New researches

Thursday, July 29, 2021

Africa Buildings, Renter Assistance, Crow Tribe Photography, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, July 29, 2021

Africa Buildings, Renter Assistance, Crow Tribe Photography, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, July 29, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Using AI to map Africa’s buildings. “Google’s Open Buildings is a new open access dataset containing the locations and geometry of buildings across most of Africa. From Lagos’ Makoko settlement to Dodoma’s refugee camps, millions of previously invisible buildings have popped up in our dataset. This improved building data helps refine the understanding of where people and communities live, providing actionable information for state and non-state actors looking to provide services from sanitation to education and vaccination.”

Consumer Finance Protection Bureau: CFPB Releases Online Tool to Help Renters and Landlords Access Federal Assistance. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today released an online tool to help renters and landlords impacted by the pandemic easily find and apply for payment assistance for rent, utilities and other expenses. The Rental Assistance Finder, available at http://www.consumerfinance.gov/renthelp, connects renters and landlords with the state and local programs that are distributing billions of dollars in federal assistance nationwide to help renters stay housed during the pandemic.”

Mississippi State University: Digitized photos from MSU Libraries’ Holder Collection unveil beauty of Montana’s Crow Indian tribe. “The photographic beauty of both the natural and built environments of Montana’s Crow Indian tribe is now easily accessible to academic researchers and U.S. history enthusiasts through Mississippi State University Libraries’ digital collections.” Not a huge collection, but good photography.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: ‘Good night’ or ‘bedtime’, Alexa routines now support multiple phrases. “Alexa routines can now be triggered using multiple custom phrases making it easier for everyone in a household to initiate smart home automations without having to remember the exact wording.”

The Register: Google updates timeline for unpopular Privacy Sandbox, which will kill third-party cookies in Chrome by 2023 . “The new timeline has split the bundle of technologies in the Privacy Sandbox into five phases: discussion, testing, implementation in Chrome (called ‘Ready for adoption’), Transition State 1 during which Chrome will ‘monitor adoption and feedback’ and then the next stage that involves winding down support for third-party cookies over a three-month period finishing ‘late 2023.'”

USEFUL STUFF

CNN: Olympics spoilers are basically inevitable in 2021 — but there are still some ways to avoid them. “After all, Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of US Eastern Time, meaning American viewers who aren’t tuning into live streams are seeing some events on a delay. So how does any smartphone user avoid spoilers without going off the grid? It’s not easy. But here are some ways you can try to be somewhat surprised when you tune in at primetime.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Toronto Star: Local Indigenous archives and language revitalization underway at KFPL. “An initiative to create and digitize an archive of local Indigenous history is in full steam at the Kingston Frontenac Public Library. Danycka Pereault, an Indigenous woman from the Kingston area has recently joined the team responsible for the work thanks to a grant from Young Canada Works and going towards the StoryMe project.”

Mother Jones: New Report Shows How Trump Keeps Buying Facebook Ads. “In partnership with Media Matters, the liberal media watchdog, the new Real Oversight Board report found that even though Trump has been banned from Facebook until 2023, his PAC has run at least 251 ads on the platform just since June, with Facebook earning more than $15,000 in revenue from the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee. While many of these Trump posts include content labels applied by Facebook designed to fight disinformation, earlier Media Matters analysis has found that posts with labels are interacted with 2.6 times more than posts without them.”

Mashable: TikTok’s reality shifting trend mixes dream-like consciousness with fandoms. “TikTok users are taking fan culture to the next level by practicing a sort of meditation in an effort to ‘shift realities’ to inhabit the fictional universe of their choosing. It’s sort of like a more real form of daydreaming.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: States say they will appeal the dismissal of their Facebook antitrust suit.. “More than 40 state attorneys general on Wednesday said they planned to appeal the dismissal of their antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, setting up a protracted legal fight to rein in the power of the Silicon Valley giant.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Fermilab: Scientific publishing organizations and national laboratories partner on transgender-inclusive name-change process for published papers. “All 17 U.S. national laboratories and many prominent publishers, journals and other organizations in scientific publishing announced today the beginning of a partnership to support name change requests from researchers on past published papers. Previously, individual researchers shouldered the burden, administratively and emotionally, of initiating name-change requests with each publisher of their past papers…. This partnership streamlines these previously ad hoc processes and offers an official validation mechanism to all involved by enabling researchers to ask their respective institutions to pursue name changes on their behalf directly with the publishers and journals.”

