Office of Homeland Security Statistics, The Fashion Calendar, Native Cinema Showcase, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, November 13, 2023

Office of Homeland Security Statistics, The Fashion Calendar, Native Cinema Showcase, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, November 13, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

MeriTalk: DHS Launches new Office of Homeland Security Statistics. “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday unveiled its new Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS), which aims to advance DHS’s statistical reporting and analysis capabilities. The new office said on Nov. 9 it plans to begin releasing its initial sets of data in the coming weeks and throughout fiscal year 2024, including a report on Federal cybersecurity incidents.”

Fashion Institute of Technology: The Ruth Finley Collection: Digitizing 70 Years of the Fashion Calendar. “The Fashion Calendar, which was published by Ruth Finley from 1941-2014, has long been the premier event resource for fashion, beauty, media, and culture. … Every issue of The Fashion Calendar with its iconic pink pages was donated to FIT, and now the calendar — more than 3,000 issues and upwards of 30,000 pages of material — has been fully scanned and digitized, is searchable and downloadable for free, by anyone wherever they are.”

EVENTS

Smithsonian: Online Native Cinema Showcase Brings Indigenous Films to Audiences Worldwide. “The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian celebrates American Indian Heritage Month with its online Native Cinema Showcase Nov. 17–24…. All films [six features and 29 shorts] are free to watch and are available for streaming, worldwide and on demand, with the exception of The Legend of Molly Johnson, Powerlands and We Are Still Here, which are limited to viewing in the United States.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Snap’s latest version of its AR development tool includes a ChatGPT API, boosted productivity and more. “Snap is releasing a new version of its AR development tool, called the Lens Studio 5.0 Beta, to developers starting today. The new AR development tool is designed to support more advanced AR development with increased productivity and the addition of new AI capabilities, including one powered by OpenAI. Snap made the announcement at its sixth annual Lens Fest AR developer conference on Thursday.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Create a Digital Planner in Google Sheets. “Organizing your daily tasks and schedules can be simplified with a digital planner. Thankfully, you don’t need to pay for a specialized app or wrestle with an overly complicated program—Google Sheets can get the job done. Creating a digital planner in Google Sheets is both easy and straightforward. Whether you’re mapping out personal or work-related tasks, it’s got all the features you need to get organized and stay on top of your responsibilities.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

BBC: Ryanair: How a budget airline took off on TikTok. “If the best things in life are free, you won’t find many of them on a Ryanair flight – and its social media accounts aren’t shy to say so. On TikTok, Insta and X, the company’s become known for ripping into its passengers and its own reputation. Being rude and obnoxious to your customers might not seem like the best approach, but the brand’s viral burns have earned it 2.1 million followers on TikTok – half a million more than EasyJet, Jet2, Tui, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Etihad combined.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NBC News: How the GOP muzzled the quiet coalition that fought foreign propaganda. “A once-robust alliance of federal agencies, tech companies, election officials and researchers that worked together to thwart foreign propaganda and disinformation has fragmented after years of sustained Republican attacks. The GOP offensive started during the 2020 election as public critiques and has since escalated into lawsuits, governmental inquiries and public relations campaigns that have succeeded in stopping almost all coordination between the government and social media platforms.”

Reuters: Musk’s X has a fraction of rivals’ content moderators, EU says. “According to reports the companies submitted to the EU in September, X’s 2,294 EU content moderators compared with 16,974 at Google’s YouTube, 7,319 at Google Play and 6,125 at TikTok, the senior Commission official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.”

ABC News (Australia): Major Australian port operator shuts down amid cyber security incident, impacting goods in and out of the country. “Australia’s second largest port operator has shut down because of a cyber security incident, impacting the movement of goods in and out of the country. DP World Australia, which operates ports in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Fremantle, is responsible for 40 per cent of maritime freight said it began responding to a cybersecurity incident on Friday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Information Sciences Institute, USC: Cracking the Code of Content Moderation . “Flagging, demotion, and deletion of content; temporary or permanent suspension of users – these are some of the interventions used to keep social media platforms safe, trustworthy, and free from harmful content. But what is the best way for these interventions to be implemented? Luca Luceri, a research scientist at USC’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI), is part of a team that is using science to guide social media regulations.”

