite video gaming’s relative youth compared to other media, many games have already been lost to time. Around the world, archivists have been striving to record and preserve such abandonware and return it to the players. We spoke with some of the people involved to find out just what it takes to save a lost game and why such archives are so important.”

The Verge: A Twitter bug is restoring deleted tweets and retweets — including my own. “Earlier this year on the 8th of May I deleted all my tweets, just under 5,000 of them. I know the exact day because I tweeted about it. This morning, though, I discovered that Twitter has restored a handful of my old re-tweets; interactions I know I scrubbed from my profile. Those re-tweets were gone. I remember surveying my bare timeline with satisfaction before thinking, ‘great, time to draw attention to myself.’ But now they’re back.”

BBC: Weapons expert cut from government event due to Twitter posts. “A global expert on nerve agents, stood down from speaking at a government-backed conference, says he believes it is because he is outspoken on a range of issues including asylum policy. Dan Kaszeta was disinvited from Tuesday’s conference after his social media content was vetted.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Motherboard: Verified Twitter Accounts Spread AI-Generated Hoax of Pentagon Explosion. “Accounts such as @WarMonitors, @BloombergFeed, and RT posted an image of a large, gray smoke cloud appearing next to a white government building with a corresponding caption that stated there was an explosion near the Pentagon. Bellingcat journalist Nick Waters tweeted that there are a few signs that make it an AI image, including that the fence melds into the crowd barriers on the image and there are no other images or videos being posted on social media.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Tom’s Guide: Forget Photoshop — AI imaging tool lets you edit photos with no experience. “Photo editing could become the next area conquered by AI thanks to an exciting new tool unveiled by a group of researchers from Google. Working with the Max Planck Institute of Informatics, they have created a point-based image manipulation tool called DragGAN. Essentially, it’s able to incrementally move multiple points of an image along a target trajectory defined by the user. The really clever part is AI keeps the output within the bounds of a realistic-looking image.” The first time I saw this I didn’t think it was real.

Stanford University: Is That Self-Driving Car a Boy or a Girl?. “In her latest researchopen in new window, conducted with Malia Masonopen in new window of Columbia University, [Professor Ashley] Martin looks at how people respond when real or imagined products are assigned a gender — or no gender. One of their studies analyzed Amazon.com reviews to see how shoppers reacted to the anthropomorphizing and gendering of robotic vacuums.”

University of Arizona: Would you trust an AI doctor? New research shows patients are split. “A University of Arizona Health Sciences-led study found that more than 50% of people don’t fully trust AI-powered medical advice, but many put faith in AI if it’s monitored and guided by human touch.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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May 24, 2023 at 01:43AM
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Using Persistent Metadata Can Focus Your Search Results Without Keywords: VerSearch

Using Persistent Metadata Can Focus Your Search Results Without Keywords: VerSearch
By ResearchBuzz

One of the problems with making Google search better is that much of its indexed content is unstructured data. It’s easy to do deep search when all your data is nicely labeled. What happens when it’s just a big pile?

I have found that even unstructured data search can be tamed to a certain extent when you use something I call “persistent metadata” — metadata applicable to any physical object, like date and location.

Take you as an example. You were born on a certain date in a certain place. Let’s pretend you are very famous and there’s lot of news about you. If I wanted to research you, I might try Google News for 2012-2016, when you were in school.

By limiting my search to your school dates, I’m setting a *contextual boundary* around the data I’m searching. I’m using persistent metadata about you instead of keywords to focus my search. Even better, the persistent metadata I’m using is understood by most search platforms. I don’t have to tell Google “I want to know about when Famous Person went to college,” I just search 2012-2016.

Many of my Search Gizmos act as a bridge between the human expression of persistent metadata (“Grandpa Fred’s life”) and the computer’s understanding of how its information is organized (1895-1968.) Biography Buckets, Contemporary Biography Builder, Obit Magnet… that’s what they’re all doing. I’m always excited to find another way to explore Web search using persistent metadata, as I did last night.

endoflife.date is a service which tracks the end-of-life dates for over 200 products, including iOS, Firefox, Python, etc. It also has an API which allows you to get a product’s version history. When I learned about it, I wondered if I could make a Gizmo for easier historical software searching.

