Student Test Score Explorer, Chicago Lawsuits, Bing, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 7, 2023

Student Test Score Explorer, Chicago Lawsuits, Bing, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 7, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The 74: Exclusive: Free New AI Tool to Help Americans Search and Compare Student Test Scores Across All 50 States. “Scheduled to go live today, the new website sports a simple interface that allows users to query it conversationally, as they would a search engine or AI chatbot, to plumb math and English language arts data in grades 3-8. At the moment, there are no firm plans to add high school-level data.” I spent a little time with this. It looks to me like the AI part is mostly to give the search natural language powers. The search engine knows how to say “I don’t know” and provides you with the SQL query that generated the response you see (and explains the query if you need it.) More solid and transparent than the “AI” in the headline might lead you to believe.

PR Newswire: New Database Reveals Impact of Wrongful Convictions on Taxpayers and Communities in City of Chicago (PRESS RELEASE). “The Truth, Hope and Justice Initiative, global law firm Ropes & Gray, the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance, and global professional services firm Aon announced today the creation of a searchable database comprising information on Section 1983 civil rights lawsuits filed against the City of Chicago and personnel from the Chicago Police Department since the year 2000.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bing Blogs: Introducing Deep Search. “Deep Search builds on Bing’s existing web index and ranking system and enhances them with GPT-4. GPT-4 is a state-of-the-art generative AI LLM (Large Language Model) that can create natural language text from any input. In the case of Deep Search, GPT-4 takes the search query and expands it into a more comprehensive description of what an ideal set of results should include.”

TechCrunch: Bluesky says it will allow users to opt out of the public web interface after backlash. “Bluesky is changing course by allowing users to opt out of a change that would expose their posts to the public web. Last month, the company announced its decentralized alternative to Twitter/X would soon open up a public web interface allowing anyone to view the posts on its platform, even if they didn’t have an invite to the app, which remains in a closed beta.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Indiana University: Lilly Library works its magic on newly acquired Ricky Jay archive of magical history. “Indiana University is the steward to an array of rare archival collections, including the Moving Image Archive, the Sage Collection and the Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections. Thanks to IU’s reputation as a custodian of history and preservation, the Lilly Library recently acquired the archive of late magician and actor Ricky Jay.”

Televisual: BBCS and Getty launch online archive platform. “Getty Images, in partnership with BBC Studios, is launching a new online platform giving its customers greater access to BBC archive video. The platform, powered by MAM software specialists VIDA Content OS, allows easy access to over 57,000 programmes from the BBC archive which was previously only available offline by a heavily manual process. Customers can now securely search the entire digitised library, view, annotate, clip, share, and download previews for use within projects.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: The Binance Crackdown Will Be an ‘Unprecedented’ Bonanza for Crypto Surveillance. “The crackdown doesn’t just mean a chastened Binance will have to change its practices going forward. It means that when the company is sentenced in a matter of months, it will be forced to open its past books to regulators, too. What was once a haven for anarchic crypto commerce is about to be transformed into the opposite: perhaps the most fed-friendly business in the cryptocurrency industry, retroactively offering more than a half-decade of users’ transaction records to US regulators and law enforcement.”

404 Media: Reuters Takes Down Blockbuster Hacker-for-Hire Investigation After Indian Court Order. “Reuters has ‘temporarily’ taken down a blockbuster investigation into a specific Indian hacker-for-hire operation after facing a court order issued on Monday, according to an editor’s note now published on Reuters’ site in place of the article. There is no indication that the article contained errors or otherwise incorrect information, and the editor’s note states ‘Reuters stands by its reporting and plans to appeal the decision.'”

Irish Independent: Micheál Martin initiates High Court proceedings against Google over scam adverts. “Tánaiste Micheál Martin is taking a legal action against Google to secure information about the source of scam adverts for cryptocurrency using his name and image. Mr Martin initiated High Court proceedings against Google Ireland Limited and Google LLC in an attempt to establish why his name and image are being used for fake adverts.” As I understand it, the “Tánaiste” is the deputy head of government in Ireland.

