Black Plays Archive, TestFlight Teraleak, Flipboard, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 19, 2023

Black Plays Archive, TestFlight Teraleak, Flipboard, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 19, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Theatre Weekly: National Theatre celebrates tenth anniversary of the Black Plays Archive with launch of new digital platform. “The digital archive includes over 850 plays and over 300 Black British, African, and Caribbean writers…. Alongside the extensive database of plays, the archive also contains a vast range of resources including over 70 video and audio recordings of play extracts, a bibliography of essays on Black British theatre and video interviews with leading practitioners and academics in the field.”

The Verge: Game preservationists dig for lost apps in TestFlight ‘teraleak’. “A huge number of old mobile games and apps from TestFlight, which lets developers share in-development versions of their apps, have been discovered on the Internet Archive, as reported by Eurogamer. The 1.2TB cache, which is being called the ‘teraleak,’ could be a really big deal for preservationists, especially because many older apps are no longer available to download in any form.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Flipboard is moving to the fediverse. “Flipboard is the latest mainstream app to officially join the fediverse, the collection of decentralized services that run on the ActivityPub protocol. The news reading app, which has been experimenting with Mastodon for nearly a year, now plans to become fully interoperable with Mastodon and the rest of the fediverse.”

NBC News: Conservative social media app Parler planning to relaunch ahead of 2024 election. “Parler, one of the Trump-era social media apps that featured little content moderation and became popular among conservatives, has been sold again and is planning for a relaunch early next year ahead of the 2024 presidential election, its new owners said Monday.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Duke University Libraries: Rubenstein Library Acquires Archive of Danny Lyon, Whose Lens Captured Heroism and Violence of Civil Rights Movement. “The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University has acquired the archive of photographer and filmmaker Danny Lyon, who shot some of the most powerful and enduring images of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.”

Library of Congress: 25 Films Selected for Preservation in National Film Registry. “Twenty-five influential films have been selected for the 2023 Library of Congress National Film Registry, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today. The films are selected each year for their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to preserve the nation’s film heritage.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Brazil’s first lady to sue Musk’s X over hacked account. “Brazilian first lady Rosangela ‘Janja’ Lula da Silva said on Tuesday she will sue Elon Musk-owned social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, after having her account hacked last week. The alleged hacker entered Janja’s account on Dec. 11 and posted several messages, including insults against the first lady and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as well as misogynistic slurs.”

WMMT: Michigan State University trustees vote to release documents relating to Larry Nassar case . “Michigan State University trustees unanimously approved the release of documents related to the sexual assault scandal involving disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Public Radio of Armenia: TUMO expands its initiative to digitally preserve Armenian cultural heritage sites. “In 2018 and 2019, TUMO students made their first 3D scans of Armenian historical and cultural heritage monuments in a series of special learning labs. They used laser scanning and photogrammetry to document sites including the Matosavank monastery in Dilijan National Park, Amberd Fortress on Mount Aragats, the Dadivank monastery in Karvachar, and Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi. Since then, the number of scanned sites has reached 230, and will now expand to include all of Armenia’s important monuments over the coming years.”

Information Sciences Institute: AI can help journalists find diverse and original sources. “Researchers from the USC Information Sciences Institute are creating a source-recommendation engine designed to suggest references for journalists. ‘In practice, the software application would analyze a given text or topic and suggest relevant sources by cross-referencing against a database of potential interviewees, experts or informational resources,’ said Emilio Ferrara, a professor of computer science and communication at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. ‘The tool could provide contact details, areas of expertise and previous work of the sources,’ he added.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 20, 2023 at 01:53AM
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Liberian Newspapers, The Lambeth Bible, NARA, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, December 19, 2023

Liberian Newspapers, The Lambeth Bible, NARA, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, December 19, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Center for Research Libraries: Global Press Archive CRL Alliance Launches Open Access Liberian Newspaper Archive. “East View Information Services and the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) have launched the Daily Observer Digital Archive… Comprising more than 35,000 pages, DODA is a comprehensive archive of the English-language Daily Observer, Liberia’s best-known independent national newspaper. Founded in 1981, the Daily Observer is notable for its coverage of the modern history of Liberia, from the Liberian Civil War through its current phase of development.”

