Disinformation Laws Worldwide, Canada Black Music Archives, YouTube, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, November 20, 2023

Disinformation Laws Worldwide, Canada Black Music Archives, YouTube, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, November 20, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

International Journalists’ Network: New tool tracks disinformation laws globally. “Amid the rise in disinformation today, journalists should look into legal measures adopted by countries around the world to combat it. Brazil’s Agência Lupa is helping reporters do just that, this month launching an interactive map showing national and supranational laws globally intended to legislate disinformation online. The tool, called LupaMundi, provides details about the legislation while helping users better understand the nature of the laws and how they could be used against journalists.”

Canada Newswire: Canada Black Music Archives (CBMA) Launches As The Definitive Digital Repository Of Black Canadian Musical Heritage (PRESS RELEASE). “The CBMA aims to fill a crucial gap in Canada’s historical narrative by providing a digital platform accessible to all, highlighting the remarkable contributions, stories, and legacies of Black musicians across various genres.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: YouTube now allows monetization on videos with breastfeeding nudity and ‘non-sexually graphic dancing’. “YouTube is updating its guidelines to allow new types of content to monetize adult content, including videos that display nudity while breastfeeding and non-sexually graphic dancing.”

Engadget: Bluesky hits 2 million users and will soon release a public web interface. “Bluesky hit 1 million users merely a couple of months ago, in September, which could mean that the platform has been sending out more invites recently. In its post announcing the milestone, the Bluesky team has also revealed that it’s launching a public web interface around the end of November. The interface will allow anybody, even those without an account, to view posts on the platform.”

How-To Geek: Old Nook eReaders Are Losing Book Store Access. “The book retailer Barnes & Noble has announced that it is ending support for the Nook Simple Touch (released in 2011), Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight (released in 2012), and the Nook GlowLight (released in 2013). The official end of support will come in April 2024, and in June 2024, the devices will lose the ability to register or sign in with a B&N account, and no new content can be purchased. However, downloaded books will continue to work, and PDF and ePub books can still be copied to the storage.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

BusinessWire: National Comedy Center to Preserve Don Rickles Archive (PRESS RELEASE). “The National Comedy Center, the United States’ official cultural institution dedicated to the art form of comedy, announced today that it will be preserving an archival collection from Don Rickles’ estate, showcasing the late comedy legend’s six-decade career. The collection spans from the 1950s to 2000s, chronicling a storied life in comedy through rare photographs, correspondence, creative papers, and wardrobe—all of which will be preserved at the National Comedy Center.”

Ars Technica: “Make It Real” AI prototype wows devs by turning drawings into working software. “On Wednesday, a collaborative whiteboard app maker called ‘tldraw’ made waves online by releasing a prototype of a feature called ‘Make it Real’ that lets users draw an image of software and bring it to life using AI. The feature uses OpenAI’s GPT-4V API to visually interpret a vector drawing into functioning Tailwind CSS and JavaScript web code that can replicate user interfaces or even create simple implementations of games like Breakout.”

Axios: What makes the X advertiser revolt different from other boycotts. “A slew of marquee advertisers suspended their advertising on X, formerly Twitter, Friday in response to a post by owner Elon Musk that endorsed an antisemitic post Wednesday. Why it matters: This is the closest X has come to a large-scale boycott since Musk purchased the platform more than a year ago.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: The Invisible War in Ukraine Being Fought Over Radio Waves. “Using electromagnetic waves to flummox and follow smarter weapons has become a critical part of the cat-and-mouse game between Ukraine and Russia. The United States, China and others have taken note.”

MoneyControl (India): MeitY to meet Meta, Google, other platforms and ‘brainstorm’ on deepfakes. “The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is set to meet social media platforms, including Meta and Google, in the next few days, and ‘brainstorm’ on how to mitigate the persistent issue of AI-generated deepfakes on such platforms. This comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted the issue of this technology, and termed it as ‘problematic’.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Yale: Making Computing Sustainable, With Help from NSF Grant. “Working with Prof. Noa Zilberman from Oxford University, [Professor Robert] Soulé has received a grant jointly funded by the United Kingdom’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and United States’ National Science Foundation (NSF) for work that aims to reduce the energy consumption of computing. Specifically, it sets its sights on computer networks, which consume an estimated one-and-a-half times the energy of all data centers, according to some reports.”

