Italy’s Puglia Region, Geoffrey Chaucer, WordPress, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 27, 2023

Italy’s Puglia Region, Geoffrey Chaucer, WordPress, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Explore UNESCO World Heritage in Italy’s Puglia Region. “At the heart of the Mediterranean region of Puglia, amidst picture-postcard landscapes with beautiful coastlines, a magical combination of artifacts, history, art and unspoilt nature can be found. Each of the region’s six provinces (Bari, Brindisi, Foggia, Lecce, Taranto and Barletta-Andria-Tran) offers visitors a wonderful experience. In addition to its many historical cities and towns, Puglia is also home to three UNESCO World Heritage sites newly launched on Google Arts & Culture.”

The Guardian: Chaucer goes digital as British Library makes works available online . “The entire collection of Geoffrey Chaucer’s works held by the British Library is being made available in digital format after the completion of a two and a half year project to upload 25,000 images of the often elaborately illustrated medieval manuscripts.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Journal: WordPress LiteSpeed Plugin Vulnerability Affects 4 Million Websites. “The popular LiteSpeed WordPress plugin patched a vulnerability that compromised over 4 million websites, allowing hackers to upload malicious scripts. LiteSpeed was notified of the vulnerability two months ago on August 14th and released a patch in October.”

USEFUL STUFF

Boing Boing: A free, open-source interactive world map. “Protomaps is a free and open-source map of the world for use in your websites, apps, and other projects: an alternative to hosted services, freer than Google Maps and simpler to adapt than OpenStreetMap.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Daily Beast: Google Red-Flagged Kentucky AG’s Taxpayer-Funded Ads. “With less than a week to go before the Republican primary this May, the office of Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron launched a paid video ad campaign to raise awareness about human trafficking, featuring the gubernatorial candidate himself. To be clear, the video was not the work of Cameron’s political campaign. Instead, it was part of a public outreach program conducted by the commonwealth’s office of attorney general (OAG). And the costs weren’t underwritten by voluntary donors, but by a $175,000 taxpayer-backed federal grant that the OAG received from the Department of Justice in January.”

CNBC: Snap shares seesaw amid concerns about the war’s effect on advertising . “Snap shares initially soared as much as 20% in after-hours trading as the company beat on the top and bottom lines, then declined and remained relatively flat as investors digested news that some advertisers had paused spending following the onset of the war in the Middle East.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: What the Techno-Billionaire Missed About Techno-Optimism. “AS A GENERAL rule, any essay that includes the one-sentence paragraph ‘I am here to bring the good news’ is written by someone who wants to take your money, your vote, or your soul. As far as I know, Marc Andreessen, the browser pioneer and cofounder of powerhouse VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, isn’t running for office. But the Techno-Optimist manifesto he posted this week (it’s a habit with him) is definitely bullish on inflating his already bloated wallet—and narrowing the broad arc of human existence with a relentless pursuit of new and even risky technology.”

Mashable: Are people actually using TikTok for news?. “It has been nearly four years since I made my first TikTok, bright-eyed and sporting a bob on the third floor of the BBC’s New Broadcasting House back when I was a video journalist there. It’s not just my hair length that’s changed; in the time it’s taken for my hair to grow down past my elbows, the representation of news media on TikTok has exploded. This is a win for the digital audiences who have flocked there – or so it seemed, until a new study was released this month.”

Michigan Daily: How the SAG-AFTRA strike has changed the fabric of our social media feeds. “There have been several major side effects of the strike, most notably its massive effects on TV and movie production. Writing and filming for popular TV shows and anticipated movie releases has been heavily delayed as negotiations have continued. The screen is not the only place that has experienced such tangible side effects from the strike. In fact, the place where I have noticed the most change since the strikes began is not on the big screen, but in the composition of my social media feed — specifically what is missing from it.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ars Technica: Dev sets up “goatse” trap for sites that steal his free web game. “Here at Ars, we’ve seen time and again how simple web and/or mobile games can be cloned or outright stolen by unscrupulous developers aiming to cash in on someone else’s game concept. But developer Josh Simmons was in a unique position to inflict a particularly rude punishment on websites that were directly stealing and monetizing his web game Sqword without permission.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

October 28, 2023 at 01:00AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/4vOR61M

NHL Puck and Player Data, Banned Books Utah, FOIA.gov, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, October 27, 2023

NHL Puck and Player Data, Banned Books Utah, FOIA.gov, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, October 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Hockey League: NHL EDGE website provides Puck and Player Tracking data to fans . “The NHL has spent the past decade exploring new tech to gather new data. Puck and Player Tracking became fully operational in 2021-22, with up to 20 cameras in each arena and infrared emitters in each puck and sweater. The cameras detect infrared signals from the pucks up to 60 times per second and the players up to 15 times per second, generating millions of raw location data points.”

