Panda Palooza, Claude Pro, WordPress Plugins, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 10, 2023

Panda Palooza, Claude Pro, WordPress Plugins, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 10, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

EVENTS

Smithsonian: Smithsonian’s National Zoo Hosts Panda Palooza: A Giant Farewell, Sept. 23 to Oct. 1. “The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) will celebrate its three giant pandas before the bears depart for China later this year. Visitors are invited to join the Panda Palooza, a nine-day onsite and online series of events in honor of 25-year-old Mei Xiang (may-SHONG), 26-year-old Tian Tian (tee-YEN tee-YEN) and 3-year-old Xiao Qi Ji (SHIAU-chi-ji) from Sept. 23 to Oct. 1.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: The AI-assistant wars heat up with Claude Pro, a new ChatGPT Plus rival. “On Thursday, AI-maker and OpenAI competitor Anthropic launched Claude Pro, a subscription-based version of its Claude.ai web-based AI assistant, which functions similarly to ChatGPT. It’s available for $20/month in the US or 18 pounds/month in the UK, and it promises five-times-higher usage limits, priority access to Claude during high-traffic periods, and early access to new features as they emerge.”

USEFUL STUFF

Search Engine Journal: Creating A Simple WordPress Plugin With 6 AI Chatbots. “I tested six AI chatbots by creating a WordPress plugin. Find out if ChatGPT, Bard, Bing, Claude, Code Llama, and Llama 2 completed the task.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Federal News Network: National Archives prepares to ramp up work in new federal records system. “The National Archives and Records Administration is addressing bugs and user experience kinks in its new system for managing electronic records, and NARA plans to allow agencies to begin using the system more widely later this month.”

The Next Web: Ukraine’s fight against disinformation is creating a new startup sector. “Government campaigns had prepared Ukrainians for digital disinformation. When the crude deepfake appeared, the clip was quickly debunked, removed from social media platforms, and disproven by Zelenskyy in a genuine video. The incident became a symbol of the wider information war. Analysts had expected Russia’s propaganda weapons to wreak havoc, but Ukraine was learning to disarm them. Those lessons are now fostering a new sector for startups: counter-disinformation.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Lost in AI translation: growing reliance on language apps jeopardizes some asylum applications. “Carlos, who is Afro-Indigenous, speaks Portuguese but does not read or write it. Staff at the Calexico, California, detention center spoke only English or Spanish. The staff used an artificial intelligence-powered voice-translation tool to interpret what Carlos was saying, but the system didn’t pick up or understand his regional accent or dialect. So Carlos spent six months in Ice detention unable to meaningfully communicate with anyone.”

New York Times: A $700 Million Bonanza for the Winners of Crypto’s Collapse: Lawyers. “Bankruptcy lawyers and other corporate turnaround specialists have reaped major fees from the bankruptcies of five cryptocurrency companies, including FTX.”

Bleeping Computer: Freecycle confirms massive data breach impacting 7 million users. “Freecycle, an online forum dedicated to exchanging used items rather than trashing them, confirmed a massive data breach that affected more than 7 million users. The nonprofit organization says it discovered the breach on Wednesday, weeks after a threat actor put the stolen data for sale on a hacking forum on May 30, warning affected people to switch passwords immediately.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Illinois: Twitter analysis captures nutrition chatter early in pandemic . “A new study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research from authors at UIC and Texas Woman’s University Institute for Health Sciences used data from Twitter to assess how non-expert users discussed one area of heavy interest during COVID-19: nutrition. By analyzing over 70,000 tweets posted between January and September 2020, the authors characterized the most common topics of conversation, identifying supplements, fluids and fruits as especially prominent.”

