Supply Chain Regulations Mapped, Internet Archive, YouTube, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 15, 2023

Supply Chain Regulations Mapped, Internet Archive, YouTube, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 15, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

FeedNavigator: New interactive tool designed to show country-specific supply chain regulations . “Risk assurer, LRQA, has published a map outlining country-specific supply chain and [Environmental, Social and Governance] legislation.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Publishers Weekly: Judgment Entered in Publishers, Internet Archive Copyright Case. “More than four months after a federal judge found the Internet Archive liable for copyright infringement for its program to scan and lend library books, the parties have delivered a negotiated agreement for a judgment to be entered in the case. But a final resolution in the case could still be many months, if not years, away, as Internet Archive officials have vowed to appeal.”

The Verge: YouTube starts mass takedowns of videos promoting ‘harmful or ineffective’ cancer cures. “The platform will also take action against videos that discourage people from seeking professional medical treatment as it sets out its health policies going forward.”

NBC News: Zuckerberg dismisses Musk for avoiding cage fight: ‘It’s time to move on’. “The long-hyped possibility of a cage match between tech titans Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk appears to be no more after Zuckerberg dismissed Musk for allegedly delaying their anticipated showdown in the ring. ‘I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on,’ Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, wrote Sunday on Threads, the text-based app Meta launched as a competitor to X, the company formerly known as Twitter.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Wrap: New York Times Moves to Block AI Training From Published Content, Adds Ban to Terms of Service. “The New York Times has instituted a ban on using its content to train artificial intelligence systems. In its most recent update to the terms of service on its website, dated Aug. 3, the paper of record now includes a prohibition on the ‘use the content for the development of any software program, including, but not limited to, training a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system.'”

Route Fifty: More states look to boost kids’ social media literacy . “The push for greater social media literacy is in keeping with several states’ efforts to boost the overall digital literacy of their young people, something that has caught on in states like Illinois, New Jersey and others amid worries about misinformation and a lack of civic online reasoning.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Maker of Chrome extension with 300,000+ users tells of constant pressure to sell out. “In the past nine years, Oleg Anashkin, a software developer based in San Jose, California, has received more than 130 solicitations to monetize his Chrome browser extension, Hover Zoom+. The latest of these proposals, which generally involve adding code from a third-party partner that gathers data or places ads, arrived by email on Wednesday.”

Associated Press: Stolen antiquities returned to Italy. “Italy celebrated the return Friday of 266 antiquities from the United States, including Etruscan vases and ancient Roman coins and mosaics worth tens of millions of dollars that were looted and sold to U.S. museums and private collectors. The returned items include artifacts recently seized in New York from a storage unit belonging to British antiquities dealer Robin Symes, officials said. In addition, the haul that arrived in Rome included 65 objects from Houston’s Menil Collection.”

TechCrunch: How the FBI goes after DDoS cyberattackers. “DDoS is a form of cyberattack where bad actors flood websites with malicious traffic with the goal of taking them offline. DDoS attacks had existed for years before 2016, but the fact that this one incident took down so many major services drew the attention of people who didn’t know much about cybersecurity. Since then, no DDoS attack has ever been so newsworthy, but the problem hasn’t gotten away.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

J-Wire: Yad Vashem using AI to restore memory of Holocaust. “Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Centre in Jerusalem announced Sunday that it has started using state-of-the-art AI technology including a new image detection capability to help comb through the world’s largest archive documentation of the Holocaust.”

Maldita: How electoral fraud conspiracy theories went viral on TikTok after the 2023 Spanish general elections. “The general elections on July 23 have been followed by a wave of disinformation that says there has been a fraud to alter the results. This is a conspiracy theory that is sweeping TikTok, whose algorithm means that the more videos you consume with disinformation narratives about this alleged electoral fraud, the more they will continue to appear on your feed.”

La Trobe University: Online trolls impact local council participation. “A new study, led by La Trobe University researchers, has found that women councillors experience more gender-based (on and off-line) incivility than men across the election campaign and during their first year in office. The study highlights the impact hostility and bullying has on the willingness of women to put their hand up for local elections, with double the number of women than men reporting unwillingness to run in future elections.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 15, 2023 at 05:28PM
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Cult of the Dead Cow, Google Discover, Educational Podcasts, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 14, 2023

Cult of the Dead Cow, Google Discover, Educational Podcasts, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 14, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Engadget: America’s original hacking supergroup creates a free framework to improve app security. “Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc), a hacking group known for its activist endeavors, built an open source tool for developers to build secure apps. Veilid, launched at DEF CON on Friday, has options like letting users opt out of data collection and online tracking as a part of the group’s mission to fight against the commercialization of the internet.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: Google Discover getting air quality (AQI) card. “In addition to directly surfacing it when searching for air quality, Google is getting ready to show AQI in Discover on Android and iOS.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: 14 podcasts to teach kids about history, identity, and current events. “Mashable spoke with [Christine] Elgersma and scoured Common Sense Media’s review guides to get the top recommendations for child-friendly and thought-provoking podcasts that cover a range of topics from history to politics to identity.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Bleeping Computer: Best VPN browser extensions for Google Chrome. “If you’re searching for the best VPN extensions for Google Chrome, you’ve come to the right place. Keep your information private and prevent trackers from intercepting your data.”

Taiwan News: Unlocking the Past: Digital Archives Illuminate Taiwan’s History. “When we flip through photo albums from our childhood days, the pictures call up memories both bitter and sweet. Those experiences shaped the people we have become. If we extend this notion back by 30, 50, or 100 years to images of the places where we and our families have lived, will we not find clues to the living conditions and historical events that our parents and grandparents experienced, and discover the elements that have molded the era in which we live today?”

Poynter: How some local newsrooms are using AI. “When OpenAI unveiled its natural language model ChatGPT in November, local news publishers quickly took notice, imagining what the tool could do for their journalism. One of them was Scott Brodbeck, founder and CEO of Local News Now, which operates local news sites in Virginia including flagship ARLnow.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Music labels sue Internet Archive over digitized record collection. “Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and other record labels on Friday sued the non-profit Internet Archive for copyright infringement over its streaming collection of digitized music from vintage records.”

The Register: Inside the Black Hat network operations center, volunteers work in geek heaven. “Every summer, pandemics permitting, a group of volunteers gather in a Las Vegas hotel to run one of the more unusual examples of IT infrastructure on the planet: the Black Hat network operations center. With more than 20,000 conference attendees spending the best part of a week attending classes to hone security skills, and talks about the latest exploits, you’d expect the network to be under constant assault. Attacks do happen, but as one of the NOC crew explained to The Register, not as often as you might think.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PsyPost: U.S. senators tend to have greater approval and reach when using “greed communication” in tweets. “An analysis of tweets of U.S. senators holding office between 2013 and 2021 showed that a specific communication factor called ‘greed communication’ predicts their approval and reach on the social media platform. Democratic senators who used more greed communication tended to have greater approval and retweets compared to Republican senators who used the same communication pattern.”

PC World: Robots soundly beat humans in bot-spotting captcha tests. “Websites use captchas to protect online systems and forms from automated robots that crawl sites daily for various purposes. But a new study from the University of California shows that today’s robots are actually better and faster at solving captcha challenges than humans.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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August 15, 2023 at 12:02AM
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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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