Google Chrome, Bluesky, Driving Direction Errors, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 28, 2023

Google Chrome, Bluesky, Driving Direction Errors, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Chrome’s password safety tool will now automatically run in the background. “Google’s Safety Check feature for Chrome, which, among other things, checks the internet to see if any of your saved passwords have been compromised, will now ‘run automatically in the background’ on desktop, the company said in a blog post on Thursday. The constant checks could mean that you’re alerted about a password that you should change sooner than you would have before.”

TechCrunch: Bluesky rolls out an in-app video and music player and a new ‘hide post’ feature. “The new video and music player works with YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify and Twitch embeds. Unlike on X, where autoplay on videos is the default setting, Bluesky’s in-app player won’t autoplay content. If users want to watch or listen to the content, they will have to trigger it with a tap.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: How to take advantage of Chrome’s side panel. “…when Chrome added a side panel that would give access to various features, I noted this new option, filed it away in the back of my brain and ignored it for several weeks. But now, I’ve taken another look — and I think this is something I should try. Chrome’s side panel offers immediate access to several useful apps, and it’s probably a good idea to explore what they are and whether the sidebar is a good way to access them.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

ABC News (Australia): Quairading shire erects signs telling travellers to ignore GPS maps including Google. “A frustrated council in Western Australia has erected signs warning drivers against using Google maps after GPS-based directions repeatedly sent travellers down unsafe roads…. The issue has frustrated the Quairading shire for the past eight years.”

WIRED: The Hollywood Strikes Stopped AI From Taking Your Job. But for How Long?. “Throughout 2023, many trades and professions, from painters to coders and beyond, found themselves vulnerable to being replaced by machine learning. IBM’s CEO estimated out loud that some 7,800 jobs at the company could be done by bots in the next five years. A Goldman Sachs report from late March estimated nearly 300,000 jobs globally could be affected by automation. Radiologists, journalists (gulp), tax preparers—everyone, it seemed, spent at least part of 2023 wondering if robots were coming for their jobs.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: GTA 5 source code reportedly leaked online a year after Rockstar hack. “​The source code for Grand Theft Auto 5 was reportedly leaked on Christmas Eve, a little over a year after the Lapsus$ threat actors hacked Rockstar games and stole corporate data. Links to download the source code were shared on numerous channels, including Discord, a dark web website, and a Telegram channel that the hackers previously used to leak stolen Rockstar data.”

Centre Daily Times: Inside the Pennsylvania court case pitting a genealogist against Ancestry.com. “Are they the property of the commonwealth? Or are the documents — which include birth and death certificates, veterans’ burial cards, and slave records — fully controlled by a private company? That question has pitted a New York City-based professional genealogist against the Pennsylvania agency in charge of a vast array of historical documents and artifacts, as well as Ancestry.com, an online genealogy company used by millions of people to search for family and other records.”

Indian Express: FIU issues notice to 9 offshore crypto platforms, writes to MeiTY for blocking of URLs. “The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Finance Ministry has issued show cause notices to nine offshore cryptocurrency and virtual digital assets platforms, like Binance and Kucoin, for non-compliance with anti-money laundering law. The FIU has also written to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block the URLs of these nine entities that are operating illegally without complying with the provisions of the PML Act in India.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: Avert Your Eyes, Avoid Responsibility and Just Blame TikTok. “We’re in a season of hand-wringing and scapegoating over social media, especially TikTok, with many Americans and politicians missing that two things can be true at once: Social media can have an outsize and sometimes pernicious influence on society, and lawmakers can unfairly use it as an excuse to deflect legitimate criticisms.”

National Catholic Reporter: Why I finally left Twitter (aka ‘X’)
. “I am now among this group of people who will no longer abide the hate-mongering algorithms; the Wild-West-like trolling; the rise in antisemitism, racism, homophobia and transphobia; and the absence of virtually any constructive discourse. Musk’s reinstatement of previously banned accounts is emblematic of the shifting context and tone of the platform.” 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. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Mastodon Gizmos, and MegaGladys.

December 29, 2023 at 01:34AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/C9y4hJE

Ethical Book Search, Artifact Repatriations, FTC, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, December 28, 2023

Ethical Book Search, Artifact Repatriations, FTC, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, December 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Discovered via Mastodon: Ethical Book Search. From the front page: “You would prefer not to spend your money on a company that avoids paying taxes, or treats the people who work for them badly, or is damaging the environment. We make this as easy as possible for you by recommending book sellers who are much more responsible than some of their less reputable competitors and enabling you to search them all with one click.” Basically it’s a metasearch for specific booksellers.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

ProPublica: The Remains of Thousands of Native Americans Were Returned to Tribes This Year. “American museums and universities repatriated more ancestral remains and sacred objects to tribal nations this year than at any point in the past three decades, transferring ownership of an estimated 18,800 Native American ancestors, institutions reported. And more repatriations are forthcoming.”