Daily Maverick (South Africa): My robbery nightmare in Nyanga, Cape Town, directed by Google Maps. “On Monday, 13 November, Daily Maverick published an article entitled ‘Google Maps will no longer direct visitors through Cape Town township after attacks on motorists’. On the same day, I messaged Google urging them not to send motorists to Muizenberg through Nyanga because, unbeknown to Daily Maverick, the ‘most recent’ attack wasn’t in October, but on 10 November. I know this because it happened to me.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 20, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Kentucky Historical Records, New York City Apartments, Google Chrome, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 19, 2023

Kentucky Historical Records, New York City Apartments, Google Chrome, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 19, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

WEKU: UK, other partners put Lexington historical records online. “With a few clicks, people can now access Lexington history from the 1780s to the 1870s. University of Kentucky students have digitized nearly 80-thousand deeds and other records and posted it on the Fayette County Clerk’s website.”

AM NY: City launches revamp of website that provides details about tens of thousands of apartments. “The city on Friday officially launched a revamp of its website that provides New Yorkers with information on apartments across the Big Apple in a bid to make crucial details about their homes more accessible. The city Dept. of Housing Preservation and Development’s (HPD) relaunched website — known as HPD Online — offers a bevy of information to tenants and building owners alike about tens of thousands of apartments in the five boroughs, according to the agency.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Register: What’s really going on with Chrome’s June crackdown on extensions – and why your ad blocker may or may not work . “Web advert blockers and other Chrome extensions will stop working by June 2024 unless they’ve been revamped to keep up with Google’s changes to its ubiquitous browser. And even then, if those content-filtering extensions have been updated to meet Google’s latest specifications and requirements, the add-ons may not work as well or as comprehensively as they did previously.”

The Verge: Discord is shutting down its AI chatbot Clyde. “Discord is shutting down Clyde, its experimental AI chatbot. In a support note, Discord says the chatbot will be ‘deactivated’ at the end of the month, and that by December 1st ‘users will no longer be able to invoke Clyde in DMs, Group DMs or server chats.'”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNN: Disney and Lionsgate halt advertising on X. “Disney said it has suspended advertising on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The decision by one of the world’s most prominent film and television companies suggests an intensifying advertiser backlash to X after the social media platform’s owner, Elon Musk, embraced an antisemitic conspiracy theory popular among White supremacists.”

KUTV: Utah Historical Society pushes ‘The Peoples of Utah Revisited’ to celebrate growing diversity . “The book ‘The Peoples of Utah’ was published nearly 50 years ago by the Utah Historical Society. It explores stories of the lives of people from various cultures who came and settled in our state. Now, there’s a new project underway to build on the research conducted back then and inspire the next generation. It’s called ‘The Peoples of Utah Revisited.’ Each of the 14 chapters are devoted to specific ethnic communities that migrated to Utah.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Elon Musk to file ‘thermonuclear lawsuit’ as advertisers desert X. “Elon Musk has said he will be filing a ‘thermonuclear lawsuit’ against Media Matters and others, after major US companies paused their adverts on his social media site over concerns about antisemitism.”

New Voice of Ukraine: Nearly 4,000 cyber attacks against Ukraine recorded over 20 months, says US Treasury. “Nearly 4,000 cyber attacks against Ukraine occurred between January 2022 and September 2023, according to Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Treasury Department, Graham Steele, on Nov. 17.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Mail & Guardian, South Africa: Using art and traditional storytelling as tools to combat the infection that is fake news in Africa. “Perhaps going back to the traditional way of storytelling — first about threats and opportunities of technology or the digital world — can influence mindsets, attitudes, perspectives, behaviour and understating. Especially to kill the bias that often comes with being stuck in the fixed mindset.”