Salt Lake Tribune: Explore The Tribune’s database of books banned in Utah schools. “The district with the most bans — Washington County School District — removed 54 titles. The top author — fantasy writer Sarah J. Maas — had her books pulled 38 times. These are just some of the findings from The Salt Lake Tribune’s survey of the titles banned across 17 of the state’s largest school districts since a new 2022 law on books challenges took effect. Search through our database and see what’s been banned at your kid’s school.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

US Department of Justice: New Search Tool Improves FOIA.gov User Experience. “We developed the search tool after in-depth research and information gathering from agencies and public users to help identify the best solution. Through these efforts, we identified six topical areas that comprise the largest portion of FOIA requests. These ‘common topics’ launch users into logic-based pathways that ask a series of questions to help get the user to the right place. Alternatively, users can enter their own search terms.”

Mashable: Pebble, a Twitter alternative that launched during the Musk era, is shutting down. “Pebble, which recently underwent its own name change from its previous moniker T2, has announced that it will be shutting down on November 1. The platform is the first of the many Twitter alternatives to launch after Musk to close down.”

TechCrunch: TikTok is testing 15-minute uploads with select users. “TikTok is testing the ability for users to upload 15-minute videos, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Monday. The social media giant said the new upload limit is being tested in select regions with a limited group of users, but declined to share specifics. The new option increases the video upload limit on the app from 10 minutes to 15 minutes.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Hackaday: NFTs And Tulipmania: A Little Bit Of History Repeating. “We were not surprised to read that a company that tracks NFTs declared that most NFTs are now worthless. But the NFT — non-fungible token — market was huge, so around 23 million people invested in NFTs that are now worth nothing. Worse still, the company notes that because of oddities in how NFTs are priced, the real number of worthless assets is probably even greater than they think.”

Yahoo Finance: Alphabet beats Q3 revenue and earnings, but cloud business falls short. “Google parent company Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) reported its third quarter earnings after the bell on Tuesday, beating analysts’ expectations on revenue and earnings per share, but a poor showing by the company’s cloud business sent the stock down in after-hours trade.”

Houston Chronicle: Mysterious ‘Secret Squirrel Facility’ shows up on Google Maps in Texas. “As first reported by the San Antonio Express, a Reddit user recently spotted a building located just outside of New Braunfels, Texas that Google Maps identifies as ‘SECRET SQUIRREL FACILITY.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: Chinese bots targeted Trudeau and others – Canada. “Canada says it has detected a disinformation campaign likely tied to China that has targeted dozens of its politicians, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The ‘spamouflage’ campaign used waves of online posts to discredit Canadian MPs, the foreign ministry said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Search Engine Land: Study: Blogs appear most often in top Google positions. “Blog posts are the most prevalent content type in the top 10 positions of Google Search, excluding home pages, according to a study by enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge.”

The Guardian: ‘Callous, reckless, unethical’: scientists in row over rare fossils flown into space. “It was meant to be a grand gesture that would raise the profile of South African science – by allowing fossil bones found at the nation’s Cradle of Humankind site to be flown into space on a Virgin Galactic flight last month. The result was very different. A wave of global condemnation has since engulfed the research team – led by the palaeoanthropologist Lee Berger – that allowed the ancient bones to be used this way.”

