Irish Central: Irish Americans invited to share stories for new digital archive ahead of US semiquincentennial. “America Éire, a landmark storytelling initiative that will create a living digital archive of the stories, journeys, and histories of the Irish in America, was announced by Irish America 250 this week in advance of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 7 open-source apps so good, Google should build them into Android. “The thing about open-source apps is that good ones aren’t always easy to discover. After all, they don’t get Super Bowl ads or prime placement on the Play Store like their heavily funded counterparts. But anyone who’s used open-source apps knows just how good they can be. I’ve spent years collecting the best ones, and some of them are so good that I genuinely feel Google should just build them into Android.” Interesting roundup.

EFF: Hate “The Algorithm?” RSS Is One of the Tools You’ve Been Looking For. ” In the age of enshittification, there is a push to reclaim our feeds and networks. Good news: there’s a tool that’s been around for decades that can help wrangle many of your feeds into something manageable: Really Simple Syndication, more commonly known as RSS.” Nice roundup but sadly they do not mention RSS Gizmos.

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

KQED: Exclusive: The Bay Area’s National Archives Office Is Closing. Researchers Are Worried. “The National Archives at San Francisco, located just south of the city in San Bruno, holds more than 75,000 cubic feet of immigration, court and genealogical records, some dating back to before California became an official state. The archival holdings include documents from federal agencies spanning Northern California, Guam, Hawaii, Nevada and American Samoa. The National Archives and Records Administration has not provided details on how or where these records will be relocated.”

Collider: PlayStation Removes Access to 500+ Movies Users Already Purchased. “Sony is removing access to more than 500 StudioCanal movies and TV titles that customers previously purchased through the PlayStation Store, meaning they will no longer be able to watch them through their account after the licensing deal ends. The key word there is ‘purchased’, which apparently means nothing now.”

Gay City News: Facebook group Gay Barchives captures glory days, forges connections. “About five years ago, LGBTQ culture maven Art Smith created a Facebook group called Gay Barchives as a way to preserve the histories of LGBTQ bars and clubs. The original idea was to capture logos, photos, and personal recollections of fun times at defunct, often legendary gay nightlife venues. Over the years, their mission expanded to include current bars not only from the U.S. but all over the world.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: One-two punch delivered in global operation disrupts cybercrime “assembly line”. “International authorities and a raft of private technology companies say they have disrupted a cybercrime ‘assembly line’ that allowed crooks to collect millions of login credentials and steal more than $47 million in ransom payments and by other fraudulent means.”

Politico: Meta asks California lawmakers for shield from child harm penalties. “Social media giant Meta is pushing California state lawmakers to shield it from pending legislation that would increase legal penalties in child-harm cases, according to two people familiar with the effort.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Exeter: New research project to uncover the historical legacy of UK film societies. “The University of Exeter will partner with Cinema For All – the charity that supports the country’s 1,600 film societies – to unearth papers and materials relating to the foundational years between 1925 to 1946. The two organisations will liaise with societies across Britain to document and catalogue information stored locally in garages and attics, which has yet to be formally archived.”

From the Greece Ministry of Culture and machine-translated from Greek: Lina Mendoni: With the National Archive of Monuments, we have created the technological infrastructure required by 21st century cultural management. “Today, the Archaeological Cadastre includes data for more than 17,000 immovable monuments, 3,160 archaeological sites, 404 historical sites, 818 protection zones and 237 museums, while the new upgraded platform incorporates new functions and cultural routes, further expanding its capabilities as a tool for protection, scientific research, education and tourist promotion.”

Irish Times: Irish museums hold artefacts from around the world. Should they give them back?. “Not only is there no inventory of Irish objects kept abroad, 90 per cent of Irish institutions do not have a comprehensive online catalogue of what they hold, according to the report. Digitisation levels are generally low and 77 per cent of institutions have no trained provenance staff. Only a minority have looked into what they actually have. The main barrier to that approach is a lack of staff and a lack of funding.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

PetaPixel: Researchers Develop All-New Pixel Type That Can Both Record and Display Light. “As ETH Zurich notes, pixels are everywhere today. On screens, such as phones, computers, and televisions, pixels display light information. In cameras, the pixels instead record light. Pixels could not do both; they could do just one or the other. A research team led by David Norris, a Professor at the Optical Materials Engineering Laboratory at ETH Zurich, has changed that by developing pixels that can both create and record light. This is a groundbreaking achievement.” Good morning, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Maine Monitor: Coalition of Eastport residents submits petition to prohibit large data center project. “A group of residents is petitioning the city of Eastport to enact a permanent ban on artificial intelligence data facilities after DeepGreen Western Passage applied for a preliminary permit to test an underwater data center off the city’s northern coast.”

DATA CENTERS

Salt Lake Tribune: After accusing Utah critics of being ‘proxies for the Chinese government,’ Kevin O’Leary now says he has no evidence. “Celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary is walking back comments he made about people and organizations in Utah that have mounted opposition to his Box Elder County data center proposal.”

AL.com: Birmingham giving controversial data center $3.2 billion in incentives over 30 years. “A multibillion dollar ‘AI factory’ currently being built along Lakeshore Parkway will receive 30 years’ worth of tax abatements totaling $3.2 billion, according to public documents. At the same time, the project will pump $2.5 billion of tax revenue into city, county and state coffers.”

