WP Data Dashboard, Mastodon, Twitter, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, November 2, 2023

WP Data Dashboard, Mastodon, Twitter, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, November 2, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

WP Tavern: WP Data Dashboard Tracks WordPress.org Themes Ecosystem. “Munich-based digital agency owner Hendrik Luehrsen has been tracking the usage of themes with the FSE tag (block themes) using a spreadsheet that pulls in data from the WordPress.org API. Wrangling the data in a spreadsheet became too cumbersome, so Luehrsen launched WP Data Dashboard over the weekend as a ‘centralized hub for exploring, analyzing, and visualizing data across the WordPress landscape.'”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Mastodon takes on Twitter/X by bringing ‘lists’ to mobile. “Mastodon, the open source, decentralized alternative to Twitter/X, is adding a feature to its app that will help make the transition smoother for newcomers: Lists. The company today announced the Mastodon app for Android is adding the much-in-demand feature, which allows users to create custom lists around specific topics or interests. An update for iOS is expected to follow, though the company did not commit to a time frame.”

Rolling Stone: Elon Musk, Who Bought Twitter for $44 Billion, Now Values It at $19 Billion. “On Monday, Oct. 30, as Fortune reports, Musk awarded all the X employees he didn’t fire equity in the company, saying it was valued at $19 billion, or $45 a share. That’s a 55 percent drop in value from when Musk bought Twitter last year — and it might be an overly sunny assessment. The mutual fund company Fidelity — which contributed over $300 million to Musk’s Twitter takeover — just revealed it thinks the company is worth 65 percent less than it was last year.”

USEFUL STUFF

Bellingcat: Separating Fact from Fiction on Social Media in Times of Conflict. “At Bellingcat, we pride ourselves on providing tools and resources for our audience to think critically about sources they find online. In this short guide, we give a few tips on what to consider when confronted with an abundance of footage and claims. Here’s how to separate fact from fiction with real, recent examples of misinformation.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Artnet: ‘We Cannot Fight A.I.’: How Art Schools Are Navigating the Challenge of Artificial Intelligence. “While the rapid rise of A.I. creates as many possibilities as harms in the art world, it introduces its own set of concerns for schools of art and design. Will admissions officers know whether the artworks in an applicant’s portfolio were created with a few keystrokes, for instance? How should professors appraise works created entirely with A.I.? Will a degree lose value to prospective employers as A.I. becomes more powerful?”

New York Times: As Users Abandon X, Sports Twitter Endures. “Since Elon Musk bought Twitter last year, many users have abandoned the platform, spurred by a number of unpopular changes. Others have pronounced it dead. But in the same way that many households stuck with cable for game broadcasts, sports fans and sports reporters still find X indispensable because, they say, it remains the go-to place for live updates and hot takes about coaching decisions and umpire calls.”

The Verge: This app is making podcasts more TikTokable. “Detail, a podcast recording and editing app, is catering to the growing demand for video podcasts with a new multicam recording feature. Users can record simultaneously from two iPhones to produce a vertical video of two shots stacked on top of each other. It is a format that is optimized for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, which are becoming increasingly important in the podcast space.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Canadian Press: Google CEO defends paying Apple and others to make Google the default search engine on devices. “Testifying in the biggest U.S. antitrust case in a quarter century, Google CEO Sundar Pichai defended his company’s practice of paying Apple and other tech companies to make Google the default search engine on their devices, saying the intent was to make the user experience ‘seamless and easy.'”

Reuters: Canada Bans Chinese App WeChat, Russia’s Kaspersky On Government Phones. “Canada on Monday banned popular Chinese messaging app WeChat and Russian platform Kaspersky from government smartphones and other mobile devices, citing privacy and security risks. The suite of applications would be immediately removed from government-issued devices and users will be blocked from downloading them in the future, said a statement.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Washington: A Google Slides extension can make presentation software more accessible for blind users. “A team led by researchers at the University of Washington has created A11yBoard for Google Slides, a browser extension and phone app that allows blind users to navigate through complex slide layouts and text. Combining a desktop computer with a mobile device, A11yBoard lets users work with audio, touch, gesture, speech recognition and search to understand where different objects are located on a slide and move these objects around to create rich layouts.”

