Missouri Vital Records, Little Case Bots, African Fact-Checking Awards, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, October 17, 2023

Missouri Vital Records, Little Case Bots, African Fact-Checking Awards, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, October 17, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Reclaim the Records: A Million New Records From Missouri. “The Missouri Birth Index has been updated with 588,542 new records from 1910-1919 and 2016-2022, for a total of 8,090,516 records covering 1910-2022. The Missouri Death Index has been updated with 482,900 new records from 2016-2022, for a total of 3,081,382 records covering 1968-2022.”

Free Law Project: Rise of the Little Case Bots! . “Each of these bots is professionally curated by a legal observer in the particular field. For example, writers at The Verge follow numerous court cases in the tech field, the folks at the American Economic Liberties Project follow antitrust cases, and so forth. With the launch of these bots, you can now easily ride on their coat tails. To do so, simply click the links above, and then follow their bots on Twitter or Mastodon.”

EVENTS

Africa Check: Work on police brutality, inauthentic online campaigns and workers’ rights the big winners at 2023 African Fact-Checking Awards. “Moussa Ngom of La Maison Des Reporters and Laureline Savoye of Le Monde Afrique were this year’s winners in the ‘Fact Check of the Year by a Working Journalist’ category at the African Fact-Checking Awards ceremony held in Mauritius on 6 October. The two Senegalese journalists were recognised for their work on the infiltration of security forces during political demonstrations in March 2021 and June 2023.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: Ubuntu 23.10 is a Minotaur that moves faster and takes up less space. “Ubuntu 23.10, codenamed Mantic Minotaur, is the 39th Ubuntu release, and it’s one of the three smaller interim releases Canonical puts out between long-term support (LTS) versions. This last interim before the next LTS doesn’t stand out with bold features you can identify at a glance. But it does set up some useful options and upgrades that should persist in Ubuntu for some time.”

NiemanLab: Elon Musk took the headlines away from Twitter — but you can bring them back with this one weird trick. “It’s a browser extension named Control Panel for Twitter. (Yes, Twitter, not X.) Control Panel offers lots of little tweaks to the Twitter user interface — some of which amount to personal preferences, but others that reverse bad choices the Musk-era company has made. (It can even replace that cheap Unicode X with the old familiar blue bird.)” I installed it. It’s really nice. It replaces the tab icon as well, so you can see a pleasant blue bird instead of that big weird x.

TechCrunch: TikTok’s Effect Creator Rewards fund now has lower eligibility requirements, an updated payout model and more. “TikTok is updating its Effect Creator Rewards program with lower eligibility requirements, a revamped payout model, reduced payout increments and a lower threshold to start collecting rewards. The $6 million fund, which launched in May, rewards creators for the effects they make through TikTok’s AR development platform, Effect House.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: You Can Automatically Make Your iPhone Less Addicting at Bedtime. “Switching to grayscale mode is one of the most effective ways to reduce your screen time. It’s easy to enable on your smartphone, and when all the bright colors are gone, you’ll notice that it’s much easier to put your phone away. I’ve found this hack to be very effective, but I’ve always ended up disabling grayscale mode within a week. This time though, I discovered a clever but effective way to make it stick—automation.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Ad Changes Leave Marketers Flying Blind, Expert Says. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google quietly made changes to its advertising platform that significantly limits the amount of information marketers have about where their spending is going, according to an expert called on behalf of the federal government in an ongoing antitrust trial against the search giant.”

New York Times: ‘Start-Up Nation’ Is Tested as Israel’s Reservists Leave Their Desks. “Israel’s defense forces have called up about 360,000 reservists for duty. Such numbers will test the resilience of the technology community that contributes about 20 percent of the country’s economy — and a significant portion of global activity in cutting-edge areas including cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and semiconductors.”