AI FINANCE

The Independent: OpenAI to delay IPO after Sam Altman spooked by SpaceX tumble, report says. “OpenAI may delay going public until next year due to concerns that it will currently be unable to reach CEO Sam Altman’s target of a $1 trillion valuation, according to reports.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Indiana Capital Chronicle: Indiana FSSA to use AI to detect Medicaid fraud. “The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration is participating in a pilot initiative to use artificial intelligence for Medicaid fraud prevention. The pilot, launched by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, grants the state agency free access to advanced AI software from Oracle to analyze Medicaid claims for suspect billing patterns like upcoding and ghost services.”

NC Newsline: Police use of artificial intelligence grows as rules lag behind. “As law enforcement agencies increasingly embrace AI, some civil liberties advocates, legal scholars and policing experts warn that the technology could amplify surveillance, introduce hidden biases into investigations and make it harder to challenge evidence in court. They also worry about a future in which AI takes on a more active role in policing and criminal investigations.”

AI LEGISLATION

New Jersey Globe: Bill redirects unspent AI data center tax credits to EDA. “The Assembly State and Local Government Committee approved A5165, the ‘End Data Center Tax Credits Act,’ sponsored by Assemblymen Andrew Macurdy (D-Summit) and Balvir Singh (D-Burlington). The legislation would redirect tax credits originally intended to support AI data center development to programs aimed at lowering electricity costs.”

AI IN WORK

Gizmodo: The Token Belt-Tightening Is Coming for PDFs. “Many large companies have pushed employees to use AI for nearly everything, partly to justify the enormous sums they poured into the technology without any clear integration strategy. But a new report from 404 Media shows that some of those same firms are now tightening access after discovering that employees are burning tokens on tasks that never required AI in the first place.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

MediaPost: Google Eyes Broader Publisher Licensing. “Google is seeking to expand its content rights from publishers to test new AI features in Google News. The company is pitching additional options under a pilot program launched late last year to broaden the way it uses publisher content.”

VentureBeat: OpenAI unveils GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna models — but only accessible to limited preview partners for now, per US Gov. “The staggered release follows an executive order issued by President Donald J. Trump earlier this month on June 2, 2026, which calls upon various federal agencies to collaborate on a process for benchmarking and assessing capabilities of new AI models to ensure they are safe and appropriate for wide release.”

Mashable: The creator strategies still working in an AI-saturated internet. “As generative AI makes it easier than ever to produce videos, images, music, and entire social media accounts with a few prompts, creators are facing a new question: How do you stand out when everyone suddenly has the tools to make content That question sat at the center of a VidCon panel titled ‘AI, Authenticity, and the Slop Problem: What Can We Actually Do Now?'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

MIT Technology Review: Google DeepMind is worried about what happens when millions of agents start to interact. “Google DeepMind is funding research into the potential dangers of situations where millions of different AI agents interact with each other online. According to Rohin Shah, who directs the company’s AGI safety and alignment research, the mass-market arrival of agents that can carry out tasks without human oversight and follow instructions given to them by other agents creates a whole new class of risk.”

New York Times: U.S. Presses Meta to Agree to A.I. Reviews as Security Concerns Rise. This link goes to a gift article. “Meta is the only major U.S. developer of A.I. technology that has not reached an agreement to voluntarily share its models with the federal government for review, said the people familiar with the request, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI and Microsoft have all agreed to submit their models to the government’s A.I. safety group, known as the Center for A.I. Standards and Innovation.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Many college students already have well‑formed cheating habits – that, not AI, is the real problem. “This is not the first time I’ve asked my students that question. On each occasion, the results have been pretty much the same. By the time students end up in college classrooms, many have encountered cheating and think it makes sense in some cases to do so, because of factors like pressure to succeed. Let’s be clear: AI has not created the problem of intellectual dishonesty among this generation of students.”

University of Washington: UW researchers created PaperTok, an AI system that helps users turn research papers into short, engaging videos. “Those discussions led the team to build PaperTok, an AI tool that helps users turn research papers into 45-second videos. A researcher uploads a paper to the tool, which uses Google Gemini to write a short script explaining the paper. The researcher can then iteratively edit the transcript and resulting video clip.” I really liked this idea but I looked at a couple of the videos and… they’re not good. Good evening, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Spotted in my Calishat Snaps but I’m not sure when it launched. I think recently. Anyway, it’s 1000 Songs. From the About: “This 100-year music timeline is my curated ear-crafted sonic archive. It follows a strict 10 songs per year rule. You could say it’s a folk art celebration of human discovery and experience of music. Or you could not. But it’s much more fun to measure time in songs than hours, minutes, seconds etc!”

NBC Boston: Mass. launches interactive housing database. “The Healey administration launched a new housing database on Thursday allowing Bay Staters to click on their city and see progress in that specific spot…. The website includes data from all cities and towns across the state and shows Boston with 5,983 new homes, Norwood with 133 and Gloucester with 57.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechSpot: Windows 10’s free security updates now extend to October 2027. “Windows 10 technically reached end-of-life last October, and analysts say users have been migrating to Windows 11 in large numbers – but potentially millions are stubbornly holding on to the older OS. Microsoft appears to have quietly acknowledged that reality by tacking on another year to Windows 10’s critical security support window.”