Lambeth Palace Library Blog: A giant task: Digitising the Lambeth Bible. “The Lambeth Bible (MS 3) is one of around a dozen giant Romanesque Bibles that survive from England and alongside the Winchester Bible and Bury Bible, is one of the most finely illuminated. The manuscript is full of vibrant images decorated with gold, including six full-page paintings and twenty-four historiated initials, just a few of which are featured below.”

National Archives: New Online Exhibits: “Presidential Visits to the National Archives Building”. “The new, two-part online exhibit, ‘Presidential Visits to the National Archives Building: 20th Century’ and ‘Presidential Visits to the National Archives Building: 21st Century’ explore nearly 100 years of Presidential trips down Pennsylvania Avenue to the National Archives Building.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: Google to pay $700 million to US states, consumers in Play store settlement. “Google has agreed to pay $700 million and to allow more competition in its Play app store, according to the terms of an antitrust settlement with US states and consumers filed in federal court on Monday.”

The Bookseller: British Library to restore access to main catalogue on 15th Jan after cyberattack outage . “A reference-only version of the British Library’s (BL) main catalogue will be online again from 15th January 2024, when the library will begin a ‘phased return’ of some services after October’s cyberattack. An inter-library loan system will also be made available, alongside ‘increased on-site access’ to the library’s special collections and manuscripts, while the main catalogue will help with manual orders.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: You Need Felix the Cat? Early Popeye? Talk to the King of Silent Animation.. “Once a week, Mr. [Tommy José] Stathes heads from his small studio apartment in Queens to his enormous collection of vintage cartoons: a celluloid library of around 4,000 reels, some of the prints more than 100 years old. It is certainly one of the largest collections of early animated films anywhere in the world — and that accounts for the holdings of the Library of Congress, according to an archivist who does restoration there.”

ArtDaily: Project at Independence Seaport Museum to document lives of African-Americans from along Delaware River. “Furthering the Independence Seaport Museum mission as a maritime museum focused on the Delaware River, its people and the environment and how it connects to the larger world, the museum is embarking on a new, multi-year project, ‘Breaking Uncommon Ground on the Delaware River,’ an initiative that will collect oral histories from African-American Philadelphians who lived and worked along the Delaware River in the mid- to the late 20th- and 21st-centuries.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Justice Department creates database to track records of misconduct by federal law enforcement. “The U.S. Justice Department has created a database to track records of misconduct by federal law enforcement officers that is aimed at preventing agencies from unknowingly hiring problem officers, officials said on Monday.”

404 Media: Polish Hackers Repaired Trains the Manufacturer Artificially Bricked. Now The Train Company Is Threatening Them. “In one of the coolest and more outrageous repair stories in quite some time, three white-hat hackers helped a regional rail company in southwest Poland unbrick a train that had been artificially rendered inoperable by the train’s manufacturer after an independent maintenance company worked on it. The train’s manufacturer is now threatening to sue the hackers who were hired by the independent repair company to fix it.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

SiliconANGLE: New OpenAI safety team will have power to block high-risk developments. “OpenAI today announced a new safety plan that will give its board of directors veto power to overrule Chief Executive Sam Altman if it considers the risks of the AI being developed to be too high.”

Stanford Graduate School of Business: Generative AI Boost Can Boost Productivity Without Replacing Workers. “Since generative AI went mainstream a year ago, it has inspired an equal measure of hype and fear. Boosters of tools such as ChatGPT and DALL-E predict that they will transform our economy, while skeptics worry about their potential to produce inaccurate or harmful results and ultimately replace workers. But until recently, no one had tested what really happens when companies unleash generative AI at scale in real workplaces.”

