Wisconsin Watch: Wisconsin’s prison population is heading toward a record high. Track the trend here.. “A new data tool from Wisconsin Watch allows anyone to track the population of the system and of each facility for free. The dashboard, which shows weekly population and capacity counts going back to 2006, updates automatically when prison officials post the latest figures.”

EVENTS

Tubefilter: YouTube looks to upstage its competitors with “Music Nights” headlined by A-list artists. “A blog post describes YouTube Music Nights as ‘a series of exclusive live concerts designed for dedicated fans.’ By linking up with artists for tour stops, release parties, and one-off shows, YouTube is highlighting exciting venues and providing free coverage of in-demand acts.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Brent Simmons: NetNewsWire Status. “My hope for retirement was to get a lot of work done on NetNewsWire. A year ago it was in sore need of modernization, tech debt pay-off, and bug fixes. People were asking for features, but the foundation needed a ton of work before I could get on to adding new rooms. Here are some highlights of what we’ve done with 2,188 commits in the past year.”

USEFUL STUFF

Engadget: Open-source Discord alternatives: What Stoat and Element actually fix . ” There’s a growing number of Discord alternatives out there, but open-source chat platforms where you have complete control over your data and don’t have to worry about features being locked behind a subscription will likely be your best option.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Associated Press: The U.S. will bury a time capsule for its 250th birthday. Here’s what’s inside. “The stainless steel capsule is shaped like a cylinder, not the typical box, because square edges tend to crack and break. It will be covered with a secondary cylinder that will trap air and push out any approaching water, and the capsule itself is rimmed with a soft metal that compresses under pressure…. The items inside were at 35% relative humidity. That’s moist enough to ensure they won’t dry out and disintegrate, but dry enough that they won’t create moisture problems.”

The Register: Fire burns Google Cloud India’s network, which remains slow a week later. “Google Cloud customers with resources in India have had to deal with elevated latency for several days – and there’s no end in sight. Per a Google status page, on June 9th ‘A fire at a third-party data center facility required an emergency power shutdown of networking equipment, isolating a non-compute local Point of Presence (POP) in Delhi and reducing available network capacity in the metro area.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

KOMO: Iran-linked hackers claim breach of CA water systems in Bakersfield, Visalia, Chico. “A reported cyber breach involving several California water systems has raised concerns about the security of critical infrastructure, though the water provider says there are no signs service has been disrupted. The breach happened last Thursday and involved systems connected to Bakersfield, Visalia and Chico.”

CBS News: Deadly Russian strikes leave landmark Ukraine cathedral in flames. “The violence killed five people and wounded 34 in the capital as fire broke out on the grounds of the UNESCO world heritage site Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, setting the roof of its Dormition Cathedral on fire…. Founded in the 11th century, the site holds huge significance for Orthodox believers in both Ukraine and Russia.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Florida State University: Rare Emmett Till trial records donated to FSU Libraries. “Florida State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives has acquired a collection of rare legal documents donated by independent Emmett Till researchers Kevin Murphy and Colleen FitzPatrick.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Spectrum News 1: Gov. Beshear posthu­mously pardons 43 who helped enslaved people flee. “Gov. Andy Beshear, D-Ky., on Monday posthumously pardoned 43 people who were imprisoned for helping enslaved people escape to freedom, just days before Juneteenth. Beshear also proclaimed Friday, June 19, 2026, as Juneteenth National Freedom Day in Kentucky.” 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.

Nature: ‘Every box has been opened’: London botanic gardens digitizes 7 million specimens. “The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in southwest London announced on 16 June that it has completed the digitization of 7.4 million specimens. The project, which used four high-resolution cameras operated by 100 staff and 42 volunteers, cost £15 million (US$20 million) and was funded by the UK government.”

