Iowa Banned Books, Global Plastics Laws, AI, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, October 19, 2023

Iowa Banned Books, Global Plastics Laws, AI, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, October 19, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Des Moines Register: Which banned books have been removed from Iowa schools? Our updated database lists them. “Senate File 496, signed into law by Reynolds in May, bans books with descriptions or depictions of sex acts from school libraries and prohibits instruction on gender and sexual identity until seventh grade, among other effects…. The Register sent open records requests to every school district in Iowa — 326 in all — asking for a list of the books they have removed from their libraries to comply with SF496. Two-dozen have responded so far.”

Waste Advantage Magazine: The Global Plastic Laws Database: A Resource to Track Policies Around the World. “The Global Plastic Laws Database is the most comprehensive tool to date to research, track, and visualize plastic legislation that has been passed around the world. The Database tracks legislation across the full life cycle of plastics and organizes these policies according to life cycle categories and key topics.”

WKRN: Vanderbilt scholars analyze role of AI in hate speech. “As artificial intelligence (AI) expands its impact on the world and online, scholars at Vanderbilt University are discussing ways to use the system to combat hate speech. Scholars within the Vanderbilt community along with researchers, free speech, and human rights activists and lawyers are taking part in a two-day symposium on AI and its role in hate speech.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: Google, DOJ still blocking public access to monopoly trial docs, NYT says. “Dozens of exhibits from the Google antitrust trial are still being hidden from the public, The New York Times Company alleged in a court filing today. According to The Times, there are several issues with access to public trial exhibits on both sides. The Department of Justice has failed to post at least 68 exhibits on its website that were shared in the trial, The Times alleged, and states have not provided access to 18 records despite reporters’ requests.”

Engadget: Twitch adds stories to keep followers tuned in. “Twitch announced today that stories are now available in the platform’s mobile app. Similar to the feature of the same name on Snapchat, Instagram and other social platforms, Twitch’s stories let streamers post photos, text or clips that expire after 48 hours.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Asahi Shimbun: Railway firms turn to AI to shake up lost property search. “Gone are the days when a laborious search by hand is required to locate a missing item at the lost and found office. In May, Tokyo-based private railroad operator Keio Corp. introduced a service that relies on artificial intelligence (AI) to sort things out quickly. Kyushu Railway Co. (JR Kyushu), based in Fukuoka, followed suit by starting to provide a similar service in August. Claimants simply need a smartphone to make an inquiry.”

Romania Insider: European Commission in Romania launches anti-disinformation platform. “The platform, named ‘trUE – The Naked Truth’ (trUE – Adevărul gol-goluț), aims to support the general public with useful tools for identifying fake news and information distributed online with the intent to misinform. It brings together articles, case studies, and video materials produced in collaboration with influencers, as well as educational materials that can be used in classroom settings.”

The Markup: Twitter Is Throttling Patreon Links, Creators Say It Undermines Their Livelihood. “Twitter is now slowing down traffic on links to the crowdfunding site Patreon, WhatsApp, and at times, Meta’s Messenger app, a Markup analysis confirms. Using a tool launched by The Markup last month, readers discovered that links to these sites were delayed by an average of 2.5 seconds—findings we confirmed.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency: CISA, U.S. and International Partners Announce Updated Secure by Design Principles Joint Guide. “The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with 17 U.S. and international partners, published an update to ‘Shifting the Balance of Cybersecurity Risk: Principles and Approaches for Secure by Design Software’ that includes further detail on key principles, guidance, and is co-sealed by eight additional international cybersecurity agencies…. Initially published in April 2023, this joint guidance urges software manufacturers to take urgent steps necessary to design, develop, and deliver products that are secure by design.”

New York Times: Across U.S., Chinese Bitcoin Mines Draw National Security Scrutiny. “When a company with Chinese origins broke ground last year on a crypto-mining operation in Cheyenne, Wyo., a team at Microsoft that assesses national security threats sounded the alarm. Not only was the site next door to a Microsoft data center that supported the Pentagon — it was about a mile away from an Air Force base that controlled nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.”

