Australia Radio History, Twitter, Web Searching, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, November 27, 2023

Australia Radio History, Twitter, Web Searching, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, November 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Radio World: Australia Marks a Century of Radio Broadcasting. “The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia is reflection on Australian radio’s first century with ‘Radio 100,’ an online exhibit telling 100 years of radio history in the country in five chapters over 100 days.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Sydney Morning Herald: ‘Sombre occasion’: X reprimanded after Voice referendum. “X has had its status as a signature to the Australian code of practice on disinformation and misinformation revoked following a complaint that it didn’t allow the reporting of misinformation during the Voice to parliament referendum.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: How to Make Your Web Searches More Secure and Private. “There are ways to increase your privacy on Google’s platforms, like using privacy-focused browsers, privacy-focused alternatives to Google Maps, auto-deleting your web history after a certain time period, or simply limiting the amount of data the company collects in the first place by opting out of features like web-based email and location awareness. (And you should know that using your browser’s incognito mode isn’t as sneaky as you think it is.) If you’re serious about getting off the data collection grid, there’s a bevy of other privacy focused search options at your disposal. So if you want to use a search engine that doesn’t keep track of your queries, serve your data to advertisers, or change your search results based on what it thinks you’ll like, you’ve got some options.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Guam Daily Post: Humanities Guåhan to archive and digitize resource center. “Humanities Guåhan received an award from the National Endowment for the Humanities Pacific Islands Cultural Initiative to fund the coestablishment of the Pacific Islands Humanities Network. This funding will go toward developing a new digital resource center to preserve and enhance accessibility to valuable educational and cultural resources related to Guåhan, Micronesia and the broader Pacific region, according to Humanities Guåhan.”

Asia One: Mongolia urges Russia, other nations to return cultural artefacts. “Mongolia on Monday (Nov 20) called for more support from Russia, Britain and other countries to repatriate hundreds of cultural artefacts, some dating back over two millennia. Key artefacts include a letter from Mongolia’s first prime minister declaring independence from China’s Manchu dynasty, currently held at the British Library in London, the Mongolian government said in a statement.”

BBC: The job sharing apps that feel like online dating. “The idea behind Switzerland-based WeJobShare is that instead of having to find a friend or colleague to share a job with, you can instead match up with a complete stranger, and therefore considerably increase the pool of potential candidates.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Echo Ekhi’s Blog: I’m Declaring War Against “What If” Videos: Project Copy-Knight. “They are very easy to make: pick a fanfic, copy all the text into a text-to-speech generator, mix the resulting audio file with some generic art from the fandom as the background, give it a snappy title like ‘What if Deku had the Power of Ten Rings’, photoshop an attention-grabbing thumbnail, dump it onto YouTube and get thousands of views…. In short, an industry has emerged from the systematic copyright theft of fanfiction, for profit.”

CBS News: Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa hacked by Iranian-backed cyber group. “The Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa said on Saturday that one of their booster stations had been hacked by an Iranian-backed cyber group. Matthew Mottes, the chairman of the board of directors for the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, confirmed to KDKA-TV that the cyber group, known as Cyber Av3ngers, took control of one of the stations. An alarm went off as soon as the hack had occurred.”

TorrentFreak: Rightsholders Reported Five Million Unique ‘Pirate’ Domain Names to Google. “Over the past several years, copyright holders have asked Google to remove URLs from five million unique domains. These include blatant pirate sites such as The Pirate Bay, but also legal streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+. What stands out most is that a tiny fraction of all domains are responsible for the majority of the trouble.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Tech Xplore: Creating artistic collages using reinforcement learning. “Researchers at Seoul National University have recently tried to train an artificial intelligence (AI) agent to create collages (i.e., artworks created by sticking various pieces of materials together), reproducing renowned artworks and other images. Their proposed model was introduced in a paper pre-printed on arXiv and presented at ICCV 2023 in October.”