New York Times: How Bad Is Antisemitism Online? It’s Increasingly Hard to Know.. “As the Israel-Hamas war flooded social media with violent content, false information and a seemingly limitless swell of opinions, lawmakers and users have accused platforms like TikTok and Facebook of promoting biased posts…. Where the truth lies, however, is hard to glean, according to academic researchers and advocacy groups.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 20, 2023 at 01:36AM
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International Labour Organization, NOAA Coral Reef Monitoring, Great East Japan Earthquake Archive, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, November 19, 2023

International Labour Organization, NOAA Coral Reef Monitoring, Great East Japan Earthquake Archive, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, November 19, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

International Labour Organization: New ILO Research Repository showcases ILO research and expertise. “The International Labour Organization (ILO) has launched a new Research Repository that provides better access to ILO research, as well as information on the work of ILO experts. The new repository creates a one-stop-shop for ILO research publications and other knowledge assets. It already contains around 20,000 publications, mostly published since 2000.”

NOAA: NOAA unveils new tool for exploring coral reef data. “NOAA’s National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) launched a new data visualization tool today, which will provide free and easy-to-access information on the status of U.S. coral reefs. It is the first tool focusing on shallow tropical coral reef data to be hosted on the NOAA GeoPlatform, which is NOAA’s central hub for geospatial data and tools.”

EVENTS

National Diet Library, Japan: Handing down memories of the earthquake and traditions of the community—the FY2023 Great East Japan Earthquake Archive Symposium will be held on January 8, 2024. “The National Diet Library and the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tohoku University (IRIDeS) will cosponsor a symposium on the Great East Japan Earthquake Archive to be held Monday, January 8, 2024, a national holiday in Japan. Interested parties will be able either to attend the event at Tohoku University in Sendai, Miyagi, or to watch a live video stream online.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Change in X’s terms indicate EU researchers will get API access. “After taking over Twitter last year, Elon Musk famously yanked API access from third-party apps and changed API pricing tiers to make it difficult for researchers to access and study the platform’s data. Now the company he’s since renamed X has backtracked in the European Union where legal obligations in the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) require larger platforms (so called VLOPs) to provide data access to external researchers doing public interest research on systemic risks.”

Gizmodo: Google’s ChatGPT Competitor Will Have to Wait. “Google is having a hard time catching up with OpenAI. Google’s competitor to ChatGPT will not be ready until early 2024, after previously telling some cloud customers it would get to use Gemini AI in November of this year, sources told The Information Thursday.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Jewish Celebrities and Influencers Confront TikTok Executives in Private Call. “More than a dozen Jewish TikTok creators and celebrities confronted TikTok executives and other employees in a private meeting on Wednesday night, urging them to do more to address a surge of antisemitism and harassment on the popular video service.”

404 Media: Users Can’t Speak to Viral AI Girlfriend CarynAI Because CEO Is in Jail for Arson. “People who paid to speak to an AI girlfriend modeled after real life 23-year-old influencer Caryn Marjorie are distraught because the service they paid for, Forever Companions, no longer works. It appears that the service stopped working shortly after Forever Companion CEO and founder John Meyer was arrested for trying to set his own apartment on fire.”

California State Library: More than $1.5 Million in California Civil Liberties Public Education Grants Now Available. (This link goes to a PDF.) “California community groups, artists, authors and filmmakers, can now apply for more than $1.5 million to create educational materials, documentaries, and online exhibits as part of the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program. Applications for grants from the program are now available online and due back January 15, 2024. The civil liberties program pays for projects that educate the public about the history and lessons of civil rights violations and injustices, such as the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, as well as treatment of other communities and populations.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Times of India: Deepfakes: Social media companies summoned over deepfakes. “The Indian government has summoned social media giants, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (now known as X), and YouTube, to discuss the law of deepfakes. This comes in response to a recent controversy overa fake video of actress Rashmika Mandanna.”

Mashable: Elon Musk’s X: Ad watchdog files FTC complaint against it for not clearly disclosing ads. “Elon Musk’s new ad policies for X may cost the company after an online advertising watchdog officially filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Check My Ads, an independent organization that monitors adtech companies, announced on Wednesday that it submitted a formal complaint with the FTC, ‘urging’ for an investigation into X and its ad practices.”