The Verge: YouTube is the latest large platform to face EU scrutiny regarding the war in Israel. “European Commissioner Thierry Breton sent a letter to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai reminding him of the company’s obligations under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) as a large online platform to keep illegal content and disinformation from being shared on YouTube surrounding Israel’s war with Hamas.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNBC: YouTube passes Netflix as top video source for teens. “Teens polled by the bank said they spent 29.1% of their daily video consumption time on Google-owned YouTube, beating out Netflix for the first time at 28.7%. Time on YouTube rose since the spring, adding nearly a percentage point, while Netflix fell more than two percentage points.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Smithsonian Magazine: This New Hand-Painted Video Game Takes Place Inside Claude Monet’s Eyeball. “Australian designer and developer Pat Naoum spent seven years creating the game… To progress in the game, players must solve puzzles while running along green vines and through scenes depicted in some of Monet’s paintings. In doing so, they also help Monet complete his works. Naoum hand-painted the entire game, a process that took over 2,000 hours. He then learned to code so he could digitize his artwork and make it interactive—all while holding down a day job as a web designer.” Good morning, Internet…

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October 17, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Plastic Health Map, Cities in Fiction, Boston Slavery, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 16, 2023

Plastic Health Map, Cities in Fiction, Boston Slavery, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 16, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Environmental Health News: Massive new database on how plastic chemicals harm our health. “Experts from the Minderoo Foundation published today a large, open-access database, called the Plastic Health Map, that includes the findings from more than 3,500 studies from 1961 to 2022 on how plastic chemicals impact human health.”

Scroll (India): An archive project is creating a database of Indian cities in fiction – and you can contribute to it. “The Cities in Fiction project was started by researcher Divya Ravindranath and writer, editor, and translator Apoorva Saini to build a database of real-world cities in fiction… and to see how South Asia is constructed in the fictive imagination. At present, the list primarily covers India, but Ravindranath said that suggestions have been pouring in from all over South Asia since the project’s website went live.”

Boston Globe: Boston researchers have compiled what may be the country’s first city-commissioned database of enslaved people. “The database, which is now posted on the city’s website, lists 2,357 Black and Indigenous people enslaved in Boston between 1641 and 1783, the year Massachusetts abolished slavery. And researchers believe that number is only a fraction of what they can ultimately compile.”

City Monitor: NYC Street Map: A city app now lets you look at historical streets. “The Department of City Planning (DCP) has rolled out an updated version of the NYC Street Map tool, providing users with a record of not just the altered streets but also the original ones dating back to the early 20th century. The tool offers a digital compilation of the entire history of New York City’s 32,000-plus streets.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

How-To Geek: Tor Browser 13.0 Finally Adds a Landscape Aspect Ratio. “The Tor Browser 13.0 update introduces several long-awaited improvements, including a landscape aspect ratio, a fix for the ‘red screen of death,’ and several enhancements from Mozilla’s Firefox ESR 115. Updated app icons and GUI elements are also part of the mix, though Tor Browser retains its basic look and feel.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Architect Magazine: Meet the New Mellon Foundation Initiative That Is Keeping and Shaping Our Places. “The New York–based organization’s newest program area, Humanities in Place, has deployed $136.6 million since its inception in 2020 to expand the capacity of communities to keep and shape their places and built environments through grants for design projects and the social and cultural infrastructure they provide.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Fast Company: Fake airline reps are helping disgruntled passengers rebook flights in the latest bizarre X scam. “Earlier this month, Jason Rabinowitz—an aviation enthusiast who goes by @AirlineFlyer on social media and cohosts the AvTalk podcast from flight-tracking site FlightRadar24—noticed an uptick in bots replying to people who were tweeting at airlines for flight updates and customer service—with Air Canada among the common airlines whose customers ended up getting peppered with tweets. As someone who’s followed the airline industry for the past decade, Rabinowitz says the uptick in bot replies is unprecedented.”

9to5 Mac: Google search payment makes up 14-16% of Apple’s profits; if that’s banned, what then?. “The Google search payment – the annual amount Google pays to Apple in return for being the default search engine in Safari – reportedly makes up 14-16% of the Cupertino company’s total profits. With that payment now threatened by the antitrust case against Google, Bernstein analysts look at what that could mean for Apple.” Amazed that a company as old as Apple got that reliant on one revenue source.

RESEARCH & OPINION

Northeastern Global News: Do comics help as a STEM learning tool? Northeastern professor’s study aims to answer that question . “The National Science Foundation awarded [Luke] Landherr a grant to examine this in one of the first studies of its kind on whether comics help as a visual learning tool. Landherr will create a series of comics for a core introductory chemical engineering course that will be used at five partner institutions, as well as Northeastern. Landherr will then look at grades as well as concept testing to determine if student understanding and engagement improves when comics are used.”

