Maui Fires Money Tracker, Sony Digital Content, MyHeritage, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, December 27, 2023

Maui Fires Money Tracker, Sony Digital Content, MyHeritage, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, December 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Honolulu Civil Beat: New Database Tracks Millions In Donations And Government Funds For Maui. “As part of Civil Beat’s ongoing coverage of the wildfire relief and recovery effort, we’ve created the Maui Fires Money Tracker to help publicly track the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been channeled to the Valley Isle from both non-government and government sources. This is an evolving record and is not a definitive accounting of funds for Maui and will be updated regularly.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TweakTown: Sony won’t remove Discovery TV content from PlayStation customers for ‘at least 30 months’ “Weeks ago, Sony announced that it would be deleting over 750 pieces of Discovery digital video content from the PlayStation Store. This wasn’t just a de-listing, but would have been an outright deletion and removal of all of the affected shows….Now Sony has confirmed that the deletion will no longer take place.”

Genealogy’s Star: MyHeritage Releases AI Record Finder and AI Biographer — Two Groundbreaking Features That Transform Genealogy Using Artificial Intelligence. “Some of the AI features that have been implemented over the past few years by MyHeritage.com include Record Matches, Smart Matching, DNA tools and a bundle of photo enhancement programs. But now, there is a giant leap in even more sophisticated chatbot features for MyHeritage.com.”

Reuters: Yandex’s restructuring deal expected to be delayed to next year. “The completion of Nasdaq-listed Russian tech company Yandex’s restructuring is expected to be postponed until early 2024, three sources familiar with the negotiations told Reuters on Monday.”

USEFUL STUFF

PC World: Raspberry Pi: The best beginner projects. “With more than 45 million units sold, the Raspberry Pi is not only by far the most successful single-board computer, but also the best-selling British computer ever. The single-board computer (“SBC”) has also won countless awards. So it’s no wonder that the tiny developer board from the British Raspberry Pi Foundation also attracts many beginners and novices with its favorable price. But after buying it, new owners often wonder what exactly they should do with the tiny board.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Route Fifty: GSA partners with state, local governments on text alert service. “The General Services Administration’s pilot to send customized text reminders to individuals at critical moments during the enrollment and renewal of federal benefit programs—such as upcoming application deadlines—has onboarded two states and two distinct cities and counties, GSA announced Thursday. State and local governments can also use the service to send messages to their own staff, GSA says.”

Wall Street Journal: Your Kid Prefers YouTube to Netflix. That’s a Problem for Streamers.. “Netflix’s share of U.S. streaming viewership by 2- to 11-year-olds fell to 21% in September from 25% two years earlier, according to Nielsen. Meanwhile, YouTube’s share jumped to 33% from 29.4% over the same period. That reality is changing major streaming services’ approach to children’s entertainment, from what shows and movies they make to where they release them.”

Search Engine Journal: Top 42 Viral Videos Of All Time. “I generated the list from 2.6 million videos created by 624,000 accounts that all have more than 5 million views and 100,000 engagements using all available data. From the data I used, I estimate the odds of a video going viral are 3,192 to one.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Nikkei Asia: Japan to crack down on Apple and Google app store monopolies. “Japan is preparing regulations that would require tech giants like Apple and Google to allow outside app stores and payments on their mobile operating systems, in a bid to curb abuse of their dominant position in the Japanese market. Legislation slated to be sent to the parliament in 2024 would restrict moves by platform operators to keep users in the operators’ own ecosystems and shut out rivals, focusing mainly on four areas: app stores and payments, search, browsers, and operating systems.”

The Register: Cyber sleuths reveal how they infiltrate the biggest ransomware gangs. “Though it happens rarely, it’s always a good day when a ransomware group is taken down by law enforcement. Rarer still is a takedown where one gets a detailed look at the methods that were used in these infiltrations.”