ScienceDaily: ChatGPT is debunking myths on social media around vaccine safety, say experts. “ChatGPT could help to increase vaccine uptake by debunking myths around jab safety, say the authors of a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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September 11, 2023 at 12:14AM
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New Jersey Coastal Restoration, Ukraine Cultural Heritage, YouTube, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, September 10, 2023

New Jersey Coastal Restoration, Ukraine Cultural Heritage, YouTube, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, September 10, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

State of New Jersey: DEP Launches Online Mapping Tool To Target And Coordinate Coastal Resilience Projects. “The Coastal Ecological Restoration and Adaptation Planning Tool (CERAP Tool), provides the locations of at-risk areas, coastal resource restoration sites, and other data that will greatly assist in the targeting, development and coordination of projects needed to adapt communities to rising sea levels, increased flooding and more severe storms associated with climate change.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

UNESCO: Ukraine: 20 cultural properties receive enhanced protection by UNESCO’s Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention . “Today, the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict held an extraordinary meeting to strengthen the protection of cultural heritage in Ukraine, including the granting of provisional enhanced protection to 20 cultural properties as well as deciding the training of Ukrainian security forces and judiciary personnel on heritage protection.”

Lifehacker: YouTube Lets You Sort Videos By Color Now, for Some Reason. “YouTube now lets you sort your home page by color, so only videos predominately featuring the chosen hue will appear. The company doesn’t offer you a color wheel to choose from, either. Instead, we get three colors: red, green, and blue.” This apparently is a mobile-only feature.

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 15 Best Note-taking Mobile Apps to Organize Your Thoughts (2023). “Note-taking apps make it a convenient and easy way to jot down thoughts, ideas, and reminders right on your mobile device. In today’s fast-paced world, having a tool that allows for quick and organized note-taking can be a game-changer. Whether you’re a student juggling multiple assignments, a professional managing complex projects, or someone who simply wants to keep track of daily tasks and personal reflections, the right app can make all the difference.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

USC Marshall: Crowdfunding is a Boon for Many Projects, but Why Doesn’t it Work as Well for Social Impact Initiatives?. “In new research, published in Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, the team, including USC Marshall School of Business Professor Jill Kickul, identified strategies to incentivize individuals to more readily contribute to social impact projects through crowdfunding. As part of this work, the team sought to better understand what motivates individuals to contribute to social impact work in the first place.”

Poynter: How a YouTube channel about farming transitioned to misinformation about doomsday prepping. “Nearly every week, [Patrick] Humphrey posts new videos that stoke fear of impending disaster or claim that a catastrophe has already happened, a tactic linked to doomsday prepping that has rapidly increased his audience. As of late August, he had more than 91,000 YouTube subscribers, a significant increase from the 6,000-subscriber milestone he celebrated just one year ago.”

Engadget: The AI-generated fake Drake and The Weeknd track is ‘not eligible’ for a Grammy. “Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. is setting the record straight. After Variety reported earlier this week that an AI-generated track echoing the voices of Drake and The Weeknd would be considered for a Grammy Award, Mason is insisting that’s not the case. The track, Heart on My Sleeve, was created and submitted for consideration by someone using the pseudonym ‘Ghostwriter.’ The song features lyrics written by Ghostwriter but imitates the voices of the rappers without consent.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Court eases curbs on Biden administration’s contacts with social media firms. “A federal appeals court on Friday ruled the White House, the FBI and top health officials may not ‘coerce or significantly encourage’ social-media companies to remove content the Biden administration considers misinformation, including about COVID-19. But the three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed much of an injunction issued by a Louisiana judge that restricted Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration from communicating with social-media companies.”

WTTW: Police Oversight Board Votes to Permanently Scrap New Chicago Gang Database. “Nearly four and a half years after the city’s watchdog warned the police department’s gang databases were riddled with errors, ripe for abuse and disproportionately targeted Black and Latino Chicagoans, an interim commission overseeing the Chicago Police Department voted to scrap plans to launch a new system.”

The Guardian: Elon Musk ‘committed evil’ with Starlink order, says Ukrainian official. “A senior Ukrainian official has accused Elon Musk of ‘committing evil’ after a new biography revealed details about how the business magnate ordered his Starlink satellite communications network to be turned off near the Crimean coast last year to hobble a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Stanford University: Stanford Ethicists Developing Guidelines for the Safe Inclusion of Pediatric Data in AI-Driven Medical Research. “…the international SPIRIT-AI and CONSORT-AI initiative has recently established guidelines for AI and machine learning in medical research. These frameworks, however, have not outlined specific considerations for pediatric populations. Children present uniquely complex data quandaries for AI, especially regarding consent and equity.”