University of Wisconsin-Madison: From ********* to EZacces$! Your browser extension could grab your password and sensitive info . “When you type a password or credit card number into a website, you expect that your sensitive data will be protected by a system designed to keep it secure. That’s not always the case, according to a group of digital security researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. They found that some popular websites are vulnerable to browser extensions that can extract user data like passwords, credit card information and social security numbers from HTML code. A preprint of their work has already created a buzz in tech circles.”

The Conversation: How to redesign social media algorithms to bridge divides. “Current engagement-based algorithms make predictions about which posts are most likely to generate clicks, likes, shares or views – and use these predictions to rank the most engaging content at the top of your feed. This tends to amplify the most polarising voices, because divisive perspectives are very engaging. Bridging-based ranking uses a different set of signals to determine which content gets ranked highly. One approach is to increase the rank of content that receives positive feedback from people who normally disagree.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 2, 2023 at 05:31PM
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CISA’s Logging Made Easy, World Digital Preservation Day, Preserving Photographs, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 1, 2023

CISA’s Logging Made Easy, World Digital Preservation Day, Preserving Photographs, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 1, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

CISA: CISA Announces New Release of Logging Made Easy. “The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announces a new release of Logging Made Easy, a Windows-based, free and open log management solution designed to help organizations more effectively use available security data to detect and address cyber threats.”

EVENTS

Digital Library of Georgia: November 2 is World Digital Preservation Day 2023!. “We completely understand that most people don’t have the bandwidth to thoughtfully consider long-term preservation as well as access–but please remember there are people and resources that you can call upon to ensure your digital content is preserved.”

USEFUL STUFF

Southeast Missourian: Missouri State Archives produces video series on preserving photographs. “The Missouri State Archives is offering a YouTube series on preserving photographs. The seven-part series includes information on how to identify certain types of photography, the inherent preservation challenges with each type of photograph, as well as processes on properly storing, handling and displaying them.” I watched the first minute of part 1 to check the captions. They were excellent though with one odd error: “which aids in” was transcribed “which AIDS in”.

MakeUseOf: 7 Websites to Practice Data Structure & Algorithm Coding Challenges. “Software engineering interviews often involve several rounds. Data structures and algorithms are one of the critical areas that employers may test. As such, it’s a no-brainer that you need to sharpen your data structures and algorithms (DSA) skills if you want to ace technical interviews. Fortunately, there are many websites you can use to learn about DSA and practice your understanding.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: Inside Elon Musk’s First Election Crisis—a Day After He ‘Freed’ the Bird. “The day after Elon Musk closed his deal to buy Twitter, the company’s Seattle office held a Halloween party for employees and their children. Rebecca Scott Thein dressed in bright green to play an alien to her daughter’s Buzz Lightyear. Thein, whose job at Twitter (now X) was to help the platform plan for and navigate elections, was driving to the party when an urgent call came in. On the other end of the phone was a member of Twitter’s policy team. The company had just received a ‘consent decree’—essentially, a threat of legal action—in Brazil, which was about to hold runoffs for highly polarized presidential and gubernatorial elections.”

Wales Online: Burglary victim tracked down £23k stolen car using Google Earth. “Jamie began messaging the thief on Snapchat who was demanding £2,000 to return the vehicle and ‘gained their trust by being friendly to them.’ Meanwhile tech savvy Jamie helped Jayy do a reverse image search of the building the car was parked next to and managed to triangulate the location after spotting the name of a housing estate on a wheelie bin. The pair then used Google Earth to identify the exact street where the vehicle was parked before calling police.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Diplomat: Former Myanmar Information Minister Arrested Over Social Media Posts. “Ye Htut, a former army officer, served as information minister and presidential spokesperson in the military-backed administration of President Thein Sein. In a statement yesterday, the military’s information office said the 64-year-old had been detained on Saturday evening in connection with ‘spreading wrong information on social media.'”

CBC News: Toronto Public Library dealing with cybersecurity ‘incident’ impacting some services. “The Toronto Public Library’s website, map passes and digital collections cannot be accessed, the library said in a statement that appears when users try to access the website. It said public computers and printing services at branches are also unavailable.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Daily Bruin: Opinion: Internet privacy matters more than Google’s glittering facade. “While the birth of the internet sparked fantasies of a decentralized, democratic utopia through the spread of ideas and global exchange, we might be back at square one. It’s time to re-imagine an internet where human liberty is prioritized and preserved through honoring consumer preferences and hedging back against coercive and exclusionary business models.”

