Forest Soundmaps, Public Domain Game Jam, Twitter, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, January 2, 2024

Forest Soundmaps, Public Domain Game Jam, Twitter, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, January 2, 2024
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me, from Boing Boing: Explore this soundmap of forests all over the world. “Explore this soundmap of forests all over the world. This fun open source library allows users to click on a forest from the map, see where it’s located, and listen to an audio clip of what it would sound like to be there.”

EVENTS

Techdirt: And We’re Off! Time To Get Started On This Year’s Public Domain Game Jam. “Happy new year, everyone — and happy public domain day! That’s right: today’s the day that works from 1928 exit copyright protection and become public domain in the US, and that means it’s time for the latest edition of our annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1928! We’re calling on designers of all stripes and all levels of experience to put this year’s newly public domain works to use in digital and analog games.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Axios: Elon Musk’s X gets another valuation cut from Fidelity. “Fidelity believes that X is worth 71.5% less than at the time of purchase, according to a new disclosure that runs through the end of November 2023 (Fidelity revalues private shares on a one-month lag).”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: Use Your iPhone’s LiDAR Feature in These 6 Awesome Ways . “Do you know that your iPhone is equipped with a sensor capable of mapping out your surroundings in a three-dimensional view? This sensor, known as LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), can measure distances by emitting laser light and measuring the reflection off objects. Stay tuned as we explore the coolest and most practical uses of iPhone LiDAR that can transform your everyday experiences.”

How-To Geek: How to Use ChatGPT to Read and Explain Terms of Service. “Software, music, films, and other types of content are licensed and not sold. When you pay for these media, you agree to abide by the provisions of that license. Who has the time to read a lengthy agreement for everything they buy? The good news is that ChatGPT can quicly help you understand key facts about an agreement before you click the ‘accept’ button.” I would be really careful about my prompts to give the bot little bs’ing room.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NHK World Japan: Fake news about quake and tsunami posted on social media. “Misleading or false information has been spreading online concerning the earthquake and tsunami that hit central Japan on Monday. Immediately after the quake, videos purportedly showing the damage, as well as rescue requests from people claiming to be trapped under collapsed buildings, were posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. NHK has verified that some of the posts contain fake information.”

The Business Standard: National Archives: Inside Bangladesh’s largest repository of historical documents. “According to the Bangladesh National Archives Act 2021, the National Archives of Bangladesh is mandated to collect, preserve and protect important official documents of 25-year-old and 30-year-old archival documents in collaboration with various private persons or organisations. So far, the National Archives have collected around 8 crore pages of documents to date.”

The Hill: Fetterman says social media made his depression worse. “Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said being on social media worsened his mental health as he battled with clinical depression last year. Fetterman said in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ that social media was the “accelerant” that made his depression worse.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Statement on Transparency and Accountability Policy at the 12 Federal Reserve Banks. “In the interest of further strengthening the Federal Reserve System’s commitment to transparency, today the 12 Federal Reserve Banks released a common policy for public requests for information. The Transparency and Accountability Policy will go into effect January 1, 2024, and seeks to simplify and standardize the Federal Reserve Banks’ public information request process.”

Hong Kong Free Press: In U-turn, Hong Kong Department of Justice deletes national security case index from website. “Hong Kong’s Department of Justice (DoJ) has deleted an online database of national security cases, without explanation and days after it was published. The index, published last Thursday, included PDF case summaries relating to 106 national security law cases that have been completed since Beijing inserted the legislation into Hong Kong’s mini constitution in June 2020.”

WIRED: The Worst Hacks of 2023. “With political polarization, unrest, and violence escalating in many regions of the world, 2023 was fraught with uncertainty and tragedy. In digital security, though, the year felt more like a Groundhog Day of incidents caused by classic types of attacks, like phishing and ransomware, rather than a roller coaster of offensive hacking innovation.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Southern California: Balancing the potentials and pitfalls of AI in college admissions. “Artificial intelligence promises efficiency gains for admissions offices and offers students innovative application tools, but will the new technology advance or hinder equity?” 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.

