Using Persistent Metadata Can Focus Your Search Results Without Keywords: VerSearch

Using Persistent Metadata Can Focus Your Search Results Without Keywords: VerSearch
By ResearchBuzz

One of the problems with making Google search better is that much of its indexed content is unstructured data. It’s easy to do deep search when all your data is nicely labeled. What happens when it’s just a big pile?

I have found that even unstructured data search can be tamed to a certain extent when you use something I call “persistent metadata” — metadata applicable to any physical object, like date and location.

Take you as an example. You were born on a certain date in a certain place. Let’s pretend you are very famous and there’s lot of news about you. If I wanted to research you, I might try Google News for 2012-2016, when you were in school.

By limiting my search to your school dates, I’m setting a *contextual boundary* around the data I’m searching. I’m using persistent metadata about you instead of keywords to focus my search. Even better, the persistent metadata I’m using is understood by most search platforms. I don’t have to tell Google “I want to know about when Famous Person went to college,” I just search 2012-2016.

Many of my Search Gizmos act as a bridge between the human expression of persistent metadata (“Grandpa Fred’s life”) and the computer’s understanding of how its information is organized (1895-1968.) Biography Buckets, Contemporary Biography Builder, Obit Magnet… that’s what they’re all doing. I’m always excited to find another way to explore Web search using persistent metadata, as I did last night.

endoflife.date is a service which tracks the end-of-life dates for over 200 products, including iOS, Firefox, Python, etc. It also has an API which allows you to get a product’s version history. When I learned about it, I wondered if I could make a Gizmo for easier historical software searching.

If you try to search about a particular computer program on Google, your results will weight toward the most recent version of the software, which makes sense. If you want to search for an older version, you have to narrow your search using something like version number, which can cause you to miss differently-expressed results.

On the other hand, if you use the persistent metadata of date, you can use more general search terms and still get relevant, useful results.

I had a fun conversation with Curly yesterday and made VerSearch, which uses the endoflife.date API to look up software by version and then creates searches for that product’s name by the version’s active lifespan. For example, I looked up Drupal 8.8, which had a lifespan of 12-04-2019 to 12-01-2020. That renders a Web search with a specific focus and a short result list. If they’re not narrow enough, just add keywords to your search. Since you’re working in a smaller data pool, even general keywords can reap good results.

The authoritative data offered by authoritative sources includes persistent metadata. I’m convinced there are endless ways we could apply this metadata to Web search to makes its results richer and more disinformation proof.

May 23, 2023 at 07:33PM
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Oklahoma Veterans, Stamps Across the Pacific, WordPress, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 22, 2023

Oklahoma Veterans, Stamps Across the Pacific, WordPress, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 22, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

News 9 (Oklahoma): New Service Helps Connect Veterans & Families Statewide. “The non-profit based in Owasso started a new website … to help veterans find events or programs to support them in Oklahoma. Any organization or person can submit an event that is taking place near their area for free.”

Smithsonian: Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum Launches New Virtual Exhibition. “The exhibition showcases the diversity and cultural significance of Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander American communities in the United States through the medium of postage stamps. It features every U.S. Postal Service-issued stamp commemorating their unique histories, identities and contributions to American culture.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress: A Tour of the All-New Stats Page. “In recent weeks, you may have seen a redesigned Stats page on your WordPress.com dashboard. This all-new Stats experience enhances your ability to analyze and optimize your site’s content. We’ve restructured the layout in a friendlier way, introduced new modules that reveal crucial data points, and revamped the overall look of this powerful analytics tool.”

USEFUL STUFF

Popular Science: Social media posts are better with music. Here’s how to add your favorite tunes.. “The era of recording mixtapes and burning CDs for friends and family has passed by, so you’ll have to get creative if you want to share the latest track or artist you’re excited about. One of your options is social media. You can share music on Instagram or have your pick from the TikTok music selection with only a few taps.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ProPublica: ProPublica Partner Sues Mississippi County for Blocking Access to Search Warrants. “A joint investigation found that many Mississippi courts thwart public scrutiny of search warrants. Experts say that violates long-standing norms of public access and the state’s public records law.”