The Hill: Science is littered with zombie studies. Here’s how to stop their spread.. “Since 1980, more than 40,000 scientific publications have been retracted. They either contained errors, were based on outdated knowledge or were outright frauds. Identifying these inaccuracies is how science is supposed to work. Finding and correcting publications — and keeping the scholarly record up to date — is part of the process. Yet these zombie publications continue to be cited and used, unwittingly, to support new arguments. Why? Almost always it’s because nobody noticed they had been retracted.”

University of Reading: Machines meet museums: Report unpacks AI in heritage sector. “Nearly a quarter of UK heritage organisations are using artificial intelligence (AI) tools, according to a recent survey commissioned by The National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF). The rise of AI in the heritage research led to the NLHF commissioning Dr Mathilde Pavis, of the University of Reading, to conduct research unpacking emerging uses of AI across museums, galleries, libraries and archives, and support the heritage sector in planning for the AI revolution.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 27, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Google Drive, CSS Grid, Checking Broken Links, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 26, 2023

Google Drive, CSS Grid, Checking Broken Links, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: WhatsApp for Android will again use Google Drive space for backups. “Android users on WhatsApp won’t have a free ride anymore when it comes to backups. The change comes after five years of Android users’ backups not counting toward Google Drive storage limits at all — something that was never true for iOS users.”

USEFUL STUFF

Josh W Comeau: An Interactive Guide to CSS Grid. “CSS Grid is one of the most amazing parts of the CSS language. It gives us a ton of new tools we can use to create sophisticated and fluid layouts. It’s also surprisingly complex. It took me quite a while to truly become comfortable with CSS Grid! In this tutorial, I’m going to share the biggest lightbulb moments I’ve had in my own journey with CSS Grid. You’ll learn the fundamentals of this layout mode, and see how to do some pretty cool stuff with it. ”

Hongkiat: How to Check Broken Links Using Google Sheets. “By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have a Google Sheet that lets you list as many URLs as you want in one column. The column next to it will show you the HTTP status of each URL. This will help you understand if the page is accessible, redirected, broken, and so on.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Vice: People on TikTok Are Quitting Vaping to Protest Child Labor in Congo. “Dozens of people have been convinced to quit vaping. Not because of the health concerns or the cost, but in solidarity with the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. ‘I know these are the last words you thought you’d ever hear me say in my f––ing life, but I’m quitting vaping,’ creator Kristina (@itskristinamf) said in a TikTok that reached 1.5 million views. ‘I’m officially f––ing done.'”

SF Gate: ‘Straight through the bushes’: Google Maps misleads Californians into the desert during dust storm. “Shelby Easler, her brother Austin and their significant others were headed back to Los Angeles on Nov. 19 when they used Google Maps. Instead of taking the Interstate 15 — the major highway connecting Southern California to Sin City — the app suggested they take an alternate route to avoid the dust storm that caused major Sunday traffic delays…. Google Maps took the car far off the major highway and into Nevada’s fierce deserts on an off-roading trail. Easler’s car were not the only bushwackers. In Shelby’s viral TikTok, a trail of cars closely follows behind them. ”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Politico: Europe’s grid is under a cyberattack deluge, industry warns. “Thousands of cyberattacks have inundated Europe’s energy grid since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a top industry leader is calling for help as officials and researchers fret that not nearly enough is being done.”

The Conversation: The vast majority of us have no idea what the padlock icon on our internet browser is – and it’s putting us at risk. “Do you know what the padlock symbol in your internet browser’s address bar means? If not, you’re not alone. New research by my colleagues and I shows that only 5% of UK adults understand the padlock’s significance. This is a threat to our online safety.”