Bleeping Computer: Google: Hackers exploited Zimbra zero-day in attacks on govt orgs. “According to Google’s threat analysts, the threat actors exploited the vulnerability on government systems in Greece, Moldova, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Pakistan to steal email data, user credentials, and authentication tokens, perform email forwarding, and lead victims to phishing pages.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Chapman University: Exposing the Holocaust Lies on the Dark Side of Wikipedia . “Our study, published in February 2023 in the peer-reviewed ‘Journal of Holocaust Research,’ exposed a persistent Holocaust disinformation campaign on English Wikipedia. In 60 heavily footnoted pages, we examined two dozen Wikipedia articles on the Holocaust in Poland and more than 300 back pages (talk pages, noticeboards and arbitration cases — spaces where editors decide what the rest of the world will accept as fact).” Good morning, Internet…

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November 19, 2023 at 06:31PM
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WhaleVis, New Mexico Land Usage, Twitter, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 18, 2023

WhaleVis, New Mexico Land Usage, Twitter, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 18, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Washington: WhaleVis turns more than a century of whaling data into an interactive map. “A dataset maintained by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) contains detailed information on commercial whale catches — more than 2.1 million records, predominantly from 1880 until the IWC banned whaling in 1986. Yet for researchers, distilling that data can prove its own challenge. A team at the University of Washington has created an online interactive map called WhaleVis, which lets whale researchers visualize the IWC’s data on global whale catches and whaling routes.”

KRQE: New Mexico farmers can now find land on new website. “What is a farmer without access to land? A new website launched by the New Mexico State University’s Cooperative Extension Service aims to make sure those looking for land can connect with local landowners. The site is called New Mexico LandLink. Sort of like a social media site, New Mexico LandLink lets people find each other and connect with the goal of putting good land to use.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Politico: X can’t shirk FTC privacy settlement, or block Elon Musk’s deposition. “In an 11-page order issued less than an hour after a hearing in San Francisco federal court on Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson ruled he has no authority over the FTC’s administrative proceedings and declined to throw out or pause the settlement. He also said he has no authority to bar the agency from deposing the company’s owner and former CEO, Elon Musk.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Politico: European Commission tells staff to ditch ads on X. “The European Commission’s communications department has asked all EU executive services to stop running adverts on X, the social media platform, over ‘widespread concerns relating to the spread of disinformation,’ according to an internal note obtained by Playbook.”

BBC: AI chief quits over ‘exploitative’ copyright row. “A senior executive at the tech firm Stability AI has resigned over the company’s view that it is acceptable to use copyrighted work without permission to train its products. Ed Newton-Rex was head of audio at the firm, which is based in the UK and US.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Hill: Campaigns are using AI. Tech companies are figuring out how to disclose what’s real.. “Meta and YouTube are crafting disclosure policies for use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in political ads as the debate over how the government should regulate the technology stretches toward the 2024 election.”

Reuters: US SEC presses judge to force Elon Musk to testify in Twitter probe. “The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday urged a federal judge to force billionaire Elon Musk to testify for its investigation into his $44 billion takeover of social media giant Twitter, now known as X. In a document filed in federal court in San Francisco on Thursday, the SEC defended its efforts to compel Musk’s testimony, saying agency officials are acting within their authority.”

Associated Press: FTC warns food industry trade groups and influencers about disclosures on paid social media posts. “The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday said it issued warnings to two food and beverage industry groups, as well as a dozen online influencers, for failing to adequately disclose paid social media posts that promoted a sweetener and sugary products.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

John Scalzi: Yup, Done With the Former Twitter. “Elon Musk, the most unfathomably insecure and pathetic billionaire the world has ever seen, has gone mask-off antisemite, and that means that while I had already reduced my participation on the former Twitter, now I’m off it entirely. I’m keeping the account so that no one can swoop in and take a screenname that’s been associated with me for the last fifteen years, but no more posting, and no more participation. Until and unless the service is sold to someone who isn’t Musk (and possibly even then, depending), I’m out, I’m through, I’m done.”

PetaPixel: Selfie-Related Deaths are ‘Public Health Risk’ in Age of Social Media. “In a paper published in September, researchers found that selfie-related injury and deaths have become a public health concern amid the near ubiquitous use of smartphones and social media apps. The paper scraped news reports of selfie-related deaths as well as a cross-sectional study by the iO Foundation that found 379 people were killed while taking selfies around the world between January 2008 and July 2021.” Good afternoon, Internet….