Bleeping Computer: Integris Health patients get extortion emails after cyberattack. “Integris Health patients in Oklahoma are receiving blackmail emails stating that their data was stolen in a cyberattack on the healthcare network, and if they did not pay an extortion demand, the data would be sold to other threat actors. Integris Health is Oklahoma’s largest not-for-profit health network, operating hospitals, clinics, and urgent care throughout the state.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PBS News Hour: Teens reflect on how social media nearly ruined their friendship. “The addictive nature of social media doesn’t just have parents, lawmakers and advocates worried. Last year, more than half of U.S. teens said it would be difficult to give up social media, including TikTok and YouTube. The latest episode of our Student Reporting Labs series ‘Moments of Truth’ tells the story of one teen who faced this dilemma head-on with Instagram.” Video with full transcript. Good morning, Internet….

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December 27, 2023 at 06:31PM
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SCOTUS Financial Disclosures, OpenAI, TikTok, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 26, 2023

SCOTUS Financial Disclosures, OpenAI, TikTok, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New search tool from ProPublica: Supreme Court Financial Connections. From the front page: “Every year, the Supreme Court’s nine justices fill out a form that discloses their financial connections to companies and people. Using our new database, you can now search for organizations and people that have paid the justices, reimbursed them for travel, given them gifts and more.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bleeping Computer: OpenAI rolls out imperfect fix for ChatGPT data leak flaw. “OpenAI has mitigated a data exfiltration bug in ChatGPT that could potentially leak conversation details to an external URL. According to the researcher who discovered the flaw, the mitigation isn’t perfect, so attackers can still exploit it under certain conditions.”

Techdirt: The Republican Push To Ban TikTok Has Very Little (And Dwindling) Real World Support. “The real GOP motivation for banning TikTok is lousy, and the implementation has been lousier. Most of the GOP bans on TikTok (which require endless billable legal hours to craft) so far have been bypassed by children in all of thirty seconds. Many of the bans have proven unconstitutional. And several of the state AG lawsuits against TikTok have proven to be baseless and largely incoherent. Regardless of motivation (and despite three years of breathless press coverage presenting the GOP efforts as good faith), actual support for such bans is small and shrinking.”

USEFUL STUFF

Online Journalism Blog: How to investigate companies: recommendations from Graham Barrow. “Graham Barrow has worked to prevent money laundering and fraud for decades — in recent years working with journalists to investigate companies. In a guest post he shares his tips with Tony Jarne on what you can do when you are following the money.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: Meet Flip, the Viral Video App Giving Away Free Stuff. ” Flip, a social video platform fixated on shopping has recently blazed a trail of confusion-tinged-delight across the internet. A referral program that rewards users with next-to-free merchandise has helped propel the platform into the top 25 most popular free US shopping apps on the iPhone, according to SensorTower—while sparking questions about the business model behind it.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

AFP: US Court Rules Twitter Breached Contract Over Failure To Pay Bonuses. “A US federal court ruled on Friday that social media company Twitter, now branded X, violated contracts by failing to pay annual performance bonuses it orally promised its workers. The breach-of-contract lawsuit was brought by former employer Mark Schobinger in June.”

KTLA: Google spent $1.2M lobbying against paying news publishers: LAT. “A California bill that would require large tech companies to pay news publishers for their content is on hold until at least next year, and it appears lobbying by those same companies played a role. The Los Angeles Times reports that Google spent $1.5 million lobbying state lawmakers between January and September, including $1.2 million for an advertisement attacking Assembly Bill 886, the California Journalism Preservation Act.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: I gave ChatGPT the last 13 years of Nieman Lab predictions. “In past years I’ve written my year-end predictions as articles, zines, or illustrations. This year my prediction comes in the form of a GPT: Nieman Lab Predictions GPT. I made a GPT and used retrieval augmentation to give the it access to the past 13 years of Nieman Lab year-end predictions. That’s 1,369 articles.”

TechXplore: Examining effects of mobile phone use on attention, reaction time, and working memory of office workers. “Writing in the International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics, a team from Iran has looked at mobile phone use on attention, reaction time, and the working memory of office workers. Fatemeh Sharmandemola, Gholamhossein Halvani, Sara Jambarsang, and Amir Houshang Mehrparvar of the Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences in Yazd, Iran, hoped to discover whether mobile phone use has an impact on cognitive function.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Open Source Scanner Scans The Slides. “What do you get when you join a slide projector and a digital camera? Filmolimo, an open source slide scanner. The scanner uses an M5Stack Fire, an ESP32 development board. Thanks to the ESP32, you can control the device via WiFi.” Good afternoon, Internet….