Kotaku: YouTuber Accuses Casetify Of Copyright Theft, Has Receipts. “There’s a brilliant trick map makers use to prevent plagiarism, called ‘trap streets.’ They deliberately put an entirely fictional road, or even entire imaginary towns (‘paper towns’), so that if someone lifts their work without permission it’s immediately identifiable to them. Something very similar is at the center of claims that a billion dollar phone case company has ripped off YouTuber JerryRigEverything.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: It’s Time to Log Off. “Scrolling through social media can feel like a nightmare these days. You’re reading about the horrors of the Israel-Hamas war, and then you’re reading about the horrors of the war between Ukraine and Russia. You’re learning about the latest devastating climate news. Democracy is under threat in America. It can feel like everything is falling apart. This, of course, can have a significant effect on your mental health.”

The Atlantic: AI’s Spicy-Mayo Problem. “In recent months, the members of the AI underground have blown up the assumption that access to the technology would remain limited to a select few companies, carefully vetted for potential dangers. They are, for better or worse, democratizing AI—loosening its constraints and pieties with the aim of freeing its creative possibilities.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 27, 2023 at 01:34AM
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Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania, Google Docs, Bug Bounties, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, November 26, 2023

Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania, Google Docs, Bug Bounties, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, November 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Pennsylvania Historic Preservation: PennDOT’s New Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania GIS Map. “From stone arches and covered bridges to metal trusses and cable suspension bridges, Pennsylvania has a diverse collection of bridge types across its landscape. This includes over 400 historic bridges, bridges that are eligible for listing, or are listed, in the National Register of Historic Places. To showcase this collection, PennDOT created the Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania web map, an interactive GIS layer with locational and basic historical information about each bridge.”
TWEAKS AND UPDATES

ZDNet: What are Google Docs Building Blocks, and how do you use them?. “Google is always thinking of ways to improve your experience with its cloud-based office suite. And with every new iteration, the tools become more and more useful. A case in point is Building Blocks. This is yet another new feature added to Docs, which gives you an assist on creating things like Meeting Notes, Email Drafts, Product Roadmaps, Review Trackers, Project Assets, and Content Trackers.”

The Register: Microsoft’s bug bounty turns 10. Are these kinds of rewards making code more secure?. “Microsoft’s bug bounty program celebrated its tenth birthday this year, and has paid out $63 million to security researchers in that first decade – with $60 million awarded to bug hunters in the past five years alone, according to Redmond.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Wildlife Forever: Wildlife Forever To Build National Mapping Tool For Improved Access To Invasive Species Decontamination Locations. “Wildlife Forever and a coalition of fishing industry stakeholders and federal partners will be designing a new online platform to identify watercraft inspection and decontamination stations across the country. In addition, the new website will feature state-specific aquatic invasive species information for boaters traveling across multiple states. This national resource aims to centralize information for traveling boaters and supports AIS objectives of the newly introduced MAPWaters Act.”

New York Times: For brides on social media, diet ads are becoming unavoidable. “After Lauren Aitchison became engaged in March 2022, she began seeing targeted ads for wedding content everywhere, with marketing phrases such as ‘shredding for the wedding’ and ‘bridal boot camp.’ ‘My Pinterest boards were already quite full,’ she jokes. ‘It wasn’t a massive surprise to my algorithm.’ Up until then, Aitchison, 34, had been inundated by general diet ads as well as wedding ads from bridal jewelry brands, but something switched once she posted about her engagement.”

Mashable: How TikTok became a place for tattletales. “We are all guilty of gossiping, perhaps during pillow talk with your partner, by the watercooler at work, or on the phone with your mum. If you say you have never gossiped, I don’t believe you. What happens when our private conversations are made public? In an age when people are filmed in public without their consent, the line between public and private is becoming increasingly blurred. But, how would you feel if a stranger recorded and posted these conversations online, inspiring an internet-wide manhunt against you?”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CBC: Meta ban has been rough, but Google ban would be worse, say small news outlets, analysts. “Small news outlets and media and internet experts say the Online News Act, also known as Bill C-18, has had a serious impact so far, and it may be about to get much worse.”

