The Banned Book Club, Department of State Central Files, Linux Mint, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, July 24, 2023

The Banned Book Club, Department of State Central Files, Linux Mint, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, July 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

PR Newswire: Digital Public Library of America Launches The Banned Book Club to Ensure Access to Banned Books (PRESS RELEASE). “The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) has launched The Banned Book Club to ensure that readers in communities affected by book bans can now access banned books for free via the Palace e-reader app. The Banned Book Club makes e-book versions of banned books available to readers in locations across the United States where titles have been banned. The e-books will be available to readers for free via the Palace e-reader app.”

Textual Records Division at the National Archives: Department of State Central Files, 1789-1910 Available Online: An Omnibus. “Over the past few years, the National Archives has digitized and made available online through the National Archives Catalog many important records of the Department of State. The records consist largely of the various series of records that constitute the Department’s central files for the period from 1789 to 1910.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

How-To Geek: Linux Mint 21.2 Now Available, Will Get Updates Until 2027. “Linux Mint is one of the most popular desktop Linux distributions around, with a solid Ubuntu base and several desktop environments to choose from. Linux Mint 21.2 is now available, and it looks like another great release.”

WIRED: The Remarkable Resilience of Ukraine’s Tech Sector. “By the end of 2022, Ukraine’s IT exports had grown nearly 7 per cent, even as the economy shrunk by almost a third. These are the stories of how four startups have survived, but they’re just a sample of the thousands of acts of extraordinary resilience, defiance, courage, and cooperation in Ukraine’s tech sector.”

CNN: OpenAI’s head of trust and safety is stepping down. “Dave Willner, who has led the artificial intelligence firm’s trust and safety team since February 2022, said in a LinkedIn post that he is ‘leaving OpenAI as an employee and transitioning into an advisory role’ to spend more time with his family.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The 6 Best Mobile Apps for No-Budget Filmmakers. “The smartphone revolution changed no-budget filmmaking. With inexpensive and sometimes free apps able to replicate some of the expensive equipment and software used by the pros, allowing you to make the most out of your limited budget. Here are the mobile apps you need as a no-budget filmmaker.”

Mashable: 16 expert-approved kid podcasts to hit play on right now. “Summer break is here, which means it’s the perfect time to pop a pair of headphones on your kids or plug in your favorite smart home device and listen to a family-friendly podcast to fill your time. These podcasts aren’t just a bunch of fun — they’re also incredible opportunities to diversify your child’s entertainment and supplement their education before the school year picks back up.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Man of Many: The Best Barbenheimer Memes on the Internet. “The Monster High doll to Robbie’s all-American girl-next-door, Oppenheimer is everything that Barbie isn’t: dark, brooding and strangely loaded with sex scenes. On paper, the two feel like opposing entities but if the marketing run has taught us anything, it’s that the rise of Barbie-core and the demise of the atomic-core make for a pretty juicy double feature.” Well documented, plenty of memes — a step up from most meme roundups.

NiemanLab: Want a better comments section? Graham Media Group thinks AI can help with that. “If you’ve ever perused the online comment section of a news organization, you’ll know that despite their intended purpose of extending conversations, they can devolve into cesspools pretty quickly. In recent years, many news organizations have shut them down. But not Graham Media Group.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CBS News: Texas woman Tierra Allen, social media’s “Sassy Trucker,” trapped in Dubai after arrest for “shouting”. “A Houston woman is trapped in the United Arab Emirates after being briefly detained for ‘shouting’ in public during an argument with a Dubai car rental company, a London-based organization trying to help her get out of the country has told CBS News.”