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November 19, 2023 at 01:20AM
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Eternal Sunset, Oral Histories of Korea, Data-Driven Animation for Science Communication, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 18, 2023

Eternal Sunset, Oral Histories of Korea, Data-Driven Animation for Science Communication, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 18, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

PetaPixel: This Website Lets You Watch Sunsets From All Across The World. “Michael Turvey came up with the novel website called ‘Eternal Sunset’ which generates non-stop twilight hours for people to enjoy. Utilizing live webcams across the globe that broadcast on YouTube, viewers can see the sun setting on the Dubai Marina, St. Petersburg in Russia, and the Sydney Opera House in Australia.”

Colby College: Learning From a Living History. “Oral histories that [Emily] Kwen and other students collected this spring have become the inaugural iteration of Voices from the Peninsula: Oral Histories of Korea, a project that is archived through Digital Commons @ Colby, an online repository administered by the Colby College Libraries.”

UC Santa Cruz: New open access course – data-driven animation for science communication. “The Teaching & Learning Center at UC Santa Cruz is delighted to announce that Dr. Jessica Kendall-Bar has created an open access version of her Data-Driven Animation for Science Communication course, which is now freely available on the Coursera platform.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Insider: They survived the Holocaust. Then the online trolls came for them. . “Business Insider talked to three survivors and their families, and the granddaughter of a fourth survivor who died in 2022, who are committed to detailing their lives during the Holocaust on TikTok. While they’ve counteracted the toxic denialism that flourishes on the app, they’re also worried their stories will die with them.”

Fast Company: Inside Marques Brownlee’s tech review studio: The YouTube star on gadgets, growth, and staying chill. “Located in a rehabbed shipyard that’s also home to a helicopter-tour service and numerous logistics companies, Brownlee’s 7,000-square-foot facility is filled with high-end production gear. Some of the products he’s reviewed recently for his audience, which includes 17.7 million subscribers, are still hanging around—such as a shiny red casket, which he featured in a video after impulsively deciding to review every product pitched to him for a month. (The video got more than 5 million views.)”

The Verge: IBM pulls X ads as Elon Musk endorses white pride. “The nonprofit Media Matters drew attention to those statements and noted that IBM, Apple, Comcast, and other companies all had ads placed next to pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler content (not posted by Musk) on X. IBM told the Financial Times and confirmed to The Verge that ‘IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NHK World Radio Japan: Tokyo doctor to sue Google over ‘harmful’ Maps app reviews. “NHK has learned that a doctor in Tokyo is preparing to sue Google. The physician says the US IT giant has refused to delete harmful reviews of their clinic from its Maps application. Google Maps allows users to post reviews about facilities and locations and rate them. It is said to be the most popular map application in Japan.”

The Independent: South Korea exposes huge Chinese disinformation campaign involving 38 news websites. “South Korea’s intelligence agency said it has identified 38 Korean-language news websites that are suspected of being run by Chinese companies with some allegedly spreading pro-China and anti-US content.”

New Voice of Ukraine: UNESCO removes Russia from its executive board. “Russia was ousted from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Executive Board on Nov. 15, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported via Twitter.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Johns Hopkins University: Johns Hopkins Students Use AI To Predict Baseball’s MVPs. “Their tool employs a historical model that weighs the relative importance of eight statistical categories to determine which players have the best chance to take home MLB’s top awards.”

Purdue University Research News: AI knows the score — and it could help instrumentalists make beautiful music. “This project will develop and integrate techniques from computer vision, natural language processing and audio analysis to create two AI-enabled tools for string music performers. The first tool, the Evaluator, aims to improve individual practice and performance by analyzing audio and video of a musician, then comparing it to digitized music scores and a database of video performances…. The second tool, the Companion, is intended to play the part of absent instruments in an ensemble by using audio analysis of performances to match tempo and style of the musicians.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

NASA: NASA Telescope Data Becomes Music You Can Play. “Since 2020, the “sonification” project at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Center has translated the digital data taken by telescopes into notes and sounds. This process allows the listener to experience the data through the sense of hearing instead of seeing it as images, a more common way to present astronomical data. A new phase of the sonification project takes the data into different territory. Working with composer Sophie Kastner, the team has developed versions of the data that can be played by musicians.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 18, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Bellingcat, Yahoo, Google, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 17, 2023

