afternoonbuzz

University of Georgia Speakers, Microsoft PowerToys, TikTok, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 18, 2022

NEW RESOURCES

Digital Library of Georgia: Fifty Years of Speakers Honored at the University of Georgia School of Law Now Available Online. “The collection features photographs of U.S. and Georgia political and legal figures during the latter part of the 20th century. Former President Jimmy Carter; U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas; and U.S. Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Dean Rusk are among the prominent national figures. Important legal leaders include Lawrence Lessig, Brooksley Born, and Sarah Weddington. Georgia politicians include former Governors Carl Sanders, Roy Barnes, and Zell Miller; U.S. Senators Max Cleland and Sam Nunn; among others.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Windows Central: Microsoft PowerToys adding tool for extracting text from images. “A new tool for Microsoft PowerToys will allow the app to extract text from images. The feature, referred to as PowerOCR on GitHub, is in its early stages.”

TechCrunch: A new TikTok feature lets creators share TikTok Stories to Facebook and Instagram. “TikTok confirmed to TechCrunch it’s launching a new sharing feature that will allow users to publish their TikTok Stories — a feature it has been piloting since last year — to rival social networks, including both Facebook and Instagram.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Spot a Bot on Twitter . “Unfortunately, amid the thousands of Tweets that come up on your Twitter timeline, a sizable portion of them could be artificial opinions, created to mislead the Twitter community. These engineered opinions—typically spread by bots—can cause a lot of damage. So, how can you identify these bots in order to protect yourself from being misled?”

TechRepublic: How to use Google Data Studio: A beginner’s guide with examples. “Try this free, browser-based data visualization tool that connects to hundreds of data sources and lets you create, collaborate and share interactive charts and reports.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Gen Z TikTok creators are turning against Amazon. “A coalition of top TikTok stars is pledging to cease all work with Amazon — including shutting down storefronts and halting new partnerships with the e-commerce platform — until the company meets the demands of the Amazon Labor Union.”

BBC: Ewen Bain’s Angus Og cartoons to be digitised and conserved. “A collection of Angus Og cartoons that appeared in newspapers from the 1960s to 1989 are to be digitised and conserved. The Angus Og character was created by cartoonist Ewen Bain and his adventures were based on the fabled Isle of Drambeg in the Utter Hebrides.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Malicious browser extensions targeted almost 7 million people. “Almost 7 million users have attempted to install malicious browser extensions since 2020, with 70% of those extensions used as adware to target users with advertisements. The most common payloads carried by malicious web browser extensions during the first half of 2022 belonged to adware families, snooping on browsing activity and promoting affiliate links.”

CNN: Arizona Republican secretary of state nominee kept ‘Treason Watch List’ and posted about stockpiling ammunition on Pinterest. “The Republican nominee for secretary of state in Arizona is a self-proclaimed member of the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers who repeatedly shared anti-government conspiracies and posts about stockpiling ammunition on social media.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Newswise: Baylor Study Combines Lithophane, 3D Printing to Enable Blind Individuals to “See” Data. “In an article published today in Science Advances, the researchers detail how they used lithophane – an old-fashioned art form – and 3D printing to turn scientific data into tactile graphics that glow with video-like resolution, enabling universal visualization of the same piece of data by both blind and sighted individuals.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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