Hong Kong Free Press: Hong Kong doxxing site targeting journalists, activists still online almost 2 years after authorities alerted. “A doxxing website targeting thousands of journalists and pro-democracy activists remains online almost two years after HKFP alerted the authorities to its existence with media enquires, and over 18 months since Hong Kong enacted an anti-doxxing law.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Amsterdam: Grant for research project on Conversational AI. “Researchers Mohammad Alian Nejadi and Evangelos Kanoulas of the IRLab of the Informatics Institute received a grant of €250.000 for the Personality And Conversational INformatiOn Access (PACINO) project. The purpose is to help users with diverse background and potential mental disorders by building an intelligent conversational system that takes into account both the user’s need and personality.”

Illinois News Bureau: Viral videos about private moments may affect offline relationships. “When individuals share videos about surprise reunions with their intimate partners on the internet, the reaction from viewers may not be the roses and unicorns the posters expected. Viewers’ responses to shared videos have the potential to shape offline relationships, a case study of one such video found.”

Washington University in St. Louis: Data from wearables could be a boon to mental health diagnosis. “Depression and anxiety are among the most common mental health disorders in the United States, but more than half of people struggling with the conditions are not diagnosed and treated. Hoping to find simple ways to detect such disorders, mental health professionals are considering the role of popular wearable fitness monitors in providing data that could alert wearers to potential health risks.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Tom’s Hardware: Raspberry Pi Pico Piano Helper Lights Up Keys to Teach Songs. “You can learn a lot about tinkering with microelectronics, but now, thanks to Adrian Cruceru’s latest Raspberry Pi project, you can use microelectronics to learn how to play the piano. A Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller drives his RP2040 Piano helper project and can be programmed to help students learn any song they like. Just follow the LEDs and press the corresponding key to play new songs on the fly.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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May 23, 2023 at 12:57AM
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Chronos Crossfinder: Janis Joplin was “the Judy Garland of Rock”?

Chronos Crossfinder: Janis Joplin was “the Judy Garland of Rock”?
By ResearchBuzz

Contemporary search is underrated!

By contemporary search, I mean search that only spans the life of a person/place/thing. I don’t think I have yet managed to fully appreciate the way media and cultural coverage changes about someone after they have expired. All the facts around their death — reason/place/people involved/aftereffects — can have a huge impact on how they are perceived. Let me tell you about a crazy example I found over the weekend.

I was testing a new Gizmo called Chronos Crossfinder, which finds overlaps in the life spans of historical figures and builds URLs for those time periods. For example, you might look at the overlap in the lifespan between Rudy Giuliani and Ed Koch. Chronos Crossfinder takes those two names, gets their data from Wikidata, and generates Google Books searches for that name pair which span 1944 (the year Giuliani was born) through 2013 (the year Koch died.)

While I was testing this new Gizmo, I ran a search for Judy Garland and Janis Joplin, which gave me a search span of 1943 (Joplin’s birth) to 1969 (Garland’s death). I’m not really sure what I was expecting. It definitely wasn’t an edition of The Handbook of Texas referring to Janis Joplin as “the Judy Garland of Rock” or a 1968 book on The Beatles drawing parallels between the way the two singers connected with an audience.

Both Judy Garland and Janis Joplin died of accidental drug overdoses. If you tried to make comparisons between the two of them today, that would probably eclipse the fact that both were singers. It would definitely eclipse the fact that they both enjoyed a strong rapport with their audience.

When historical figures are alive and it is unknown how their lives will end, parallels might be drawn that could be considered distasteful or even offensive later. On the other hand, they might invite further scrutiny. Maybe it’s worth thinking about Janis belting out “Piece of My Heart” with The Tin Man.

If you want to try this or any of the other Search Gizmos, they’re all available at SearchGizmos.com . There’s an annotated list of the almost 50 Gizmos available at https://searchgizmos.com/biglist/. Everything’s free and there are no ads.