Business Insider: I found an archive of old posts and Gmail chats from when I was 11 — and instead of cringing, it endeared me to that youthful, carefree version of myself. “Reading the posts, I was startled to find such joyful innocence and unfiltered emotion in myself at that age. There are numerous videos and forums online about people finding their old MySpace accounts and Facebook posts and saying they feel ‘cringed out,’ or embarrassed. For me, however, I wasn’t scared to re-meet my younger self. I was endeared by him.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 19, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Congressionally Mandated Reports, Netherlands Institute for Art History, Maryland Catholic Church Misconduct, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 18, 2023

Congressionally Mandated Reports, Netherlands Institute for Art History, Maryland Catholic Church Misconduct, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 18, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

US Government Publishing Office: Congressionally Mandated Reports Submitted by Agencies Now Available. “The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) has made Congressionally Mandated Reports available to the public on GPO’s GovInfo. GPO fulfilled this responsibility ahead of its one-year implementation deadline set by Congress. Reports are now published and available for the public to access at https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/CMR. This marks the first time Congressionally Mandated Reports have been accessible to the public in a single location.”

CODART: RKD Launches RKD Research and Adds Millions of Digitized Documents and Images. “Netherlands Institute for Art History renewed its website and launched RKD Research. As of this month, millions of additional data can be consulted online using on the new platform. RKD Research replaces and expands RKD Explore, which was launched in 2013. The new platform allows the user to search seven online databases with over six million digitized documents and images. These databases are the main source for art historical research into the visual arts from the Low Countries in an international context and new data are continuously added.”

Baltimore Sun: New Sun database expands list of those accused in Catholic Church abuse beyond Baltimore archdiocese. “The Baltimore Sun has built the largest and only searchable database in the state, publishing Friday a list of 309 people with ties to the church who were accused of child sexual abuse or misconduct and lived or worked anywhere in Maryland, regardless of where the alleged acts occurred. It adds 107 names, researched by Sun reporters, to the people listed in the attorney general report issued in April.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: EU opens formal DSA investigation into X in wake of Israel-Hamas war. “X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, may have broken the European Union’s tough new Digital Service Act rules, regulators said as they announced the opening of a formal investigation today. A key concern of the investigation is ‘the dissemination of illegal content in the context of Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel,’ the European Commission says.”

Bloomberg: Yandex Founder Seeks Sanctions Removal After Condemning Russia’s Invasion. “Yandex NV co-founder Arkady Volozh shouldn’t have been sanctioned after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, as he was never close to the Russian president and has blasted Russia’s aggression toward its neighbor, a European Union court was told.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Vera Molnar, Pioneer of Computer Art, Dies at 99. “Vera Molnar, a Hungarian-born artist who has been called the godmother of generative art for her pioneering digital work, which started with the hulking computers of the 1960s and evolved through the current age of NFTs, died on Dec. 7 in Paris. She was 99.”

Tom’s Guide: I just tried Google’s new AI music generator MusicFX — and it’s the best one yet. “It still isn’t a patch on the output an expert with a trained ear and actual musical abilities could produce with real instruments and a studio. However, like image and video AI generators, it is allowing everyone to express their creative side in new ways.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: News publisher files class action antitrust suit against Google, citing AI’s harms to their bottom line. “A new class action lawsuit filed this week in the U.S. District Court in D.C. accuses Google and parent company Alphabet of anticompetitive behavior in violation of U.S. antitrust law, the Sherman Act, and others, on behalf of news publishers. … It also specifically cites new AI technologies like Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) and Bard AI chatbot as worsening the problem.”

Reuters: Judge says TikTok must turn meeting records over in U.S. states probe. “A state judge on Friday ordered TikTok to comply with a request from the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office for records in a multistate investigation into whether the app puts young people at risk.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Stanford Medicine: How digital tools are heading off alcohol-related health problems. “Brian Suffoletto, MD, associate professor of emergency medicine, views interactions with patients in the Emergency Department as valuable opportunities to identify specific risks and then facilitate positive behavior changes post-ED discharge using digital devices. He has spent more than 10 years developing digital behavioral interventions for various medical risks from young adult binge drinking to distracted driving. In this Q&A, we asked Suffoletto about his work and research into digital tools that can both recognize and address the negative impact alcohol use can have on a person’s health.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 19, 2023 at 01:25AM
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Sixteen Tools for Enhancing Your Google Search Experience — SearchTweaks

Sixteen Tools for Enhancing Your Google Search Experience — SearchTweaks
By ResearchBuzz

Happy holidays! I made you a present: a collection of sixteen tools to make your Google search better, presented in a new site called SearchTweaks.com . You don’t even have to unwrap it because it’s all ready to go.