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December 27, 2023 at 02:00AM
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Introduction to Finite Mathematics, Bluesky, 2023 Tech, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, December 26, 2023

Introduction to Finite Mathematics, Bluesky, 2023 Tech, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, December 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Wolfram Blog: Get Down to Business with Finite Mathematics in Wolfram Language. “I am glad to announce the launch of Introduction to Finite Mathematics, a free interactive course that will help open the world of finite mathematics to students from any background. Topics are chosen to align with college courses on finite mathematics and are presented so that you can learn how to use either Wolfram Language or pen and paper to perform calculations.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Bluesky posts are finally open to the public. “Bluesky remains an invite-only decentralized Twitter alternative, but now, you don’t need to have an account and log in to be able to see posts on the platform, according to a blog post from Bluesky CEO Jay Graber. Now, anyone can easily see posts from both the web and from the Bluesky app.”

PC Magazine: Game Over: The Tech That Died in 2023. “Nothing lasts forever, especially in Silicon Valley. Products, services, and CEOs fizzle out regularly, many without any fanfare. Other endings catch us by surprise (10 years later, the demise of Google Reader still stings). Time marches on and corporate priorities shift. Here are the products and services that took a final bow in 2023, starting with the most headline-grabbing shutdowns and then a month-by-month breakdown.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Create a Free AI Avatar on TikTok. “TikTok has introduced AI avatar generation capabilities to its app, so you can easily create AI portraits of yourself. Here’s what you need to know about the feature, and how to use it.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Hürriyet Daily News: German archaeologist’s photo archive delivered to Türkiye. “Between 1953 and 1970, [Friedrich Karl] Dörner carried out various archaeological studies, especially on Mount Nemrut, Arsemia Ruins and Old Kahta Castle. … The photo archive was digitized with funding from the Gerda Henkel Foundation in Germany. The digital archive was delivered to the Adıyaman Culture and Tourism Directorate at a ceremony held on Dec. 22 in Adıyaman. Digital photographs will be kept at the Adıyaman Museum Directorate.”

CBC: How Nanalan’s viral TikTok success reunited the show’s creators after 15 years. “In 1999, Canadian puppeteers Jason Hopley and Jamie Shannon created Nanalan’ — a weird, whimsical and very wholesome children’s television series about a three-year-old girl named Mona, her ever-nurturing Nana and Nana’s dog, Russell. And while this beautiful and bizarre Canadian kids’ show has been off the air for 20 years, the internet has recently brought it back to life.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Rejected Play Store Fee Changes Due to Impact on Revenue, Epic Lawsuit Shows. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google considered changing its app store pricing model to circumvent a regulatory crackdown, but abandoned a proposal to charge a set fee per app after it became clear that could cost the company billions of dollars, according to documents released late Thursday.”

Associated Press: YouTube mom who gave parenting advice, Ruby Franke, pleads guilty in child abuse case. “A Utah mother of six who gave parenting advice on YouTube pleaded guilty Monday to child abuse charges and will go to prison for trying to convince her two youngest children they were evil, possessed and needed to be punished to repent. Ruby Franke stood shackled in gray and white jail clothing as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath before pleading guilty to each of her first three charges.”

New York Times: How Strangers Got My Email Address From ChatGPT’s Model. “My email address is not a secret. But the success of the researchers’ experiment should ring alarm bells because it reveals the potential for ChatGPT, and generative A.I. tools like it, to reveal much more sensitive personal information with just a bit of tweaking.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Wall Street Journal: How TikTok Brings War Home to Your Child. “The Wall Street Journal created [bots] to understand what TikTok shows young users about the conflict. Those bots, registered as 13-year-old users, browsed TikTok’s For You feed, the highly personalized, never-ending stream of content curated by the algorithm. Within hours after signing up, TikTok began serving some accounts highly polarized content, reflecting often extreme pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel positions about the conflict. Many stoked fear.”