Washington Post: AI is learning from stolen intellectual property. It needs to stop.. “Our books are copyrighted material, not free fodder for wealthy companies to use as they see fit, without permission or compensation. Many, many hours of serious research, creative angst and plain old hard work go into writing and publishing a book, and few writers are compensated like professional athletes, Hollywood actors or Wall Street investment bankers. Stealing our intellectual property hurts.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

October 27, 2023 at 05:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/LPSyaCX

Human Mobility Worldwide, World Digital Preservation Day, PimEyes, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 26, 2023

Human Mobility Worldwide, World Digital Preservation Day, PimEyes, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

ReliefWeb: CLIMB Database: Human Mobility in the Context of Disasters, Climate Change and Environmental Degradation Database. “This online database compiles over 1578 national policy instruments in 172 countries and over 230 bilateral and/or regional policy instruments containing provisions of relevance to human mobility in the context of disasters, the adverse effects of climate change, and environmental degradation.”

EVENTS

Penn State: Libraries to host virtual, local World Digital Preservation Day events on Nov. 2. “World Digital Preservation Day, held annually on the first Thursday of November, celebrates best practices in archiving and storing digitized and born-digital content. Penn State University Libraries is hosting several virtual and University Park in-person events Thursday, Nov. 2.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Face Search Engine PimEyes Blocks Searches of Children’s Faces. “Concerns about children’s privacy have led PimEyes, the public face search engine, to ban searches of minors. The PimEyes chief executive, Giorgi Gobronidze, who is based in Tbilisi, Georgia, said that technical measures had been put in place to block such searches as part of a ‘no harm policy.'”

USEFUL STUFF

Book Riot: All The Public Libraries Offering Free Access To Banned Books: A Comprehensive Guide. “This list is as comprehensive a roundup as possible of all the U.S. public libraries offering access to banned books. It includes the name of the library, the people who are being granted access to the collections, materials within the collections, as well as any other pertinent or relevant information.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Verge: ‘Reddit can survive without search’: company reportedly threatens to block Google. “Reddit isn’t denying that it might block crawlers. ‘In terms of crawlers, we don’t have anything to share on that topic at the moment,’ Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt tells The Verge, clarifying that the company’s earlier “nothing is changing” comment only applied to logins.”

Ars Technica: Thanks to AI, the future of programming may involve YELLING IN ALL CAPS. “Not long after OpenAI first unveiled its DALL-E 3 AI image generator integrated into ChatGPT earlier this month, some users testing the feature began noticing bugs in the ChatGPT app that revealed internal prompts shared between the image generator and the AI assistant. Amusingly to some, the instructions included commands written in all-caps for emphasis, showing that the future of telling computers what to do (including programming) may involve surprisingly human-like communication techniques.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

404 Media: Inside a $30 Million Cash-for-Bitcoin Laundering Ring in the Heart of New York. “The records provide rare insight into an often unseen part of the criminal underworld: how hackers and drug traffickers convert their Bitcoin into cash outside of the online Bitcoin exchanges that ordinary people use. Rather than turning to sites like Coinbase, which often collaborate with and provide records to law enforcement if required, some criminals use underground, IRL Bitcoin exchanges like this gang which are allegedly criminal entities in their own right.”

ABC 7: Online scammers trick OC man into handing over $20,000 in person. “A Southern California family is warning others after their elderly father was apparently scammed of $20,000.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

AVMA Journals: Converting the JAVMA and AJVR archives to digital files—an important ongoing project. “Librarians have long wrestled with how best to fulfill requests for single articles pertinent to a historian’s or veterinary scholar’s work. Indeed, the University of Pennsylvania has received on average 1 request for an archived article per day for the past 6 years. Retrieving and scanning each article is a laborious task, and one that costs considerable staff time and overhead. This is also not ideal for our journals because the important work of our authors is not being cited, and citations are what drive further submissions and impact factor. Since I began as Editor-in-Chief in 2021, my team has been intent on improving access to the back volumes prior to 2000.”

