Iceland Manuscripts, Arizona Tutoring Help, Google Emoji Kitchen, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, September 17, 2023

Iceland Manuscripts, Arizona Tutoring Help, Google Emoji Kitchen, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, September 17, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National and University Library of Iceland: Increased access to older recordings and handwritten texts. “Bragi Þorgrímur Ólafsson from the National and University Library of Iceland and Unnar Ingvarsson from the National Archives of Iceland presented the Icelandic database in Transkribus. The Transkribus software is made for the purpose of creating an Icelandic base for handwritten texts from the 18th and 19th centuries. The project was carried out in collaboration with experts from the National Archives of Iceland and the National and University Library of Iceland. You can access the Icelandic base by downloading the Transkribus software.”

KTAR: Arizona Department of Education activates website for free tutoring program. “The web page for Arizona’s free tutoring program has been activated, the state Department of Education announced Friday. The Achievement Tutoring Program was designed for public district and charter school students in grades 3-8 who test below proficiency levels in reading, writing or math.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google’s emoji mashup maker is now available in Search. “You can now create your own emoji combinations directly in Google Search. The company has launched its Emoji Kitchen feature on the web (via 9to5Google), which lets you mash up existing emoji to create different combinations, like an angry pumpkin or a panda wearing a cowboy hat.”

Reuters: Google nears release of AI software Gemini, The Information reports. “Alphabet’s Google has given a small group of companies access to an early version of Gemini, its conversational artificial intelligence software, The Information reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Gemini is intended to compete with OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, according to the report.”

Bloomberg: Musk’s Denial of Ukraine’s Starlink Request Prompts Senate Probe. “The Senate Armed Services Committee is probing national-security issues raised by Elon Musk’s decision not to extend the private Starlink satellite network to aid a Ukrainian attack on Russian warships near the Crimean coast.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Mainichi: ‘Puurrfect’ product: Nissin Food’s virtual cat themed Cup Noodles a social media hit . “Nissin Food Products Co. recently launched ‘”Cup Nyadle,’ a new line of Cup Noodle products that allow people to play with the cat character ‘Nyadle’ on its website by taking a picture of the cat on the lid with their smartphones.”

City A.M.: StabilityAI: New AI music tool won’t wipe out musicians. “Notting Hill Gate-headquartered Stability AI, which was valued at $1bn last August in a $101m funding round, yesterday launched its Stable Audio product which allows users to generate music and sound via prompts.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Business Tech (South Africa): South Africa launches major investigation into Google, Facebook, TikTok and ChatGPT. “The Competition Commission has published the final terms of reference for its Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry, which aims to sniff out imbalances and competition issues related to dominant news aggregators and local South African media publications. According to the commission, the inquiry is specifically looking at the growing imbalance between news publishers in South Africa and large platforms like Google, Facebook and Apple, which take extracts of copyrighted work and place them on aggregated news feeds.”

Clarkson University: Clarkson Professors Awarded Nearly $400k Grant from the NSF for Integrating Cybersecurity into Computing Curricula. “Four Clarkson Professors have received a $398K grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create and integrate Identity and Access Management (IAM)-themed project-based learning (PBL) curriculum into existing computer science and software engineering-related curricula.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT News: AI-driven tool makes it easy to personalize 3D-printable models. “MIT researchers developed a generative-AI-driven tool that enables the user to add custom design elements to 3D models without compromising the functionality of the fabricated objects. A designer could utilize this tool, called Style2Fab, to personalize 3D models of objects using only natural language prompts to describe their desired design. The user could then fabricate the objects with a 3D printer.” The code for Style2Fab will be released at an upcoming conference.

Clemson News: Clemson students’ deployment of novel camera alert system, TrailGuard AI, featured in BioScience, promotes coexistence of tigers, humans. “Last year, the Global Tiger Forum, the National Tiger Conservation Authority and RESOLVE partnered with Clemson University to test conservation technology: TrailGuard AI, a camera-alert system powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that remains hidden from poachers while detecting wild tigers and transmits real-time images to the cell phones and computers of concerned entities like park rangers.”