RESEARCH & OPINION

Radio Prague International: New project turns schoolchildren into field linguists to try to preserve endangered Czech dialects . “The Czech Academy of Sciences has launched a campaign using bold comic-book style graphics under the heading ‘Become a superdialectologist!’ to try to get young people involved in a new project. The aim: to capture the current landscape of Czech dialects as they are spoken today, before they disappear.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

December 8, 2023 at 01:02AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/YGtHKNa

Missouri Artists, UK Philanthropy, Indiana Journalism, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, December 7, 2023

Missouri Artists, UK Philanthropy, Indiana Journalism, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, December 7, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

KC Studio: Missouri Remembers: New Website Features Artists in Missouri Through 1951. “Missouri Remembers currently features 323 artist entries with biographical narratives and links to exhibitions, awards and relationships with other artists, teachers, students, dealers, etc.”

UK Fundraising: Free-to-access Data Dashboard launches to help charities with their legacy strategies . “A free-to-use online Data Dashboard has been launched to provide UK charities with easy access to current legacy giving market trends and forecasts for the medium and long-term. Sharing key facts, figures and metrics, the Data Dashboard aims to help charities in their strategic decision-making when planning and investing in legacy fundraising within their organisations.”

Indiana University: Indiana Broadcast History Archive preserves the stories of the storytellers. “For residents of Indiana, names like Howard Caldwell, Ken Beckley, Barbara Boyd and Anne Ryder may ring a bell. They are among the many local broadcasters Hoosiers have welcomed into their living rooms over the years to deliver the day’s news from the warm glow of a television. At Indiana University Bloomington, a professor and an archivist teamed up to preserve Indiana’s history as told by the familiar faces and voices of local radio and television broadcasters.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Next Web: Tree-planting search engine Ecosia launches ‘green’ AI chatbot. “Ecosia admits that it does not yet have ‘oversight of the carbon emissions created by LLM-based genAI functions,’ since OpenAI does not openly share this information. However, initial testing indicates that the new GenAI function will increase CO2 emissions by 5%, Ecosia said, for which it will increase investment in solar power, regenerative agriculture, and other nature-based solutions.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: Inside America’s School Internet Censorship Machine. “Thanks in large part to a two-decade-old federal anti-porn law, school districts across the US restrict what students see online using a patchwork of commercial web filters that block vast and often random swathes of the internet. Companies like GoGuardian and Blocksi—the two filters used in Albuquerque—govern students’ internet use in thousands of US school districts. As the national debate over school censorship focuses on controversial book-banning laws, a WIRED investigation reveals how these automated web filters can perpetuate dangerous censorship on an even greater scale.”

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Fulton panel considers $10M tax break to Elon Musk’s X . “A Fulton County agency is considering granting a more than $10 million property tax break to the social network belonging to the world’s richest man — Elon Musk — an incentive for computers in an existing Atlanta data center that would create no new jobs.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

United Nations Institute for Training and Research: UNESCO And UN Satellite Centre Join Forces To Safeguard Ukraine’s Cultural Heritage With Geospatial Technologies . “In a groundbreaking initiative aimed at preserving Ukraine’s cultural legacy, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) through the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have collaboratively developed a capacity-development training programme focusing on the utilisation of satellite imagery and data interpretation.”

SF Gate: Almost 100,000 Google employees are about to get a hard-fought $20. “Google has agreed to settle a lawsuit from 2016 that outlined the Bay Area tech giant’s strict confidentiality policies for workers. The suit helped launch a wave of employee activism in the industry, and has been litigated across seven years and thousands of pages of court documents. In the end, Google will pay out only $27 million, a drop in the bucket for such a titanic company — and just a fraction of that money will actually go to workers.”

Ars Technica: Gmail’s AI-powered spam detection is its biggest security upgrade in years. “The latest post on the Google Security blog details a new upgrade to Gmail’s spam filters that Google is calling ‘one of the largest defense upgrades in recent years.’ The upgrade comes in the form of a new text classification system called RETVec (Resilient & Efficient Text Vectorizer). Google says this can help understand ‘adversarial text manipulations’—these are emails full of special characters, emojis, typos, and other junk characters that previously were legible by humans but not easily understandable by machines.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

USC Viterbi School of Engineering: New 4-Year Construction Project To Create an Open Cybersecurity Testbed: SPHERE. “To foster innovative cybersecurity and privacy research and experimentation that leads to new defensive systems and protections, a team of researchers from ISI’s Networking and Cybersecurity Division and Northeastern University are constructing an open testbed called SPHERE: Security and Privacy Heterogeneous Environment for Reproducible Experimentation. The National Science Foundation recently awarded the ISI-led team with an $18 million Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure-1 award to fund the construction.”