Northeastern News: Apple AirTags can track lost suitcase, but slow to alert for stalking, researchers say. “The researchers looked primarily at how Apple sends notifications to iPhone users when around an AirTag that isn’t theirs. They did this by pairing an AirTag with a master device and leaving said device in one place. They then would bring the AirTag plus an unassociated iPhone around with them to see how long it’d take the notification to kick in. They tested the devices at different times of day and in different locations, like on a remote beach in Nahant, to see if the presence of others affected the alert.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

October 27, 2023 at 12:50AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/qb0xfTg

Johns Hopkins University Public Art, Twitter, Google Keep, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, October 26, 2023

Johns Hopkins University Public Art, Twitter, Google Keep, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, October 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Johns Hopkins University: A New Virtual Guide To The Extensive Public Art Collection At Johns Hopkins. “Johns Hopkins University has joined nearly 300 cultural institutions on Bloomberg Connects, an app offering free digital access to art collections and exhibits around the world. Through the app, users can listen to exclusive audio guides, read commentary from art critics and historians, and view countless works of art.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Fast Company: ‘Ruthless and clumsy’: Twitter alumni give Elon Musk low marks on his first year. “The litany of issues that X now faces are huge. The userbase has shifted, and who is prioritized in the timeline is dictated now by who’s willing to pay, rather than who has relevance or importance in topical conversation.”

Lifehacker: You Can Now Format Text in Google Keep. “There are a lot of notation apps out there that will happily take both your time and money, but you don’t need to look far for such an app: These days, Google Keep is good enough to make do for simple note taking and writing. The company recently updated the app to support version history (thank goodness), and now allows you to format text within a note.”

Bleeping Computer: Google Chrome’s new “IP Protection” will hide users’ IP addresses. “Google is getting ready to test a new ‘IP Protection’ feature for the Chrome browser that enhances users’ privacy by masking their IP addresses using proxy servers. Recognizing the potential misuse of IP addresses for covert tracking, Google seeks to strike a balance between ensuring users’ privacy and the essential functionalities of the web.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

ProPublica: A Prominent Museum Obtained Items From a Massacre of Native Americans in 1895. The Survivors’ Descendants Want Them Back.. “After the mass killing at Wounded Knee, the American Museum of Natural History received children’s toys taken from the site. A 1990 law was meant to ‘expeditiously return’ such items to Native Americans, but descendants are still waiting.”

The Mainichi: Japan asks Google to revert map names of disputed E. China Sea islets . “Japan’s Foreign Ministry said Friday it had asked Google Inc. to revert to only using Japan’s name on Google Maps for a group of islets controlled by Tokyo but claimed by China and Taiwan.”

New York Times: Cameo to the Moon, and Back. “A start-up that offers fans a way to buy personalized videos from celebrities was supercharged by pandemic boredom and venture capital. All it had to do was grow forever.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Maps Disables Live Traffic Data in Israel, Gaza at Military Request. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google is disabling live traffic conditions in Israel and the Gaza Strip for its Maps and Waze apps at the request of the Israeli military, ahead of a potential ground invasion into Gaza.”

Kyiv Independent: The writing is on the wall: Ukrainian archivists collect Russian graffiti as evidence of war crimes. “The message is just one of around 650 inscriptions translated and verified by members of the Wall Evidence project, an open-source digital archive of graffiti, drawings, diary entries, notes, and other markings left behind by Russian forces in previously occupied territories. The inscriptions documented by the project span historical references, ethnic sentiments, and propaganda phrases, revealing a wide spectrum of attitudes from fear and confusion to enjoyment, cruelty, cynicism, and remorselessness.”

ALM Benefits Pro: Twitter’s $500M ERISA lawsuit continues, as employees seek denied severance benefits . “Late last week, an earlier lawsuit alleging Employee Retirement Income Security Act violations was amended to include another former employee. It also provides more details on claims about Musk’s disregarding of the severance plan in violation of ERISA and the intertwining of Musk and Twitter so he cannot avoid personal liability. In addition to seeking a minimum of $500 million in damages, the suit aims to compel Musk and X to pay terminated employees what they are owed under the severance plan.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Central Florida: New UCF Project is Harnessing Virtual Reality to Teach Quantum Computing. “Researchers from the University of Central Florida, University of Texas at Dallas and Vanderbilt University have received a three-year, $927,203 grant for advancing future quantum education by using virtual reality (VR) and machine learning to identify and address misconceptions regarding quantum information science (QIS).”

