University of Southampton: AI reads centuries-old handwriting to reveal Britain’s vast historic shipping trade. “Historians have created a first-of-its-kind online interactive map, using data from hundreds of thousands of pages of centuries-old port records to chart Britain’s growth into a dominant global trading nation. The University of Southampton project used artificial intelligence to transform information from delicate handwritten ‘port books’ into an enormous database of Britain’s merchant shipping past.”

Sounder at Heart: Milestone met: WA Legends presses on. “The fact that Washington State Legends of Soccer is marking its 10th anniversary this month is something to celebrate. Most small businesses fail before their eighth trip around the sun. Adding a pandemic into the equation won’t help.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Associated Press: Ukraine’s strikes on Russian data centers disrupt key services and derail AI research. “While Yandex, Sberbank and VKontakte are coy about the damage, people and businesses across Russia have reported widespread interruptions to cloud services. Banking, e-commerce, geolocation and ride-hailing services, as well as Alisa, Yandex’s virtual assistant, and multimodal AI chatbots all have suffered lasting disruptions. The fallout even spread to Russia’s judicial system, reportedly forcing arbitration courts to cancel or postpone sessions and cutting database access.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: My USB drive carries Wikipedia and a library that doesn’t need Wi-Fi. “I’ve used flash drives for years as glorified pockets for files I’ll probably forget about. Then I loaded Kiwix onto my PC, pointed it at a 16GB stick, and the drive finally got a real job. It now holds a slice of Wikipedia, a Project Gutenberg collection, and room for more reference material that still opens when Windows insists there’s no internet connection. I already knew about plenty of clever ways to repurpose old USB drives, but carrying around an offline reference shelf has become one of my favorites.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Public Technology: Wales plans £400k deal for national online family history service. “The National Library of Wales has revealed plans to invest a six-figure sum in an online service for citizens to investigate their family history. The library – which holds charity status and operates as an arm’s-length body of the Welsh Government – has published a procurement notice alerting potential suppliers that it ‘is seeking to appoint a single service provider to deliver an online family history service’.”

9to5 Google: Some Google Home Speakers downloading massive amounts of data in the background. “In my case, a Google Home Speaker that has not been used in the past day for voice commands or media streaming consumed 17 GB of data in 24 hours. At 3 a.m. PT, it downloaded 9.99 GB. Given the timing, this could be related to failed attempts to download device firmware.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Search Engine Journal: UpdraftPlus WordPress Plugin Security Breach Enables Backdoor Attacks. “A security breach affecting UpdraftPlus, a WordPress backup plugin installed on over 3 million websites, enabled attackers to install malicious plugins and create unauthorized administrator accounts. The attack exploited compromised UpdraftCentral connection keys, allowing attackers to take control of connected WordPress websites without needing a username or password.”

Courthouse News Service: German court calls Google aerial imagery ‘spying’. “A German court on Tuesday ruled Google is breaking Germany’s strict privacy laws by showing people’s properties on its Google Earth and Google Maps services. The Frankfurt Regional Court equated Google’s satellite and aerial 3D imagery services to ‘spying’ when it displays pictures of property without getting permission.”

The Daily Aus: Smart glasses will be banned in all Victorian schools. “Victoria will ban all students across the state from using smart glasses in schools and camps. The ban, announced by the Labor Government ahead of the state’s November election, will build on its existing statewide ban on mobile phones in schools. The Coalition also supports the ban. The new rules will prohibit smart glasses in public, independent and Catholic schools from the start of the 2027 school year.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

North Carolina State University: Study Highlights Need for Policymakers to Look at Digital Policies as Part of Energy, Climate Planning. “A new study underscores the extent to which digital policies cannot be separated from energy policies. The research evaluates the relationship between information communication technologies and carbon dioxide emissions, and finds that the variables they used as proxies for digitalization were associated with increased emissions.” 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.