Associated Press: AI pioneer says public discourse on intelligent machines must give ‘proper respect to human agency’. “She’s an important figure behind today’s artificial intelligence boom, but not all computer scientists thought Fei-Fei Li was on the right track when she came up with the idea for a giant visual database called ImageNet that took years to build. Li, now a founding director of Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, is out with a new memoir that recounts her pioneering work in curating the dataset that accelerated the computer vision branch of AI.”

VentureBeat: Apple quietly released an open source multimodal LLM in October. “With little fanfare, researchers from Apple and Columbia University released an open source multimodal LLM, called Ferret, in October 2023. At the time, the release — which included the code and weights, but for research use only, not a commercial license — did not receive much attention. But now that may be changing.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 26, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Texas Archives, Social Media, Google Maps, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 25, 2023

Texas Archives, Social Media, Google Maps, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Texas State Library and Archives Commission: New Online: Recent Updates to Finding Aids and Digital Images. “As our archives staff work on an ongoing basis to arrange, preserve, describe, and make available to the public the materials under our care, we spotlight new additions to the website in a regular feature from Out of the Stacks. The column lists new and revised finding aids recently made available online, along with fresh uploads to the Texas Digital Archive, our repository of electronic items.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Associated Press: The year of social media soul-searching: Twitter dies, X and Threads are born and AI gets personal. “We lost Twitter and got X. We tried out Bluesky and Mastodon (well, some of us did). We fretted about AI bots and teen mental health. We cocooned in private chats and scrolled endlessly as we did in years past. For social media users, 2023 was a year of beginnings and endings, with some soul-searching in between. Here’s a look back some of the biggest stories in social media in 2023 — and what to watch for next year.”

Times of Israel: After 2 months amid war, Google starts to reactivate live traffic updates on Waze, maps. “For the first time in some two months amid the war with the Hamas terror group, Google is starting to gradually reactivate live traffic updates for Google Maps and Waze in Israel.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Search Engine Roundtable: Pre-Christmas Intense Google Algorithm Ranking Volatility. “No one should be surprised to hear that I am reporting on some intense Google search ranking volatility starting this Friday, December 22nd, through the weekend, with things seeming to calm down today, Sunday, December 24th. Did Google push an algorithm update or tweak before the holiday break? Who knows, but there are signals of ranking volatility either way.”

Politico: Arizona creates own deep-fake election hoaxes to prepare for 2024. “After his key swing state became a magnet for election fraud conspiracy theories in the 2020 presidential election, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is leading a series of exercises to prepare the Grand Canyon State for a range of likely threats to next year’s vote, foremost among them the use of open access AI tools to amplify disinformation.”

WIRED: Pinterest Is Having a Moment. “In 2023, Pinterest had a moment—and that’s thanks to Gen Z-ers. They make up more than 40 percent of its active monthly users and are now the platform’s fastest growing demographic, outpacing the millennials who first discovered and popularized the platform with mood boards and wedding planning pins. Experts say Pinterest is also growing because it fills a different, more positive niche than other forms of social media, serving as a place for exploration and creativity rather than a race for likes and views.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CTV News: Sudbury senior loses life savings after clicking on social media ad. “Over the course of five months, he lost about $130,000 total after clicking on a social media ad that said a $250 investment could return thousands.”

TechCrunch: Google makes bid to resolve competition concerns in Germany over its automotive services bundling. “Following competition objections raised on Google in Germany this summer over bundling of services including Google Maps via its Android-based in-car infotainment system software, known as Google Automotive Services (GAS), the tech giant has made an offer of some service unbundling and the removal of contractual restrictions it applies to vehicle makers in a bid to settle the regulatory intervention.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: Let’s Rescue Book Lovers From This Online Hellscape. “Goodreads is broken. What began in 2007 as a promising tool for readers, authors, booksellers and publishers has become an unreliable, unmanageable, near-unnavigable morass of unreliable data and unfettered ill will. Of course, the internet offers no shortage of bad data and ill will but at its inception Goodreads promised something different: a gathering space where ardent readers could connect with writers and with one another, swapping impressions and sharing recommendations.”