WIRED: Hard Drives, YouTube, and Murder: India’s Dark History of Digital Hate. “Today more than half the population of India—759 million people—are online. The country has 467 million active YouTube users—the most in the world. The users are no longer predominantly urban. Nobody has tapped into this proliferation better than right-wing groups dedicated to fostering communal disharmony, moving from hard disks filled with videos and laptops in temples to the vast reach of YouTube and WhatsApp.”

Virginia Tech: Are your Cyber Monday purchases legit? There’s (going to be) an app for that. “Receiving a bogus designer handbag or imitation Wagyu beef might infuriate a Cyber Monday consumer, but a knock-off respirator or a fake pacemaker could imperil them. Virginia Tech researcher Emma Meno is developing a mobile app to empower buyers to ensure their purchases are legitimate. In a study published for Micromachines earlier this fall, Meno and a team of researchers described their work to date.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of New Mexico: Drones for Ducks: Researchers develop AI to measure migratory bird populations. “Every winter, wildlife managers are challenged to count the migratory waterfowl that fly down into refuges. Creating the counts is difficult and often involves scaring birds into the air to be counted by making loud sounds or soaring past them in low-flying airplanes. Researchers at The University of New Mexico, in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Department of the Interior, are working to develop a machine-learning model prototype that can count the birds using images taken by drones in a project titled Drones for Ducks.”

The Guardian: Preserving our digital content is vital. But paying $38,000 for the privilege is not. “Storing online data in perpetuity is not just about photos and texts but thoughts and ideas. Platforms such as WordPress are starting to act, but it must be at a realistic price.”

The Conversation: Queer archives preserve activist history and provide strategies to counter hate . “Since 2020, I have been helping to build a 2SLGBTQ+ Community Archive in Hamilton, Ont. My students and I are often amazed at just how long 2SLGBTQ+ communities have been resisting very similar kinds of backlash, hate and violence to what we’re seeing today. Anyone concerned about 2SLGBTQ+ struggles today can learn from the history of resistance and activism preserved in these archives.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 26, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Twitter, Interactive Timelines, 3D Models, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 25, 2023

Twitter, Interactive Timelines, 3D Models, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: X May Lose Up to $75 Million in Revenue as More Advertisers Pull Out. “Internal documents viewed by The New York Times this week show that the company is in a more difficult position than previously known and that concerns about Mr. Musk and the platform have spread far beyond companies including IBM, Apple and Disney, which paused their advertising campaigns on X last week. The documents list more than 200 ad units of companies from the likes of Airbnb, Amazon, Coca-Cola and Microsoft, many of which have halted or are considering pausing their ads on the social network.”

Business Insider: Former Google engineer and Trump pardonee Anthony Levandowski relaunches his AI church. “Anthony Levandowski, a pioneer of self-driving cars and controversial Silicon Valley figure, announced the return of his AI-dedicated church in an episode of Bloomberg’s AI IRL podcast. Levandowski started his ‘Way of the Future’ church in 2015 while he was working as an engineer on Google’s self-driving project Waymo.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: Creating an Interactive Timeline With CSS and JavaScript. “Timelines are powerful visual tools that help users navigate and understand chronological events. Explore how to create an interactive timeline using the dynamic duo of CSS and JavaScript.” A very easy walkthrough with basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Hongkiat: 50 Sites to Download Free 3D Models – Best Of. “3D printers have immensely revolutionized the art and manufacturing industry. With advancements in 3D printer technology, it is now not very difficult to own one, even in your home or office…. So, if you want to create 3D furniture, a mechanical component, or even human or animal figurines, here are 50 of the best websites to download 3D models for free. Take a look.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Guardian: ‘We will coup whoever we want!’: the unbearable hubris of Musk and the billionaire tech bros. “Contemporary billionaires appear to understand civics and civilians as impediments to their progress, necessary victims of the externalities of their companies’ growth, sad artefacts of the civilisation they will leave behind in their inexorable colonisation of the next dimension. Unlike their forebears, they do not hope to build the biggest house in town, but the biggest underground lair in New Zealand, colony on the moon or Mars or virtual reality server in the cloud.”