May 22, 2023 at 06:09PM
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USPS Data Dashboards, Google, iPhones, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, May 22, 2023

USPS Data Dashboards, Google, iPhones, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, May 22, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

US Postal Service: U.S. Postal Service Launches Service Performance Dashboard. “After prompting users to enter only a ZIP Code, the website provides customers with a variety of useful information, including the percentage of on-time delivery for specific mail and shipping products in each USPS district. This data, updated weekly, is based on scans collected when mail enters the network, during processing and at the point of delivery.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Investing .com: Samsung to keep Google as default search engine, no longer mulls switch to Bing. “According to the people familiar with the matter, the world’s largest smartphone maker has suspended its internal review and is no longer mulling a switch to Microsoft’s Bing search engine, citing ‘concerns over how the switch could be perceived by the market as well as the impact on its wide-ranging business relations with Google.'”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: 10 iPhone Spotlight Search Features You Should Be Using. “The iPhone is chock full of handy features to make your life easier, but Spotlight Search doesn’t get the attention it deserves. This humble search bar is your gateway to finding almost anything on your iPhone. Are you using it?”

Larry Ferlazzo: The Best 34 Free AI Tools For Education In 2023 – So Far. “I’ve begun posting my mid-year ‘Best’ lists, and this is a new one – the first time I’ve shared a ‘Best’ list specifically on AI tools.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Guardian: ‘There was all sorts of toxic behaviour’: Timnit Gebru on her sacking by Google, AI’s dangers and big tech’s biases . “The Ethiopian-born computer scientist lost her job after pointing out the inequalities built into AI. But after decades working with technology companies, she knows all too much about discrimination.”

Museum Next: Exploring the power of open APIs with the Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo. “As Senior Advisor for Visitor Experience at Oslo’s Nasjonalmuseet, Tord Nilsen has a passion for presenting cultural heritage data using new technology to create innovative solutions. As his museum looks to digitise its collections, Tord believes that APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are crucial tools in enabling cultural organisations to get their own systems interacting with others.”

EdScoop: UC Berkeley to open college of computing, data science. “The University of California Board of Regents voted Thursday to approve the creation of a College of Computing, Data Science and Society at the University of California Berkeley — the first new college to be created at the university in more than 50 years.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: London Court Throws Out Lawsuit Against Google Over Medical Records. “Google on Friday defeated a lawsuit brought on behalf of 1.6 million people over medical records provided to the U.S. tech giant by a British hospital trust. The Royal Free London NHS Trust transferred patient data to Google’s artificial intelligence firm DeepMind Technologies in 2015 in relation to the development of a mobile app designed to analyse medical records and detect acute kidney injuries.”

The Guardian: Elections in UK and US at risk from AI-driven disinformation, say experts. “Next year’s elections in Britain and the US could be marked by a wave of AI-powered disinformation, experts have warned, as generated images, text and deepfake videos go viral at the behest of swarms of AI-powered propaganda bots.”

Times of India: Rampant breach of baby food norms on social media: Report. “The report, covering violations between June 2022 and May 2023, documented the emergence of several new players in the infant food and feeding bottle business who have been involving celebrities, mothers who are social media influencers, and mother bloggers on Instagram and YouTube to promote their products. This is a clear violation of the IMS Act – Infant Milk Substitutes Feeding Bottles, and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1992.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Hawaii News: New AI reef conservation tool monitors, measures from space . “A new coral reef conservation tool has been developed by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researchers using cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technology. By developing novel deep learning algorithms, coral ecologists in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) are now able to identify and measure reef halos from space.”

The Conversation: Teenage brains are drawn to popular social media challenges – here’s how parents can get their kids to think twice. “Almost all American teens today have access to a smartphone and actively use multiple social media platforms – with YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat being the most popular among this age group. Meanwhile, the teenage years are linked to an increase in risk-taking. The human brain isn’t fully developed until a person reaches their mid-20s, and the parts of the brain that relate to reward and doing what feels good develop more quickly than areas linked to decision-making.” Good morning, Internet…

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May 22, 2023 at 05:31PM
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NYC Drag Shows, Car Wash Industry M&As, Twitter Bots, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, May 21, 2023

NYC Drag Shows, Car Wash Industry M&As, Twitter Bots, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, May 21, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Thrillist: New Website ‘See the Queens’ Helps You Find Drag Shows Near You. “See The Queens offers folks in New York City, Fire Island, and Long Island an ultimate guide to the local drag scene. By setting preferences like date, time, and neighborhood, users are able to peruse more than 300 drag shows and events every month.”