IEEE Spectrum: Quantum Computing’s Hard, Cold Reality Check . “The quantum computer revolution may be further off and more limited than many have been led to believe. That’s the message coming from a small but vocal set of prominent skeptics in and around the emerging quantum computing industry.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 26, 2023 at 01:19AM
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Library of Congress, Twitter, American Journalism Project, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, December 25, 2023

Library of Congress, Twitter, American Journalism Project, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, December 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Library of Congress: Celebrating 5 Years of By the People. “By the People (BtP), the Library of Congress crowdsourced transcription program, is taking a moment this winter to look back on how we’ve grown and celebrate our 5th year! As we’ve shared in earlier birthday celebrations, BtP was originally incubated in 2018 by the LC Labs team and was designed to engage volunteers by inviting them to explore and transcribe documents from the Library’s digital collections.”

Washington Post: Elon Musk promised an anti-‘woke’ chatbot. It’s not going as planned.. “Two weeks after the Dec. 8 launch of Grok to paid subscribers of X, formerly Twitter, Musk is fielding complaints from the political right that the chatbot gives liberal responses to questions about diversity programs, transgender rights and inequality.”

Medium: Exploring emerging technologies: an update on our Product & AI Studio. “This summer, the American Journalism Project launched our new Product & AI Studio, a new program to explore the smart application of emerging technologies in local journalism…. Today, we’re excited to share an update on the progress the Product & AI Studio has made so far.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Search Engine Journal: Santa Tracker 2023: Google Vs. Microsoft, Bing, AWS, And NORAD. “Are you looking for examples of interactive content for brands? Or festive content that creatively promotes logistics and call center management? Say hello to Santa Tracker 2023. This article explores Google’s approach to interactive content experiences vs. the official 2023 NORAD Santa Tracker powered by Microsoft, Bing, Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Zillow.”

Malta Today: Electoral Office to scan all Malta buildings in Google-type mapping. “The electoral office is to carry out a €900,000 geo-mapping of Malta’s building units, in a Google-type photographic survey using low-emission cars. The Electoral Office said it wants to consolidate its records of addresses with spatially accurate points that also reflect the rapidly changing streetscapes of Malta.”

The Verge: Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content. “This latest clash over moderation comes after The Atlantic reported on Substack publications with ‘overt Nazi symbols’ in their logos, several from prominent white nationalists, and other posts on Substack supporting those views. McKenzie’s response explains that absent an incitement to violence, Substack’s ‘decentralized approach to content moderation’ response to that material is to publish it, monetize it, and continue to take a cut of the profits.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Europol: Action against digital skimming reveals 443 compromised online merchants. “Europol, law enforcement authorities from 17 countries and the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) have joined forces with the private sector partners, including Group-IB and Sansec, to fight digital skimming attacks. With the support of national Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT), the two-month action has enabled Europol and its partners to notify 443 online merchants that their customers’ credit card or payment card data had been compromised.”

Association of Health Care Journalists: Court rules California can share firearm owner data with researchers. “A California appeals court in November overturned a ruling that barred the state from sharing the personal information of registered gun owners for research purposes. The ruling, which overturned a San Diego Superior Court decision that such data-sharing violates privacy, was a win for the state’s firearm researchers, particularly the Firearm Violence Research Center based at UC Davis.”

Techdirt: Utah’s Top Court Says Government Can’t Portray Refusals To Unlock Phones As Incriminatory. “There’s been plenty of courtroom discussion about Fifth Amendment rights surrounding compelled decryption in recent years. Encryption is on by default on most devices these days. Law enforcement seems to believe all it needs is a warrant to compel decryption. Courts aren’t so sure.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

XDA Developers: Why LLMs like ChatGPT and Google Bard are bad at math. “When it comes to large language models (LLM), you might think they’re a silver bullet to most of your problems. You can have it plan your day or ask it almost anything, knowing it will do its utmost best to give you a comprehensive answer. However, there’s one thing you should never rely on an LLM for, and that’s math. To be clear, LLMs can be trained on large mathematical datasets to recognize patterns and, with smaller numbers, get close to real answers. Even then, though, you’re better off just using a calculator.”