If you try to search about a particular computer program on Google, your results will weight toward the most recent version of the software, which makes sense. If you want to search for an older version, you have to narrow your search using something like version number, which can cause you to miss differently-expressed results.

On the other hand, if you use the persistent metadata of date, you can use more general search terms and still get relevant, useful results.

I had a fun conversation with Curly yesterday and made VerSearch, which uses the endoflife.date API to look up software by version and then creates searches for that product’s name by the version’s active lifespan. For example, I looked up Drupal 8.8, which had a lifespan of 12-04-2019 to 12-01-2020. That renders a Web search with a specific focus and a short result list. If they’re not narrow enough, just add keywords to your search. Since you’re working in a smaller data pool, even general keywords can reap good results.

The authoritative data offered by authoritative sources includes persistent metadata. I’m convinced there are endless ways we could apply this metadata to Web search to makes its results richer and more disinformation proof.

May 23, 2023 at 07:33PM
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Oklahoma Veterans, Stamps Across the Pacific, WordPress, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 22, 2023

Oklahoma Veterans, Stamps Across the Pacific, WordPress, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 22, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

News 9 (Oklahoma): New Service Helps Connect Veterans & Families Statewide. “The non-profit based in Owasso started a new website … to help veterans find events or programs to support them in Oklahoma. Any organization or person can submit an event that is taking place near their area for free.”

Smithsonian: Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum Launches New Virtual Exhibition. “The exhibition showcases the diversity and cultural significance of Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander American communities in the United States through the medium of postage stamps. It features every U.S. Postal Service-issued stamp commemorating their unique histories, identities and contributions to American culture.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress: A Tour of the All-New Stats Page. “In recent weeks, you may have seen a redesigned Stats page on your WordPress.com dashboard. This all-new Stats experience enhances your ability to analyze and optimize your site’s content. We’ve restructured the layout in a friendlier way, introduced new modules that reveal crucial data points, and revamped the overall look of this powerful analytics tool.”

USEFUL STUFF

Popular Science: Social media posts are better with music. Here’s how to add your favorite tunes.. “The era of recording mixtapes and burning CDs for friends and family has passed by, so you’ll have to get creative if you want to share the latest track or artist you’re excited about. One of your options is social media. You can share music on Instagram or have your pick from the TikTok music selection with only a few taps.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ProPublica: ProPublica Partner Sues Mississippi County for Blocking Access to Search Warrants. “A joint investigation found that many Mississippi courts thwart public scrutiny of search warrants. Experts say that violates long-standing norms of public access and the state’s public records law.”

Hong Kong Free Press: Hong Kong doxxing site targeting journalists, activists still online almost 2 years after authorities alerted. “A doxxing website targeting thousands of journalists and pro-democracy activists remains online almost two years after HKFP alerted the authorities to its existence with media enquires, and over 18 months since Hong Kong enacted an anti-doxxing law.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Amsterdam: Grant for research project on Conversational AI. “Researchers Mohammad Alian Nejadi and Evangelos Kanoulas of the IRLab of the Informatics Institute received a grant of €250.000 for the Personality And Conversational INformatiOn Access (PACINO) project. The purpose is to help users with diverse background and potential mental disorders by building an intelligent conversational system that takes into account both the user’s need and personality.”

Illinois News Bureau: Viral videos about private moments may affect offline relationships. “When individuals share videos about surprise reunions with their intimate partners on the internet, the reaction from viewers may not be the roses and unicorns the posters expected. Viewers’ responses to shared videos have the potential to shape offline relationships, a case study of one such video found.”

Washington University in St. Louis: Data from wearables could be a boon to mental health diagnosis. “Depression and anxiety are among the most common mental health disorders in the United States, but more than half of people struggling with the conditions are not diagnosed and treated. Hoping to find simple ways to detect such disorders, mental health professionals are considering the role of popular wearable fitness monitors in providing data that could alert wearers to potential health risks.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Tom’s Hardware: Raspberry Pi Pico Piano Helper Lights Up Keys to Teach Songs. “You can learn a lot about tinkering with microelectronics, but now, thanks to Adrian Cruceru’s latest Raspberry Pi project, you can use microelectronics to learn how to play the piano. A Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller drives his RP2040 Piano helper project and can be programmed to help students learn any song they like. Just follow the LEDs and press the corresponding key to play new songs on the fly.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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May 23, 2023 at 12:57AM
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