January 2, 2024 at 06:31PM
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Library of Congress, Mickey Mouse, Backing Up Email, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 1, 2024

Library of Congress, Mickey Mouse, Backing Up Email, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 1, 2024
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Library of Congress: What’s New Online at the Library of Congress: 2023 Wrap-Up!. “Happy 2024 to all of our Signal subscribers! In this special edition of ‘What’s New Online at the Library of Congress,’ we’re looking back on some of our new digital collections releases in 2023.”

Boing Boing: Meet Tom the Dancing Bug’s newest character: Mickey Mouse!. Considering what often happens when major cultural characters become public domain, I admire the comic’s restraint in only having Mickey peel potatoes.

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: How to Back Up Your Emails in Gmail, Outlook, and iCloud. “It might not matter for all those random newsletters, questionable deals, and politicians begging for cash that clog up your inbox, but what about emails and documents you really need access to? It’s helpful to have at least some of your emails backed up in another location so that you can always get at them, offline or otherwise.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

KRON: ‘STFU Musk’: Projector signs seen at SF NYE fireworks show takes aim at Mayor Breed, Elon Musk. “Thousands of people watched the KRON4 New Year’s Live fireworks show in San Francisco. They were anticipating seeing an exhilarating fireworks show with a breathtaking view of the Bay Bridge in the background. However, a few large signs were projected onto the Ferry Building that may have caught some by surprise.”

Spokesman-Review: Calendar for Expo ‘74’s golden anniversary to be released in January, feature celebrations of history, culture and environmentalism. “The 85,000 people who traveled to downtown Spokane to kick off a world’s fair on May 4, 1974, saw the fruits of business leaders, artists, politicians and more come to life in a reimagined trainyard. Those who come to a revamped downtown park this summer will see a similar collaboration of efforts, said Matt Santangelo, the program manager for the Expo ’74 golden anniversary…. In the next few weeks, organizers also will begin airing testimonials from Expo ’74 in partnership with KHQ-TV that will become a digital archive for the world’s fair, Santangelo said.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: US Supreme Court’s Roberts urges ‘caution’ as AI reshapes legal field . “Artificial intelligence represents a mixed blessing for the legal field, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said in a year-end report published on Sunday, urging ‘caution and humility’ as the evolving technology transforms how judges and lawyers go about their work.”

South China Morning Post: Back to ‘black box’? As China tightens access to court records, legal experts fear for future of judicial transparency. “The blackmail case of Xu Yan, a Chinese policewoman who extorted public officials after having sexual affairs with them, went unnoticed for a year until social media sleuths dug up the verdict online…. The case was one of several in the past decade in which Chinese members of the public used the transparency in the country’s judicial system to openly debate matters in public life that could appear unflattering to Beijing.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Stanford Daily: Blockbuster Alzheimer’s paper retracted by former Stanford president after a decade of resistance. “Marc Tessier-Lavigne told shareholders in 2009 that his research would ‘turn our current understanding of Alzheimer’s upside down.’ Now, the former Stanford president and his co-authors have retracted the paper he once heralded, conceding they do not have confidence in its data.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: How To Build A Small Solar Power System. “A confluence of lower-power appliances and devices using low-voltage external switch-mode supplies, readily available solar panels and electronic modules, and inexpensive high-capacity batteries, means that being your own power provider can be as simple as making an online order. But which parts should you choose? Low Tech Magazine has the answer, in the form of a guide to building a small solar power system.”

Business Insider: Ukrainian troops stuck it to Putin by helping recreate a 19th Century masterpiece. “Ukrainian warriors gathered round a wood table laugh as they one-up each other’s insults in writing a reply to the leader of an invading empire. This is the classic scene of a 19th Century painting that a Paris-born artist recently recreated with the help of Ukrainian troops now battling the Russian troops who invaded their country.” 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.