The Next Web: Google’s AI could soon consume as much electricity as Ireland, study finds. “A new study published this week suggests that the AI industry could consume as much energy as a country like Argentina, Netherlands, or Sweden by 2027. What’s more, the research estimates that if Google alone switched its whole search business to AI, it would end up using 29.3 terawatt-hours per year — equivalent to the electricity consumption of Ireland.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 17, 2023 at 12:05AM
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Super Street Magazine, Whole Earth Catalog, Ransomlooker, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, October 16, 2023

Super Street Magazine, Whole Earth Catalog, Ransomlooker, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, October 16, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

MotorTrend: Super Street Magazine Digital Archive Now Available—for Free!. “The Super Street Network continues delivering current feature cars and in-depth event coverage digitally, but don’t think that all those print issues that once landed in your mailbox and cluttered your desk space are long gone. They’re back! Over 170 past issues dating back to 2002 have been digitized and made available for you to view online for free with your registration on MotorTrend+ (U.S. and Canada).” In other words, registration is free but you do have to register.

Gizmodo: You Can Now Read the Whole Earth Catalog Online. “Remember the Whole Earth Catalog? If you’re a fan of the anarcho-libertarian magazine that helped usher in a popular interest in all things tech and internet culture, there’s good news: a nearly complete collection of the publication’s archive has been digitized and uploaded to the web for easy browsing.”

SecurityAffairs: Ransomlooker, A New Tool To Track And Analyze Ransomware Groups’ Activities . “Cybernews presented Ransomlooker, a tool to monitor ransomware groups’ extortion sites and delivers consolidated feeds of their claims worldwide. The researchers have created the tool to help cybersecurity experts in their daily jobs by providing real-time updates and actionable insights. It offers various statistical insights into data, the ability to determine attack perpetrators, and incorporates filtering by country, industries, time span, and other parameters for journalistic investigations.”

EVENTS

International Centre for Investigative Reporting: ICFJ seeks entries to investigate election disinformation. “THE International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) is calling for applications for its Disarming Disinformation programme, sponsored by the Scripps Howard Fund…. Journalists worldwide interested in combating electoral disinformation can apply for the programme, which will take place on November 7, 8, and 9.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress: WordPress 6.3.2 – Maintenance and Security release. “This security and maintenance release features 19 bug fixes on Core, 22 bug fixes for the Block Editor, and 8 security fixes. WordPress 6.3.2 is a short-cycle release.”

Ars Technica: Google.com tests a news-filled homepage, just like Bing and Yahoo. “Google is still wondering if it should make major changes to its homepage. The last experiment we saw filled the usually stark white page with info cards showing things like the weather and stocks, but this new experiment, spotted by the site MSPoweruser, has a much bigger focus on news.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: If Every Brand Is Funny Online, Is Anything Funny?. “For a decade, marketers have found success on social media by roasting customers, and even flirting with them. But with Gen Z, and platforms like TikTok on the rise, the jokes may be wearing thin.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg Law: New Disclosure Site Slow to Post Judicial Stock Trading Reports. “Delays in posting stock transactions and other financial disclosures by US judges to a new database are limiting the utility of a tool designed to improve public transparency of the court system, watchdogs said.”

The Messenger: Supreme Court Extends Block on Biden and Social Media Company Communication. “The Supreme Court on Friday extended a preliminary injunction blocking the Biden administration from contacting social media companies to question posts on their platforms.”

CNBC: Elon Musk’s X illegally fired employee who publicly challenged return-to-work plans, NLRB alleges. “Elon Musk’s X broke the law in firing an employee who criticized management’s return-to-work policy, the National Labor Relations Board alleged, in its first formal complaint against the company formally known as Twitter.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Illinois State University: Virtual reality technology and individuals with communication disorders. “For the past three years, Dr. Jennine Harvey, Dr. Isaac Chang, Dr. Megan Cuellar, and Dr. Gabriela Fonseca Pereira have investigated the efficacy of virtual reality environments for speech-language pathology intervention. This interdisciplinary team has developed a real-world virtual environment to examine the potential of VR technology and innovative applications in evidence-based practice in SLP intervention, clinical training, and pedagogy.”