PR Newswire: Car Wash M&A Transaction Database Debuts to the Public (PRESS RELEASE). “Car Wash Advisory, a leading investment banking and M&A advisory firm focused exclusively on the car wash industry, has announced the debut of its publicly available and accessible database of historical car wash M&A transactions. This resource, which will be continually updated both on a historical and move-forward basis, provides a window into the largest and most meaningful M&A transactions in the car wash industry.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Business Insider: The college student who tracks Elon Musk’s private jet on Twitter is now monitoring the jet used by Ron DeSantis. “The college student who tracks Elon Musk’s private jet on Twitter has decided to give Florida governor Ron DeSantis the same treatment.”

CNBC: Neeva, co-founded by a former Google exec, to shut down its consumer search product and focus on A.I. . “Neeva, the privacy-focused search company co-founded by former Google executive Sridhar Ramaswamy, announced Saturday that it is shutting down its consumer search engine and will focus on exploring use cases for artificial intelligence.”

How-To Geek: ChatGPT Now Has an Official iPhone App. “Ever since ChatGPT took the world by storm, there has been a pile of unofficial mobile apps, some of which were outright scams. OpenAI has now released an official iPhone app for ChatGPT, with an Android version on the way.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Bleeping Computer: HP rushes to fix bricked printers after faulty firmware update. “HP is working to address a bad firmware update that has been bricking HP Office Jet printers worldwide since it was released earlier this month.”

WIRED: We Put Google’s New AI Writing Assistant to the Test. “Help Me Write is the first of a slew of generative AI features Google has planned for its productivity suite, under the umbrella branding of Duet AI for Workspace. I spent a few days testing it in Gmail and Google Docs to speed up wedding planning and uncover its boundaries. Though it can rapidly unspool drafts of polite emails to businesses or fluent essays on mundane topics, what I gained in time I sometimes lost through new headaches.”

ABC News (Australia): A record of Australia’s suburban history lives in this archive — and it was nearly lost. “The Box Hill Historical Society’s collection came close to destruction in April last year, after rewiring works in the town hall building caused a humidifier to malfunction, increasing the humidity levels within the archive’s rooms to nearly 90 per cent. Lead archivist Helen Harris had stopped by the archive on a Saturday and found condensation dripping through the building and paint beginning to melt.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: FBI misused database for January 6 riot searches: court. “A US court found the FBI improperly searched for information in a US database of foreign intelligence 278,000 times over several years, including investigating suspects in the January 6 Capitol riots, according to a ruling.”

The Register: Google Go language goes with opt-in telemetry . “The stewards of Google’s open source Go programming language (Golang) have reversed course and committed to implementing software telemetry on an opt-in basis rather than turning data collection on by default and requiring developers to opt-out.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Modern Diplomacy: Russia’s Unconventional Warfare: Moscow’s domination of the Information Space. “As much as Russia is a capable combatant in a hot conflict, it is in a cold conflict where Moscow has been the most damaging to the interests of the United States. In a cold conflict, unconventional warfare can include subversion, political, economic, or psychological warfare, as well as informational competition.”

Pew (PEW PEW PEW!): On alternative social media sites, many prominent accounts seek financial support from audiences. “About a quarter (23%) of the prominent accounts on the seven alternative social media sites studied sought financial support from their audiences in June 2022, according to the analysis. The Center examined 1,400 prominent accounts – selected from those with large numbers of followers – on BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Parler, Rumble, Telegram and Truth Social, many of which position themselves as alternatives to more established social media sites.” Good morning, Internet…

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May 21, 2023 at 05:26PM
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Economics Observatory Data Hub, Writing/Coding Analysis, ChatGPT, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, May 20, 2023

Economics Observatory Data Hub, Writing/Coding Analysis, ChatGPT, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, May 20, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Economics Observatory: The Economics Observatory’s new Data Hub: a user’s guide. “We are pleased to announce the launch of our new Data Hub. The new tool is demand-driven, which means it’s all about you, the users. We have built two powerful and connected tools: a unified API that funnels live data from a range of national and international sources; and a chart-building workshop, where you can customise your visualisations.” Very polished, very easy to use, very impressive!