Aalto University: Virtual meetings tire people because we’re doing them wrong. “New research suggests sleepiness during virtual meetings is caused by mental underload and boredom. Earlier studies suggested that fatigue from virtual meetings stems from mental overload, but new research from Aalto University shows that sleepiness during virtual meetings might actually be a result of mental underload and boredom.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 2, 2023 at 12:52AM
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Ireland Outdoor Activities, Pomodoro Apps, Google, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, November 1, 2023

Ireland Outdoor Activities, Pomodoro Apps, Google, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, November 1, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Leave No Trace Ireland: The launch of the National Database of Sport & Recreation Amenities is here!. “Today Sport Ireland are launching the new National Digital Database for sport & recreation amenities across Ireland. This new website… is a single online hub for all outdoor recreation, and is a huge step towards providing accessible information for anyone who wants to experience Ireland’s outdoor spaces.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: The Best Free Pomodoro Timers and Apps to Boost Productivity. “The Pomodoro Technique can be used to cut down on procrastination by scheduling work and break periods throughout the day. While any old timer will do, dedicated timer apps make it easier to get started and stick with it.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Boing Boing: Google returning AI nonsense in search highlights. “‘While there are 54 recognized countries in Africa, none of them begin with the letter “K”‘, Google search asserts. ‘The closest is Kenya, which starts with a “K” sound, but is actually spelled with a “K” sound. It’s always interesting to learn new trivia facts like this.’ This drivel was reportedly the top, prominently quoted result for the search term ‘African country that starts with K’ and represents an inhuman centipede: AI-generated SEO-optimized content rising to the top and ending up as the automated answers Google offers to questions.”

The Provincetown Independent: An Online Archive of Provincetown’s Past — and Future. “[Stefan] Anikewich’s posts appear the same way a beachcomber’s artifacts do — gems from nearly every corner and decade of the town’s history surface with a strangely pleasing refusal to submit to an orderly timeline. There’s an 1898 photo of Provincetown taken from the harbor, a 1970s photo of a woman with a soft sculpture of the Pilgrim Monument in her bike basket, 1957 footage of a stroll down Commercial Street, and a 1916 photo of students in Charles Hawthorne’s Cape Cod School of Art painting on the wharf.”

The Verge: The restaurant nearest Google. “Thai Food Near Me, Dentist Near Me, Notary Near Me, Plumber Near Me — businesses across the country picked names meant to outsmart Google Search. Does it actually work?”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Sweeping White House AI executive order takes aim at the technology’s toughest challenges. “The Biden Administration unveiled its ambitious next steps in addressing and regulating artificial intelligence development on Monday. Its expansive new executive order seeks to establish further protections for the public as well as improve best practices for federal agencies and their contractors.”

Harvard Gazette: How facial-recognition app poses threat to privacy, civil liberties. “[Kashmir] Hill spoke of the need to come up with regulations to safeguard users’ privacy and rein in social media platforms that are profiting from users’ personal information without their consent. Some states have passed laws to protect people’s right to access personal information shared on social media sites and the right to delete it, but that is not enough, she said.”

Washington University in St. Louis: WashU Expert: Your smart speaker data is used in ways you might not expect. “We’ve all had the uncanny experience of searching for something on the internet and then suddenly ads for that very thing are popping up everywhere we look online. It’s no coincidence, said Umar Iqbal, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University College Cork: First ever study of wartime deepfakes reveals their impact on news media. “Deepfakes are artificially manipulated audio-visual material. Most deepfake videos involve the production of a fake ‘face’ constructed by Artificial Intelligence, that is merged with an authentic video, in order to create a video of an event that never really took place…. Researchers at University College Cork (UCC) examined tweets during the current Russian-Ukrainian war, in what is the first analysis of the use of deepfakes in wartime misinformation and propaganda. The study is published today in PLOS ONE.”

EurekAlert: Right-wing social media benefited from high-profile suspensions on mainstream platforms. “Following the ban of prominent political figures from Twitter, such as former US President Donald Trump, many alt-tech platforms – offering uncensored speech and popular with the far-right – have gained significant influence across the digital media ecosystem.”