Mashable: 1,000 TikToks experiment confirms the app is mostly ads. “Two reporters from the publication took on the task of watching 500 TikToks each and tracking how many ads they saw throughout. The result ended up being about 30 percent for both of them. The majority of ad-related content were traditional ads, with the rest being a combination of affiliate content, sponsored content, self-promotion of a business or product, and product reviews (which was counted as an ad-related category because it’s referencing a certain product).”

Dartmouth University: AI Recognizes Faces but Not Like the Human Brain. “In a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a Dartmouth research team, in collaboration with the University of Bologna, investigated whether [Deep convolutional neural networks] can model face processing in humans. The results show that AI is not a good model for understanding how the brain processes faces moving with changing expressions because at this time, AI is designed to recognize static images.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 13, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Chipshub (Semiconductors), Archiving Black Churches, WordPress, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 12, 2023

Chipshub (Semiconductors), Archiving Black Churches, WordPress, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 12, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Purdue University: Chipshub: An online platform for everything semiconductors. “Purdue University is leveraging its expertise in scientific simulation tools to help the nation take the lead as the hub for semiconductors and chips research, development and manufacturing. The university is teaming with the state of Indiana, the U.S. Department of Defense and the international not-for-profit R&D center imec to unveil Chipshub, an online platform for semiconductor simulations, software, collaboration and workforce development.”

EVENTS

Post and Courier: Keeping their stories alive: Black churches discuss archiving, historical preservation. “Lovely Mountain Baptist Church is just one of several Black churches in the Charleston area that doesn’t have a formal documentation system in place. This is why Minister Lisa Robinson and Minister Anna Montgomery… hosted a conference to help Black churches start the archival process. Nearly 20 church leaders and members heard from archivists and preservation experts about best practices for documenting a church’s history during the Nov. 4 virtual conference.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Journal: WordPress 6.4.1 Maintenance Release Fixes Bugs In Version 6.4. “WordPress released a maintenance release on Wednesday evening to fix problems discovered shortly after WordPress 6.4 was released to the public on Tuesday November 7th. Two of issues were somewhat serious in that they affected the operation of certain plugins and could cause issues for sites encountering either of the two problems. The third one was a typo that resulted in a misconfigured notice in the admin panel.”

USEFUL STUFF

Smashing Magazine: Creating Accessible UI Animations. “Animation and accessibility are often seen as two separate powers at odds with one another. How is it possible to strike a balance between elements that move and the possible negative effects they expose to users who are sensitive to motion? Oriana García explains how her team at Mercado Libre tackled the challenge by creating guiding principles for applying animation to user interfaces and incorporating them into the team’s design system.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Poynter: How Russian falsehoods spread to the US through faux local news. “After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, tech platforms enforced bans against Russian state media. But actors found ways to circumvent these bans and continue circulating Russian propaganda — often through websites posing local news.”

ZDNet: How Google’s AI Bard helped me fix a Gmail technical problem. “Talking to Bard was fun and easy. It’s not quite as intuitive in its responses as ChatGPT Plus with GPT-4, but Bard works for this sort of problem. I had to guide it a few times, and I had to wait for it to spew a lot of suggestions that were the stock trade of every junior tech support person on the planet (i.e., ‘Try it from a different computer’).”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Microsoft offers politicians protection against deepfakes. “Amid growing concern that AI can make it easier to spread misinformation, Microsoft is offering its services, including a digital watermark identifying AI content, to help crack down on deepfakes and enhance cybersecurity ahead of several worldwide elections.”

BBC: Omegle shut down: Video chat website closed after abuse claims. “Popular live video chat website Omegle is shutting down after 14 years following user claims of abuse. The service, which randomly placed users in online chats with strangers, grew in popularity with children and young people during the Covid pandemic. But the site has been mentioned in more than 50 cases against paedophiles in the last couple of years.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

EurekAlert: Smartphones and smart speakers may be able to detect alcohol intoxication by analyzing voice patterns: Study. “Sensors in smartphones and smart speakers could help determine a person’s level of alcohol intoxication based on the changes in their voice, according to a new study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.”