Wall Street Journal: Thousands of Authors Ask AI Chatbot Owners to Pay for Use of Their Work. “More than 8,000 authors have signed a letter asking the leaders of companies including Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Alphabet to not use their work to train AI systems without permission or compensation.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Observer: The Master Recording of NASA’s Voyager Golden Record Heads to Auction. “The call of a humpback whale, a Navajo night chant and the brain waves of a woman falling in love… these are just some of the sounds recorded on NASA’s Golden Record, the phonograph time capsule affixed to spacecraft Voyager 1 and 2. As the space-faring record continues on its now 46-year journey through the emptiness, the Golden Record’s master recording is expected to fetch $600,000 at auction later this month.” Good morning, Internet…

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July 24, 2023 at 05:29PM
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YouTube, ChatGPT, Taiwan History, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 23, 2023

YouTube, ChatGPT, Taiwan History, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 23, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Android Police: YouTube’s new volume normalizer could be a blessing for your ears. “Audio normalizers aren’t certainly new. Many popular music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music can already curb any sudden increase in loudness. There are even a few device-level apps available for your phone and computer to do exactly that. It now appears that YouTube is joining the list with its own solution to give its videos a more uniform volume for the sake of your ears.”

Engadget: ChatGPT’s Android app arrives in the last week of July. “When OpenAI released a ChatGPT app for the iPhone in May, it promised that Android users will get theirs soon. Now, the company has announced that ChatGPT for Android is rolling out to users sometime next week. Moreover, its Google Play listing is already up, and users can pre-register to get it as soon as it becomes available.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Use ChatGPT to Transform Writing Into Another Format. “While most people think of ChatGPT as a way to generate new text, one of its most powerful abilities is to transform existing text into another format. Whether this is text that you have written, or text from another source.” By “another format”, the writer means things like turning blog posts into scripts for YouTube videos, not creating different types of structured data.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

San Francisco Standard: Diaries of Taiwan’s First President To Be Returned After Legal Battle With Stanford. “For nearly 18 years, 51 boxes of documents from former Taiwanese Presidents Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo have been stashed at Stanford University. The documents include diary entries revealing personal and diplomatic insights into some of the most notable global political events of the last century. But the question of who owns the historically valuable musings has been at the center of a decadelong legal battle involving the Taiwanese government, Chiang family members and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.”

Texas Monthly: “I Think He’s a Muslim at Heart”: Texas State Historical Association Leader Endorsed Obama Conspiracy Theory . ” The conflict pits [J.P.] Bryan—a deep-pocketed donor and honorary lifetime board member who was hired as TSHA executive director last fall—against board president Nancy Baker Jones and chief historian Walter Buenger. Both Jones and Buenger have charged Bryan with minimizing the role of slavery, racial violence, and white supremacy in Texas history. Hundreds of other members signed a petition that accuses him of using ‘divisive and racialized’ language.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: At the Met, She Holds Court. At Home, She Held 71 Looted Antiquities.. “Shelby White has given the museum generous gifts and 33 years of service as a trustee. But investigators recently seized many of her ancient artifacts, including 17 that were on loan to the Met.”

Bleeping Computer: JumpCloud discloses breach by state-backed APT hacking group. “US-based enterprise software firm JumpCloud says a state-backed hacking group breached its systems almost one month ago as part of a highly targeted attack focused on a limited set of customers. The company discovered the incident on June 27, one week after the attackers breached its systems via a spear-phishing attack.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Tom’s Hardware: Bot Mess: AI-Generated Clickbait Will Hasten the Demise of Search and Web Publishing. “LLMs are text generators that use predictive algorithms to output whatever sequence of words responds to your prompt. They don’t have experiences to draw from; they only have the words of actual humans to take, so even if they get better at summarizing those words, they will never be a primary source of information, nor will they have a viewpoint to share.”

EdSurge: We Deleted More Than 5,000 Pages From Our College Website. Here’s Why.. “As educators, how can we possibly expect to increase our enrollments, promote the mission of our institutions, effectively communicate our academic offerings, and engage prospective (and current) college students inclusively with college websites that function more like online file cabinets? It is time to stop this foolishness.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Notre Dame News: Researchers decipher the secrets of Benjamin Franklin’s paper money. “Benjamin Franklin may be best known as the creator of bifocals and the lightning rod, but a group of University of Notre Dame researchers suggest he should also be known for his innovative ways of making (literal) money. During his career, Franklin printed nearly 2,500,000 money notes for the American Colonies using what the researchers have identified as highly original techniques, as reported in a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 23, 2023 at 10:41PM
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Sanctions, Open Caption Movies, Google Play, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 23, 2023

Sanctions, Open Caption Movies, Google Play, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 23, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Brookings Institution: The Brookings Sanctions Tracker. “The current edition of the tracker was published Wednesday, July 19, 2023. It now covers sanctions from the onset of the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 through June 26, 2023, for selected countries. Given the rapidly evolving situation, this spreadsheet will be periodically updated.”