NL Times: Teenagers frequently exposed to climate misinformation on TikTok, study finds. “Teenagers searching for information about climate change on TikTok frequently encounter misinformation, according to a study by Pointer and Beeld & Geluid. Out of 240 climate change-related videos analyzed, 73 had misleading content, representing 30 percent of the total. TikTok responded to the findings by taking corrective measures.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Lunduke: How to play the first text adventure game… in style.. “The very first major text adventure game, Colossal Cave Adventure, is 47 years old this year. And the 3D re-make (by the legendary Ken and Roberta Williams, founders of Sierra) has been released (allowing you to explore the cave in Virtual Reality). So, let’s take a few moments to enjoy the original classic… with a little help. Wether you are new to Colossal Cave Adventure (often simply called ‘adventure’ or ‘ADVENT’), or have simply not played it in some time, below you will find everything you need to experience the game in the most ultimate way possible.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 1, 2023 at 05:34PM
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ecolo-zip Database, Building Energy Usage, ChatGPT, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 31, 2023

ecolo-zip Database, Building Energy Usage, ChatGPT, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 31, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

HPC Wire: KL Krems Launches ecolo-zip Database, Mapping Terrain, Vegetation, and Climate Precisely. “ecolo-zip, a globally unique database offering intricate details on terrain formations, vegetation, and climate conditions across 1.5 million locations in 94 countries and regions, has been successfully developed and released.”

EPA: EPA Launches Online Tool Providing Energy Use Data and Insights from ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager®. “Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing the launch of a web-based tool that enables users to explore aggregate energy use data from more than 150,000 commercial and multi-family buildings in the United States.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Journal: New Version Of ChatGPT Gives Access To All GPT-4 Tools At Once. “OpenAI plans to unveil a new way to use multimodal GPT-4 with access to All Tools without switching and more document analysis capabilities. Screenshots shared by numerous ChatGPT Plus users on X show new capabilities for PDF and document analysis and an ‘All Tools’ feature. All Tools gives users access to all GPT-4 features without having to switch between one over the other.”

TechCrunch: X to take on newswire services with new product, XWire. “As Instagram Threads is leaning away from news, according to statements made by Instagram head Adam Mosseri, its competitor X appears to be doubling down. Executives at the company formerly known as Twitter spoke during yesterday’s all-hands internal meeting of their desire to create a new wire service called XWire, according to Bloomberg. The product would rival existing services for press releases, like Cision’s PR Newswire.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Denver Post: The Denver Art Museum has been quietly removing plundered artworks from its website without explanation. “For years, the Denver museum has carefully curated which repatriations and deaccessions — pieces removed from its collection — it chooses to publicly announce, a practice that goes against industry recommendations. Unlike some other institutions, it’s impossible in Denver to see which pieces, and how many, the museum has returned after foreign governments or U.S. authorities provided evidence that they were stolen or illegally trafficked.”

The Scotsman: Opening up ‘treasure trove’ archives of Alasdair Gray, James Kelman and George Mackay Brown. “Kept for decades in cardboard boxes and disintegrating plastic bags, they are a treasure trove of diaries, drafts, doodles, pocketbook, lists and letters offering invaluable insights into the minds of three of Scotland’s leading writers of modern times…. Now a major appeal is underway to help open up public access to the personal archives kept by Alasdair Gray, James Kelman and George Mackay Brown.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Stateline: Politicians love to cite crime data. It’s often wrong.. “Across the country, law enforcement agencies’ inability — or refusal — to send their annual crime data to the FBI has resulted in a distorted picture of the United States’ crime trends, according to a new Stateline analysis of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program participation data.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Register: Boffins find AI stumbles when quizzed on the tough stuff . “…to better assess how large language models – which interpret text input – and large multimodal models – which interpret text, images and perhaps other forms of input – actually handle problem solving, a group of ten researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Washington, and Microsoft Research have devised a testing benchmark called MathVista that focuses on visually-oriented challenges.”