Search Engine Journal: Google Finishes Rolling Out The June 2026 Spam Update. “Google has finished rolling out the June 2026 spam update globally and across all languages. It’s the second spam update of the year.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Politico: White House helped Mark Zuckerberg and the Google CEO dodge a Senate grilling. “Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley has agreed to let the heads of the tech giants’ Instagram and YouTube brands testify in the chief executives’ place at a hearing tentatively set for next month, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.”

Digiday: Google’s World Cup brand counterattack highlights shifting search behavior. “When it’s time to build a brand, the typical tech disruptors’ disdain for broadcast and print tends to be set aside. OpenAI and Anthropic attempted to harness the Super Bowl’s enormous reach earlier this year, for example, as they attempted to position themselves as the consumer AI product of choice. That Google feels the need to turn to such a strategy, however, highlights just how much the search world has changed since those companies arrived on the scene.”

PBS: Why more school districts are limiting screen time for students. “The nation’s second-largest school district imposed strict new limits on screen time for its roughly 400,000 students. The Los Angeles Unified School District policy is the latest example of a growing backlash against technology in classrooms nationwide. William Brangham discussed the new rules and the rationale behind them with Nick Melvoin, a member of the Los Angeles School Board.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: EU to ramp up Meta probe into addictive design, Bloomberg News reports. “The European Commission is set to escalate a probe into Meta Platforms that alleges ​its social media offerings are designed to be addictive to ‌children, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.”

Courthouse News Service: Facebook whistleblower sues company to stop arbitration against her. “A bestselling author sued Meta Thursday, claiming the social media giant enforced unlawful arbitration proceedings against her after she wrote a book about her experiences at Facebook as its director of global public policy. Sarah Wynn-Williams worked for Facebook from 2011 until her firing in 2017, which she claims was in retaliation for reporting her boss, Facebook vice president for public policy Joel Kaplan, for sexual harassment.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Want to be a better reader? Here’s how to practise active reading. “A 2024 survey of 500 influencers across 45 countries found that 62 per cent do not carry out rigorous fact-checking before sharing information. Navigating today’s digital information landscape, then, requires strong critical evaluation skills.Reading plays a central role in this process by serving not only as a means of acquiring information but also of distinguishing credible claims from misinformation. But only a specific kind of reading builds that capacity. The difference is between passive and active reading.” Good afternoon, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Arizona State University: First complete map of world’s seagrass offers warnings and hope for conservation. “This hero of a plant protects coastlines, stores vast amounts of carbon, and supports ecosystems that people and wildlife depend on. But we don’t often hear about it when it comes to ocean conservation. That’s partly because we knew so little about it — until now. For the first time, scientists have unveiled a high-resolution global map of seagrass, as well as data on how seagrass coverage changed over a four-year period. More than just a map, the information brings invaluable insights that will transform the methods and policies used to manage seagrass ecosystems worldwide.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Guardian: Four in five under-16s in Australia using social media despite ban, study shows. “More than 80% of under-16s in Australia said they were still using social media three months after legislation banning them from it came into force, research shows. Australia is the first country to ban social media for children.”

TechCrunch: YouTube Shorts are getting even shorter with an update that lets you double the playback speed. “YouTube is rolling out a series of changes to Shorts, including a new method that lets users shrink the duration of short-form videos.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

OM: Om Malik, 1966-2026. “Om Malik passed away on June 24, 2026, at Stanford Hospital after a long health journey with his heart. He was surrounded by family and friends.”

Dave Rupert: Finding curated public domain images. “I try to avoid indiscriminately (un-)splashing every post but the real reason for the infrequency isn’t radical self-control, it’s because dumpster diving for public domain images can be a chore…. That’s why –for me– a little for-profit curation goes a long way. I wrote down some of my favorite resources from my last search (so I can remember next time) and will try to keep a running list of good resources I find.”

NiemanLab: Overwhelmed by news on social? SaySo is betting a smaller, vetted creator feed is the answer. “SaySo’s head of product Cydney Adams said she and her team wanted to create a space where users could trust the information they were consuming while creators could serve an engaged audience.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: TikTok, YouTube deactivate 4.7 million child accounts in Indonesia following government curbs, minister says. “Social media companies TikTok and YouTube have deactivated a total of around 4.7 million accounts belonging ​to children under the age of 16 in Indonesia, ‌the country’s communications minister said, as its social media curbs began to take effect.”

Syracuse.com: Federal agents track down Syracuse woman, demand she remove Instagram post about ICE. “Two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents issued a warning to a Syracuse woman Tuesday to remove a social media account they said threatens federal agents. Paigelynne Gonyea said she believes they are referring to a January post where she named the ICE agent who shot protester Renee Good.”