University of Arizona: New wearable communication system offers potential to reduce digital health divide. “wearables currently require significant infrastructure – such as satellites or arrays of antennas that use cell signals – to transmit data, making many of those devices inaccessible to rural and under-resourced communities. A group of University of Arizona researchers has set out to change that with a wearable monitoring device system that can send health data up to 15 miles – much farther than Wi-Fi or Bluetooth systems can – without any significant infrastructure. Their device, they hope, will help make digital health access more equitable.”

Washington State University: Exposure to soft robots decreases human fears about working with them. “A Washington State University study found that watching videos of a soft robot working with a person at picking and placing tasks lowered the viewers’ safety concerns and feelings of job insecurity. This was true even when the soft robot was shown working in close proximity to the person. This finding shows soft robots hold a potential psychological advantage over rigid robots made of metal or other hard materials.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

December 7, 2023 at 06:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/PrRaCId

Galen Beery Photography, National Coast Guard Museum, AI, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 6, 2023

Galen Beery Photography, National Coast Guard Museum, AI, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 6, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Fresno Bee: Hmong culture in 1960s war-torn Laos documented by California man. Fresno State has archive . “[Galen] Beery, a Southern California native, spent over a decade working in Southeast Asia, taking photographs to document history, as the region was at war: secret bombing missions happened across Laos and Cambodia while the United States fought in Vietnam. … Now, Fresno State is exclusively displaying more than 400 of his photos. The Galen Beery Legacy collection and exhibit launched in November with hundreds of digital images donated by the Hmongstory Legacy Project.”

United States Coast Guard: National Coast Guard Museum Website emerges with plans for an interactive, immersive online experience. “The National Coast Guard Museum (NCGM) team assigned to Coast Guard Headquarters is making tremendous strides in curating exhibits and programming to bring the museum experience to life through its website and social media channels. With that, the NCGM team is celebrating two recent, monumental achievements: the reveal of the NCGM’s official website and the launch of its social media accounts.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Inside the A.I. Arms Race That Changed Silicon Valley Forever. “At the Googleplex, famed for its free food, massages, fitness classes and laundry services, Mr. Pichai was also playing with ChatGPT. Its wonders did not wow him. Google had been developing its own A.I. technology that did many of the same things. Mr. Pichai was focused on ChatGPT’s flaws — that it got stuff wrong, that sometimes it turned into a biased pig. What amazed him was that OpenAI had gone ahead and released it anyway, and that consumers loved it. If OpenAI could do that, why couldn’t Google?” That noise you heard was my skull slamming into my desk.

USEFUL STUFF

The Journalist’s Resource: How to cover academic research fraud and errors: 4 big takeaways from our webinar. “Although retractions represent a tiny fraction of all academic papers published each year, bad research can have tremendous impacts…. On Nov. 30, The Journalist’s Resource hosted a free webinar to help journalists find and report on problematic research. Three experts who have covered research misconduct or have hands-on experience monitoring or detecting it offered a variety of tips and insights.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

George Washington University: What’s the Big Idea: Immorta Aims to Provide Humanity with a Collective Repository Memory. “Hoping to launch sometime in early 2024, Immorta will offer templates that users can customize based on the media—there will be a digitization feature to handle all kinds of files—they wish to upload. There will be a free option, and users who want to upload more memories with more customization options can upgrade to a subscription-based service. It differs from traditional social media in that it is less about updating feeds and more about creating a digital space that taps into nostalgia content.”

NBC Chicago: Chicago Transit Authority partners with Google on AI-powered ‘Chat with CTA’ bot . “A new artificial intelligence-powered chatbot is expected to go online early next year, as the Chicago Transit Authority and Google Public Sector partner to create the ‘Chat with CTA’ program. The bot will answer basic travel questions, and will collect rider feedback on ride quality, according to a press release from the agency.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The New Indian Express: Deepfake row: Govt advisory for social media companies in two days. “The government will issue advisories to social media intermediaries such as Meta and X (formerly known as Twitter) in the next two days to ensure compliance on addressing deepfake issues, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Tuesday.”