Bellingcat, Yahoo, Google, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 17, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Bellingcat: A New Tool Allows Researchers to Track Damage in Gaza . “A new tool, originally developed to estimate damage in Ukraine, has now been adapted and applied to Gaza. The tool can estimate the number of damaged buildings and the pre-war population in a given area within the Gaza Strip. The tool has already been used by a number of media outlets, but it is freely available for anyone to use and we have outlined its key features below.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: New Yahoo Search experience to start rolling out in the first weeks of 2024. “Yahoo Search is expected to start rolling out aspects of its redesigned search experience in the first weeks of 2024. Brian Provost, the Senior VP and General Manager of Yahoo Search, said Yahoo Search will be launching in the very early days of 2024.”

Search Engine Journal: Google Launches “Notes” To Add User Comments In Search Results. “Google announced the launch of a new experiment called Notes that will allow users to view and share tips alongside search results, per an announcement released Tuesday morning. Notes is being released through Google’s Search Labs, which offers early previews of experimental features so users can test new capabilities not yet available widely.” I know a lot of people are talking about web annotation like it’s new. It’s not. I still remember what a disaster Third Voice was. RB Firehose has a web annotation tag going back to 2016.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Guardian: ‘No one else is saving it’: the fight to protect a historic music collection. “The ARChive of Contemporary Music, which houses more than 90m songs and is supported by names such as Martin Scorsese, is in need of a new home.”

News Australia: Google launches Indoor Live View at Sydney Airport. “There is nothing more annoying than being in desperate need of a coffee at the airport only to learn you’ve gone in the wrong direction and have to trek all the way back. That, together with not knowing where the nearest bathroom or a specific retail store is located, will soon be a thing of the past after Sydney Airport partnered with Google to create an internal map called Indoor Live View.”

TechCrunch: Pebble, a startup that tried and failed to take on Twitter, finds new life on Mastodon . “Pebble, a startup that took on Twitter and failed, has returned from the dead — as a Mastodon instance, it seems. The company announced last month that it was shutting down its Twitter/X alternative citing the increasingly competitive landscape, X’s ability to retain users and its own failure to gain traction with a wider audience. But after deliberately avoiding any plans to participate in the decentralized social network Mastodon during its time as a startup, Pebble has now given itself a fresh start as a dedicated Mastodon server dubbed pebble.social.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Google Workspace weaknesses allow plaintext password theft. “Novel weaknesses in Google Workspace have been exposed by researchers, with exploits potentially leading to ransomware attacks, data exfiltration, and password decryption. Researchers at Bitdefender say the methods could also be used to access Google Cloud Platform (GCP) with custom permissions and could move from machine to machine.”

AFP: Musk’s X launches court fight with Australian watchdog. “Australia’s online safety watchdog said Thursday it was being taken to court by Elon Musk’s X in a fight over the platform’s failure to outline how it combats child sexual abuse content.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Tech Xplore: AI images of white faces are now ‘hyper-real’: Study. “AI is now so good at depicting white people that the images are ‘hyper-real’, said the report in the journal Psychological Science. But AI tends to depict people of other ethnicities with white features because the data used to train the algorithms is biased, said lead author Amy Dawel from the Australian National University (ANU).”

University of Toronto: Want to be more persuasive online? Use the present tense: U of T study. “Online reviews, on average, tend to use a lot of present tense verbs. Researchers found with every increase in present tense, helpfulness ratings rose considerably, and with every increase in past or future tense, they dropped. The trend persisted when the researchers looked only at reviews with more than zero upvotes, and across reviews collected before Amazon removed its downvote feature in 2019.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 18, 2023 at 01:26AM
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Walter Albini, ChatGPT, Google Maps, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 17, 2023

Walter Albini, ChatGPT, Google Maps, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 17, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Kurator: New website honours the ‘Made in Italy’ style of late fashion designer Walter Albini. “The digital platform… includes photography, designs, drawings and more, some of which have never been displayed publicly before, featuring Albini’s biggest fashion contributions and his famous unisex themes.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Journal: OpenAI Pauses New ChatGPT Plus Subscriptions Due To Surge In Demand. “According to a recent post on X by OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, the recent surge in usage following the DevDay developers conference has led to capacity challenges, resulting in the decision to pause ChatGPT Plus signups.”