Ian Visits: Gandhi autograph and suffragette protests among treasures in new London archive. “London has gained a free history archive after more than 200 years of records, photographs, films and artefacts were uncovered and catalogued during the restoration of Union Chapel’s Sunday School building.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: xAI’s lawsuit accusing OpenAI of stealing trade secrets has been thrown out . “As first reported by Reuters, US District Judge Rita F. Lin ruled in favor of OpenAI by dismissing the lawsuit with prejudice, resulting in a final judgement on the case that doesn’t allow xAI to refile the lawsuit.”

Chicago Sun-Times: Mayor Johnson’s social media tax generating windfall of revenue amid legal challenge. “The social media tax was expected to raise $31 million during all of 2026. But the city collected $16.4 million during the first four months alone from the 10 companies to which the levy has applied. At that rate, the first-year take would be $49.2 million, 58.7% higher than anticipated.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mercury News: Google CEO brought optimism to Stanford commencement. Some graduates walked out. “As Google CEO Sundar Pichai took the stage Sunday at Stanford’s commencement, scores of graduates stood, booed and walked out, turning a celebration for nearly 6,000 degree recipients into a protest over the tech giant’s work with Israel.”

SF Standard: The 5% freakout: Inside tech elites’ madcap war against the California billionaire tax. “The proposal was emblematic of the strategies the billionaire class has tested over the last eight months: unorthodox, expensive, and increasingly desperate. Since the union’s Billionaire Tax Act campaign was launched last fall, the tech elites have organized in secret, scheduling and aborting Zoom meetings, starting and deleting and uninviting members from group chats, and casually throwing tens of millions of dollars at whatever idea seems poised to defeat the initiative and scare the union into submission.”

Reuters: India curbs Telegram use over medical exam fraud concerns. “India has blocked the Telegram messaging app until June 22, ‌saying the platform has been used to ‘defraud candidates’ taking a national medical entrance examination, the Ministry of Education said in a statement on Tuesday.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NBC News: How old are you really? Inside Roblox’s new campaign to verify user ages. “One morning in late May, an 11-year-old armed with a fake mustache had a mission: fool Roblox’s age-estimation tool into thinking he was older. But moments after Cole Moretti looked into the camera, the system flagged him as a child between the ages of 9 and 12. Moretti was one of several children brought in by NBC News to try the technology at Roblox’s headquarters.”

The Guardian: Florida lawsuit accuses TikTok of violating state’s child social media ban. “Florida became the latest state to sue TikTok on Monday after the attorney general accused the company of violating a state law that limits social media access for teenagers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Duke Reporter’s Lab: 2026 census: Fact-checking losses continue amid funding pressure, but most projects persist. “For the first time in the Duke Reporters’ Lab count, three-times as many fact-checkers closed their doors as opened them last year. Our tally shows 10 new fact-checking projects in 2025, compared with more than 30 that stopped posting.”

Philadelphia Inquirer: Elon Musk egged on a race riot, then became a trillionaire. What are we even doing?. “The nonprofit tech watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate found that Musk’s posts about Belfast and racial politics in the U.K. were viewed an astonishing 64 million times. The center noted that the amplified posts from Robinson — banned from the pre-Musk Twitter for hate speech, but restored in 2023 — drew responses calling for lynching and other forms of violence.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

SF Gate: Meet Merlin the duck, a Mexico City streetside regular turned World Cup mascot. “Images of Merlin parading through Mexico City, wearing a Mexican national team jersey — and socks — as thousands of fans celebrated, quickly went viral, racking up millions of views across social media. Overnight, and as if by the magic of the famous wizard who inspired his name, Merlin had captivated the internet.” 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.

Calishat: Super Edu Search, Powered By Diffbot. “Super Edu Search 1.0 aggregated sets of domains and presented them as Google search URLs because I can’t afford Google’s search API and that was a free workaround. But Diffbot’s API is free and so I can integrate its search results into the tool…. Since this result integration seemed like it would be useful to researchers, I added the ability to download search results as CSV or PDF.”