The Conversation: Why Google, Bing and other search engines’ embrace of generative AI threatens $68 billion SEO industry. “Google, Microsoft and others boast that generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT will make searching the internet better than ever for users. For example, rather than having to wade through a sea of URLs, users will be able to just get an answer combed from the entire internet.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

October 26, 2023 at 05:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/YBQsjyt

Snapchat, Dr. Janice Duffy, Chrome Extensions, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 25, 2023

Snapchat, Dr. Janice Duffy, Chrome Extensions, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: Snapchat isn’t just for teens anymore. Now it needs to make some real money. “That subscriber number is just a fraction of its overall user base of Snapchat, which has quietly become one of the world’s fastest-growing social platforms. As of the end of June, it reported 397 million daily active users — more than X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The company’s challenge now is figuring out how to successfully monetize those users to turn around a streak of disappointing financial results.”

ABC News Australia: Adelaide woman receives settlement after a lengthy battle against tech giant Google. “Dr Janice Duffy successfully argued in 2015 and 2023 that Google published defamatory extracts from American website RipOff Report on its search engine page, despite her notifying the company and asking for the posts to be removed. She was set to start her damages trial on Monday for her most recent case but reached a confidential settlement with the multibillion-dollar company, which would pay her damages and legal costs.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 11 of the Best Music Extensions for Google Chrome. “Listening to your favorite music throughout the day can help you relieve stress, improve your mood, and give you an energy boost. That’s the power of music, and if you are a Chrome user, it’s now easier than ever to access and even create new tunes right from your browser. Chrome extensions can be excellent companions for any music lovers out there. Check out the best options for you if music is a big part of your life.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Silicon Valley Ditches News, Shaking an Unstable Industry. “Some executives of the largest tech companies, like Adam Mosseri at Instagram, have said in no uncertain terms that hosting news on their sites can often be more trouble than it is worth because it generates polarized debates. Others, like Elon Musk, the owner of X, have expressed disdain for the mainstream press. Publishers seem resigned to the idea that traffic from the big tech companies will not return to what it once was.”

GhanaWeb: Kintampo Waterfalls: Woman behind viral video retracts and apologises over false publication. “In a surprising turn of events, the lady behind the widely circulated Kintampo Waterfalls viral video has formally come forward to retract the content of the video. Farida Antwi, a student at the Kintampo College of Health also admittedly apologised to the public for churning out false information through the publication of the said video.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Brave browser installs a VPN service on Windows whether you want it or not. “Brave’s privacy-centric browser has been downloading VPN services to some customers’ computers without their consent. Noted by Ghacks, starting in 2022, downloading Brave to a Windows PC meant you were also downloading the company’s VPN service, regardless of whether you wanted it.”

CNBC: Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX allies secretly poured $50 million into ‘dark money’ groups, evidence shows. “Former crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried and his allies donated $50 million during the 2022 election cycle toward politically active groups that do not publicly disclose the names of donors, according to documents recently made public by prosecutors.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

AfricaNews: Project to create the largest database on the African genome. ” Scientists plan to collect genetic material from 500,000 people of African descent to create what they believe will be the world’s largest database of population genomic information.”

404 Media: Mastodon Is the Good One. “I’ve now been using it for about two months and I am here to tell you that it is, in principle, what we should want the internet to be. If you have been remotely interested in Mastodon but had reservations about joining because you thought it would be difficult, confusing, or otherwise annoying, it is not.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

ABC News Australia: Retired country maths teacher Robert Martiensen created thousands of artworks in secret. “It’s the late 1980s and inside a derelict farmhouse on the outskirts of Mount Gambier in South Australia, a reclusive, retired high school maths teacher begins constructing exquisite wooden boxes, each unique, their organic forms determined by the chunk of wood they came from. The artist’s name is Robert Martiensen, though he’s never been to art school. He keeps his life as an artist a secret, avoids cameras and never exhibits or sells his work.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

October 26, 2023 at 12:08AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/QvBR9DF

Family History Month, Christiansburg Institute, Los Angeles Indigenous History, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, October 25, 2023

Family History Month, Christiansburg Institute, Los Angeles Indigenous History, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, October 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Genealogical Society: Celebrate Family History Month with New Resources from NGS!. “Whether you’re curious about old photos and hoping to scan them, looking to record family members’ memories, or aiming to write stories that are part of your family’s legacy, this is the moment to begin or restart a project. It’s easy to put off these tasks, thinking there’s always tomorrow. But as we’re often reminded, the best time is now. NGS created three resources to inspire you this month with steps to help make projects successful.”