William & Mary News: Modeling social media behaviors to combat misinformation. “Alexander Nwala, a William & Mary assistant professor of data science, aims to address these forms of abuse proactively. With colleagues at the Indiana University Observatory on Social Media, he has recently published an Open Access paper in EPJ Data Science to introduce BLOC, a universal language framework for modeling social media behaviors.” Good morning, Internet…

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September 17, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Environmental Experts of Color, Cardi B, Extract Images from Google Slides, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 16, 2023

Environmental Experts of Color, Cardi B, Extract Images from Google Slides, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 16, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Green 2.0: Green 2.0 Launches New Environmental Experts Of Color Database. “Green 2.0 is launching the Environmental Experts of Color Database featuring over 150 people of color who are experts on a wide array of environmental topics to address lack of diversity in Congressional expert testimony on Thursday, September 14, 2023.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Radar Online: Family Ties: Cardi B Drags Husband of Blogger Who Owes Her $4 Million to Court, Rapper to Examine Couple’s Bank Statements. “Cardi B’s efforts to collect the nearly $4 million owed to her by blogger Tasha K have ramped up in federal court, RadarOnline.com has learned. According to court documents obtained by RadarOnline.com, Cardi and her legal team have scheduled a videotaped examination of Tasha for this week.”

USEFUL STUFF

Digital Inspiration: How to Extract Images from Google Docs and Google Slides. “Learn how extract all the embedded images from a Google Document or Google Slides presentation and save them as individual files in a specified folder in your Google Drive.”

BGR: ChatGPT looks so much better with this free web app. “One exciting GenExpert feature for ChatGPT is characters. You can set up different personas to talk to the chatbot, which can help you customize your chats for specific topics. I used ChatGPT to buy running shoes and gear but also to train for a half-marathon. Therefore, one of my characters would be a runner who is interested in health and sports. I could set up a different character for work-related research. It’s like having multiple personalities, but only for talking to AI.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Tom’s Guide: This new AI video tool clones your voice in 7 languages — and it’s blowing up. “How many languages do you speak? Thanks to AI, that number could be as many as seven. Los Angeles-based AI video platform HeyGen has launched a new tool that clones your voice from a video and translates what you’re saying into seven different languages. If that wasn’t enough, it also syncs your lips to your new voice so the final clip looks (and sounds) as realistic as possible.”

BBC: AI used to target kids with disinformation. “YouTube channels that use AI to make videos containing false ‘scientific’ information are being recommended to children as ‘educational content’. Investigative BBC journalists working in a team that analyses disinformation, information that is deliberately misleading and false, found more than 50 channels in more than 20 languages spreading disinformation disguised as STEM [Science Technology Engineering Maths] content.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Twitter mass layoff severance fight heads to settlement talks. “Elon Musk’s X Corp. has agreed to try to settle claims by thousands of former Twitter employees who say they were cheated of severance pay, according to a memo by a lawyer for the workers seen by Bloomberg News.”

Bleeping Computer: Fake Cisco Webex Google Ads abuse tracking templates to push malware. “Threat actors use Google Ads tracking templates as a loophole to create convincing Webex software search ads that redirect users to websites that distribute the BatLoader malware. Webex is a video conferencing and contact center suite that is part of Cisco’s collaboration products portfolio and used by corporations and businesses worldwide.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

FedTech: Agencies Should Take Advantage of Their .Gov Eligibility. “More than 9,000 local, state and federal government agencies carry the .gov designation on their websites, but tens of thousands more do not. A major federal update of the infrastructure supporting that domain should encourage more state and local government organizations to do so, and will improve security for those already using it, experts say.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Geeks are Sexy: A Century-Old Music Machine That Simultaneously Plays a Piano and Three Violins. “At first glance, it may appear to be just a player piano, but this creation from the early 20th century hails from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and offers a unique musical experience. What sets it apart is its ability to simultaneously play not only a piano but also three violins. In its time, this innovation was nothing short of revolutionary.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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September 17, 2023 at 12:54AM
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American Women Artists, Artifact, Amazon, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, September 16, 2023

American Women Artists, Artifact, Amazon, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, September 16, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Smithsonian: Smithsonian American Art Museum Releases 10 New Digital Comics Exploring the Lives of Women Artists Represented in Its Collection. “The Smithsonian American Art Museum has published 10 new digital comics, each celebrating a woman artist represented in the museum’s permanent collection.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Axios: Supreme Court temporarily halts measure to restrict government communications with social media firms. “The Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that restricts communication between the Biden administration and social media companies…. The move came hours after Justice Department officials asked the court to issue a stay on the ruling, arguing it violated the First Amendment.”