WIRED: China Tried to Keep Kids Off Social Media. Now the Elderly Are Hooked. “Gao Xiangjin used to know all the names of players in the American baskeball leagues, but since relations between the US and China soured, once-daily NBA broadcasts are now far less frequent. So Gao started watching China’s men’s basketball instead, until reports about corruption turned him off earlier this year. He now watches China’s women’s basketball, not on television, but on Douyin, the original, Chinese version of TikTok. Gao is 69 years old, one of a growing cohort of elderly people who have moved away from television and gravitated to Douyin, China’s most popular short-form video app.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

RTE: Regulator concerned over spread of disinformation on social media. “Ireland’s media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, said it remains concerned about the spread of violent imagery, hate speech and disinformation on social media platforms following last night’s unrest in Dublin. There has been much focus on the role played by social media in the riots, with anti-immigrant rhetoric and misinformation being spread on some platforms.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Science Daily: AI trained to identify least green homes. “‘Hard-to-decarbonize’ (HtD) houses are responsible for over a quarter of all direct housing emissions — a major obstacle to achieving net zero — but are rarely identified or targeted for improvement. Now a new ‘deep learning’ model trained by researchers from Cambridge University’s Department of Architecture promises to make it far easier, faster and cheaper to identify these high priority problem properties and develop strategies to improve their green credentials.”

Hixie’s Natural Log: Reflecting on 18 years at Google . “Someone who wanted to lead Google into the next twenty years, maximising the good to humanity and disregarding the short-term fluctuations in stock price, could channel the skills and passion of Google into truly great achievements. I do think the clock is ticking, though. The deterioration of Google’s culture will eventually become irreversible, because the kinds of people whom you need to act as moral compass are the same kinds of people who don’t join an organisation without a moral compass.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ars Technica: GameMaker throws shade at Unity, makes its 2D engine free or $100 for most. “If you’re making a game with GameMaker for release on consoles, you have to pay for an ongoing $80-per-month Enterprise package. If you’re trying to sell a game on other platforms (PC, mobile, browser), there’s a one-time $100 fee. If you’re just messing about or making something that’s not for sale, it’s free. And GameMaker’s asset bundles are free now, too. And some existing subscribers might now get a free commercial license. There is, notably, no mention of ‘run-time’ or per-install fees.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 26, 2023 at 01:08AM
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Library of Congress, Snapchat, Twitter, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 25, 2023

Library of Congress, Snapchat, Twitter, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Library of Congress: What’s new online at the Library of Congress – November 2023. “Interested in learning more about what’s new in the Library of Congress’ digital collections? The Signal shares updates on new additions to our digital collections and we love showing off all the hard work of our colleagues from across the Library. Read on for a sample of what’s been added recently and some of our favorite highlights.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: Snapchat is testing an ad-free subscription. “Snapchat has started testing an ad-free paid subscription plan in Australia. For $US10.50 a month, the new Snapchat+ tier enables consumers to use the platform without disruption from Story or Lens ads. However, the app notes that users may still see sponsored places or My AI responses.’

TechCrunch: Elon Musk says X will show headlines on the platform again. “Elon Musk said that X, formerly Twitter, will start showing headlines in preview cards with URLs on the platform again after removing titles last month. In a post on X, Musk said in an upcoming update, the company will overlay the title in the upper portion of the image of a URL Card. He didn’t mention any specific timeline for rollout or give an example of what might the card look like.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 7 of the Best Spotify Alternatives for Music Streaming . “Spotify’s one of the top music streaming services, but it’s facing some serious competition. But, Spotify might not always have the artists you want or even the quality you prefer. If you’re ready to try something new, check out some of the best Spotify alternatives to see which one fits your needs the best.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: ‘Who’s That Wonderful Girl? Could She Be Any Cuter?’. “‘Nanalan’ hasn’t been on TV in years, but it’s the hottest show on TikTok. A Canadian children’s program that made its debut in 1999, it has had a resurgence in recent weeks, thanks to its growing popularity on the social media platform, where it has been watched millions of times.”

