Common Dreams: Watchdog’s Online Tracker Shows Which Candidates Are Being Showered With AI Industry’s Dark Money. “The website, known as ‘AI Money Watch,’ is using Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings to track spending by the largest AI super PAC, Leading the Future (LTF), which has raised $125 million for into this year’s midterms after being created last August to oust critics of the industry and protect allies.”

The Conversation: Bingles, knuckleballs and ‘Beer Barrel Polka’ – hundreds of forgotten works showcase the eclectic world of baseball scholarship. “I ended up locating more than 850 dissertations and theses written by students between 1908 and 2024 from nearly 300 universities, and compiled the data, which appears in a recent issue of the Baseball Research Journal. I was impressed by how many students across so many disciplines found a way to connect their area of study to baseball.”

Southern Maryland Chronicle: Partners Introduce Dashboard for DMV Waterway Monitoring. “The Reservoir Center for Water Solutions, along with Anacostia Riverkeeper, Anacostia Watershed Society and Potomac Riverkeeper Network, has launched a public dashboard delivering real-time water quality data for the Anacostia, Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. The tool operates like a weather app for local waterways. It draws information from nine sensor sites and makes environmental data immediately accessible to paddlers, anglers, researchers and residents.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Reddit now lets you post videos in comments. “Reddit has added a new way for users to get involved in conversations as it has enabled videos in comments. Along with text, redditors could already drop images and GIFs into their comments. Adding video to the mix gives them a different way to get their point across, either by uploading a clip of them sharing their thoughts, or one they grabbed from elsewhere on the internet.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

9to5 Mac: Wikipedia just launched its daily historical facts game on iPhone: Which came first?. “Wikipedia has launched a daily historical facts game on iPhone called ‘Which came first?’ The game is included in the latest version of Wikipedia’s iOS app starting today. ‘Which came first?’, which first came to Android, includes five daily questions based on historical events.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: UK regulator warns online platforms of rising risks after Belfast attack. “Britain’s media regulator ​Ofcom on Wednesday warned online platforms ‌of possible legal consequences if their services are used to incite violence and spread hatred linked to ​recent civil unrest in Belfast, following a knife ​attack in the city.”

New Jersey Monitor: NJ high court urges officials not to use personal email for government business. “New Jersey residents can obtain logs of government-related emails from elected officials’ private accounts under the Open Public Records Act, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday. The decision closes the legal saga over a records request filed in early 2023 that, among other things, sought the email logs of current and past school board members overseeing the Ramapo-Indian Hills Regional High School.”

The Register: VRChat says somebody faked a breach notice with the Maine AG’s office. “Following notes from several readers, we followed up directly with VRChat on Thursday at 1945 GMT and they told us that the Maine Attorney General’s office apparently posted a fake breach report.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NIST: NIST Expands Its Library of ‘Chemical Fingerprints’ to Identify Unknown Substances. “Whether you’re a researcher stumped by a mystery compound or a manufacturer perplexed by an unknown substance, there’s a major resource you can rely on: a library of chemical fingerprints, known as mass spectra, that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained for decades. Now, NIST has released the latest update to that library, which industry experts, forensic scientists and others have used since 1988 to identify unknown substances in food, drugs, cosmetics, the environment and even space rocks.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Designboom: VHS tapes and cassette recordings replace yarn in a woven archive of collective memory.”In Stories Seen and Heard (2025), Polish artist Kuba Święcicki transforms discarded VHS tapes and cassette recordings into a monumental woven installation, asking what happens when obsolete technology becomes a craft material. Encountered as part of Visteria Foundation’s Craft Days exhibition, the work explores how memories survive long after the devices designed to store them have disappeared.” 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.

University College London: UCL develops first-ever National Buildings Database to accelerate UK net-zero transition. “Covering all buildings in England, Wales and Scotland, the database will allow DESNZ to carry out research into energy use and carbon emissions, inform government strategy and policy on improving energy efficiency, increasing energy security and reducing energy bills.”

New Mexico Courts: New Mexico Courts HelpLine offers assistance to navigate the civil legal system. This link goes to a PDF file. “Trained staff with the New Mexico Courts HelpLine are available six days a week by telephone to provide legal information and answer questions about state courts. The no-cost service guides people to court forms and rules for filing or responding to lawsuits, self-help videos on legal topics, and other resources for understanding court procedures in civil actions, including landlord-tenant housing disputes, consumer debt matters and family law issues such as divorce and child custody.”

The Verge: Deezer launches an AI music detector for other streaming services. “Deezer will now scan your playlists on other streaming platforms to detect AI-generated music. Deezer was the first of the big streaming services to start labeling AI-generated music.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress: 10 Brand-New WordPress.com Features From Radical Speed Month. “Radical Speed Month has wrapped! For one month, Automatticians built in the open, shipped fast, and shared their work. The result is a stack of projects that make WordPress.com more flexible, more useful, and more connected than ever. Look at the projects below, and you’ll see that WordPress.com is becoming a better place to write, build, sell, prototype, repurpose, and tinker.”

