North Korea Reports, Palestine Embroidery, Academia Parental Leave Policies, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 14, 2023

North Korea Reports, Palestine Embroidery, Academia Parental Leave Policies, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 14, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies: RUSI and NK News Release New North Korea Reports Database. “The database contains over 5,000 entities and their relationships, as described in successive reports by the UN Panel of Experts on North Korea from 2010 to 2023. The data allows countries and organisations to track sanctions compliance in a more easily accessible format. It is fully searchable and downloadable, and its fields are structured with ISO standards, making it easy to incorporate the data into existing databases.”

Deutsche Welle: The first digital Palestinian embroidery database. “Award-winning entrepreneur Zain Masri has so far digitized about 1,000 traditional Palestinian cross-stitching patterns, which are now available for download on her platform, Tirazain.”

Nature: Why two scientist-mums made a database of parental-leave policies. “By scouring websites and pestering university human-resources departments, Amanda Gorton and Tess Grainger are tracking the vast differences in leave entitlements across North America.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

ABC News: Judge revokes bail for disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. “Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has had his bail revoked and he has been immediately remanded to custody of the U.S. Marshals. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan made the ruling to send Bankman-Fried to jail during a hearing Friday in U.S. District Court in New York City. Bankman-Fried’s attorneys shortly filed a notice of appeal of the judge’s decision to revoke his bail.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: How to Move Your Instagram Feed to Pixelfed, the Photo App That Doesn’t Track Your Every Move. “Pixelfed is an open source, decentralized alternative to Instagram that recently added a tool for importing all your Instagram photos. This means you can automatically give all of the photos and videos you uploaded to Instagram a new home. Whether you want to shut down your Instagram account entirely or just back them up somewhere else, here’s how.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CBC: Saint John-born writer delves into Google’s failed attempt to build a smart city. “The Quayside project was formally announced at a ceremony in October 2017, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the proposed high-tech neighbourhood would ‘create a test bed’ for new technologies. But the plan soon fell apart amid worries about privacy and the potential over-collection of data from people within their own homes. Saint John-born author and Globe and Mail technology reporter Josh O’Kane delves into the story behind Quayside in his latest book, Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy.”

CNN: ‘It gave us some way to fight back’: New tools aim to protect art and images from AI’s grasp. “Generative AI technology has also wowed users with its ability to spit out works of art in the style of a specific artist. You can, for example, create a portrait of your cat that looks like it was done with the bold brushstrokes of Vincent Van Gogh. But these tools also make it very easy for bad actors to steal images from your social media accounts and turn them into something they’re not (in the worst cases, this could manifest as deepfake porn that uses your likeness without your consent). And for visual artists, these tools threaten to put them out of work as AI models learn how to mimic their unique styles and generate works of art without them.”

The Register: India launches contest to build homegrown web browser. “India’s government has decided the nation needs an indigenous web browser and has launched the Indian Web Browser Development Challenge (IWBDC) to make it happen.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: Cop-watchers are now YouTube celebrities. They’ve changed how police work.. “With varying degrees of antagonism and legal expertise, the online movement known as cop-watching or First Amendment auditing has swelled in popularity in recent years, capturing the imaginations of millions of Americans who are examining their relationship with policing after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police in Minneapolis in 2020.”

Reuters: Snapchat under scrutiny from UK watchdog over underage users -sources. “Britain’s data regulator is gathering information on Snapchat to establish whether the U.S. instant messaging app is doing enough to remove underage users from its platform, two people familiar with the matter said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Fast Company: Google Maps is an eyesore, part two: 5 more examples of how the app has lost its way. “Last week I wrote a piece highlighting how Google Maps has become a bit of an eyesore in recent years. While Google Maps’ data on businesses and other points of interest is second to none, using the map to navigate has become a challenge, mainly due to excess visual clutter. Since the story ran, others have chimed in about their gripes regarding Google Maps, particularly as navigation and map browsing is concerned. With that in mind, I’ve rounded up some of the most frequent complaints Google Maps users have. These are the top five.”