Northeastern Global News: How can cities use AI? These professors are creating guidelines for how artificial intelligence could be used for public interest.. “The Public Interest Technology University Network recently awarded a Network Challenge Grant to Northeastern University and its Boston Area Research Initiative, run by Dan O’Brien and Kim Lucas, both of whom teach public policy in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. The grant funds projects dedicated to growing public interest technology. O’Brien and Lucas will use the grant to research how AI can be used by the city of Boston and to educate residents on its usage.” Good morning, Internet…

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October 16, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Mindanao Biodiversity, Rhode Island Geospatial Data, Google, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 15, 2023

Mindanao Biodiversity, Rhode Island Geospatial Data, Google, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 15, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Biodiversity Data Journal: The MOBIOS+: A FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) database for Mindanao’s terrestrial biodiversity . “This initiative seeks to enhance our comprehension of biodiversity trends in Mindanao over temporal and spatial dimensions, while also creating an openly-accessible database. The database we present here is the first of its kind and currently the most comprehensive attempt to establish the largest consolidated database for Mindanao biodiversity, based on publicly available literature.”

Brown University Library News: The Ocean State Spatial Database . “Frank Donnelly (Head of Library GIS and Data Services) and his team of student workers at GeoData@SciLi recently released the Ocean State Spatial Database (OSSDB), a geodatabase for conducting basic geographic analysis and thematic mapping within the State of Rhode Island. This open source database is intended to serve as a foundation for contemporary mapping projects, and as an educational tool for supporting GIS coursework and introducing spatial databases and SQL.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: Google Search officially stops indented results. “Google has stopped showing indented results in the Google search listings. Google has historically showed an indented search result under the main result when it was from the same domain but over the past few weeks, Google stopped indenting those results.”

Irish Times: Social media firms deploying ‘crisis teams’ to combat Gaza ‘misinformation’. “Ireland’s Digital Services Commissioner, John Evans, has said there has been a ‘heightened sense of activity” among social media platforms in response to misinformation about the conflict in Israel and Gaza. He said some of the platforms had deployed crisis response teams and experts with specific language skills to respond to posts about the conflict in Gaza.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Make Your TikTok Videos More Accessible: 5 Essentials. “TikTok is one of the most popular platforms for short-form video. But how can you ensure that your videos can be enjoyed by everyone? Here are some tips on how to make your TikTok videos more accessible so that people with disabilities and certain medical conditions can watch them comfortably too.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Boing Boing: Firefox to have built-in “fake review detector”. “The web browser Firefox will warn users when they’re looking at fake reviews online. The feature follows the foundation’s acquisition of Fakespot, a web service that specializes in doing just that.”

CNBC: Google is opening a cafe, store and event space to the general public near its headquarters. “Google is opening a sliver of its main campus to the general public starting this week. The company opened its doors to what it’s calling its ‘Visitor Experience’ center the public Thursday, following a ceremony where Google executives and local leaders gathered hear its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Apple AirTags stalking led to ruin and murders, lawsuit says . “Since the lawsuit was initially filed in 2022, plaintiffs have alleged that there has been an ‘explosion of reporting’ showing that AirTags are frequently being used for stalking, including a spike in international AirTags stalking cases and more than 150 police reports in the US as of April 2022. More recently, there were 19 AirTags stalking cases in one US metropolitan area—Tulsa, Oklahoma—alone, the complaint said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Stuff (New Zealand): Stuff Group withdraws from X (formerly Twitter). “Stuff, New Zealand’s biggest independently owned news business, will stop sharing content to X (formerly Twitter), effective immediately. The company, which owns this website, has flagged it is increasingly concerned about the volume of mis- and disinformation being shared, and the damaging behaviour being exhibited on and enabled by the platform.”

Nature: AI reads text from ancient Herculaneum scroll for the first time. “A 21-year-old computer-science student has won a global contest to read the first text inside a carbonized scroll from the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum, which had been unreadable since a volcanic eruption in AD 79 — the same one that buried nearby Pompeii. The breakthrough could open up hundreds of texts from the only intact library to survive from Greco-Roman antiquity.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 16, 2023 at 12:10AM
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Mathematical Puzzles, Social Media, Chrome, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, October 15, 2023

Mathematical Puzzles, Social Media, Chrome, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, October 15, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Dartmouth College: Math Puzzles for the Public. “The revised edition of the critically acclaimed 2000 book, Mathematical Puzzles—heralded as ‘the best collection of mind-stretching teasers ever assembled’ by celebrated computer scientist Donald Knuth—is now available free online on the mathematics department’s website. The classic collection, which features puzzles from every continent, is designed for amateur mathematicians of any age, no calculus skills required.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: SPAC to return remaining $533 million raise for Trump social media deal. “Digital World Acquisition Corp, the SPAC that plans to merge with former U.S. President Donald Trump’s media and technology company, said this week it would return to investors $533 million raised for the deal, after some have already backtracked on $467 million of commitments.”