The Big Screen Cinema Guide: Find Open Caption Movies Easily With Our New Advanced Search Tool!. “You now have the ability to search for Open Caption presentations anywhere in the United States using our Open Caption Presentations search! At the time of this article’s writing, there are 47 movies being shown with Open Captions at 632 movie theaters around the United States. You can search by movie or by theater, and see the dates for which Open Caption presentations are being shown for that movie/theater.”

The Register: Google tightens Play Store dev rules while becoming more blockchain tolerant . “Google, citing trust and safety concerns, has issued updated policies for those distributing Android apps through the Play Store. Chief among these is that some developers will have to provide more identification to comply with the expanded Play Console Requirements policy.”

TechCrunch: Wix’s new tool can create entire websites from prompts. “The company’s new AI Site Generator tool, announced today, will let Wix users describe their intent and generate a website complete with a homepage, inner pages and text and images — as well as business-specific sections for events, bookings and more.” What could POSSIBLY go wrong.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

PD&R: Creating the National Zoning Atlas. “On April 1, 2023, at a session of the National Planning Conference in Philadelphia, panelists described efforts to create a National Zoning Atlas that already is beginning to centralize and organize every zoning code in the nation. The purpose of the atlas is to offer insight into zoning’s effects and democratize land use decisionmaking through comprehensive, digitized, and user-friendly zoning information.”

Ars Technica: OpenAI, Google will watermark AI-generated content to hinder deepfakes, misinfo. “Seven companies—including OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon, Anthropic, and Inflection—have committed to developing tech to clearly watermark AI-generated content. That will help make it safer to share AI-generated text, video, audio, and images without misleading others about the authenticity of that content, the Biden administration hopes.” And in the meantime? While you design labels as the Internet is overrun with ad-chasing shit?

SwissInfo: Swiss National Library starts collecting Wikipedia articles. “The Swiss National Library is building a digital collection of Wikipedia articles related to Switzerland. The articles are to be permanently archived for future generations and made freely available online.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Dairy Herd Management: New Farmland Bill Would Create a Public Database for Foreign Land Ownership. “Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) introduced a new bipartisan bill, the Farmland Security Act of 2023, seeking to further boost transparency in foreign ownership of U.S. farmland.”

The Hill: Diller confirms plans for legal action over AI publishing . “Media titan Barry Diller confirmed Sunday he and a group of ‘leading publishers’ plan to take legal action regarding the use of published works in training artificial intelligence (AI) systems.”

TechRadar: Thousands of Docker container images could be leaking security secrets. “A report from RWTH Aachen University in Germany analyzed more than 330,000 Docker Hub images, as well as thousands of private registries. The results showed 8.5% of the material hosting sensitive data, which could include private keys, or API secrets. As a result, online platforms and its users could be targeted by cybercriminals. In total, more than 52,000 private keys, and more than 3,100 unique API secrets were found exposed.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Pittsburgh: New AI Tool Beats Standard Approaches for Detecting Heart Attacks. “A new machine learning model uses electrocardiogram (ECG) readings to diagnose and classify heart attacks faster and more accurately than current approaches, according to a study led by University of Pittsburgh researchers that published today in Nature Medicine.”

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory: Humidity – not just light – causes color degradation in historical paintings, researchers discover. “When you look at a painting in a museum, the colors that you see are likely less bright than they were originally, something that had previously been attributed mainly to light exposure. Now, researchers have discovered a new cause of color degradation: humidity.” Good morning, Internet…

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July 23, 2023 at 05:27PM
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Reddit, Google, Donating Fresh Food, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 22, 2023

Reddit, Google, Donating Fresh Food, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 22, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Reddit takes over one of the biggest protesting subreddits. “Reddit is now in charge of r/malefashionadvice, which for a time was the biggest subreddit still closed in protest of the platform’s API pricing changes. The subreddit is now open, meaning Reddit users can browse content in the community once again, though in a restricted mode, meaning only certain users can make new posts.”