FedScoop: Homeland Security to launch explosives research database to help combat threats. “The Department of Homeland Security plans to launch a database of explosives research, testing and evaluation data to assist personnel in mitigating threats in the fall.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 14, 2023 at 05:30PM
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Wichita Falls Museum of Art, Minecraft, The Verge, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 13, 2023

Wichita Falls Museum of Art, Minecraft, The Verge, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 13, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Midwestern State University: WFMA brings new tool for learning, research. “After years of hard work, the Wichita Falls Museum of Art at MSU Texas is thrilled to announce that its Collection Database is now LIVE on its website…. Consisting primarily of works on paper by American artists, the Permanent Collection holds more than 1,600 fine art pieces from 1677 to the present. The Collection also includes paintings, sculptures, and historical photographs.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Tubefilter: ‘Minecraft’ takes hard line on NFTs, other promotions with policy changes for creators. “Some changes are coming to Minecraft. In an update to the game’s End-User License Agreement (EULA), Microsoft (which acquired Minecraft developer Mojang in 2014) revealed new rules governing creators, their usage of the game, and their promotional strategies.”

The Verge: The Verge Launches “Installer,” a Newsletter About the Next Big Things to Download, Watch, and Explore. “Led by editor-at-large David Pierce, ‘Installer’ will be a guide to all the best apps, movies, and shows, and the coolest tips, tricks, and hacks sourced from true experts in the field.”

USEFUL STUFF

Smashing Magazine: Designing Accessible Text Over Images: Best Practices, Techniques, And Resources (Part 2). “In Part 2 of the series, Hannah Milan reviews in detail various accessible text over images techniques for designing your web and mobile app content, including framing the image, soft-colored gradients technique, text styles and text position, solid color shapes, and use of colored backgrounds. And finally, the emphasis will once again be placed on the accessibility aspect, which needs to be ‘baked in’ right from the start rather than being an afterthought in your design process.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Axios: Fortnite is getting an unofficial Holocaust museum . “The virtual building, called the Voices of the Forgotten Museum, will let players walk its halls to read plaques describing the genocide against Jews in Nazi Germany and see photos of Jewish resistance fighters and heroic individuals who sheltered Jews. While Fortnite is typically used as a cartoony multiplayer competitive shooting game, visitors to the Museum, which will be offered as a separate, peaceful experience, will not be able to play the game inside it.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Teens Hacked Boston Subway Cards to Get Infinite Free Rides—and This Time, Nobody Got Sued. “In 2008, Boston’s transit authority sued to stop MIT hackers from presenting at the Defcon hacker conference on how to get free subway rides. Today, four teens picked up where they left off.”

TechCrunch: Google pushes Match for more money in antitrust battle, court filing states. “Google has filed a new motion to the court in its antitrust battle with Epic Games and Match Group, where it claims that the dating app maker owes additional fees beyond the $40 million that had been previously set aside in escrow. Those funds are Google’s cut of Match’s in-app payments on Google Play that Match argues are ‘illegal under federal and state law’ — something the court case will decide. By Google’s calculations, the new figure should total around $84 million instead, based on Match’s public earnings.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Drum: Fraudsters are already tricking Google’s Performance Max – what if it got worse?. “Mathew Ratty, co-founder and chief executive officer at TrafficGuard, has been testing Google’s next-gen buying platform – he’s worried fraudulent signals will corrupt the machine learning system.”

Business Insider: Researchers from Stanford and Google have made an entire AI village. The 25 bots that live there gossip, work, and plan Valentine’s Day parties.. “A research team at Stanford and Google has created a virtual village where 25 artificial-intelligence agents lead lives eerily reminiscent of our own. The bots ‘wake up,’ chat about the latest town gossip, and even plan events like Valentine’s Day parties.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

MakeUseOf: How Specialized QR Codes Make Packaging More Accessible to People With Vision Impairments. “Blind and partially sighted people often carry a computer companion—a smartphone running at least one of a battery of applications that help them navigate the world. Now a group of companies is supercharging the capabilities of those apps through a very slightly modified QR code. And the first packages with the ‘accessible QR codes’ are already on UK shelves.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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August 14, 2023 at 12:43AM
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Hip Hop History, Google Workspace, NERV App Japan, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, August 13, 2023