Mashable: Google Chrome now lets you wipe the last 15 minutes of your cringey activities — here’s how. “Google has added some new, super-useful functionality for folks who want to quickly wipe 15 minutes worth of their Chrome history. The new tool, however, is only for Android users. All you need to do is click the three dots in the upper-right corner of Chrome before selecting ‘Clear Browsing Data.’ By default, this will delete the last 15 minutes of your browsing activity.”

Gizmodo: These Brands Are Still Going Down With NFT’s Sinking Ship. “Despite this downturn, there are still major companies that jumped on the NFT hype train last year and have yet to jump off. It’s a trolley problem for major brands. Either the company keeps on making NFTs in the vain hope it hasn’t wasted any money on a speculative tech bubble, or it bows its head and calls it quits.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: A New Tool Helps Artists Thwart AI—With a Middle Finger. “Over the past year, as image-generating AI tools have grown in popularity, illustrators, photographers, and other visual artists have struggled to determine what they can do to have a say in how their work is used. Some are attempting lawsuits, others are asking regulators to step in. There’s nothing they can do to change how generators have been trained in the past. Starting today, though, the startup Spawning is launching a new tool to help artists who want to block new attempts to train AI on their work.”

Washington Post: Why we can’t stop watching terrible TikTok cooking videos. “With each second I spend watching these videos, the questions pile up in my head — mostly ‘Why?’ Why is he making French onion soup in a bathroom sink? Why did she stick a chicken drumstick in a jar of peanut butter? Why is this person putting dried pasta in a blender only to make ‘fresh’ pasta? Will they actually eat that? Is this a joke? Why are they making these kinds of videos? And why are they so popular?”

Semafor: OpenAI has quietly changed its ‘core values’. “ChatGPT creator OpenAI quietly revised all of the ‘Core values’ listed on its website in recent weeks, putting a greater emphasis on the development of AGI — artificial general intelligence. CEO Sam Altman has described AGI as ‘the equivalent of a median human that you could hire as a co-worker.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

AFP: EU to investigate Musk’s X for potential Hamas-Israel conflict disinfo. “The European Commission said Thursday it is opening an investigation into Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to determine if it has allowed the spread of disinformation about the conflict in the Middle East.”

Ars Technica: Thousands of WordPress sites have been hacked through tagDiv plugin vulnerability. “Thousands of sites running the WordPress content management system have been hacked by a prolific threat actor that exploited a recently patched vulnerability in a widely used plugin. The vulnerable plugin, known as tagDiv Composer, is a mandatory requirement for using two WordPress themes: Newspaper and Newsmag. The themes are available through the Theme Forest and Envato marketplaces and have more than 155,000 downloads.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Northwestern Now: AI just got 100-fold more energy efficient. “Northwestern University engineers have developed a new nanoelectronic device that can perform accurate machine-learning classification tasks in the most energy-efficient manner yet. Using 100-fold less energy than current technologies, the device can crunch large amounts of data and perform artificial intelligence (AI) tasks in real time without beaming data to the cloud for analysis.”

University of Central Florida: UCF Collaborates with the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum to Annotate Seminole Tribe Archives. “The community-based research project challenges colonial stereotypes in mid-20th century Florida newspapers to provide historical accuracy and context for anyone engaging with the museum’s database.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Engadget: Coin flips don’t appear to have 50/50 odds after all. “Conventional wisdom about coin flips may have been turned on its head. A global team of researchers investigating the statistical and physical nuances of coin tosses worldwide concluded (via Phys.org) that a coin is 50.8% likely to land on the same side it started on, altering one of society’s most traditional assumptions about random decision-making that dates back at least to the Roman Empire.” Good morning, Internet…

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October 15, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Aurel Manea Landscape Photography, Nigeria Newspapers, Ammirati Puris Advertising, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 14, 2023

Aurel Manea Landscape Photography, Nigeria Newspapers, Ammirati Puris Advertising, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 14, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

PetaPixel: Photographer Makes All of His Stunning Photos Available for Free. “A photographer who has traveled the world taking beautiful photographs for the last 20 years has taken the unusual step of making all of his photos freely available to download. Aurel Manea has released copyright on 4,700 high-resolution photos of mostly landscapes. The highlights include dazzling photos of the Northern Lights, the Tuscan hills of Italy, and Monument Valley in Arizona.”

