Music Production Plugins, Discord Settings, Google Trees, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 16, 2023

Music Production Plugins, Discord Settings, Google Trees, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 16, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Magnetic Magazine: Reddit User Built A Database Of 10k+ Music Production Plugins So You Can Snag Them When They’re Cheap.. “Discover AudioBazooka.com, a unique database tracking 10,000+ audio plugins.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WIRED: How to Use Discord’s ‘Family Center’ Safety Settings for Your Kids. “The popular messaging platform launched new parental controls for keeping tabs on teens. Here’s what the tools do (and don’t) include.”

Associated Press: Biden administration can resume contact with social-media platforms ‘until further orders’: appeals court. “A federal appeals court Friday temporarily paused a lower court’s order limiting executive branch officials’ communications with social-media companies about controversial online posts. Biden administration lawyers had asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to stay the preliminary injunction issued on July 4 by U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty. Doughty himself had rejected a request to put his order on hold pending appeal.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Gilroy Dispatch: Google’s Gilroy farm plans to sell trees to the public. “The 40-acre piece of land is owned by Google, the Silicon Valley tech giant that purchased the Gilroy property in 2019 with the goal of growing trees in an environmentally sound way for its future and current campuses. But Google, in an era of remote work and a shifting economy, has lately reevaluated its real estate portfolio, shedding office spaces in the northern end of the county. As a result, the 15,000 trees growing in Gilroy—including coast live oak, alder, willow, California maple and more—won’t all end up at a Google project as originally intended.”

New York Times: ‘Not for Machines to Harvest’: Data Revolts Break Out Against A.I.. “Fed up with A.I. companies consuming online content without consent, fan fiction writers, actors, social media companies and news organizations are among those rebelling.”

Radio Prague: Pop legend Karel Gott speaks from beyond the grave using AI. “To celebrate Czech Radio’s centenary, its creative team wanted to highlight not only its vast historical archives, but also its future. And so the idea was born for Gott Forever, a project to recreate the speaking voice of Karel Gott, who passed away in 2019, using artificial intelligence. I spoke to Czech Radio’s creative producer Lukáš Sapík to find out more about the project, and started by asking: why an AI-generated voice?”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TorrentFreak: Internet Archive Targets Book DRM Removal Tool With DMCA Takedown. “The Internet Archive has taken the rather unusual step of sending a DMCA notice to protect the copyrights of book publishers and authors. The non-profit organization asked GitHub to remove a tool that can strip DRM from books in its library. The protective move is likely motivated by the ongoing legal troubles between the Archive and book publishers.”

Washington Post: Twitter didn’t pay privacy assessor after Musk takeover, court docs show. “House Republicans seized on allegations in the complaint that the FTC attempted to influence Ernst & Young, an independent auditor Twitter hired to assess its compliance with the order. Yet the complaint — and Republican committee members — omitted key details from that deposition, which paints a stark picture of the chaos and upheaval at Twitter during Musk’s takeover.”

Vicksburg Post: Social media video leads to arrest of Warren County woman for destroying crops . “One person is in custody following a July 3 social media video showing a black Nissan sedan doing donuts in a Warren County field.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Transportation apps can help people with disabilities navigate public transit but accessibility lags behind. “Many people with disabilities rely on public transit as many do not have a driver’s licence. Planning trips, getting to and from transit stops successfully and navigating transit systems is important. My research has shown that smartphone app technology can encourage inclusion by helping people with disabilities better navigate transport systems.”

University of York: University marks launch of new Government guide on video games. “The University of York has marked the launch of a new government framework aimed at improving understanding of the impacts of video games at an event in partnership with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).”