Mashable: New safety rules for under-16 Snapchat users. “Snapchat is rolling out new content-sharing protections for 13- to 15-year-old users. The platform announced Wednesday that younger teens will get a ‘friends-only’ experience for their Spotlight posts. That public feed consists of vertical videos short-form similar to Instagram Reels or TikTok.”

USEFUL STUFF

XDA Developers: I turned an old laptop into a personal app server, and it’s outperforming my expectations. “I have one spare laptop with a second-generation Intel Core i3 processor and 12GB of DDR3 memory. I upgraded it a few months before RAM became a hard-to-get commodity. The CPU is modest, but the memory makes it possible to run some of my essential self-hosted apps and save money on subscriptions. Let’s discuss the apps that work reliably on the laptop.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Decoder: Landmark German ruling declares Google’s AI Overviews are Google’s own words and makes it liable for false answers. “A German court has ruled that Google is directly liable for what its AI search overviews say. Previous case law shielding search engine operators from liability doesn’t apply to AI overviews. The Regional Court of Munich hit Google with a temporary injunction barring the company from spreading false claims about two Munich-based publishers through its AI-generated search overviews (case no. 26 O 869/26).”

The Register: Angry bug hunter with Microsoft beef drops new Windows 0-day. “They are angry at Redmond and will have their revenge. Nightmare Eclipse, the prolific bug hunter and possibly disgruntled ex-Microsoft employee, disclosed another zero-day vulnerability just hours after Redmond issued a record-breaking number of CVEs and fixes for June Patch Tuesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Vanderbilt University: University of Ottawa, Vanderbilt forge new partnership on Indigenous digital archives and mobile history research. “The University of Ottawa (uOttawa) and Vanderbilt University are working together to advance Indigenous-led knowledge preservation and research through a new international agreement. uOttawa has signed a new memorandum of understanding with Vanderbilt, marking the beginning of a strategic partnership centered on Indigenous digital archives and the Ottawa Mobile History Lab.”

The Conversation: Canada’s federal government is shelving online hate speech protections. Here’s why that’s a problem. “I have spent a decade studying online abuse. The evidence shows that Canada needs legal provisions beyond a ban on social media for minors to protect the most vulnerable Canadians from online violence.”

ABC News (Australia): High social media use linked to ‘small’ increase in depressive symptoms in teens. “About 1,200 Melbourne school students were asked to self-report their social media usage and mental health for almost a decade. The findings showed a ‘small increased risk’ in depressive symptoms and anxiety, particularly among 12-13-year-old girls.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Concord Monitor: ‘Create from my soul’: Wood carver turns dying tree into otter sculpture in Hopkinton. “The wooden sculpture, carved from a tree rooted in the ground, towered overhead, depicting several otters riding atop swells of waves. Water appeared to spout upward, carrying with it otters mid-leap, long tails curling behind them. Despite being motionless, the statue evoked liveliness.” 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.

TechSpot: PSA: Scammers are getting their fake shopping sites into ChatGPT’s results. “Someone asking ChatGPT for popular Russell & Bromley bags might receive a neat list of styles, prices, and links that appear to lead to legitimate retailers. But some of those links instead direct users to convincing clone sites, where orders are accepted, nothing is delivered, and buyers’ payment details are stolen.”

Mississippi Free Press: AI Hallucinations Prompt Mississippi Judge to Boot All Lawyers From Case for ‘Blindly Relying on Technology’. “A federal judge in Mississippi booted all lawyers from a case on Tuesday after finding that counsel on both sides had used generative AI to draft legal filings and left hallucinated sources in the legal record.”

ANTI-AI ACTIVISM

NPR: The theory taking the rich by storm: China funds data center haters. Oh no, it can’t be the energy price hikes, tainted water, and inescapable noise pollution. Gotta be China. “The theory that China is paying local activists in America to oppose data centers is catching on like wildfire among the Silicon Valley elite, despite a lack of evidence. Wealthy investors are naming names and pointing fingers, even if they can’t directly link their projects’ opponents to China.”

DATA CENTERS

Idaho Capital Sun: Data centers are driving demand for gas from Northwest utilities, reports find. “The effect is that both Oregon and Washington are at risk of missing established emission reduction targets meant to help curb the impacts of global warming, researchers found. And a growing number of utilities are using booming data center demand to justify skirting climate rules in both states that mostly ban the build-out of new gas infrastructure, citing the need for regional energy reliability.”

Arkansas Times: Google is holding a secret meeting at First United Methodist on Wednesday to answer questions about its data center. You are not invited.. “The Arkansas Times reached out to both Google and Cooley Public Strategies to ask why some residents were invited and others were not, and to ask how the organizations got resident’s contact information and did not hear back.”

Mississippi Today: Where do Amazon’s data centers in Mississippi stand? Company offers details on project status, water and energy footprint. “In the last two years, Amazon has announced four data center facilities in Mississippi, expanding its capacity for cloud computing services through AWS, or Amazon Web Services. One of the four, in Canton, is already operating, while the other three – in Ridgeland, Vicksburg and Clinton – are in the works.”