The Verge: Artifact’s new Links feature makes it much more than a news app. “Links is a new section in the Artifact app, and it’s for far more than news. It’s for, well, links. You can post a link in Artifact to just about anything — an article, a video, a recipe, a real estate listing, a game where all you do is move rocks around — along with a note, a few images, or an AI-generated summary.”

TechCrunch: Amazon updates visual search, AR search and more in challenge to Google. “Amazon is introducing new features that make it easier to search for products on mobile and is challenging other product search engines, like Google and Pinterest in the process. The retailer announced a handful of new search and discovery features, including multimodal search (searching with text plus images), an expansion of its AR efforts and a new ‘Find-on-Amazon’ feature that finds similar products to those in a photo you share directly with the Amazon app, among other things.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Bloomberg: X Unlikely to Win Back Advertisers Before Holiday Season. “Elon Musk picked Linda Yaccarino to be chief executive officer of X, the company formerly known as Twitter, with hope that the former NBCUniversal executive would convince advertisers who had stopped spending on the site to return. But so far, many major brands are remaining on the sidelines, and have already planned to deploy their budgets elsewhere during the holiday season — historically the most lucrative period for ad revenue.”

Boing Boing: Roblox wants to become a dating app. “Yes, you read that headline correctly. Roblox, one of the most popular children’s video games in the world, now wants to expand into “dating experiences” for its players, at least according to CEO David Baszucki in a keynote speech at the RDC 2023 conference for Roblox developers.” For some reason I’m thinking about the LEGO MMO which was cancelled because of a surfeit of user-generated penises. Blending grownup topics with a brand for children seems dangerous.

New York Times: Google Sheds Hundreds of Recruiters in Another Round of Layoffs. “Google conducted another round of layoffs on Wednesday, telling its recruiters that by the end of the day hundreds of them would be losing their jobs, three people with knowledge of the layoffs said. Google’s recruiting group, which at one point had more than 3,000 employees, has already been hit hard by layoffs this year.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Krebs on Security: Adobe, Apple, Google & Microsoft Patch 0-Day Bugs. “Microsoft today issued software updates to fix at least five dozen security holes in Windows and supported software, including patches for two zero-day vulnerabilities that are already being exploited. Also, Adobe, Google Chrome and Apple iOS users may have their own zero-day patching to do.”

Reuters: Google reaches $93 million privacy settlement with California. “Google will pay California $93 million to resolve a lawsuit accusing the search engine company of misleading consumers about its location tracking practices. The settlement announced on Thursday by California Attorney General Rob Bonta resolves claims that the Alphabet Inc unit deceived people into believing they maintained control over how Google collected and used their personal data.”

Unseen Japan: A True Tourist Trap: This Hotel in Japan Doesn’t Exist. “FNN Prime Online in Japan relates the story of a 19-year-old man who found a promising-looking hotel via the Website Booking.com for his trip to Chiba Prefecture. The listing said the hotel had just opened this summer. It contained convincing-looking photos of a terrace with BBQs, as well as interior pictures of the rooms. So the young man headed out for what he assumed would be a pleasant outing in the town of Ichinomiya. Ichinomiya bills itself as a seaside town, with much of its tourist advertising oriented towards surfers or people who want to learn surfing. Alas, whatever plans the 19-year-old had wouldn’t work out. Because when he got to his hotel, there was nothing but an empty grass lot.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Associated Press: Repurposing dead spiders, counting cadaver nose hairs win Ig Nobels for comical scientific feats. “Counting nose hairs in cadavers, repurposing dead spiders and explaining why scientists lick rocks, are among the winning achievements in this year’s Ig Nobels, the prize for humorous scientific feats, organizers announced Thursday.”

Techdirt: New Study: People Have A Negative View Of Advertisers Who Still Advertise On Platforms That Allow Hate Speech. “CCIA has released a report on the impact of harmful content on brands and advertising, done through creating surveys of users in hypothetical scenarios on social media where hate speech is and is not moderated Turns out, as we said, if you allow hate speech on your website it drives users and advertisers away (someone should tell Elon). It also makes users think poorly of the advertisers who remain.” Good morning, Internet…

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September 16, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Inclusive Books for Children, iPhone Ringtones, Smithsonian Podcasts, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 15, 2023