Bloomberg: Colorado Court OKs Use of Google Search Data in Murder Case. “The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Monday that evidence gleaned from a warrant for Google’s search data could be used in a murder case, sparking concerns the decision may encourage more police to embrace the controversial technique.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Indian Express: Scientists working on Polymathic AI, a new tool that will help make scientific discoveries. “A group of scientists are working on a new tool called Polymathic AI that will use the same technology that powers ChatGPT. Unlike the OpenAI’s chatbot, which mostly deals with words and sentences, the new model will work with numerical data and physics simulations.” Good morning, Internet…

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October 19, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Relational Reconstruction Toolkit, Oregon Transportation-Related Injuries, Telegram, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 18, 2023

Relational Reconstruction Toolkit, Oregon Transportation-Related Injuries, Telegram, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 18, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Library of Congress: Relational Reconstruction Toolkit Now Available. “The intention with the toolkit is to offer a method for deepening one’s connection to a space that’s meaningful for their own story, with a special focus on communities of color. Though sourced maps, photographs and oral accounts, reconstructions of erased historic spaces are intentionally imaginative as well as authentic. The toolkit is organized into a series of chapters that describe stages of the work to consider.”

KTVZ: OHA’s new transportation data dashboard finds motorcycle, cyclist, pedestrian fatalities on the rise. “Oregon Health Authority has unveiled another interactive data dashboard to help people more easily track state, county and demographic trends in deaths and hospital visits related to a range of transportation-related injuries.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Telegram CEO, a criticised but cited source of Hamas videos, says app will continue to host ‘war-related content’. “As social platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Meta and TikTok face off with regulators and the theater of public opinion for how they are handling incendiary and graphic content, disinformation, writing and other media related to Hamas and Israel, Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, has controversially come out to defend how his messaging app is not taking down some of the more sensitive war-related coverage that can be found there, claiming that it can prove to be an important channel for information.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: 7 creative ways to organize your mobile apps. “With thousands of apps at our fingertips, they can quickly overcrowd our screens. Apps are designed to improve our lives and make us more efficient, but trying to find them in a mishmash collection of colorful icons can be time consuming. Solve this problem by taking 15 minutes to clean out the jumble of app clutter, and find a homescreen organizational structure that works for you. After all, no one wants to be an app hoarder. Here are seven creative ways to arrange your smartphone apps.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: A ‘Green’ Search Engine Sees Danger—and Opportunity—in the Generative AI Revolution. “Berlin-based Ecosia carved out a niche as a carbon-negative search engine. To adapt to the ChatGPT era, it’s moving closer to Google and exploring how AI could help users cut carbon emissions.”

BBC: Royal Albert Hall archive preserved in £1m project. “The Royal Albert Hall’s archive has been saved from flooding and preserved in a £1m rescue operation. The South Kensington venue’s collection includes a trumpet from the opening ceremony 152 years ago and a programme designed by Pablo Picasso. The archive spans the venue’s history since its inception in the 1850s and consists of tens of thousands of items.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Wall Street Journal: How Ads on Your Phone Can Aid Government Surveillance. “A recent U.S. intelligence-community report said the data collected by consumer technologies expose sensitive information on everyone ‘in a way that far fewer Americans seem to understand, and even fewer of them can avoid.’ The Wall Street Journal identified a network of brokers and advertising exchanges whose data was flowing from apps to Defense Department and intelligence agencies through a company called Near Intelligence NIR.”

Punch (Nigeria): Social media regulation: We are engaging Google, TikTok, says NBC. “The National Broadcasting Commission has said that it is engaging with major social media platforms to curb the excesses of their users. Director, Broadcast Monitoring of the NBC, Francisca Aiyetan, stated this on Friday while speaking with Daily Trust on the plan of the commission to regulate social media. She said if social media is not regulated, young people could be misguided.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Michigan Daily: Kwebbelkop AI and the now-unavoidable AI conversation. “The sentiment that we must adjust to AI is a perplexing one; time and time again, influential voices online will cite how terrifying AI is, yet to prove this point, they keep using it. It keeps getting brought into the public sphere as some inevitable fate when it doesn’t have to be. We don’t have to treat it as a legitimate threat if we stop paying attention to it, yet thought leaders sabotage these human-driven values in favor of using AI to save money.”

