AI Weirdness: AI Weirdness advent calendar 2023. “It’s 2023 and the combo of GPT-4/DALL-E3 can generate passable versions of the saccharine Christmas drawings in an advent calendar. They cannot, however, label them correctly. Also sometimes you get sweatermugs. This means the 2023 AI-generated advent calendar is happening!”
CBS News: How algorithms determine what we’re buying for the holidays — and beyond. “We’ve all been there: Scrolling through social media and spotting the ads recommending something you never knew you needed, whether it’s the perfect pair of shoes, a gadget to solve an annoying problem or the ideal holiday gift for your mom. As shoppers log on for Cyber Monday sales and the holidays approach, you’re more likely to see gift ideas inspired by and advertised by algorithms, experts in the field of algorithmic commerce and online shopping say.”
Gizmodo: Google Promises Its Christmas Game Doesn’t Use Kids to Train AI. “The game opens with an explanation encouraging you to ‘Help Tensor practice its image recognition!’ The description says Tensor is ‘Santa’s Machine Learning robot.’ According to the game, “The more you draw, the smarter Tensor will get,” which will “help Santa be more efficient than ever this holiday season.” In an email, a Google spokesperson said you shouldn’t take that literally.”
New-to-me, and I’m sorry I didn’t discover it before Halloween: Don’t Open. Zombies Inside.. “A College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of English and Latinx literature, [Maia] Gil’Adí is the founder of The Zombie Archive, an online labor of love where she is building a detailed timeline of zombies on the big screen, from 1932’s White Zombie, with Bela Lugosi, through 2014, year of the immortal cinematic classic Zombeavers.”
Google Blog: Curl up with a spooky Halloween story with Google Books. “Spooky season is upon us, and this time of year there’s nothing better than to curl up with a spine-tingling tome and scare yourself silly. Google Books has the stories, free of charge – all you need to do is find a cozy corner and get reading.”
Search Engine Roundtable: Calmer Christmas Weekend For The Google Search Results. “It seemed a lot calmer this past weekend, Christmas weekend, than we had it a while in the world of Google search volatility. This is a good thing since we really want to see the two Google ranking algorithm updates wind down before year-end.”
Los Angeles Times: A man’s holiday lights display helped land him a top job at Roku . “On a chilly December evening, 54-year-old engineer Mark Robins opened a laptop inside his son’s room to demonstrate the software he uses to control the 10,000 lights that adorn his house and yard. They illuminate an assortment of candy canes, gift-wrapped boxes and animals, including a flamingo, an owl, a reindeer and a small dog that resembles his elderly mutt, Oscar. A button at the front of the yard invites passersby to synchronize the lights to one of 25 Christmas, pop and rock tunes.”
Bing Blogs: HO HO HO! Microsoft and Bing Maps help NORAD track Santa!. “Working with Cesium, a platform for developers to build web-based 3D map apps, NORAD has built a 3D tracker that displays Santa’s whereabouts. The 3D tracker app uses Bing Maps satellite imagery to give a realistic texture to the 3D globe rendered by the CesiumJS library.”
Public Domain Review: What Will Enter the Public Domain in 2023?. “In our advent-style calendar below, find our top pick of what lies in store for 2023. Each day, as we move through December, we’ll open a new window to reveal our highlights! By public domain day on January 1st they will all be unveiled.”
Georgia Tech: New Computing Approach May Save At-Risk Carnival Costume Making Tradition. “Wire-bending has been a traditional method of constructing costumes for the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival since the 1930s, but Vernelle A.A. Noel, a joint professor with the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing and School of Architecture in the College of Design, has been conducting research on this at-risk practice.”
Smithsonian: National Museum of African American History and Culture Examines the Impact of Race in December Public Programming. “The museum will hold its annual Freedom’s Eve program, providing a look into how enslaved African Americans celebrated New Year’s Eve in the past and how the African American community uses food to help bring good fortune into the new year. The two-part program will include curated in-person activities to help plan goals for the new year and conclude with a virtual concert featuring piano prodigy Matthew Whitaker.”
Washington Post: Swipe and buy: Social media is now a destination for holiday shopping. “Savannah Baron keeps an exhaustive spreadsheet of perfect gifts: a camping chair love seat for the couple who enjoys the outdoors; a refillable candle for your eco-conscious cousin; a cocktail infusion kit for the friend who’s into mixology. It’s not for her. It’s for her 189,000 TikTok followers.”
Google Blog: Five spooky filters to try this Halloween. “Think you know Halloween? 🎃 Google Arts & Culture is embracing spooky season with the release of our Spotlight on Halloween — a selection of the creepiest, most disturbing art exhibits created by our partners, ready to instill fear in even the bravest of souls. From terrifying filters to macabre artworks, here are some of the things you’ll be able to play around with.”
How-To Geek: 9 Alexa Tricks to Try This Halloween Season. “If you’re one of the millions of people with an Echo speaker, Ring doorbell, or both, there are plenty of smarthome tricks for you to take for a spin this Halloween.”
CNET: Google Scares Up New Great Ghoul Duel Doodle for Halloween. “Like the original, released in 2018, Great Ghoul Duel 2 challenges players to form two teams of four ghosts to collect as many wandering spirit flames as possible. The team that collects the most spirit flames and returns them to your home base within two minutes wins.”
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