AI IN EDUCATION

NBC News: Inside Google’s AI training for teachers. “Seventy teachers and school technology directors selected for their interest in Google’s education technology products traveled to the company’s headquarters last week for a free two-day training program on how to use AI — and how to urge their colleagues to use it, too. The Google Educator Series is part of the company’s long-standing effort to put its products in schools, and this training signaled the company’s growing focus on AI.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Politico: Another top White House AI policy adviser is leaving. “Thomas Lind, the head of policy in the Office of the National Cyber Director and a senior adviser to National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, plans to leave government soon to spend more time with family, according to two people familiar with the decision, who, like others in this story, were granted anonymity to discuss White House personnel matters.”

AI LEGISLATION

Spotlight Delaware: Bills would require, incentivize Delaware data centers to bring their own power. “Newly-amended House Bill 233 would make data centers the first to be cut off from power in a blackout unless the project includes its own energy generation. It is sponsored by Rep. Frank Burns (D-Pike Creek) and Sen. Stephanie Hansen (D-Middletown).”

AI IN WORK

CNBC: JPMorgan Chase plans to deploy more powerful AI agents this year. “JPMorgan Chase plans to deploy artificial intelligence agents later this year that can work autonomously for far longer than existing versions, marking another milestone in the corporate adoption of AI, CNBC has learned exclusively.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Gizmodo: You’ll Be Able to Search Apple Home-Connected Camera Footage Using AI This Fall. “Apple Home users might be familiar with the wall of notifications that the Home app sends on activity-heavy days. The company says that will change with the updates this fall. With the change, these notifications will be lumped together as one summary, similar to the way Apple Intelligence-compatible devices currently summarize text messages and group threads.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Futurism: These Logs of ChatGPT Allegedly Driving a Suicidal Woman to Her Death Are Deeply Disturbing. “OpenAI is facing yet another lawsuit over a user’s death by suicide. The latest lawsuit, filed today in California, accuses OpenAI’s ChatGPT — specifically the chatbot’s now-defunct GPT-4o model — of encouraging the suicide of Alice Carrier, a 24-year-old web developer in Montreal, Canada.”

Associated Press: As Pennsylvania cracks down on AI, multiple chatbots continue to pose as doctors. “Chatbots on five different websites claimed to be licensed to practice medicine in Pennsylvania when prompted by Spotlight PA — the same kind of output that led the Shapiro administration to file a lawsuit last month.”

The Register: Chinese agents caught rebuilding botnets and stirring the pot on AI datacenter debate. “Multiple reports indicate that Chinese operatives continue using every tech tool at their disposal – including American AI – to amass data on and manipulate everyone from security-clearance holders to everyday US citizens. And they’re trying to influence public opinion on building datacenters for AI, albeit without success so far.”

Florida Phoenix: Law enforcement relied too heavily on AI, falsely arrested a suspect, ACLU argues. “A Fort Myers man and the ACLU of Florida are suing Jacksonville Beach for relying too heavily on an artificial intelligence program that fingered him as a suspect in a now-dropped 2023 child luring investigation. The ACLU said in a 66-page federal lawsuit that Robert Dillon had been arrested ‘for a crime he never committed in a city he’d never been to.'” 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.

Afloat: New Website Launches Alfred Mylne Yacht Design Archive. “A new website dedicated to celebrated Scottish yacht designer Alfred Mylne has been launched, bringing more than a century of yacht design history together in one online archive. The new platform… provides access to a growing collection of yacht records, original drawings and historical material linked to one of the most influential names in yacht design.”

Arlington Now: Arlington libraries digitize 3,000 newspaper photos from ’80s-’90s. “The library’s Charlie Clark Center for Local History has digitized approximately 3,000 photos from the Arlington Courier, a weekly newspaper covering the county during that period. The collection of prints and negatives was donated to the library in 2002 by Emily Schlesinger, who owned the newspaper before it was acquired by Connection Newspapers and rebranded as the Arlington Connection.”

Memoria Chilena and machine-translated from Spanish: Ramón Briseño, director of the National Library and researcher of books in the 19th century. “The new Memoria Chilena microsite presents the public servant and bibliographer who, during the 19th century, researched the production of books, newspapers, and magazines in Chile. He also developed philosophy courses and conducted chronological studies and research on Chilean historical events.”

USEFUL STUFF

Engadget: How to get your money’s worth from YouTube Premium. “Whether you’re likely to find a YouTube Premium subscription valuable depends largely on whether you’re taking full advantage of its benefits. The bundled perks range from a slightly improved video viewing experience to the aforementioned main draws. It can also depend on how much you’re paying, since it’s often possible to find discounts bundled with other goods and services.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Courthouse News Service: Tech companies ask to block California law restricting personalized feeds for minors. “A handful of tech giants fought on Wednesday to bar a California law they say violates their First Amendment rights by blocking minors from accessing personalized social media feeds.”