Ethan Zuckerman: How Big is YouTube?. “I’ll write at some length in the future about what we can learn from a true random sample of YouTube videos. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the idea of ‘the quotidian web’, learning from the bottom half of the long tail of user-generated media so we can understand what most creators are doing with these tools, not just from the most successful influencers. But I’m going to limit myself to the question that started this blog post: how big is YouTube?”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

GamesRadar: After 23 years, developer reveals he snuck a cheat code past Sony that turns a cult-classic horror game into a godsend for retro enthusiasts. “Argonaut Games’ cult classic survival horror FPS Alien Resurrection has been hiding a secret for 23 years: it contains a cheat code that lets you play backup disks on PS1 without having to mod the hardware at all.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 25, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Kukla Fran and Ollie, Guyana Animation Network, Online Safety, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 24, 2023

Kukla Fran and Ollie, Guyana Animation Network, Online Safety, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me and discovered via a circuitous route it would take far too long to explain: an ongoing project/fundraising effort to digitize existing episodes of the 1950s television program “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” and make them available on YouTube. The channel has been around for at least 13 years but it looks like the uploading really took off in the last three years.

Guyana Chronicle: First screenwriters’ database launched. “THE Guyana Animation Network Inc (GAN) is inviting talented screenwriters and scriptwriters from Guyana and the Caribbean to register and be a part of its first screenwriters’ database which is geared at enabling these writers in animation, film and television to gain access to screenwriting opportunities, locally and internationally.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Spot the Real Download Button on Websites. “One of the most annoying types of ads on the internet is fake download buttons. You think you’re downloading something, but instead, you end up with malware, junkware, or phishing sites. Here are some tips to help you spot and avoid fake download buttons.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Ars Technica: A song of hype and fire: The 10 biggest AI stories of 2023. “‘Here, There, and Everywhere’ isn’t just a Beatles song. It’s also a phrase that recalls the spread of generative AI into the tech industry during 2023. Whether you think AI is just a fad or the dawn of a new tech revolution, it’s been impossible to deny that AI news has dominated the tech space for the past year.”

DefenseScoop: Air Force Academy moves to monitor social media for potential cadet misconduct. “The U.S. Air Force Academy aims to hire a contractor that can closely monitor popular social media platforms for posts and content that violate national laws and its official policies — or display potential hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, or harassment of or by its cadets.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Crypto scammers abuse Twitter ‘feature’ to impersonate high-profile accounts. “Cryptocurrency scammers are abusing a legitimate Twitter ‘feature’ to promote scams, fake giveaways, and fraudulent Telegram channels used to steal your crypto and NFTs.”

HathiTrust: HathiTrust Files Brief to Support Libraries’ Fair Use Rights. “HathiTrust has filed an amicus brief in Hachette Book Group et al vs Internet Archive, a US federal lawsuit addressing ‘controlled digital lending’ (CDL).”

RESEARCH & OPINION

US Government Accountability Office: Artificial Intelligence in Natural Hazard Modeling: Severe Storms, Hurricanes, Floods, and Wildfires. “GAO found that machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses algorithms to identify patterns in information, is being applied to forecasting models for natural hazards such as severe storms, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires, which can lead to natural disasters. A few machine learning models are used operationally—in routine forecasting—such as one that may improve the warning time for severe storms. Some uses of machine learning are considered close to operational, while others require years of development and testing.”