9to5 Google: Report: Sergey Brin taking more active AI role at Google. “It emerged at the start of this year that cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were involved in planning Google’s AI strategy. A new report today details just how active Brin has been recently. According to the Wall Street Journal, Sergey Brin has been ‘visiting the tech giant’s Mountain View, Calif., offices in recent months generally three to four days a week.'”

USEFUL STUFF

Bob Vila: Extra Garden Veggies? Find a Fresh Food Donation Site in Your Area . “Each year, tons of uneaten food goes to waste, while millions of households in the United States experience food insecurity. While it’s important that companies and organizations make responsible food waste decisions, home gardeners and individual donors can also do their part. Those who find themselves with lots of extra veggies throughout the growing season can help by donating their surplus of fresh produce locally. From community fridges to food pantries and other donation sites, get familiar with nearby options.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Ars Technica: Redditors prank AI-powered news mill with “Glorbo” in World of Warcraft. “On Thursday, a Reddit user named kaefer_kriegerin posted a fake announcement on the World of Warcraft subreddit about the introduction of ‘Glorbo’ to the game. Glorbo isn’t real, but the post successfully exposed a website that scrapes Reddit for news in an automated fashion with little human oversight.”

WUSF: A massive photo archive documenting Tampa Bay area history is being digitized for the public. “The University of South Florida Libraries are digitizing nearly 80,000 photo negatives that document the life and landscape of the Tampa Bay region from the 1950s to 2010s. The images are part of the Skip Gandy Collection of Aerial and Commercial Photography and chronicle key moments in local history.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Saudis accused of using Snapchat to promote crown prince and silence critics. “Saudi Arabia appears to be exploiting the US messaging app Snapchat to promote the image of its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, while also imposing draconian sentences on influencers who use the platform to post even mild criticism of the future king.”

UNESCO: How to determine the admissibility of AI-generated evidence in courts?. “In the digital age, electronic evidence is an integral part of legal proceedings. Emails, text messages, social media posts, and surveillance footage are used in in establishing facts and supporting legal arguments. Even as the legal community has developed practices to handle electronic evidence, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has added a new layer of complexity with the rise of AI-generated evidence.”

Deutsche Welle: Germany: Court rules Nazi-looted art stays in database. “The German Court of Justice (BGH) ruled against an art dealer in his attempt to have an entry deleted from a database of artworks potentially looted by Nazi Germany. The entry of the painting in the Lost Art Database as possibly looted art was based on true facts and did not affect the plaintiff’s ownership of the painting, the Karlsruhe-based court ruled Friday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Homeland Security Today: IARPA Launches Effort to Develop Photorealistic Site Models. “The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) — the advanced research and development arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — today launched a new program to research and develop technology that can build photorealistic virtual models using satellite, ground-level, and other available imagery.”

University of Alabama at Birmingham: New research reveals how influencers’ words impact engagement in affiliate marketing on social media . “The study, published in the Journal of Business Research, shares that traditionally major brands have embraced affiliate marketing programs; but the factors influencing engagement with influencer-generated content have remained largely unexplored. To bridge this gap, the research team applied the Elaboration Likelihood Model to investigate how the linguistic features of influencers’ affiliate marketing posts influence consumer behaviors. By employing text mining and natural language processing techniques, a vast data set of influencers’ affiliate marketing posts from Instagram was analyzed.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 23, 2023 at 12:07AM
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University of Stirling, Virginia Theological Seminary Archives, Kenya National Library Service, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 22, 2023

University of Stirling, Virginia Theological Seminary Archives, Kenya National Library Service, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 22, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Stirling: First archive tells University’s story of the COVID pandemic. “The first collection of its kind capturing the stories and experiences of a Scottish university community through the global pandemic has been launched. Featuring interviews with staff and students from the University of Stirling, plus a range of images and other material related to the period shared by local community members, the new archive provides a significant record of the pandemic.”