Newswise: Cultural artifacts serve as “cognitive fossils,” helping uncover the psychology of the past . “In a review published on November 2 in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, researchers explain how modern computing methods like text mining, face detection algorithms, and melodic extraction programs can enable large-scale analysis of cultural artifacts such as paintings, stories, or clothing to uncover this psychological data.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 13, 2023 at 01:08AM
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WWI Canadians, GIMP, Specialized GPTs, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, November 12, 2023

WWI Canadians, GIMP, Specialized GPTs, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, November 12, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Government of Canada: Access First World War service files in Collection Search. “In August 2018, Library and Archives Canada finished digitizing more than 600,000 service files of Canadians who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) during the First World War. We’re pleased to announce that these files have been integrated into our main database, Collection Search, and are now available through a new landing page.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

HOW-TO GEEK: GIMP Adds New Gradient Options as It Prepares for 3.0 Release. “The latest GIMP release (version 2.10.36) introduces a fun new gradient tool and support for additional palette formats. More notably, this might be ‘the next to last release in the 2.10 branch,’ meaning that the delayed GIMP 3.0 launch should occur relatively soon. Even if you’re uninterested in today’s update, the GIMP Team suggests installing it for security fixes.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: Top 10 GPTs by OpenAI So Far (Explained with Examples). “At OpenAI’s recent DevDay event, one of the standout announcements was the unveiling of specialized GPTs…. In this article, we’ll delve into ten of the most impactful GPTs launched to date. Having spent a considerable amount of time testing each one, I’ll share insights and sample outputs to give you a taste of what each can offer.”

Lifehacker: This Plugin Shows You Where Every Amazon Product Was Made. “Most of us do at least some (if not the majority of) our shopping online now, but there are things we give up for that convenience. You can’t actually hold the item in your hands to see if reality lives up to the product description, so we often rely on bot-infested or fake reviews. But if you consider where the item is manufactured to be an indication of the likely quality of the product, you might now have a solution, at least on Amazon: Cultivate is a free web browser extension specifically for Amazon shoppers that tells you where the product you’re eyeing was manufactured.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNBC: Group of Google contractors who work on Search and Bard win union vote. “A group of Google contractors, some of whom have worked on Search and Google’s artificial intelligence chatbot Bard, have successfully voted to unionize. The group, from Google contractor Accenture, filed for unionization efforts in June after claiming Google asked them to help train the generative AI answers offered in Search and Bard, and that they felt underprepared for their work. The tasks included handling ‘obscene and graphic’ content, according to Bloomberg reports.”

Philadelphia Inquirer: Deepfakes meet cheesesteaks as Steak-umm rolls out a provocative marketing campaign. “Steak-umm is using this video for a new ad campaign, rolled out Oct. 31. But the West Chester-based food company is not using it to sell frozen steak slabs. It is sharing an entirely different message. It wants to demonstrate the sinister side of artificial intelligence. The four-minute video of the ‘carnivorous’ vegans is a deepfake.”

Fashionista: New Hearst Policy Restricts Political Speech on Employees’ Social Media Accounts. “Hearst is instituting a new social media policy that bans its employees, journalists on staff included, from expressing personal political opinions online. The news was shared publicly by the Hearst Magazines Media Union on Monday.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Epic v. Google, explained. “…while Epic’s antitrust claims against Apple got their day in court, a similar lawsuit against Google never did. On November 6th, Epic v. Google will finally go to trial… a mere 1,180 days after Epic originally sued. Hi, I’m Sean, and I’ll be your guide to this whole delightful mess.”

Engadget: Basically all of Maine had data stolen by a ransomware gang. “The state agencies of Maine had fallen victim to cybercriminals who exploited a vulnerability in the MOVEit file transfer tool, making them the latest addition to the growing list of entities affected by the massive hack involving the software. In a notice the government has published about the cybersecurity incident, it said the event impacted approximately 1.3 million individuals, which basically make up the state’s whole population.”

The Register: Meta, YouTube face criminal spying complaints in Ireland. “Privacy consultant Alexander Hanff, who has occasionally contributed to The Register, has challenged Meta’s collection of data without explicit consent under Ireland’s computer abuse law. He told The Register he’s also in the process of filing a similar criminal complaint against YouTube over its use of scripts to detect ad blocking extensions in people’s web browsers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Reuters: Exclusive-Elon Musk’s X restructuring curtails disinformation research, spurs legal fears. “Social media researchers have canceled, suspended or changed more than 100 studies about X, formerly Twitter, as a result of actions taken by Elon Musk that limit access to the social media platform, nearly a dozen interviews and a survey of planned projects show.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Digital Camera World: I shot photos with a 108-year-old Kodak camera lens to commemorate the soldiers of WWI . “During WWI soldiers were prohibited from using cameras and taking photographs of life in the trenches, however, many still did. They did so by using a small compact camera called the Kodak Vest Pocket film camera that was easy to conceal, and later became known as ‘The soldier’s camera’. Tom Calton, a photographer based in Peterborough, UK, has repurposed its otherwise fixed lens, adapting it to be used on a modern Sony mirrorless camera…” Good morning, Internet….

