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.

Asia Business Daily: Cultural Heritage Administration to Offer 800 Free 3D Assets and Traditional Pattern Data. “The Cultural Heritage Administration will make over 800 digital source assets freely available starting June 8, including 545 3D assets of national heritage and 262 traditional pattern data sets. These resources will be released through the National Heritage Digital Service website, as well as global platforms such as Fab and Unity.”

EVENTS

Lifehacker: WWDC 2026 Live Blog: Announcements About iOS 27, AI Siri, Apple Intelligence, and More. “On Monday, June 8, Apple will kick off its week-long developer conference with its famous WWDC keynote. If you’ve watched these events in the past, you already know a lot of what to expect: announcements regarding the next era of Apple’s software, including iOS 27, macOS 27, and watchOS 27, among others.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bangor Daily News: Balloon team that launched from Maine makes history. “Their success means they’ve soared into ballooning history. The three pilots are the first to complete a trans-Atlantic crossing in an open-basket balloon powered by hydrogen. But the flight is historic for Hempleman-Adams as well, who has become the first woman to cross the Atlantic in a gas balloon.”

USEFUL STUFF

New Orleans Museum of Art: “Preparing Your Photos for Hurricane Season” Guide Now Available. “Nayla Maaruf, Conservator of Photographs and Works of Art on Paper at NOMA, developed a guide for protecting important family photographs ahead of hurricane season. This guide is available now as a free PDF for you to print and download.” Quick and useful.

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Is LinkedIn Entering Its Post-Cringe Era?. This link goes to a gift article. “Now, celebrities, athletes and other content creators are leaning into their LinkedIn presence, and the usual business executives and ‘thought leaders’ more associated with it are getting more personal. One top executive at Blackstone even posts while jogging.” I posted about a new mop I really like recently.

Tubefilter: TikTok and Sundance team up for microseries writing program. “Following a partnership earlier this year that focused on TikTok’s influence in film fandom, the app and Sundance Institute this week announced they’re offering a microseries writing program. The program comes through Sundance Collab, the Institute’s digital learning and community platform.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Microsoft to tighten human rights measures after inquiry into Israel’s use of its tech. “Microsoft has said it will tighten human-rights controls when working with national security agencies after an inquiry into how the Israeli military used its cloud technology for the mass surveillance of Palestinians.”

TechSpot: Signal, DuckDuckGo, and NordVPN threaten to exit Canada if metadata surveillance law passes. “The latest version of Canada’s Bill C-22 would require digital services such as internet service providers, messaging platforms, email providers, and potentially hardware companies to retain up to one year of user metadata. In addition, tech companies would have to implement mechanisms that allow authorities to obtain ‘lawful access’ to that information for criminal investigations.”

Tom’s Hardware: Ukraine’s birds adapt to battlefield environment, weaving nests out of drone fiber-optic cables — resourceful wildlife adapts to miles of littered drone fibers. “Example photos of these optical fiber nests were shared on Twitter/X by a Ukrainian civil society leader and anti-corruption advocate, Olena Tregub. She called the carefully woven avian construction an ‘apocalyptic bird’s nest’ and credited Oleg Malchenko as the photographer.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PBS News: New proposal would give Trump officials more control over scientific research grants. “The Trump administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul on how the federal government awards billions of dollars in research grants. But researchers say it could allow the administration to limit and exert more control over critical scientific research. Craig McLean, the former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, joins William Brangham to discuss.”

Science: The architecture of the internet creates risks for democracy. “Will democracy survive the internet? Do we need to choose between Facebook’s surveillance capitalism or democracy? Layered lines of evidence can inform questions like these. When considered together, the evidence gives rise to a concerning picture, as summarized in a recent report for the European Commission that I co-led.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

PetaPixel: Artist Farms World’s Largest Living Photograph That’s Visible Only From the Sky. “The project occupies 11,000 square meters of cultivated land and is believed to be the largest photographic artwork ever made since the entire field is transformed into a living photographic image, produced through the growth of plants, photosynthesis, and chromatic variation.” 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.

Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University: Zimmerli Art Museum Launches Global Resource for Soviet Nonconformist Art. “The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University—New Brunswick is proud to announce the launch of a new website (dodge.zimmerli.rutgers.edu), dedicated to its internationally renowned Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, the largest collection of its kind in the world.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mashable: Substack gives creators control of the conversation with new Reply Rules. “Substack is giving writers expanded control over their comments sections. The paid newsletter website announced in a blog post on Wednesday that it is introducing a new system called Reply Rules. With Reply Rules, individual writers who open up comments underneath their posts can write out a quick summary of what they’d like to see from said comments.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: 3 weekend Raspberry Pi projects that actually solve real problems at home (Jun 5 – 7). “Are you ready to tackle more Raspberry Pi projects this weekend? Well, you’re in luck, because I have three more fun projects to try out, including building an offline version of Wikipedia, setting up Network UPS Tools, and building a network troubleshooting toolkit.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

BBC: The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games. “Can a company take away something you’ve already paid for? In the world of online video games, some already do. Publishers can decide to switch off a game’s servers, often leaving it effectively unplayable. Stop Killing Games, a growing consumer rights campaign started by American YouTuber Ross Scott in 2024, is challenging that practice.”

The Guardian: ‘Mogging’ is suddenly everywhere. Is that a problem?. “This word for outdoing or outshining others originated in the manosphere, but is now thoroughly mainstream. Why is it so popular – and should we be worried about slang that arises from toxic subcultures?”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: RFK Jr. seeks to peek at Americans’ medical records for clues on autism and vaccines. “U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pursuing federal government access to most Americans’ medical records, in a quest to research a link between vaccines and autism — a connection the medical establishment studied for decades and flatly rejects.”

PetaPixel: Who Took This JFK Photo? Museum and Collector Clash in Copyright Case. “The photograph in question shows a smiling President Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy in their motorcade on the day of his assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963. In the case, which was first reported by Plagiarism Today, private collector Cade Campbell filed a claim with the Copyright Claims Board (CCB), alleging that the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas was unlawfully displaying this photograph.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Ars Technica: My SSN was exposed in a breach at Columbia—a school I have no connection with. “A weird text from my dad in February sent me on a months-long quest to solve a mystery that has been troubling an odd group of victims from a Columbia University data breach last year. That group? People with absolutely no connection to the school. The text included a photo of a letter from Columbia, informing me that I was a victim of a data breach last June, one that exposed a wide range of sensitive information, including 1.8 million Social Security numbers.”

Vietnam.vn: Vietnamese intellectuals in the UK are building the first database of experts.. “For the first time, more than 200 Vietnamese experts in the UK are connected in a specialized database, creating a bridge between overseas knowledge resources and the needs of domestic science and technology development.”

Castellani Art Museum: Open Call: Help Build CAM’s Digital Art Resource Library. “As part of Hardwired: Foundational Works in Digital Art and the launch of the Nanula Digital Art Gallery, CAM is developing a Digital Art Resource Library—an expanding collection of texts that trace the history, theory, and future of digital practice. Rather than building this library from a single curatorial voice, CAM is opening the process to the wider community.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Georgia Museum of Art: UGA Students Create Tactile Replica for Museum Visitors with Low Vision. “Most museum visitors know the rule ‘look, but don’t touch,’ but where does that leave people who are blind or have low vision? As museums work toward increasing accessibility, many are exploring the incorporation of tactile images, or three-dimensional objects designed to be interpreted through touch.” 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.

Indy Week: In Durham, Protesting Rising Duke Energy Rates Through Drag. “The performers and onlookers—who traveled from around the state—were gathered at the courthouse to protest proposed rate increases by Duke Energy and the rise of high-energy-consuming data centers used by tech behemoths like those portrayed in the skit. After the villains were quelled, the crowd went inside to give testimony against the proposed rate increases at a public hearing held by the North Carolina Utilities Commission.”

Tom’s Hardware: Indiana mayor secretly recorded saying AI data center protestors only live in ‘sh***y’ houses — office issues statement of clarification over controversial comments. “Scott Ferguson (R), the mayor of Shelbyville, Indiana, was caught on camera insulting community members who were opposed to a proposed data center project near the city. The mayor’s office has been forced to issue a statement after he was secretly recorded claiming he had only seen ‘No AI data center’ signs in “sh***y,” unkempt houses.”