NOAA: NOAA uses artificial intelligence to translate forecasts, warnings into Spanish and Chinese. “Through a series of pilot projects over the past few years, NWS forecasters have been training artificial intelligence (AI) software for weather, water and climate terminology in Spanish and Simplified Chinese, the most common languages in the United States after English. NWS will add Samoan and Vietnamese next, and more languages in the future.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: A Paper Printer For Q Code Menus. “Do you miss the days of thumbing through a sticky, laminated booklet to order your food? Sick of restaurants and their frustrating electronic menus? Fear not, for [Guy Dupont] and his QR code menu printer are here to save the day.” I don’t miss sticky menus, but I really do not like scanning unknown QR codes with my phone. Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 1, 2023 at 12:49AM
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Supporting Lewiston Maine, Ukraine History, Internet History, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, October 31, 2023

Supporting Lewiston Maine, Ukraine History, Internet History, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, October 31, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

State of Maine: Governor Mills Launches “Healing Together” Online Resource to Help Support to Lewiston Victims and Families. “The website, available at https://www.maine.gov/governor/mills/lewiston also identifies mental health resources from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to support anyone affected by the violence in Lewiston who may be struggling. The website lists community funds established by the Maine Community Foundation, the L-A Metro Chamber, the United Way of Androscoggin County, and Central Maine Medical Center that will deliver financial supports to those affected by the shootings, and those organizations involved in the community and heath care response.”

Ukrainska Pravda: Preserving oral history. Digital archive of Holodomor and collectivisation of Ukrainian SSR created. “The project called Oral history of Ukrainian peasant culture of 1920-1930 has been released on the platform of Great Transformations archives. It tells the audience about the impact of collectivisation on the lives of Ukrainians – in particular, about the consequences of the Holodomor of the 1930s and changes in the cultural sphere through participants’ eyes in these events.”

Laughing Squid: An Online Museum of Pivotal Early Internet Artifacts. “Neal Agarwal of Neal.fun created a fascinating online museum of early Internet Artifacts that documents the pivotal years of the development of the world wide web as we know it today. It starts out with the revolutionary ARPANET in 1977.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

How-To Geek: Vivaldi 6.4 Takes Video Playback and Calendar to the Next Level. “The Vivaldi web browser is already popular and feature-packed. While it has received several updates recently, the latest Vivaldi v6.4 release makes watching and controlling videos easier than ever on desktop (particularly in ‘pop-up’ mode). It also delivers a better calendar experience, among other improvements.”

USEFUL STUFF

Google Blog: Curl up with a spooky Halloween story with Google Books. “Spooky season is upon us, and this time of year there’s nothing better than to curl up with a spine-tingling tome and scare yourself silly. Google Books has the stories, free of charge – all you need to do is find a cozy corner and get reading.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Taipei Times: Task force to combat false reports . “The Mainland Affairs Council has reached out to temples across Taiwan to promote awareness of Chinese misinformation campaigns, after national security agencies reported a ‘high occurrence’ of election disinformation being spread among the religious community, a senior government official said.”

El País : Fitness, butts and Instagram stories: How exercise is sexualized on social media . “A couple of months ago Laura Kummerle tried uploading something different to her Instagram page. She’d been posting fitness routines for several years, so the exercises weren’t entirely new. But the camera shot was different: it focused directly on her butt, sexualizing the entire result. What happened next came as a surprise to no one, except Kummerle herself…. Her post multiplied the views she normally receives; comments and revenue soared as well.”

Colorado Public Radio: New Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library staffers are updating more than exhibits overdue for change. “Since starting the position in July, [Dexter Nelson II] manages and supervises a staff of four, all of whom focus on the museum, gallery, and archives on the second and third floors. He has a few immediate goals recently completed, and a few goals to fill. One completed goal is hiring a new Library Program Associate to create programming specific to the archival collection — which includes audio tapes of Colorado’s first Black surgeon, artwork of the first Black person in Colorado, and hundreds of vinyl records.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Google expands its bug bounty program to target generative AI attacks. “With concerns around generative AI ever-present, Google has announced an expansion of its Vulnerability Rewards Program (VRP) focused on AI-specific attacks and opportunities for malice. As such, the company released updated guidelines detailing which discoveries qualify for rewards and which fall out of scope.”