CNN: Snapchat sued in case alleging the platform is responsible for 12-year-old’s rape. “The family of a Missouri teenager is suing Snapchat parent company Snap, claiming the social media platform facilitated her rape as a 12-year-old. Snapchat features such as Quick Add and Snap Map enabled assailant Gabriel Joel Valentin-Rios to connect with and groom the girl, referred to as J.F., the complaint alleges.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Northeastern University: Regulations don’t go far enough to protect privacy when it comes to smart glasses, experts say. “The issue is not just whether people know they’re being recorded and privacy concerns brought about by smart glasses aren’t new. But a recent revelation about a new face-recognition feature for Meta’s smart glasses that was not yet available to users renews the argument that privacy regulations surrounding this technology are lagging, experts said.”

University of Washington: Decades-long dataset shows which orcas are most at home in Puget Sound. “Looking at data from The Whale Museum’s Sightings Archive between 1978 and 2022, University of Washington researchers modeled migratory trends based on observations from researchers, recreational boaters and whale watchers. They found that K and L pods are visiting Puget Sound less often, but the J pod remains well represented. The data on Bigg’s corroborates recent results showing a steady increase in inland waters.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of Cambridge: Scientists demonstrate solar-powered plastic recycling at real-world scale. “The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, have previously demonstrated that a solar-powered reactor can convert plastic waste into clean hydrogen fuel and valuable industrial chemicals, but only at laboratory scale. Now, they have shown a clear path for converting this technology to a commercial scale, in outdoor, real-world conditions.” Good morning, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

National Library of Chile and machine-translated from Spanish: More newspapers in the National Digital Library: El Ferrocarril and The Chilean Times. “Every year, new issues of newspapers and periodicals are digitized and made available in the National Digital Library. In 2026, new issues of the 19th-century publications El Ferrocarril and The Chilean Times were added.”

State of New York: New York State Office of Children and Family Services Launches New Family Guide to Child Care and Early Childhood Resources. “The New York State Office of Children and Family Services today announced the launch of a new online Family Guide to Child Care and Early Childhood Resources, including an enhanced, user-friendly child care search tool, to help families more easily access information on finding and paying for child care and on child development and school readiness.”

KTEN: Oklahoma launches missing persons database. “The OSBI Missing Person Index categorizes a list of individuals based on the law enforcement agency investigating the case, the physical characteristics of the person, and the location they were last seen. Users also have the ability to create a missing persons flyer.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Governor of Maryland: Governor Moore Announces Tenfold Expansion of Funding Database in Maryland Community Business Compass. “Governor Wes Moore today announced a major expansion of the funding database on the Maryland Community Business Compass, the state’s free online tool that helps entrepreneurs start and grow essential-service businesses in the communities that need them most. The enhanced database now connects users to nearly 2,500 funding and support programs such as business grants and loans from across Maryland — a tenfold increase that builds on the first-of-its-kind directory the Compass pioneered at launch, which featured roughly 250 state and local programs.”

DigitalNC: Firefighting Action Shots and More Spark Amazement in New Materials from Raleigh Fire Museum. “This new batch includes items from as early as the 1950s and 60s, with materials from the Raleigh Fire Department’s 100th anniversary, incredible photographs of fire fighters in action from primarily the 1970s and 80s, and Raleigh Fire Department records like blueprints and proposals for fire engines, advertisements for firefighting equipment, and operational instructions, procedures, and catalogs.”

The Sun: Calif. stops funding police transparency database . “California will stop funding a state-wide database intended to uncover police misconduct and use-of-force records, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s chief fiscal policy advisors confirmed to The Center Square.”

USEFUL STUFF

Film Reasons: Scanning Film Negatives for a Searchable Digital Archive. “For many of us, the negative remains the true original. Yet the digital file is what we return to every single time with some exceptions when we want to review old work, prepare a print, or send an image to someone else. When establishing large libraries full of old memories, learning how to convert film negatives to digital is only half the job, the other half is building a system that keeps those files usable for years.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: The Oversight Board says Meta needs to do more to protect regular people from sexualized deepfakes . “Meta’s Oversight Board has called on the social media company to strengthen its protection for ordinary people targeted by sexualized deepfakes. The Board recommends the addition of AI-generated impersonations in Meta’s Adult Sexual Exploitation policy, arguing that those images and videos are non-consensual by default.”

Rough Draft Atlanta: Legal battle resurfaces over Titanic artifacts. “A legal battle is resurfacing over items salvaged from the Titanic. Recently unsealed court documents reveal a back-and-forth between the U.S. government and a Metro Atlanta company over artifacts recovered from the famous shipwreck.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

The Land: The Superhero Project creates personalized cartoon crusaders for disabled, chronically ill youth . “Working with professional artists, the children and their families communicate the characteristics of the child’s super character, including their superpowers and tools they can employ to combat their illness or condition and make the world a better place. They can also describe their sidekicks, either imaginary or real, such as their parents, siblings, doctors, nurses, teachers and so on. The artist then draws their alter-ego and presents the child with a framed poster.” Good afternoon, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

ASPCA: Find More Humane Food Near You with ASPCA ShopKind. “Today, the ASPCA is making it even easier for consumers who care about farm animal welfare by launching ASPCA ShopKind. This free, online tool replaces the Shop With Your Heart program and tells users exactly where they can purchase meat, eggs and dairy from certified farms raising animals without using inhumane factory farming practices.”

