Sustainable Food Science, Landslide Alerts, United Nations, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 29, 2023

Sustainable Food Science, Landslide Alerts, United Nations, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 29, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Confectionery News: New database launched to drive innovation in Sustainable Food Systems. “IFIS Sustainability a cutting-edge, free Abstracting and Indexing (A&I) database that curates the latest scientific research at the intersection of food and sustainability, has launched a new digital tool providing food innovators access to the latest in sustainable food science.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

University of Hawaii News: Landslide alerts, maps focus of new Pacific Disaster Center/NASA tool. “Landslides cause thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in damage worldwide every year. Through a partnership with NASA, a robust new tool to identify, track and respond to rainfall triggered landslides is now available to all users of the free Pacific Disaster Center’s (PDC) DisasterAWARE software. PDC is an applied research center managed by the University of Hawaiʻi.”

Kyodo News: New U.N. panel to weigh benefits, risks of artificial intelligence. “U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres launched an advisory body of experts Thursday to discuss the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence as well as how the world can better control it. The group of 39 specialists, including a political analyst and anthropologist, will publish a set of recommendations by the summer of 2024 through an interim report due at the end of this year.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: To Go Viral on TikTok, Do This. “If this story were a TikTok video, the writer would be applying lip gloss right about … now. Unscrewing the cap on a tube of mauve goo and giving it a generous swipe across puckered lips. Mwah! The application of lip gloss in the first few seconds of an online video is a subtle trick that creators and influencers use to grab attention — ideally without viewers’ even realizing why they were moved to stop scrolling.”

BBC: Fidias: YouTuber sorry for freeloading stunt video in Japan. “A popular YouTuber has apologised after a video titled I Travelled Across Japan For Free riled locals. Fidias Panayiotou’s video – which showed him dodging train fares and a five-star hotel breakfast bill, has earned almost half a million views. Some have called for his arrest on social media and rail authorities are considering further action against him.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Jurist: New York high court finds police can search state DNA database for relatives of potential suspects. “The New York Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that the state legislature authorized the Commission on Forensic Sciences to create rules allowing police to search the state’s DNA database to identify family members of potential suspects. Practically, this means New York police officers can resume using the state’s DNA databank for these types of searches.”

The Conversation: Ukraine’s IT army is a world first: here’s why it is an important part of the war. “The IT army has thousands of volunteer members around the world, who use Twitter and Telegram channels to communicate, coordinate and report on actions. Its members have already taken part in a wide variety of attacks. These range from stealing and exposing important information to successfully disrupting Russian communications and other critical networks in order to hinder the Russian war efforts.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Yale News: Zooming in on our brains on Zoom . “When Yale neuroscientist Joy Hirsch used sophisticated imaging tools to track in real time the brain activity of two people engaged in conversation, she discovered an intricate choreography of neural activity in areas of the brain that govern social interactions. When she performed similar experiments with two people talking on Zoom, the ubiquitous video conferencing platform, she observed a much different neurological landscape.”

Emory University: Emory establishes state-wide initiative to reduce youth athlete injury using virtual reality technology. “The Emory Sports Performance And Research Center (SPARC) has received a $4.5 million grant from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation to establish the Georgia Initiative for Virtual Reality, Education and Sport (GIVES) program. The school-based program will leverage virtual reality (VR) technology and disseminate scientific discoveries from EMORY SPARC to reduce injury risk in young athletes and improve their game performance.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Space: Declassified spy satellite images reveal 400 Roman Empire forts in the Middle East. “Hundreds of Roman Empire forts popped up in old spy satellite imagery depicting regions of Syria, Iraq and nearby ‘fertile crescent’ territories of the eastern Mediterranean. These satellites were once used for reconnaissance in the 1960s and 1970s, but their data is now declassified. Some of their archived images are now allowing for fresh archaeology finds in Earth zones often difficult for researchers to visit.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 30, 2023 at 12:44AM
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Solar Mirror Research, The Digital Florentine Codex, Twitter, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, October 29, 2023

Solar Mirror Research, The Digital Florentine Codex, Twitter, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, October 29, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

NREL: News Release: New Database Shines Spotlight on Decades of Solar Mirror Research. “The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is preparing to unveil a database containing the results of exposure experiments on solar reflectors conducted over more than four decades. The publicly available Solar Mirror Materials Database (SMMD) will contain information from thousands of solar mirror samples from more than a hundred suppliers that have been subjected to outdoor tests and laboratory environments.”