Inclusive Books for Children, iPhone Ringtones, Smithsonian Podcasts, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 15, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Guardian: Charity launches award and database to encourage diversity in children’s books. “Inclusive Books for Children (IBC) [is] a new charity which has launched a website hosting a database of inclusive books. Site visitors can browse through more than 700 book recommendations and search the database to find books featuring protagonists with specific characteristics.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Lifehacker: iPhones Are Getting New Ringtones for the First Time in a Decade. “Remember ringtones? Back in the day, when phones still rang with something other than spam calls, people even used to pay for the privilege of choosing a bespoke call sound. These days, the trend is to keep your phone on silent at all times, but it might be worth flipping the mute switch on your iPhone (or tapping the Action button on your iPhone 15 Pro), because we’re about to get a new batch of iPhone ringtones for the first time in a decade.”

Smithsonian: Smithsonian Launches 10th Season of Its Flagship “Sidedoor” Podcast. “Sidedoor investigates lesser-known Smithsonian stories from beyond the public view, with host Lizzie Peabody and renowned Smithsonian experts offering insights along the way. This season of Sidedoor will cover art, science, history and culture, and will take people from behind the scenes at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to the coastal waters of Maryland and beyond.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: The food industry pays ‘influencer’ dietitians to shape your eating habits. “The trade group paid an undisclosed amount to 10 registered dietitians, as well as a physician and a fitness influencer, to use their social media accounts to help blunt the WHO’s claims that aspartame, a mainstay of Diet Coke and other sodas, is ineffective for weight loss and ‘possibly carcinogenic.’ The campaign, which the beverage group acknowledged organizing, highlighted a little-known tactic the multibillion-dollar food and beverage industry is using to sway consumers faced with often-contradictory health messages about popular products.”

The Verge: TikTok accidentally blocked Hollywood writers strike videos while casting a QAnon net. “TikTok videos about the Hollywood writers strike were temporarily blocked as the platform attempted to moderate QAnon conspiracy theories. Media Matters for America, a nonprofit media research group, reported today that TikTok users were unable to search for content related to the Writers Guild of America strike.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Cyberattack hits main St. Louis-area police database, shuts down system for a day. “A cyberattack earlier this week caused a major law enforcement database to shut down for about a day, leaving local police departments to lean on backup procedures for arrest reports, jail logs and law enforcement records.”

Ars Technica: US rejects AI copyright for famous state fair-winning Midjourney art. “On Tuesday, the US Copyright Office Review Board rejected copyright protection for an AI-generated artwork that won a Colorado State Fair art contest last year because it lacks human authorship required for registration, Reuters reports. The win, which was widely covered in the press at the time, ignited controversy over the ethics of AI-generated artwork.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT News: Helping computer vision and language models understand what they see. “Researchers from MIT, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, and elsewhere have demonstrated a new technique that utilizes computer-generated data to help vision and language models overcome this shortcoming. The researchers created a synthetic dataset of images that depict a wide range of scenarios, object arrangements, and human actions, coupled with detailed text descriptions. They used this annotated dataset to ‘fix’ vision and language models so they can learn concepts more effectively. Their technique ensures these models can still make accurate predictions when they see real images.”

Bloomberg: Kidfluencers Are Today’s Version of Chimney Sweeps. “These children are under pressure, whether from their parents or from their algorithms, to produce content on a regular basis. Being a child social media star also involves a potential loss of privacy and a reframing of one’s image with one’s peers, which may be either positive or negative. And these children can be quite young. One star of a YouTube channel with more than 35 million subscribers, which started out as a toy-review site, was 7 years old in the channel’s early days. Legally, these children have no claim to the income their sites generate. Thankfully, many parents are loving and generous. But not all.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

HackADay: It’s Time You Built A Smart Pocket Watch. “There’s just something about a pocket watch that screams class compared to the barbaric act of bending your arm, or the no-fun way of looking at your phone. But smartwatches are dumb, analog things that mostly look pretty. Or are they? [JGJMatt] proves otherwise with their stunning DIY smart pocket watch. It is essentially a cheap smart watch from Amazon stuffed into the shell of an old pocket watch, but you know it’s not quite that simple.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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September 16, 2023 at 12:59AM
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United States Criminal Justice, Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications, Content Blocking, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, September 15, 2023

United States Criminal Justice, Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications, Content Blocking, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, September 15, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Council on Criminal Justice: CCJ Unveils New Interactive Resource on Key Criminal Justice Trends. “The Footprint: Tracking the Size of America’s Criminal Justice System goes live today on the Council on Criminal Justice website, providing ready access to a collection of 40 interactive charts that trace decades-long changes in crime and victimization, arrests, incarceration, and community supervision.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Amateur Radio Daily: Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications Reaches 90,000 Items. “The Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC) has now added over 90,000 items to its collection of amateur radio related resources. The free online library is hosted by the Internet Archive.”