The Next Web: AI beats humans for the first time in physical skill game. “AI’s ability to beat human players in games like chess and GO is no longer surprising. After all, artificial intelligence has proved it can outperform its animate creators in certain tasks, especially when it comes to processing and analysing information. But physical skill has remained a human prerogative — until now.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Make: Here Are The Winners Of The Build2Gether Accessibility Challenge. “Back in July, the Build2Gether Accessibility challenge launched, calling on members of the maker community to design and build solutions to a few specific topics. The time has come to share the winners! There were 3 main categories, each with a grand prize winner and runners up.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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December 25, 2023 at 01:11AM
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Company of Merchant Adventurers of York, Public Domain, Maze Generator, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 24, 2023

Company of Merchant Adventurers of York, Public Domain, Maze Generator, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of York: New archive reveals snapshot of a wartime Christmas in York. “The records, which date back to the 12th century, consist of nearly 300 boxes of material which have now been fully catalogued and published online. The archive documents the rich history of the [Company of Merchant Adventurers of York] and their Hall, which have been central to the commercial life of the City of York for over 655 years.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Public Domain Review: What Will Enter the Public Domain in 2024? . “At the start of each year, on January 1st, a new crop of works enter the public domain and become free to enjoy, share, and reuse for any purpose. Due to differing copyright laws around the world, there is no one single public domain — and here we focus on three of the most prominent.”

USEFUL STUFF

Useful for a given value of useful, but I think it’s neat. Boing Boing: A simple maze generator . “Alance AB’s Maze Generator exemplifies the simple, get-what’s-promised web. Choose several different shapes of maze, set the desired size, click and amaze yourself.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Houston Chronicle: Houston Public Library’s Latino archive is a trove of Hispanic history. Critics say it’s neglected. . “The library’s Latino archives, documenting one of the largest Hispanic populations in the country, are languishing, critics said, due to decades of underfunding and disregard from Houston Public Library leadership — even after recent efforts to revamp the collections.”

Gothamist: Some TikTok users go viral by complaining about the city. New Yorkers have had enough. . “People in videos rant about how there isn’t much to do in the city but go out for drinks and dinner. Another transplant complained about the lack of a Whole Foods in the Bronx – and wound up getting fired after accusations of racism. In early December, TikTok user Sliimkim found herself in the center of a viral storm, after posting a video about being unable to dress in her expensive clothing on the subway out of a fear that she’ll get robbed.”

Mint (India): Fake AI-generated Amul cheese doing rounds on social media, Amul says…. “Milk and dairy products major Amul has dismissed social media rumours about the launch of a new cheese brand. The fake claims are being circulated online via social media and WhatsApp.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: NY Proposes Mandated Open Access To Social Media APIs. “NY state senator Brad Holyman-Sigal has introduced a bill to require social media websites to provide an openly accessible API for others to build on top of.”

CBS New York: Gov. Kathy Hochul signs bill granting government access to previously hidden LLC records. “Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill Saturday that was intended to make it easier to find out who owns a building in New York state. Many companies are registered to Limited Liability Corporations, and shell companies. The sponsors of the bill Hochul signed released a statement however critiquing the elimination of a key part of the bill – the creation of a public database that would’ve listed the names of those who benefit from those LLCs.”

Court News Ohio: Amusement Park Police Must Provide Records Requested by TV Stations. “The Cedar Point Police Department must turn over records requested by three Ohio television stations, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today. The Supreme Court unanimously concluded the amusement park’s police department is the ‘functional equivalent’ of a public office, noting that park officers report to the Sandusky city manager by city ordinance and carry out the core functions of government.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Copenhagen: AI can spot suicidal tendencies among young people. “An increasing number of young people are attempting suicide. While old methods of assessing risk factors have limited effect, artificial intelligence can help spot the most important warning signs. This is according to a new research project from the University of Copenhagen.”

Clemson University: Clemson Media Forensics Hub digs into Russian ‘narrative laundering’. “‘Olena Zelenska spends $1,000,000 on Cartier jewelry, gets sales employee fired’ — readers in Nigeria may have seen this headline on the news website The Nation in early October. The story about Ukraine’s first lady was also carried on other news sites in African nations and spread on social media. But according to researchers with Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, the story is a complete fabrication, created and spread by Russian influencers through a process called ‘narrative laundering.'”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Max Planck Society: New computational tool detects up to second to third degree cousins using ancient genomes. “Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Harvard in the USA have developed a new tool which enables them to identify prehistoric and historic individuals’ relatives up to the sixth degree. Previous methods worked only up to the third degree. This innovation will help scientists identify yet unknown ties between ancient individuals and cultures.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 24, 2023 at 06:31PM
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