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November 12, 2023 at 06:31PM
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KyKy Archives, Autism-Friendly Online, Tumblr, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 11, 2023

KyKy Archives, Autism-Friendly Online, Tumblr, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 11, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

It’s Nice That: KyKy Archives preserves the history of Black queer people, places and culture. “Zora and Siddisse have been completely independent and free of institutional support since they started, and it has made for a site that is truly transformative and unique.”

Queen Mary University of London: New report reveals autistic adults’ social media experiences and provides toolkits to better support the needs of neurodivergent users. “To support efforts from designers and third and public sector professionals, Professor Nelya Koteyko and her research team in collaboration with the UK’s leading autism research and campaigning charity Autistica have created a policy brief ‘Making online platforms autism-friendly’ as well as toolkits that can help in adapting digital platforms and social media to better support the needs of neurodiverse users.” I really hope #1 is “no autoplaying video with audio.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: Owner of Tumblr confirms site’s shift from “surging” to “small and focused”. “Tumblr will lose a majority of its product-minded staff by the end of this year, according to the CEO of the company that owns it. But despite a recently leaked memo quoting Tennyson’s ‘better to have loved and lost’ line, the CEO believes they are ‘setting up Tumblr for success in this next chapter.'”

Gizmodo: Google’s ‘Help Me Script’ Can Help Automate Your Smart Home. “Need help figuring out how to program smart lights to turn on at dusk? You can ask AI for help with that. Google’s generative AI-powered feature called the ‘Help me script’ started rolling out to beta testers this week. It can help you figure out robust home automation. All you have to do is copy and paste code.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Atlantic: ‘We Do Not Want to Deal With Customers Like You!’. “This was not a one-off diatribe, a rogue manager on a bad day. Dragon Lee does this all the time. Perhaps you are a one-star reviewer who saw an outdated menu with lower prices? That ‘just shows how ignorant you actually are,’ the restaurant responded—and it doesn’t care if you come back: ‘It’s one less dunce we have to deal with.’… In the restaurant world, where online reviews have an ascendant power over a business’s bottom line, Dragon Lee is doing what other spots can’t, or won’t: It’s arguing with its customers.”

The Verge: Former Kotaku writers are launching a new video game site — and they own it this time. “Four ex-Kotaku staffers are launching a new subscriber-based video games and culture publication: Aftermath. The website, which is now live, will be co-owned by Nathan Grayson, Gita Jackson, Riley MacLeod, and Luke Plunkett — all Kotaku mainstays who helped shape its incisive voice before leaving the site for one reason or another.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Cal Matters: Recognizing fake news now a required subject in California schools. “Pushing back against the surge of misinformation online, California will now require all K-12 students to learn media literacy skills — such as recognizing fake news and thinking critically about what they encounter on the internet.”

Engadget: Discord is switching to expiring links for files shared off-platform . “Discord is changing its approach to file hosting in an effort to crack down on malware. The platform will begin using temporary file links that will expire after 24 hours for user content shared outside of Discord, BleepingComputer reported. The change is expected to go into effect by the end of the year.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Northeastern Global News: What are AI chatbots actually doing when they ‘hallucinate’? Here’s why experts don’t like the term. “As debate over the true nature, capacity and trajectory of such man-made tools simmers in the background, a leading expert in the field is pushing back against the concept of ‘hallucination,’ arguing that it gets much of how current AI models operate wrong. ‘Generally speaking, we don’t like the term because these models make errors — and we can explain why they make errors,’ says Usama Fayyad, executive director for the Institute for Experiential Artificial Intelligence.”