Hip Hop History, Google Workspace, NERV App Japan, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, August 13, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Celebrating 50 years of hip-hop. “For hip-hop’s golden milestone, we worked with Google Arts & Culture who partnered with hip-hop experts and institutions across the board to create a ‘cultural sampler’ honoring the impact the genre has on American culture, from social equity to fashion, music videos to local city pride, old school to trap. With 30+ curated stories and 960+ high resolution photographs and videos from 9 cultural organizations, you can get a taste of the key elements of hip-hop. Read on for 7 must-see stories.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Moscow Times: Google Blocks Workspace Apps for Sanctioned Russian Firms – Kommersant. “Google has started blocking its popular workplace apps for Russian companies under U.S. sanctions, the Kommersant business daily reported Friday, citing anonymous sources at two major IT companies. Around 30% of Russian companies’ corporate information is stored on Google Workspace services, which include Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Drive and other cloud-based tools, according to one of the sources’ estimates.”

Unseen Japan: Japan Earthquake Alert App Says Sayonara to X. “Japan’s best safety app for natural disasters will withdraw from X (formerly Twitter). 1.9M followers have relied on the app NERV for live information about real-time natural disasters and weather reports. Now, this life-saving information will begin its fadeout from the social media platform.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: Generative AI Is Making Companies Even More Thirsty for Your Data. “The outcry over Zoom’s tweak to its data policy shows how the race to build more powerful AI models creates new pressure to source training data—including by juicing it from users.”

CBC: B.C. woman buried in Amazon packages she did not ask for and does not want. “Almost every day, Anca Nitu comes home from work to find an Amazon package she did not order at her doorstep. For the past two months, Nitu says she’s received more than 50 parcels containing women’s shoes at her home in Langley, B.C. They were sent by people across North America who intended to return them to the Amazon seller, with each box containing a return authorization slip to her address.”

The Messenger: Authors Are Calling Out A Computer Scientist For Adding Their Work To His AI-Powered Website. “In recent Book Twitter controversy, a computer scientist shut down his AI website following backlash from authors — some of whom he stole from. In 2017, Benji Smith created Prosecraft, a linguistic tool meant to help aspiring writers with their work. This was done by writers inserting their stories into a desktop word processor Smith made called Shaxpir and comparing them to over 25,000 books in Prosecraft’s database.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

PetaPixel: All DJI Apps on Google Play are Frauds and Are Stealing Users’ Money. “The company published a warning to its users on the DJI Forums stating that there are some apps that will appear that imitate official DJI Apps (such as the DJI Fly – Go for Drone models or the DJI Earning app) that appear legitimate but instead seek to steal or defraud anyone who downloads them, DIY Photography reports. DJI’s official apps aren’t even listed on Google Play at all.”

Axios: Congress may let jet owners like Elon Musk block flight info. “Elon Musk and other private jet owners may soon be able to stop the public from learning about their flights, thanks to the FAA reauthorization bill recently passed by the House. Why it matters: Such information has proven useful to journalists and other researchers — but some plane owners, including Musk, have argued that it can pose a security risk.”

Washington Post: China hacked Japan’s sensitive defense networks, officials say. “Tokyo has taken steps to strengthen its networks. But they are still deemed not sufficiently secure from Beijing’s prying eyes, which, officials say, could impede greater intelligence-sharing between the Pentagon and Japan’s Defense Ministry. The 2020 penetration was so disturbing that Gen. Paul Nakasone, the head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, and Matthew Pottinger, who was White House deputy national security adviser at the time, raced to Tokyo. They briefed the defense minister, who was so concerned that he arranged for them to alert the prime minister himself.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNN: Linda Yaccarino was pressed about the chaos on Elon Musk’s X. Her answers were detached from reality. “Linda Yaccarino is living in a world of delusion. The Twitter/X figurehead on Thursday made a number of wild — and outright laughable — claims about the Elon Musk-owned company where she holds the title (at least on paper) as chief executive, seemingly unaware of the grim state of affairs at the imperiled platform.”