UC Davis: Bringing COVID-19 Data into Focus . “Using an approach based on computer vision technology, researchers can work back from COVID-19 mortality data to see how infection rates changed on the day a lockdown or similar measure was introduced. The approach could be generally useful in future epidemics and pandemics. The work is published July 14 in Science Advances.” Good morning, Internet…

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July 16, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Mapping Despair, AO3, OpenAI, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 15, 2023

Mapping Despair, AO3, OpenAI, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 15, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Brookings Institution: Despair underlies our misinformation crisis: Introducing an interactive tool. “…we have built an interactive which highlights the places and populations that are most vulnerable to despair and misinformation. The interactive presents county level information on despair, access to credible local news, cognitive skill levels for high school graduates, COVID vaccination rates, and access to higher education opportunities.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: The massive fanfic archive AO3 is back after a wave of DDoS attacks. “The popular fanfiction platform Archive of Our Own (AO3) has been restored after a wave of distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks forced the website offline for over a day.”

Axios: AP strikes news-sharing and tech deal with OpenAI. “The Associated Press on Thursday said it reached a two-year deal with OpenAI, the parent company to ChatGPT, to share access to select news content and technology.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Refinery29: Are The Spill & Threads Apps New Homes For Black Internet Discourse?. “Using Twitter was, and arguably still is, a uniquely connective experience that moved at the lightning speed of your every thought. Nothing compares to when Rihanna’s off-the-cuff clapbacks were at their most savage, people pulled up to Twitter like a family cookout, and anyone could gain new followers-turned-family using friendly hashtags. But in recent years, the conversation has taken a turn.”

New York Times: What Happens When You Ask a Chinese Chatbot About Taiwan?. “Compared with OpenAI’s newest model, known as GPT-4, Ernie 3.5 was ‘slightly inferior’ in a comprehensive test, but it performed better when both were spoken to in Chinese, Baidu said, citing a report sponsored by one of China’s top research academies. We wanted to see for ourselves and tested Ernie 3.5 against GPT-4.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Roll Call: Group pushing FCC on deepfake ads submitting new petition. “Less than three weeks after the Federal Election Commission deadlocked on a request to develop regulations governing so-called deepfake political ads generated using artificial intelligence tools, a non-partisan advocacy group pushing for the new rules is trying again.”

Ars Technica: WordPress plugin installed on 1 million+ sites logged plaintext passwords. “All-In-One Security, a WordPress security plugin installed on more than 1 million websites, has issued a security update after being caught three weeks ago logging plaintext passwords and storing them in a database accessible to website admins.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Southern California: Understanding Global Events in Every Language. “Valuable insights can be gained from vast amounts of text. Event extraction is used to predict political instability; track the path of disease outbreaks; identify social unrest; follow natural disasters; and much more. But it comes with its own set of challenges. A team of AI researchers at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI), a research institute of USC Viterbi School of Engineering, has developed a method to combat one of those challenges: how to extract event information from foreign language text.”

MIT News: A new way to look at data privacy. “MIT researchers created a new data privacy metric, Probably Approximately Correct (PAC) Privacy, and built an algorithm based on this metric that can automatically determine the minimal amount of randomness that needs to be added to a machine-learning model to protect sensitive data, like sensitive lung scan images, from an adversary.”

Cornell University: Data scientists predict stock returns with AI and online news. “For years, the financial press has helped inform investors of all stripes. Cornell researchers have discovered it can also inform the algorithm behind a new financial predicting model.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 16, 2023 at 12:39AM
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3D Shark Models, Viola the Bird, Google Bard, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 15, 2023

3D Shark Models, Viola the Bird, Google Bard, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 15, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Cosmos Magazine: 3D sharks! New interactive online display brings oceans to life. “World of Sharks already introduces infographics, podcasts, species cards and topic pages. The latest addition to the website includes interactive 3D models of white sharks and manta rays designed by the Digital Life project based at the University of Massachusetts.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

ClassicFM: Google’s new game turns you into a cello-playing AI bird – and it’s highly addictive. “Fancy your own avian aria? A new game from Google Arts & Culture lets you take centre stage and become a winged cello soloist. Viola the Bird is a game in which you bow a virtual cello, with your own tempo, expression and artistry. To make things really fun, the performance is acted out by a charmingly theatrical, winged virtuoso.”