January 2, 2024 at 01:16AM
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Google, GitHub, Online Safety, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, January 1, 2024

Google, GitHub, Online Safety, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, January 1, 2024
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Android Police: Here’s what Google killed in 2023. “At this point, Google is infamous for quickly and prematurely killing beloved projects and products. The highest profile loss right at the beginning of the year was certainly Stadia, the company’s game streaming service that launched just in 2019. After not gaining as much momentum as the company likely hoped it would, it quickly decided to reduce spending and ultimately shut it down. But Stadia is not the only product killed in 2023, and with Google Podcasts officially on the way out, we already know what’s coming in 2024.”

TechCrunch: GitHub makes Copilot Chat generally available, letting devs ask questions about code. “Earlier this year, GitHub rolled out Copilot Chat, a ChatGPT-like programming-centric chatbot for organizations subscribed to Copilot for Business. Copilot Chat more recently came to individual Copilot customers — those paying $10 per month — in beta. And now, GitHub’s launching Chat in general availability for all users.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: When Being a Spokeswoman Attracts Leering Internet Trolls. “In the summer of 2020, seemingly overnight, one small but vocal corner of the internet fixed its gaze upon [Milana] Vayntrub and began referring to her by a new name: Mommy Milkers, a reference to her breasts. En masse, people spammed the comment sections of AT&T’s social-media posts with lewd declarations and emojis of glasses of milk. The jeering became inescapable for Vayntrub, bleeding into the comments of her personal social-media accounts.”

Hackaday: The Gopher Revival Is Upon Us. “A maxim for anyone writing a web page in the mid 1990s was that it was good practice to bring the whole thing (including graphics) in at around 30 kB in size. It was a time when the protocol still had some pretence of efficient information delivery, when information was self-published, before huge corporations brought everything under their umbrellas. Recently, this idea of the small web has been experiencing something of a quiet comeback.”

Global Cycling Network: The best Strava art of 2023. “2023 has been a big year for Strava art, with world records coming and going, and an ever-eclectic array of animals, logos, and everything in between. For the uninitiated, Strava art is what happens when the GPS map of a ride takes on a shape of its own, occasionally by accident but usually by design – and increasingly by ever-more audacious, detailed, and artistic design.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

UK Defence Journal: UK exposes Russia for attempted political interference. “The UK and international partners have called out the Russian Intelligence Services for a campaign of malicious cyber activity attempting to interfere in UK politics and democratic processes.”

Associated Press: Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen says he unwittingly sent AI-generated fake legal cases to his attorney. “Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s onetime personal lawyer and fixer, says he unwittingly passed along to his attorney bogus artificial intelligence-generated legal case citations he got online before they were submitted to a judge.”

Sky News: Chloe Macdermott: Google and Amazon told to act after woman’s death following suicide pact. “Google and Amazon must do more after a British woman made a suicide pact with two people she met online and used the internet to buy poison, a coroner has said. Chloe Macdermott, 43, died in May 2021 after buying a lethal substance from the US on Amazon.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Varsity: Cambridge AI centre welcomes Google as first partner. “The University of Cambridge’s newly established Centre for Human-Inspired AI (CHIA) has unveiled a long-term research agreement with Google, including an unrestricted grant to support endeavours in responsible AI, health care and sustainability. The agreement will make the technology giant the first funding partner for the University’s Centre for Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence.”

TechXplore: Can large language models detect sarcasm?. “Juliann Zhou, a researcher at New York University, recently carried out a study aimed at assessing the performance of two LLMs trained to detect human sarcasm, which entails conveying ideas by ironically stating the exact opposite of what one is trying to say. Her findings, posted on the preprint server arXiv, helped her to delineate features and algorithmic components that could enhance the sarcasm detection capabilities of both AI agents and robots.”