As you might imagine, after over 25 years of writing about search engines I have plenty of thoughts and opinions about what’s missing in the search experience and what could be done better. Over the last 20 months or so as I’ve been learning JavaScript, I’ve started making what I want to see. And after I’ve gone to all that trouble to learn and program and troubleshoot, why not share?

SearchTweaks’ tools are divided up into four categories: Query Builders (using external resources like Wikipedia to build more detailed Google searches without personal expertise), News-Related Search Tools (Using the FCC and other information sources to build news searches with transparent sourcing), Time-Related Search Tools (making Google’s date-based searching easier to use), and Search Utilities (hacks and tricks for making the most of how Google’s search works.)

SearchTweaks is free and ad-free. The site is hand-coded HTML/CSS/JavaScript so it should work on your phone, but it was designed with desktop use in mind.
Here’s a brief description of each search tool. Enjoy!

Query Builders

Wiki-Guided Google Search — Searches Wikipedia for mentions of a Wikipedia article, filters the result pages by number of mentions, and generates a list of related topics and Google / Google News searches for each.

Clumpy Bounce Topic Search — “Clump” together popular Wikipedia pages in a category and “bounce” them into a Google search.

Smushy Search — Use the Datamuse API to create randomish topical searches on Google.

News-Related Search Tools

Non-Sketchy News Search — Use Wikipedia to find news sources and bundle them into Google Searches.

Marion’s Monocle TV Search — Use FCC licensing data to find TV stations by city/state, then search their Web spaces via Google.

School Scoop — Browse American schools by city/state and search for them on Google/Google News.

Street Scoop — Enter a US address. StreetScoop will find the nearest large city, query the FCC for the television stations in the area, and aggregate those domain names along with your street name into a Google search.

Time-Related Search Tools

Back That Ask Up — Easily removes recent results from Google News searches.

TimeCake — Specify a starting year (1999-), ending year, and interval of years and get a list of Google searches covering those time periods.

Obit Magnet — Find obituaries by creating very short date-bounded searches in Google and other resources.

Software VerSearch — Use lifespans of software versions to craft more useful Google searches.

Search Utilities

No Shop Sherlock — Eliminate different kinds of ecommerce and other content from your Google search results.

Shuffle Search — Shuffle a short Google query into all possible word orders.

Sinker Search — Fill up your Google query’s 32-word limit by repeating its most important term as a “sinker” to weight the search.

Carl’s Name Net — Search a name in a variety of combinations across several resources.

Anti-Bullseye Name Search — Searches for uncommon variants of a name while specifically excluding popular variants.

December 18, 2023 at 09:26PM
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New Zealand Rugby, Sunscreen in New Zealand, Ford Concept Cars, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, December 18, 2023

New Zealand Rugby, Sunscreen in New Zealand, Ford Concept Cars, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, December 18, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New Zealand Herald: Rugby Database – a voluntary virtual warehouse of New Zealand statistics. “Two Kiwi blokes started a project of passion three years ago – Rugby Database – a digital directory of every first-class rugby union game played both in New Zealand and abroad by national and provincial teams and players — and that’s just to start with. The project has created a blueprint for other teams and countries to follow suit.”

Didn’t plan this, but I like it. Voxy: Consumer NZ’s sunscreen database provides NZers with a new layer of protection. “Consumer NZ has launched an online database allowing New Zealanders to choose sunscreen brands that are transparent about how often they test their products.” I took a quick look and saw at least one American brand, so I don’t think this limited to New-Zealand-specific products.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Detroit Free Press: Ford just added 100 hidden-for-decades photos of concept cars to its online archive. “This time, Ford is revealing 100 new concept car images, including 45 new vehicles, to total 378 unique concept vehicles online. It looks like a study in futuristic automotive car design executed decades ago. Overall, the Ford Heritage Vault now hosts 1,844 concept car images from 1896 to 2021.”