Medium: Finally, could Google’s chickens be coming home to roost?. “The disappearance, on the flimsiest of pretexts, of Google Reader in March 2013, a product that had a significant user base in probably the most sophisticated segment, marked a turning point for many people, who realized that the company’s products were simply not reliable. Search with Google? No problem. Investing time and effort in using any Google product that requires you to put your information in it? A big mistake, because the company, whatever it says, can and will remove it at any time, for whatever reason. Simply put, Google cannot be trusted.” I still cannot fling myself into Google Keep like I can with other tools, because I do worry that Google will cut it off at any time. I’m thinking about Swipebucket. Good morning, Internet…

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July 29, 2021 at 05:29PM
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Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Kansas Military Veterans, Vivaldi, Google, More: Wednesday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 28, 2021

Kansas Military Veterans, Vivaldi, Google, More: Wednesday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 28, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Kansas: Dole Institute Accepting Submissions For Newly Announced Kansas Veterans Virtual Memory Wall . “The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas is calling on veterans and their families to submit personal stories and photos of service men and women who have ties to Kansas. This comes as part of a larger announcement that the Dole Institute will permanently install a large digital interactive display at the institute, as well as maintain a searchable online database, that pays tribute to Kansas veterans from World War II to present day.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

PCWorld: Vivaldi 4.1 browser debuts macros, accordion tabs. “Vivaldi 4.1 offers something that’s a rarity in the world of browsers: a new macro system that complements the niche browser’s implementation of new ‘accordion tabs,’ too. Both features offer some intriguing new ways to surf the web.”

CNBC: Google advertising revenue rises 69% from last year. “Total Google ad revenue increased to $50.44 billion, up 69% from the year-ago quarter, which was hurt by the onset of the Covid pandemic. Retail was by far the largest contributor to the company’s ad growth, said Google’s chief business officer Philipp Schindler on the earnings call Tuesday.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Ubergizmo: An iPhone 5s Won A Photography Award In 2021. “What’s interesting is that out of the 54 winning photos, only seven of those photos were actually taken by an iPhone 12 or iPhone 12 Pro Max, meaning that 47 of the other photos were taken by older iPhones. This includes devices like the iPhone X, iPhone XR, and the iPhone 7, just to name a few.” I rock an iPhone 6s Plus so this makes me happy.

The Register: UK’s National Museum of Computing asks tunesmiths to recreate bleeps, bloops, and parps of retro game music. “The UK’s National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) is running a competition aimed at recreating the bleeps, whistles, and flatulent squawks of video game music from years gone by. It’s all in honour of the 40th anniversary of the BBC Micro, which, if memory serves, was not really a ball of fire in the sound department when put up against the Commodore 64 Sound Interface Device (SID) chip.”

Tubefilter: YouTube Music’s Indie Artist Development Initiative, The ‘Foundry’, Unveils Largest Class To Date. “YouTube Music has announced the largest global class to date for its Foundry — a five-year-old independent artists development initiative that underwent a revamp in 2019 to furnish marketing and promotional support over a longer period of time.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: Naturopath Sues Twitter After It Bans Her Account For Spreading Medical Misinformation . “This lawsuit [PDF], however, has an actual lawyer behind it. And by actual lawyer, I mean a lawyer whose representation may be less useful than no representation at all. The lawyer helping the plaintiff bring this constitutional violation lawsuit against Twitter is David Yerushalmi, perhaps best know for being a bit bigoted himself.”

The Conversation: ‘Anorexia coach’: sexual predators online are targeting teens wanting to lose weight. Platforms are looking the other way. “My ongoing research, coupled with other media reports, indicates an opportunity for anacoaches has risen in the past few years. My analysis showed that on Twitter alone there are about 300 unique requests for anacoaches around the world daily. Anacoaches operate on numerous channels, including established social platforms such as Twitter, TikTok, Tumblr, and Kik. Despite this, these platforms haven’t addressed the problem.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Mashable: Jurors could use VR to visit crime scenes, and help them reach a verdict. “In a paper published this May, researchers from the University of South Australia investigated whether the ability to inspect crime scenes in virtual reality could help jurors make decisions in courtroom trials. Measuring the impact of viewing the same crime scene in either VR or a photographic slideshow, they found that virtual reality led participants to a different, more consistent verdict than one based only on photos.”