PsyPost: Gender and personality traits influence cryptocurrency investment decisions. “A study in Norway has found that less than 1 in 10 Norwegians are willing to invest in cryptocurrencies. However, the likelihood of investing is more than double in men compared to women. Additionally, those open to investing in cryptocurrency tend to exhibit lower levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness, but higher levels of openness to experience and financial overconfidence. The study was published in Psychology & Marketing.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Mashable: NASA rover posts glorious GIF of a Martian day. “NASA regularly posts highly impressive GIFs of glimpses beyond our own atmosphere, and this week, it’s another beauty from Mars. On Thursday, the space agency’s Curiosity rover posted two animated images showing the six-wheeled vehicle’s view of the Martian landscape over 12 hours. It’s essentially the representation of one Martian day, from sunrise to sunset, with Curiosity capturing its own shadow in the foreground.” 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.

January 1, 2024 at 06:32PM
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Google, Microsoft Copilot, LinkedIn, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 31, 2023

Google, Microsoft Copilot, LinkedIn, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, December 31, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Roundtable: Google New Years Eve Search Algorithm Update. “There has been a ton of chatter within the SEO community over the past couple of days related to extreme ranking volatility within the Google Search results. The Google tracking tools have also picked up the volatility over the past day or so. There is no way Google pushed out a confirmed update this week but hey, Google’s search results live a life of their own.”

The Verge: Microsoft’s Copilot app is now available on iOS. “Just days after introducing a Copilot app on Android, Microsoft has rolled out an app for its AI chatbot on iOS and iPadOS. Both versions of the app are now available to download from the Apple App Store.”

Times of India: How Elon Musk’s X is the reason for LinkedIn’s rise in ad revenue. “Brands are flocking to the platform, sending ad prices skyrocketing as companies reportedly pull their advertising money from X. LinkedIn’s ad revenue jumped 10.1% in 2023, reaching nearly $4 billion, according to estimates from research group Insider Intelligence, as per a report in The Financial Times. Analysts predict this strong growth will continue, with a further 14.1% increase expected in 2024.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: News outlets join forces to create AI charter. “In a year marked by rapid advances in generative artificial intelligence, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has joined with sixteen journalism organizations from around the world to forge a landmark ethical framework for addressing challenges posed by the transformative technology.”

New York Daily News: New Jersey police tell public to ignore AI-generated story about Christmas shooting that never happened. “New Jersey’s Bridgeton Police Department is asking the public to ignore an inflammatory story about a Christmas Day shooting that never actually happened. ‘This “article” is circulating social media and was brought to BPD’s attention,’ cops wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. ‘It is entirely false. Nothing even similar to this story occurred on or around Christmas, or even in recent memory for the area they described.'”

BBC: Austrian government launches repair scheme for electronic goods. “Has your washing machine broken down, or is your electric kettle, laptop or mobile phone refusing to work? Well if you live in Austria, the government will pay up to €200 ($219; £173) towards getting it repaired. The Repair Bonus voucher scheme is aimed at trying to get people to move away from throwing away old electrical appliances – and focusing on getting things mended.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TubeFilter: Revolt accused of “Ponzi-ish” scheme as its manager, Ryan Piasente, faces sexual assault allegations. “Revolt, a merch company that has released drops with creators like MrBeast, Valkyrae, Tubbo, Corpse Husband, Anthony Padilla, and Nihachu, has been accused of running a ‘Ponzi-ish’ scheme that’s left it owing significant amounts of money to an unknown number of creators. And its head, Ryan Piasente–who also manages the well-known YouTube group Misfits–is facing accusations of sexual assault and misusing money from Revolt’s company coffer.”

South China Morning Post: Singapore PM Lee issues warning after deepfake video of him ‘promoting’ crypto investment emerges. “Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has urged the public not to respond to deepfake videos of him promising guaranteed returns on investments after one such video emerged on social media platforms in recent days.”