UC Davis Library: What’s New in Digital Collections. “Archives and Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of 12 collections which have been added to the library’s Digital Collections in the last six months. Spanning the years 1880 (Mundell and Whiting diary) to 2007 (Mom… Guess What…! issues), the recently digitized items include oral histories, diaries, photographs, maps, directories, newspapers and travel albums documenting the history of California and the American West.”

JSTOR Daily: Rollerena: New York’s Fairy Godmother. “Before Rollerena was an AIDS activist, she was already reshaping public life. The impetus for lacing up her rollerskates may have begun as a simple longing to avoid the crowds on her Lexington Avenue line, but it evolved into a form of performance and public expression unlike anything New York had seen. Gliding about on tall, black vintage rollerskates, she became a celebrity presence, recognizable by her flowing gown, ornate hats, rhinestoned glasses, and wand. She became New York City’s Fairy Godmother, a surprisingly vital presence for spreading queer joy.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Korea Herald: Seoul court upholds prison term for US livestreamer Johnny Somali. “A Seoul appeals court upheld a six-month prison sentence for US livestreamer Johnny Somali, who drew public anger in South Korea last year after kissing a statue commemorating victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery.” He did a lot more than that!

9to5 Google: Google opens the Play Store to external billing in the US, UK, and Europe next week. “In a post on the Android Developers Blog, Google details changes being made to Play Store billing rules on Android, changes made in the aftermath of a years-long legal dispute with Epic Games that (mostly) wrapped up earlier this year.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

MIT Museum: MIT Museum Announces Landmark Acquisition of Architect I. M. Pei’s Archive. “The I. M. Pei archive includes approximately 1,500 rolls of architectural drawings, 50 architectural models, and 1,000 linear feet of manuscripts and other archives spanning more than sixty projects across Pei’s decades-long career. With this gift, the MIT Museum will become the leading steward and resource for the student and professional work of I. M. Pei, further bolstering the museum’s extensive architecture collections.”

East Bay Express: Oakland archivists protect Black queer history from disappearing. “For queers, the holy sites are third spaces—those temples of acceptance: bars, cafes, bookstores, archives. On June 13, 2026, a house in the Eastmont Hills was activated as one. Inside, in acid-free sleeves and Hollinger boxes, the relics waited: a black-and-white photograph of a 1976 march down Market Street, a button from a softball league, a flyer for a poetry reading at a cafe that’s now a parking lot. This was Black Queer Folks Community Archiving Day, and the reliquary it gathered around was the Bay Area Lesbian Archives (BALA).”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gizmodo: Danish Privacy Activist Arrested for Posting Prime Minister’s Phone Number. “Danish right-wing privacy activist Lars Kragh Andersen posted a video Friday of his arrest by police in Denmark—a video that has now racked up over 8 million views on X. Andersen says he was arrested for posting his two favorite numbers, the social security number of Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, along with her phone number.”

The Register: Gizmodo readers hit with ClickFix malware prompts after account compromise. “Veteran tech website Gizmodo confirmed a compromise on Saturday after readers reported ClickFix malware prompts appearing on article pages. Users posted screenshots of fake CAPTCHA windows appearing on Gizmodo’s site. The attack aims to fool users into running malicious code via their terminals.”

Courthouse News Service: YouTube settles upcoming bellwether trial over social media’s psychological harms to kids. “YouTube and its parent company Google have reached a confidential settlement with R.K.C., the unnamed defendant in a second bellwether trial over the effects of social media on minors.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Reuters: Complete text of carbonised Herculaneum scroll unlocked for first time. “Researchers using artificial intelligence and advanced imaging said on Thursday they had achieved the first complete reading of ​a closed Herculaneum scroll burnt by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago. The breakthrough marks a ‌major step toward deciphering hundreds of ancient manuscripts found at Herculaneum, the Roman town destroyed along with Pompeii in the 79 AD disaster.”

Adelaide University: Hidden botanical treasures in war-torn Kyiv need global support. “Researchers from Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America have highlighted the importance of the National Herbarium of Ukraine in Kyiv (KW), home to more than 2.3 million plant and fungal specimens…. A new paper published in the journal Taxon outlines both the scientific significance of the collection and the risks it faces as Russia’s invasion continues.” Good morning, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Gizmodo: DuckDuckGo, Unable to Resist the Pull of AI, Mistakenly Claims Trump Died of Rabies. “President Donald Trump has passed away after succumbing to a rabies infection given to him by Vice President J.D. Vance, who also died of rabies. That news comes to us via the AI-generated search results provided by privacy-centric search engine DuckDuckGo.”

DATA CENTERS

Courthouse News: Texas lawmakers take up data center water use concerns. “Data center opponents and advocates descended on the Texas Capitol Tuesday to plead with lawmakers to exercise their power on the highly controversial industry. The meeting of the Texas House Natural Resources Committee brought hundreds from the various sides of the data center debate together. Part of the meeting was dedicated solely to examining the millions of gallons of water being used by data centers daily for cooling.”

NC Newsline: Community leaders sound alarm over environmental justice as data centers boom across NC. “Residents across the state are raising concerns about long-term consequences for their communities, Cervania said. These include noise pollution, heat generation, air quality, impacts on backup generators, and effects on public health and quality of life. Around 30 local governments have already enacted moratoriums or zoning restrictions on data centers.”