UMSL Daily: Badri Adhikari develops new online tool to help writers and coders gain insight into their writing process. “Process Feedback, a tool developed by Badri Adhikari, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, captures the work of a writer or coder as they are in the process of producing it and can provide them with analysis in charts and graphs to help them better visualize and understand how they went about performing the work and any patterns that exist.” I did not test the tool but I looked at a sample report and HOLY MACKEREL. The reports tell you things like how often you were typing versus inactive and, when active, what your average typing speed was. I do not have room to describe all the charts.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NBC News: New York City public schools remove ChatGPT ban. “New York City’s Department of Education will rescind its ban on the wildly popular chatbot ChatGPT — which some worried could inspire more student cheating — from its schools’ devices and networks. The news comes several months after the initial ban was announced.”

Mashable: Piracy-loving Twitter Blue users exploit new 2-hour video limit. “Twitter users have long been able to upload short, minutes-long videos. But, since Musk came along and acquired Twitter, longform has become a priority on a platform where shortform content reigns supreme. Twitter users that subscribe to Twitter Blue for $8 per month can now write tweets 10,000 characters long, far beyond that of the normal 280 character limit. And, as of Thursday, Twitter Blue subscribers can now upload long videos too. How long? two hours-long.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NYLON: Are ‘Core Trends Destroying Our Sense Of Personal Style?. “The pressure to look a certain way to garner likes and engagement via algorithm-driven trends on social media is at its peak. As a result, personal style is suffering.”

9to5 Mac: Apple shares its first ‘App Store Transparency Report’ with data on app rejections, gov requests, more. “Earlier this week, Apple shared an in-depth look at how the App Store helped prevent fraud and protect developers and customers alike. Now, the company has shared more details in what it’s calling the ‘2022 App Store Transparency Report.’ This report offers granular information on app removals and appeals, developer account terminations, government requests for app takedowns, and more.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. opens Twitter probe after Elon Musk’s team accused of breaking laws. “San Francisco officials are opening a new investigation aimed at Twitter’s Mid-Market headquarters after an explosive lawsuit from former senior employees alleged numerous instances where members of owner Elon Musk’s team knowingly broke local and federal laws. The six former employees say Twitter didn’t pay promised severance and that Musk’s team instructed staff to disable lights and install locks that wouldn’t open during an emergency at employee bedrooms at 1355 Market St., violating building codes.”

CBS News: Rep. Eric Swalwell says former 49ers fullback Bruce Miller threatened him on social media. “California Rep. Eric Swalwell has reported former San Francisco 49ers fullback Bruce Miller to the Capitol Police after he says Miller threatened him on social media. On Wednesday, the Democratic congressman from Dublin shared a screenshot of a direct message he says he received from Miller. The post said, ‘Almost time!!! Would you rather Guantanamo or just execution’ followed by laugh emojis.”

CryptoPotato: FTX Seeks to Claw Back $250M From SBF and Execs in New Lawsuit. “Bankrupt cryptocurrency entities FTX, FTX.US, and Alameda Research have filed a lawsuit against former executives Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), Nishad Singh, and Gary Wang for lavishly spending FTX Group’s assets on the acquisition of stock clearing firm Embed Financial Technologies. The move is the first formal action from FTX CEO John Ray against the company’s former management. The lawsuit, filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, seeks to claw back the funds spent during the acquisition.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

USC News: AI helps place drones in remote areas for faster emergency response . “USC researchers are exploring the use of AI-powered decision-making to deploy life-saving equipment in data-scarce settings like rural neighborhoods to enable faster emergency response times, improve the design of emergency response systems and potentially save lives. Results from a recent study show the potential for AI to help emergency responders make informed and efficient decisions in settings where data is limited.”