Edinburgh Reporter: Pioneering project captures stories of LGBTQ+ youth. “LGBTQ+ young people across Scotland have lent their voices to a first-of-its-kind social history project that will preserve their experiences, stories and hopes for the future. This is part of LGBT Youth Scotland’s (Un)Seen, (Un)Heard initiative, which is capturing, collating and conserving the stories of LGBTQ+ young people to create a new permanent archive within the National Library of Scotland and increase visibility, provide connection across generations, strengthen communities and inform policymakers.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Business Insider: Do Kwon’s Extradition Approved by Montenegro Court. “A court in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, has approved the extradition of Terra founder Do Kwon to either South Korea or the United States, according to an update posted on the judiciary’s website. Kwon was arrested in the country in March after being caught in Podgorica’s airport with falsified documents.”

Mashable: ‘Gay furry hackers’ breach nuclear lab, demand it create catgirls . “Idaho National Laboratory (INL), one of the largest nuclear labs in the US, confirmed this week that it has been hacked. The group behind the data breach was self-described ‘gay furry hackers’ Sieged Security aka SiegedSec, who have demanded the INL put its efforts and resources into creating real-life catgirls. They probably aren’t being serious, but they did hack into a huge nuclear lab, so who knows.” Posterity, are you starting to appreciate the weirdness?

RESEARCH & OPINION

Nature: ChatGPT generates fake data set to support scientific hypothesis. “In a paper published in JAMA Ophthalmology on 9 November1, the authors used GPT-4 — the latest version of the large language model on which ChatGPT runs — paired with Advanced Data Analysis (ADA), a model that incorporates the programming language Python and can perform statistical analysis and create data visualizations. The AI-generated data compared the outcomes of two surgical procedures and indicated — wrongly — that one treatment is better than the other.”

Slate: How Google Really Works. “Obviously, governments don’t sue companies just to put private company information in the hands of the public. Nor should they. But, in this case, federal prosecutors have brought a convincing case that Google—arguably the most powerful company on the internet—abused one of its many monopolies. While monopolization cases are rare and notoriously difficult to win, the public has already won to some degree. At least we can see Google for what it really is.”

Virginia Tech: How certain media talk about AI may have everything to do with political ideology. “In the recently published research “Partisan Media Sentiment Toward Artificial Intelligence,” authors from the Virginia Tech Pamplin College of Business – Angela Yi, Shreyans Goenka, and Mario Pandelaere – examined the varied reactions to AI by analyzing partisan media sentiment. Their work was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. The researchers found that articles from liberal-leaning media have a more negative sentiment toward AI than articles from conservative media.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

WIRED: Go on a Psychedelic Journey of the Internet’s Growth and Evolution. “Security researcher Barrett Lyon, who makes visualizations of the internet’s network infrastructure, is back with a new piece chronicling the rise of the IPv6 protocol.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 25, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Charles Darwin, ChatGPT, Flipboard, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 24, 2023

Charles Darwin, ChatGPT, Flipboard, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National University of Singapore: All surviving drafts, including three rediscovered pages, of Origin of Species revealed. “On the 164th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s magnum opus, all known surviving pages of the rough draft of Origin of species have been published online. Three recently rediscovered pages from Darwin’s draft of Origin of Species have been published for the first time together with all the other known surviving pages in a new online edition. These documents are added to Darwin Online, a scholarly portal dedicated to Charles Darwin and helmed by Dr John van Wyhe, at the NUS Department of Biological Sciences.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Lifehacker: You Can Now Try ChatGPT’s ‘Chat With Voice’ Feature for Free . “OpenAI rolled out voice chat to ChatGPT Plus users back in September. The feature replaces the text-based ChatGPT interface with something more like a voice assistant: As you speak to ChatGPT, you’ll see a waveform reacting in kind. The assistant will automatically recognize when you’re done talking, and will switch into a ‘thought bubble’ interface as it responds to your question or request. The company always planned to bring voice chat to free users, and while it took a couple months, the feature is finally here.”