North Carolina State University: NC State Researchers Create First Genetic Database of North Carolina Black Bears . “Using a broad DNA profiling panel for American black bears, researchers from NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine and College of Natural Resources have created the first genetic database for a subsample of North Carolina’s black bear population. The database, which can be used to identify individual bears and localized groups, can help law enforcement and wildlife officials identify bears poached by hunters or involved in human-bear interactions reported to the state.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 12, 2023 at 01:33AM
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Wyoming Newspapers, Disability Legislation, Removing Extremist Content, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 11, 2023

Wyoming Newspapers, Disability Legislation, Removing Extremist Content, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 11, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Wyoming State Library: Wyoming Digital Newspaper Collection Adds Five Titles. “The Wyoming Digital Newspaper Collection has added five prison newspapers to its database. Titles include Best Scene, J-A-B-S, Wyoming State Honor Farm, Wyoming Pen, and The New Approach. These newspapers span from 1915 to 1992 and give insight into the daily lives of those in the prison system.”

Mother Jones: A New Tool Helps Disabled People Track—and Shape—Laws That Impact Them. “New Disabled South, a disability justice nonprofit founded in 2022, is trying to make more information available to disabled people on legislation that affects them, launching its Plain Language Policy Dashboard in November to cover 14 Southern states. As of now, the bills it explains fall into six categories: accessibility, civil rights, criminalization, poverty and care, democracy, and education.”

WIRED: This New Tool Aims to Keep Terrorism Content Off the Internet. “Launched in Paris on Friday, Altitude is a free tool built by Jigsaw—a unit within Google that tracks violent extremism, misinformation, and repressive censorship—and Tech Against Terrorism, a group that seeks to disrupt terrorists’ online activity. The tool aims to give smaller platforms the ability to easily and efficiently detect terrorist content on their networks and remove it.”

EVENTS

Space: Watch NASA build its VIPER moon rover with these free online watch parties. “The rover, called VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover), will explore the moon and collect water-ice samples from permanently shadowed areas near the lunar south pole. VIPER has an expected launch date of November 2024, and its mission team has begun final assembly and testing procedures, which NASA will broadcast live during monthly watch parties for the public to follow along in the final stages of preparing the rover for space.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Connecticut by the Numbers: Grant to Help Hartford Look Back to the Future. “The Hartford History Center at Hartford Public Library was recently awarded an $18,830 National Film Preservation Foundation grant to restore and digitize a collection of early 20th-century films by radio pioneer, inventor, and Hartford resident Hiram Percy Maxim. The films, which will be available on the Connecticut Digital Archive within the next year, feature Maxim and his wife, along with their family and friends.”

The Mainichi: Tokyo group creating database of Great Kanto Earthquake victims on 100th anniv. . “An organization in the capital has been creating a database of victims of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and aims to release it within this fiscal year as 100 years have passed since the disaster.”

Futurism: Adobe Caught Selling AI-Generated Images of Israel-Palestine Violence. “Software giant Adobe has been caught selling AI-generated images of the Israel-Hamas war, as first spotted by Australian news outlet Crikey, a shocking and morally reprehensible instance of a company directly profiting from the spread of misinformation online.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Planned to ‘Go Big in Europe’ After EU Android Case. “Google — under fire in court for allegedly resting on its laurels thanks to its 90% market dominance — only made an effort to beef up the quality of its search engine in the European Union after being hit by a record antitrust fine, according to internal documents revealed in the US Justice Department’s monopolization case against the tech giant.”

Times-Herald (California): Brendan Riley’s Solano Chronicles: Historic records panel shelved. “Solano County supervisors have voted 4-1 to dissolve the county’s Historical Records Commission, in what critics term a ‘catastrophic’ disservice to the public that should be reversed in order to preserve and protect a wealth of old documents.”

The Verge: What is Google trying to hide in its deal with Spotify?. “Is there something Google doesn’t want the world to know about its deal with Spotify? That’s what Google attorney Glenn Pomerantz suggested in Fortnite court this morning. Pomerantz argued that the court should seal portions of an upcoming exhibit revealing Google’s User Choice Billing agreement with Spotify — which lets Spotify use its own payment system for subscriptions while still giving Google a cut.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: Chatbots May ‘Hallucinate’ More Often Than Many Realize. “When summarizing facts, ChatGPT technology makes things up about 3 percent of the time, according to research from a new start-up. A Google system’s rate was 27 percent.” That link is to a gift article; you should not experience a paywall..