Associated Press: Michigan and Alabama restricting how players view game film ahead of Rose Bowl over sign-stealing fears . “The Alabama Crimson Tide caused a stir at the Rose Bowl when they revealed they’ve restricted their players’ game film viewing on iPads heading into the College Football Playoff semifinal against Michigan because of concerns about hacking. As it turns out, Michigan is also taking precautions.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: The Year the Millennial Internet Died . “YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING how we got here. How all of this happened. Don’t. It’s a fool’s errand in a time of spectacular fools, crooks, and private equity monsters. My internet is dying. It’s been dying for some time. Everything I knew about it will soon vanish, its histories regurgitated via 30-second TikTok videos shared in group chats, eulogized annually in the cocoon of darkened movie theaters, where tickets run $30.”

New York Times: ChatGPT Helps, and Worries, Business Consultants, Study Finds. “Studies this year of ChatGPT in legal analysis and white-collar writing chores have found that the bot helps lower-performing people more than it does the most skilled. Dr. Lakhani and his colleagues found the same effect in their study. On a task that required reasoning based on evidence, however, ChatGPT was not helpful at all.”

Android Police: Google’s issue with excessive advertisements is only growing worse. “From invasive Search results to obnoxiously long, unskippable videos, Google’s services are often packed to the brim with content designed to sell you stuff. YouTube, Google Search, and Google TV all suffer from excessive ad saturation, worse than ever before, and it’s starting to make these services unbearable to use.” Gee, why am I thinking of AltaVista all of a sudden? 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 31, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Reddit, Twitch, 2023 Media Stories, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 30, 2023

Reddit, Twitch, 2023 Media Stories, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Guardian: ‘Front page of the internet’: how social media’s biggest user protest rocked Reddit. “In June, thousands of Reddit communities plunged into darkness – making their pages inaccessible to the public in a mass protest of corporate policy changes. Users of a social network lambasting it is nothing new; but Reddit’s moderators rebelled on a scale never seen before. Six months later, users and researchers say reforms sparked by the movement are still rippling through the social network, which bills itself as the ‘front page of the internet’.”

Tubefilter: Kai Cenat was Twitch’s top streamer in 2023. “As for which creators are bringing in the most viewership, xQc has finally been knocked from the #1 spot. For the past three years, he’s been Twitch’s most-watched streamer, but this year, he was overtaken by three people: Kai Cenat, who’s #1 with 109 million hours of watch time; Gaules, with 106 million hours; and ibai, with 106 million hours. xQc is in fourth place, with 89 million hours. Cenat snatching top spot isn’t all that surprising considering his channel alone accounted for 2.5% of all global watch hours on Twitch in February.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Drum: From Musk’s mayhem to TikTok testimony, here’s our top 20 media stories of 2023. “From the demise of X under the leadership of mercurial billionaire Elon Musk to a landmark Google antitrust case, the question of Threads’ viability and the promise of the merger that is Max, these are the stories that defined the media landscape in 2023.”

Search Engine Journal: ChatGPT Vs. Bard Vs. Bing: What Are The Differences? (Festive Flashback). “If you want to search for information, need help fixing bugs in your CSS, or want to create something as simple as a robots.txt file, chatbots may be able to help. They’re also wonderful for topic ideation, allowing you to draft more interesting emails, newsletters, blog posts, and more. But which chatbot should you use and learn to master? Which platform provides accurate, concise information? Let’s find out.”

WIRED: Generative AI Learned Nothing From Web 2.0 . “…for all the novelty and speed, generative AI’s problems are also painfully familiar. OpenAI and its rivals racing to launch new AI models are facing problems that have dogged social platforms, that earlier era-shaping new technology, for nearly two decades. Companies like Meta never did get the upper hand over mis- and disinformation, sketchy labor practices, and nonconsensual pornography, to name just a few of their unintended consequences. Now those issues are gaining a challenging new life, with an AI twist.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Chinese Spy Agency Rising to Challenge the C.I.A.. “The ambitious Ministry of State Security is deploying A.I. and other advanced technology to go toe-to-toe with the United States, even as the two nations try to pilfer each other’s scientific secrets.”