FTC: Deadline extended for comments on FTC’s proposed ban on junk fees. “In October 2023, the FTC proposed a rule that would prohibit junk fees – hidden charges and bogus fees that cost consumers tens of billions of dollars each year and undercut honest businesses. The FTC wants your feedback on its proposed Trade Regulation Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees and has extended the deadline to February 7th.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: AI Is Telling Bedtime Stories to Your Kids Now. “The main version of ChatGPT has, since its launch last year, been able to write a children’s story, but GPTs allow parents—or anyone, really—to constrain the topic and start with specific prompts, such as a child’s name. This means anyone can generate personalized stories starring their kid and their favorite character—meaning no one needs to wait for Ludo to drop fresh content. That said, the stories churned out by AI aren’t anywhere as good as the show itself, and raise legal and ethical concerns.”

Tubefilter: Ten of YouTube’s top makers built each other high-tech gifts for a Secret Santa exchange. “As part of the exchange, all participants uploaded behind-the-scenes videos depicting the construction of their respective gifts. The results of the Secret Santa vary wildly depending on which creators are involved. Some of the presents are flat-out ridiculous, others encourage creativity, and some even seem helpful.”

New York Times: This N.Y.U. Student Owns a $6 Million Crypto Mine. His Secret Is Out.. “Jerry Yu has the trappings of what the Chinese call second-generation rich. He boasts a Connecticut prep-school education. He lives in a Manhattan condominium bought for $8 million from Jeffrey R. Immelt, the former General Electric chief executive. And he is the majority owner of a Bitcoin mine in Texas, acquired last year for more than $6 million.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: AI companies would be required to disclose copyrighted training data under new bill. “Two lawmakers filed a bill requiring creators of foundation models to disclose sources of training data so copyright holders know their information was taken. The AI Foundation Model Transparency Act — filed by Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Don Beyer (D-VA) — would direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to establish rules for reporting training data transparency.”

WSYX: Ohio’s new social media law takes effect in January. “A new Ohio law aimed at forcing social media companies to get verifiable parental consent for children under 16 is set to go into effect in mid-January. The Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act was passed by the General Assembly in July.”

Rolling Stone: Kevin Hart Sues YouTuber Tasha K for Extortion. “Kevin Hart is taking legal action against his former assistant and controversial YouTuber Tasha K over an alleged extortion surrounding a ‘defamatory’ interview. On Tuesday, the actor filed the complaint in L.A. Superior Court alleging that Tasha K, born Latasha Kebe, asked for a $250,000 ransom so that she not publish a ‘defamatory’ interview with his former personal assistant Miesha Shakes.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Physician’s Weekly: Hispanic, Indigenous Americans Undercaptured in National Cancer Database. “Hispanic and American Indian or Alaska Native (AI/AN) individuals diagnosed with breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancer have been undercaptured in the National Cancer Database (NCDB), but their representation is improving, according to a study published online Dec. 27 in JAMA Network Open.”

Associated Press: Social media companies made $11 billion in US ad revenue from minors, Harvard study finds. “Social media companies collectively made over $11 billion in U.S. advertising revenue from minors last year, according to a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health published on Wednesday. The researchers say the findings show a need for government regulation of social media since the companies that stand to make money from children who use their platforms have failed to meaningfully self-regulate.”

The Conversation: The AI industry is on the verge of becoming another boys’ club. We’re all going to lose out if it does. “Unfortunately, the omission of women from the history of STEM isn’t a new phenomenon. Women have been missing from these narratives for centuries. In the wake of recent AI developments, we now have a choice: are we going to leave women out of these conversations as well – even as they continue to make massive contributions to the AI industry? Doing so risks leading us into the same fallacy that established computing itself as a ‘man’s world’. The reality, of course, is quite different.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Mastodon Gizmos, and MegaGladys.

December 28, 2023 at 06:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/DQUYdKi

Political Deepfakes, WordPress, Google Advertising, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 27, 2023

Political Deepfakes, WordPress, Google Advertising, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Associated Press: As social media guardrails fade and AI deepfakes go mainstream, experts warn of impact on elections . “Nearly three years after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the false election conspiracy theories that drove the violent attack remain prevalent on social media and cable news: suitcases filled with ballots, late-night ballot dumps, dead people voting. Experts warn it will likely be worse in the coming presidential election contest.”