Reuters: Google’s AI chatbot, Bard, expands to Europe, Brazil, to take on ChatGPT. “Alphabet said it is rolling out its artificial- intelligence chatbot, Bard, in Europe and Brazil on Thursday, the product’s biggest expansion since its February launch and pitting it against Microsoft-backed rival ChatGPT.”

TechCrunch: Twitter admits to having a Verified spammer problem with announcement of new DM settings . “Starting ‘as soon as’ July 14, Twitter will introduce a new messages setting aimed at reducing spam in DMs by moving messages from Verified users you don’t follow back to your ‘Message Request’ inbox instead of your main inbox. Only messages from people you follow will arrive in your primary inbox going forward.”

Ars Technica: Apple introduces offline Maps—but how does it compare with Google Maps?. “Apple Maps has seen a significant comeback story since it first debuted to near-universal panning in 2012, but anyone who has also used Google Maps can even now name a bunch of handy features that Apple Maps just can’t do yet. When iOS 17 releases this fall, though, one of those gaps will get covered. Apple will introduce downloadable maps—a vital feature for many users and one that Google has offered for years.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Verge: One of Reddit’s biggest communities is suggesting users move to Discord. “The biggest Reddit community that’s still private as part of the Reddit protest is now encouraging its users to congregate elsewhere: Discord and Substack. If you currently try to visit r/malefashionadvice, which has more than 5 million subscribers, you’ll be greeted with a page that suggests you visit the community’s Discord and Substack instead.”

BBC: Why your favourite brand may be taking a social media break. “Like many of us, big companies are struggling to keep up with the number of social media platforms vying for their time and attention. They’re faced with the important choice of which apps to choose, in a market where social media can be an important brand-building tool and enable them to target consumers where they are most active.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: F.T.C. Opens Investigation Into ChatGPT Maker Over Technology’s Potential Harms. “The Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into OpenAI, the artificial intelligence start-up that makes ChatGPT, over whether the chatbot has harmed consumers through its collection of data and its publication of false information on individuals.”

WIRED: Silk Road’s Second-in-Command Gets 20 Years in Prison. “NEARLY TEN YEARS ago, the sprawling dark-web drug market known as the Silk Road was torn offline in a law enforcement operation coordinated by the FBI, whose agents arrested the black market’s boss, Ross Ulbricht, in a San Francisco library. It would take two years for Ulbricht’s second-in-command—an elusive figure known as Variety Jones—to be tracked down and arrested in Thailand. Today, a decade after the Silk Road’s demise, Clark has been sentenced to join his former boss in federal prison.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

European Commission: New initiatives to empower research careers and to strengthen the European Research Area. “Today, the Commission unveiled a comprehensive set of measures targeted at strengthening the European Research Area (ERA) and making it more resilient, appealing, and competitive. These will contribute to a priority action of the ERA Policy Agenda 2022-2024, namely to promote attractive and sustainable research careers.”

Florida International University: Teens more likely to use alcohol and marijuana if they see their friends post about it on social media. “Peer pressure hasn’t gone away. It’s just gone digital. Through surveys of more than 260 high school freshmen and sophomores, FIU Center for Children and Families researchers found friends still hold the greatest power over teens’ substance use decisions — rather than influencers, celebrities and other people on social media.”

Cornell Chronicle: Software creates entirely new views from existing video. “Filmmakers may soon be able to stabilize shaky video, change viewpoints and create freeze-frame, zoom and slow-motion effects – without shooting any new footage – thanks to an algorithm developed by researchers at Cornell University and Google Research. The software, called DynIBar, synthesizes new views using pixel information from the original video, and even works with moving objects and unstable camerawork.” The code is available on GitHub. Good morning, Internet…

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July 15, 2023 at 05:30PM
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Orchid Pollinators, Proton Drive, Detecting Political Disinformation, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 14, 2023

Orchid Pollinators, Proton Drive, Detecting Political Disinformation, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 14, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

La Trobe University: Sex lives of orchids reads like science fiction. That’s a heck of a headline to be indexing before 6am. “An international team of scientists including researchers at La Trobe University and the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria have created a global database of pollination data for almost 3000 orchid species.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Proton is releasing a native encrypted file-syncing app for Windows. “The key difference between Proton Drive and other cloud-based storage options is that it will offer free, encrypted file storage by default. The service will also offer all of the essentials such as multi-device syncing, offline downloads and version history.”