Techdirt: Techdirt Is Now Entirely Without Any Google Ads Or Tracking Code. “Here’s the unfortunate secret underpinning nearly all of the internet advertising space: there are hundreds, if not thousands, of companies which will purport to put ads on your website. And all of them will promise ‘quality’ ads and better rates. But the unfortunate reality is that they’re all just backstopped by Google, and the ads are all the same crappy ads in the end.” That’s why ResearchBuzz doesn’t have any ads. Good evening, Internet…

July 29, 2021 at 05:21AM
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Italy Cultural Heritage, January 6, Internet Archive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 28, 2021

Italy Cultural Heritage, January 6, Internet Archive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 28, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Italy’s capital of culture: Parma. “Beyond being the capital of iconic food such as Parmigiano and Prosciutto, Parma is a city of incredible cultural heritage that gained the prestigious title of ‘Italian Capital of Culture for the year 2020’ but had to put a year-long calendar of events on hold due to the pandemic. Eighteen months later, the city is ready to celebrate its cultural heritage with the world on Google Arts & Culture.”

ProPublica: Video Evidence Shown in the Capitol Insurrection Criminal Cases . “ProPublica and a coalition of 15 other news organizations including The Washington Post, The Associated Press, CBS and NBC have been suing for access to the video exhibits shown in the criminal cases against the accused Jan. 6 rioters. The coalition has been arguing for access before a series of federal judges in the District of Columbia, and the Department of Justice has been sending us new videos as we win our applications. Below we’ve organized these videos by case, and they are shown exactly as given to us by the DOJ. We’ll add more videos as we get them.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Internet Archive Blog: Internet Archive Joins IDS Project for Interlibrary Loan. “The Internet Archive is pleased to announce it has joined the The Information Delivery Services (IDS) Project, a mutually supportive resource-sharing cooperative whose 120 members include public and private academic libraries from across the country. As a member of the IDS Project, the Internet Archive expands its ability to support libraries and library patrons by providing access to two million monographs and three thousand periodicals in its physical collections available for non-returnable interlibrary loan (ILL) fulfillment. ”

CNET: Twitter tests new banner to show when accounts are suspended or locked . “Before now, if your Twitter was suspended or locked you’d receive an email. But you might not check it before sending a tweet. Now, Twitter doesn’t leave any room for guessing what’s wrong with your account thanks to the new banner.”

BetaNews: Microsoft releases KB5005392 and KB5005394 emergency patches for Windows printer and scanner problems. “There have been a spate of problems with printing in Windows recently, including issues introduced by updates from Microsoft. The most recent problems came for people who installed updates released this Patch Tuesday. Some found they were unable to print or scan after installing the updates, and now Microsoft has released a couple of out-of-band patches — KB5005394 for Windows 10 and KB5005392 for Windows 7.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Daily Sabah: Turkey reviews Germany’s model for social media regulation. “Turkey is analyzing Germany’s model for its social media regulation that is expected to be submitted to Parliament by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in October, Hürriyet daily reported on Monday.”

PC Gamer: Tencent is now using facial recognition to stop children in China from gaming all night. “Late-night gaming sessions for Chinese children are going to be much harder now that Tencent, China’s largest tech company, is using facial recognition to stop kids from gaming after bedtime.”

TechCrunch: Citizen’s crime livestreams are no substitute for local journalism. “The neighborhood crime-watch app Citizen is covertly hiring journalists to livestream on the app at crime scenes for $25 per hour through third-party websites. I’m tired.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Smashing Magazine: Making A Strong Case For Accessibility. “Accessibility is often overlooked or bolted on to the end of a project from the experiences in Todd’s career in web development and design. The case for accessibility is something we as people who create and build things for the web should be implementing and advocating for from the inception of a project to the release or handoff and beyond.”

The Conversation: Low- and middle-income countries lack access to big data analysis – here’s how to fill the gap . “We are two mathematicians at the University of Colorado Boulder and are part of a project called the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis that is working to develop statistical infrastructure across the world. The goal of the program is to help build data science infrastructure in developing nations. In 10 countries and counting, we have started ‘stat labs’ – academic centers that train young statisticians to collaborate on important local statistics projects.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 28, 2021 at 11:33PM
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Wednesday CoronaBuzz, July 28, 2021: 30 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.

Wednesday CoronaBuzz, July 28, 2021: 30 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Here we are right in the middle of it again. Please stay safe. Please get vaccinated. Please wear a mask when you’re inside with a bunch of people. Much love.

NEW RESOURCES – STATE-SPECIFIC

State of Delaware: Auditor McGuiness’ Project: Gray Fox Launches. “As American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) fund recipients begin to spend the approximately $1 billion they are receiving, officials will input their spending information, and the auditor’s website will transform the information into easy-to-read charts and graphics so that all Delawareans can be citizen fiscal watchdogs over these funds.”