Engadget: Google Maps adds collaborative lists and new transit search customizations. “Google Maps is rolling out some new features ahead of the very fun, not at all hectic travel season known as the holidays. The updates aren’t actually holiday specific — though we’ll admit the timing isn’t bad — with a focus on ways to figure out where you’re going and how you’re getting there.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: How to share large files over the web. “Below, I look at the file sharing options offered by Apple, Google, and Microsoft, along with a couple of third-party apps. There are loads of the latter out there; I’ve just listed one of the most popular and one that I’ve used several times.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNN: Elon Musk agrees with X post that claims Jews ‘push hatred’ against White people. “An X post Wednesday afternoon said: ‘Jewish communties (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.’ The post also referenced ‘hordes of minorities’ flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory. In response, Musk said: ‘You have said the actual truth.'”

Mainichi: Union files labor complaint as Google Japan rejects talks amid huge staff cuts . “A union representing workers at Google’s Japan arm on Nov. 14 filed a complaint with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Labor Relations Commission, claiming the company’s rejection of collective bargaining following a mass layoff plan is an unfair labor practice.”

WIRED: Underage Workers Are Training AI. “Driven by a global rush into AI, the global data labeling and collection industry is expected to grow to over $17.1 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research, a market research and consulting company. Crowdsourcing platforms such as Toloka, Appen, Clickworker, Teemwork.AI, and OneForma connect millions of remote gig workers in the global south to tech companies located in Silicon Valley. Platforms post micro-tasks from their tech clients, which have included Amazon, Microsoft Azure, Salesforce, Google, Nvidia, Boeing, and Adobe.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: Unsealed FTC Complaint Shows Data Broker Kochava Hoovered Up Oceans Of Sensitive Data On Millions Of Americans. “According to the amended complaint, the scope of the data Kochava was casually collecting and monetizing is massive. It includes detailed movement data of consumers down to the meter, as they visited sensitive locations like hospitals, temporary shelters, abortion clinics and places of worship. Kochava then made it easy for advertisers to target consumers based on sensitive metrics.”

Reuters: Meta, Alphabet, ByteDance, Snap must face social media addiction lawsuits. “A federal judge on Tuesday rejected efforts by major social media companies to dismiss nationwide litigation accusing them of illegally enticing and then addicting millions of children to their platforms, damaging their mental health. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, ruled against Alphabet, which operates Google and YouTube; Meta Platforms, which operates Facebook and Instagram; ByteDance, which operates TikTok; and Snap, which operates Snapchat.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: V.A. Recruits Millionth Veteran for Its Genetic Research Database. This is a gift article and you should be able to read it without paywall. “On Saturday, after a 12-year effort, the Department of Veterans Affairs reached a long-term goal — it enrolled the millionth veteran in a genetic database, the Million Veteran Program. According to the V.A., the Million Veteran Program is the largest such database in the world.”

Fstoppers: The Great Tragedy of Photography and Social Media. “Images displaying bodies and themes contrary to mainstream preferences often face marginalization or outright censorship. Facebook and Instagram’s murky nudity policies also exemplify how marginalized bodies – particularly queer, non-binary, ethnic minority, and heavier bodies – undergo disproportionate censorship through the veil of moral protectionism and misaligned algorithms. Similar barriers exist for photographers exploring themes of identity, politics, culture, and wellness in nuanced, unconventional ways.”

Georgia Tech: Georgia Tech Awarded $1.5M to Build People-Centric Network for National Research Database. “Open access to research data and information will be key to spur the next wave of solutions to the world’s most complex problems. With that in mind, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is creating the first-ever prototype open knowledge network. Known as Proto-OKN, it will be a free, publicly available, searchable database containing troves of research data from major U.S. government agencies. The project aims to fuel the next data revolution in support of data-centric solutions to societal challenges. A team at the Georgia Institute of Technology is going to help build it.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 17, 2023 at 06:31PM
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