Search Engine Journal: US Publishers Demand Common Crawl Stop Scraping Their Content. “Digital Content Next, a trade body representing US digital publishers, has sent a cease and desist letter to the Common Crawl Foundation. The letter demands Common Crawl stop collecting publisher content and remove material already in its datasets.”

Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Returns Two Sculptures to the Kingdom of Cambodia. “The repatriation follows new information that emerged through the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s ongoing investigations into art dealer Doris Weiner, which helped determine the works should be returned to Cambodia.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PetaPixel: Florida Officials Need You to Identify Animals Captured on Trail Cameras. “The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has launched Florida Wildlife Watch, a new statewide participatory science program hosted on the Zooniverse web platform. The initiative invites the public to spend a few minutes per day or more reviewing and classifying trail camera images to help state biologists monitor animal populations and guide environmental conservation efforts.”

Retraction Watch: New system for flagging retracted papers finds scores of them in Cochrane reviews. “Cochrane has implemented a new system for checking whether any of its thousands of published reviews include retracted studies in their analyses, the organization announced today. The effort already has turned up dozens of reviews that do and will now get closer scrutiny to ensure their results and recommendations hold up.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

The Register: Blockbuster new Raspberry Pi project turns any screen into old-school VCR. “Anthony Caccese, a principal product lead for enterprise platforms at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by day and a Raspberry Pi tinkerer by night, recently published an open-source project called 240-MP on GitHub. It’s a simple concept: Text-based menus that look like an old-school VCR interface, but with modern functionality and, most importantly, the ability to play local media files and Plex libraries on an old-school CRT TV.” 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.

Society of American Archivists: SAA Launches “250 for the 250th,” a National Digital Repository Showcasing Stories from Across the Country. “As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary in 2026, the Society of American Archivists (SAA) has launched ‘250 for the 250th,’ a national digital repository and website designed to showcase one piece of American history from archives in every state, DC, and the seven territories. The goal is to receive a minimum of 250 documents, but the hope is to include many more.”

Illinois Secretary of State: Giannoulias Announces First-Ever Statewide Digital Library Resource Program. “Through their local library, or through the Illinois State Library’s website, every Illinois resident now has free access to a vast collection of trusted online resources, including e-books, journals, magazines, newspapers and research databases. Content is provided through an annual contract with EBSCO Information Services.”

UK Government: New online service opens access to centuries of coal mining history. “This digitised collection brings together detailed maps and plans from former collieries across England, Scotland and Wales, offering an extraordinary view into the history of local landscapes, mining operations, and the lives of the communities who worked within them.”

Riley Institute at Furman University: Riley Institute Launches South Carolina Education Data Tool to Expand Access to School Performance Insights. “The platform aggregates South Carolina School Report Card data from the 2021–22 through 2024–25 academic years into a single, interactive environment where users can explore trends, compare schools and districts, and identify schools that outperform expectations.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: Google zero-click searches hit 68% in early 2026: Study. “Google searches ended without a click 68.01% of the time in the U.S. during the first four months of 2026, according to new SparkToro research based on Similarweb clickstream data. That’s up from 60.45% in 2024, a 7.56-point increase in two years.”

Gizmodo: Bluesky Will Soon Have a Subreddit-Like ‘Communities’ Feature. “Bluesky will soon have a feature called communities, which will allow users to post narrowly tailored content intended to be seen by other receptive users in a given niche. Bluesky Head of Product Alex Benzer admits the idea is a little like subreddits.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Reuters: Alphabet taps Intel to make three million in-house chips, The Information reports. “Alphabet’s Google has placed an order with Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab to manufacture more than three million tensor processing units in 2028, The Information reported on Monday, ​citing people with direct knowledge of the discussions.”

StateScoop: Texas launches accessible, standardized web design system to modernize agency sites. “The Texas Department of Information Resources on Tuesday announced the launch of the Texas Design System, a new content library of accessible, standardized website components to help the state modernize its websites.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NC Newsline: NC ban on ‘addictive’ social media for children under 14 one vote away from governor’s desk. “The North Carolina Senate unanimously passed a bill Wednesday barring children under 14 from creating accounts on social media apps the state deems ‘addictive,’ opening platforms up to fines and litigation if they fail to comply.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Northeastern University: Is TikTok listening to your ‘Not Interested’ requests?. “The findings suggest that the feature doesn’t always work as advertised and users are ultimately at the mercy of the company about what shows up on their TikTok feeds, explained Piotr Sapiezynski, a Northeastern University professor in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences and one of the co-authors of the report.”

ZDNet: Wearables produce huge amounts of health data – and doctors are struggling to keep up. “While wearables are often marketed with big promises of how data can lead to a healthier, more optimized life, the reality is far more complicated for the patients and doctors who want to figure out what these insights mean and how to use them.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of Illinois Chicago: UIC-led monarch butterfly conservation effort surpasses 100 partners nationwide. “The University of Illinois Chicago has reached a major milestone in its nationwide monarch conservation effort, with more than 100 energy and transportation partners now participating in a voluntary program to protect and enhance monarch butterfly habitat.” 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.