PC Magazine: End of an Era: Google Groups to Drop Usenet Support. “A social-networking fossil looks even more embedded in sedimentary rock now that Google plans to retire the Usenet gateway it’s maintained at its Google Groups site since 2001.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Business Post (Ireland): Exclusive: the X Files – how Elon Musk’s new rules allow hate to flourish. “Elon Musk’s X has instructed staff not to suspend users that post explicitly racist, sexist and homophobic content, or who send sexual material to another person, as part of a new policy that has radically stripped back the company’s moderation of abusive material. Confidential documents obtained by the Business Post reveal in detail how X, formerly Twitter, has significantly watered down its trust and safety rules over recent months, and how its policies allow abusive and hateful accounts to remain on the platform.”

NPR: Fake social media accounts are targeting Taiwan’s presidential election. “An influence operation spanning Facebook, TikTok and YouTube has been targeting Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election, according to a new report from research firm Graphika. While Graphika wasn’t able to determine who was behind the operation, the report comes amid warnings from government officials and tech companies that elections around the world next year are ripe targets for manipulation from states including China, Russia and Iran, as well as domestic actors.”

Northeastern Global News: From Kate Bush to Glass Animals, how TikTok and TV help give music a new life . “‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ was released in 1958. It wasn’t until 2023 that the song hit the Billboard Top 100. Why? The New York Times said it’s thanks in part to singer Brenda Lee getting on TikTok. Whether it be reviving a decades-old holiday classic or breathing new life into an older release, TikTok, television and movies hold great sway. Where DJs and dance clubs once influenced people’s musical tastes, social media and entertainment are the new tastemakers as they introduce or resurrect music. This leads to songs released years ago hitting charts in a way they didn’t upon release.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Sydney Morning Herald: Facebook and Google to face ACCC oversight under tougher rules for using news. “Google and Facebook will come under stricter oversight from the nation’s competition watchdog under federal plans to ensure the global giants compensate Australian news businesses to use their content. The federal government will draft new laws to toughen the regime and encourage the digital media companies to negotiate in good faith with news providers, clearing the way for commercial deals next year.”

New Voice of Ukraine: Disinformation watchdog alerts to rising tactic as Russia impersonates Ukrainian units on Telegram. “Russian disinformation operatives have stepped up an insidious new tactic – impersonating Ukrainian brigades and battalions on Telegram to sow doubt, Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation reported on Facebook on Dec. 16.”

Bleeping Computer WordPress hosting service Kinsta targeted by Google phishing ads. “WordPress hosting provider Kinsta is warning customers that Google ads have been observed promoting phishing sites to steal hosting credentials. Kinsta says the phishing attacks aim to steal login credentials for MyKinsta, a key service the company offers to manage WordPress and other cloud-based apps.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of California Davis: YouTube Video Recommendations Lead to More Extremist Content for Right-Leaning Users, Researchers Suggest. “A multidisciplinary research team in communication and computer science at the University of California, Davis, performed a systematic audit of YouTube’s video recommendations in 2021 and 2022. They tested how a person’s ideological leaning might affect what videos YouTube’s algorithms recommend to them. For right-leaning users, video recommendations are more likely to come from channels that share political extremism, conspiracy theories and otherwise problematic content. Recommendations for left-leaning users on YouTube were markedly fewer, researchers said.”

Notre Dame News: ‘A ticking clock’: First ground-based survey of damage to Ukrainian cultural sites reveals severity, need for urgency. “The war in Ukraine is not just a war against a people, but a war on culture. And after nearly two years of fighting, it is destroying Ukraine’s cultural heritage on a scale not seen since World War II, according to new research by University of Notre Dame faculty members Ian Kuijt and William Donaruma.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 18, 2023 at 06:31PM
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George Masa Photography, Mother Jones, Google Gemini, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 17, 2023

George Masa Photography, Mother Jones, Google Gemini, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 17, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Asheville Citizen Times: Word from the Smokies: New database contributes to study of George Masa’s photography. “Angelyn Whitmeyer might be the last person you would expect to contribute to ongoing research surrounding a Japanese photographer who found inspiration in the Great Smoky Mountains. And yet, the world is coming to know more about some sophisticated early images and an unlikely champion of Great Smoky Mountains National Park through Whitmeyer’s new George Masa Photo Database.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mother Jones: Mother Jones, The Center for Investigative Reporting Announce Merger of Storied, Trusted Investigative Newsrooms. “Two of America’s most storied and trusted investigative news organizations, Mother Jones and The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), are poised to merge and become a multimedia nonprofit news outlet, providing in-depth reporting across every platform where people get their news, from online and social media to video, radio, podcast, and print.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