ProPublica: Tribes in Maine Spent Decades Fighting to Rebury Ancestral Remains. Harvard Resisted Them at Nearly Every Turn.. “A ProPublica investigation this year into repatriation has shown how some of the nation’s elite museums have used their power and vast resources to delay returning ancestral remains and sacred objects under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. By exploiting loopholes in the 1990 law, anthropologists overruled tribes’ evidence showing their ties to the oldest ancestral remains in museums’ collections.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Broadband buzz: Periodical cicadas’ chorus measured with fiber optic cables. “Hung from a common utility pole, a fiber optic cable—the kind bringing high-speed internet to more and more American households—can be turned into a sensor to detect temperature changes, vibrations, and even sound, through an emerging technology called distributed fiber optic sensing. However, as NEC Labs America photonics researcher Sarper Ozharar, Ph.D., explains, acoustic sensing in fiber optic cables ‘is limited to only nearby sound sources or very loud events, such as emergency vehicles, car alarms, or cicada emergences.'”

Harvard Gazette: Why virtual isn’t actual, especially when it comes to friends. “[Professor Sherry] Turkle, a pioneer in the study of the impact of technology on psychology and society, says a growing cluster of AI personal chatbots being promoted as virtual companions for the lonely poses a threat to our ability to connect and collaborate in all aspects of our lives. Turkle sounded her clarion call last Thursday at the Conference on AI & Democracy, a three-day gathering of experts from government, academia, and the private sector to call for a ‘movement in the effort to control AI before it controls us.'” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

December 7, 2023 at 01:28AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/iqxmZtM

Dime Novels and Story Papers, Ohio Means Jobs, Lethal Force by Police Officers, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, December 6, 2023

Dime Novels and Story Papers, Ohio Means Jobs, Lethal Force by Police Officers, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, December 6, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Northern Illinois University: University Libraries completes Street & Smith digitization project. “First begun in 2020 with a grant of $338,630 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), this project involved partner libraries… digitizing 113,342 pages from 4,790 dime novels and story papers published by Street & Smith. These newly digitized dime novels and story papers are now freely available, without restriction, from each partner’s digital library, the majority through NIU’s Nickels and Dimes, and can also be found through the Edward T. LeBlanc Bibliography hosted by Villanova.”

WFMJ: New dashboard on Ohio Means Jobs website makes finding career resources easier. “December is Career Exploration and Awareness Month, and to celebrate, the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services is launching a new tool to make it easier for Ohioans. The Department of Jobs and Family Services’s new dashboard on the department’s website makes it easier for job seekers to find free career planning services at their local Ohio Means Jobs Center.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: Database expands to document police uses of lethal force across US. “The Cline Center for Advanced Social Research and an interdisciplinary team of University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign experts have expanded upon their statewide registry on the use of lethal force by police officers in the state of Illinois to include national data.”

Lifehacker: You Can Now Scan Documents in Google Files Too. “Last week saw some great updates to Google Drive’s document scanner. First of all, it’s finally available on iPhone (thank god), but the Android version also received some exclusive new features, including automatically capturing documents when the camera detects them, an improved viewfinder, and the ability to upload documents directly from your phone. But apparently Google doesn’t just have its sights set on Drive to serve as your document scanning hub.”

9to5 Mac: Instapaper doubles ‘Premium’ subscription price, but promises ‘more features faster’. “This marks the first price increase for Instapaper Premium in nine years, the company says. With the changes, the monthly plan is increasing from $3/month to $6/month. The annual plan will rise from $30/year to $60/year. The price increase goes into effect for new subscriptions immediately, and for existing users after January 1.” Speaking of saving content: I left Pocket after it started adding flags to my saved URLs and am currently very happy at Raindrop.io. If you’re looking for an alternative to Instapaper, you might want to check it out.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Axios: Elon Musk’s X.ai aims to raise $1 billion. “X.ai, Elon Musk’s new artificial intelligence company, appears to have raised at least $134.7 million out of a $1 billion target, per a new SEC filing. Why it matters: Musk announced the endeavor earlier this year as a response to OpenAI, which he co-founded in 2015 but whose board he left in 2018.”