Radio Free Europe: ‘Cultural Expropriation’: Russia Steps Up Seizures Of Artifacts In Occupied Ukraine. “Late last month, a new exhibition opened at the Tauric Chersonesos museum complex in the Russian-occupied Crimean city of Sevastopol devoted to artifacts recovered at the Stone Age Kamyana Mohyla site in the occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region. At the same time, artifacts from the Tauric Chersonesos preserve are currently on display in the Russian city of Novgorod in an exhibition called Byzantine Gold.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Harvard Business School: When Tech Platforms Identify Black-Owned Businesses, White Customers Buy . “The study, coauthored by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Luca, Abhay Aneja at the University of California-Berkeley, and Oren Reshef of Washington University in St. Louis, shows that making it easier to search for Black restaurant owners on Yelp substantially increased their demand, leading to more calls, more delivery orders, as well as more in-person visits—boosting in-store traffic by about 10 percent.”

University of Michigan: New phone case provides workaround for inaccessible touch screens. “A new smartphone case could soon enable folks with visual impairments, tremors and spasms to use touch screens independently. Developed at the University of Michigan, BrushLens could help users perceive, locate and tap buttons and keys on the touch screen menus now ubiquitous in restaurant kiosks, ATM machines and other public terminals.” Good morning, Internet…

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October 31, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Pro Bono Opportunities North Carolina, Library of Congress, New Orleans Musicians, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 30, 2023

Pro Bono Opportunities North Carolina, Library of Congress, New Orleans Musicians, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

North Carolina Judicial Branch: Pro Bono Go: North Carolina’s New One-Stop Shop for Pro Bono Opportunities. “Pro Bono Go allows legal professionals to visit one website to find pro bono opportunities from the state’s leading civil justice organizations. Volunteers can search and filter opportunities by keyword, location, practice area, type (ex: cases, clinics, etc.), and sponsor organization. Volunteers can also set up customized email alerts when new opportunities matching their preferences hit the site. Volunteers do not need to create an account and never have to remember a password.”

American Libraries: Programming with Digital Collections. “A new LibGuide from the American Library Association (ALA) was recently created to help libraries explore the thousands of primary sources available from the Library of Congress online collection.”

NOLA: New Orleans & Company launches Musician Database, an online collection of 200 profiles. “NewOrleans.com has rolled out its online Musician Database, a collection of biographical pages on more than 200 local musicians presented in alphabetical order. Each profile page can accommodate a brief biography, photos, a description of the music, links to the act’s web page, social media accounts and performance schedule, and a Spotify playlist.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Your Amazon Alexa IFTTT automations are about to stop working. “The team behind IFTTT (short for ‘if this, then that’) wrote in a blog post that Amazon is cutting the service off from Alexa beginning October 31st. Once the integration is severed, users won’t be able to ask Alexa to trigger IFTTT applets. Certain automations will stick around in the IFTTT app, but some will be archived on November 1st unless you take action.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Mysterious bylines appeared on a USA Today site. Did these writers exist?. “Staffers at Reviewed, a USA Today-owned website devoted to shopping recommendations, were about to end their workday Friday when one of them noticed something strange: Articles were publishing on the site by writers none of them had ever heard of — and using suspiciously similar language.”

NPR: TikTok returns to the campaign trail but not everyone thinks it’s a good idea. “But while some first-time, grassroots candidates only know a political playing field that includes TikTok, uncertainty lingers over the best way for national Democrats to embrace it. Especially when the vast majority of the party isn’t on the platform.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

404 Media: Elon Musk Broke All the Tools Historians Need to Archive Tweets About Israel-Gaza War. “When Elon Musk began requiring people to pay steep fees to access the Twitter API earlier this year, he broke a series of tools used by researchers and archivists that could be used to accurately save tweets with metadata.”

Northeastern Global News: The smart home tech inside your home is less secure than you think, new Northeastern research finds . “Our homes are getting smarter every day. The next time you buy a toaster, fridge or dishwasher, setup might involve connecting to your home WiFi network and downloading an app on your phone. But such interconnectivity comes with risk, says David Choffnes, associate professor of computer sciences at Northeastern University.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Bitcoin mining has “very worrying” impacts on land and water, not only carbon, UN-led study reveals. “As bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have grown in market share, they’ve been criticized for their heavy carbon footprint: Cryptocurrency mining is an energy-intensive endeavor. Mining has massive water and land footprints as well, according to a new study that is the first to detail country-by-country environmental impacts of bitcoin mining.”