KTUL (Oklahoma): New data map shows low vaccination numbers by zip code. “As case numbers rise, so too do calls to 211, the state’s COVID hotline. The Community Service Council just launched a new tool to monitor COVID data and is hoping to help the public stay informed about what’s happening in their neighborhood.”

UPDATES

Politico: ‘What’s Covid?’ Why People at America’s Hardest-Partying Lake Are Not About to Get Vaccinated. “In a county designated a Covid hot spot, in a state with one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation, and in a region where hospitals are nearing capacity as the Delta variant takes hold, Erin, a bartender at Backwater Jack’s, couldn’t be in a more vulnerable position. She interacts closely with hundreds of maskless customers—sometimes on a single day. She knows most of them are probably not vaccinated. And she doesn’t care. She isn’t either.”

CBS News: Tokyo reports record number of new COVID-19 cases as Olympics continue. “Tokyo reported its highest-ever daily number of new coronavirus cases on Tuesday as the Olympic Games continued in the city, under strict protection protocols. The Japanese capital, which is under its fourth state of emergency, reported 2,848 new cases of COVID-19, breaking a previous record set in January and bringing the country’s case total to more than 200,000 since the pandemic began.”

Reuters: In Utah, Hospitals Swell With Unvaccinated COVID-19 Patients. “Utah’s intensive care units were 84% full on July 22, and COVID patients made up about a quarter of the population. By comparison, the units were 59% full on April 19, and only 11% of those patients had COVID, state data shows.”

MISINFORMATION / FACT-CHECKING

Tubefilter: YouTube Removes Videos From Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro For Spreading COVID Misinformation. “Reuters notes that Bolsonaro has been outspoken against lockdowns, vaccines, masks, and has promoted unscientific treatments on his YouTube channel, where he hosts weekly addresses. These streams — which are also distributed on Facebook — see the far-right figure taking questions from viewers and deriding his enemies alongside appearances from ministers and music.”

Poynter: Fact checks of 10 prominent types of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. “People who get their news from conservative media are more likely to believe misinformation about the vaccines, according to a recent survey from the University of Pennsylvania. On Fox News, for example, recent calls by some hosts to get vaccinated came against the backdrop of months of skepticism and misleading claims from the likes of Tucker Carlson. Here are 10 persistent falsehoods we have seen, and our related fact checks.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

Politico: In Alabama and Louisiana, partisan opposition to vaccine surges alongside Delta variant. “The pushback from both state officials and people who refuse vaccination underscores the extent to which the federal government may never be able to convince rural, conservative populations in parts of the South to get the shot. And it raises questions about how the Biden administration will shape its response to Covid-19 over the next several months as more schools and businesses reopen and Delta spreads.”

HEALTH CARE / HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

Florida Times-Union: Mayo Clinic calls for mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for staff: ‘Our patients expect to be safe’. “The Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic is requiring all of its employees, including those at its Jacksonville campus, to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by Sept. 17. Staff who decline must complete ‘education modules,’ which are training videos, and will be required to wear masks and socially distance when on campus,” according to Mayo.”

INSTITUTIONS

NBC News: Unvaccinated snow leopard at San Diego Zoo catches Covid-19. “An unvaccinated snow leopard at the San Diego Zoo has contracted Covid-19. Caretakers noticed that Ramil, a 9-year-old male snow leopard, had a cough and runny nose on Thursday. Later, two separate tests of his stool confirmed the presence of the coronavirus, the zoo said in a statement Friday.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

WRAL: Vaccine mandate hasn’t hurt one Raleigh business. “Gus Gusler reopened the Players’ Retreat sports bar on Hillsborough Street a month ago, allowing only vaccinated employees and customers inside. Gusler said he also faced plenty of backlash in the beginning, but the move hasn’t hurt business.”

Computerworld: Pandemic redux: No, your workers aren’t coming back to the office. “Listen, I know you want to turn the clock back. I want to turn the clock back, too. We all want to turn the clock back and change the world so that Covid-19 never came along. We can’t do it — nor can we pretend anymore that we’re over the coronavirus pandemic. We’re not. And that means work isn’t going back to ‘normal’— whatever normal means now — either.”

WORLD / FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

CNN: CDC updates guidance, recommends vaccinated people wear masks indoors in certain areas. “To prevent further spread of the Delta variant, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its mask guidance on Tuesday to recommend that fully vaccinated people wear masks indoors when in areas with “substantial” and “high” transmission of Covid-19, which includes nearly two-thirds of all US counties.”

CNET: US to keep current COVID-19 travel restrictions amid delta variant concerns. “The US will keep COVID-19 travel limitations in place due to the rising concerns about the delta variant. The country will ‘maintain existing travel restrictions at this point,’ a White House official told Reuters on Monday.”