BBC: George Santos: Expelled congressman is now selling $200 videos on Cameo. “George Santos, the Republican congressman expelled last week by the US House of Representatives, is now selling videos on the Cameo website. Mr Santos, who labels himself a ‘former congressional “Icon”‘ on the platform, is selling personalised messages recorded by him for $200 (£159) each.”

Korea JoongAng Daily: Government asks YouTubers to curb their drinking on camera. “The government has published new guidelines meant to discourage YouTubers from hosting drunk talk shows. Some regard them to be unenforceable. Local reports had previously showed that parents, in particular, are worried that seeing jovial drinking on YouTube will make their children think positively of heavy drinking culture.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Euractiv: Deal on new ‘ecodesign’ rules to make EU products greener, easier to repair. “The European Parliament and the Council of EU member states reached a provisional deal on Monday (4 December) on new ‘ecodesign’ rules to make products easier to repair and recycle while fighting planned obsolescence and banning the destruction of unsold textiles.”

CNBC: Can an AI chatbot be convicted of an illegal wiretap? A case against Gap’s Old Navy may answer that. “According to AI experts, a likely outcome of the lawsuit is less intriguing than the charges: Old Navy and other companies will add a warning label to inform customers that their data might be recorded and shared for training purposes — much like how customer service calls warn users that conversations may be recorded for training purposes. But the lawsuit also highlights some salient privacy questions about chatbots that need to be sorted out before AI becomes a personal assistant we can trust.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswire: Addicted to your phone? New tool identifies overuse of digital media. “The rapidly evolving nature of digital media presents a challenge for those who study digital addiction – social networks like TikTok and video games like Fortnite might be popular now, but they could be irrelevant in a matter of years. A new tool developed by researchers from Binghamton University, State University of New York will make it easier for clinicians and researchers to measure digital media addiction as new technologies emerge.”

Cornell University: Cornell joins new open-technology AI Alliance. “Cornell is among more than 50 organizations in industry, government and academia that have signed on as inaugural members of the AI Alliance, an international community of researchers, developers and organizational leaders committed to supporting and enhancing open innovation across the artificial intelligence technology landscape. IBM and Meta Platforms have co-launched the alliance for the purpose of accelerating progress; improving safety, security and trust in AI; and maximizing benefits to people and society, according to its website.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

December 6, 2023 at 06:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/qyAY4so

Demo Fusion, 23andMe, Encyclopedia of Surfing, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 5, 2023

Demo Fusion, 23andMe, Encyclopedia of Surfing, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 5, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Surrey: New AI tool lets users generate hi-res images on their own computer. “Up until now, to create a high-quality AI image, users had to subscribe to a service like Midjourney or DALLE-3, or buy their own very powerful computers. DemoFusion lets users generate a basic image using a freely-available, open source AI model like Stable Diffusion, then enhance it, adding more detail and features, at much higher resolution. The necessary computing power is available on any mid-range gaming PC or a Mac M1.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: 23andMe confirms hackers stole ancestry data on 6.9 million users. “On Friday, genetic testing company 23andMe announced that hackers accessed the personal data of 0.1% of customers, or about 14,000 individuals. The company also said that by accessing those accounts, hackers were also able to access ‘a significant number of files containing profile information about other users’ ancestry.’ But 23andMe would not say how many ‘other users’ were impacted by the breach that the company initially disclosed in early October. As it turns out, there were a lot of ‘other users’ who were victims of this data breach: 6.9 million affected individuals in total.”

The Inertia: Making History: Matt Warshaw’s Digital ‘Encyclopedia of Surfing’ Turns 10. “… while Warshaw’s personal impact on surf culture could provide fuel for debate, there’s no question that he’s comprehensively curated more information about surfing and surf culture, and articulated this wealth of data more effectively, than anyone else in our sport’s long history.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

ABC News (Australia): Queensland grazier makes sign to redirect lost travellers following Google Maps. “Mr [Graham] Anderson lives at Isla, about four hours’ drive west of Bundaberg, a region known for its maze of gorges and striking rock formations. He discovered drivers were following Google Maps across his cattle property in search of the spectacular Isla Gorge, which had an entrance almost 20 kilometres further along the Leichhardt Highway.”

