WWII Aerial Photography, Microsoft Copilot AI, Twitter, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 15, 2023

WWII Aerial Photography, Microsoft Copilot AI, Twitter, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 15, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

BBC: World War Two aerial photos opened to public for first time. “A collection of photographs taken during World War Two have been opened to the public for the first time. The aerial images were taken by the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) Photographic Reconnaissance units while stationed at bases across England in 1943 and 1944.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Microsoft’s Copilot AI can now help deploy field workers. “Microsoft is bringing generative AI to frontline field workers by integrating its Copilot AI assistant into its field services platform, streamlining workflows but also enabling supervisors to know what technicians are doing on the job.”

TechCrunch: X, formerly Twitter, slowed down access to Threads, The New York Times, Bluesky and more. “X, formerly known as Twitter, was throttling traffic to websites that the social network’s owner Elon Musk publicly dislikes. The platform slowed down the speed it takes when accessing links to a handful of websites, including The New York Times, Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, Reuters and Substack. The platform appears to be reversing the slow access to news sites on Tuesday afternoon.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The Best Snapchat Filters List and Essential Snapchat Lenses . “This list of the best Snapchat filters and lenses covers the essentials: the basic filters Snapchat offers, the names of some big Snapchat filters, how to access your local geofilters, and some of the best Snapchat lenses to use.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Rolling Stone: These Women Tried to Warn Us About AI. “TIMNIT GEBRU DIDN’T set out to work in AI. At Stanford, she studied electrical engineering — getting both a bachelor’s and a master’s in the field. Then she became interested in image analysis, getting her Ph.D. in computer vision. When she moved over to AI, though, it was immediately clear that there was something very wrong.”

ABC News (Australia): Nurse stranded in desert without food, water after Google Maps gave her wrong directions. “Police are urging travellers to properly prepare before driving in the outback after botched Google Maps directions left an Alice Springs nurse stranded in the Central Australian desert without food or water.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: When Hackers Descended to Test A.I., They Found Flaws Aplenty. “The hackers tried to break through the safeguards of various A.I. programs in an effort to identify their vulnerabilities — to find the problems before actual criminals and misinformation peddlers did — in a practice known as red-teaming. Each competitor had 50 minutes to tackle up to 21 challenges — getting an A.I. model to ‘hallucinate’ inaccurate information, for example. They found political misinformation, demographic stereotypes, instructions on how to carry out surveillance and more.”

Ars Technica: Illinois just made it possible to sue people for doxxing attacks. “Last Friday, Illinois became one of the few states to pass an anti-doxxing law, making it possible for victims to sue attackers who ‘intentionally’ publish their personally identifiable information with intent to harm or harass them. (Doxxing is sometimes spelled ‘doxing.’)”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Wisconsin-Madison: During pandemic, proponents of ‘doing your own research’ believed more COVID misinformation. “According to a new study Chinn and Hasell published recently in the Harvard Kennedy School’s Misinformation Review, people who were supportive of the phrase ‘doing your own research’ were more likely to be distrustful of scientists and more likely to believe misinformation about COVID-19. Even when controlling for the type of media they consumed, the DYOR fans among the researchers’ panel of about 1,000 survey respondents grew more distrustful and more ill-informed about COVID-19 even as news of successful vaccine trials emerged.”

UC Davis: UC Davis Researchers Exploring Data and AI Tools for Animal Health Diagnosis and Treatment. “The rise of AI based technology may play an important role in human healthcare from diagnostics to treatment. Using a data-driven approach, AI may be able to help doctors analyze and assess diseases more efficiently. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, are now exploring ways to use AI for the benefit of animal health.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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August 17, 2023 at 12:10AM
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Maryland Vaccination Clinics, Israel Cartography, Twitter, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, August 16, 2023

Maryland Vaccination Clinics, Israel Cartography, Twitter, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, August 16, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

This issue is far more Twitter-oriented than I prefer. The afternoon issue will be better.

NEW RESOURCES

Maryland Department of Health: Maryland Department of Health launches new website listing vaccination clinics at local health departments statewide. “The Maryland Department of Health has launched health.maryland.gov/vaccines, which lists vaccination clinics offered by local health departments statewide, including children’s back-to-school and COVID-19 clinics. The new site will also list flu vaccination clinics when available.”