TechCrunch: Flipboard stops tweeting, launches new podcast about decentralized social apps. “Social magazine app Flipboard had already committed to joining the ‘fediverse’ — the decentralized social web, which includes apps like Mastodon. Now, it’s doubling down on those ambitions with an announcement that it will stop tweeting while also launching a new podcast devoted to exploring the topic of decentralized social media.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: A Complete Guide to Tab Management in Google Chrome. “Are you having a difficult time organizing your tabs in Google Chrome? In this guide, we’ll explore some solutions to stay on top of your Google Chrome tabs and upgrade your productivity online. Learn how to manage Chrome tabs better in this helpful guide.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Kyiv Independent: Ukraine elected to UNESCO World Heritage Committee for the first time. “Ukraine was among the nine countries elected to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee during the Nov. 22 vote for the first time in history. The country submitted its candidacy in July last year. Ukraine is joining the other 20 members and will hold the seat on the Committee for the period 2023-2027.”

AFP: Internet out: India deploys shutdowns in name of security. “With the world’s largest biometric ID database, a pioneering digital payment system for daily transactions and a flagship space and satellite programme, India knows the power of connected technology. But when trouble brews with political unrest or sectarian violence, authorities are quick to sever internet service to stem disinformation — cutting off millions of people who depend on the web for communication, information and business.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Digital payment platforms can easily be misused for drug dealing. “Digital payment platforms such as Venmo work great for sharing a dinner bill with friends, buying gifts at a pop-up shop or making payments without cash or credit cards. But these digital payment platforms have a dark side: They can be misused for drug dealing and other illicit activity, suggest researchers from the University of California, Davis. And social media apps such as TikTok and Instagram can act as marketing tools for digital drug dealing.”

Imperial College London: Altering our language can help us deal with the intelligence of chatbots. “Were these LLMs to be used by bad faith actors, for example scammers or propagandists, people could be vulnerable to handing over their bank details in pursuit of connection, or being swayed politically. Now a new paper sets out recommendations to prevent us over-empathising with AI chatbots to our detriment.”

UCLA: Using Google Trends To Detect Revenue Misreporting. “You don’t need an advanced degree in accounting or finance to grasp the head-scratching mismatch of reporting strong sales growth when your products seem to be less popular, as measured by Google search volume. Indeed, the researchers found that MUP [“managing revenue up”] firms in their study had 165% higher odds of subsequently restating (correcting) their initial reported revenue, compared with firms that didn’t set off a MUP alarm.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

On GitHub, discovered via Boing Boing: Awesome Engineering Games. “A curated list of some of the best engineering games on PC. All titles are rated Very Positive or higher on Steam. Games are divided into broad categories based on the type(s) of engineering they’re most related to, such as civil engineering & city-building, transportation & route-building, computer science & electrical engineering, etc. See the Table of Contents for a full breakdown of categories.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 25, 2023 at 01:24AM
via ResearchBuzz https://researchbuzz.me/2023/11/24/charles-darwin-chatgpt-flipboard-more-friday-afternoon-researchbuzz-november-24-2023/

Enhancing Our Heritage Toolkit 2.0, Twitter, Google Contacts, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 24, 2023

Enhancing Our Heritage Toolkit 2.0, Twitter, Google Contacts, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

UNESCO World Heritage Convention: New Tool to assess the effectiveness of World Heritage management. “UNESCO and the Advisory Bodies to the World Heritage Committee – ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property), ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) and IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature)- have released a newly revised toolkit for assessing the effectiveness of management systems of World Heritage properties. Enhancing Our Heritage Toolkit 2.0 offers a World Heritage-specific methodology of management effectiveness assessment that can be applied to cultural, natural and mixed sites.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Fortune: Inside Linda Yaccarino’s X all-hands after Elon Musk’s platform sues Media Matters: ‘By all means, put your heads together to bring new revenue into the company’. “At a hastily-assembled all-hands meeting on Monday, X Corp CEO Linda Yaccarino urged staff to find new sources of revenue as advertisers paused business with X following a Media Matters report on antisemitic content on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Yaccarino spoke shortly after X sued the media watchdog group on Monday in a defamation lawsuit that claims the report relied on manufactured content and was designed to ruin X. Elon Musk, owner of X , did not attend the meeting.”