Know Your Meme: HBomberguy vs. James Somerton Plagiarism Scandal. “HBomberguy vs. James Somerton Plagiarism Scandal refers to YouTuber Hbomberguy’s takedown of fellow YouTuber James Somerton in a December 2023 video titled, ‘Plagiarism and You(Tube).’ Somerton, a YouTube essayist who primarily discusses LGBTQ+ representation in popular media, was the primary focus of a nearly four-hour-long video that also criticized YouTubers like Internet Historian and Illuminaughtii for repackaging work created by other writers without providing adequate citations.”

Variety: AI-Generated Jimmy Stewart Narrates Bedtime Story for Calm App (EXCLUSIVE). “An AI-generated voice of Jimmy Stewart, the legendary Hollywood actor who died in 1997, reads a new bedtime story on the Calm sleep and meditation app. The voice of Stewart, who starred in films including ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ ‘Vertigo’ and ‘Rear Window,’ was recreated for the Calm story using AI voice-cloning technology. The project has the consent of Stewart’s family and his estate (managed by CMG Worldwide).”

SECURITY & LEGAL

North Carolina State University: AI Networks Are More Vulnerable to Malicious Attacks Than Previously Thought . “Artificial intelligence tools hold promise for applications ranging from autonomous vehicles to the interpretation of medical images. However, a new study finds these AI tools are more vulnerable than previously thought to targeted attacks that effectively force AI systems to make bad decisions.”

404 Media: Asking ChatGPT to Repeat Words ‘Forever’ Is Now a Terms of Service Violation. “Asking ChatGPT to repeat specific words ‘forever’ is now flagged as a violation of the chatbot’s terms of service and content policy. Google DeepMind researchers used the tactic to get ChatGPT to repeat portions of its training data, revealing sensitive privately identifiable information (PII) of normal people and highlighting that ChatGPT is trained on randomly scraped content from all over the internet.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: How AI could reveal secrets of thousands of handwritten documents – from medieval manuscripts to hieroglyphics. “Because the technology works on the basis of image analysis, it is in theory applicable to any writing whatsoever, from Egyptian hieroglyphs to copperplate. Ten years after its initial development, some truly exciting consequences of the development of handwritten text recognition (HTR) techniques are becoming clear.”

Northern Arizona University: Capturing language, one conversation at a time . “Conversational American English is a constantly shifting collection of billions of words, and the words we choose, the order we use them and how we pronounce them communicates as much as what we actually are saying. To better understand it, a team of linguists in the College of Arts and Letters are leading the effort to create the largest recorded collection of conversational American English ever made. The database, or corpus, of conversational American English will include recordings of everyday conversations from people of different ethnic groups, ages, professions and genders from throughout the United States.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

December 6, 2023 at 01:38AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/Jwj1D6K

Game Content Triggers Database, Klaxon Cloud, iPhone Photography, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, December 5, 2023

Game Content Triggers Database, Klaxon Cloud, iPhone Photography, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, December 5, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

GameSpew: Wondering if Baldur’s Gate 3 Has Spiders? The Game Content Triggers Database Has the Answer. “The Game Content Triggers Database lists 250+ triggers, including some we, admittedly, had never thought of. And each entry will tell you whether or not you can avoid the content. What’s particularly clever is you don’t need to know the official name for a phobia. Type in ‘holes’ into the search box and it brings up trypophobia, fear of small holes. The database was, in part, inspired by Craven’s 96-year old friend Bess, who they introduced to Red Dead Redemption 2.” Ms. Bess’ story is an excellent read.

The Marshall Project: The Marshall Project Partners With DocumentCloud for Upgraded Klaxon Site-Monitoring Tool. “Klaxon Cloud allows reporters, editors and other researchers to monitor scores of websites, including data-heavy government and corporate sites, for newsworthy changes…. Klaxon has always been free and open-source, but thus far has required each newsroom to set up, configure and maintain its own server. To help broaden who can take advantage of this powerful tool, The Marshall Project and MuckRock collaborated to create Klaxon Cloud, a modified version of Klaxon that is incorporated into DocumentCloud.”