Meduza: Russian authorities blocked more than 885,000 websites in first half of 2023. “In the first six months of 2023, Russia’s federal censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, ordered the blocking of more than 885,000 websites that allegedly contained information banned under Russian law. That’s 85 percent higher than the number of sites blocked in the same period in 2022, a representative of the agency told the Russian newspaper Kommersant.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Associated Press: Gary Neville and Jill Scott secretly swapped X accounts to shine a light on gender bias in soccer. “As one of soccer’s most outspoken commentators, Gary Neville is used to getting abuse from fans. Over the space of five days in May, however, the attacks he received on social media were unlike anything he’d experienced before. For Jill Scott, on the other hand, it was depressingly familiar.”

BBC: Nigeria elections: Websites use false stories to attract views and ads. “Several websites established around the time of Nigeria’s general elections in February 2023 are reaching thousands of people while spreading false news, the BBC has found. A high number of adverts on the websites mean they can be profiting from the spread of disinformation.They weave false stories with factual news about sports, entertainment, and politics – with some publishing as many as 700 pieces per month.”

NiemanLab: A new station in Mexico City is making radio for social media — and filling local news gaps. “What happens when a capital city of 22 million people and 16 boroughs doesn’t have enough local news sources to cover its massiveness Welcome to Mexico City, Mexico, where this is a reality that a new radio station is trying to address. Radio Chilango, launched on August 28, is the newest wing of Chilango, a news and culture magazine covering Mexico City. The station is starting off with four shows: The morning show ‘¿Qué chilangos pasa?’ discusses need-to-know news for the day, along with tips for surviving the unique challenges of the megalopolis (the traffic, the air pollution, gentrification, the works).”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Trial Spotlights Internal Dispute Over Algorithm vs Data. “What is more important to a successful online search business: the computing algorithm that decides what results to display or the data that tracks the results of user clicks? Even within Alphabet Inc.’s Google, the world’s largest search engine, that question has been hotly debated for years. And now it’s a key feature in a landmark antitrust trial, where the US Justice Department claims Google spends billions of dollars to stifle competition and preserve its monopoly over online search.”

Reuters: India calls X a ‘habitual non-compliant platform’ in latest court tussle. “India’s government has told a court that Elon Musk’s X is a ‘habitual non-compliant platform’ and for years has not followed many orders to remove content, undermining the government’s role, according to a legal filing reviewed by Reuters.”

Ars Technica: Calif. passes strongest right-to-repair bill yet, requiring 7 years of parts. “California, the home to many of tech’s biggest companies and the nation’s most populous state, is pushing ahead with a right-to-repair bill for consumer electronics and appliances. After unanimous votes in the state Assembly and Senate, the bill passed yesterday is expected to move through a concurrence vote and be signed by Governor Gavin Newsom.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: Research partnership uses data science to look at household wealth and homeownership. “Home values appreciate more slowly for lower-income, minority and female homeowners. These were among the findings of a recent research project by a team from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The project was funded by the Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation (MGIC). The study used data science to find insights into what contributes to disparities in home values and how this impacts the accumulation of wealth that comes from owning a home.”

University College London: Deprived teens with poor learning skills at greatest risk from email scams. “The findings, published in the British Journal of Educational Studies, were based on more than 170,000 students aged 15 and show that one in five from low-income families or deprived areas could fall victim to phishing. This is much higher than the probability for the age group overall. Email scams leave people vulnerable to identity theft, putting young people at risk of financial fraud and having their savings stripped.”

Washington University in St. Louis: $3M grant funds training to harness power of AI for social, environmental challenges. “The National Science Foundation (NSF) is investing $3 million over the next five years in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Advancements and Convergence in Computational, Environmental and Social Sciences (AI-ACCESS) program at Washington University in St. Louis. The grant is one of 22 new awards totaling nearly $63 million to create a new generation of talent in science, technology, engineering and math fields that reflects the diversity of the nation.” Good morning, Internet…

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September 15, 2023 at 05:31PM
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This post is a test of the ActivityPub plugin

This post is a test of the ActivityPub plugin
By ResearchBuzz

If it works, you can now follow ResearchBuzz (this site) on Mastodon. The user name is: https://researchbuzz.me/@researchbuzz .