Newswise: AI more accurately identifies patients with advanced lung cancer that respond to immunotherapy and helps doctors select treatments. “Treatment planning for lung cancer can often be complex due to variations in assessing immune biomarkers. In a new study, Yale Cancer Center researchers at Yale School of Medicine used artificial intelligence (AI) tools and digital pathology to improve the accuracy of this process.” Good morning, Internet…

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September 10, 2023 at 05:30PM
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9/11 Photography, Tennessee Charter Schools, Immigrants in Chicago, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 9, 2023

9/11 Photography, Tennessee Charter Schools, Immigrants in Chicago, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 9, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation: New Historic Image Collection: The World Trade Center, 9/11, and Its Aftermath, as Seen from Our Neighborhoods. “We are proud to share the latest addition to our Historic Image Archive, the Robert Fisch World Trade Center and 9/11 Collection, which contains an incredible array of photos of the pre-9/11 World Trade Center, the 9/11 attacks, their aftermath, and the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. Many of the images are from the perspective of Greenwich Village, where Robert lives, and where he has long documented in pictures the world around him.”

Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury: New Online Resources Focus on Charter Schools. “The Tennessee Comptroller’s Office is releasing a new collection of resources on charter schools in Tennessee. As of the 2023-24 school year, more than 100 charter schools operate in the state under six authorizers. More charter schools are set to open in 2024-25. The charter school series includes short publications, infographics, and an interactive data dashboard for Tennessee charter schools. A new publication will be released online weekly over the coming weeks.”

Block Club Chicago: Alderman Launches Migrant Data Portal, Improving Transparency On Care For New Arrivals. “The website will provide weekly updates on the number of migrants in the city, new arrivals, shelter locations and other data, as well as efforts by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration and city departments to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis, Vasquez said. The data includes how many migrants are staying in each shelter, in police stations and other locations.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Roblox’s new AI chatbot will help you build virtual worlds. “Roblox announced a new conversational AI assistant at its 2023 Roblox Developers Conference (RDC) that can help creators more easily make experiences for the popular social app. The new tool, the Roblox Assistant, builds on previously announced features that let creators build virtual assets and write code with the help of generative AI.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Mashable: X is no longer labeling ads for some users. “Multiple users on X have recently reported advertisements showing up on their feed without any disclosure or labeling. The paid ads being served to users appear as organic posts (aka tweets) and show up like non-paid content, right in a user’s feed.”

Wall Street Journal: Inside Musk’s Twitter Transformation: Impulsive Decisions, Favors for Friends. “When he felt his own posts weren’t being seen widely enough, he marshaled dozens of company engineers to make his postings some of the platform’s most visible, according to people involved in that effort. At one point, he said a program designed to flag abusive posts would no longer be extended to the accounts of employees, resulting in a harassment campaign that drove one former executive out of his home, some of the people said. X has said Yaccarino and Musk jointly oversee decisions for the company’s trust and safety department, which handles what kinds of posts should or shouldn’t be online. Current and former employees said Musk often calls the shots himself.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

SF Chronicle: X, formerly Twitter, sues California over content moderation law. “X, the site formerly known as Twitter, sued the state of California Friday over a law passed last year requiring social media companies to divulge their terms of service, including how they moderate content on their sites. The lawsuit claims the law, authored by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, violates the company’s freedom of speech, while Gabriel said the law is designed to increase transparency around an important topic.”

Ars Technica: FTC judge rules Intuit broke law, must stop advertising TurboTax as “free”. “The Federal Trade Commission’s chief administrative law judge ruled that Intuit violated US law with deceptive advertising and should be forced to stop promoting TurboTax as ‘free’ unless all conditions imposed on the free offer are immediately and conspicuously displayed to consumers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

National Review: TikTok’s Secret Effort to Influence American Higher Education. “Since 2019, ByteDance has spent nearly $18 million on lobbying the American government. But its eight-figure funding campaign to American universities has fallen under the radar. This is because all but one of the recipients of TikTok funds failed to properly report the donations to the Department of Education.”