PsyPost: Screen time addiction linked to borderline personality traits and psychological distress . “Adults who spend too much time in front of screens are more likely to experience psychological distress and symptoms associated with borderline personality disorder, according to new research published in the Annals of Human and Social Sciences.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 19, 2023 at 12:48AM
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Small Satellite Reliability Initiative, Google, Text Extraction, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, October 18, 2023

Small Satellite Reliability Initiative, Google, Text Extraction, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, October 18, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

NASA: NASA Releases Small Spacecraft Reliability Knowledge Base Tool v3.0. “The [Small Satellite Reliability Initiative] Knowledge Base is a free, pubicly available, comprehensive and searchable online tool that consolidates and organizes resources, best practices, and lessons learned from previous NASA small satellite missions and missions sponsored by other organizations. The SSRI Knowledge Base is updated on a regular cadence with best practices, lessons learned, and unique resources for the 58 topic pages.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Eyerys: Google Introduces ‘AR One Sans,’ A Font Meant For Augmented Reality Headsets. “A font is those stylized characters for text information. And Google has just introduced what it calls the ‘AR One Sans’, which is a type family purposefully designed for AR environments and user interfaces. What makes it unique, is its high-readability on user interface with busy backgrounds.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 7+ Ways to Extract Text From an Image. “There are many reasons to copy the text you see in an image. You may have a screenshot with instructions or a photo of a billboard with details. This guide includes several ways to extract text from an image, depending on your platform or device.”

PC World: 22 awesome open source programs that do everything you need. “Good software is the basis of all PC use, but many professional programs are too expensive for private use. This is where the free software-based applications step in, which, including their source code, are available free of charge on the internet. This immediately raises the question of quality and functionality. Don’t worry, open source software is often a real competitor to professional products. In this guide, we present the best open source tools for typical areas of application — from Office, to media editing, to file management and backup.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

404 Media: AI Images Detectors Are Being Used to Discredit the Real Horrors of War. “A free AI image detector that’s been covered in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal is currently identifying a photograph of what Israel says is [too graphic for me to mention in a summary] as being generated by AI. However, the image does not show any signs it was created by AI, according to Hany Farid, a professor at UC Berkeley and one of the world’s leading experts on digitally manipulated images.” This story is extremely disturbing and graphic.

Washington Post: A flood of misinformation shapes views of Israel-Gaza conflict. “Social media has long played a critical role in battles in the area. During the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2021, posts of carnage in Gaza rallied the public to the Palestinian cause. Researchers say increased internet access and the spread of smartphones enabled a watershed moment, revealing how tech platforms could show the horror and human toll of such events. But now, a volatile, months-long fight over Israel’s democratic future has primed conspiracies and false information to spread within its borders.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Hindu: All of Google’s eyes, now on Madras High Court. “The court will decide the fate of civil suits filed against service fees levied on owners of mobile apps featured on Google Play. The litigants have accused Google of abusing its dominant position in the market to impose ‘unconscionable and arbitrary’ conditions.”

Associated Press: Australian safety watchdog fines social platform X $385,000 for not tackling child abuse content. “Australia’s online safety watchdog said on Monday it had fined X — the social media platform formerly known as Twitter — 610,500 Australian dollars ($385,000) for failing to fully explain how it tackled child sexual exploitation content.”

BBC: Inside the deadly instant loan app scam that blackmails with nudes. “A blackmail scam is using instant loan apps to entrap and humiliate people across India and other countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. At least 60 Indians have killed themselves after being abused and threatened. A​ BBC undercover investigation has exposed those profiting from this deadly scam in India and China.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog: Cataloguing the Cotton charters. “A new project is underway to examine one of the British Library’s oldest and most important collections. The Cotton charters and rolls are being catalogued as part of the Library’s Hidden Collections initiative. Begun by the antiquarian and politician Sir Robert Cotton (1571–1631), and augmented by his son and grandson, the Cotton collection was the first library to be presented to the nation, in 1702, and it has been part of the British Library and its predecessor, the British Museum Library, since the latter’s foundation in 1753.”

New York Times: Wearables Track Parkinson’s Better Than Human Observation, Study Finds. “An Oxford University researcher and her team showed that digital wearable devices can track the progression of Parkinson’s disease in an individual more effectively than human clinical observation can, according to a newly published paper.”

