WRAL Archives, INsights on Food SystEm Risks Framework, TikTok, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 28, 2023

WRAL Archives, INsights on Food SystEm Risks Framework, TikTok, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

WRAL: WRAL announces public preview of AI-powered archives platform. “WRAL Archives uses state-of-the-art artificial intelligence to automatically extract metadata from media assets, including facial sentiment, audio transcription, logo identification, subject demographics, object identification, weather conditions and much more.”

ESCAP: New index reveals increasing risk in food systems across countries in Asia and the Pacific. “ESCAP and the WFP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific are launching the INsights on Food SystEm Risks (INFER) Framework, a data-driven approach for assessing multidimensional risks to food systems. INFER integrates up-to-date understanding of food systems with well-established concepts of risk based on three dimensions: hazard and exposure, vulnerability, and lack of adaptive capacity.”

EVENTS

Engadget: TikTok’s first live ‘global music event’ will feature Cardi B and Charlie Puth. “Dubbed as the platform’s first ‘live global music event,’ TikTok In The Mix will take place in Mesa, Arizona on December 10. The headliners are Cardi B, Niall Horan, Anitta and Charlie Puth, all of whom are popular figures on TikTok. The service says there will be surprise guests and performances by emerging artists, some of whom are involved in the TikTok Elevate program for up and coming musicians.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

PetaPixel: Google’s New Image Verification Tool Can Help Spot AI Fakes. “Google’s ‘About This Image’ tool, announced last May during Google I/O, combs an image’s metadata to find context and identify if it’s an AI fake or not. The tool is now rolling out as part of Google’s updated search tools.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

MIT Technology Review: This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI. “The tool, called Nightshade, is intended as a way to fight back against AI companies that use artists’ work to train their models without the creator’s permission. Using it to ‘poison’ this training data could damage future iterations of image-generating AI models, such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, by rendering some of their outputs useless—dogs become cats, cars become cows, and so forth.”

TechCrunch: Google is actively looking to insert different types of ads in its generative AI search. “Google confirmed on its earnings call that it is working on different ad formats for its generative AI-powered search experience — Google shared some ideas earlier this year and the mention in the earnings call could indicate that a rollout could happen sooner rather than later.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Even Google CEO Sundar Pichai doesn’t understand Google’s privacy controls. “Like a lot of Google court cases, this case has most of the records sealed so that embarrassing comments and testimony about the reality of Google’s business don’t reach the public. The Register noticed that a transcript of the expert’s video deposition is public, though, so we can see just a glimpse of what is going on in this case.”

The Guardian: National Library of Australia says yes to Indigenous voice referendum memorabilia. “Australia’s national library is urging Australians not to dump the T-shirts, posters, badges, fridge magnets and other campaign material they acquired during the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum campaign, and consider donating the items to the national archives instead. The National Library of Australia is seeking material from both sides of the campaign, including examples of misinformation and images depicting the conflict in communities in the lead up to the 14 October poll.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Verge: Microsoft fixes the Excel feature that was wrecking scientific data. “In 2020, scientists decided just to rework the alphanumeric symbols they used to represent genes rather than try to deal with an Excel feature that was interpreting their names as dates and (un)helpfully reformatting them automatically. Yesterday, a member of the Excel team posted that the company is rolling out an update on Windows and macOS to fix that.”

University of Copenhagen: Strong AI skills significantly raise salaries. “Some professional competencies and skills are worth more than others. A new study maps the value of 962 specific skills and shows that knowledge about artificial intelligence (AI) in particular is in high demand today. On average, AI skills increase remuneration by 21 percent.” (translated from Danish.) 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 29, 2023 at 12:45AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/KVevOjf

Steamboat Photography, New Jersey Reproductive Health, South Carolina School Spending, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, October 28, 2023

Steamboat Photography, New Jersey Reproductive Health, South Carolina School Spending, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, October 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Government of South Dakota: Henry J. King Steamboat Photographs Added to South Dakota Digital Archives. “A historic collection of photographs documenting steamboat traffic on the Missouri River has been added to the state of South Dakota’s digital archives. The Henry J. King collection of photographs and postcards was donated to Brule County in 1961 by Mr. and Mrs. Blakely King in memory of Mr. King’s grandfather, Captain Henry J. King. Captain King was a Missouri River boatman in the early days of Chamberlain.”