Texas Tribune: An unprecedented data center boom means new challenges for Texas. Find out what’s planned near you.. “A Texas Tribune analysis identified at least 248 planned data center projects. Opponents fear the projects will spike Texans’ electric bills and make the grid less reliable. But industry representatives say they promise huge economic gains.”

Irish Republican Digital Archive: Announcing Irish Republican Digital Archive redesign. “The most significant change is structural. The archive now presents its sections in chronological order, running from 1798 through every era and group in the republican tradition up until 2005. The aim is straightforward: a visitor arriving without prior knowledge should be able to follow in sequence, each section giving context to the next, rather than having to navigate their own way through a collection arranged randomly.”

State of Delaware: Delaware Public Archives Kicks Off Summer Spotlighting Delaware Beach Memories in New Digital Exhibit. “The Delaware Public Archives is presenting a new digital exhibit exploring the history, memory, and transformation of Delaware’s coastal communities. Delaware Beach: Rewind brings together historic photographs, postcards, film footage, and then-and-now comparisons to examine how the state’s beach and resort destinations have changed over time.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Roundtable: Bing Gives Searchers A Way To Disable AI Copilot Answers. “Microsoft Bing announced a new way to disable the Copilot, Microsoft AI, responses from showing up in the Bing search results. There is a new browser extension available for Chrome and Edge that you can install to toggle off showing AI responses, or you can just add -ai to the end of your query.”

USEFUL STUFF

Juha-Matti Santala: A sign of a good tool is that you don’t notice it – one year with wallabag. “A year ago in June, 2025, when Mozilla shut down Pocket, I took a look at the alternatives and ended up choosing wallabag. I’ve been using it daily ever since.”

MakeUseOf: I repurposed 4 old Apple devices, and now they all do something useful in my home. “Rather than sell them for whatever eBay or Facebook Marketplace would offer — which isn’t much once the scratches and years of use are factored in — I found specific jobs for each one. Every device is still in active daily or weekly use, doing something genuinely useful. Here’s what each one does now.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Search Engine Journal: New WordPress Initiative Will Secure Plugins And Themes. “WordPress announced a new security initiative called Protect The Shire that aims to secure plugins and themes. The announcement also said a temporary 24-hour delay will be imposed before plugin and theme updates are distributed through auto-updates.”

Courthouse News Service: Yelp argues Google’s dominance in search market continues for now. “Yelp argued in a motion for partial summary judgment that it should be given in its favor based on issue preclusion from a September 2025 ruling. In that Washington, D.C., ruling from United States v. Google, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, a Barack Obama appointee, said Google must share its search index and user-interaction data with search engine competitors, which Yelp has argued is necessary to match the quality Google has accomplished via its monopoly.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Kentucky Lantern: Kentucky’s open door on government transparency is closing. “Kentucky built its Open Records Act on a simple, powerful premise: that free and open examination of public records is in the public interest. For nearly 50 years, that premise provided a basic guarantee that Kentuckians could see what their government was doing in their name. That premise is now under a growing threat — from the legislature, and increasingly from the courts.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Print Your Own Robby The Robot. “When it comes to robots, few are as iconic as Robby. [Ogrinz Labs] has wanted to build one and even examined a real one up for auction to get high-res photos of it. He also combined his designs with some other open-source designs, and it looks good. He’s released his design as a Creative Commons-licensed set of STL files that you, in theory, could print.” 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.

Notebook Check: This neat free tool uses government data to tell you if your grocery store’s “sale” is actually a good deal. “The tool has been built by an independent developer who goes by u/barneycorp on Reddit. The site covers hundreds of cities across the US and Canada. Every week, it pulls meat, fish, dairy, and egg prices from local store flyers, normalizes them to a common unit ($/lb, $/100g, $/dozen), and then compares each price against government benchmarks — Statistics Canada in Canada, the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the US.”

Universität Hamburg: First comprehensive database for Germany: Growing importance of climate lawsuits as a tool for climate protection. “University of Hamburg sociologists Lea Frerichs and Prof. Stefan Aykut, together with legal expert Mona Andres, have created Germany’s first-ever central online database for climate lawsuits, which is now freely available. Including 221 lawsuits dating back to 2006, the platform allows NGOs, the media, academic researchers and companies to systematically research legal disputes involving climate protection and environmental law.”

Infoclio.ch: New digital archive: Oral Histories of Feminist Theory. “The project «The Many Futures of Gender. Oral Histories of Feminist Theory» documents conversations with protagonists who had and have a formative influence on feminist theories. The interviews also include conversations with prominent historians, such as Joan Wallach Scott and Londa Schiebinger.”

