NEW RESOURCES

DRG News: New website offers regenerative agriculture resources. “Regenerative agriculture has sparked considerable interest over the last few years, offering a toolbox of practices that aim to increase soil health, protect water quality, and enhance conservation approaches on farms…. The website aims to allow farmers, landowners, farm advisors, and even consumers to access a wide range of information on regenerative agriculture practices and concepts.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: OnlyFans suspends proposed ban on sexually explicit content. “OnlyFans said Wednesday that it will suspend its upcoming policy change to restrict sexually explicit material, citing ‘assurances’ it received that would allow it to be ‘a home for all creators.'”

ZDNet: Microsoft Teams just got new breakout room controls and better search. “The Microsoft Teams collaboration platform will soon gain improved AI-powered text-based search and more controls for presenters when using Teams Breakout Rooms.”

USEFUL STUFF

Digital Inspiration: Essential Date Functions for Google Sheets. “Master all the important date functions for Google Sheets with working formula examples. Whether you are looking to calculate the number of working days before the project is due or days until your upcoming birthday, this is the place to start.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Verge: The Rise Of The TikTok Tour Guide. “TikTok tour guides like [Jack] Gillespie now seem to exist in every major city, introducing viewers to trendy new shops and restaurants, often in a minute or less. You can get recommendations for soju margaritas in Manhattan, crystal shops in Los Angeles, or burgers in Boston. These accounts can be great ways to learn about new locations and a boon for local businesses that suddenly see lines out the door. But they also come with hidden limitations, with influencers gravitating toward newer, hipper businesses — and often ones that are willing to compensate them for the chance to go viral.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Mercury News: California man steals over 620,00 images from Apple iCloud accounts looking for nudes. “A Southern California man broke into thousands of Apple iCloud accounts and collected more than 620,000 private photos and videos in an effort to steal images of nude young women, federal authorities said. Hao Kuo Chi, 40, of La Puente, has agreed to plead guilty to four felonies, including conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to a computer, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.”

New York Times: A Thumbs Down for Streaming Privacy. “Common Sense Media, a nonprofit advocacy group for children and families, published a report this week that found that most of America’s popular streaming services and TV streaming gadgets such as Netflix, Roku and Disney+ failed to meet the group’s minimum requirements for privacy and security practices. The lone exception was Apple.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Techdirt: Political Consultant Misrepresents Nearly Everything In Arguing That The Gov’t Should Make Google/Facebook Pay News Orgs. “If you don’t know who Doug Schoen is, he’s a quintessential political/lobbying insider, who has worked for the Clintons and more recently for Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign. It might surprise some people to find that he also was a regular on Fox News… before switching to propaganda purveyor Newsmax, where he was hired earlier this year as an ‘analyst.’… He has penned a truly facts-optional op-ed for The Hill to argue that it is imperative for the government to force Google and Facebook to pay news organizations (presumably including his employer, Newsmax — though The Hill fails to note Schoen’s affiliation with Newsmax).”

The Register: GitHub’s Copilot may steer you into dangerous waters about 40% of the time – study
. “Copilot arrived with several caveats, such as its tendency to generate incorrect code, its proclivity for exposing secrets, and its problems judging software licenses. But the AI programming helper, based on OpenAI’s Codex neural network, also has another shortcoming: just like humans, it may produce flimsy code.”

Laughing Squid: A Colorful Animated Short About the Inevitable Isolation That Comes With Digital Addiction. “‘Blip’ by Hannah Sun is a colorful 2D animation that zeroes in on the ever-growing issue of digital addiction, the increasing isolation that is the inevitable result of such an addiction, and a worldwide pandemic that left many people to fend for themselves while locked inside their homes.” Good evening, 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!