NEW RESOURCES

I am still publishing ResearchBuzz updates on Twitter but I have moved most of my “looking-for-interesting-stuff” activity to Mastodon (researchbuzz@researchbuzz.masto.host if you care to drop by.) The Web site Geopipe ( https://www.geopipe.ai/download ) is the second RB item I’ve found on that site. It’s a company that makes digital twins of cities to be used in gaming, virtual environments, etc. At the moment they’re giving away a digital twin of New York City for free. You’ll need to register, but you can download sample models of Rockerfeller Plaza and Columbus Circle without providing any personal information. Sample models are downloadable in .fbx, .dae, and .glb formats.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Wall Street Journal: Twitter Lays Off Some Sales Employees After They Committed to Twitter 2.0. “Elon Musk extended his job-cutting at Twitter Inc., laying off some employees in sales after they had signed on to the billionaire’s vision for the social-media platform, people familiar with the matter said. The exact scope of the latest cuts couldn’t be learned immediately. One employee said he found out early Monday that he had been laid off and was told in an email his role was no longer necessary.”

The Hill: Twitter’s head of France resigns amid Musk’s shakeup. “Twitter’s head of France, Damien Viel, announced his resignation from the social media platform in a tweet saying it was ‘over.'”

Coindesk: UC Berkeley Suspends Stadium Naming Rights Deal With FTX. “The deal was originally planned for 10 years and lasted just 450 days. The sponsorship was inked in August 2021 for $17.5 million. It was paid entirely in cryptocurrency and was the exchange’s first partnership in college sports. With the deal, Cal’s football stadium was named FTX Field at California Memorial Stadium.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: What Language Is This? 5 Tools to Identify Unknown Languages. “If you’ve come across a language you can’t identify, it might drive you crazy until you figure out what it is. Even if you don’t speak multiple languages, it’s useful to know what a language is just by looking at it. Let’s look at some language finder services to help you identify which language you’re looking at in an image or text.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Smithsonian: National Museum of American History Adds Key Blues Archive. “The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has accepted the donation of the late Robert ‘Mack’ McCormick’s significant blues and folklore archive as a gift from his daughter, Susannah Nix. The extensive collection consists of 590 reels of sound recordings and 165 boxes of materials, totaling more than 70 cubic feet of unpublished manuscripts, original interviews and research notes, thousands of photographs and negatives, playbills, posters, maps, booking contracts and business records.”

Al Jazeera: In Brazil, Twitter users fear effect of Musk’s rule. “It was Easter, and Lola Aronovich, a Brazilian literature professor, was enjoying a break at a beach with no internet access, totally unaware of the defamation campaign being orchestrated against her on Twitter. That day in April 2015, the son of Geraldo Alckmin, the former São Paulo governor and currently Brazil’s vice-president-elect, tragically died in a helicopter crash. Aronovich saw the events unfold on TV and headed home three days later – only to find thousands of vitriolic posts directed at her on Twitter for something she hadn’t done.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Twitter Africa employees accuse Elon Musk of discrimination over severance terms. “Laid-off employees at Twitter’s Africa headquarters are accusing Twitter of ‘deliberately and recklessly flouting the laws of Ghana’ and trying to ‘silence and intimidate’ them after they were fired. The team has hired a lawyer and sent a letter to the company demanding it comply with the West African nation’s labor laws, provide them with additional severance pay and other relevant benefits, in line with what other Twitter employees will receive.”

TechCrunch: Musk’s impact on content moderation at Twitter faces early test in Germany. “A German law requiring social media platforms to promptly respond to reports of hate speech — and in some cases remove illegal speech within 24 hours of it being brought to their attention — looks like it will provide an early test for whether Elon Musk-owned Twitter will face meaningful legal consequences over how recklessly he’s operating the company.”

New York Times: Inside a Crypto Nemesis’ Campaign to Rein In the Industry. “In March, eight months before his cryptocurrency empire imploded, Sam Bankman-Fried joined a video call with Gary Gensler, a longtime financial regulator who now leads the Securities and Exchange Commission. The meeting didn’t go well.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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