University College London: Social media use interventions alleviate symptoms of depression. “Receiving therapy for problematic social media use can be effective in improving the mental wellbeing of people with depression, finds a new study by UCL researchers.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Running Doom In A Keycap Takes Careful Work. ” Shoehorning DOOM into different hardware is a classic hacker’s exercise, and [TheKeebProject] managed to squeeze the 1993 classic into a custom keycap with the help of a Raspberry Pi RP2040, a custom PCB, and a clear resin enclosure. It even has a speaker for sound!” Good morning, Internet…

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August 13, 2023 at 05:28PM
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British Library Endangered Archives, Flickr, YouTube, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 12, 2023

British Library Endangered Archives, Flickr, YouTube, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 12, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

British Library Endangered Archives Blog: New online – July 2023. “Recent online collections include zoological records from Kenya, documents from a Sufi shrine in India, manuscripts from Java, and records from monasteries of cloistered nuns in Lima.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Flickr Blog: Preserving Public Lands: Flickr Joins the Mobilizing for Monuments Campaign. “At Flickr, we firmly believe in the power of collaboration to bring about positive change. That’s why we are thrilled to support the Mobilizing for Monuments initiative, an ambitious project committed to preserving our nation’s invaluable natural and cultural heritage for future generations.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: Clean Up Your YouTube Feed With These Chrome Extensions. “What started out as a site to watch videos is fast becoming a site to watch ads with some videos thrown in between. All of these design decisions have been made with one goal in mind—to increase engagement at all costs. As a result, YouTube’s desktop feed is a royal mess. Fortunately, with the right Chrome extensions, you can make YouTube a lot more fun to use.”

Digital Inspiration: How to Create Personalized Images in Bulk with Google Sheets. “Yesterday marked Friendship Day, and to celebrate, I sent a personalized image to each of my friends via WhatsApp. The images were created in bulk, but each graphic had the person’s name, making the greetings unique and heartfelt. To achieve this, I did employ some automation. First, I gathered the names of my friends in a Google Sheet. Then, I designed a graphic template in Canva and imported the design in Google Slides. The template had a placeholder – – that would be replaced with actual values from the Google Sheet.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Guardian: Supermarket AI meal planner app suggests recipe that would create chlorine gas. “A New Zealand supermarket experimenting with using AI to generate meal plans has seen its app produce some unusual dishes – recommending customers recipes for deadly chlorine gas, ‘poison bread sandwiches’ and mosquito-repellent roast potatoes.”

Associated Press: Paper exams, chatbot bans: Colleges seek to ‘ChatGPT-proof’ assignments. “For some instructors that means a return to paper exams, after years of digital-only tests. Some professors will be requiring students to show editing history and drafts to prove their thought process. Other instructors are less concerned. Some students have always found ways to cheat, they say, and this is just the latest option.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Deutsche Welle: Germany says Charming Kitten hackers target Iran dissidents. “Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has warned dissident Iranian activists about the threat of cyber espionage against them. The hackers work by gaining the trust of their targets.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Next Web: Influencers have made social media a booming market for counterfeit goods, study finds. “After analysing surveys of 2,000 people in the UK, the study team found around 22% of consumers who are active on social media have bought counterfeits endorsed by influencers. The researchers believe it’s the first-ever estimate of its kind. They warn that counterfeiters are exploiting the popularity of influencers to peddle harmful products.”

Library of Congress: Ensuring Enduring Access to eBooks: Update on Recent Research and Analysis . “The Library of Congress recently completed a project to analyze the technical characteristics of a substantial set of eBook and eJournal files in the permanent collection and available for onsite access in Stacks, the Library’s access system for rights restricted content. These files were selected because they contain embedded data such as audio, video, and other interactive features that are not fully transparent. The research and resulting analysis from this project will inform current action plans for access and preservation.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Washington University in St. Louis: Perovskite light emitters and detectors with the stroke of a pen. “Researchers working with Chuan Wang, associate professor of electrical & systems engineering, have developed ink pens that allow individuals to handwrite flexible, stretchable optoelectronic devices on everyday materials including paper, textiles, rubber, plastics and 3D objects. Flexible optoelectronics for emitting and detecting light, which are already found in everyday objects like smartphones and fitness trackers, can bend, fold and flex while maintaining functionality.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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August 13, 2023 at 12:55AM
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Data Journalism Course-In-A-Box, Ireland Genealogy, Google Drive, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, August 12, 2023

Data Journalism Course-In-A-Box, Ireland Genealogy, Google Drive, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, August 12, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of California San Francisco: COVID Tracking Project Archive Launches Open-Source Data Journalism “Course-in-a-Box”. “The Data Journalism Course-in-a-Box uses publicly available materials from the COVID Tracking Project Archive, housed at the University of California, San Francisco Archives and Special Collections, as a guide to teach the conceptual foundations of data journalism. The open-source set of five modules contains lecture materials, class exercises, technical walkthroughs, pacing guides, and other content that can be taught from start to finish in a stand-alone course or integrated into an existing course.”

