NEW RESOURCES

Government of Canada: Access First World War service files in Collection Search. “In August 2018, Library and Archives Canada finished digitizing more than 600,000 service files of Canadians who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) during the First World War. We’re pleased to announce that these files have been integrated into our main database, Collection Search, and are now available through a new landing page.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

HOW-TO GEEK: GIMP Adds New Gradient Options as It Prepares for 3.0 Release. “The latest GIMP release (version 2.10.36) introduces a fun new gradient tool and support for additional palette formats. More notably, this might be ‘the next to last release in the 2.10 branch,’ meaning that the delayed GIMP 3.0 launch should occur relatively soon. Even if you’re uninterested in today’s update, the GIMP Team suggests installing it for security fixes.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: Top 10 GPTs by OpenAI So Far (Explained with Examples). “At OpenAI’s recent DevDay event, one of the standout announcements was the unveiling of specialized GPTs…. In this article, we’ll delve into ten of the most impactful GPTs launched to date. Having spent a considerable amount of time testing each one, I’ll share insights and sample outputs to give you a taste of what each can offer.”

Lifehacker: This Plugin Shows You Where Every Amazon Product Was Made. “Most of us do at least some (if not the majority of) our shopping online now, but there are things we give up for that convenience. You can’t actually hold the item in your hands to see if reality lives up to the product description, so we often rely on bot-infested or fake reviews. But if you consider where the item is manufactured to be an indication of the likely quality of the product, you might now have a solution, at least on Amazon: Cultivate is a free web browser extension specifically for Amazon shoppers that tells you where the product you’re eyeing was manufactured.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNBC: Group of Google contractors who work on Search and Bard win union vote. “A group of Google contractors, some of whom have worked on Search and Google’s artificial intelligence chatbot Bard, have successfully voted to unionize. The group, from Google contractor Accenture, filed for unionization efforts in June after claiming Google asked them to help train the generative AI answers offered in Search and Bard, and that they felt underprepared for their work. The tasks included handling ‘obscene and graphic’ content, according to Bloomberg reports.”

Philadelphia Inquirer: Deepfakes meet cheesesteaks as Steak-umm rolls out a provocative marketing campaign. “Steak-umm is using this video for a new ad campaign, rolled out Oct. 31. But the West Chester-based food company is not using it to sell frozen steak slabs. It is sharing an entirely different message. It wants to demonstrate the sinister side of artificial intelligence. The four-minute video of the ‘carnivorous’ vegans is a deepfake.”

Fashionista: New Hearst Policy Restricts Political Speech on Employees’ Social Media Accounts. “Hearst is instituting a new social media policy that bans its employees, journalists on staff included, from expressing personal political opinions online. The news was shared publicly by the Hearst Magazines Media Union on Monday.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Epic v. Google, explained. “…while Epic’s antitrust claims against Apple got their day in court, a similar lawsuit against Google never did. On November 6th, Epic v. Google will finally go to trial… a mere 1,180 days after Epic originally sued. Hi, I’m Sean, and I’ll be your guide to this whole delightful mess.”

Engadget: Basically all of Maine had data stolen by a ransomware gang. “The state agencies of Maine had fallen victim to cybercriminals who exploited a vulnerability in the MOVEit file transfer tool, making them the latest addition to the growing list of entities affected by the massive hack involving the software. In a notice the government has published about the cybersecurity incident, it said the event impacted approximately 1.3 million individuals, which basically make up the state’s whole population.”

The Register: Meta, YouTube face criminal spying complaints in Ireland. “Privacy consultant Alexander Hanff, who has occasionally contributed to The Register, has challenged Meta’s collection of data without explicit consent under Ireland’s computer abuse law. He told The Register he’s also in the process of filing a similar criminal complaint against YouTube over its use of scripts to detect ad blocking extensions in people’s web browsers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Reuters: Exclusive-Elon Musk’s X restructuring curtails disinformation research, spurs legal fears. “Social media researchers have canceled, suspended or changed more than 100 studies about X, formerly Twitter, as a result of actions taken by Elon Musk that limit access to the social media platform, nearly a dozen interviews and a survey of planned projects show.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Digital Camera World: I shot photos with a 108-year-old Kodak camera lens to commemorate the soldiers of WWI . “During WWI soldiers were prohibited from using cameras and taking photographs of life in the trenches, however, many still did. They did so by using a small compact camera called the Kodak Vest Pocket film camera that was easy to conceal, and later became known as ‘The soldier’s camera’. Tom Calton, a photographer based in Peterborough, UK, has repurposed its otherwise fixed lens, adapting it to be used on a modern Sony mirrorless camera…” 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 live at Calishat.