Homegrown (India): How Malleswaram.org Is Preserving The Soul Of One Of Bengaluru’s Oldest Neighbourhoods. “A community-led digital archive is documenting the stories, architecture, ecology and memories that have shaped one of Bengaluru’s most beloved neighbourhoods.”

EVENTS

Library of Congress Blogs: 2026 Designing Storage Architectures for Digital Collections. “This year’s event attracted 172 of the world’s leading experts in data storage infrastructure, best practices, innovation, and future projections of the digital preservation ecosystem. The Library’s DSA organizers arranged a robust agenda to foster open discussion of current challenges in digital storage and proactive solutions to mitigate predicted future risks.” Conference materials are available.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: Google Fi gets 5 travel upgrades, including upgraded Pixel network switching. “Ahead of the summer travel season, Google Fi Wireless is boosting its international capabilities across five areas.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

California State Library: State Library Awards $750,000 to Preserve and Make Accessible California’s LGBTQ+ History. “The California State Library announces the award of $750,000 in grant funds to ensure the physical and digital preservation and increased accessibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer archives relating to LGBTQ+ history in California.”

Associated Press: A digital reckoning against smartphones in schools has spread to Sweden. “Long championed as a leader in adopting digital technology, Sweden is set to ban mobile phones in schools beginning in the fall for the next academic year as part of a broad, international reversal on the use of screens in classrooms.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Krebs on Security: A Record-Breaking Patch Tuesday for June 2026. “Microsoft today released software updates to plug nearly 200 security holes across its Windows operating systems and supported software, a record number of fixes for the company’s monthly Patch Tuesday cycle.”

Matador Network: Your Bali Instagram Post Could Get You Banned From the Island for Life. “Bali recently launched an immigration task force targeting foreign influencers and content creators who produce commercial work on tourist visas. Penalties range from fines and deportation to arrests and even lifetime bans from the island.”

MediaPost: Ohio Appeals Court Sides With Google In Battle Over Search Results. “In an opinion issued Monday, the 5th Appellate District of Delaware County ruled that Google is not a ‘common carrier’ — meaning comparable to a telecom or electric company. If Google were a common carrier, its search results potentially could be subject to regulation.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee: UWM professors are reimagining digital libraries for the visually impaired. “[Iris] Xie, a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Information Studies, is creating research-driven design guidelines for digital libraries to better serve the visually impaired. The effort, in collaboration with co-principal investigator Wonchan Choi, builds naturally on Xie’s nearly 30 years of expertise in human-computer interaction and information retrieval.” 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.

TechCrunch: Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents. “In a bid to cut construction time in half, Meta has built six tents — or “rapid deployment structures” as the company describes them — outside of New Albany, Ohio, according to Michael Thomas, founder of Cleanview, which tracks data center deployments.”

Gizmodo: A Farmer Donated Land for a Public Park and the City Sold It to a Data Center Developer for $10 Million. “When news of the sale broke, locals were initially concerned for the usual reasons one might have when learning that a 135,000-square-foot facility—the sort now known to wreak havoc on small towns—is being built next door without their approval or input. But thanks to the sharp memory of Pamela Griffin, a City of Taylor resident who grew up playing in a lot next to the contested land, data center opponents were clued in to the deed’s park clause and the legal leverage that might afford their fight.”

The Guardian: Majority of US’s new AI datacenters to be built on drought-hit land. “A record-shattering drought has racked much of the US. But the artificial intelligence industry is pushing ahead regardless, with the majority of planned datacenters set to be built in drought-ridden locations, a Guardian analysis has found.”

AI IN EDUCATION

New York Times: Colleges Are Building A.I. Degrees, Hoping Students Will Come. This link goes to a gift article. “Only five schools offered A.I. majors in 2021. Now, universities are setting up programs so quickly that researchers are struggling to track them. At least 74 A.I. majors and 89 minors are available on American campuses, according to Northeastern University’s Center for Inclusive Computing.”

AI FINANCE

Reuters: SoftBank’s attempt to get $6 billion OpenAI margin loan stalls, Bloomberg News reports . “SoftBank Group’s talks with ​potential creditors to ‌raise at least $6 billion from a ​margin loan ​backed by its OpenAI ⁠stake have ​stalled, Bloomberg News ​reported on Wednesday, citing sources.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

NOTUS: Trump’s Plan to Meet With AI Companies Was News to AI Companies. “President Donald Trump said he had a meeting with major artificial intelligence companies on the books to discuss the government acquiring shares in their firms. That was news to the companies, three people familiar with the matter said.”

Florida State University: FSU alumni launch AI startup to make legislation more accessible. “Florida State University alumni are using artificial intelligence to help make legislation easier to understand. Their startup, Delilah, is an AI-powered platform that summarizes complex bills and allows users to ask questions about proposed laws through a conversational interface. Founded by recent FSU graduates with experience in government and public policy, the company has gained national attention, reaching the Top 100 on the App Store.”