Benjamindada: Archivi.ng is digitising Nigerian history, with one old newspaper at a time. “In a world where information is at our fingertips, the story of Nigeria’s history has been locked away, hidden within the yellowed pages of newspapers, slowly fading into obscurity. However, a non-profit is on a mission to change that narrative. They are the driving force behind Archivi.ng, a groundbreaking project aiming to digitise every edition of every Nigerian newspaper from January 1, 1960, to December 31, 2010 – a monumental task that promises to reshape the way Nigerians, and the world, access their history.”

St. John’s University: St. John’s University to Celebrate the Work of Advertising Icons Ralph Ammirati and Martin Puris . “St. John’s University announced today the launch of the Ammirati Puris exhibit, an online digital collection of the advertising agency’s most groundbreaking campaigns, including those for BMW, Club Med, United Parcel Service (UPS), and more. The online exhibit will be available permanently to all.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: Five things to know about the Google antitrust trial as it hits halfway mark. “In the trial that started on Sept. 12 and is scheduled to go to about mid-November, the Justice Department accused Google of manipulating online auctions – a multibillion dollar industry dominated by Google – with these formulas to favor its own bottom line. Here are five important points raised so far during the trial.”

The Verge: Google’s AI-powered search experience can now generate images. “Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) will let you create images right from a text prompt starting Thursday, the company announced. Microsoft has offered the ability to make images from Bing Chat using OpenAI’s DALL-E model since March, so it’s not too surprising to see Google follow suit.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

USC Annenberg Media: ‘There are crazy people out there’: Mommy vloggers balance privacy and publicity. “Twin baby girls sit in matching Gap hoodies and suck on pacifiers as their mother tackles their wispy golden hair, tying up a tiny bun on each of their heads. At one and a half, their locks just barely brush their shoulders. The pair, Scout and Violet, stare directly into my eyes, or more accurately, right at the camera lens. I’m seeing this 60-second glimpse into their life through a video posted to TikTok by their mother, Maia Knight.”

Virginia Tech: Reco(r)ding CripTech project elevates disabled artists and informs arts education. “Reco(r)ding CripTech documents the processes of five disabled artists in residence with the Leonardo CripTech Incubator, art-and-technology residencies supported by the not-for-profit think tank that focus on disability innovation and aesthetic access. The open access archive will include artifacts of the artists’ processes such as digitized notes, journals, and sketches as well as recorded reflections, social media posts, correspondence, meeting minutes, and grant applications.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: False Claims Around Israel Attacks Include Recycled Videos and a Game Clip. “In the days since Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than 1,200 people in sweeping assaults on kibbutzim, a music festival, towns and other places, violent images and graphic videos have flooded social media. So too have false and misleading information, old and unrelated videos and photos with inaccurate claims, and fabricated assertions about the involvement of countries like the United States and Ukraine — adding confusion and deception to an already chaotic moment.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WCAI: New guidelines help protect historic buildings from rising waters. “Town officials, homeowners, renovators, and others now have a new tool to help them prepare historic buildings for sea level rise and storm surge. The Cape Cod Commission has published new design guidelines for flood risk areas. The work was supported by funding from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Leader-Telegram: Historians study dugout canoe at Phillips hardware store . “Sissel Schroeder, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Tamara Thomsen, a maritime archaeologist for the Wisconsin Historical Society, came to see the canoe as part of their long-term study of dugout canoes around the state…. Schroeder said the study began with canoes at museums, historical societies and libraries around Wisconsin. The two historians are now focusing on more than 80 dugout canoes known to be in private hands around the state.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 15, 2023 at 12:26AM
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Florida History, Pennsylvania Judges, Google, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, October 14, 2023

Florida History, Pennsylvania Judges, Google, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, October 14, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

That’s So Tampa: Bootleggers, tourism booms and bathing suits: Decade of Change explores Florida in the 1920s. “A new digital collection, Florida Front and Center, also launches this October. Florida Front and Center is putting our state’s story front and center in the grand tapestry of U.S. history. This showcase shines a spotlight on Florida’s colonial roots, tracing back even before the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock. And don’t blink, because it also dives into Florida’s colossal post-World War II expansion and political clout.”