9to5 Google: Google Contacts now lets you set reminder notifications for any date. “Earlier this year, Google Contacts introduced a birthday reminder, and those notifications can now be set for all saved dates…. Of course, Google Contacts has long let you add any ‘Significant date’ to a contact, and now those can have a reminder with notifications.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Mashable: This app wants reading to be a social experience — for the best reasons . “Fable [is] a social community app for readers featuring an array of book clubs and a FYP with a Twitter-like stream of thoughts only to do with reading. Founded by Padmasree Warrior, former CTO at Cisco, Fable is like one big digital book club, with niche pockets for all kinds of readers, free and shoppable e-Books, and tons of personalized reading suggestions.”

WIRED: Twitter’s Former Head of Trust and Safety Finally Breaks Her Silence. “From Israel vs. Hamas threats to Donald Trump’s ‘wild’ posts, Del Harvey helped make the platform’s hardest content moderation calls for 13 years. Then she left in 2021 … and disappeared.”

Government of British Columbia: Public engagement begins for new South Asian Canadian museum. “A new website will provide British Columbians with opportunities to share their vision for a new museum to highlight the history, culture and contributions to B.C. from Canadians of diverse South Asian heritages.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gothamist: LLCs might soon have to list their owners. Should New Yorkers get a look?. “Gov. Kathy Hochul will soon have to decide on a bill that would allow the public to know the true owners behind limited liability companies in New York — a measure that is spurring a lobbying battle among some of her biggest campaign supporters.”

Reuters: YouTuber sues Google Spain for wrongful dismissal. “A Spanish YouTuber is suing Google Spain, a unit of Alphabet Inc, for wrongful dismissal in a case that could set a precedent for content creators’ labour rights, Spanish union UGT said on Thursday. The lawsuit seeks to demonstrate an employment relationship between Jota, a creator of political satire content whose real name has not been disclosed, and Alphabet’s YouTube because he regularly provided his services and received remuneration derived from advertising revenue, UGT said.”

Ars Technica: Thousands of routers and cameras vulnerable to new 0-day attacks by hostile botnet. “Miscreants are actively exploiting two new zero-day vulnerabilities to wrangle routers and video recorders into a hostile botnet used in distributed denial-of-service attacks, researchers from networking firm Akamai said Thursday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Waterloo: Revolutionizing the way air quality data is shared. “Shahan Salim, a PhD candidate in the School of Public Health Sciences and a member of the Waterloo Climate Institute’s COP 28 delegation, has designed, in partnership with UNICEF in Mongolia, a platform to use data from low-cost air quality sensors to monitor and predict adverse outcomes related to air pollution exposure in underserved communities.”

University of Innsbruck: Univer­sity of Inns­bruck focuses on Mastodon. “The communications team at the University of Innsbruck will increasingly rely on the microblogging service Mastodon for science communication. Mastodon is a non-commercial and data protection-friendly platform with functions similar to the former Twitter. For this purpose, an instance has been created at social.uibk.ac.at on university servers, which is open to the university’s organizational units. The active use of X will be significantly reduced.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

NPR: Oklahoma restricted how race can be taught. So these Black teachers stepped up. “The schoolchildren arrived at the community center’s cafeteria on a Saturday morning, their parents in tow. Some adults came without children, because they, too, wanted to learn the African American history that a new law has made many Oklahoma schoolteachers too afraid to teach.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 24, 2023 at 06:31PM
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