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EFF: EFF Launches Guide to Help Parents and Youth Protect Privacy Online. “EFF’s guide is about helping parents explore their concerns and identify the threats their children face – like trusting AI chatbots or sharing personal information with strangers – and then determine steps they and their children can take to mitigate those risks while still using the games, educational materials, and communication platforms that help them grow. The guide also compiles links to parental control setup documentation for a variety of popular devices and platforms, and advises parents on quick, easy tasks they can perform to advance their children’s online privacy.”

The Herald (Scotland): New archive launched to help preserve Scotland’s historic castles. “The archive currently includes the Robert and Nicholas Bogdan collection, with further collections being catalogued and digitised. Some material is already available online. The Scottish Castles Association hopes the archive will become a freely accessible resource for anyone interested in Scotland’s castles, bringing together photographs, drawings, research and records previously held across private and institutional collections.”

Video Game History Foundation: Video Game History Foundation Shares Never-Before-Seen Images from Golden Age of Japanese Video Game Culture . “The Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) is excited to add a brand new collection to its ever-growing Digital Library, this time peering back into the boom era of the Japanese video game industry with the aid of numerous photos from resident journalist Colin Williamson.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mastodon Blog: 5.0: A closer look. “October is here, and it’s almost time for Mastodon’s 5.0 release! We announced our plans for big changes in an early preview back in August. In this companion article, we’re hoping to shed light on some of the decisions behind this major UI overhaul.”

Press Gazette: Publishers urged to delete Facebook and Instagram accounts over T&Cs change. “Campaign group Movement for an Open Web is preparing a legal challenge via the European Commission and UK Competition and Markets Authority. Director James Rosewell said: ‘The harm is imminent and irreversible once content has been ingested into models. Timing matters.'”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Politico: Tech giants target spending on Florida’s state-level elections. “Tech firms are donating to Democrats and Republican candidates alike, buying scores of mailers and ads on top of making campaign contributions in the upcoming November midterms races. They’re also funneling tens of thousands of dollars — a meager sum compared to statewide races, but notable at the statehouse level — through a dizzying network of political committees that support Republican leaders in the state Legislature and lawmakers who had a hand in artificial intelligence legislation last session.”

ABC News (Australia): Digital archive helps Sydney’s southern Lebanese community preserve villages now in rubble. “People with southern Lebanese heritage were invited to bring photographs and videos of their ancestral villages, many of which have been damaged or destroyed by the Israeli military over the past six months. A recent analysis by The New York Times found that 48 out of the 60 villages in occupied areas of southern Lebanon had been mostly levelled, including schools, mosques and businesses.”

NBC News: Hooked on YouTube. “Schools wanted educational videos. Students got clickbait. A first-of-its-kind analysis reveals how students are drawn into a platform that keeps them scrolling during class.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

AFP: New Greece law bans social media for under-15s. “Greece’s parliament passed a law Friday banning children under 15 from social media, joining a growing number of countries imposing curbs on young people’s use of the apps.”

State of Rhode Island: Attorney General Neronha sues Meta for fraudulent advertisements. “Attorney General Peter F. Neronha today filed a lawsuit against Meta for allegedly failing to curtail advertisements for fraudulent products and financial scams on its platforms, despite representing to the public that it engages in sophisticated efforts to prevent such ads.”

TorrentFreak: Judge Orders Meta to Name Employees Who Approved Torrenting Anna’s Archive and LibGen. “Meta will have to name the people who greenlit its torrenting of pirated books. A federal magistrate judge has ordered the company to identify everyone who approved sourcing books from LibGen and Anna’s Archive. This goes beyond the employees who ran the downloads and includes whoever decided whether to seed the books to others.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Search Engine Journal: Search Share Fell To 12% For North American Publishers: Chartbeat. “Search engines accounted for 12% of all page views at North American publishers in Chartbeat’s network, based on the data found within the analytics firm’s Q3’26 Audience Report, which was released October 15th, 2026, whereas they represented 21% of page views as reported in the firm’s Q3’25 report.”

NBC News: Hooked on YouTube. “Schools wanted educational videos. Students got clickbait. A first-of-its-kind analysis reveals how students are drawn into a platform that keeps them scrolling during class.” 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.