New York Times: Is Social Media Addictive? Here’s What the Science Says.. “Experts who study internet use say that the magnetic allure of social media arises from the way the content plays to our neurological impulses and wiring, such that consumers find it hard to turn away from the incoming stream of information.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 31, 2023 at 12:14AM
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India Cultural Heritage, FOIAonline, Virtual White House Tours, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, October 30, 2023

India Cultural Heritage, FOIAonline, Virtual White House Tours, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, October 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me, from MIT Technology Review: The grassroots push to digitize India’s most precious documents. “The museum building houses the largest reference library for Gandhian philosophy in the state of Karnataka, and over the next year, the large assortment of books—including the collected works of Mahatma Gandhi, a translation of his autobiography, Experiments with Truth, into the Kannada language, and other rare items—will be digitized and their metadata recorded before they join the Servants of Knowledge (SoK) collection on the Internet Archive.”

MuckRock: Here’s why MuckRock and POGO had to archive FOIAonline. “… while the decommissioning of FOIAonline has been in the works for several years, it still remains unclear when the public can expect access to these records to be restored by government agencies, if ever. In the interim, POGO and MuckRock have partnered to host a publicly available archive of nearly 34,000 documents captured before FOIAonline was shuttered.”

ABC News: The White House and Google launch a new virtual tour with audio captions, Spanish translation. “Can’t come to Washington? Couldn’t get a ticket to tour the White House? Don’t worry. The White House, Google Maps and Google Arts & Culture launched a new virtual tour of the famous mansion on Friday, which is also National Civics Day. With a computer or smartphone, users will be able to spend time zooming in on all of the rooms that they would have seen had they been able to go on an in-person tour.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

How-To Geek: Firefox 119 Arrives With Updated Firefox View and PDF Viewer. “Mozilla releases a new major Firefox update every four weeks, giving the open-source web browser a steady stream of improvements. Firefox 119 will start rolling out today, complete with an updated Firefox View, an improved PDF viewer, security fixes, and more.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: How to Download Videos From X/Twitter. “Although the official X app doesn’t let you download videos, there are some straightforward ways to get the job done, whether you’re on Android, iOS, Mac, or PC.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Bloomberg: Google Paid $26 Billion to Be Default Search Engine in 2021. “Google paid $26.3 billion to other companies to ensure its search engine was the default on web browsers and mobile phones, a top company executive testified during the Justice Department’s antitrust trial Friday.”

TechCrunch: AI’s proxy war heats up as Google reportedly backs Anthropic with $2B. “With a massive $2 billion reported investment from Google, Anthropic joins OpenAI in reaping the benefits of leadership in the artificial intelligence space, receiving immense sums from the tech giants that couldn’t move fast enough themselves. A byword for the age: Those who can, build; those who can’t, invest.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Inside Google’s Plan to Stop Apple From Getting Serious About Search. “For years, Google watched with increasing concern as Apple improved its search technology, not knowing whether its longtime partner and sometimes competitor would eventually build its own search engine. Those fears ratcheted up in 2021, when Google paid Apple around $18 billion to keep Google’s search engine the default selection on iPhones, according to two people with knowledge of the partnership, who were not authorized to discuss it publicly.”

Reuters: Google CEO Sundar Pichai to testify Monday in US Google antitrust trial. “Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Alphabet and its subsidiary Google, will testify on Monday in the once-in-a generation antitrust fight over Google’s dominance of search and some parts of search advertising.”

KNWA: Blogger Matt Campbell suing Gov. Sanders over documents regarding lectern. “Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is being sued for documentation about the purchase of a $19,000 lectern by blogger Matt Campbell. Campbell’s lawsuit against the governor’s office was filed on October 24. The lawsuit states the governor’s office did not turn over documents related to the purchase of a $19,000 lectern, claiming that is a violation of the state’s FOIA law.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Verge: The poster’s guide to the internet of the future. “The idea is that you, the poster, should post on a website that you own. Not an app that can go away and take all your posts with it, not a platform with ever-shifting rules and algorithms. Your website. But people who want to read or watch or listen to or look at your posts can do that almost anywhere because your content is syndicated to all those platforms.” If you’ve been on the Internet since the early 1990s, this is going to seem very familiar…

North Carolina State University: Helping Companies Understand – and Respond to – Online Misinformation . “When misinformation spreads on social media, there can be real consequences for both companies and the public. A new study offers insight into how consumers respond to these online hoaxes, which companies can use to better respond to these misinformation campaigns.” Good morning, Internet…

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October 30, 2023 at 05:31PM
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