Month: May 2024
Biomedical Paper Retractions Have Quadrupled in 20 Years
The retraction rate for European biomedical-science papers increased fourfold between 2000 and 2021, a study of thousands of retractions has found. Nature: Two-thirds of these papers were withdrawn for reasons relating to research misconduct, such as data and image manipulation or authorship fraud. These factors accounted for an increasing proportion of retractions over the roughly 20-year period, the analysis suggests. “Our findings indicate that research misconduct has become more prevalent in Europe over the last two decades,” write the authors, led by Alberto RuanoâRavina, a public-health researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Other research-integrity specialists point out that retractions could be on the rise because researchers and publishers are getting better at investigating and identifying potential misconduct. There are more people working to spot errors and new digital tools to screen publications for suspicious text or data. Scholarly publishers have faced increased pressure to clear up the literature in recent years as sleuths have exposed cases of research fraud, identified when peer review has been compromised and uncovered the buying and selling of research articles. Last year saw a record 10,000 papers retracted. Although misconduct is a leading cause of retractions, it is not always responsible: some papers are retracted when authors discover honest errors in their work.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The retraction rate for European biomedical-science papers increased fourfold between 2000 and 2021, a study of thousands of retractions has found. Nature: Two-thirds of these papers were withdrawn for reasons relating to research misconduct, such as data and image manipulation or authorship fraud. These factors accounted for an increasing proportion of retractions over the roughly 20-year period, the analysis suggests. “Our findings indicate that research misconduct has become more prevalent in Europe over the last two decades,” write the authors, led by Alberto RuanoâRavina, a public-health researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Other research-integrity specialists point out that retractions could be on the rise because researchers and publishers are getting better at investigating and identifying potential misconduct. There are more people working to spot errors and new digital tools to screen publications for suspicious text or data. Scholarly publishers have faced increased pressure to clear up the literature in recent years as sleuths have exposed cases of research fraud, identified when peer review has been compromised and uncovered the buying and selling of research articles. Last year saw a record 10,000 papers retracted. Although misconduct is a leading cause of retractions, it is not always responsible: some papers are retracted when authors discover honest errors in their work.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Meta says the future of Facebook is young adults (again)
When you think of the 20-year-old social network that is Facebook, its popularity among “young adults” is probably not what comes to mind. Naturally, Meta wants to change that and the company is once again telling the world it intends to reorient its platform in order to appeal to that demographic.
In an update from Tom Alison, who heads up the Facebook app for Meta, he says that the service is shifting to reflect an “increased focus on young adults” compared with other users. “Facebook is still for everyone, but in order to build for the next generation of social media consumers, we’ve made significant changes with young adults in mind,” he wrote.
If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because Meta executives have been trying to win over “young adults” for years in an effort to better compete with TikTok. Mark Zuckerberg said almost three years ago that he wanted to make young adults the company’s “North Star.” And Alison and Zuckerberg have both been talking about the Facebook app’s pivot to a discovery-focused feed rather than one based on users’ connections.
That shift is now well underway. Alison said that the company’s AI advancements have already improved recommendations for Reels and feed, and that “advanced recommendations technology will power more products” over the next year. He added that private sharing among users is also on the rise, with more users sharing video (though no word on the once-rumored plan to bring messaging back into the main app).
Notably, Alison’s note makes no mention of the “metaverse,” which Zuckerberg also once saw as a central part of the company’s future. Instead, he says that “leaning into new product capabilities enabled by AI” is a significant goal, along with luring younger users. That’s also not surprising, given that Meta and Zuckerberg have recently tried to rebrand some of the company’s metaverse ambitions as AI advancements.
But it’s also not clear how successful Meta will be in its efforts to win over young adults. Though Alison says Facebook has seen “five quarters of healthy growth in young adult app usage in the US and Canada,” with 40 million young adult daily active users, that’s still a relatively small percentage of the 205 million daily US Facebook users the company reported in February, the last time it would break out user numbers for the app.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-says-the-future-of-facebook-is-young-adults-again-203500866.html?src=rss
When you think of the 20-year-old social network that is Facebook, its popularity among “young adults” is probably not what comes to mind. Naturally, Meta wants to change that and the company is once again telling the world it intends to reorient its platform in order to appeal to that demographic.
