Harry Shearer, Scottish Women’s Land Army, Utah Slavery, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, December 9, 2023

Harry Shearer, Scottish Women’s Land Army, Utah Slavery, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, December 9, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

American Archive of Public Broadcasting: The American Archive of Public Broadcasting Preserves 2,000 Le Show Programs for the Nation. “This December, to mark the fortieth anniversary of celebrated actor, author, director, musician, political satirist and broadcaster Harry Shearer’s weekly hour-long public radio series Le Show, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, a collaboration between the Library of Congress and Boston public media producer GBH, is launching the Le Show Collection, a publicly accessible digital archive of more than 2,000 hours of broadcasts, stretching back over the past four decades.”

Last month and I missed it, from ScotlandsPeople: News Article: Scottish Women’s Land Army records released. “We are pleased to announce that the records of almost 10,000 women who served with the Scottish Women’s Land Army (SWLA) and Women’s Timber Corps (WTC) from 1939 to 1950 have been digitised and are now available online to search and view on ScotlandsPeople. These records are a valuable source for tracing an individual’s service and gaining a wider perspective on the work of the SWLA and WTC.”

University of Utah: 1852 Legislative Session: This Abominable Slavery. “During the 1852 Utah legislative session, a passionate debate ensued over voting rights for Black men. Legislator and Latter-day Saint apostle Orson Pratt argued that Black men should be allowed to vote, while territorial governor and Latter-day Saint president Brigham Young strongly disagreed. … This debate, along with other legislative battles and religious pronouncements can be examined in full in a new digital database called This Abominable Slavery.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: YouTubers can now pause comments after Google moderation tweaks. “YouTube has introduced a new moderation tool for creators that allows them to pause comments, preventing any new comments from being added to videos while preserving those that have already been posted.”

Wine-Searcher: Flaviar Acquires Wine-Searcher. “Flaviar, Inc. has announced its acquisition of Wine-Searcher, the world’s largest database of product, price and availability information across the global beverage alcohol market.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

TechCrunch: Google’s best Gemini demo was faked. “Google’s new Gemini AI model is getting a mixed reception after its big debut yesterday, but users may have less confidence in the company’s tech or integrity after finding out that the most impressive demo of Gemini was pretty much faked.” I’m getting Google Duo vibes.

Amnesty International: Global: Amnesty International website launches on Tor network to help universal access . “Amnesty International has today launched its global website as an .onion site on the Tor network, giving users greater access to its ground-breaking work exposing and documenting human rights violations in areas where government censorship and digital surveillance are rife.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

404 Media: a16z Funded AI Platform Generated Images That “Could Be Categorized as Child Pornography,” Leaked Documents Show . “OctoML, a Seattle-based startup that helps companies optimize and deploy their machine learning models, debated internally whether it was ethical and legally risky for it to generate images for Civitai, an AI model sharing and image generating platform backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, after it discovered Civitai generated content that OctoML co-founder Thierry Moreau said ‘could be categorized as child pornography,’ according to internal OctoML Slack messages and documents viewed by 404 Media.”

Billboard: Swiss Digital Licensing Org Targets Twitter for Copyright Infringement . “SUISA Digital Licensing is suing Twitter International in Munich District Court for copyright infringement on X, the online platform formerly known as Twitter. The suit alleges that music compositions controlled by SUISA Digital are found on the platform, and that the company has made no effort to license them or act promptly to remove the infringing content.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Citizen science projects tend to attract white, affluent, well-educated volunteers − here’s how we recruited a more diverse group to identify lead pipes in homes. “Recruiting participants for a citizen science project produced a more diverse group when people were signed up through partner organizations, such as schools and faith-based organizations, than when they joined on their own. We used this approach to recruit volunteers for Crowd the Tap, a citizen science initiative that crowdsources the locations of lead plumbing in homes.”

North Carolina State University: New HS Curriculum Teaches Color Chemistry and AI Simultaneously. “North Carolina State University researchers have developed a weeklong high school curriculum that helps students quickly grasp concepts in both color chemistry and artificial intelligence – while sparking their curiosity about science and the world around them.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

La Trobe University: Unveiling the sacred Wiradjuri carved trees. “Led by a collaborative effort between Central Tablelands Local Land Services, Gaanha-bula Action Group, Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, Yarrawula Ngullubul Men’s Corporation, La Trobe University, and the University of Denver in the USA, this project has brought together Wiradjuri traditional cultural knowledge and cutting-edge archaeological techniques of ground-penetrating radar and 3D modelling, to shed light on these sacred locations.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 9, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Fruits of Labor World Cultural Center, Measuring Wind Plant Generation, Russian Weapons Components, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 8, 2023

Fruits of Labor World Cultural Center, Measuring Wind Plant Generation, Russian Weapons Components, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 8, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Digital NC: Fruits of Labor World Cultural Center Shares Labor Organizing Materials. “Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center is located in Raleigh, NC but there work goes far beyond Raleigh. The digitized materials reflects the organizing efforts of national, local and sub-local chapters of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America labor union.”