Cardinal News: Virginia Tech helps Christiansburg Institute preserve Black history archives. “For 100 years, Christiansburg Institute battled white discrimination by serving as a model of Black education and culture tucked away in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. Today, the battlefield has transferred to a digital arena as the nonprofit that carries its name strives to preserve it for future generations.”

USC Dornsife: Mapping project reveals LA’s Indigenous past, aims to inform the city’s future. “Blending insight from representatives of local Indigenous communities, extensive archival research and contemporary technologies such as spatial analysis and modeling, the long-running project headed by the Spatial Sciences Institute (SSI) at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences has developed the first systematic map of L.A.’s natural ecology. ‘Mapping Los Angeles Landscape History’ offers a comprehensive view of the region’s natural environment and how Indigenous people interacted with the land and each other in a sustainable way before the arrival of European settlers.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Poynter: Fact-checkers and the social media misinformation tsunami: A Q&A with Lucas Graves. “Not so many years ago, fact-checking went hand-in-hand with elections reporting and political journalism. With the rise of social media, though, fact-checkers have spent more and more time debunking online misinformation, viral memes and other hoax content. That shift has raised an important question for those who analyze and follow the work of fact-checkers: Has online misinformation reduced the amount of attention from fact-checkers to elections fact-checking and the fact-checking of government?”

Tubefilter: TikTok comes “Out Of Phone” to advertise at airports, gas stations, and movie theaters. “TikTok is complementing its digital advertising business with a real-world push. The video app has debuted a product it has dubbed Out Of Phone: An IRL media operation that will distribute vertical videos across locations like airports, gas stations, and movie theaters.”

PR Newswire: LensCrafters Creates Its Own Immersive Experience on Roblox to Drive Awareness on Proper Vision Health (PRESS RELEASE). “LensCrafters, one of the largest optical retail brands in North America, launched its first virtual experience, LensCrafters Eye Odyssey on Roblox, a global immersive platform where millions of people connect and communicate daily. LensCrafters Eye Odyssey, one of the first online edutainment experiences with an optical retailer on Roblox, offers an engaging and educational way to promote healthy eye care habits, while providing an entertaining and immersive experience for young people.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Japan Investigates Google Over Alleged Antitrust Violations. “Japan’s antitrust watchdog has begun an investigation into whether Alphabet Inc.’s Google abuses its market position to block rival services, compounding scrutiny of the internet leader’s business practices across the globe.”

Associated Press: Thousands of remote IT workers sent wages to North Korea to help fund weapons program, FBI says. “Thousands of information technology workers contracting with U.S. companies have for years secretly sent millions of dollars of their wages to North Korea for use in its ballistic missile program, FBI and Department of Justice officials said.”

Ars Technica: Rapper Pras’ lawyer used AI to defend him in criminal case—it did not go well. “[Prakazrel “Pras”] Michel was represented at trial by defense counsel David Kenner, who is accused of failing to provide a cogent defense and misattributing two songs to the Fugees. The allegations about Kenner’s use of AI are reminiscent of a previous incident in which a lawyer admitted using ChatGPT to help write court filings that cited six nonexistent cases invented by the artificial intelligence tool.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: Silence on Social Media Is Not Complicity. “I think the pressure to say something publicly really comes from the fear we face when we’re confronted with horrors like this. What we want is a simple binary where there’s a good side and an evil side and we can easily identify heroes and villains. And social media kind of lends itself to making very binary statements. It’s really hard to do nuanced analysis in a format that really only allows for 280 characters at a time.”

Cornell Chronicle: Research repository arXiv receives $10M for upgrades. “Cornell Tech has announced a total of more than $10 million in gifts and grants from the Simons Foundation and the National Science Foundation, respectively, to support arXiv, a free distribution service and open-access archive for scholarly articles.”