Hoover Institution: Hoover And Prague Partner To Digitize World’s Largest Russian Diaspora Press Collection. “As part of the Library & Archives’ Russia Abroad Digital Collection, the Czech Republic’s Slavonic Library will contribute nearly 1,700 publications chronicling émigré life across dozens of countries following the 1917 Russian Revolution. For the first time, these print records are being united digitally on Hoover’s open-access platform, transforming access for scholars studying displacement, political movements, and cultural preservation in the twentieth century.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: US judge orders halt to Trump administration’s ‘censorship’ of park exhibits. “A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to reinstall ‌exhibits and signs on topics like slavery and climate change that it had removed from parks and monuments nationwide because they ‘do not align with its preferred narrative.'”

State of Minnesota: Minnesota’s New Labor Exchange Going Live Today. “The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) today announced the roll-out of CareerForce.MN.gov as the state’s official online labor exchange, replacing MinnesotaWorks.net. The new site is mobile-friendly, has more job search resources and is easier to access.”

USEFUL STUFF

Jeff Johnson: Reddit RSS feeds recent rate limiting and solution. “Overall, I subscribe to around 25 Reddit RSS feeds. This worked fairly well until yesterday afternoon. Suddenly, all of my Reddit RSS feeds started returning HTTP 429 Too Many Requests. The issue continued into this morning, and I found confirmation in a couple of Reddit posts.”

How-To Geek: I ditched Google Photos for these 3 open-source apps—and I’m never going back. “If like me, you’ve been looking for an alternative to Google’s cloud-first and AI-first Photos app, this list should end your search. These are free and open-source apps without any ads or intrusive AI or cloud features.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TechSpot: Android engineer leaves Google amid concerns over defense partnerships. “René Mayrhofer, a principal software engineer for Android Security and self-described pacifist and privacy advocate, has resigned from Google. The engineer had worked at Mountain View since 2017 but said he had become increasingly dissatisfied with what he sees as the company’s departure from its previously stated – and repeatedly reaffirmed – moral principles.”

CBC: Breaking down the Bricks & Minifigs Lego scandal involving YouTube’s ‘Reckless Ben’. “You don’t often hear the words ‘Lego’ and ‘scandal’ in the same sentence, but here we are. And this deep into 2026, we’ve learned not to question why everyone on YouTube seems to be talking about a ‘Lego scandal’ involving ‘Reckless Ben,’ arrests and lawsuits, the closure of the store at the centre of it all, what the company describes as ‘manufactured, viral hysteria’ and a GoFundMe that’s raised $670,000 for a family in Oregon.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: The FBI built its own replica small town to simulate real-world cyberattacks.”The Federal Bureau of Investigation is pulling back the curtain on a 22,000 square-foot replica town on its Huntsville, Alabama campus that it built to train law enforcement in simulating and investigating real-world cyberattacks.”

Associated Press: Starmer says Britain will ban under-16s from using a range of social media apps. “Starmer said the U.K. measures ‘possibly go a bit further’ than Australia’s ban, which bars under-16s from holding social media accounts and allows for multimillion-dollar fines for tech firms if they don’t remove them. The U.K. said its ban will apply to platforms including Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, but not messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

UNESCO: UNESCO Online Press Briefing: Timely guide for parents navigating the complexities of digital life. “A new guide developed by UNESCO and CLEMI to be released on 22 June, responds to mounting empirical evidence that excessive, poorly-supported social media use is associated with cognitive, emotional, physical, and social risks, especially for children and adolescents. The guide empowers and equips parents to help their children navigate digital spaces safely, critically, and autonomously with concrete advice from a range of experts.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Block Club Chicago: Joabe Barbosa Finishes Running Every City Block — With The Help Of 1,000 Chicagoans. “On Sunday, Barbosa completed his mission to run more than 4,000 miles of city streets — this time running alongside as many as 1,000 fellow runners and well-wishers. He became the first person known to have run every block in Chicago, ending his journey with a two-mile victory lap down a blocked-off Michigan Avenue, from Oak Street Beach to Buckingham Fountain, on a journey he had always insisted belonged to the city as much as himself.” 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.