AI IN EDUCATION

Capital B News: As Fisk University Moves Forward With Data Center Proposal, Opposition Grows. “Some students and alumni say the timing — Fisk is celebrating its 160th anniversary this year — and where it was announced runs counter to the university’s long-standing liberal arts legacy. The hall was named after the Fisk Jubilee Singers, whose global tours in the late 1800s raised money to support the university. The university has been open about its funding challenges, but alumni like [Naimah] Muhammad question whether a 30-megawatt data center is the best solution.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Associated Press: 40 mayors worldwide endorse a pact to shape data center development. “Forty mayors from around the world have signed onto a pact announced Tuesday to try to shape how urban data centers are built and operated. It’s their vision for how urban data center development can be done sustainably — and not at the expense of their cities’ natural resources, energy prices or climate targets. C40 Cities, an alliance of nearly 100 cities seeking to impact climate change, launched it during London Climate Action Week.”

Military Times: VA inventory report reveals 367 AI systems operating in healthcare, benefits and services. “The Department of Veterans Affairs has disclosed 367 artificial intelligence use cases operating across the agency, including 215 classified as high-impact systems supporting healthcare, benefits processing, records management, communications and internal operations.”

Jersey Vindicator: U.S. Rep Frank Pallone backs national moratorium on AI data centers. “U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. called Wednesday for a nationwide moratorium on new data centers, arguing that their rapid growth is driving up electricity demand, straining the power grid, and increasing costs for consumers.”

AI LEGISLATION

Arizona Mirror: Hobbs vetoes bill to fast-track small nuclear reactors at Arizona data centers. “A bill to allow utility companies to build small nuclear reactors without having to conduct environmental studies or public hearings and bar nearly all Arizona counties from regulating them was among the dozens of measures vetoed last week by Gov. Katie Hobbs.”

Bold Nebraska: Data Center Community Organizing Tools. “Bold Nebraska was concerned, like communities across the country, that Big Tech was trampling on property rights and polluting water without regard to anyone’s energy bill or clean air…. Bold worked with Senators Spivey, McKinney, and Machalea Cavanaugh on a bill that we believe is the first-in-the-nation to require both a decommissioning plan and a Community Benefits Agreement, while also mandating disclosures on key issues that the community has been demanding, like water and electricity usage.”

AI IN WORK

Reuters: French mid-sized firms adopt AI but see few gains, survey shows. “Bpifrance said in its annual barometer of Entreprises de Taille Intermédiaire, or ETIs, that 77% of 534 ​company heads surveyed said their firms use generative ​artificial intelligence, while only 17% of those using ⁠it reported time savings from the technology.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

New York Times: The Giant Test Kitchen Where Cooks Battle A.I. Slop. This link goes to a gift article. “Mr. Vogel, the chief executive of People Inc., one of the country’s biggest digital and print publishers and the home of brands like Food & Wine, People, Entertainment Weekly, Allrecipes and Southern Living, has already seen chatbots upend search traffic and A.I.-generated slop flood the internet. And he is betting that readers would rather make a recipe created by someone who knows how to handle a chef’s knife than one generated by a robot.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Source New Mexico: New Mexico judge dismisses Project Jupiter data center lawsuit, but offers chance to re-file. “A New Mexico judge on Tuesday dismissed a Las Cruces resident’s lawsuit against the Doña Ana Board of County Commissioners over its handling of a vote on the controversial Project Jupiter data center — but gave him another chance to refile.”

New Jersey Globe: Nearly 400 local newspapers sue OpenAI, Microsoft over alleged copyright theft. “The massive coalition of local newspaper publishers filed a federal lawsuit today against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging the technology companies systematically copied copyrighted reporting from nearly 400 local newspapers to train and develop commercial artificial intelligence products, including ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, without permission or compensation.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

rmoff’s random ramblings: AI Slop is Killing Online Communities. “No one forces me to read this stuff. Why am I so bothered by it? Because like bindweed, it’s slowly strangling the organic life out of communities. When I open up Reddit now, it’s increasingly overrun with vibe-coded AI stuff. Whilst much of it is well-intentioned I’m sure, it does nothing to contribute to the community.”

Where’s Your Ed At: Cargo Culture. “The staunch rationalists of the Bay that have built brands convincing people they’re immune to the influence of groupthink need you to think exactly the same way that they were told to. Why would everybody agree to do something so stupid? Why would everybody act so crazily? It’s simple: the tech industry has completely run out of ideas, and all that’s left is a cargo cult that hasn’t had a human experience since 2015.” Good evening, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Social Care Today: The fight for access is now documented in full. “A new digital archive documenting the history of disability rights campaigning in the UK has been launched this week. The National Disability Movement Archive and Collection (NDMAC), brings together photographs, oral histories, protest material and personal accounts from the disability rights movement from the 1970s onwards.”

Know Where: Nearest Pint, Pub Density Map. “There has been quite a bit in the news recently about 2 pubs per day closing according to the British Beer and Pub Association. That got me thinking about which areas of the country were best served and where were the dry zones? Nearest Pint, shows pub density per 10,000 population across every parliamentary constituency in Great Britain.”