USEFUL STUFF

International Journalists’ Network: 13 tips for investigating political disinformation. “Almost all smartphones in Brazil have WhatsApp installed on them. While the messaging app helps ensure easy communication within and outside of Brazil, its widespread use also facilitated the proliferation of disinformation in the lead-up to the country’s 2018 presidential election. During that time, Patricia Campos Mello, a journalist with Folha de São Paulo, reported closely on the mass dissemination of disinformation on WhatsApp. Drawing on this experience during a recent ICFJ Disarming Disinformation master class, held in partnership with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, Campos Mello offered a series of tips for journalists investigating political disinformation. ”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Ars Technica: Google’s head of AR software quits, citing “unstable commitment and vision”. “Google’s head of operating system and software platforms for augmented and mixed reality devices, Mark Lucovsky, has left the company after months of turmoil for the company’s mixed reality projects and staff. He publicly announced his departure in a tweet on Monday.”

Indian Express: Express Impact | 15 antiquities from New York’s Met among 150 returning to India in 3-6 months: Govt. “Fifteen antiquities returned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York Museum are expected to arrive in India in the next 3-6 months. Union Culture Secretary Govind Mohan, briefing reporters Sunday on the third G20 Culture Working Group meeting in Hampi, said this is the first lot of antiquities that the Met has willingly agreed to return to India.”

Business Insider: Lego YouTubers are building massive followings and creating a unique genre of content that taps into viewers’ nostalgia. “[SacredBricks], who asked Insider not to include his real name or age due to privacy concerns, is one of a number of successful online creators who are tapping into their viewers’ nostalgia and going hugely viral by using the famous kids’ toys to rack up viewers.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Krebs on Security: Apple & Microsoft Patch Tuesday, July 2023 Edition. “Microsoft Corp. today released software updates to quash 130 security bugs in its Windows operating systems and related software, including at least five flaws that are already seeing active exploitation. Meanwhile, Apple customers have their own zero-day woes again this month: On Monday, Apple issued (and then quickly pulled) an emergency update to fix a zero-day vulnerability that is being exploited on MacOS and iOS devices.”

Techdirt: Congress May Not Renew Low-Income Broadband Program Birthed During COVID. “Everybody’s experiences with COVID home education and telecommuting briefly shined a bright spotlight on substandard U.S. broadband and policy issues. But with our attention on COVID waning, its impetus for reform on broadband access is as well. ACP money will run out soon, and the debate has begun as to whether Congress should renew the ACP program.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Southern California: The Internet has a Dark Side – Can We Teach Machines How to Identify it?. “‘Bad’ information has serious implications. Misinformation, propaganda, and fake news are prevalent on the web and on social media platforms and can become weaponized, which leads to cyber abuse and, in severe cases, civil unrest. The University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI), a unit of the Viterbi School of Engineering, is working on two projects aimed at solving this issue from the inside out–by developing technology that can exercise reasoning capabilities when encountering this ‘bad’ information.”

University of California Riverside: AI creates new environmental injustices, but there’s a fix. “A recent paper by University of California, Riverside, electrical and computer engineers finds that technology companies are not doing enough to equitably distribute these growing environmental impacts. The finding mirrors calls from international organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for efforts to address AI’s environmental inequity.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 15, 2023 at 12:06AM
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Iowa Newspapers, WordPress, TikTok, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, July 14, 2023

Iowa Newspapers, WordPress, TikTok, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, July 14, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Southeast Iowa Union: Fairfield library’s newspaper archives being uploaded to internet. “The Fairfield Public Library is undertaking a project to upload all newspapers in Jefferson County’s history so that they will be searchable online. The ambitious project involves digitizing newspapers from as long ago as 1847, and covers newspapers such as The Fairfield Ledger as well as newspapers that have not published for decades such as The Fairfield Tribune, The Lockridge Times and The Batavia News.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress: Introducing Footnotes, Details Block, and Writing Flow Improvements. “The team at WordPress is always working to enhance your writing and publishing experience, whether adding brand-new features or fixing bugs and minor inconveniences. The latest round of updates includes a feature you’ve long been asking for, a new block, and a few improvements to the general flow and convenience of publishing.”