Apparently this launched several months ago but I just came across it: RawWeb. From the GitHub page: “We miss the golden age of the internet when people thought, wrote, and shared on their personal websites and blogs. That’s why we’ve built this search engine to help you discover and explore content from personal websites.”

Google Blog: Step inside 50 new digital exhibitions from Africa on Google Arts & Culture. “Every piece of art and historic artifact carries a meaning that connects where we come from to where we are going. Google Arts & Culture is proud to launch 50 new stories and over 2,500 new artifacts from eight leading institutions across Africa, continuing to share Africa’s diverse history to a global audience.”

USA Today: Google has a free flight simulator you can pilot. “Google is giving you a free flight – with its new flight simulator app. The tech giant has added a free-to-play flight simulator within its Google Earth map software. What’s so special about the Google Earth Flight Simulator is that you can play with it directly in the browser, whether it’s Google Chrome or Apple’s Safari, for instance.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Wrap: MrBeast Hits 500 Million Subscribers on YouTube. “Naturally, Donaldson livestreamed the moment on his channel. Over 600,000 people watched the stream, which ran for about an hour and a half. Donaldson previously livestreamed his channel when he was on the verge of hitting 100 million subscribers. Just like when he crossed that threshold in 2022, Donaldson’s fans messed with him a bit, unsubscribing from his channel when he was close to hitting this accomplishment before resubscribing a few minutes later.”

Reuters: Sam Bankman-Fried loses bid to overturn crypto fraud conviction. “Sam Bankman-Fried on Friday lost his bid to overturn his fraud conviction ‌and 25-year prison sentence over the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange he founded. In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said prosecutors’ evidence against Bankman-Fried ‘was, conservatively stated, robust.'”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: I quit using streaming service recommendations after discovering 3 movie-finding tools. “What I’ve found is that streaming services promote new releases on the homepage along with movies similar to the last thing you watched. I love discovering new movies, hidden gems I’ve missed, and classics I’ve never watched. Instead of relying on the algorithm, I now use several movie-finding tools to help with my selections. So far, these are the three in my rotation.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

PC Gamer: Gaussian splatting could be a game changer for cultural heritage and indie projects alike. “Previously, I lost myself in this very basic FPS laying its scene inside a Gaussian splat of a real-world abandoned space. I caught up with the browser-based demo’s artist, Christoph Schindelar, for an introduction into what Gaussian Splatting is and how it works. But today, I’d like to take a deeper dive into how it’s done and what it can be used for—so I pestered Christoph Schindelar for his insight once again”

The Verge: With the World Cup looming, there’s still no clear replacement for sports Twitter. “There were a lot of problems with Twitter even when it was at its most popular, but it also introduced a new kind of live experience for many. Its real-time nature and huge audience of nerds from different communities turned live events, from a World Cup to E3, into a feed of commentary, jokes, and highlights that served as a perfect second-screen experience. It turned solitary experiences into something more communal and was something that had become so ingrained that I didn’t think about it much until it was gone.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

PetaPixel: Smart Glasses in Pennsylvania May Soon Legally Require a Visible Recording Light. “Joe Ciresi, a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and majority chair of the House Communications and Technology Committee, introduced a bill (known as House Bill 2603) that would require smart glasses manufactured, sold, and used in Pennsylvania to have a visual indicator when the device is recording audio or video.”

CNBC: Iran threatens Elon Musk’s companies in Middle East: Iranian state media. “Iran will treat all of Elon Musk’s companies in the Middle East, including SpaceX’s Starlink internet service, as military targets as it retaliates against the U.S., Iranian state media outlet Fars reported Thursday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: National Science Foundation cuts mean researchers like me are losing grants – but impacts extend far beyond academia. “In the academic world, few things signal success like receiving one of the approximately 11,000 grants the NSF gives out to researchers each year. These grants are typically worth an average of US$200,000, dispersed over several years. The foundation gives out about $8.5 billion annually in total. The National Science Foundation’s work, though, has been upended under the current Trump administration – making it harder for researchers to secure funding that is necessary to complete our work.” 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.