Colorado Sun: Fort Lewis College suddenly pulls plug on rare skiing injury database. “Fort Lewis College last month suddenly pulled the plug on a year-old program that had business and marketing students surveying skiers to assemble a first-of-its-kind database exploring collisions and injuries on ski slopes.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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September 10, 2023 at 12:24AM
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Flora of Virginia, Learning WordPress, ChatGPT, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, September 9, 2023

Flora of Virginia, Learning WordPress, ChatGPT, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, September 9, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

George Mason University: Explore Virginia’s natural communities using the Flora of Virginia app. ” The Foundation of the Flora of Virginia Project (the Flora) has launched a new guide to the Natural Communities of Virginia with the Flora of the Virginia smart-phone app.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress News: Welcome to Our Brand New Learning Hub. “We’re thrilled to unveil the new and refreshed WordPress.com learning hub! This new resource is easily accessible at WordPress.com/learn. Our mission is to create a central place for all your educational needs. In this post we’ll give you a tour of the new digs and explain the behind-the-scenes design work that has made this resource more accessible, more navigable, and more enjoyable to use.”

Reuters: Exclusive: ChatGPT traffic slips again for third month in a row. “Worldwide desktop and mobile website visits to the ChatGPT website decreased by 3.2% to 1.43 billion in August, following approximately 10% drops from each of the previous two months. The amount of time visitors spent on the website has also been declining monthly since March, from an average of 8.7 minutes on site to 7 minutes on site in August. But August worldwide unique visitors ticked up to 180.5 million users from 180 million.”

USEFUL STUFF

ZDNet: How to use ChatGPT to make charts and tables. “As it turns out, ChatGPT does a great job making charts and tables. And given that this ubiquitous generative AI chatbot can synthesize a ton of information into something chart-worthy, what ChatGPT gives up in pretty presentation it more than makes up for in informational value. Exactly what sort of chart-making tools are available for ChatGPT? There are three ways you can proceed.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Guardian: Fake social media posts on Burning Man festival stir conspiracy theory frenzy. “Rumors of an Ebola outbreak at the Burning Man festival spread like wildfire over the weekend with social media users posting fake health advisories, flight data and conspiracy theories to TikTok and Twitter, Forbes reported. Though the rumors have been debunked, their rapid spread is another example of the dangers of online misinformation, particularly on Twitter.”

VT Digger: Leaf peepers beware: One of Vermont’s most photographed foliage spots closed to tourists. “Amid social media-induced traffic jams, the towns of Pomfret and Woodstock plan to close roads this fall leading to a popular foliage photo op. Pomfret’s picturesque Sleepy Hollow Farm has featured in films and magazines for years…. But town officials say that since the advent of social media, hundreds of cars and thousands of tourists now flock to the dirt road every fall.”

New Zealand Herald: Are social media dance trends the key to keeping the Tongan language alive?. “Tongan culture is inherently tied to its youth, with an average age of 20 years among Tongan people in Aotearoa. They are harnessing the power of social media trends, like Tongan dance, to both preserve their heritage and engage with a global audience. Aisea Latu, from the Black Grace Dance Company, underlines the significance of this exchange: ‘As long as you pass it down properly and you see other cultures getting involved with it too, then it’s just another way of expressing Tongan-ness.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gothamist: Social media companies to take down NYC ‘subway surfing’ videos after rush of teen deaths. “Social media companies have agreed to automatically take down videos that promote subway surfing, officials said. The MTA has for months requested that platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok remove the videos. The content crackdown comes after five teenagers died this year while riding outside subway trains. MTA officials said 2,600 videos and photos of subway surfing have been stripped from the social media platforms in recent months.”

American Songwriter: Kanye West Files Lawsuit Against Social Media Account Leaking His Music. “In the past year alone, Kanye West has been hit with about six lawsuits by paparazzo photographers, Boogie Down Productions, former brand partners at Adidas and Gap, and former employees at his Donda Academy. However, this week, he filed a suit of his own, alleging that a well-known hip-hop blog has been illegally leaking his music.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Old Gold & Black: Is photoshopping on social media ethical?. “The dissociation of celebrities that have been notorious for photoshopping have made them akin to Barbie dolls. They are not even worth comparison because they are so obviously plastic. The larger ethical dilemma is how real people, or public figures that are perceived as real people, post photoshopped pictures and the effect that has on societal standards.”