New York Times: ‘Long Covid’ patients will be covered by federal disability law, Biden says.. “Americans suffering from ‘long Covid’ — a term referring to new or ongoing health problems from a coronavirus infection that occurred weeks or months ago — will have access to the benefits and protection provided under federal disability law, President Biden said on Monday.”

CBS News: White House announces more funding to increase vaccinations in underserved communities. “The Biden administration on Tuesday announced $121 million in grants to over 100 community-based organizations across the U.S. to boost vaccinations in underserved communities. The funding will be going to groups like churches and local first responders to help provide more information to people in rural areas about COVID-19 vaccinations.”

CNN: Department of Veterans Affairs will require health workers to be vaccinated. “The Department of Veterans Affairs will require many of its frontline health workers to be vaccinated, the agency announced on Monday, making it the first area of the federal government to require shots among some of its workers. It was a major step from the administration toward backing vaccine requirements, which it had until now been reluctant to support.”

STATE / LOCAL GOVERNMENT

ABC 7 News: Calif. to require state employees and health care workers to get vaccinated or tested. “Governor Gavin Newsom and California health officials have announced a vaccine verification and testing program that will be implemented for all state employees and health care workers starting in August. Workers will need to have evidence of vaccination by August 2. Anyone state employees who are unvaccinated will have to undergo mandated COVID-19 testing and wear masks.”

CNN: Arkansas’ governor defends decision to approve a statewide ban on mask mandates . “Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Sunday defended his decision to approve a statewide ban on face mask mandates earlier this year, citing a low coronavirus case rate at the time – a rate that is now rapidly rising.”

New York TImes: New York City and California will require workers to be vaccinated or face testing.. “All municipal employees in New York City, including police officers and teachers, and all state employees and on-site public and private health care workers in California will have to be vaccinated or face at least weekly testing.”

Savannah Now: Savannah mayor: COVID mask mandate reinstated due to rising cases, effective immediately. “The City of Savannah reinstated its face mask mandate Monday as cases of the COVID-19 delta variant continue to surge. The mandate went into effect at 8 a.m. Monday morning and is set to expire Aug. 25. The mandate requires everyone, regardless of vaccination status, to wear a mask indoors when not with immediate family, Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said. ”

Tallahassee Democrat: Florida Gov. DeSantis not planning new emergency order despite spiking COVID-19 cases, deaths. “Gov. Ron DeSantis has no plans to issue a new executive order declaring a state of emergency in light of Florida being the epicenter of the ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated,’ his office said Monday.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

WRAL: Grandson of Rev. Billy Graham in critical condition with COVID-19. “The grandson of Rev. Billy Graham, Jonathan Lotz, is in the intensive care unit with COVID-19, according to a Facebook post.”

SPORTS

Ars Technica: The Tokyo Olympics could be a COVID-19 “super evolutionary event”. ” The global pandemic has killed at least 4 million people and resulted in a very strange Summer Games—no cheering crowds, athletes essentially confined to quarters when they’re not going faster, higher, or stronger—all in an attempt to prevent the disease from spreading among the competitors and to the people of Japan, and to keep the Olympians from carrying new strains of the virus back to their home countries.”

K-12 EDUCATION

NBC News: CDC recommends masks for all K-12 students, even those who have been vaccinated. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Tuesday that all students in kindergarten through 12th grade should wear masks when they return to schools this fall. The newly issued CDC guideline includes youngsters who have already been vaccinated.”

RESEARCH

CNET: Pfizer and Moderna expanding vaccine studies in children 5 to 11, report says. “Urged on by the Food and Drug Administration, COVID-19 vaccine creators Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are expanding their studies in children from 5 to 11 years of age, according to The New York Times on Monday. The study expansion reportedly aims to detect rare side effects like heart inflammation, which has shown up in vaccinated people under 30. ”

OUTBREAKS

ABC News: Provincetown implements indoor mask mandate after COVID-19 cluster grows to 551 cases. “Sixty-nine percent of confirmed cases among Massachusetts residents have occurred in individuals who were fully vaccinated, officials confirmed, and those infected have been found to be predominantly symptomatic. In addition, officials reported that 88% of the cases are among males, and the median age of those testing positive is 39.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

Washington Post: As coronavirus surges, GOP lawmakers are moving to limit public health powers . “In some states, anger at perceived overreach by health officials has prompted legislative attempts to limit their authority, including new state laws that prevent the closure of businesses or allow lawmakers to rescind mask mandates. Some state courts have reined in the emergency and regulatory powers governors have wielded against the virus. And in its recent rulings and analysis, the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled its willingness to limit disease mitigation in the name of religious freedom.”