If you’re currently looking for a page change monitor and you can’t use this for whatever reason, I highly recommend ChangeDetection.io. Tons of features and monitors up to 5,000 URLs for $8.99 a month, which is a steal. I’ve been a happy, full-paying customer since February 2023 and receive no remuneration whatever for this recommendation.

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 11 iPhone Photography Tips to Get Better Shots. “iPhones are renowned for their impressive cameras, but capturing a truly great shot takes more than just pressing the shutter button. This guide presents essential and actionable tips to help elevate your iPhone photography. From mastering lighting and composition to taking full advantage of available features and settings, these tips will help anyone looking to enhance their photographic skills.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Mashable: The best internet moments of 2023 . “The internet moves fast, and if you aren’t chronically online (like I am), you’re going to miss some of the best bits. That’s why we’ve made a list, in no particular order, of some of the best internet moments of the year. We’ve got you covered on everything from AI trickery to spy balloon suspicions. Don’t say we never did anything for you.”

NBC 15 (Wisconsin): Dane Co. Sheriff’s Office likely stop posting on Elon Musk’s X too. “The Dane Co. Sheriff’s Office will likely join other county agencies that will stop posting to X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter. A spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office said the Sheriff’s Office expects to follow Co. Executive Joe Parisi’s guidance to Dane Co. departments that directed them to stop posting to X before New Year’s Day.”

WJTV: National Archives spurs creation of online UMMC database. “The University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) received funding through the National Archives to preserve documented medical breakthroughs. Known as ‘Mississippi Medical History Online: The UMMC Digital Collections Initiative,’ its goal is to preserve the history of medicine in Mississippi. This history will be made available to the public and scholars alike.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

OCCRP: Inside Job: How a Hacker Helped Cocaine Traffickers Infiltrate Europe’s Biggest Ports. “Europe’s commercial ports are top entry points for cocaine flooding in at record rates. The work of a Dutch hacker, who was hired by drug traffickers to penetrate port IT networks, reveals how this type of smuggling has become easier than ever.”

Meduza: Russian mapping and business database company 2GIS asks employees to compile registry of LGBT establishments. “The management of the Russian online mapping serving 2GIS has instructed employees to gather data about establishments for LGBTQ+ people in a single registry, the outlet iStories reported on Monday, publishing a photo of the message workers received.”

Bleeping Computer: French government recommends against using foreign chat apps. “Prime Minister of France Élisabeth Borne signed a circular last week requesting all government employees to uninstall foreign communication apps such as Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram by December 8, 2023, in favor of a French messaging app named ‘Olvid.’ The guideline addressed to ministers, secretaries of state, chiefs of staff, and cabinet members proposes that they instead install and use the Olvid app made by a French company.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Stop stifling the public’s right to know in Florida. “Florida was a beacon to the nation. Was. It’s no longer true. The Legislature has riddled the public records laws with more than 1,000 exemptions, easily hurdling the two-thirds supermajorities of both houses that the Constitution requires. That includes corrupting clouds of darkness over university presidential searches and the extensive travels of Gov. Ron DeSantis as he seeks the presidency.”

The Conversation: Online ‘likes’ for toxic social media posts prompt more − and more hateful − messages. “Although seeing hate comments is unquestionably upsetting, new research suggests there’s a different reason people post hate: to get attention and garner social approval from like-minded social media users. It’s a social activity. It’s exhilarating to be the nastiest or snarkiest and to get lots of thumbs-ups or hearts. Anecdotal evidence makes a good case for the social basis of online hate, and new empirical research backs it up.”