Jerusalem Post: AI brings Golda Meir back to life at University of Haifa. “Artificial intelligence was able to recreate a speech made by Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, and experts now wonder how the use of AI will change how we study history.”

Texas Monthly: My Brief Career as a Paid Pro-Paxton Propagandist. “Before the start of his impeachment trial this week, pro-Paxton political forces were paying for influencers to post on social media in support of the state’s top legal authority, who faces sixteen counts ranging from dereliction of official duty to bribery and conspiracy. How do I know this? Because I signed up to be a social media influencer, and to my great surprise, I earned $50 for each of two posts.” Good morning, Internet…

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September 9, 2023 at 05:32PM
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Yom Kippur War, Johannes Schwalm Historical Association, Video Games for Educators, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 8, 2023

Yom Kippur War, Johannes Schwalm Historical Association, Video Games for Educators, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 8, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Ynetnews: Israel declassifies massive archive to mark 50th anniversary of Yom Kippur War. “Israeli history comes alive today like never before as the Israel State Archives releases thousands of documents related to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, including materials from the months leading up to and following the conflict.”

Kutztown University: Johannes Schwalm Historical Association Selects Kutztown University As New Home Of Digital Military Archives. “The Johannes Schwalm Historical Association is a nonprofit organization dedicated to researching those German auxiliary troops (generically called Hessian) who remained in America after the Revolutionary War… Researchers from across the world can now access these digital archives through Kutztown University’s Rohrbach Library.”

Illinois State University: Creative Technologies professor creates gaming database for educators . “With more than 10,000 computer games of varying topics, themes, and designs released each year, the options are overwhelming. But by establishing an online database called ‘Using.Games,’ [Dr. Sercan] Şengün is aiming to make video games more accessible for educators who are teaching about and researching the humanities, social sciences, and the arts.” I think the database is currently available, but when I checked it it was down.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome. “Don’t let Chrome’s big redesign distract you from the fact that Chrome’s invasive new ad platform, ridiculously branded the ‘Privacy Sandbox,’ is also getting a widespread rollout in Chrome today. If you haven’t been following this, this feature will track the web pages you visit and generate a list of advertising topics that it will share with web pages whenever they ask, and it’s built directly into the Chrome browser.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Verge: New YouTube face just dropped. “The faces on YouTube thumbnails might start to look a bit different. A lot of thumbnails feature a person with an open mouth in shock, awe, excitement, or horror because of a belief that the open-mouth face entices people to click on a video. But MrBeast, the individual with the most subscribers on YouTube, said Wednesday that he’s starting to see longer watch times on videos where his thumbnail face has a closed mouth instead of an open one.” Decades from now, students are going to write their doctoral thesis on YouTube Face.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Google: State hackers attack security researchers with new zero-day. “Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) says North Korean state hackers are again targeting security researchers in attacks using at least one zero-day in an undisclosed popular software. Researchers attacked in this campaign are involved in vulnerability research and development, according to Google’s team of security experts that protects the company’s users from state-sponsored attacks.”

Reuters: Australia to require AI-made child abuse material be removed from search results. “Australia will make search engines like Google and Bing take steps to prevent the sharing of child sexual abuse material created by artificial intelligence, the country’s internet regulator said on Friday. A new code drafted by the industry giants at the government’s request will require search engines to ensure that such content is not returned in search results, e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

World Bank: Demand for Online Gig Work Rapidly Rising in Developing Countries. “The ‘gig economy’ accounts for up to 12 percent of the global labor market—much higher than previously estimated—and holds particular promise for women and youth in developing countries. Demand for online gig work is growing rapidly, however, social protections for workers in this segment are still lacking, according to a new World Bank report.”