Spotlight PA: Pa. election 2023: New interactive tool illustrates why judges matter and how they shape policy. “Elections for seats on Pennsylvania’s highest courts tend to lack the urgency of other races, as those courts seem to operate far from our everyday lives, especially when compared to the work of local and state officials. But judges in these positions hold an immense amount of power… That’s why Spotlight PA is launching a new voter tool ahead of this November’s judicial contests to illustrate how the courts in recent years have affected the policies you care about most.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bloomberg: Google Warns the EU That It Will Fight Attempts to Break Up Ad Business. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google has vowed to fight the European Union’s threat to break up its ad business, setting the scene for an antitrust battle that could eventually rival its ongoing clash with the US Justice Department and state attorneys general.”

Reuters: Google to pay German publishers 3.2 million eur per year on interim basis. “Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has agreed to pay German publishers 3.2 million euros ($3.38 million) a year for its publication of news content pending a decision from the German patent office (DPMA) on the issue, the sides said in separate statements on Thursday. The U.S. search engine operator reached the agreement with Corint Media, an umbrella organisation that represents the interests of German and international publishers including Sat.1, ProSieben, RTL, Axel Springer and CNBC.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

ZDNet: This new AI dubbing tool can translate audio while preserving the speaker’s voice. “On Tuesday, ElevenLabs unveiled AI Dubbing, a new feature that can convert spoken content to another language while keeping the voice, speech patterns, emotions, and intonations of the original speaker.”

Capitol Beat: Okefenokee Swamp Park launching historic preservation project. “The Okefenokee Swamp Park has landed $497,000 in federal funding for a research project aimed at telling the story of a group of young Black Americans who worked to develop the park during the Great Depression. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a nationwide New Deal program formed to provide employment and vocational training to young Americans ages 18 through 25. CCC Company 1433, a group of nearly 200 Black Americans from Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, worked on conservation projects in the Okefenokee, building bridges and roads, planting trees and developing recreational facilities.”

New York Times: ‘A.I. Obama’ and Fake Newscasters: How A.I. Audio Is Swarming TikTok. “Disinformation watchdogs have noticed the number of videos containing A.I. voices has increased as content producers and misinformation peddlers adopt the novel tools. Social platforms like TikTok are scrambling to flag and label such content.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Arkansas Times: State employee’s email says governor’s assistant was told to modify invoice. “Someone in Gov. Sarah Sanders‘ office instructed state employees to write ‘to be reimbursed’ on a months-old invoice for a $19,000 lectern and specifically told them not to date the notation. That’s according to a newly unearthed email published on social media today by Jay Orsi, a citizen journalist who obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request.”

Business World (Philippines): Malaysia says TikTok fails to fully comply with local laws. “TikTok has not done enough to curb defamatory or misleading content in Malaysia, the communications minister said on Thursday, adding that the short video application had also failed to comply with several, unspecified local laws. In a social media message posted after meeting TikTok representatives, Minister Fahmi Fadzil said TikTok also had to address issues related to content distribution and advertising purchases following complaints.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Illinois State University: Technology project aims to alleviate cybersickness in VR-based driving simulation. “Thanks to the help of a BirdFEEDER Grant, Dr. Isaac Chang, associate professor in the Department of Technology, with the assistance of his then-graduate assistant, Savanah Kinney ’21, M.S. ’23, have designed a desktop Stewart platform to alleviate the cybersickness problem in VR-based driving simulation.”

Business Insider: Elon Musk’s worst nightmare. “With companies like Cruise and Waymo unleashing fully roboticized taxis on the streets of San Francisco and other cities, the rise of the machines has begun — and [Missy] Cummings is on the front lines of the resistance. In a controversial new paper, she concludes that the new robot taxis are four to eight times as likely as a human-driven car to get into a crash. And that doesn’t count the way self-driving vehicles are causing weird traffic jams, blocking emergency vehicles, and even stopping on top of a person who had already been hit by a human-driven car.”

WIRED: The Chatbots Are Now Talking to Each Other. “The three bots are among scores of AI characters that have been developed by Fantasy, a New York company that helps businesses such as LG, Ford, Spotify, and Google dream up and test new product ideas. Fantasy calls its bots synthetic humans and says they can help clients learn about audiences, think through product concepts, and even generate new ideas, like the soccer app.” Good morning, Internet…

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October 14, 2023 at 05:31PM
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