University of Central Florida: New UCF Tech Uses AI, VR to Monitor Safety of Bridges, Buildings. “Monitoring the structural health of the nation’s aging budlings and bridges is vital to keeping people safe and helping prevent tragedies such as the Surfside condominium collapse in 2021. That’s why University of Central Florida researchers have developed four new inventions that use artificial intelligence and virtual reality to improve the structural health monitoring of buildings, bridges, roads and other civil structures.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 11, 2023 at 06:31PM
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North Carolina Newspapers, New York Economic Incentives, YouTube, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 10, 2023

North Carolina Newspapers, New York Economic Incentives, YouTube, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 10, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Digital NC: 42 Newspapers from the North Carolina Collection. “Here we have new papers from the North Carolina Collection that have never been microfilmed! The North Carolina Collection originated in 1844 and is the largest traditional collection of library materials for any state.”

Governor of New York: New Database Builds on Governor’s State of the State Commitment to Making State Government Work Better for New Yorkers. “Governor Kathy Hochul today launched the enhanced Database of Economic Incentives as part of her ongoing commitment to transparency and making state government work better for New Yorkers…. The Database has expanded from 26 to 55 data fields and contains thousands of projects from 45 programs spanning multiple state agencies. The enhanced Database now contains an interactive dashboard offering high-level summary information of all projects.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: YouTube is testing a chatbot that will appear under select videos. “YouTube’s latest AI experiments includes a new chatbot that’s designed to give you more information about a video you’re watching. The conversational AI tool, as Google’s support post calls it, aims to answer your questions about a video and can also recommend related content.”

USEFUL STUFF

MIT News: Explained: Generative AI . “A quick scan of the headlines makes it seem like generative artificial intelligence is everywhere these days. In fact, some of those headlines may actually have been written by generative AI, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a chatbot that has demonstrated an uncanny ability to produce text that seems to have been written by a human. But what do people really mean when they say ‘generative AI?'”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: The New Enemies of Argentina’s Far Right: Swifties and the BTS Army. “Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian economist, has stayed aloft in Argentina’s presidential campaign on the wings of the youth vote. To win the runoff election this month, he will need to hold on to that key demographic, pollsters say. But now, a major hurdle stands in his way: Swifties.”

Vernon Morning Star: Hiker rescued off B.C. cliffside after taking non-existent Google Maps trail . “The group says Saturday was the third time they’ve been called in to the area near Mount Fromme for a hiker in danger. The group says it had been concerned people were following what was marked as a path on Google Maps between the mountain and the Kennedy Falls area. In fact, North Shore SAR says, there are no trails in the area, only steep, wooded terrain and cliff bands.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Data broker’s “staggering” sale of sensitive info exposed in unsealed FTC filing . “One of the world’s largest mobile data brokers, Kochava, has lost its battle to stop the Federal Trade Commission from revealing what the FTC has alleged is a disturbing, widespread pattern of unfair use and sale of sensitive data without consent from hundreds of millions of people.”

Deutsche Welle: EU to crack down on targeted social media ads. “The European Union intends to usher in stricter rules on social media microtargeting — including tougher barriers for advertisers outside of the bloc to buy political ads aimed at residents of EU member states.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: People dig deeper to fact-check social media posts when paired with someone who doesn’t share their perspective – new research. “People fact-checked social media posts more carefully and were more willing to revise their initial beliefs when they were paired with someone from a different cultural background than their own, according to a study my collaborators Michael Baker and Françoise Détienne and I recently published in Frontiers in Psychology.”

University of Washington: New AI noise-canceling headphone technology lets wearers pick which sounds they hear. “…a team led by researchers at the University of Washington has developed deep-learning algorithms that let users pick which sounds filter through their headphones in real time. The team is calling the system ‘semantic hearing.’ Headphones stream captured audio to a connected smartphone, which cancels all environmental sounds. Either through voice commands or a smartphone app, headphone wearers can select which sounds they want to include from 20 classes, such as sirens, baby cries, speech, vacuum cleaners and bird chirps.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 11, 2023 at 01:14AM
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Large-Scale Solar Facilities, Accessibility in Web Design, Indigenous Reads Rising, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 10, 2023

Large-Scale Solar Facilities, Accessibility in Web Design, Indigenous Reads Rising, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 10, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

US Department of Energy: U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Geological Survey Release Online Public Database of Large-Scale Solar Facilities. “The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) released the largest and most comprehensive database to date on large-scale solar energy projects in the United States. The U.S. Large-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Database (USPVDB) includes the location, size, and other characteristics of large-scale solar projects.”