ProPublica: How Unemployment Insurance Fraud Exploded During the Pandemic. “Bots filing bogus applications in bulk, teams of fraudsters in foreign countries making phony claims, online forums peddling how-to advice on identity theft: Inside the infrastructure of perhaps the largest fraud wave in history.”

Punch Nigeria: Policeman shoots student for not wearing face mask in DRC. “A Democratic Republic of Congo policeman has shot a student who was not wearing a mask while filming on the streets of the capital, witnesses said on Sunday. ‘Our friend Honore Shama, a student in the faculty of arts at the University of Kinshasa, was filming a video as part of his acting practical work requirement,’ Patient Odia, a friend who was present at the confrontation, told AFP.”

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July 28, 2021 at 07:22PM
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Scotland Catholics, New Zealand War Casualties, Michigan Bridge Repairs, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, July 28, 2021

Scotland Catholics, New Zealand War Casualties, Michigan Bridge Repairs, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, July 28, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Independent Catholic News: Scotland’s Catholic Museum launches interactive virtual site. “The new website unites all the collections of the Scottish Catholic Heritage Collections Trust Museum, and the historic Library and Archive (both of which are on loan to the University of Aberdeen). The website also provides a link to the Scottish Catholic Archives at Columba House in Edinburgh.”

Stuff New Zealand: A wish to see fiance’s overseas war grave sparked a mission to document every one. “Dennis Kerins had a vision. He wanted to photograph all war graves and primary memorials of New Zealanders who died in conflicts overseas and create a digital archive so biographical information and images are available online. Kerins, with the help of fellow New Zealand War Graves Trust trustee Derrick Bunn, has now gathered 40,000 images of headstones and cemeteries.”

Detroit Times: Online tool helps public track progress on bridge repairs, construction. “The Michigan Department of Transportation has a new tool to enable the public to track progress on local bridge repair projects. The new online dashboard … will display how close a bridge is to completion by percentage, updates, detour routes and other information for the 19 bridges MDOT is repairing or constructing.”

EVENTS

Ars Technica: Sean Gallagher and an AI expert break down our crazy machine-learning adventure. “We’ve spent the past few weeks burning copious amounts of AWS compute time trying to invent an algorithm to parse Ars’ front-page story headlines to predict which ones will win an A/B test—and we learned a lot. One of the lessons is that we—and by ‘we,’ I mainly mean ‘me,’ since this odyssey was more or less my idea—should probably have picked a less, shall we say, ambitious project for our initial outing into the machine-learning wilderness. Now, a little older and a little wiser, it’s time to reflect on the project and discuss what went right, what went somewhat less than right, and how we’d do this differently next time.” The event takes place Wednesday, July 28, at 1:00 pm Eastern.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Sky News: Pegasus spyware owner Novalpina to be liquidated after failure to resolve internal bust-up. “The London-headquartered private equity firm is to be wound up following a months-long dispute between its three principals and controversy over its ownership of the surveillance technology provider NSO Group, Sky News learns.”

9to5 Google: Google developing ‘Switch to Android’ app for iOS to copy data and apps from your iPhone. “Google is developing a new iOS app called ‘Switch to Android,’ which should be able to copy the most important data from your iPhone and bring over your apps.”

USEFUL STUFF

Architectural Digest: Design Renderings Should Reflect a Diverse Population—and This New App Can Help. “Since February of last year, Dash Marshall has been developing an app that automatically populates renderings at any stage of completion. Dubbed People Party! and currently in beta testing, the app generates colorblock-style images of pedestrians, shoppers, workers, and other human figures in a diversity of ages, shapes, and skin tones. Users can then upload their renderings, which appear as the backdrop to the vibrant scene. (The app does not record IP address or NDA content.)”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

ReviewGeek: Museum of Pinball to Permanently Close, Auction Off Over 1,100 Games. “The Museum of Pinball, located in Banning, California, houses one of the largest collections of Pinball machines under one roof. Unfortunately, this amazing wonderland of games is closing its doors for good and will auction off more than 1,100 pinball machines.”

Library of Congress: Library of Congress Offers Grants to Support Contemporary Cultural Field Research within Diverse Communities. “The Library of Congress is offering a new series of grants to individuals and organizations working to document cultures and traditions of Black, Indigenous, and communities of color traditionally underrepresented in the United States.”