Lifehacker: You Can Finally Auto-Mute TikTok. “Opening TikTok with the sound blaring can be a bit embarrassing, especially if you’re in an academic or professional setting. And thanks to the auto-paying feed, this just goes on and on until you either hurriedly close the app, or find the mute switch. But TikTok has now added a much-needed feature that mutes the app on every launch—the videos will still automatically play, but now without sound.”

USEFUL STUFF

Genealogy’s Star: MyHeritage gives free access to 1.3 billion French records for Bastille Day. “We’re giving free access to all 1.3 billion French historical records on MyHeritage, from July 12–16, 2023!”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New Zealand Herald: Top Auckland restaurants hit by fake Google reviews amid scam fears – Cassia, Masu, French Cafe, Sidart, Sugar Club. “People choosing to dine out are being urged to ‘read beyond reviews’ after top restaurants have been flooded by fake reviews on Google, the Restaurant Association says. A number of restaurants, including The French Cafe, Sidart, The Sugar Club and Cassia at SkyCity, have been ‘spammed’ with reviews – most believed to be fake – in the past week.”

WIRED: How AI Can Make Gaming Better for All Players. “The project was inspired by Lance Carr, a quadriplegic video game streamer who utilizes a head-tracking mouse as part of his gaming setup. After his existing hardware was lost in a fire, Google stepped in to create an open source, highly configurable, low-cost alternative to expensive replacement hardware, powered by machine learning. While AI’s broader existence is proving divisive, we set out to discover whether AI, when used for good, could be the future of gaming accessibility.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Musk’s Twitter sues four Texas entities for data scraping -report. “Twitter has filed a lawsuit against four unnamed entities in Texas for data scraping, a local TV station said on Wednesday, explaining why the Elon Musk-owned social network had recently placed daily limits on the number of tweets a user could read.”

ERR: Estonia’s strawberry database helps fight crime. “A reference database cataloging varieties of Estonian strawberries will help prevent fraud and will be able to test if fruit advertised as locally grown really did originate in Estonia. Knowing the geographical origin of strawberries is important because it helps protect the Estonian market and supports farmers and strawberry growers. Until now it has not been possible to do so thoroughly.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Johns Hopkins University: Unleashing the digital Michelangelo from your smartphone. “…what if you could take a video of an object or scene with your smartphone and turn it into an accurate, detailed model, the way a master sculptor creates masterpieces from marble or clay? Its creators claim that the aptly named Neuralangelo does just that through the power of neural networks—and with submillimeter accuracy.”

Stanford News: Satisfaction with online dating app depends on what you’re looking for. “With an estimated 75 million active users each month, Tinder is the most popular dating app in the world. But a new study by Stanford Medicine researchers and collaborators has found, surprisingly – though perhaps not to users of the app – that many users are not swiping for dates. In a survey of more than a thousand Tinder users, half said they were not interested in meeting offline, and nearly two-thirds were already married or ‘in a relationship.'”

University of Sydney: Russia’s TikTok: Micro-influencers amplifying misinformation. “Dr Olga Boichak, a sociologist and social media expert, unpacks the rise of micro-influencers on Russian TikTok and the radicalised narratives around the Russia/Ukraine war.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Recreating The Golden Era Of Cable TV. “[Irish Craic Party] has gone to great lengths here to recreate the feel of cable TV from decades ago. It has recreations of real channels like HBO, Nickelodeon, and FX including station-appropriate bumpers and commercials. It’s also synchronized to the clock so shows start on the half- or quarter-hour. Cartoons play on Saturday morning, and Nickelodeon switches to Nick-at-Nite in the evenings.” Wow. Good morning, Internet…