September 15, 2023 at 01:16AM
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Clean Energy Equipment Price Index, Geospatial Poverty Portal, Retraction Watch, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 14, 2023

Clean Energy Equipment Price Index, Geospatial Poverty Portal, Retraction Watch, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 14, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

International Energy Agency: A new tool to track transitions: the IEA clean energy equipment price index. “To monitor these influences on clean energy equipment prices – a critical determinant of investment in clean energy technology and infrastructure – the IEA developed the Clean Energy Equipment Price Index (CEEPI). The index tracks price movements in a global basket of solar PV modules, wind turbines and lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage, weighted by shares of investment.”

World Bank: Putting Poverty Back on the Map: Introducing the World Bank’s New Geospatial Poverty Portal. “The portal features an interactive map based on data from the newly released Subnational Poverty and Inequality Database (SPID), spanning over 1,600 subnational areas from 141 economies. Statistics in the SPID are direct calculations from available survey data at their levels of representativeness, meaning data frequency varies by country. Some countries have subnational time series as long as 10 years, allowing users to compare changes temporally and spatially over a long period.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Retraction Watch: The Retraction Watch Database becomes completely open – and RW becomes far more sustainable. “We’re thrilled to announce that Crossref has acquired The Retraction Watch Database and will make it completely open and freely available.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Media Matters: X is placing ads for brands like the NFL and MLB next to unhinged conspiracy theories about Jewish people and 9/11 . “X (formerly known as Twitter) has been placing ads for major brands like the NFL, MLB, T-Mobile, and eBay alongside content pushing unhinged conspiracy theories about Jewish people orchestrating the 9/11 attacks.”

What’s on Weibo: Eyebrow Pencil Gate: “Lipstick King” Li Jiaqi Loses 630,000 Fans In One Night. “Li Jiaqi is facing controversy for remarks he made during his recent e-commerce livestream. When viewers made comments about an eyebrow pencil being expensive, he lashed out and asked them if they worked hard enough. Due to his cold attitude and arrogant comments, the ‘lipstick king’ seems to have lost his crown.”

The Daily Beast: How Barstool Built an Empire by Swiping Sports Highlights. “Four years ago, Barstool Sports was raked over the coals for taking a comedian’s video. The sprawling and bro-tastic media company already had a reputation for stealing jokes, but that act of theft inadvertently revealed another way the site was profiting from content it didn’t own: an anonymous, seemingly random Twitter account which was in fact run by Barstool.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta Probed by Lawmakers on Use of AI ‘Ghost’ Staff. “Democratic lawmakers are pressing the top tech firms to open up about the conditions of their ‘ghost work’ — unseen laborers like those labeling data and rating responses who have become pivotal to the artificial intelligence boom.”

Engadget: Hackers claim it only took a 10-minute phone call to shut down MGM Resorts. “The ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware group claimed responsibility for the MGM Resorts cyber outage on Tuesday, according to a post by malware archive vx-underground. The group claims to have used common social engineering tactics, or gaining trust from employees to get inside information, to try and get a ransom out of MGM Resorts, but the company reportedly refuses to pay. The conversation that granted initial access took just 10 minutes, according to the group.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Axios: Watchdog accuses X again of not moderating hate speech. “Each of the 300 posts examined by the nonprofit represented a ‘clear violation of X’s policies on hate speech,’ the report stated. 86% of the reported posts were still present on the platform a week after they were reported to moderators, the report stated. Among the flagged posts were those promoting racist caricatures and denying the holocaust, as well as hateful imagery like the Nazi swastika.”

American Alliance of Museums: Evidence of Things Not Seen. “The current edition of TrendsWatch includes a ‘Short Take’ on how our country and our sector are beginning to grapple with how to compensate descendant communities for historic harms. Reparative practice may take the form of actions that acknowledge and address this damage, as well as actions or policies that redress systemic economic, educational, or social disadvantages. In today’s post, Jessica O’Connor, Public History Director of the Alabama African American Civil Rights Heritage Sites Consortium, talks about preserving oral histories as a form of reparative practice.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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September 15, 2023 at 12:04AM
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