Virginia Theological Seminary: Promoting Archives Access. “I am happy to announce that the Virginia Theological Seminary Archives is now online! … This resource will allow researchers to search through over 400 collections in the VTS Archives and the African American Episcopal Historical Collection (AAEHC). Each collection contains information on its current state of processing, and pdfs of any finding aids or inventories available. Additionally, there are links to the AAEHC Oral History Collection and the Called and Holy: LGBTQIA+ Oral History Collection.”

Capital Business (Kenya): National Library Unveils First Virtual Library With Over 200,000 Books. “The Kenya National Library Service (KNLS) this week launched the country’s first virtual library, containing over 200,000 digitised books, periodicals, research papers, and government publications. The online library, which is accessible from any internet-enabled device globally, will also host downloadable e-books for offline reading.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mashable: Reddit is trying to make nice with its moderators. They aren’t buying it.. “Reddit has reached out to its moderators, declaring that while their relationship has been ‘tested,’ it’s ready to work on it and move forward from here. In response, the mods told them to go pound sand.”

How-To Geek: Plexamp, The Plex Music Player, is Now Free for All . “Plex is best known as the server software you can use to host your own streaming movie and TV collection, but it also supports music libraries. Even better, the dedicated Plexamp application gives you a more streamlined music player for your mobile devices and computers. Plex is now making the Plexamp player available to everyone, but with a few catches.”

FedScoop: Congressional watchdog agrees to take on generative AI assessment. “The Government Accountability Office will conduct a review of the potential harm caused by generative AI tools like ChatGPT. The chief government auditor’s plans to assess the technology follow a request sent by Sens. Ed Markey, D-MA, and Gary Peters, D-MI, to the GAO Comptroller last month.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: As Iraq Tries to Chill Critics, Its Newest Target Is Social Media. “This crackdown on social media is relatively new, but is of a piece with a broader campaign to silence, sideline or co-opt those who publicly question or criticize the government. That wider effort traces its roots to the months of demonstrations in 2019 and 2020, when young Iraqis poured into the streets demanding an end to corruption, a reduction in Iranian influence in Iraq and a new era of openness.”

Astana Times: Terek Project Illuminates Power of Family Stories Across Kazakhstan. “Driven by a shared vision of preserving the rich tapestry of family stories woven across Kazakhstan, Terek Story, run by Yingkar Bahetnur and Gulnaz Tulenova, embarked on an ambitious endeavor to create a digital library of family histories.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Video shows Oklahoma judge texting and scrolling on phone in trial over fatal beating of 2-year-old. “A new judge in Oklahoma is facing scrutiny after courtroom video showed her scrolling through social media and texting on her cellphone throughout the murder trial for a man accused in the fatal beating of a 2-year-old, a newspaper reports.”

Euronews: French authorities ban Twitter Blue for political candidates ahead of elections . “French political candidates will not be allowed to have a blue tick on Twitter six months ahead of an election, campaign financing authorities said. France’s commission for campaign accounts and political financing, the CNCCFP, said in a thread on the social media site that the blue check would be considered a form of ‘sponsored advertising’.”

The Verge: SEC is worried chatbots could fuel a market panic. “The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has expressed concern about generative AI’s impact on financial markets. In a speech given to the National Press Club on Monday, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said recent advances in generative AI increase the possibility of institutions relying on the same subset of information to make decisions.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Giant 3D Printer Can Print Life-sized Human Statues. “We’ve seen a few makers 3D scan themselves, and use those to print their own action figures or statuettes. Some have gone so far as building life-sized statues composed of many 3D printed parts. [Ivan Miranda] is no regular maker though, and his custom 3D printer is big enough that he can print himself a life-sized statue in one go.” Good morning, Internet…

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July 22, 2023 at 05:29PM
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Climate Solutions Explorer, JFK Files, YouTube Premium, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 21, 2023

Climate Solutions Explorer, JFK Files, YouTube Premium, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 21, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis: Introducing the Climate Solutions Explorer. “IIASA recently launched the Climate Solutions Explorer – a comprehensive resource that visualizes and presents vital data about climate mitigation, climate impacts, vulnerabilities, and risks arising from development and climate change.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Biden’s ‘Final’ Order on Kennedy Files Leaves Some Still Wanting More. “The president has finished a review first mandated by law in 1992, and while a vast majority of papers related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have been released, some remain redacted.”