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July 14, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Windows Update Restored, UK Web Archiving, Online Climate Denial, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 13, 2023

Windows Update Restored, UK Web Archiving, Online Climate Denial, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 13, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Ars Technia: Windows 95, 98, and other decrepit versions can grab online updates again. “If you have any interest in retro-computing, you know it can be difficult to round up the last official bug fixes and updates available for early Internet-era versions of Windows like 95, 98, and NT 4.0. A new independent project called ‘Windows Update Restored’ is aiming to fix that, hosting lightly modified versions of old Windows Update sites and the update files themselves so that fresh installs of these old operating systems can grab years’ worth of fixes that aren’t present on old install CDs and disks.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

British Library UK Web Archive Blog: UK Web Archive Technical Update – Summer 2023. “At the end of the last quarter, we launched the 2023 Domain Crawl. This started well (as described in the 2023 Q1 report) but a few days later it became clear the crawl was going a bit too well. We were collecting so quickly, we started to run out of space on the temporary store we use as a buffer for incoming content. The full story of how we responded to this situation is quite complicated, so I wrote up the detailed analysis in a separate blog post. But in short, we took the opportunity to move to a faster transfer process and switch to a widely-used open source tool called Rclone.”

Deutsche Welle: Why is climate denial still thriving online?. “Amid the worst heat waves ever recorded in the United States, China, Mexico, Siberia and beyond, and near-unanimous scientific consensus that humans have induced global heating — in large part by burning fossil fuels — how does such denial continue to flourish?”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

BBC: Video games: YouTube channel NoClip rescues tapes from landfill. “As a keen gamer, Danny O’Dwyer’s no stranger to quests. But the documentary maker’s just embarked on a different type of mission. He’s rescued thousands of tapes containing rare video game footage – demo reels, interviews and behind-the-scenes clips – from being sent to landfill and lost forever.”

The Register: China outsources censorship to web giants to break the fake news business model . “Revealed on Monday, the 13 rules apply to ‘self-media’ – publishers and social media accounts not operated or approved by government, and therefore the responsibility of social media and hosting platforms. Platforms will have to enhance review processes for new accounts and name changes. Accounts with political, government, military or media logos must be manually reviewed, and blocked if found to be imposters.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Tax prep companies shared private taxpayer data with Google and Meta for years, congressional probe finds. “Some of America’s largest tax-prep companies have spent years sharing Americans’ sensitive financial data with tech titans including Meta and Google in a potential violation of federal law — data that in some cases was misused for targeted advertising, according to a seven-month congressional investigation.”

Reuters: Spain’s High Court Shelves Israeli Spyware Probe on Lack of Cooperation . “Spain’s High Court on Monday shelved an investigation into the use of Israeli cyber-intelligence firm NSO Group’s ‘Pegasus’ software to spy on Spanish politicians, including Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and several ministers.”

Variety: Elon Musk, Twitter Slapped With $500 Million Lawsuit Over Ex-Employee Severance Payments “The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of a class of employees terminated since Musk’s takeover of the company in late October 2022. The suit seeks damages of at least $500 million as well as orders compelling Twitter and Musk ‘to abide by all terms of the severance plan by paying all terminated employees what they are owed,’ according to the plaintiff’s lawyers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Copenhagen: Extreme measuring device can bring quantum technology to your smartphone. “University of Copenhagen researchers have invented a ‘quantum drum’ that can measure pressure, a gas leak, heat, magnetism and a host of other things with extreme precision. It can even scan the shape of a single virus. The invention has now been adapted to work at room temperature and may be finding its way into our phones.”

Montclair State University: Buffalo Supermarket Shooter Plagiarized 80% of Rationale Section of Manifesto from Hate Sites, Study Shows. “A new study by Daniela Peterka-Benton from the Department of Justice Studies and Bond Benton from the Center for Strategic Communication at Montclair State University demonstrates the extent to which Buffalo mass shooter Payton Gendron’s manifesto – the public statement for why he perpetrated the attack – was derived from hate content he consumed online.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 14, 2023 at 12:33AM
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Claude 2, Twitter, GIMP, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, July 13, 2023

Claude 2, Twitter, GIMP, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, July 13, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: New ChatGPT rival, Claude 2, launches for open beta testing. “On Tuesday, Anthropic introduced Claude 2, a large language model (LLM) similar to ChatGPT that can craft code, analyze text, and write compositions. Unlike the original version of Claude launched in March, users can try Claude 2 for free on a new beta website. It’s also available as a commercial API for developers.”