Irish Central: 17th-century records of those who settled in Ulster now available online. “A valuable biographical and historical digital resource, the database makes innovative use of historical data relating to the English and Scottish men and women who settled in Ulster in the period between 1609 and 1641 along with the Gaelic Irish inhabitants who they interacted with.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google Docs and Drive are getting support for eSignatures. “Google is adding native support for eSignatures to Docs and Drive in an attempt to make it easier for users to request signatures and sign documents from within its cloud-based productivity software, the company has announced. Google is now releasing the ability to request and leave eSignatures in beta, after more than a year of testing the feature in alpha.”

The Daily Beast: Lil Tay’s Crypto-Hawking Ex-Manager Blames Bonkers Death Hoax on Her Brother. “The Wednesday post on Tay’s Instagram announced the unexpected deaths of both Lil Tay and her brother. But Tay, who rose to fame largely off the back of transparently-staged scandals, seemingly came forward 24 hours later, issuing a statement saying she was very much alive and had been hacked by a ‘3rd party.’ However, her ex-manager, Harry Tsang, who recently started touting a cryptocurrency coin in Tay’s name, said he didn’t think it was a hack at all.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Hill: Elon Musk auctioning Twitter signs, memorabilia . “X owner Elon Musk will auction off Twitter signs and other memorabilia starting next month, including the sign hung on the outside of the company’s headquarters.”

New York Times: Sweden Is Not Staying Neutral in Russia’s Information War. “Facing a tsunami of disinformation about the treatment of Muslims that has in recent months fueled protests from Stockholm to Baghdad, Sweden decided it needed to fight back. It turned to the Psychological Defense Agency, a part of the Ministry of Defense that its government created last year. The agency has become the first line of defense for a country facing a sustained information attack from abroad.”

The Guardian: ‘Our history is rotting away’: the newspaper archivists preserving Nigeria’s past. “Coups, civil wars, dictators, democracy … all the headlines that tell the country’s story since independence in 1960 are to be saved for posterity by an ambitious archive project.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Court skeptical of Biden admin’s bid to reverse curbs on social media contacts. “A federal appeals court on Thursday appeared skeptical of the Biden administration’s bid to reverse a court order sharply limiting its ability to ask social media companies to remove content that it considers to be misinformation.”

Engadget: Hack left majority of UK voters’ data exposed for over a year. “The UK’s Electoral Commission has revealed that some personal information of around 40 million voters was left exposed for over a year. The agency — which regulates party and election finance and elections in the country — said it was the target of a ‘complex cyberattack.’ It first detected suspicious activity on its network in October 2022, but said the intruders first gained access to its systems in August 2021.”

Boston Herald: Massachusetts police disciplinary records database could come next week, POST says. “State regulators plan to release a trove of law enforcement disciplinary records as early as next week, a move that would offer the public a detailed look at the backgrounds of their local cops, a top official at the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission said Thursday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Florida: Incentivized online reviews inflate product ratings, sales, even when disclosed. “New research based on thousands of reviews posted on Amazon shows that when people received free products in exchange for reviews, their ratings were significantly inflated — and product sales were stronger — even though reviewers disclosed that they received the product for free.”