Stanford University: A Composer’s Helper: Using AI to Create New Harmonies. “The music transformer, built using the generative pretrained Transformer architecture (GPT) that powers language models like ChatGPT, facilitates a co-creation process where composers iteratively collaborate with the tool, choosing what to write themselves and what to delegate to AI. This approach allows composers to keep fragments of the generated music that they like while discarding the rest. The Anticipatory Music Transformer focuses on symbolic music rather than musical audio.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

December 5, 2023 at 06:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/b9RAdUs

UK AIDS Memorial Quilt, Shelter Pulse Project, Oxford University Press, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 4, 2023

UK AIDS Memorial Quilt, Shelter Pulse Project, Oxford University Press, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 4, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Stitched Into Memory: the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt comes online. “Launching today, Stitched into Memory: The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Collection is a collaboration between the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Partnership and Google Arts & Culture. This is the first time the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt has been displayed online for the world to see, alongside oral histories and archive materials that celebrate the people remembered on the quilts. More than 40 quilts have been photographed using Google Arts & Culture’s Art Camera, a custom made camera for digitising artworks in ultra high resolution.”

Local Journalism Initiative: Rural women’s shelters get support from online policy database. “A new online policy database aims to build capacity for rural women’s shelters in Canada. The Shelter Pulse project is a collaboration between Rural Development Network (RDN) and the Mountain Rose Centre in Rocky Mountain House which will create a centralized bank of shelter policies. Shelters and family violence services in rural areas are often resource-strapped, and the database will allow users to search and download current policy documents without having to take staff away from front-line work to update and develop their own policies.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BBC: Rizz named word of the year 2023 by Oxford University Press. “Are you good at chatting up or flirting with potential partners? If so, you may already have rizz, even if you didn’t know it. The Oxford word of the year, internet slang for romantic appeal or charm, is mostly used by young people. It was one of eight words on a shortlist, all chosen to reflect the mood, ethos or preoccupations of 2023.”

Bing Blog: Microsoft Copilot is now generally available. “Since Microsoft Copilot (formerly Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise) launched in preview in February, people around the world have embraced it as their everyday AI companion. It’s been used to generate billions of prompts and responses, helping people be more creative and productive in their lives. We’re excited to keep this momentum going by announcing that Copilot is now generally available and no longer in preview.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 6 Amazing Note-Taking Alternatives to Evernote. “Evernote has become an industry leader in note-taking apps. However, it is not everyone’s cup of tea and has a few severe limitations. If you are looking for an Evernote alternative that offers all of the same features (or more), check out these fantastic note-taking apps that all serve as alternatives to Evernote.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

South China Morning Post: TikTok owner ByteDance joins generative AI frenzy with service for chatbot development, memo says. “ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, is working on an open platform that will allow users to create their own chatbots, as the company races to catch up in generative artificial intelligence (AI) amid fierce competition that kicked off with last year’s launch of ChatGPT. The ‘bot development platform’ will be launched as a public beta by the end of the month, according to an internal memo seen by the Post.”

TVP World: Baltics, Poland, and Ukraine collaborate in UNESCO bid for Gulag-era birch bark letters. “Cultural institutions representing the Baltic States, Poland, and Ukraine have collaboratively submitted a collective proposal to UNESCO’s international ‘Memory of the World’ registry. This joint effort advocates for the inclusion of letters penned on birch bark during the years 1940-1965 from the Siberian Gulag.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: How to Not Get Hacked by a QR Code . “Quishing is an amalgamation of ‘QR code’ and ‘phishing’ —where malicious actors ‘fish’ (often over email) for private information and personal details. If we didn’t already have enough to worry about, now we need to be on guard against quishing. The good news is that the security practices you hopefully already have in place should serve you well here too.”

TechCrunch: 23andMe says hackers accessed ‘significant number’ of files about users’ ancestry. “In a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published Friday, the company said that, based on its investigation into the incident, it had determined that hackers had accessed 0.1% of its customer base. According to the company’s most recent annual earnings report, 23andMe has ‘more than 14 million customers worldwide,’ which means 0.1% is around 14,000.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: Google DeepMind Adds Nearly 400,000 New Compounds to Berkeley Lab’s Materials Project. “The Materials Project, an open-access database founded at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) in 2011, computes the properties of both known and predicted materials…. Now, Google DeepMind – Google’s artificial intelligence lab – is contributing nearly 400,000 new compounds to the Materials Project, expanding the amount of information researchers can draw upon. The dataset includes how the atoms of a material are arranged (the crystal structure) and how stable it is (formation energy).” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.

December 5, 2023 at 01:43AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/HTjVxtU