In an update from Tom Alison, who heads up the Facebook app for Meta, he says that the service is shifting to reflect an “increased focus on young adults” compared with other users. “Facebook is still for everyone, but in order to build for the next generation of social media consumers, we’ve made significant changes with young adults in mind,” he wrote.
If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because Meta executives have been trying to win over “young adults” for years in an effort to better compete with TikTok. Mark Zuckerberg said almost three years ago that he wanted to make young adults the company’s “North Star.” And Alison and Zuckerberg have both been talking about the Facebook app’s pivot to a discovery-focused feed rather than one based on users’ connections.
That shift is now well underway. Alison said that the company’s AI advancements have already improved recommendations for Reels and feed, and that “advanced recommendations technology will power more products” over the next year. He added that private sharing among users is also on the rise, with more users sharing video (though no word on the once-rumored plan to bring messaging back into the main app).
Notably, Alison’s note makes no mention of the “metaverse,” which Zuckerberg also once saw as a central part of the company’s future. Instead, he says that “leaning into new product capabilities enabled by AI” is a significant goal, along with luring younger users. That’s also not surprising, given that Meta and Zuckerberg have recently tried to rebrand some of the company’s metaverse ambitions as AI advancements.
But it’s also not clear how successful Meta will be in its efforts to win over young adults. Though Alison says Facebook has seen “five quarters of healthy growth in young adult app usage in the US and Canada,” with 40 million young adult daily active users, that’s still a relatively small percentage of the 205 million daily US Facebook users the company reported in February, the last time it would break out user numbers for the app.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-says-the-future-of-facebook-is-young-adults-again-203500866.html?src=rss
Micro LED monitors connect like puzzle pieces in HP multi-monitor concept
Concept “can be applied to any panel type technology without a backlight.”
Enlarge / Yes, there are bigger monitors, but is there a better way to have a tri-monitor setup? (credit: Getty)
In a technical disclosure published this month, HP explored a Micro LED monitor concept that would enable consumers to easily use various multi-monitor configurations through the use of “Lego-like building blocks.” HP has no immediate plans to make what it has called “composable Micro LED monitors,” but its discussion explores a potential way to simplify multitasking with numerous displays.
HP’s paper [PDF], written by HP scientists and technical architects, discusses a theoretical monitor that supports the easy addition of more flat or curved screens on its left, right, or bottom sides (the authors noted that top extensions could also be possible but they were “trying to keep the number of configurations manageable”). The setup would use one 12×12-inch “core” monitor that has a cable to the connected system. The computer’s operating system (OS) would be able to view the display setup as one, two, or multiple monitors, and physical switches would let users quickly disable displays.
The illustration shows a monitor made of a core unit and two extension panels viewed as three monitors (left), two monitors (middle), and two monitors with different orientations (right). [credit:
HP/Technical Disclosure Commons
]
Not a real product
HP’s paper is only a technical disclosure, which companies often publish in order to support potential patent filings. So it’s possible that we’ll never see HP release “composable Micro LED monitors” as described. An HP spokesperson told me:
What’s Next for Apple’s Journal App?
Ryan Christoffel, writing for 9to5Mac:
However, after seeing what a new third-party autobiography app is
doing with AI, I’m convinced Apple could have a blow away moment
if it showed off an AI-supercharged Journal app.
The Journal app is a curious offering from Apple. It was first
introduced at last year’s WWDC as an iOS 17 feature, but didn’t
end up shipping to users until the end of the year in iOS 17.2. In
an era where Apple is pushing cross-platform solutions like
SwiftUI and Mac Catalyst, Journal debuted as an iPhone exclusive.
As a result, you couldn’t (and still can’t) create or even view
Journal entries on your iPad or Mac.