Government of New Jersey: Governor Murphy Signs Legislation Launching a New Online Portal to Provide Access to Critical Reproductive Health Care Information . ” Governor Phil Murphy today signed a bill (S-3275/A-4829) alongside members of his Administration, legislators, advocates, and public officials to launch a brand new website – the Reproductive Health Information Hub accessible at nj.gov/reproductivehealth – providing critical information on reproductive rights, access, and health care coverage across New Jersey.”

WRDW: South Carolina launches tool to shed light on school spending. “State leaders unveiled the new dashboard Wednesday at the State House. It allows viewers to see statewide data – like how money is being spent in all districts and where those dollars are coming from. It also offers district-by-district looks and comparisons between districts on data like average teacher salaries, money in their rainy-day funds and how their revenue per student correlates to test scores.”

EVENTS

Space .com: Watch the partial lunar eclipse of the Full Hunter’s Moon on Oct. 28 with these free livestreams. “If you’re out of the path of the eclipse or are unable to get outside to watch it, you’re in luck: You can watch it here at Space.com, thanks to one of the livestreams we’ve assembled to let you watch the partial lunar eclipse on Oct. 28 from the comfort of your own mobile device or computer.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Futurist: Banks That Lent Elon Musk Money To Buy Twitter Are Totally Screwed Now. “The mercurial CEO had to borrow a whopping $13 billion from seven banks to scrounge together the asking price of $44 billion almost exactly a year ago. Those banks still haven’t recovered from the ensuing chaos, the Wall Street Journal reports…. The numbers are staggering: the seven banks, which include Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Barclays, are bracing themselves to take a hit of at least 15 percent, per the report, amounting to a loss of around $2 billion — a devastating bet on the world’s richest man that has seemingly backfired spectacularly.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: Elon Musk Mocked Ukraine, and Russian Trolls Went Wild. “Since Elon Musk spent $44 billion on Twitter (now X) last year, the billionaire has been determined to wipe out bots and spammy accounts. Things haven’t gone smoothly. Amid the chaos, in recent weeks Russian trolls have jumped on one of Musk’s own posts and used it to push pro-Kremlin messaging, a new analysis shows.”

CNN: Fake placenames with anti-Israel messages flood Google Maps’ depiction of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. “When Google Maps users navigated to the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Tuesday, they might have seen placenames that included, ‘F**k Israel,’ and ‘May god curse Israel’s Jerusalem.’ Cyber activists appeared to have targeted the service to post anti-Israel messages, likely by taking advantage of a feature on Google Maps that allows people to create and contribute information about businesses and landmarks that appear on the service.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CISA: CISA, HHS Release Collaborative Cybersecurity Healthcare Toolkit . “Today, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) co-hosted a roundtable discussion on the cybersecurity challenges that the U.S. healthcare and public health (HPH) sector system faces, and how government and industry can work together to close the gaps in resources and cyber capabilities. Ahead of the roundtable, CISA and HHS released a cybersecurity tool kit that includes resources tailored for the healthcare and public health sector.”

Reuters: EU’s Breton confirms investigations into three tech platforms, including X. “EU industry chief Thierry Breton has launched investigations into three tech platforms over content moderation decisions, including Elon Musk’s X. Under the bloc’s wide-sweeping Digital Services Act, very large tech platforms and search engines must do more to tackle illegal content and risks to public security, and to protect their services against manipulative techniques.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

North Carolina State University: Using AI to Solve Fundamental Issues in Nuclear Physics. “Understanding the behavior of nucleons impacts many branches of physics, ranging from fundamental questions to applied nuclear science. But the numbers and types of calculations required to make accurate predictions about the behavior of nucleons can require massive amounts of computing power. Enter the STREAMLINE project. STREAMLINE, which stands for SmarT Reduction and Emulation Applying Machine Learning In Nuclear Environments is a multi-institutional collaboration aimed at solving the nuclear many-body problem by using machine learning, or AI.”

The Conversation: In times of war, digital activism has power. Here’s how to engage responsibly. “Eyewitness accounts, verified facts and culturally sensitive reporting are competing with misinformation, political propaganda and irresponsible journalism. This information warfare has real-world consequences. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests organised through social media have drawn tens of thousands of people onto the streets, despite anti-protest measures adopted in some countries.”

David Strom: The decline of online shopping. “So what has happened to online storefronts in the past 25 or so years? In the quest to make everyone able to buy just about anything, they have become unusable. Menus are inscrutable, choices confound, and delivery mechanisms are so plentiful that they can paralyze consumers.” 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 28, 2023 at 05:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/FA5yBC7

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