Nature: A database of hourly wind speed and modeled generation for US wind plants based on three meteorological models. “PLUSWIND provides wind speeds and estimated generation on an hourly basis at almost all wind plants across the contiguous United States from 2018–2021. The repository contains wind speeds and generation based on three different meteorological models: ERA5, MERRA2, and HRRR. Data are publicly accessible in simple csv files. Modeled generation is compared to regional and plant records, which highlights model biases and errors and how they differ by model, across regions, and across time frames.”

Interfax-Ukraine: NACP launches open database of foreign components in Russian and Iranian weapons. “The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) is launching the world’s first open database of foreign components used by the Russian Federation and Iran in unmanned aerial vehicles, missiles, electronic warfare systems and other types of weapons and military equipment, the NACP website reported.” The site is available in Ukrainian, English, and Russian.

EVENTS

Internet Archive Blog: Weird Tales from the Public Domain: Freeing Culture from Corporate Captivity. “Join us for a virtual celebration at 10am PT / 1pm ET on January 25, 2024, with an amazing lineup of academics, librarians, musicians, artists and advocates coming together to help illuminate the significance of this new class of works entering the public domain!”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

VentureBeat: Runway ML is partnering with Getty Images on new AI video models for Hollywood and advertising. “Runway ML, the New York City video AI startup backed by Google and Nvidia, continues to entrench itself in the marketplace of the future. Today, the company announced it is partnering with Getty Images, one of the largest repositories of paid stock imagery and editorial imagery in the world, to develop a new generative AI video model: Runway Getty Images Model (RGM).”

Business Insider:

Elon Musk’s biggest fans on X love Community Notes — until it comes for them. “Some may argue that the fact that no X user, including Musk himself, is immune to a correction from Community Notes is a testament to the feature’s capability, but critics have repeatedly pointed out the flaws of the system behind the feature.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications -US senator. “Unidentified governments are surveilling smartphone users via their apps’ push notifications, a U.S. senator warned on Wednesday. In a letter to the Department of Justice, Senator Ron Wyden said foreign officials were demanding the data from Alphabet’s Google and Apple. Although details were sparse, the letter lays out yet another path by which governments can track smartphones.”

TechCrunch: Millions of patient scans and health records spilling online thanks to decades-old protocol bug. “Thousands of exposed servers are spilling the medical records and personal health information of millions of patients due to security weaknesses in a decades-old industry standard designed for storing and sharing medical images, researchers have warned.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Cornell University: Newly released open-source platform cuts costs for running AI. “Cornell researchers have released a new, open-source platform called Cascade that can run artificial intelligence (AI) models in a way that slashes expenses and energy costs while dramatically improving performance. Cascade is designed for settings like smart traffic intersections, medical diagnostics, equipment servicing using augmented reality, digital agriculture, smart power grids and automatic product inspection during manufacturing – situations where AI models must react within a fraction of a second.”

University of Southern California: New report combines social work and artificial intelligence to address racial bias in housing for people experiencing homelessness. “Racial inequities and the impacts of systemic bias are starkly evident in the population of people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles, but a new report details a proposed method of collaboration between human and technological systems that could eliminate racial bias in housing allocation.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 9, 2023 at 01:05AM
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Wikifunctions, Utah Rock Climbing, Mastodon, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, December 8, 2023

Wikifunctions, Utah Rock Climbing, Mastodon, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, December 8, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Wikimedia Foundation: Introducing Wikifunctions: first Wikimedia project to launch in a decade creates new forms of knowledge. “The project will enable volunteer editors to collaboratively create and maintain a library of functions to answer questions and enhance knowledge on Wikimedia projects and beyond. A ‘function’ is a sequence of programming instructions that makes a calculation based on data provided. Internet users most commonly encounter functions when entering queries on search engines, such as the time difference between two cities, the distance between two locations, or the volume of an object.”