Search Engine Journal: WordPress Migration Guides Undermining Divi, Elementor And Wix?. “WordPress is creating guides and tools to help publishers migrate to their block based editor Gutenberg and away from commercial WordPress page builders and private closed source content management systems like Wix. While it’s understandable that WordPress might want to help publishers and businesses migrate away from Wix, some perceive it as a somewhat controversial move to create a guide to undermine software publishers who are a part of the WordPress ecosystem itself.”

USEFUL STUFF

Tom’s Guide: How to opt out of Google Ad Topics for greater privacy. “Google recently launched its new Topics API as a part of Google’s new Privacy Sandbox. … Advertisers use this data to display tailored ads, hoping you’ll interact with the ad and make a purchase. While some individuals can discover new products with the ads, there are others who are uncomfortable sharing their personal data with who knows what. So, if you want to enjoy greater privacy and are not interested in seeing personalized ads, this guide, where we discuss how to opt out of Google Ad Topics, is for you.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

TechCrunch: TechCrunch’s favorite apps of 2023. “As 2023 draws to a close, we reflect on some of our favorite apps that made everyday life a little easier this year. While flashy new AI apps and rival social networks were grabbing headlines, sometimes the most useful innovations fly under the radar. The apps on our best-of list may not have arrived in 2023, but they became daily staples that streamlined our work or brought small moments of joy. Read on for the top apps we turned to again and again when we needed to get things done, connect with others or simply have more fun.”

The Print (India): Meet India’s ‘dunki influencers’. They teach you how to cross Panama jungle, Mexico border. “[Jaspal] Sharma, who goes by the name of ‘2 Numbari USA Wala’, is only one of the dozens of Indians who are now taking to YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok to document their migration journeys. They offer tips, route suggestions and risk assessments to hop from one country to another, especially the tricky forest between Colombia and Panama and the US-Mexico border. In fact, Indians rank third when it comes to illegal immigration to the US.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: 4-year campaign backdoored iPhones using possibly the most advanced exploit ever. “Researchers on Wednesday presented intriguing new findings surrounding an attack that over four years backdoored dozens if not thousands of iPhones, many of which belonged to employees of Moscow-based security firm Kaspersky. Chief among the discoveries: the unknown attackers were able to achieve an unprecedented level of access by exploiting a vulnerability in an undocumented hardware feature that few if anyone outside of Apple and chip suppliers such as ARM Holdings knew of.”

New York Times: The Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over A.I. Use of Copyrighted Work. “The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement on Wednesday, opening a new front in the increasingly intense legal battle over the unauthorized use of published work to train artificial intelligence technologies.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Selfies and social media: how tourists indulge their influencer fantasies. “The expansion of social media and ubiquity of smartphone cameras has had a major impact on tourists’ behaviour. This has also led to what’s been called a selfie ‘tourist gaze’, creating photos where the traveller is at the forefront of images rather than the destination. Indeed, according to my research, increasingly, some tourists go somewhere to be spotted – to be observed by others both online and in person at these destinations.”

Larry Ferlazzo via EducationWeek: Larry Ferlazzo’s 9 Education Predictions for 2024 . “I’ve been publishing annual education-related predictions for over a decade now, usually in The Washington Post. Let’s just say that no one would have become rich by betting on my past predictions. Nevertheless, since being wrong has never stopped education pundits from continuing their pontifications, I figured it shouldn’t stop me, a practicing teacher, from continuing mine!”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

BBC: Firm develops jet fuel made entirely from human poo. “Chemists at a lab in Gloucestershire have turned the waste into kerosene. James Hygate, Firefly Green Fuels CEO, said: ‘We wanted to find a really low-value feedstock that was highly abundant. And of course poo is abundant.’ [editor’s note: ] Independent tests by international aviation regulators found it was nearly identical to standard fossil jet fuel.” 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. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Mastodon Gizmos, and MegaGladys.

December 28, 2023 at 02:09AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/nX1d7Lp

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….

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. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Mastodon Gizmos, and MegaGladys.

December 27, 2023 at 06:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/gRJ7501

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….

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 27, 2023 at 02:00AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/auQyGeN

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…

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 26, 2023 at 06:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/gRxotTv

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…

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 26, 2023 at 01:19AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/e3EZX0p