DATA CENTERS

Planet Detroit: Allen Park planners reject proposed data center: ‘We’re gonna celebrate with one eye open’. “The rejection is due to the need for extensive revisions to comply with the city’s zoning ordinance; missing information; a lack of adequate engineering studies on the facility’s impacts; and a sound study that failed to demonstrate noise-related nuisance will be mitigated, among other reasons, [Commissioner Madison] LaPalm said.”

Ars Technica: “We pissed off a lot of people”: Giant data center plan cut 50% amid protests. “One of the world’s biggest data center projects was designed to be nearly three times the size of Manhattan, stretching across multiple Utah sites. But intense local backlash in Box Elder County has now pushed the developer to cut the project plans in half before construction starts.”

Missouri Independent: ‘They’re already here’: Regulating data centers stalls in Missouri. “At the local level, St. Louis suburb St. Charles is one of the first cities in the country to enact a local moratorium on data center construction. In Festus, south of St. Louis, voters in the April election rejected a slate of four city council members who supported a local data center. Weeks earlier, hundreds of residents mobbed a city council meeting, and council members were escorted out by police.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

CNBC: Trump administration, OpenAI discussing possible government stake in the AI startup. “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the White House are in ongoing talks about a possible government stake in the artificial intelligence company, CNBC confirmed on Friday.”

Reuters: White House AI policy adviser Krishnan to leave position. “A top White House artificial intelligence policy adviser ‌on Saturday said he will leave his position at the end of June, marking the exit of a leading figure helping craft policies for frontier technologies. ‘This journey has been the privilege of a lifetime,’ the adviser, ​Sriram Krishnan, posted on social media platform X.”

Oklahoma Voice: Oklahoma ethics agency to consider regulating use of AI in political campaigns. “The Ethics Commission officially kickstarted their rulemaking process Friday. The agency will explore options for regulating the tool, such as defining AI, requiring disclaimers when it’s used, exemptions for parody or satire and addressing concerns about First Amendment rights or protected political speech.”

Chicago Sun-Times: Gov. JB Pritzker puts pause on data center tax breaks after legislative effort stalls. “Gov. JB Pritzker’s office will halt tax breaks that had been offered to incentivize the construction of data centers in Illinois, after state lawmakers failed to advance legislation reining in developments powering the artificial intelligence industry and driving up energy costs for residents nationwide.”

AI LEGISLATION

Spectrum News NY: N.Y. lawmakers pass bill aimed at protecting minors from AI chatbots. “On Thursday, state lawmakers passed a bill aimed at protecting minors from artificial intelligence chatbots. The legislation prohibits AI features that are considered unsafe for minors.”

AI IN WORK

Associated Press: Actors’ union approves 4-year contract with studios and streamers. “Television and movie actors on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to ratify a four-year contract with studios and streaming services, a month after their union leaders negotiated a deal they say provides protections against synthetic actors created by artificial intelligence.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

SECURITY & LEGAL

Texas Tribune: Texas county rescinds its data center moratorium after $100 million lawsuit from developer. “A rural North Texas county that appears to be the first in the state to pass a data center moratorium has rescinded the measure after being sued by a developer for $100 million in damages.”

Politico: The lawsuits that could give AI its ‘Big Tobacco’ moment. “…some key differences between AI chatbots and traditional social media platforms could be relevant to courts, particularly when it comes to speech laws. One of those differences concerns Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the 1996 regulation that shields online platforms from liability for user-posted content.”

TechSpot: Anthropic is blacklisted by the Pentagon and being used by the NSA at the same time. “It appears that the US government isn’t completely against American agencies using technology from Anthropic, a company it designated a ‘supply chain risk’ earlier this year. According to a new report, the NSA is using the AI firm’s Mythos model ‘for offensive cyber operations.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Space Daily: An AI trawled through 35 years of Hubble images and found more than 800 strange objects that had never been documented before, showing that one of astronomy’s most famous archives is still hiding discoveries in plain sight. “Two researchers at the European Space Agency have run an AI tool across nearly 100 million cropped images from the Hubble Space Telescope archive and come back with a shortlist of unusual objects, more than 800 of which had never been described in the scientific literature.”

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.