TechCrunch: With AI Studio, Google launches an easy-to-use tool for developing apps and chatbots based on its Gemini model. “AI Studio is a web-based tool for developers that functions a bit like a gateway into the wider Gemini ecosystem, starting with Gemini Pro and then, at some point next year, also Gemini Ultra. Using the service, developers can quickly develop prompts and Gemini-based chatbots — and then get API keys to use them in their apps or get access to the code to work on it in a more fully featured IDE.”

Poynter: West African fact-checkers team up to correct falsehoods in coup-prone region. “The political landscape in West Africa has been undergoing dramatic changes since 2020, marked by a series of coups that have reshaped governance in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon. This trend of political upheaval extends to nearby Central African countries like Sudan and Chad, with visible signs of instability now emerging in Cameroon and Sierra Leone…. Meanwhile, the primary focus of fact-checkers in the region has shifted to accurately informing the public about the coups and actively correcting divisive falsehoods that often go viral.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Nearly a million non-profit donors’ details left exposed in unsecured database. “The database is owned and operated by DonorView – provider of a cloud-based fundraising platform used by schools, charities, religious institutions, and other groups focused on charitable or philanthropic goals. Infosec researcher Jeremiah Fowler found 948,029 records exposed online including donor names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, payment methods, and more.”

Associated Press: Cambodia welcomes the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s plan to return looted antiquities. “Cambodia has welcomed the announcement that New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art will return more than a dozen pieces of ancient artwork to Cambodia and Thailand that were tied to an art dealer and collector accused of running a huge antiquities trafficking network out of Southeast Asia.”

Reuters: Judge says TikTok must turn meeting records over in U.S. states probe. “A state judge on Friday ordered TikTok to comply with a request from the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office for records in a multistate investigation into whether the app puts young people at risk. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said the attorneys general investigating since 2022 have discovered TikTok had an archive of tens of thousands of recorded internal Zoom meetings that the company initially failed to disclose for nearly a year and a half.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Southern California: Copy and Paste: New AI Tool Helps Computers Interpret the World. “Popular augmented reality (AR) apps allow you to cut and paste an image of the sofa into a photo of your living room to see if you like it before buying. A team of researchers at USC Viterbi’s Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science has now developed a similar technique to copy virtual 3D objects and paste them into real indoor scenes. This creates an overall natural and realistic image in terms of spatial relationships, object orientations and lighting.”

The Ohio State University: Using AI to pinpoint hidden sources of clean energy underground. “As efforts to transition away from fossil fuels strengthen the hunt for new sources of low-carbon energy, scientists have developed a deep learning model to scan the Earth for surface expressions of subsurface reservoirs of naturally occurring free hydrogen.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Utrecht University: Rembrandt broke new ground with lead-based impregnation of canvas for The Night Watch. “New research has revealed that Rembrandt impregnated the canvas for his famous 1642 militia painting ‘The Night Watch’ with a lead-containing substance even before applying the first ground layer. Such lead-based impregnation has never before been observed with Rembrandt or his contemporaries. The discovery, published today in Science Advances, underlines Rembrandt’s inventive way of working, in which he did not shy away from using new techniques.” 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 18, 2023 at 01:50AM
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Jimmy Carter, Raleigh Fire Museum, Tracking Santa, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 17, 2023

Jimmy Carter, Raleigh Fire Museum, Tracking Santa, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 17, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Security Archive: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Carter Years, 1977-1981. “The latest in the Archive’s award-winning Digital National Security Archive series, U.S. Foreign Policy in the Carter Years, 1977-1981: Highest-Level Memos to the President comprises more than 2,500 communications and top-level policy-making records that Carter personally viewed and, in many cases, commented on directly.”

