NEW RESOURCES

West Virginia Humanities Council: West Virginia Folklife Program Announces Release of its Digital Archives Collection, Housed at West Virginia University Libraries. This link goes to a PDF file. “The original, ongoing collection consists of nearly 2,500 documentary items generated by folklife fieldwork and programs conducted by the West Virginia Folklife Program beginning November 2015. Those items include unique primary source material such as field-recorded interviews and other audio recordings, transcriptions, photo and video documentation, ephemera, and some material objects documenting the vernacular culture, beliefs, occupational skills, and expressive culture of contemporary tradition bearers, folk and traditional artists, and cultural communities across West Virginia.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Archive-It: A New Wayback: Improving Web Archive Replay. “The Internet Archive is excited to announce the preliminary release of a significant upgrade to the Wayback web archive replay software that our partners use to access and browse their web archive collections. The new version of Wayback is a complete rebuild of the prior version of the software used by both Archive-It and the many customized access portals that we build and host on behalf of our worldwide users.”

USEFUL STUFF

ReviewGeek: The Best White Noise Apps for Helping You Fall Asleep. “Having difficulty falling asleep? White noise, like a ceiling fan, can help your brain tune out distracting noises (a barking dog or heavy traffic, for example), and these white-noise apps have all kinds of relaxing sounds to help your brain relax.”

Wired: How to Find the Hidden Files on Your Phone or Computer. “YOUR PHONES AND computers hold more than you might realize. The files that you can view by default on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS are by no means everything that’s stored on those systems. These hidden files are typically used by the operating system and the applications you’re running to store data that you don’t normally need access to—indeed, data that can interfere with the smooth running of your device if it’s edited in the wrong way or deleted.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wired: One Woman’s Mission to Rewrite Nazi History on Wikipedia. “[Ksenia] Coffman can’t recall exactly when her concern set in. Maybe it was when she read the article about the SS, the Nazi Party’s paramilitary, which included images that felt to her like glamour shots—action-man officers admiring maps, going on parade, all sorts of ‘very visually disturbing’ stuff. Or maybe it was when she clicked through some of the pages about German tank gunners, flying aces, and medal winners. There were hundreds of them, and the men’s impressive kill counts and youthful derring-do always seemed to exist outside the genocidal Nazi cause. What was going on here? Wikipedia was supposed to be all about consensus. Wasn’t there consensus on, you know, Hitler?”

All Access: CMT Launches New Short-Form Digital Series, ‘Viral To Verified’ . “CMT has launched a short-form digital series, ‘Viral to Verified,’ which features interviews with rising Country artists who have ignited their careers through social media. The six-part series will release a new episode every WEDNESDAY until OCTOBER 19th.”

Reuters: Google to replenish 20% more water than it uses by 2030. “Alphabet’s Google aims to replenish 20 per cent more water than its offices and data centres use by 2030, the company said on Thursday (Sep 9), addressing concerns about water-guzzling tech facilities amid record droughts.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Russia’s Yandex says it repelled biggest DDoS attack in history. “A cyber attack on Russian tech giant Yandex’s servers in August and September was the largest known distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in the history of the internet, the company said on Thursday.”

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project: How a Russian Mobile App Developer Recruited Phones into a Secret Ad-Watching Robot Army. “A Russian mobile app publishing network appears to have infected millions of phones with malware that converts games into quiet money-making machines.”

The Center Square Missouri: Voluntary participation questioned as Missouri law creates local government spending database. “Legislation creating a database to track every penny spent by counties and municipalities was overwhelmingly approved and signed into law in June by Missouri Gov. Mike Parson. However, participation – sending financial information for posting on a state website – is voluntary.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

USC Viterbi School of Engineering: Stopping Deepfake Voices . “Not too long ago, the thought of an imposter running around with your voice sounded like something that could only happen to The Little Mermaid. But when a computer cloned the voice of late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain in a 2021 released documentary film, and no one noticed, the world suddenly woke up to the reality of voice fakery. When it comes to voice-controlled devices, an attack can make ‘turn on the lights’ translate into ‘turn on the fire alarm.’ The same tactics, however, could be used to fake news stories and deceive voice recognition systems at banks.”

Phys .org: New research analyzes millions of Twitter posts during hurricanes to understand how people communicate in a disaster. “In the face of a potentially disastrous storm like Hurricane Ida, people take to Twitter and other social media sites to communicate vital information. New research published in the journal Risk Analysis suggests that monitoring and analyzing this social media ‘chatter’ during a natural disaster could help decision makers learn how to plan for and mitigate the impacts of severe weather events in their communities.” 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!