NEW RESOURCES

Wicklow News (Ireland): Arklow Pottery digital archive goes live. “The ‘Arklow Pottery Online’ project was initiated in May 2022 to create a digital pattens database, backstamp reference guide, photo & video archive, and oral history record capturing the stories of some of those who worked in Arklow Pottery. The project was completed recently, and all of these resources are now accessible via a new website where it will be available for future generations to engage with and learn about the heritage of one of the Potteries.”

NASA Science: Spritacular: NASA’s New Citizen Science Project to Capture Elusive Upper Atmospheric Electrical Phenomena on Camera. “NASA’s newest citizen science project, Spritacular (pronounced sprite-tacular), leverages the power of crowdsourcing to advance the study of sprites and other Transient Luminous Events, or TLEs. TLEs include a range of electrical phenomena that occur above thunderstorms and produce brief flashes of light. The new citizen science project aims to connect professional scientists with members of the public who would like their camerawork to contribute to scientific studies.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bing Blog: Image Creator now live in select countries for Microsoft Bing and coming soon in Microsoft Edge. “Image Creator allows you to create an image that doesn’t exist, limited only by your imagination. Simply type in a description of something, any additional context like location or activity, and an art style, and Image Creator will make it for you.”

USEFUL STUFF

Ars Technica: How to download a backup copy of your Twitter data (or deactivate your account). “Big changes are underway at Twitter as we speak—including new leadership—and some people are nervous about what the future might bring for the social network. Things may end up completely fine, but even in tranquil times, it’s good to know how to get a copy of your Twitter data for local safekeeping—or to deactivate your Twitter account if you choose. This puts control of your data in your hands.”

Fast Company: Looking for Twitter alternatives? Here’s how to use Mastodon. “Mastodon hews close to Twitter’s overall style, with ‘toots’ instead of tweets and ‘boosts’ instead of retweets, along with mentions, hashtags, and a chronological feed. The key difference is that Mastodon has no ads, no creepy data mining, and no centralized ownership. It can be a little tricky to set up, though, and you may quickly discover that its attempts to clone Twitter are at odds with its decentralized nature. But don’t let that discourage you from giving it a try.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Craig Press: Museum of Northwest Colorado project preserves local newspapers for public access . “The Museum of Northwest Colorado is working toward digitizing an archive of newspapers from 1945 to 1982 in an effort to better preserve that period of local history and make the records more available for research. The museum is home to more than a century’s worth of original newspapers, containing local records of happenings and history that are often requested by different kinds of researchers.”

Futurism / The Byte: Departed Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey Is Launching A New Social Network. “Looking for an alternative to the now Elon Musk-owned Twitter? The original Twitter architect himself, Jack Dorsey, might just have something for you: Bluesky Social, a new ‘decentralized social network’ that allegedly seeks to reclaim user data.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Hacker News: Google Issues Urgent Chrome Update to Patch Actively Exploited Zero-Day Vulnerability. “Google on Thursday rolled out emergency fixes to contain an actively exploited zero-day flaw in its Chrome web browser. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-3723, has been described as a type confusion flaw in the V8 JavaScript engine.”

Reuters: Google plans legal challenge to India’s antitrust crackdown on Android-sources. “Google is planning a legal challenge to block a ruling by India’s antitrust watchdog to change its approach to its Android operating system, concerned that it will restrict how it promotes the platform, sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters.”

CNET: Europe Warns Twitter’s Elon Musk: The Bird Flies by Our Rules. “After apparently closing the $44 billion sale of Twitter on Thursday, Musk tweeted: ‘the bird is freed.’ But within hours, European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton retweeted Musk with a reminder: ‘In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules.’ Breton added the hashtag #DSA, referencing the incoming Digital Services Act, which lays out the rules for social media companies operating in Europe.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Verge: Welcome to hell, Elon. “Twitter, the company, makes very little interesting technology; the tech stack is not the valuable asset. The asset is the user base: hopelessly addicted politicians, reporters, celebrities, and other people who should know better but keep posting anyway. You! You, Elon Musk, are addicted to Twitter. You’re the asset. You just bought yourself for $44 billion dollars.”

University of Washington: These factors have the biggest impact on influencer marketing effectiveness. “Recently published online and forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, the study is one of the first to include cost data in its examinations of influencer marketing. Researchers found that if firms spent 1% more on influencer marketing, they would see a nearly 0.5% increase in engagement. They also concluded that reallocating spending based on the study’s insights could result in a 16.6% increase in engagement.” Good morning, 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!