Design Week: New platform launches to help web designers navigate accessibility guidelines. “Edinburgh-based design consultancy Studio Lutalica and web design studio Lattimore + Friends have developed a free website in a bid to demystify the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and help designers make websites more accessible. Understanding Accessibility was created to be a simple step-by-step guide for web designers that they can use to help them design for disabilities.”

School Library Journal: We Need Diverse Books Launches Indigenous Kid Lit Website . “The site features booklists and articles on Native American literature, land acknowledgment, and tropes and stereotypes, as well as extensive resources for teachers, librarians, and readers. The goal of the resources is to help educators use Native books in the classroom and offer guidance and best practices on how to teach those books.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Smile FM (South Africa): City in talks with Google to caution visitors on certain areas. “Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says he has been in discussion with international companies providing GPS services, like Google and Waze, in a bid to caution visitors about certain areas in the Mother City. This after a 55 year old American tourist Walter Fischel was stabbed in the face and robbed in Nyanga on Friday afternoon… In yet another tourist attack, an elderly German couple were attacked along Baden Powell Drive yesterday.”

TechCrunch: LGBTQ suicide prevention org the Trevor Project is leaving Elon Musk’s X for good. “The Trevor Project announced Thursday that it has decided to end its presence on the platform in light of ‘increasing hate and vitriol’ targeting the queer community on X, which Elon Musk purchased one year ago. The organization is focused on suicide prevention and provides 24/7 counseling for young LGBTQ people struggling with mental health challenges.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Guardian: Cheese-rolling, straw bears and weird rituals galore: one man’s mission to record all of British folklore. “Fans of British folklore are championing a campaign to safeguard a unique archive cataloguing traditions from Britain and Ireland. The collection – of more than 20,000 books, 4,000 tape cassettes and 3,500 hours of reel-to-reel audio – has been amassed by one man. David ‘Doc’ Rowe is a 79-year-old folklorist who has travelled the UK since the 1960s, visiting calendar customs such as the Straw Bear Festival, the Krampus Run or the Hunting of the Earl of Rone.”

Wall Street Journal: Block’s Stock Price Is Down 80%. Enter CEO Jack Dorsey.. “Jack Dorsey has been notoriously hands-off. Recent events are forcing him to change. For years, his payments company, Block, was perceived as a success, even with him only in the background. Things changed last month when he started running Square, one of Block’s marquee units, after his handpicked deputy abruptly left.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Google mulled offering paid-for no-logging private Search subscription . “In 2018, concerned about the public’s perception of its privacy practices, Google leaders proposed a subscription-based private Search service, one that doesn’t log queries and other data. According to testimony in Google’s ongoing antitrust case, Danny Sullivan, public liaison for Google Search, endorsed the subscription idea in an email discussion with Meredith Hoffer, then director of marketing for Google Search, and numerous other Chocolate Factory executives including the then-head of Search Ben Gomes, who forwarded the discussion to a subset of participants.”

Reuters: Exclusive-YouTube, TikTok face EU requests for details on measures protecting minors. “Google’s YouTube and TikTok will be asked by EU industry chief Thierry Breton to explain how they protect children from illegal and harmful content on their platforms in line with new EU rules, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.”

Bloomberg: Google, Meta Win EU Court Fight to Avoid Austrian Content Curbs. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc. and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok won a ruling at the European Union’s top court that limits the scope for EU nations to pepper them with their own local rules.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Seattle Times: Google owes news outlets at least $10 billion yearly, study estimates. “A revelatory new study estimates that Google and Facebook owe U.S. news outlets at least $12 billion a year for the value news content adds to their platforms. Google owes publishers $10 billion to $12 billion annually and Facebook $1.9 billion, according to the study by professors at Columbia University and the University of Houston, with Boston-based consulting firm The Brattle Group.”

University of Rochester: Audio deepfake detective developing new sleuthing techniques. “With artificial intelligence-powered audio generation making it increasingly hard to distinguish between real and fake audio, an electrical and computer engineering PhD student is working to develop tools to protect against scammers. You ‘Neil’ Zhang of the Audio Information Research (AIR) Lab at the University of Rochester received a competitive National Institute of Justice graduate research fellowship to develop new audio deepfake detection systems.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 10, 2023 at 06:31PM
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