University of Utah: Scrapbooks show climbing history of Utah in the 1960s. “The scrapbooks contain black-and-white photographs taken by Club members during their climbs, as well as clippings from local Salt Lake City newspapers and climbing magazines, typed reflections from club members about climbs, written descriptions and drawings of climbing routes, communications and agendas related to club activities, and other ephemera, including a cloth Alpenbock Club patch. The scrapbooks contain routes and reports from other climbing areas, including the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming and the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: The new Mammoth app is a much simpler take on Mastodon. “Mammoth won some fans earlier this year with a really nicely designed Mastodon client, and then added a ‘For You’ feed that makes Mammoth a little more automatically personalized. Now, with the launch of Mammoth 2 for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, the app is going even deeper into curation and personalization: it’s launching a series of ‘Smart Lists’ filled with good posts, a set of suggested people and accounts to follow, and more.”

Reuters: Elon Musk appeals dispute over SEC consent decree to US Supreme Court. “Billionaire businessman Elon Musk on Thursday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether the Securities and Exchange Commission overstepped its authority in enforcing a consent decree that he has called a ‘muzzle’ on his constitutional free speech rights, his lawyer said.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Russia’s Latest Disinformation Tactic Exploits American Celebrities. “The video was recorded on Cameo, the popular, though now struggling, app where users can pay for personalized messages from famous people — in Mr. [Elijah] Wood’s case, starting at $340. While a genuine video, it was repurposed as part of Russia’s efforts to falsely denigrate Mr. Zelensky as a drug-addled neo-Nazi. Beginning in July, according to a report released on Thursday by Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center, the video and others like it ricocheted through Russian social media and were ultimately featured by news organizations owned or controlled by the government.”

Korea Herald: More cultural assets to be digitized. “The Cultural Heritage Administration said Thursday it would push for concrete steps to grow the economy and digitize the way cultural assets are used and promoted, ahead of the enactment of a new law on heritage management. Nurturing cultural heritage-related startups while incentivizing ordinary Koreans to make more frequent visits to cultural sites are some of the priorities, the culture agency said in a press statement. Legislative support will be provided to make that happen, it added.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Axios: Ex-Twitter exec claims X fired him for raising security concerns. “Twitter’s former global head of information security accused X in a lawsuit Wednesday of wrongly firing him for raising concerns about Musk’s budget cuts following the Elon Musk-led takeover.”

Search Engine Journal: Critical WordPress Form Plugin Vulnerability Affects Up To +200,000 Installs. “Security researchers at Wordfence detailed a critical security flaw in the MW WP Form plugin, affecting versions 5.0.1 and earlier. The vulnerability allows unauthenticated threat actors to exploit the plugin by uploading arbitrary files, including potentially malicious PHP backdoors, with the ability to execute these files on the server.”

Boing Boing: Six months jail for YouTuber who filmed self bailing out of plane for the views. “Trevor Jacob, the YouTuber who bailed out of his own plane and later admitted that he did it for the views, is off to jail for six months over the November 2021 stunt. Jacobs earlier plead guilty to obstructing a federal investigation, having recovered and destroyed the wreckage himself to make sure the NTSB couldn’t get its hands on it.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

North Carolina State University: How Open Science Can Both Advance and Hinder Equity in Research. “In January 2023, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science and Technology Council released an official definition of open science for use by the US government: ‘The principle and practice of making research products and processes available to all, while respecting diverse cultures, maintaining security and privacy, and fostering collaborations, reproducibility, and equity.’ While this definition promises equity, not all aspects of open science currently deliver.”

The Conversation: Disinformation is rampant on social media – a social psychologist explains the tactics used against you. “Foreign governments, internet trolls, domestic and international extremists, opportunistic profiteers and even paid disinformation agencies exploit the internet to spread questionable content. Periods of civil unrest, natural disasters, health crises and wars trigger anxiety and the hunt for information, which disinformation agents take advantage of. Certainly it’s worth watching for the warning signs for misinformation and dangerous speech, but there are additional tactics disinformation agents employ.”

RTÉ: Hate speech ads approved on social media, investigation finds. “Facebook, X, TikTok and YouTube have all approved adverts featuring extreme and violent misogynistic hate speech against women journalists in South Africa, according to a new investigation by Global Witness and the South African public interest law firm, Legal Resources Centre.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 8, 2023 at 06:31PM
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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…

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December 8, 2023 at 01:02AM
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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…

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December 7, 2023 at 06:31PM
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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…

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December 7, 2023 at 01:28AM
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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…

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December 6, 2023 at 06:31PM
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