AI LEGISLATION

Spectrum News 1: N.Y. lawmakers pass bill requiring disclaimers on AI use in published news content. “The bill, which still needs the governor’s signature to become law, requires clear disclaimers when artificial intelligence is used in any published news content. According to [State Senator Pat] Fahy, it’s a landmark bill – the first one like it in the country.”

Associated Press: Ads in New York must now label AI-generated ‘synthetic performers’. “Any advertisements in New York that feature artificial intelligence-generated people in place of actors will now be violating state law if they don’t clearly label that they have used a ‘synthetic performer.’ The law, signed in December by Gov. Kathy Hochul, went into effect Tuesday.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Engadget: Google cuts the price of its AI Plus plan and doubles the storage . “The Google AI Plus plan will now cost $5 per month, according to a post from Vikas Kansal, the company’s Product Lead focused on Gemini AI subscriptions, down from its original $8 per month price. It now also comes with double the storage, 400GB instead of 200GB.”

The Verge: AI ‘content creators’ are getting harder to spot. “Early AI influencers stood out because there were so few of them. Now they are part of a much larger mess of AI-generated content inundating social media: low-quality drivel lazily copied from chatbots, slop images and videos, and that catchy Lord of the Rings disco song that took over my TikTok for a month.”

Wall Street Journal: Meta launches ‘Workforce Academy’ to train workers to build data centers. This is an MSN-syndicated version of the article and has no paywall. “The five-week training program, in partnership with CBRE and the Associated Builders and Contractors, is free of charge and guarantees graduates a job at a Meta data-center construction site, the company said.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: School shooting survivor sues AI gun detection firm after system failed to spot weapon. “The injured teenage survivor of a January 2025 shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee high school recently sued the manufacturer of an ‘AI gun detection’ system that failed to detect the handgun that left two dead, including the shooter.”

Mashable: Reddit ads pose as news stories to promote AI investment scams. “Scammers are running sponsored ads on Reddit that impersonate major news outlets, including the BBC, the Financial Times, and The Guardian, to push fraudulent AI-powered investment schemes, according to new research from cybersecurity firm Bitdefender Labs.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

This is Reno: Editorial: False equivalencies and other data center flexes. “Council member Meghan Ebert was correct to again raise this issue that Council member Devon Reese appears to have had a change of heart on data centers because he is now running for mayor. Mayor Hillary Schieve, however, poo-pooh’ed Ebert’s comments, as she often does, but Ebert is correct. Reese’s new excuses for opposing data facilities don’t pass the smell test, which fails to surprise us.” 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.

Government of Yukon: Yukon Archives launches new database during International Archives Week. “In conjunction with International Archives Week, Yukon Archives is announcing the launch of its new online database, which makes it easier than ever for the public to search, find and learn from historical records. For the first time, descriptive information for close to 400,000 records is available in one place. This includes photographs, maps, sound recordings, films and many other materials.”

Polk County Florida Clerk of Court: Polk County Clerk & Comptroller Preserves Historic Cattle Brand Book for Future Generations. “Polk County Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller Stacy M. Butterfield, CPA, is preserving a unique piece of Polk County’s agricultural history through the restoration, preservation, and digitization of the historic Cattle Brand Books. The collection includes cattle brand records maintained by the Clerk’s office from the 1860s through the 1940s, when ranchers used brands to identify livestock across the region.”

EVENTS

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

EL PAÍS: Frances Haugen: ‘We are worse off today than when I leaked the Facebook documents’. “Haugen now lives in Puerto Rico (she understands Spanish but doesn’t speak it). Her years at Google, Pinterest, and Facebook are behind her: she has founded an NGO, Beyond the Screen, aimed at making social media more transparent. She spoke exclusively to EL PAÍS in Barcelona after taking part as a keynote speaker at the first International Meeting on Digital Rights.”

MakeUseOf: After years of forcing Bing into Windows 11, Microsoft is finally backing down . “For years, Microsoft has been forcing Bing into Windows 11’s local search functionality, making it nearly impossible to search for the apps and files you already have on your PC with trudging through lists of other nonsense. However, new reports suggest the company is actually backing down, and that could make Search on Windows 11 actually usable again.”

USEFUL STUFF

PetaPixel: New Chrome Extension Brings Batch Editing to Google Photos. “According to creator Yair Levin, the idea for Batch for Google Photos came from a familiar frustration after returning from a family trip with hundreds of smartphone photos that needed the same adjustments before being shared with relatives.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CBC: Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism. “Nieta Aqila is among 14 overseas accounts CBC identified in four popular Alberta independence Facebook groups. The accounts have posted politically divisive content about Alberta separatism, Western annexation and other hot-button Canadian topics within the past two months.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Norks blast 250+ fake job offers to developers over 6 weeks to try and snarf creds and crypto. “A previously unseen phishing crew, suspected to have DPRK ties, sent more than 250 emails to people working in almost 100 organizations, mostly based in the US, over six weeks in April and May. According to security sleuths, it is yet another digital-heist attempt designed to steal cryptocurrency wallets and developers’ credentials.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Daily Bruin: Progress toward full repatriation of Indigenous items differs across UC. “Progress toward full repatriation of Native American cultural items, as required by state law, varies greatly across the UC system. UCLA has repatriated 58,482 items – about 92% of the 63,897 in its possession – as of February 2026, according to the UC’s website. But some other UC campuses – including UC Berkeley, which has returned less than 25% of the items in its collection – lag behind in these efforts.”