Daily Beast: ‘Just Better’: Even Musk’s Own Twitter Employees Are Using Threads. “Ever since Meta launched its competitor to Twitter last week, Elon Musk has been attempting to tear it down, denouncing Threads’ approach to content moderation, threatening to sue for the supposed theft of ‘trade secrets,’ and even challenging Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to a penis-measuring competition. Some of his employees, however, are thoroughly enjoying the new app.”

How-To Geek: GIMP 2.99.16 Has New Interface Options and More File Formats. “GIMP is one of the most popular photo editors around, as it provides a free alternative to paid applications like Adobe Photoshop. GIMP 2.99.16 is now available with a bunch of new features and improvements.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Japan Times: TikTok content under scrutiny with Taiwan election heating up . “Scroll through TikTok in Taiwan, and you’ll find a rolling stream of videos covering the heated campaign for next January’s presidential election. That’s making the island the next battleground in the war over political disinformation and the debate over whether China’s government can manipulate the popular app to its advantage — a concern shared in Washington ahead of the 2024 U.S. election.”

New York Times: Artifacts Stolen From Kenya Decades Ago Are Returned. “Throughout the 1980s, vigango, sacred wooden memorial statues, were stolen from Kenya, sold to art dealers and eventually arrived at tourist shops and museums. Now, as part of a continuing effort to repatriate these looted cultural artifacts, officials from the Illinois State Museum and other museums and universities will visit Nairobi this week for a ceremony to recognize the return of the vigango to the National Museums of Kenya.”

Bloomberg: Google Says It Will Fix Vietnam Flag Issue on Image of Island. “Google said it is working to replace a satellite image on its mapping software in which a rendering of the Vietnamese flag on the rooftop of a building in the Spratly Islands appeared to be deleted or altered.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Google hit with lawsuit alleging it stole data from millions of users to train its AI tools. “Google was hit with a wide-ranging lawsuit on Tuesday alleging the tech giant scraped data from millions of users without their consent and violated copyright laws in order to train and develop its artificial intelligence products.”

Politico: Social media riot shutdowns possible under EU content law, top official says. “Social media platforms like TikTok and Snapchat will face possible shutdowns when they don’t crack down on problematic content during riots under the European Union’s content law, Internal Commissioner Thierry Breton said Monday.”

IOL (South Africa): Judge frowns upon magistrate’s use of Google for evidence in criminal case of cybercrime kingpin. “The fact that a magistrate, who granted bail to alleged cybercrime kingpin, James Junior Aliyu, used Google for legal knowledge on some aspects of the case, had an acting judge frowning.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Copenhagen: ChatGPT promotes American norms and values. “ChatGPT, the revolutionary new AI chatbot, reflects American norms and values – even when queried about other countries and cultures. The mismatch has been demonstrated in research from the University of Copenhagen. The AI spun web of cultural bias is a major problem according to the study’s researchers.”

TechCrunch: China’s search engine pioneer unveils open source large language model to rival OpenAI. “In February, Sogou founder Wang Xiaochuan said on Weibo that ‘China needs its own OpenAI.’ The Chinese entrepreneur is now inching closer to his dream as his nascent startup Baichuan Intelligence rolled out its next-generation large language model Baichuan-13B today.”

Stanford University: A new approach to genetic genealogy sheds light on African American ancestry. “Traditional measurements of genetic ancestry rarely offer information on specific ancestors in a family tree. A new approach to genetic ancestry developed by Stanford researchers yields insight into African American history by providing estimates of the number of African and European genealogical ancestors in typical family trees.” Good morning, Internet…

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July 13, 2023 at 05:28PM
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