If you have a spare iPhone and sign into iCloud, you can see that Journal does in fact sync everything via iCloud with end-to-end encryption. There just aren’t — yet? — versions of Journal for iPad or Mac to sync to. I actually like the focused, super-simple nature of Journal a lot. But it’s damn curious to me that it’s still iPhone-only.
2024 is the Year of AI, so if there is any Journal-related news at WWDC next month, I’m sure some of that news will be about improving the AI-backed suggestions. But Journal is missing some fundamentals that strike me as far more essential:
iPad and Mac apps.
Search.
Import and export.
I worry that import and export aren’t priorities for Apple. Apple Notes can import RTF and plain text files, but its only option for exporting is, bizarrely, PDF — which is a file format Notes can’t import. A good system for import/export would allow for full fidelity round-tripping. You should be able to export to a file or archive format that Notes can also import, without losing any formatting, metadata, or image attachments. Notes doesn’t even try. And if Notes still doesn’t support robust import/export, 17 years after it debuted as one of the original iPhone apps in 2007, we probably shouldn’t hold our breath for Journal.
Search, on the other hand, feels like something Apple must add to Journal. What’s the point of keeping a journal if you can’t search for previous entries? I’d like to see Apple add tagging too — but proper tags, like the ones you can use in the Finder, not gross hashtags like they shoehorned into Apple Notes a few years ago. (I’d love to see Apple reverse course with Apple Notes itself, and change those gross hashtags to proper tags.)
Conceptually I think of Journal as a personal, private social media timeline. Many of my entries are just a sentence or two. I don’t think of entries as days, but rather simply as posts or items. Threads has shown how proper tagging can work with a social media timeline.
★
Ryan Christoffel, writing for 9to5Mac:
However, after seeing what a new third-party autobiography app is
doing with AI, I’m convinced Apple could have a blow away moment
if it showed off an AI-supercharged Journal app.
The Journal app is a curious offering from Apple. It was first
introduced at last year’s WWDC as an iOS 17 feature, but didn’t
end up shipping to users until the end of the year in iOS 17.2. In
an era where Apple is pushing cross-platform solutions like
SwiftUI and Mac Catalyst, Journal debuted as an iPhone exclusive.
As a result, you couldn’t (and still can’t) create or even view
Journal entries on your iPad or Mac.
If you have a spare iPhone and sign into iCloud, you can see that Journal does in fact sync everything via iCloud with end-to-end encryption. There just aren’t — yet? — versions of Journal for iPad or Mac to sync to. I actually like the focused, super-simple nature of Journal a lot. But it’s damn curious to me that it’s still iPhone-only.
2024 is the Year of AI, so if there is any Journal-related news at WWDC next month, I’m sure some of that news will be about improving the AI-backed suggestions. But Journal is missing some fundamentals that strike me as far more essential:
iPad and Mac apps.
Search.
Import and export.
I worry that import and export aren’t priorities for Apple. Apple Notes can import RTF and plain text files, but its only option for exporting is, bizarrely, PDF — which is a file format Notes can’t import. A good system for import/export would allow for full fidelity round-tripping. You should be able to export to a file or archive format that Notes can also import, without losing any formatting, metadata, or image attachments. Notes doesn’t even try. And if Notes still doesn’t support robust import/export, 17 years after it debuted as one of the original iPhone apps in 2007, we probably shouldn’t hold our breath for Journal.
Search, on the other hand, feels like something Apple must add to Journal. What’s the point of keeping a journal if you can’t search for previous entries? I’d like to see Apple add tagging too — but proper tags, like the ones you can use in the Finder, not gross hashtags like they shoehorned into Apple Notes a few years ago. (I’d love to see Apple reverse course with Apple Notes itself, and change those gross hashtags to proper tags.)
Conceptually I think of Journal as a personal, private social media timeline. Many of my entries are just a sentence or two. I don’t think of entries as days, but rather simply as posts or items. Threads has shown how proper tagging can work with a social media timeline.
iOS 18 and macOS 15 to Feature Refreshed Settings App
With the upcoming iOS 18 and macOS 15 updates, Apple plans to streamline the Settings app, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman confirmed today. He said that while it’s not a “huge deal,” there are some changes planned.