AFP: Legal battles loom as first Mickey Mouse copyright ends. “Anyone is now free to copy, share, reuse and adapt ‘Steamboat Willie’ and ‘Plane Crazy’ —another 1928 Disney animation—and the early versions of the characters that appear within them, including Mickey and Minnie. A vital caveat is that later versions of the characters, like those in 1940 film ‘Fantasia,’ are not in the public domain, and cannot be copied without a visit from Disney’s lawyers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

San Francisco Chronicle: Errors found in key database tracking foreign influence in U.S. politics. “[OpenSecrets] is a widely used source of campaign finance and lobbying data cited by lawmakers, journalists and researchers. But since at least Dec. 11, some of its foreign lobbying data has differed from the amounts published by the Justice Department, and some of the contribution totals have not matched its own desegregated data.”

PsyPost: New study investigates psychological correlates of emoji use and preference. “In this work, Janine Carroll examined the association between mental health, personality, prosocial behavior, and emoji use. A total of 222 participants, recruited from the University of Chester and Prolific Academic, participated in this research. Participants completed measures of anxiety and depression, prosocial behavior, Big 5 personality traits, and various aspects of emoji usage, including frequency, motivation, attitudes, and preferences (e.g., positive and negative emojis).”

Washington Post: Microsoft says its AI is safe. So why does it keep slashing people’s throats?. “Lately, ordinary users of technology such as Windows and Google have been inundated with AI. We’re wowed by what the new tech can do, but we also keep learning that it can act in an unhinged manner, including by carrying on wildly inappropriate conversations and making similarly inappropriate pictures. For AI actually to be safe enough for products used by families, we need its makers to take responsibility by anticipating how it might go awry and investing to fix it quickly when it does. In the case of these awful AI images, Microsoft appears to lay much of the blame on the users who make them.” 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 31, 2023 at 02:06AM
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The Seattle Rocket, Metaverse, NFTs, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, December 30, 2023

The Seattle Rocket, Metaverse, NFTs, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, December 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Seattle Times: Archives of The Rocket, influential Seattle music magazine, go digital. “Acting as a hub of information before the digital age, the magazine helped bring together key bands like Nirvana and Alice in Chains through its classified ads, while its writers and artists helped the growing music community make sense of, and rally around, the raw new sounds being created…. Now, all 336 issues — more than 16,000 pages of Seattle music history spanning 1979 to 2000 — have been digitized, made searchable by keyword and are available to the public for free.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Marketplace: What happened to the Metaverse?. “It wasn’t all that long ago when ‘the Metaverse’ was being pushed hard in certain corners of the Big Tech universe. What was it? It wasn’t always clear — something about a virtual but realistic place where, we were told, we’d be hanging out with friends, holding office meetings and even buying property. Contributing to the hype: a tech giant neck deep in a PR mess and eager for a rebrand.”

How-To Geek: A Look Back on NFTs: Where Are They Now?. “Going into 2023, things weren’t looking good for NFTs. Between 2022 and 2023, the average price of NFT sales dropped by 92 percent, according to a Chainalysis report. This meant that an NFT once worth $1,000 was now only worth $80. Evidently, things had gone quite sour for the NFT market. NFTs can still hold value, but their current prices pale in comparison to those of 2021 and 2022, as is evident via the aforementioned Chainalysis statistic. 2023 has shown just how fragile the NFT industry is.”

WRAL: Major pornographic website blocks NC access days before new law takes effect. “One of the world’s largest pornography websites blocked access to at least some North Carolina users Thursday ahead of a new state law taking effect that will require adult websites to verify user ages. Instead of complying or providing its usual content, Pornhub redirected North Carolina users to a message asking them to reach out to lawmakers and oppose the new law.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Boing Boing: One man’s horrific saga of inadvertantly destroying municipal infrastructure with superabsorbent water beads. “With viral challenges getting bigger and broader in scope, it can be easy to forget the consequences they have on people around them. The cautionary tale of French TikToker Cyrilschr, however, serves as a sobering warning to those seeking to get a little too big for their britches. In 2020, he filled a bathtub with Orbeez–superabsorbent expanding toys–for views, only to then be left with the problem of disposing of them.”