Rare Disease Advisor: Researchers Launch Open-Access Biomarker Database to Accelerate DMD Research. “MDBiomarkers, a searchable online database consolidating biomarker findings from multiple serum and tissue datasets in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), is now available, the creators announced in a report published in the Journal of Neuromuscular Diseases.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

NewScientist: Wildlife thrives in solar farm built on restored peatland . “A solar farm on a rewetted peatland is home to more types of bird than drained agricultural fields nearby, suggesting that land used for renewable energy can make money for landowners, lock away carbon and boost biodiversity at the same time.”

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.

This launched in January when I was in the middle of moving and mourning my Granny so I missed it. California State Library: California State Library Announces Release of Newly Digitized Prison Press Collection Spanning 1915-1991. “Featuring 21 distinct periodicals created by incarcerated writers, editors, and artists, this California Prison Press collection offers an unparalleled window into daily life, creative expression, and evolving perspectives of people living in the state’s penal system across much of the 20th century.”

Calishat: New dataset of GLAM (Galleries / Libraries / Archives / Museums) RSS feeds available on GitHub. “RSS feeds aren’t dead! And to prove it I’ve started working on a new dataset of GLAM (Galleries / Libraries / Archives / Museums)-related RSS feeds. I’ve uploaded the initial version — 399 GLAM-related feeds, all human-verified, most updated this year (a couple dozen updated in 2025, nothing earlier than that) — to GitHub ( https://github.com/ResearchBuzz/GLAM-RSS-feeds ).”

Ball State University: Ball State IDIA Lab Launches Mesa Verde Virtual Companion App for Apple and Android Devices. “Ball State University’s Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts (IDIA Lab) has launched the Mesa Verde Virtual Companion, a new augmented reality mobile app designed to deepen public engagement with Mesa Verde National Park through immersive, interactive digital experiences.”

EVENTS

British Library Blog: Open Repositories 2026: looking back at OR2025. “The Open Repositories conference returns this year as a free online event from 8–11 June 2026. The conference brings together repository managers, developers, librarians, researchers, and open scholarship practitioners from around the world to learn about formative techniques and technologies while connecting with people who are solving related issues at their institutions.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

SSRN Blog: SSRN’s Ongoing Commitment to Legal Scholarship . “We are aware that Professor Bainbridge raises understandable concerns about changes at SSRN, particularly given how central the platform is to legal scholarship. For many of us, SSRN is not just a repository; it is the backbone of early dissemination, discovery, and intellectual exchange in the legal academy.”

AppleInsider: App Store overhaul gives developers new ways to sell subscriptions. “Apple is overhauling the App Store with new subscription tools, personalized recommendations, and marketing features that give developers more ways to attract customers and grow their businesses.”

Engadget: Meta quietly removes face-recognition code from its smart glasses app . “Wired uncovered the dormant tool on June 4. It contained algorithms which would have converted photos of faces into biometric identifiers stored on-device and cross referenced with each new facial scan. On June 5, an update was released which removed it entirely.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Gizmodo: Kalshi Asks Influencers to Take Down Sponsored Conspiracy Posts About the LA Election. “According to reporting from Semafor, the prediction market Kalshi sought to clean up apparent messes on Friday after some of its influencer relationships essentially made it look like it was paying to distribute conspiracy content online. Posts have now been removed at Kalshi’s request. However, similar sponsored posts associated with Kalshi’s competitor, Polymarket, do not appear to be disappearing.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: Microsoft’s open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers. “Microsoft has cut off access to dozens of its open source projects hosted on GitHub as it investigates how hackers apparently breached the projects and injected password-stealing malware into the code.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Politico: A judge said the Trump administration can’t dismantle a weather research center. The damage may already be done.. “The Trump administration cannot dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a federal judge ruled this week. But the damage may already be done. Staff are fleeing, equipment has been offered for sale and multiple critical projects are paused, possibly never to be started again.”

Disciples of Christ Historical Society: Digitization 101: I’ve Got 99 Problems, But Will Digitization Solve Any of Them?. “This is the second article in our ‘Digitization 101’ series, which aims to answer questions the archival team regularly receives about digitizing and providing online access to historical records. This month, we confront digitization’s reputation as the panacea for all historical records challenges.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Tom’s Hardware: Developer gets Half-Life running at 30 FPS on a Nokia N95 — proves 2007 phones can just about match 1998 PCs. “Argentine developer Dante Leoncini has gotten the original Half-Life running at 30 FPS on a Nokia N95, the Symbian slider phone that launched in 2007, and has added mouse and keyboard support, he said in a post on X this week.” 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.