NEW RESOURCES

Climate Modeling Alliance: GriddingMachine: A new database and software for sharing global datasets. “The ever increasing amount of data, various data formats, and different data layouts are increasing the time spent on handling data—before getting ready for scientific analysis. While the intention of sharing data is to facilitate their broad use and promote research, the increasing fragmentation makes it harder to find and access the data.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

City A.M.: Google ploughs $1.5 billion into crypto and blockchain companies. “Google has been quietly shovelling a massive $1.5 billion into cryptocurrency and blockchain companies for almost a year, data from an intelligence firm has revealed. A research report by Blockdata shows the search engine’s parent company – Alphabet – has been showering blockchain and crypto projects with cash since September 2021.”

Sydney Morning Herald: Metaverse jobs are disappearing as hiring slows at Google, Facebook. “Jobs in the metaverse are declining, with new monthly job postings across all industries with ‘metaverse’ in the title down 81 per cent between April and June, according to workplace researcher Revelio Labs.”

USEFUL STUFF

Ghacks: How to restore Google Image Search in Chrome. “If you prefer Google Images search in Google Chrome, you may restore the classic functionality for now. Please note that this is done by changing the value of an experimental flag; this flag will be removed by Google at one point, forcing all users to use Google Lens in the browser.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times Magazine: Why Do We Love TikTok Audio Memes? Call It ‘Brainfeel.’. “Welcome to the era of the audio meme, a time when replicable units of sound are a cultural currency as strong as — if not stronger than — images and text. Though TikTok didn’t invent the audio meme, its effortless interface may have perfected it, and the platform, which recently ended Google’s 15-year-long run as the most visited website in the world, would be nothing without sound.”

Independent: Google Maps seemingly captures downed plane in Australia – but experts say it’s not what it looks like. “The fully intact passenger plane was seen seemingly lying in the Cardwell Range in Australia, located about 250km (155 miles) south of Port Douglas on the Queensland coast. It is likely that the passenger jet, which appears to be an Airbus A320 or Boeing 737, was flying at a very low altitude, giving off an impression that it is on the ground.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Sky News: Criminals posting counterfeit Microsoft products to get access to victims’ computers. “One such package seen by Sky News is manufactured to a convincing standard and contains an engraved USB drive, alongside a product key. But the USB does not install Microsoft Office when plugged in to a computer. Instead, it contains malicious software which encourages the victim to call a fake support line and hand over access to their PC to a remote attacker.”

CNET: Identity Crime Reports Jumped to Record Level in 2021, Group Says. “Reports of identity related thefts and scams jumped to record levels last year, as the COVID pandemic continued to boost criminal attempts to steal the unemployment and other government benefits of deserving consumers, the Identity Theft Resource Center said Wednesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Michigan: Researcher discovers “Galileo manuscript” forgery. “After an internal investigation of the findings of a Georgia State University professor of history, the University of Michigan Library has concluded that its ‘Galileo manuscript’ — for almost a century considered one of the jewels of the library’s collection — is not a document written by Galileo himself in 1609 and 1610 but a 20th-century fake, most likely executed by the well-known forger Tobia Nicotra.” 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!