Stanford News: OpenCap: Sophisticated human biomechanics from smartphone video. “With synchronous video from a pair of smartphones, engineers at Stanford have created an open-source motion-capture app that democratizes the once-exclusive science of human movement – at 1% of the cost.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

October 25, 2023 at 05:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/lLvtQcS

Outdoor Play and Learning Tool, Basement Films Archive, AI Denoising, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 24, 2023

Outdoor Play and Learning Tool, Basement Films Archive, AI Denoising, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of British Columbia: UBC researchers launch new online tool to help teachers take their classes outdoors. “Researchers from UBC and BC Children’s Hospital have launched a new online Outdoor Play and Learning tool, to help parents, caregivers and educators gain the skills and confidence to support outdoor play and learning in elementary schools from kindergarten through Grade 7.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

KOB4: Basement Films archive finds new home at CNM. “The Basement Films archives are officially moving into their new home at [Central New Mexico Community College.] The archive, which specializes in 8mm and 16mm films, was kicked out of its previous space at UNM in August. Recently, CNM offered a partnership they couldn’t refuse.”

USEFUL STUFF

Tape It: Tape It launches automated studio quality noise reduction AI for music (PRESS RELEASE). “Today, music software developer Tape It released their free AI-powered Denoiser that automatically removes background noise such as hums and hisses. It produces studio-quality results on full songs, single instrument tracks, and field recordings — not just on spoken word. Tape It launched its Denoiser as a free web app and will later implement it into the company’s flagship product, the Tape It iOS app, which helps musicians organize and record song ideas.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

9to5 Mac: Report: AI features in development for iOS 18, Siri, Apple Music, Xcode and more. “In his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says that Apple was caught by surprise at the sudden swell of generative AI tools this year. But they are working hard to catch up with Apple SVPs Craig Federighi, John Giannandrea, and Eddy Cue all in charge of integrating AI-powered functionality into Apple’s products and services.” It surprises me how much these big Silicon Valley companies chase after each other. It shouldn’t, but it does.

New York Times: An Industry Insider Drives an Open Alternative to Big Tech’s A.I.. “Ali Farhadi is no tech rebel. The 42-year-old computer scientist is a highly respected researcher, a professor at the University of Washington and the founder of a start-up that was acquired by Apple, where he worked until four months ago. But Mr. Farhadi, who in July became chief executive of the Allen Institute for AI, is calling for ‘radical openness’ to democratize research and development in a new wave of artificial intelligence that many believe is the most important technology advance in decades.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Expedia’s Ex-COO Says Ad Fees Jumped After Google Remade Search. “About 500 million people visit Expedia’s Vrbo from Alphabet Inc.’s Google each year and that number didn’t increase even though the company’s search advertising costs grew from $21 million in 2015 to $290 million in 2019, according to Jeff Hurst, Expedia’s former chief operating officer.”

News 12 The Bronx: Authorities: Social media influencer Cesar Pina charged in multimillion-dollar Ponzi-like scheme. “Cesar Pina, 45, was charged with one count of wire fraud, U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger announced. Authorities say Pina, who advertised real estate investments offering huge guaranteed profits, was actually running a Ponzi-like scheme, in which he took money from new investors to pay off older ones, as well as pocketing some of the cash. They say he’s been running the scheme since 2017.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Associated Press: Health providers say AI chatbots could improve care. But research says some are perpetuating racism. “As hospitals and health care systems turn to artificial intelligence to help summarize doctors’ notes and analyze health records, a new study led by Stanford School of Medicine researchers cautions that popular chatbots are perpetuating racist, debunked medical ideas, prompting concerns that the tools could worsen health disparities for Black patients.”

Marcus on AI: “Math is hard” — if you are an LLM – and why that matters. “Notice anything? It’s not just that the performance on MathGLM steadily declines as the problems gets bigger, with the discrepancy between it and a calculator steadily increasing, it’s that the LLM based system is generalizing by similarity, doing better on cases that are in or near the training set, never, ever getting to a complete, abstract, reliable representation of what multiplication is.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Popular Mechanics: Scientists Figured Out How to Design Dice to Roll Any Way You Want. “Ask any Dungeons and Dragons player: dice rolls don’t always go your way. But what if you could use a complex algorithm to design dice to physically roll any way you wanted? Scientist Yaroslav Sobolev at the Institute for Basic Science in Ulsan, South Korea—along with his colleagues—have designed an algorithm that creates wonky-shaped objects called ‘trajectoids’ that mathematically travel along any set path.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

October 25, 2023 at 12:38AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/019a6Hw