DigitalNC: From Fires to Finances, New Reports Now Available from the Raleigh Fire Museum. “Thanks to our partners at the Raleigh Fire Museum, we’re proud to announced that a new collection of vintage fire records are now available on DigitalNC! This new batch contains annual financial reports, fire protection reports, and even a booklet detailing the rules and regulations of Raleigh’s fire department. Ranging from as early as 1948 to as late as 1984, these documents capture the development and growth of Raleigh through the eyes of its firefighters.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Toronto Star: Trudeau’s government sets dollar figures for Google payments to media companies. “The federal government has outlined how its $100-million news deal with Google will be broken down, ruling that broadcasters — particularly the CBC — will get a lower share of the cash, with written media receiving two-thirds of the funds. Ottawa on Thursday published the final regulations that will determine how the Liberal government’s contentious Online News Act will be implemented.”

USA Today: Where is Santa? Here’s when NORAD and Google’s Santa Claus trackers will go live. “Tracking Santa has been a job NORAD has dutifully performed for over 60 years as people around the world wait for Old Saint Nick to deliver presents to all the good boys and girls on Christmas. For those looking to keep tabs on the big man, or simply plan ahead to Christmas Eve, here’s what to know about the NORAD Santa tracker, and when it officially goes live.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Hawaii News Now: Group wants Google to remove map where visitor miraculously survived 1,000-foot plunge. “An Oahu hiking group is trying to get Google to remove a dangerous Nuuanu hike from its maps after a 34-year-old visitor miraculously survived a 1,000-foot fall. He says he relied on the online maps to chart his course.”

Fine Books & Collections: Letters from Design’s Industrial Revolution. “From the mid-fifteenth to the nineteenth century, the letterpress dominated printing, allowing for little design variation. New techniques developed in the 1800s, such as chromolithography with multi-colored prints, rotary printing presses, and hand-drawn lithographed typography, led to a burgeoning time of printed ephemera, especially in advertising. Richard Sheaff, a graphic and publication designer, has amassed one of the leading collections of this material.”

Reuters: Google to test new feature limiting advertisers’ use of browser tracking cookies. “Alphabet’s Google said on Thursday it will begin testing a new feature on its Chrome browser as part of a plan to ban third-party cookies that advertisers use to track consumers. The search giant is set to roll out the feature, called Tracking Protection, on Jan. 4 to 1% of Chrome users globally, that will restrict cross-site tracking by default.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

404 Media: About Using Smart Device Microphone Audio to Target Ads on Their Podcast. “MindSift, a small New Hampshire-based company of just three employees, is part of a new push that aims to target ads by listening to peoples’ everyday conversations through microphones in their smart devices, according to a review of recently deleted sections from MindSift’s website and comments made on a podcast unearthed by 404 Media.”

DefenseScoop: New DDS bug bounty to include rapid response capability. “The Defense Digital Service is launching a longer-lasting bug bounty for white-hat hackers that will also include a ‘rapid response’ capability. The organization, which is part of the Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO), is partnering with Bugcrowd, a crowdsourced security platform, on the vulnerability disclosure effort.”

The Verge: Epic CEO Tim Sweeney: the post-trial interview. “Sweeney is Epic’s CEO, co-founder, and importantly its controlling shareholder. He’s the one behind these lawsuits, and it was his idea to challenge these companies in court. It’s been his fight from the very beginning, and he watched almost the entire trial in person from the best seat in the house — with a clear view of the jury, the judge, each witness, and the faces of Google’s lawyers. Last night, I asked him why, what he learned, and what’s next.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

EurekAlert: Germany’s journey towards open access of scientific publications. “In a conversation with Prof. Dr. Gerard Meijer, Director of the Department of Molecular Physics at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, member of the German Council of Science and Humanities (‘Wissenschaftsrat’) and vice-speaker of the DEAL-consortium, the significance of Open Access and of the recently signed agreements between the DEAL consortium and the major publishers Elsevier, Wiley and Springer Nature are discussed.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Florida International University: Harmony for humans and insects: Architecture students create sustainable art for garden visitors and pollinators. “The student groups each chose a specific part of the garden for their inspiration, identified the animal and plant species that present there, studied their growth and behavior and the qualities of their habitats and then extrapolated those characteristics into complex three-dimensional forms with elaborate textured materials. During the process, they identified insects that can directly benefit from the structures and created designs that would allow plants to grow within and around them over time.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 17, 2023 at 06:32PM
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