Times of Israel: National Library expands cartographic holdings with 400 rare maps. “The National Library of Israel received some 466 rare maps and 120 books with prints, illustrations and maps of the Land of Israel, from collector Howard Golden…. The National Library cataloged and digitized the maps for preservation and research purposes, which are online, downloadable and available free-of-charge for students, researchers and visitors from Israel and abroad.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Axios: Scoop: X shuts down $100M promoted accounts ad business. “X, the company formerly known as Twitter, will no longer allow advertisers to promote their accounts within the platform’s timeline to attract new followers, according to an email to advertising clients obtained by Axios.” This is crazy. Twitter probably doesn’t have a golden goose anymore, but this is at least an aluminum goose and it doesn’t make sense to toss it in the recycling bin.

TechCrunch: X (formerly Twitter) makes X Pro (formerly TweetDeck) a subscriber-only product. “Elon Musk-owned social network X, formerly Twitter, has made X Pro — which was previously known as TweetDeck — a subscriber-only product. Several users noted on the platform that while trying to access TweetDeck they were shown a popup prompting them to buy a Blue subscription.” When this happens, my already severely-curtailed use of Twitter will drop another 99%. Catch me on Mastodon: researchbuzz@researchbuzz.masto.host .

PC World: TL;DR: Google is adding AI web page summaries to Chrome. “Google is bringing one element of its AI-powered ‘Search Generative Experience’ (SGE) to Google Chrome, following in the footsteps of Microsoft and its migration of Bing Chat into Edge and mainstream search experiences.”

USEFUL STUFF

Social Media Examiner: How to Quickly Create Quality YouTube Shorts. “Want to publish more shorts on YouTube? Looking for an easy-to-use tool? In this article, you’ll discover why you should prioritize short-form content for YouTube. You’ll also learn how to create shorts from existing videos with YouTube native tools.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CityLife: Google’s Gemni: A High-Stakes Move in Artificial Intelligence. “In a bold move, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai decided to merge two major artificial intelligence (AI) teams within the company in April. This decision was driven by the need to catch up to and surpass competitors like OpenAI. Now, Google is preparing to launch a series of large machine-learning models, collectively known as Gemini, in the upcoming fall.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: The Kids Online Safety Act isn’t all right, critics say. “Debate continues to rage over the federal Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which seeks to hold platforms liable for feeding harmful content to minors. KOSA is lawmakers’ answer to whistleblower Frances Haugen’s shocking revelations to Congress. In 2021, Haugen leaked documents and provided testimony alleging that Facebook knew that its platform was addictive and was harming teens—but blinded by its pursuit of profits, it chose to ignore the harms.”

Rolling Stone: X, Formerly Twitter, Wants Lawsuit From Music Publishers Thrown Out. “In the motion, reviewed by Rolling Stone, X cited a 2005 supreme court ruling from MGM Studios v. Grokester and maintained that the suit should be tossed because the publishers ‘do not allege that X encouraged, induced, or intended to foster the infringement of Plaintiffs’ works,’ further arguing that the music publishers ‘must allege that the defendant took active steps with the intent of encouraging infringement.'”

CNN: Special counsel investigating Jan. 6 sought Trump’s direct messages from Twitter, court transcripts reveal. “The special counsel’s investigation into Donald Trump and the aftermath of the 2020 election sought the former president’s Twitter direct messages, of which there were many, federal prosecutors and lawyers for Twitter revealed in newly unsealed transcripts from February court hearings about the search warrant.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Platformer: Elon Musk’s creep show . “To his dwindling fan base, all this will no doubt play as more swaggering derring-do from their real-life Iron Man. But to his employees, his investors, his family and his friends – I wonder if they don’t see something stranger, and darker, going on. For the rest of us, it’s another cringeworthy sideshow on the road to X’s eventual bankruptcy. And one more example of Musk as that most familiar figure: the noisy forum shitposter, forever writing checks with his mouth that his body can’t cash.”

Sydney Morning Herald: Twitter is dead, but what about me?. “Twitter is dead. If we didn’t know it for sure before, the last few weeks have confirmed it. It’s a shambles. It’s glitchy, full of ads, and becoming progressively more unusable. Elon tried changing the entire thing to ‘X’, like a teenager trying to rebrand because nobody at his new school knows he’s a loser yet, but with every new decision the app is hemorrhaging advertisers and users.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 16, 2023 at 05:28PM
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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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