Daily Dot: Instagram bans popular pole-dancing blogger and activist, who says now ‘no one is safe’ with its sex policies. “As a City University of London lecturer and researcher, Dr. Carolina Are has been looking into the moderation practices around nudity and sexuality of the major social media platforms. As an activist, she has been calling tirelessly on Instagram to reconsider its policies since November 2020, when the company’s new terms of use further restricting sexually explicit content first got announced.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Android Police: Google celebrates 10 years of bug bounties with a new gamified Bug Hunters website . “Google launched its bug bounty program more than ten years ago now, and it’s safe to say it’s been a big success. Last year alone, the company paid out a whopping $6.7 million to independent researchers who discovered issues with its products. As it heads into its second decade, Google’s Vulnerability Rewards Program (or VRP) has shared some details surrounding its accomplishments, along with a major reinvention of the entire platform.”

Department of Justice: Rare Cuneiform Tablet Bearing Portion of Epic of Gilgamesh Forfeited to United States. “Known as the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, it originated in the area of modern-day Iraq and entered the United States contrary to federal law. An international auction house (the Auction House) later sold the tablet to Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. (Hobby Lobby), a prominent arts-and-crafts retailer based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for display at the Museum of the Bible (the Museum). Law enforcement agents seized the tablet from the Museum in September 2019.” Good morning, Internet…

July 28, 2021 at 05:34PM
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Tuesday, July 27, 2021

East Africa Maps, Online Advertising, Pinterest, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 27, 2021

East Africa Maps, Online Advertising, Pinterest, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 27, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

British Library: Adding 1,277 East African maps to Georeferencer. “I’m delighted that 1,277 maps from our War Office Archive have been added to the Georeferencer in the last few days. These military intelligence maps relate to Eastern Africa, particularly modern-day Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Somaliland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and parts of South Africa. The British Library has catalogued, conserved and digitised the archive with generous funding from the Indigo Trust.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Tubefilter: Facebook, Instagram Will No Longer Serve Ads To Users Under Age 18 Based On Interests, Web Activity. “Instagram and its parent company Facebook have announced a series of changes today that are designed to protect younger users. Going forward, both platforms said that advertisers will only be able to target users under age 18 based on their age, gender, and location.”

TechCrunch: Pinterest rolls out new features that let creators make money from Pins. “Now, creators will be able to tag products in their Idea Pins — a video-first feature the company first launched this spring — to make their content ‘shoppable.’ They’ll also now be able to earn commissions through affiliate links and partner with brands on sponsored content, much like on other social platforms like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Create Documents and Collaborate Directly in Google Chat. “Collaborating on a document in Google Chat saves you time and a couple of steps. With a simple click, you can create a Docs, Sheets, or Slides document and work on it together right in a Google Chat room.”

Lifehacker: Use This Free App to Create a Shareable Travel Journal With Minimal Effort. “The app is called Hoptale, and it utilizes photo metadata to pull information about a destination, and uses it to put together a travel journal. In addition to photos and facts, you can document other aspects of your trip, including maps of the places you visited, and your itinerary—which, the company says, can be done in as few as 10 minutes.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Disinformation for Hire, a Shadow Industry, Is Quietly Booming . “Private firms, straddling traditional marketing and the shadow world of geopolitical influence operations, are selling services once conducted principally by intelligence agencies. They sow discord, meddle in elections, seed false narratives and push viral conspiracies, mostly on social media. And they offer clients something precious: deniability.”

StateTech: North Carolina Unveils Digital Equity Office to Help Close Divide. “Earlier this month, Gov. Roy Cooper today unveiled a new Office of Digital Equity and Literacy, which will spearhead efforts to execute on Cooper’s plan to use about $1.2 billion in American Rescue Plan funds to close the digital divide in the state by 2025. The office will be part of the state’s recently created Division of Broadband and Digital Equity within the North Carolina Department of Information Technology.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: Voice cloning of growing interest to actors and cybercriminals. “Voice cloning is when a computer program is used to generate a synthetic, adaptable copy of a person’s voice. From a recording of someone talking, the software is able to then replicate his or her voice speaking any words or sentences that you type into a keyboard.”

