NEW RESOURCES

ASCAP: ASCAP and BMI Launch SONGVIEW, a Comprehensive Data Resource for Music Users. “ASCAP and BMI, the nation’s two leading performing rights organizations, today announced the launch of SONGVIEW, a comprehensive data platform that provides music users with an authoritative view of copyright ownership and administration shares in the vast majority of music licensed in the United States. SONGVIEW technology allows ASCAP and BMI to seamlessly display an agreed-upon view of detailed, aggregated and reconciled ownership data for performing rights for more than 20 million musical works in their combined repertoires, including a breakdown of shares by ASCAP and BMI. The information is accessible, free to the public, on both ASCAP’s and BMI’s websites.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Android Central: Google Search puts you next to your favorite car with interactive 3D models. “According to Google’s VP of Engineering, the feature supports more than 250 car models and they’re working to add more. Users can set different backgrounds, and even use AR to place the vehicle in their own space, in case they want to show off a sweet ride without actually having one. The new experience also gives users the ability to change the color and take a detailed look at the interior of the vehicles.”

BetaNews: Facebook explains why millions of users are losing access to key features. “Various restrictions have come into force because of new privacy laws that Facebook must comply with. It means that some ‘advanced options’, such as creating polls, are no longer available to millions of users. Facebook has revealed just what is happening.”

Pitchfork: Radiohead Launch Digital Holiday Cards. “Radiohead have launched a line of characteristically apocalyptic digital greeting cards via their online archive. The design patterns include ‘LA-LA,’ ‘LA LA,’ and ‘LAA,’ while the inner messages contain such sentiments as “Hope for the future,” ‘Everything is rosy,’ and ‘In lieu of emptiness.’ ‘This festive card is for you to make and send to acquaintances new and old,’ reads a note. ‘No element of data placed onto it will be stored by Radiohead.'”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Architect’s Newspaper: Congress authorizes new Smithsonian museums dedicated to American Latino and women’s history. “The future presence of a pair of new Smithsonian museums, the National Museum of the American Latino and the Women’s National History Museum, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was secured late last night after Congress approved their creation as part of a $2.3 trillion omnibus spending bill.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

City A.M.: Google CEO criticises antitrust regulation. “Last week, the European Commission set out new regulation to curb the power of big tech. The Digital Services Act hopes to increase transparency and competition for tech firms. The legislation will force firms, such as Google, to publish the algorithms used for rankings, as well as to police their own content. Big firms could be fined between six per cent and 10 per cent of global annual turnover if they fail to comply.”

Ars Technica: Google, Facebook reportedly agreed to work together to fight antitrust probes. “More than three dozen state attorneys general last week filed an antitrust suit against Google, accusing the tech behemoth of a slew of anticompetitive behaviors. Among those behaviors, a new report finds, is an explicit agreement from Google to work with Facebook not only to divide the online advertising marketplace, but also to fend off antitrust investigations.” Well, that’s blatant.

ABC News: German regulators launch new Facebook investigation over VR. “The Federal Cartel Office, or Bundeskartellamt, said it had initiated abuse proceedings over Facebook’s plans to require users of the latest Quest 2 virtual reality glasses produced by Oculus to register with a Facebook.com account.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Reuters: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research – documents. “Alphabet Inc’s Google this year moved to tighten control over its scientists’ papers by launching a ‘sensitive topics’ review, and in at least three cases requested authors refrain from casting its technology in a negative light, according to internal communications and interviews with researchers involved in the work.”

Daily Beast: The Hottest Campaign Ads on Twitter Didn’t Really Work: Study. “At various junctures during the 2020 campaign an attack ad would pop online that had observers on Twitter buzzing about how devastating for Donald Trump it would be. Except, more often than not, the ads weren’t effective, at least not for the nominal point of the election: persuading on-the-fence voters to back Joe Biden. That’s the conclusion the Democratic Party’s top super PAC reached after doing analytical research into a handful of spots that went viral on Twitter.”

EurekAlert: Social media use by young people in conflict-ridden Myanmar. “Myanmar youth rely heavily on Facebook for news and information. This can be a platform for disseminating fake news and hate speech. With poor digital literacy skills, these youths may be susceptible to disinformation campaigns and other online dangers, according to the peer-reviewed journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

The Verge: Roast your own Spotify listens with this snarky AI. “If you want to be judged, you open a page titled ‘How Bad is Your Spotify’ and you log in with your Spotify account. (It might take a couple refreshes on the ‘Loading your music library’ page.) This absolute jerk of an AI then drags you mercilessly while it pulls your playlists and top tracks. It asks you questions before it shows any results, in phrasing that gives the plain text the same aura as the girls who bullied me in middle school. Did you really listen to Clementine by Sarah Jaffe? (Yes) Like ironically? (No…)” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!