NEW RESOURCES

Tech EU: Small countries, big readiness: CEE AI Index 2026 highlights AI leaders in Central and Eastern Europe. “A CEE AI readiness index 2026 covering 11 Central and Eastern European countries finds that governance is increasingly shaping how well countries can develop, deploy, and scale artificial intelligence.”

TG4: Cartlann TG4 Launched: An Online Research Archive Site, a New Service Which Enables You to Step Back in Time. “TG4 wishes to improve access to the station’s digital archive. Cartlann TG4 contains a valuable and diverse collection of material, reflecting Irish history, culture, music, sport, news, current affairs, entertainment and community life through the medium of the Irish language.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NBC News: Musk’s Grok AI chatbot is still making sexual deepfakes, despite X’s promise to stop it. “Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence software, Grok, continues to generate sexualized images of people without their consent, despite his company’s pledge months ago to halt abusive deepfakes after a public backlash and government investigations.”

Tubefilter: It’s time to slide: YouTube’s DMs are officially back. “In response to user demand, YouTube has brought back a much-requested feature. Six years after discontinuing its original form of direct messages, YouTube is once again letting users slide into each other’s DMs with a new version of the classic communication format.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Dextero: ‘Coffee Time with John and Momma’ YouTuber John Davis dies aged 55 during stream. “John Davis, best known for appearing alongside his mother on the viral social media page Coffee Time with John and Momma, has died at the age of 55. Davis passed away on June 10 after emergency responders were called to his home, according to an incident report obtained by People.”

Eurogamer: RPG Maker forum users are racing to archive almost 15 years of valuable resources, as game engine maker announces impending move. “Users of the official RPG Maker forums – a vibrant community hub for the famed game engine – are rushing to save years of valuable discussion and resources following the news of its impending shut-down.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Politico: Hawkish GOP lawmaker Don Bacon says he was hacked by Russia. “Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a frequent critic of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s war in Ukraine, says his Signal messaging account was recently hacked by Russians.”

Lookout Santa Cruz: California Legislature in standoff with DMV over sharing driver license data with other states. “The California Legislature wants to stall plans to share information about California drivers — including more than 1 million immigrant license holders who lack federal authorization to live in the U.S. — with a little-known nonprofit agency made up of motor vehicle administrators across the nation.”

BBC: Make stolen phones unusable, Met Police urges tech giants. “The Metropolitan Police is calling on tech firms to make stolen phones harder to reuse and prevent criminals from profiting. The force revealed on Thursday that it had started sharing data with Apple to build a ‘global picture’ of what happens to stolen handsets, including whether they are being reconnected to a network.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Ars Technica: Racist comments targeting politicians tripled since Meta relaxed its rules. “The researchers analyzed about 8 million Facebook comments and found that abusive and racist comments targeting both Republican and Democrat lawmakers tripled in the six months after the new rules were put in place. Some categories of abusive comments documented by the researchers saw even sharper rises, with violent threats and hate speech quadrupling during the same period.”

ABC News (Australia): How Biladi and Blue Shield are helping to preserve the cultural heritage of war-torn countries. “Joanne Bajjaly lives in a city she describes as “split” by war, where some areas have been targeted by extreme bombing. The former journalist turned heritage activist lives in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, which this week faced its 100th day of war between Lebanese militant group and political party Hezbollah and Israel. She is concerned with how war can erase a country’s cultural history.”

Techdirt: Why Google’s New AI-Saturated Search Page Will Be A Disaster. “The new Google search features make finding information and carrying out actions very easy in many ways. Leaving aside the problem that this will require people to trust what is in effect a huge black box, where the internal workings cannot be examined, with all the loss of control this implies, there is another danger. People who use Google’s powerful new AI search services to offload many of their day-to-day actions may gradually lose the ability to understand the world and to act within it without that constant help.” AI is not necessary for good search. 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.

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.