Robin Linacre: Letterpaths – free software for teaching cursive writing. “I have developed a free and open source library called letterpaths, to help my kids with their handwriting. I noticed a lack of free, high quality tools that follow the UK curriculum and I wanted something flexible that could be used both in games and for worksheet generation.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Building Pika Out Loud: The Pika Pulse (Is Back). “It’s time: The Pika Pulse is live again! The Pika Pulse is our take on helping you discover personal bloggers that are writing on Pika. It now includes a new Following feed and other experimental ideas. Let’s dive into the details…”

USEFUL STUFF

Silicon Snark: Social Search Cannon Makes Reddit and X Research Less Like Tab Punishment. “The product is Social Search Cannon, a free browser-based search launcher for Reddit and X. Type one question, choose a niche pack, edit the subreddit list if needed, and fire. The tool opens a spread of relevant Reddit searches in separate tabs. In X mode, paste multiple questions, one per line, and it opens those X searches too. You can also copy the generated URLs instead of launching them.”+

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Spotted in my RSS feeds: the ASCII Art Tutorial. “ASCII art is a form of art that uses letters and symbols as drawing shapes, so the brain, when receiving the optic signal, can interpret them not as strings of characters, but as tabular 2D pictures, in which all of the signs form a whole. This way, letters and symbols are chosen for their individual shapes and for their aesthetic qualities, rather than by their meaning in the context of a text.”

Tubefilter: Tinder and TikTok are going on a double date to give us more ‘Love Island’-inspired reality content. “Would you go on a double date alongside your bestie if you knew that everyone on the internet would be able to watch the experience? If, despite that caveat, you still answered ‘yes,’ then you should check out Tinder‘s casting call for the upcoming season of Double Date Island, which will launch exclusively on TikTok.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CBC: Canadian peacekeepers’ cemetery in Gaza completely destroyed, satellite imagery shows. “Twenty-two Canadians are buried at the Gaza War Cemetery in the Tuffah district of Gaza City, all of whom lost their lives during the UN’s first major peacekeeping operation that began following the Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Aerial images reviewed by CBC’s visual investigations team show that the IDF has progressively destroyed headstones, dug berms with heavy earthmoving equipment, parked tanks and other armoured vehicles around the site and triggered explosions that saw a section of the Canadian peacekeeper plot blown into the air.”

Associated Press: Americans are inundated with suspected scams. New polling shows why few victims report them. “Most Americans are inundated with scam attempts on a daily basis — and about 3 in 10 have personally lost money or personal information to scams, according to a new AP-NORC survey.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Retraction Watch: Major citation index put surgery journals on hold following Retraction Watch investigation. “The move came just a week after our investigation, published March 12, which found mandatory citation of reporting guidelines in the International Journal of Surgery (IJS) had inflated the impact factor of the open-access title, making it more attractive to authors and readers. The hold does not appear to be mentioned on the journal websites and we were not aware of it until now.” Good afternoon, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Tech.eu: Introducing the Tech.eu Funding Explorer, free and open to everyone. “Today I am happy to share the Tech.eu Funding Explorer with you. We have taken Tech.eu’s database, built up over years, and given it an interface you can actually explore. It holds 51,352 funding rounds, 38,147 companies, 30,176 investors and 8,743 exits, along with around €692 billion in disclosed funding and a lot of finer detail underneath.” Ooo, it’s got an API too!

Museum of London Archaeology: Coasts in Mind Community Archive opens digital doors to public contributions. “Since our Coasts in Mind (CiM) mapping platform launched in autumn 2025, community groups and event participants from Poole Harbour, Swale, Sefton and North Devon have been adding records from their own collections and local archives. Now our Coasts in Mind team are asking members of the public to join in and share their memories of England’s vanishing coastlines…. The team are interested in recording all aspects of change, and value insights from people from all walks of life. From fishing and marine biodiversity, to water sports, sea defences, community heritage traditions, boats, coastal archaeology, and land erosion.”

Gizmodo: Cate Blanchett Launches ‘Human Consent Registry’ to Help Protect Your Likeness From AI Industry Scraping. “On Tuesday, multi-time Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett announced the release of the Human Consent Registry, a new tool designed to help people control their likeness and how it can be used by AI systems.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: Disney agreed to $50M settlement over claims it made live-TV streaming expensive. “The Walt Disney Company has agreed to pay $50 million to subscribers of YouTube TV and DirecTV’s live TV streaming services to settle a lawsuit that claimed that Disney forced these services to raise their prices.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Juneau Empire: Alaska Native communites condemn social media trend ‘mocking’ totem poles. “The Alaska Native Heritage Center, Ketchikan Indian Community, and Tlingit and Haida tribes have released a joint statement condemning alleged acts of disrespect towards Alaska Native totem poles and cultural symbols. Recent videos circulating on social media, particularly TikTok, depict tourists dancing and posing in front of totem poles in Southeast Alaska.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Deadline: YouTube & TikTok Compelled To Boost BBC & ITV Content Under UK Government Plans. “British ministers are pressing ahead with a new Media Bill that will require YouTube to make it easy to discover content from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Paramount-owned 5. In practical terms, that could mean boosting official clips from shows like Question Time in user feeds and search results.”