The Verge: YouTube Premium now costs an extra $2 each month. “YouTube Premium’s price has increased to $13.99 a month in the US, a $2 increase compared to what it used to cost. That’s according to Google’s signup page for the service, which has been quietly updated to reflect the new pricing, as was first spotted by 9to5Google.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Committee to Protect Journalists: Cambodia blocks websites, social media accounts of 3 outlets ahead of Sunday election . “In a July 12 letter, the Telecommunications Regulator of Cambodia ordered local internet service providers (ISPs) to block the websites and social media accounts of The Cambodia Daily, U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA), and Kamnotra, a new independent public database, according to reports by RFA, Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association (CamboJA), a local advocacy and news organization, and Voice of America (VOA), which is also funded by Congress. The order targeted a total of nine domains among the three news organizations, VOA reported.”

WION: Oceangate quietly takes down websites, social media handles after Titan sub implosion. “Within a month of the disastrous end to the Titan submersible, OceanGate, the company which was facilitating the expedition to the Titanic wreckage, has shut down both of its websites and all of its social media accounts. At the time of the reporting, none of the social media handles and the website of OceanGate were accessible to the public.”

Associated Press: Online, ‘unalive’ means death or suicide. Experts say it might help kids discuss those things. “Language has always evolved. New words have always popped up. Teenagers have often led the way. But the internet and online life pave the way for it to happen more quickly. In this case, words created within a digital setting to evade rules are now jumping the fences from virtual spaces into real ones and permeating spoken language, especially among young people. Beyond being interesting linguistic footnotes, the terms suggest ways that kids can safely discuss and understand serious matters while using a vocabulary that science — and the adults in their lives — might see as too casual or dangerously naive.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: FTC rewrites rules on Big Tech mergers with aim to ease monopoly-busting. “Antitrust enforcers released a draft update outlining new rules today that officials say will make it easier to crack down on mergers and acquisitions that could substantially lessen competition in the US. Now the public has 60 days to review the draft guidelines and submit comments to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) before the agencies’ September 18 deadline.”

Reuters: Twitter to subpoena Senator Elizabeth Warren over communications with U.S. agencies. “Twitter, which has asked a court to terminate a consent order struck last year with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) related to data breaches, said in a court filing on Thursday that it planned to subpoena Senator Elizabeth Warren in connection with the fight.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CBC: Little-known U of R plant collection blooming into the digital age. “Mel Hart opens a wooden cabinet and carefully removes a light pink folder. Inside, a plant specimen dating back to the 1960s is pressed in place on a page, perfectly preserved. It’s one of nearly 70,000 plant specimens that Hart — the associate dean of student experience and engagement in the University of Regina’s faculty of science — works with in the school’s herbarium, a place where dried and dead plants are catalogued for scientific study.”

Toronto Star: Big Tech’s hands are on the throat of democracy. “I remember thinking years ago that whoever owns and controls the media has their hands around the throat of our democracies. And so, the perilous decline of traditional media marches on. Professional, experienced and accountable journalists are being drowned out by global tech companies who do not respect the law or the truth, while resisting accountability for their disinformation.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 21, 2023 at 05:31PM
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University of Cape Town Fire, Google Scholar, VisionOS, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, July 21, 2023

University of Cape Town Fire, Google Scholar, VisionOS, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, July 21, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Daily Maverick: Things we found in the fire – New knowledge rises from the ashes of UCT’s burned Jagger Library. “When the University of Cape Town’s Jagger Library was immolated by a runaway fire in 2021, Sindi-Leigh McBride and Julia Rensing took proactive steps. Instead of only lamenting this priceless loss, they curated a book celebrating the immortal spirit of academic endeavour. Lost Libraries, Burnt Archives involves 22 artists, writers and academics.” The book is available as a free download.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Scholar Blog: 2023 Scholar Metrics Released. “Scholar Metrics provide an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. Today, we are releasing the 2023 version of Scholar Metrics. This release covers articles published in 2018–2022 and includes citations from all articles that were indexed in Google Scholar as of July 2023.”