Reuters: Google takes legal action over Germany’s expanded hate-speech law. “Google said on Tuesday that it was taking legal action over an expanded version of Germany’s hate-speech law that recently took effect, saying its provisions violated the right to privacy of its users.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Verge: This YouTube channel is using AI to gloriously remaster classic game intros and cutscenes. “Long before Overwatch normalized the practice of releasing Pixar-quality animated shorts for each new character, Blizzard’s Diablo II and Capcom’s Onimusha 3 put us in the demon slaying mood with incredible mini-movies stretching to six minutes each. But if you dare try watching these classics on a modern 4K TV or even a 1080p monitor, they’ll look like a pixelated mess. That’s where a YouTube channel named Upscale and machine learning comes in — making them look nearly as good as they did on your old CRT.” Good evening, Internet…

July 28, 2021 at 05:08AM
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Unbiased Financial Aid, Oculus, Google Docs, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 27, 2021

Unbiased Financial Aid, Oculus, Google Docs, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 27, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators: New NASFAA Toolkit Provides Guidance to Help Colleges Build and Deploy Unbiased Financial Aid Policies. “Financial aid administrators — as one of the key facilitators of educational access for students — have an important role to play in reducing the operational influence of implicit bias related to racial, ethnic, gender, and cultural identity; spoken language and/or accents; religion; age; sexual orientation; socioeconomic status; nationality; and more. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) today published an Implicit Bias Toolkit which aims to help financial aid offices at institutions of higher education across the country establish a neutral basis from which to build policies and deploy procedures in the administration of financial aid.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Oculus makes it easier to create mixed reality apps. “Expect to see more mixed reality apps in the future, at least for the Oculus Quest 2. WinFuture notes that Oculus has unveiled a toolkit, Passthrough API Experimental, that will make it relatively easy to ‘seamlessly’ merge VR with the real world view from the Quest 2’s cameras.”

Chrome Unboxed: Google Docs Improves Braille Mode With Detailed Inline Suggestions. “Google is improving its support for braille mode in Docs so that those using screen readers and refreshable braille displays can interact with suggestions in their documents easier. Basically, inline detailed suggestion information will be audible out loud alongside the rest of the text in the document.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 40+ Best Sites to Download High Quality Royalty-Free Images. “In this showcase I put together a collection of 40+ sites with beautiful free stock photos and royalty-free images that you can choose from. Hopefully, they will help you to spice up your future designs. Do read the licenses carefully though as some of these services and photos may require proper attribution.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

France24: Macron pressured to apologise for nuclear tests in French Polynesia. “Macron will be ‘encouraging several concrete steps’ regarding the legacy of nuclear tests, with the opening up of state archives and individual compensation, a French presidential official who asked not to be named said. French officials denied any cover-up of radiation exposure at a meeting earlier this month with delegates from the semi-autonomous territory led by President Edouard Fritch. The meeting came after French investigative website Disclose reported in March that the impact from the fallout was far more extensive than authorities had acknowledged, citing declassified French military documents on the 193 tests.”

The Register: For a true display of wealth, dab printer ink behind your ears instead of Chanel No. 5 . “Dipping its nib in one inkwell before delicately wiping off the excess on some blotting paper, Which? found that a multipack of colour ink (cyan, magenta, yellow) for the WorkForce WF-7210DTW printer costs £75.49 from Epson. ‘This works out at an astonishing £2,410 a litre – or £1,369 for a pint,’ said Which?.” £1,369 works out to just over $1,887 USD.

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Biden’s Antitrust Team Signals a Big Swing at Corporate Titans. “President Biden has assembled the most aggressive antitrust team in decades, stacking his administration with three legal crusaders as it prepares to take on corporate consolidation and market power with efforts that could include blocking mergers and breaking up big companies.”

Bleeping Computer: No More Ransom saves almost €1 billion in ransomware payments in 5 years. “The No More Ransom project celebrates its fifth anniversary today after helping over six million ransomware victims recover their files and saving them almost €1 billion in ransomware payments. No More Ransom is an online portal launched in July 2016 and a public-private partnership created by law enforcement and industry leaders (Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, the National High Tech Crime Unit of the Netherlands’ police, McAfee, and Kaspersky).”

RESEARCH & OPINION

IndieWire: Lucasfilm Hired the YouTuber Who Used Deepfakes to Tweak Luke Skywalker ‘Mandalorian’ VFX. “YouTube is full of deepfake videos that attempt to improve on polarizing visual effects in movies, but rarely do these videos lead to actual studio jobs. A popular deepfake YouTuber who goes by the name ‘Shamook’ announced this month in the comments section of one of his videos that he joined the team over at Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and Magic.”

Virginia Tech: Researchers are pulling movements out of microfilm with digital history. “Firsthand accounts and images of Black soldiers hold hidden chapters of U.S. history. Historians and computer scientists are harnessing technologies like virtual reality and AI to equip the public to immerse themselves in those perspectives, learn from them, and broaden historical dialogue.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 28, 2021 at 12:13AM
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