Engadget: Meta is ‘pausing’ employee tracking program after it let the whole company see sensitive data. “Meta has paused use of an AI training program that tracks its own employees’ keystrokes and mouse movements. The company has suspended the Model Capability Initiative, not because of workers’ understandable displeasure around being (almost) perpetually monitored or for potentially breaking privacy laws, but because it caused an internal data leak.”

BBC: How 100 hospitals switched to pen and paper to defeat a national cyber-attack. “Medical staff had to switch to pen and paper, improvising workarounds to protect patients while IT teams scrambled and the national cyber response centre tried to find out how the hackers had got in – and how they could stop them.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Daily Nous: Kant Studies Online: No Longer Online. “What happens to the articles published in an online-only journal when that journal not only ceases to publish, but ceases to exist? That question is raised by the case of Kant Studies Online, an online only, open-access philosophy journal that published articles between 2011 and 2016, the website of which is no longer accessible. The journal was founded by Gary Banham, who died in 2013.”

The Register: Boffin claims Microsoft’s supposed quantum leap does not compute due to ‘basic Python errors’. “Prestigious journal Nature has published a peer-reviewed critique of Microsoft’s claims to have made quantum computing breakthroughs – and the scientist who wrote the paper has essentially said Redmond got it wrong.”

The Conversation: What 20 million bans reveal about the strain on Wikipedia’s volunteers. “I’m a researcher who studies social media platforms. I analyzed two decades of the site’s moderation records to understand the effect of these conditions. I found changes in behavior that appear to prioritize content quality while weakening the project’s ability to recruit and retain new volunteers.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

PetaPixel: Elephant Seal Scolds Penguins in Superb Photo Shortlisted for Wildlife Award. “The 2026 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year has unveiled its shortlist — and there are some real bangers on there. The contest takes entries from the majestic Australasian Realm, including the ANZANG bioregion consisting of Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, and New Guinea.” Good morning, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

University of Reading: See the world of Stonehenge from your sofa this solstice. “Timed to release alongside the summer solstice, the new virtual version goes well beyond a simple recreation of the gallery. Users can go inside Stonehenge itself and watch it change through time, explore Neolithic flint mines at Grimes Graves, and discover rarely seen prehistoric objects through animation, soundscapes and interactive content. The experience is free to access via the British Museum website and works on desktop computers, tablets and phones.”

Nuclear Engineering International: IAEA launches used fuel database. “The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has released the first publicly available interactive database detailing the world’s used (spent) nuclear fuel (SNF), both stored and reprocessed by country and region. The data is based on what countries themselves report.”

New-to-me: the baseball walk up song database. Over 3000 players, almost 4000 songs, and over 2500 artists. You can search for the song on YouTube or play it on Spotify. Shoutout to Thomas Saggese.

USEFUL STUFF

Evan Hahn: Make ZIP files smaller with ZIP Shrinker. “I built ZIP Shrinker, a little browser tool to shrink ZIP files. It also works with formats that are secretly ZIPs underneath, like EPUB, JAR, and many more.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

India Today: Google Maps changed UP village name, now govt work is literally lost in translation. “The village in Uttar Pradesh’s Firozabad’s district is called Akalabad Hasanpur, but Google Maps lists it as Akilabad Hanspur — a minor difference in spelling that residents say has created major confusion.”

Auto Evolution: Smugglers Create Fake Google Maps Car, Border Patrol Agents Actually Use Street View. “Smugglers carrying illegal aliens used an SUV disguised as a Google Maps Street View car in an attempt to skip the checks typically conducted by the US border patrol agents. Their idea made sense. Because it was a Google car only supposed to take photos of the surroundings, it wasn’t hiding any illegal stuff. The smugglers expected the agents to let it go through easily. It didn’t happen this time.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Euromaidan Press: Russia is manipulating global AI chatbot ecosystems with fabricated websites, leaked documents show. “Leaked internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg News reveal a large-scale Russian information operation aimed at reshaping online knowledge ecosystems, including search engines and AI chatbots, through networks of fabricated reference sites and coordinated ‘Wikipedia-style’ platforms.”

Reuters: New York’s top court says hate speech social media law likely passes muster. “New York’s top court told a ​federal appeals court on Tuesday that a state law regulating hate speech on social media does not run afoul ‌of free speech protections, as the federal court weighs a challenge brought by a blogger and a pair of content sharing platforms.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Yale Library: Library joins partners to support deep research into digitized maps in collections worldwide. “Yale Library and the IIIF Consortium (International Image Interoperability Framework) have partnered with Allmaps, an open-source ecosystem that provides tools to turn static digitized images into interactive maps. The free software allows anyone to explore, curate, and georeference the hundreds of thousands of IIIF-enabled digitized maps in the collections of libraries, archives, and museums worldwide.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

TechCrunch: Ribbie turns real-time baseball stats into arcade-like, pixel-art broadcasts. “Whether you’re a baseball fan or not, there’s a lot to love about Ribbie, a vibe-coded website that turns real-time Major League Baseball (MLB) data into 8-bit broadcasts with arcade-style, animated pixel art.” Remarkable. Good evening, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.