IOL (South Africa): Hashtags showing anti-immigrant sentiment likely artificially manipulated – research finds. “In a new report, the Centre for Analytics and Behavioural Change (CABC) found that the online conversations using the hashtags #Xenophobia, #PatrioticSpace, #VoetsekANC, and #PutSouthAfricaFirst were likely artificially manipulated.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of Maine: Vincent Weaver ‘demakes’ video games to teach about computer systems. “Vincent Weaver, a University of Maine associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, has a quirky hobby: ‘de-making’ video games, or reformatting classic games onto even simpler systems than the ones they were launched on as a programming challenge. Weaver has not only amassed an online fan base for his demakes — he has also found ways to incorporate them into his curriculum for UMaine students.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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September 9, 2023 at 01:00AM
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Ludvig Holberg, Union Black, Food Safety and Inspection Service APIs, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, September 8, 2023

Ludvig Holberg, Union Black, Food Safety and Inspection Service APIs, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, September 8, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Royal Library Denmark: New research translates Holberg’s comedies into numbers and statistics. “For the past three years, the theatre researchers Ulla Kallenbach (University of Bergen), Anna Lawaetz (Royal Danish Library) and Annelis Kuhlmann (Aarhus University) and a number of programmers from the Royal Danish Library/Deic and Centre for Humanities Computing Aarhus worked on developing tools for digital analyses of Ludvig Holberg’s drama… Here, Holberg’s comedies are converted into statistics, figures and numbers with the aim of investigating how digital analysis can be used in a stage reading.”

Mashable: Google launches incredible online exhibition celebrating Black British music. “Entitled Union Black, the online exhibition explores the various pioneers, innovators, and movements that have deeply and undeniably influenced British culture as a whole. Through vintage photographs, historical documentaries, contemporary interviews, and other multimedia stories, Union Black presents a comprehensive and extraordinary retelling of those who have shaped the fabric of the British music scene.”

US Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service: FSIS Launches New Data Tool: Recall and Public Health Alert API. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) launched a new feature on its website that enables software developers to access data on recalls and public health alerts through an application programming interface (API).”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

PA Media: YouTube begins verifying videos by UK doctors to tackle health misinformation. “YouTube has launched a verification system for UK-based doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to help Britons dodge medical misinformation online…. YouTube added a new seal of approval to accounts run by licensed doctors, nurses, psychologists, and other health practitioners or organisations who have passed stringent verification checks to fight misinformation.”

WCVB: Massachusetts updates database of police disciplinary records. “The Massachusetts agency that oversees police officer training and discipline updated its database of officer misconduct to remove the names of officers whose complaints were overturned and is continuing to review requests for corrections, a spokesperson for the commission said. The update was issued on Sept. 1 to the database of officers with sustained allegations that was first issued by the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission last month.”

The Verge: Microsoft is testing a background removal tool in Paint. “Microsoft is testing a new background removal tool in Paint. The feature is rolling out now to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels (version 11.2306.30.0) and lets you remove an image’s background with a single click.” I’m not going to mention every single background removal tool ever, but this seems to me an interesting intersection of the iconic and the future.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

How-To Geek: Duolingo Wants to Give You Music Lessons, Too . “Duolingo has announced that it will soon be rolling out a music teaching experience. With it, Duolingo says that you’ll have hundreds of tiny lessons that will teach you, along the way, everything about musical notes and how you can play music — the company says that users will have access to a library of over 200 songs.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

UK Government: Online animal cruelty activity to be removed from social media platforms. “Social media firms will be forced to remove online content facilitating animal torture in a further push to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. Under new proposals, social media platforms will be required to proactively tackle the illegal content and have it swiftly removed, or face fines of up to £18 million or 10% of their global annual revenue.”

Associated Press: Arkansas blogger files suit seeking records related to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ travel, security. “An Arkansas attorney and blogger has filed a lawsuit against the Arkansas State Police that accuses the agency of illegally withholding public records he requested related to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ travel and security.”

Apple Insider: Exploit patched in iOS 16.6.1 update delivered Pegasus spyware. “Apple’s operating system updates on Thursday patched an exploit chain capable of compromising iOS 16.6 devices with the Pegasus spyware without any interaction from the victim. The exploit was discovered on an iPhone owned by an individual employed by a Washington DC-based civil society organization. The exploit was used to deliver NSO Group’s Pegasus mercenary spyware.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Iowa State University: Crowdsourcing contests: Understanding what brings high rewards, low risk. “[Professor Hui (Sophia)] Feng studies how certain marketing strategies affect a company’s financial outcomes, including stock prices. In a newly published study, Feng and her co-authors show that crowdsourcing contests are associated with high returns — but also high risks. The team suggests ways companies can strike the right balance and put investors at ease.”