Ars Technica: Unity’s visionOS support has started to roll out—here’s how it works. “Starting today, some developers can use the popular software Unity to make apps and games for Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro headset. A partnership between Unity and Apple was first announced during Apple’s WWDC 2023 keynote last month, in the same segment the Vision Pro and visionOS were introduced.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Google Tests A.I. Tool That Is Able to Write News Articles. “The product, pitched as a helpmate for journalists, has been demonstrated for executives at The New York Times, The Washington Post and News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal.”

SecurityWeek: Famed Hacker Kevin Mitnick Dead at 59. “Kevin Mitnick, a hacker who famously served time in prison for various computer and communications-related crimes, has died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 59. SecurityWeek sources have confirmed Mitnick’s passing, which was first reported in an obituary posted at Dignity Memorial, a Las Vegas funeral home.”

Canada Newswire: Massive Private Collection of 19th-century Ephemera Finds a Home at Letterform Archive (PRESS RELEASE). “Letterform Archive announces a significant addition to its trove of graphic design with the acquisition of over 26,000 uniquely colorful and innovative items from the Richard Sheaff ephemera collection.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

FTC: FTC challenges deceptive claims and “selfie” news and reviews for alcohol treatment product . “… according to the FTC, defendants Rejuvica LLC and corporate officers Kyle Armstrong and Kyle Dilger made numerous unsubstantiated representations and falsely claimed to have clinical proof that didn’t really exist, in violation of both the Opioid Addiction Recovery Fraud Prevention Act and the FTC Act. What’s more, the complaint alleges they made deceptive use of endorsements – both by having paid endorsers make TV appearances designed to look like independent news stories, but that were actually paid advertising and by creating a phony ‘review’ website.”

The Hill: Judicial panel issues pause on ruling limiting Biden communications with social media firms. “A three-judge appeals court panel on Friday issued a brief pause of a lower court ruling that limited the Biden administration’s communication with social media companies over free speech concerns.”

Hackernoon: Russia and Ukraine Launch Fresh DDoS Offensives: A Look Into Crowdsourced Cyber Warfare. “Russian crowdsourced DDoS attacks are mounting against Ukraine and NATO members’ critical infrastructure. Ukrainian hackers are unleashing similar attacks on Russian invaders. While the damage so far seems limited, the danger for both sides is increasing.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: Google News Initiative grants in Africa and the Middle East yield mixed results, study finds. “Innovation — in newsrooms and elsewhere — takes more than a new idea. It requires transforming that idea into value for the organization… A new study investigates reasons that one-year grants supplied by Google News Initiative in Africa and the Middle East resulted in a number of projects that fall short of that definition, instead producing ‘minimum viable products’ that were under-realized versions of the original ideas.”

University of Chicago: Human-aware A.I. helps accelerate scientific discoveries, new research shows. “Anew study explores how artificial intelligence can not only better predict new scientific discoveries, but also to usefully expand them. The researchers, who published their work in Nature Human Behaviour, built models that could predict human inferences and the scientists who will make them.”

Wall Street Journal: Here’s How Twitter Could Become Irrelevant. “This isn’t a prophecy of imminent doom for Musk’s $44 billion gamble. Much would have to go right for Zuckerberberg, and wrong for his rival, for Twitter to fade from the scene. If they persist, though, the trends driving Threads’s success—a mix of network effects, Musk’s self-inflicted wounds, and the potential allure of a platform with a different vibe—could coalesce into a diminished future for the 17-year-old microblogging service.” Good morning, Internet…

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July 21, 2023 at 05:30PM
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