The Settings app on iPhone and iPad and the System Settings on Macs will get an updated UI with a “reorganized, cleaner layout” that’s simpler to navigate. Search in the Settings app is also set to improve, and that’s been a major issue with prior versions of iOS and macOS.
On iOS specifically, searching for an option in the Settings app often returns no results or the wrong result. A search for “Charging Optimization,” a setting on the iPhone 15 Pro models, does not bring up the interface, for example. There are several other smaller settings options that are similarly inaccessible when searching.
Part of the changes planned for iOS 18 and macOS 15 include major updates to Spotlight and search throughout the operating systems, as well as an overhauled version of Siri that is able to control all individual features in apps. Combined, these updates should make it easier to get to some of the more hidden settings on Apple devices.
A prior rumor suggested that Apple would overhaul the macOS System Settings app, introducing rearranged menus and app UIs in an update that will be the biggest since the Settings app was refreshed in macOS Ventura. On the Mac, Apple is said to be using an organizational system focused on “priority and overall importance,” and the same changes could be made on iOS as well.
The Notifications and Sound categories in System Settings will be moved lower in the list, with General settings moved up under Network settings. Wallpaper and Displays will join General settings, and Privacy and Security will be paired with Touch ID and Password.
Apple is also planning to refresh the Control Center on iOS 18 and Apple has been testing the changes internally, but specific updates are unclear at this time.
More on the features that are coming to iOS and macOS can be found in our iOS 18 and macOS 15 roundups, which are updated regularly with all of the new rumors that we’ve heard.
The 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference keynote is set to take place on Monday, June 10, with Apple unveiling iOS 18, macOS 15, and also iPadOS 18, tvOS 18, visionOS 2, and watchOS 11.Related Roundups: iOS 18, macOS 15This article, “iOS 18 and macOS 15 to Feature Refreshed Settings App” first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums
With the upcoming iOS 18 and macOS 15 updates, Apple plans to streamline the Settings app, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman confirmed today. He said that while it’s not a “huge deal,” there are some changes planned.
The Settings app on iPhone and iPad and the System Settings on Macs will get an updated UI with a “reorganized, cleaner layout” that’s simpler to navigate. Search in the Settings app is also set to improve, and that’s been a major issue with prior versions of iOS and macOS.
On iOS specifically, searching for an option in the Settings app often returns no results or the wrong result. A search for “Charging Optimization,” a setting on the iPhone 15 Pro models, does not bring up the interface, for example. There are several other smaller settings options that are similarly inaccessible when searching.
Part of the changes planned for iOS 18 and macOS 15 include major updates to Spotlight and search throughout the operating systems, as well as an overhauled version of Siri that is able to control all individual features in apps. Combined, these updates should make it easier to get to some of the more hidden settings on Apple devices.
A prior rumor suggested that Apple would overhaul the macOS System Settings app, introducing rearranged menus and app UIs in an update that will be the biggest since the Settings app was refreshed in macOS Ventura. On the Mac, Apple is said to be using an organizational system focused on “priority and overall importance,” and the same changes could be made on iOS as well.
The Notifications and Sound categories in System Settings will be moved lower in the list, with General settings moved up under Network settings. Wallpaper and Displays will join General settings, and Privacy and Security will be paired with Touch ID and Password.
Apple is also planning to refresh the Control Center on iOS 18 and Apple has been testing the changes internally, but specific updates are unclear at this time.
More on the features that are coming to iOS and macOS can be found in our iOS 18 and macOS 15 roundups, which are updated regularly with all of the new rumors that we’ve heard.
The 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference keynote is set to take place on Monday, June 10, with Apple unveiling iOS 18, macOS 15, and also iPadOS 18, tvOS 18, visionOS 2, and watchOS 11.
This article, “iOS 18 and macOS 15 to Feature Refreshed Settings App” first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums
Would You Trade Your Private Data for a Fancy Cup of Coffee? – CNET
People “pay” with their personal information every day without realizing it. But would they make that choice knowingly?
People “pay” with their personal information every day without realizing it. But would they make that choice knowingly?