Phys .org: The importance of social media in corporate social responsibility. “A new study by Dr. Lucie Kvasničková Stanislavská from Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, has found that social media is an increasingly important tool for companies to communicate their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts.”

Nature: Why AI’s diversity crisis matters, and how to tackle it. “Artificial intelligence (AI) is facing a diversity crisis. If it isn’t addressed promptly, flaws in the working culture of AI will perpetuate biases that ooze into the resulting technologies, which will exclude and harm entire groups of people. On top of that, the resulting ‘intelligence’ will be flawed, lacking varied social-emotional and cultural knowledge.” Good morning, Internet…

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May 20, 2023 at 05:30PM
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Flemish Art Scholarship, Twitter, Google Maps, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 19, 2023

Flemish Art Scholarship, Twitter, Google Maps, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 19, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

CODART: Documents, Videos, and Aftermovie of CODART 24 Now Online. “From 12 to 14 March 2023, the CODART 24 congress took place in Antwerp. The theme of CODART 24 was Flemish Art: Local and Global. In partnership with the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), CODART organized two congress days that addressed the impact of Flemish art on museums worldwide. In addition, excursions and in-depth study visits in and around Antwerp were an important part of the program. A list of participants, the complete congress folder, the network document, and the slides of the CODART slide show are now available for downloading on our website.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Jetpack Blog: The End of Twitter Auto-Sharing. “It took a few weeks, but Twitter finally shut off our API access. Though we were in limbo for a bit, we can now confirm that our services have been disconnected and Twitter is no longer part of Jetpack Social.”

Evening Standard: Google Maps makes wheelchair accessibility information visible to everyone. “Google Maps provides wheelchair accessibility information for more than 40 million places worldwide, including public transport, pubs and restaurants…. However, this wealth of information was previously locked behind filters and opt-in settings. Google is changing that today by making it visible to everyone by default.”

Associated Press: False claims of a stolen election thrive unchecked on Twitter even as Musk promises otherwise. “In an interview this week, Twitter owner Elon Musk said users making false claims of stolen elections ‘will be corrected’ on the platform.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

PC Magazine: The Best Mastodon Apps for 2023. “Mastodon looks and feels like Twitter but is a beast all its own, and the death of third-party Twitter apps has driven some of those developers to the decentralized, open-source Mastodon. There are now dozens of Mastodon apps to try across numerous platforms. For this article, we tested 18 different Mastodon client applications across mobile, web, and desktop.”

Universität Zürich: Johanna Spyri and Heidi archives included in the Memory of the World Register of UNESCO. “The Johanna Spyri and Heidi archives in Zurich have been added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World International Register. The decision by the Executive Board of UNESCO acknowledges the collections’ universal importance. The University of Zurich will be working with both institutions to promote the academic study of the collections.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg Law: Supreme Court Spares Social Media Liability Shield in Google Win. “The US Supreme Court left in place a broad liability shield for social media companies for content posted by users, insulating Twitter Inc., Facebook Inc. and Google LLC from claims that they provided assistance to Islamic State terrorists.”

Ars Technica: Malware turns home routers into proxies for Chinese state-sponsored hackers. “Researchers on Tuesday unveiled a major discovery—malicious firmware that can wrangle a wide range of residential and small office routers into a network that stealthily relays traffic to command-and-control servers maintained by Chinese state-sponsored hackers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Science Daily: Joyful music could be a game changer for virtual reality headaches. “Cybersickness — a type of motion sickness from virtual reality experiences such as computer games — significantly reduces when joyful music is part of the immersive experience, the study found. The intensity of the nausea-related symptoms of cybersickness was also found to substantially decrease with both joyful and calming music.”

Texas A&M: Could Online Gaming Social Networks Have A Positive Impact On Mental Health?. “Informal social networks like those found in online gaming could play a key role in a person’s mental wellbeing, helping them cope with various stressors and seek formal help for conditions such as anxiety or depression.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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May 20, 2023 at 12:29AM
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