WIRED: By Seizing @Music, Elon Musk Shows He Doesn’t Know What Made Twitter Good. “The confiscation is entirely within X’s terms of service. As the company tries to turn itself into an everything app, from music to video to finance, it’s likely it will need to stake a claim to handles related to its new business lines. But unilaterally taking a popular handle off a user could be bad business and another demonstration of how X under Musk is stripping away the things that made Twitter, Twitter.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 12, 2023 at 05:28PM
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Yandex, Video Editing Apps, Google, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 11, 2023

Yandex, Video Editing Apps, Google, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 11, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: Yandex co-founder Volozh slams Russia’s ‘barbaric’ invasion of Ukraine. “The co-founder of Russian internet giant Yandex, Arkady Volozh, on Thursday condemned what he described as Russia’s ‘barbaric’ invasion of Ukraine, days after criticism in Russia over his apparent efforts to distance himself from the country.”

USEFUL STUFF

Social Media Examiner: 11 Video Editing Apps for Short-Form Video. “Want to create more reels, TikToks, and shorts? Looking for creative solutions to improve production and quality? In this article, you’ll discover 11 video editing apps to produce short-form content for Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Google’s AI ambassador walks a fine line between hype and doom. “Amid the excited hype about artificial intelligence at Google’s annual developer conference in May, it fell to James Manyika, the company’s new head of ‘tech and society,’ to talk about the downsides of AI. Before thousands of people packed into an outdoor arena, Manyika discussed the scourge of fake images and how AI echoes society’s racism and sexism. New problems will emerge, he warned, as the tech improves. But rest assured that Google is taking ‘a responsible approach to AI,’ he told the crowd.”

Geekwire: Wizards of the Coast updating artist guidelines after AI art found in ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ book . “Wizards of the Coast will update its artist guidelines to prohibit the use of illustrations that were made with generative AI tools, after fans spotted telltale signs of AI art in an upcoming sourcebook for Dungeons & Dragons.”

PC World: Google Drive review: Solid cloud storage, but the settings can be confusing. “Google Drive is neither the best nor the cheapest, but for Android users who want reasonably easy backup and the ability to keep files synchronized between different devices with different operating systems, this is the best option.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: This Is a Reminder That You’re Probably Oversharing on Venmo. “Even if you seldom use Venmo today, the app is most likely leaking sensitive information about you to the general public. How do I know? I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I recently discovered that my contacts list, which includes the names of people in my phone book, was published on Venmo for anyone using the app to see.”

Variety: YouTube Superstar MrBeast Sued for $100 Million by Company Behind His Virtual Burger Restaurant Chain. “The biggest YouTube star in the world — Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast — is being sued by Virtual Dining Concepts, the ghost kitchen company that operates his virtual restaurant chain, MrBeast Burger.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Georgia: Misinformation on Social Media . “From the 2023 CakeGate dispute that almost ruined a woman’s business to the internet war that rippled through the BookTok community after the fake death of a romance novelist, the sheer volume of users on social media can make it difficult to control the backlash. ”

ProPublica: We Carry the Burden of Repatriating Our Ancestors. Here’s What It’s Like to Report on the Process as an Indigenous Journalist.. “Mary Hudetz describes the financial cost and emotional distress that tribal communities face as they continue to wait for the return of the remains of their ancestors, thousands of which are held in museums across the country.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

West Volusia Beacon: Quakers give away hundreds of Black-history books. “The Quakers had been collecting books for months as a response to the widespread culling of Black-history books from school libraries in reaction to the Anti-Woke Act promoted by Gov. Ron DeSantis and passed by the Florida Legislature, making it a felony to teach or lend books on Black history not vetted by the Florida Department of Education. We were hoping to get 100 books. But books kept coming. We were stunned to receive nearly 500 books in the mail, delivered by UPS, and left on doorsteps. A woman in Pennsylvania donated $100 by PayPal.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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August 12, 2023 at 12:25AM
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New York City Evictions, Online Safety for Children, AI-Generated Poetry, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, August 11, 2023

New York City Evictions, Online Safety for Children, AI-Generated Poetry, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, August 11, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Gothamist: NYC’s eviction hotspots: Tracking the 10K removals since moratorium ended. “To better understand where evictions are occurring, what’s driving them and how they affect New Yorkers and the economy, Gothamist is launching an eviction tracker utilizing publicly available city data with key maps, charts and distinct takeaways that distill the city’s tens of thousands of eviction records — and what you can do if you or your neighbors face eviction.”