Truth or Fiction: So Long, and Thanks for All the Facts. “Visibility and visits are the lifeblood of digital publishing, and the absence of fact checks to an audience is the absence of sustaining revenue to a site or project; this is how efforts like ours are slowly starved into silence. It’s not just counterdisinformation that is under attack. Related services and fields have been chronically starved away for decades and replaced with distortions and outright lies.” Yup. Good morning, Internet…

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October 18, 2023 at 05:31PM
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My Big Fat Greek Manuscript, Lexicon of New Jewish Literature, Twitter, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 17, 2023

My Big Fat Greek Manuscript, Lexicon of New Jewish Literature, Twitter, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 17, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog: The largest Greek manuscript?. “Add MS 35123 comprises more than 600 leaves, almost 1,300 larger-than-A4 pages, bound tightly between heavy medieval wooden boards that weigh almost 10 kilograms. This giant tome is a late-12th century Biblical manuscript, containing the first eight books of the Old Testament: the five from Moses appended by Joshua, Judges and Ruth.” The first eight books of the Old Testament and LOTS of commentary.

Forward: The comprehensive lexicon of Jewish writers is now accessible on the Internet. This article has been translated from Yiddish. “Researchers and simply lovers of the Yiddish word have long been interested in a digital encyclopedia of all writers who published in Yiddish. Now, in honor of its 75th anniversary, the Jewish Cultural Congress has digitized the Jewish original and installed a search function. His current website includes the entire content of the eight-volume Lexicon of New Jewish Literature, as well as the supplemental volume on Soviet Jewish writers.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Rolling Stone: War Misinfo Is Everywhere. So Twitter Is Cracking Down on … Nudity . “X, formerly Twitter, may sound like a porn site, but it’s growing more hostile to adult content. Although currently awash in misinformation and extremist hate speech related to the ongoing war between Israeli armed forces and Hamas militants, the platform is apparently focused on keeping nudity out of users’ feeds rather than how it may be fueling violence and geopolitical instability.”

National Library of Norway: New Bokhylla agreement gives you digital access to 400,000 books. (Translated from Norwegian.) “Soon you will have digital access to all books published in Norway up to and including 2005 in the Nettbiblioteket at nb.no. The new Bokhylla agreement, which has been entered into between the National Library and Kopinor, covers 400,0000 Norwegian books subject to rights. This is 175,000 more than today.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Preservation Underground (Duke University Libraries): Automatic Text Generation Fail. “We discovered that Microsoft Word will now automatically generate Alt Text (alternative text) descriptions of the images you insert into your documents after it described an Ethiopic scroll as a roll of toilet paper. Clearly the robots have some training to do on cultural heritage materials.”

Tubefilter: Dude Perfect gets its own streaming service. “Dude Perfect has officially launched its own streaming service. The Texas-based YouTube trickshot group–aka longtime friends Tyler Toney, Garrett Hilbert, Cody Jones, and twins Cory and Coby Cotton–first unveiled the free-to-watch service (and accompanying app) this past June, during its Pandemonium Tour.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Your Face May Soon Be Your Ticket. Not Everyone Is Smiling.. “Facial recognition software is speeding up check-in at airports, cruise ships and theme parks, but experts worry about risks to security and privacy.”

Engadget: The EPA won’t force water utilities to inspect their cyber defenses. “The EPA is withdrawing its plan to require states to assess the cybersecurity and integrity of public water system programs. While the agency says it continues to believe cybersecurity protective measures are essential for the public water industry, the decision was made after GOP-led states sued the agency for proposing the rule.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Search Engine Journal: Research: GPT-4 Jailbreak Easily Defeats Safety Guardrails. “Researchers discovered a new way to jailbreak ChatGPT 4 so that it no longer has guardrails to prohibit it from providing dangerous advice. The approach, called Low-Resource Languages Jailbreak,” achieves a stunning 79% total success rate.”

WIRED: The Curse of the Creator Economy. “Seldom do I crawl out of a TikTok rabbit hole feeling well-informed and more knowledgeable about complicated subjects. And then there’s the trust issue. Some people gleefully anticipate the end of gatekeepers. But the creator ecosystem has insufficient protections against toxic, even racist content. An oft-cited drive of creators is getting famous, and that compass too often points to the lowest common denominator. Creators are also all too eager to sell out their followers with #ads that might in other venues be called bribes.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 18, 2023 at 12:14AM
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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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