Ars Technica: AI-created “virtual influencers” are stealing business from humans. “Pink-haired Aitana Lopez is followed by more than 200,000 people on social media. She posts selfies from concerts and her bedroom, while tagging brands such as hair care line Olaplex and lingerie giant Victoria’s Secret. Brands have paid about $1,000 a post for her to promote their products on social media—despite the fact that she is entirely fictional.”

Meduza: Latvian government blocks all Yandex sites. “Latvia’s electronic media regulator (NEPLP) announced Thursday that it has blocked access to all websites affiliated with Yandex. According to the agency’s head, Ivar Abolins, the company’s audio streaming service, Yandex Music, will also be blocked as it contains podcasts and other content ‘created by sanctioned individuals in Russia.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Hartford Courant: Bring Me Back Home: New registry seeks to prevent tragedy when loved ones go missing. “When Connecticut State Trooper Stephanie Cortes read that 80-year-old Anne Page of Willington had been found dead on Christmas Eve, her first thought went to the Bring Me Back Home Program — a new, voluntary registry designed to aid law enforcement in locating Connecticut residents with Alzheimer’s, dementia and other cognitive or developmental challenges that raise the risk of wandering and disorientation.”

ABC News: Prosecutors say there’s no need for a second trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. “A second trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on charges not in the cryptocurrency fraud case presented to a jury that convicted him in November is not necessary, prosecutors told a judge Friday.”

Bleeping Computer: Malware abuses Google OAuth endpoint to ‘revive’ cookies, hijack accounts. “In late November 2023, BleepingComputer reported on two information-stealers, namely Lumma and Rhadamanthys, who claimed they could restore expired Google authentication cookies stolen in attacks. These cookies would allow the cybercriminals to gain unauthorized access to Google accounts even after the legitimate owners have logged out, reset their passwords, or their session has expired. BleepingComputer has contacted Google multiple times over a month with questions about these claims and how they plan to mitigate the issue, but we never received a response.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NPR: Artificial intelligence can find your location in photos, worrying privacy experts. “A student project has revealed yet another power of artificial intelligence — it can be extremely good at geolocating where photos are taken. The project, known as Predicting Image Geolocations (or PIGEON, for short) was designed by three Stanford graduate students in order to identify locations on Google Street View. But when presented with a few personal photos it had never seen before, the program was, in the majority of cases, able to make accurate guesses about where the photos were taken.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

New York Times: Need a Home for 80,000 Puzzles? Try an Italian Castle.. This article is a gift link. “Until recently, the Miller collection resided at Puzzle Palace in Boca Raton, Fla….Puzzles occupied even the bathrooms. Then last year, on a whim, the Millers bought a 15th-century, 52-room castle in Panicale, a hamlet in central Italy. They packed their puzzle collection into five 40-foot shipping containers and, for their own transit, booked a cruise from Miami to Rome.” 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 30, 2023 at 06:33PM
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Google, 2023 Social Media, 2023 AI, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, December 29, 2023

Google, 2023 Social Media, 2023 AI, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, December 29, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Journal: Google Tests Longer Search Result Snippets Again. “Google seems to be testing longer search result snippets again. We saw this recently with Google Ads, some really long Google Ads descriptions and now we are seeing it with the organic/free listings.”

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 at some of the biggest stories in social media in 2023 — and what to watch for next year.”

Route Fifty: After an action-packed year, 2024 will be another blockbuster year for AI. “Taylor Swift is Time magazine’s person of the year. Sam Altman is its CEO of the year. And 2023, according to the publication, is the year governments began taking artificial intelligence seriously. And indeed, it has been a banner year for executive orders and policies mandating the technology’s responsible use. State and local governments have issued their own guidelines and action plans, have dabbled with generative AI-driven pilot projects and instructed agencies to identify effective use cases.”