New York Times: Amid Sextortion’s Rise, Computer Scientists Tap A.I. to Identify Risky Apps. “Over the past two years, Mr. [Brian] Levine has sought to help parents by designing a computational model that assesses customers’ reviews of social apps. Using artificial intelligence to evaluate the context of reviews with words such as ‘child porn’ or ‘pedo,’ he and a team of researchers have built a searchable website called the App Danger Project, which provides clear guidance on the safety of social networking apps.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google’s Arts & Culture app adds AI-generated poem postcards. “Google has launched a new tool that lets you create AI-generated poem postcards based on a piece of artwork and a subject of your choice. The addition of poem postcards comes as part of Google’s broader redesign of its Arts & Culture app and its rollout of generative AI features across its other services, like text creation in Docs and the ability to generate code with AI in Sheets.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Gizmodo: CNET Deletes Thousands of Old Articles to Game Google Search. “Archived copies of CNET’s author pages show the company deleted small batches of articles prior to the second half of July, but then the pace increased. Thousands of articles disappeared in recent weeks. A CNET representative confirmed that the company was culling stories but declined to share exactly how many it has taken down. The move adds to recent controversies over CNET’s editorial strategy, which has included layoffs and experiments with error-riddled articles written by AI chatbots.” Very glad I yeeted CNET from my RSS feeds.

Daily Beast: A ‘Handsome Daddy Putin’ Bug Is Plaguing China’s Internet. “Last year, a man claiming to be a Russian soldier fighting in Moscow’s war in Ukraine started posting triumphant videos from what he claimed was the battlefield on a Chinese social media app, applauding Russian fighting and calling for a Kremlin victory. But things started to get fishy when the supposedly Russian soldier peddling anti-American and pro-Kremlin narratives around the war had impeccable Chinese pronunciation in his videos, according to the South China Morning Post.”

The Fader: Report: UMG in discussions with Google to license artists’ voices for deepfakes. “Universal Music Group and Google have started to discuss the prospect of officially licensing artists’ voices for deepfakes, the Financial Times reports. Both parties reportedly hope to develop a tool that would allow the public to create their own officially licensed deepfakes.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Special counsel obtained search warrant for Donald Trump’s Twitter account. “The special counsel investigation into Donald Trump secured a search warrant of the former president’s Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, according to a newly unsealed court filing. The search was so secret that Twitter was initially barred from telling Trump the search warrant had been obtained for his account, and the company, now known as ‘X,’ was fined $350,000 because it delayed producing the records sought under the search warrant.”

Reuters: White House Launches AI-Based Contest to Secure Government Systems From Hacks. “The White House on Wednesday said it had launched a multimillion-dollar cyber contest to spur use of artificial intelligence (AI) to find and fix security flaws in U.S. government infrastructure, in the face of growing use of the technology by hackers for malicious purposes.”

Rolling Stone: Elon Musk, Who Wants Women to Procreate as Much As Possible, Accused of Discriminating Against Mom Employees. “SEVEN FORMER TWITTER employees are suing the website, now rebranded as X, for racial discrimination, age discrimination, and violations of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act in the wake of Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform, according to court documents.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Diplomat: Social Media and the Fight For Political Influence in Southeast Asia. “Social media has become an increasingly important tool in political campaigns in Southeast Asia. Politicians and national factions in the region are using platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok to reach out to voters, spread their message, and mobilize support. In the contemporary digital era, several steps can be done to ensure that the use of social media has positive impacts. In this article, we argue that learning from Southeast Asia’s experiences may provide insights into social media usage trends ahead of future elections.”

Cornell University: Algorithm overlooks Spanish speakers in online SNAP ads. “A Cornell-led research team has discovered that the algorithm behind Google Ads charged significantly more to deliver online ads to Spanish-speaking people about the benefits of SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.”

American College of Surgeons: Social Media Influences Surgical Training. “Surgical training has long relied on traditional methods, such as didactic lectures, hands-on experiences, and mentoring by experienced surgeons. However, the emergence of communication platforms has ushered in a new era of learning and knowledge dissemination. Social media platforms, with their immense reach and accessibility, have provided surgeons and trainees with unprecedented opportunities to share their experiences, exchange ideas, and engage with a global community of medical professionals.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 11, 2023 at 05:27PM
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