Getty: A Rare 500-Year-Old Manuscript Gets a Second Life Online. “The Florentine Codex… is a 16th-century manuscript that details, in both the Spanish and Nahuatl languages, the culture and history of the Mexica (Aztec) people, including the invasion of Mexico City by the Spaniards and their Indigenous allies. The Digital Florentine Codex reveals the manuscript’s contents by providing access to new and previously published Nahuatl and Spanish language transcriptions, English and Spanish translations, as well as easily searchable texts and images.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Associated Press: Twitter takeover: 1 year later, X struggles with misinformation, usage decline. “X looks and feels something like Twitter, but the more time you spend on it the clearer it becomes that it’s merely an approximation. Musk has dismantled core features of what made Twitter, Twitter — its name and blue bird logo, its verification system, its Trust and Safety advisory group. Not to mention content moderation and hate speech enforcement. He also fired, laid off or lost the majority of its workforce — engineers who keep the site running, moderators who keep it from being overrun with hate, executives in charge of making rules and enforcing them.”

Search Engine Journal: Google Introduces AR Beauty Ads, Promote Products With Virtual Try-On. “Google has launched a new advertising product called AR Beauty Ads, which allows beauty brands to promote their products using augmented reality (AR) technology. The interactive ads feature virtual try-on capabilities that aim to showcase items in a more engaging way.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

KUSA: Descendants rethink ethnic identity after historians uncover indigenous slave names. “[Native Bound Unbound] brings a new team of historians together who search old documents, like baptismal and census records, to identify and catalog thousands of names of forgotten indigenous slaves in the Western Hemisphere. … The goal is to eventually publish an open-source website where people can read stories and find names of their enslaved indigenous ancestors.”

Rowan University: Global impact: Alumna’s gift to preserve history, legacy of Operation Uganda. “[Betty Bowe Castor’s] gift will support the establishment of the Operation Uganda Digital Collection & Exhibit, an online archive containing historic records that will showcase the educational legacy of Operation Uganda and its important role in teaching the South Jersey region about Africa.”

Reuters: Google to run internet cables to Pacific islands in Australia-US deal. “Alphabet’s Google will run undersea cables powering internet access to at least eight far-flung Pacific Ocean nations under a joint U.S.-Australian deal set to be announced on Wednesday, according to a U.S. official.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Governing: States Act, but Can Legislation Slow AI-Generated Election Disinformation?. “Artificial intelligence (AI) is hardly the first breakthrough technology released into society before its impact was understood. We still have a lot to learn about human-made chemicals that have made their way into air, soil, water, food and our bodies since the 1950s. But a contentious election season is just ahead, and policymakers have to do their best to contain a force that could make things even more volatile.”

Ars Technica: Pro-Russia hackers target inboxes with 0-day in webmail app used by millions. “A relentless team of pro-Russia hackers has been exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in widely used webmail software in attacks targeting governmental entities and a think tank, all in Europe, researchers from security firm ESET said on Wednesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Ohio State News: ‘Dim-witted’ pigeons use the same principles as AI to solve tasks. “A new study provides evidence that pigeons tackle some problems just as artificial intelligence would – allowing them to solve difficult tasks that would vex humans. Previous research had shown pigeons learned how to solve complex categorization tasks that human ways of thinking – like selective attention and explicit rule use – would not be useful in solving.”

Texas A&M: Developing deep learning technologies for medical image classification. “Dr. Tianbao Yang, associate professor for the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, recently received more than $1 million from the National Science Foundation to develop deep learning technologies for medical image classification by leveraging both the images and associated free-text reports of patients for self-supervised learning.”

Cornell Chronicle: Robot stand-in mimics your movements in VR. “Researchers from Cornell and Brown University have developed a souped-up telepresence robot that responds automatically and in real-time to a remote user’s movements and gestures made in virtual reality.” Good morning, Internet…

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October 29, 2023 at 05:31PM
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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…

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October 29, 2023 at 12:45AM
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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…

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October 28, 2023 at 05:31PM
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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…

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October 28, 2023 at 01:00AM
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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…

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October 27, 2023 at 05:31PM
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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…

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October 27, 2023 at 12:50AM
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