USEFUL STUFF

Larry Ferlazzo: This Week’s Free & Useful Artificial Intelligence Tools For The Classroom. “At least, for now, I’m going to make this a weekly feature which will highlight additions to THE BEST NEW – & FREE – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS THAT COULD BE USED IN THE CLASSROOM.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CODART: Exhibiting Sustainably: M Leuven and Its Green Book. “In this second article in CODART’s series on sustainability in museums, we will be focusing on sustainability in exhibitions. What does it involve and how does it affect the curator’s work CODART spoke to Marjan Debaene of M Leuven, a museum with a comprehensive sustainability policy and a Green Book that it has developed to translate this policy into good practice.”

Internet Archive Blog: Public Domain Day 2024 Remix Contest: The Internet Archive is Looking For Creative Short Films Made By You!. “We are looking for filmmakers and artists of all levels to create and upload short films of 2–3 minutes to the Internet Archive to help us celebrate Public Domain Day at our celebrations on January 24 (in-person screening & party) & January 25 (virtual celebration), 2024! Our short film contest serves as a platform for filmmakers to explore, remix, and breathe new life into the timeless gems that have entered the public domain.”

Mother Jones: Is Dumping Twitter Your New Year’s Resolution?. “Most users have stayed. The site still hums with activity, and is still the closest thing to a place of centralized discourse. But the numbers show a substantial share have departed: some 15% of users left since Musk took over last October; ad revenue is down by 54% over the same period. Staying does feel bad. Logging on to send little tweets while knowing you are playing some sliver of a part in enabling a petulant billionaire, however minuscule and indirect, is at a minimum embarrassing.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

London Free Press: London ‘master con man’ outed after online event featuring Elon Musk. “Benjamin Zev co-hosted a virtual debate on the social media platform X featuring billionaire owner Elon Musk, would-be U.S. presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, alt-right radio broadcaster Alex Jones and other high-profile guests earlier this month…. Less than two weeks after co-hosting the largest-ever Twitter event, Zev disappeared from social media without a trace, leaving his wide-ranging network of lawyers, political insiders, journalists and entrepreneurs baffled. They would soon learn that Zev isn’t a lawyer, never worked for the Department of Justice and was lying about his real name.”

Ars Technica: Google agrees to settle Chrome incognito mode class action lawsuit. “Google has indicated that it is ready to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 over its Chrome browser’s Incognito mode. Arising in the Northern District of California, the lawsuit accused Google of continuing to ‘track, collect, and identify [users’] browsing data in real time’ even when they had opened a new Incognito window.”

TorrentFreak: Reckless DMCA Deindexing Pushes NASA’s Artemis Towards Black Hole. “The crew of Artemis 2 are preparing to become the first humans to fly to the moon since 1972. The Artemis program faces many challenges but allowing people to learn about the program should not be one of them. Targeting the word ‘Artemis’ no matter what the context, a reckless anti-piracy sweep has demanded Google deindexing against dozens of innocent platforms for simply trying to report on mankind’s quest for knowledge.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: A.I. Can Make Art That Feels Human. Whose Fault Is That?. “A.I. cannot innovate. All it can produce are prompt-driven approximations and reconstitutions of preexisting materials. If you believe that culture is an imaginative human endeavor, then there should be nothing to fear, except that — what do you know? — a lot of humans have not been imagining anything more substantial.” This article is a gift link so you should be able to read it without paywall.

Hackaday: Generating 3D Scenes From Just One Image. “The LucidDreamer project ties a variety of functions into a pipeline that can take a source image (or generate one from a text prompt) and “lift” its content into 3D, creating highly-detailed Gaussian splats that look great and can even be navigated. Gaussian splatting is a method used to render NeRFs (Neural Radiance Fields), which are themselves a method of generating complex scenes from sparse 2D sources, and doing it quickly.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 29, 2023 at 06:32PM
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