Temple University: Temple researchers examine patterns of inequality in banned books. “Since July 2021, more than 1,500 books of contemporary literature have been banned in the United States. Now a team of Temple researchers is looking for patterns across these books to understand what may be causing them to be targeted. The team is made up of Temple faculty, library staff, and undergraduate and graduate English students who are using text mining to understand patterns of representation in these books.” Good morning, Internet…

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September 8, 2023 at 05:30PM
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Maui Recovery Website, Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, Snapchat, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 7, 2023

Maui Recovery Website, Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, Snapchat, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 7, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

KITV: Interim MEMA head launches new ‘Maui Recovers’ website, an online hub for wildfire survivors. “The Interim administrator for the Maui Emergency Management Agency has launched a new website aimed at providing information on re-entry to Lahaina. Darryl Oiverira, who took his post on August 28, launched Maui Recovers for residents and businesses seeking information and resources on how to safely return to Lahaina.”

Buenos Aries Herald: How AI is helping keep the Abuelas’ legacy intact. “Every day for 40 years, a grandmother bent over a desk, patiently cutting out news articles with a pair of scissors. Raquel Radío de Mazcurra was scouring the newspapers for hints about her grandchildren. She carefully pasted and stored the clippings in folders. Raquel was one of the twelve women who, in 1977, founded the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Snapchat adds new teen safety features, cracks down on age-inappropriate content. “Snapchat today is announcing a series of new safeguards for its app, aimed at better protecting teen users, similar to other efforts introduced earlier by other social apps, like Facebook and Instagram. The company says the new features will make it harder for strangers to contact teens, provide a more age-appropriate experience, crack down on accounts marketing inappropriate content and improve education for teens using its app.”

Politico: Google to require disclosure of AI use in political ads. “Starting in November, Google will mandate all political advertisements label the use of artificial intelligence tools and synthetic content in their videos, images and audio.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Gizmodo: These 24 Members of Congress Paid for Twitter. “The United States House of Representatives recently published its Statement of Disbursements, which is a summary of how the members of Congress have spent money from April to June of this year. The 3,400-page report specifically highlights some representatives that spent money on ‘Twitter paid features.’ According to the report at least 24 members of Congress spent money on Twitter Blue/X Premium—5 of those were Democrats while 19 were Republicans.”

Spotlight PA: Pennsylvania removes email database of public employees. “Pennsylvania officials have removed a searchable, online database of state employee emails, narrowing the ways the public can reach the people who work for commonwealth agencies. The state Office of Administration, which oversees cybersecurity for state government agencies, took down the directory in May because it posed a security risk, said communications director Dan Egan.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: The International Criminal Court Will Now Prosecute Cyberwar Crimes. “In a little-noticed article released last month in the quarterly publication Foreign Policy Analytics, the International Criminal Court’s lead prosecutor, Karim Khan, spelled out that new commitment: His office will investigate cybercrimes that potentially violate the Rome Statute, the treaty that defines the court’s authority to prosecute illegal acts, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.”

CoinDesk: Former FTX Executive Ryan Salame Will Plead Guilty to Charges: Bloomberg. “Ryan Salame, who was one of Sam Bankman-Fried’s top deputies at FTX, plans to plead guilty to criminal charges on Thursday, Bloomberg reported. Salame was co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets and allegedly handled crypto exchange FTX’s political donations. He made substantial donations to Republican candidates.”

UPI: Microsoft report highlights Chinese social media campaign against U.S.. “Microsoft accused China on Thursday of operating a disinformation campaign targeting political candidates by impersonating U.S. voters on numerous social media platforms. In a threat analysis report, Microsoft said that the Chinese Communist Party has improved its sophistication in engaging targeted audiences and their spread is much wider than observed in the past.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Chimpanzees are not pets, no matter what social media tells you. “Even Hollywood – which has a long history of using trained monkey or ape ‘actors’ – is shifting to the use of computer-generated imagery to depict primates on screen. Social media must catch up, and recognise that holding exotic animals in human contexts represents a grizzly and exploitative industry – and thus reflects animal abuse.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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September 8, 2023 at 01:08AM
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