ArtDaily: V&A launches full digital archive dating back to 2003, available to all members. “The complete archive of V&A Magazine is now digitally available to all V&A members for the first time. Archived since Spring 2003, the collection comprises over 70 issues and explores some of the most significant developments to occur within the museum over the past 20 years. Digital access is included in a V&A membership, and is also available through individual and institutional subscriptions via Exact Editions.”

State of Michigan: Archives of Michigan releases collection highlighting Michigan’s 1961-1962 Constitutional Convention. “Today, the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget (DTMB) announced that the Archives of Michigan has released a collection highlighting the preservation of Michigan’s 1961-1962 Constitutional Convention, which was made possible by a $50,000 grant through the Council on Library and Information Resources’ (CLIR) Recordings at Risk program.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress: Critical PHP Security Release. “Due to the critical severity of the issues, site owners are encouraged to immediately update their installations of PHP. Your web host may already be working to update PHP and put web application firewall (WAF) rules in place to mitigate the vulnerabilities, but you should still check for updates from your web host and, if necessary, update PHP as soon as possible.”

Associated Press: Meta tells Brazil’s electoral court it gives equal treatment to Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro. “Tech giant Meta said on Tuesday it has complied with an order of Brazil’s electoral court for it to give equal treatment in its platforms to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and opposition candidate Flávio Bolsonaro ahead of the Oct. 25 runoff for the nation’s top job.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Politico: Russia launched covert influence campaign to undermine US candidates supportive of Ukraine, lawmakers say. “The Russian government has launched a covert online influence campaign to sway public opinion and undermine both Democrats and Republicans sympathetic to Ukraine ahead of the midterms, two key Democratic lawmakers warned Wednesday.”

Engadget: These 6 retro sites let you relive the glory days of 2000s Flash games . “Adobe ended support for Flash Player on December 31, 2020. This was due to a changing landscape where standards like HTML5 reduced the need for plugins like Flash, which suffered from security vulnerabilities that couldn’t be sufficiently addressed over the years…. But that doesn’t mean content built with Flash is gone forever. You can thankfully still play Flash games in 2026 using websites that run the original programs, most of them using an open-source Flash emulator called Ruffle.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: What is PHP and how serious is the computer language flaw causing website shutdowns?. “Website owners faced millions of attempts to exploit a serious security vulnerability in their programming language, it has emerged, triggering a rush by governments and businesses to fix the problem. The newly discovered vulnerabilities in PHP, a programming language that underpins most websites, allows hackers to carry out cyber-attacks and steal data if not fixed. What were the vulnerabilities and why did they affect so many sites?”

Reuters: Norway targets ‘harmful’ social media, games with under-16 ban. “Norway’s planned social media ban for children will include provisions targeting ‘harmful platforms’, the government said on Monday, naming messaging and gaming ​services Roblox, Snapchat and TikTok among those affected.”

EdSource: Personal information for 7M California students stolen following hack. “The personal information of about 7 million California students has been stolen following a hack of the organization responsible for administering the state’s Smarter Balanced Assessments and English proficiency exams, Politico reported.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Techdirt: Accident Or Not, The No Kings Takedown Is Why You Shouldn’t Rent Your Megaphone From Zuck. “This past weekend was the latest in an ongoing series of (massive) ‘No Kings’ protests held around the country (and in some cases around the globe). The latest one was part of a ‘get out the (early) vote’ campaign to make sure people are voting in the upcoming midterm elections. And, in the middle of it, suddenly it was reported that the No Kings Instagram account was suspended for about an hour, with admin access locked out for a few more hours.” 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.

Ars Technica: Meta Muse exposes users’ personal and business secrets when they share conversations. “Muse, the new general-purpose AI agent from Meta, can expose sensitive information when users share conversations through web links, researchers reported Monday. In response to questions from Ars about the behavior, Meta said it’s suspending the sharing feature while the company reviews it and considers making changes.”

DATA CENTERS

Politico: Data center real estate is getting hard to find. “backlash to large data centers for artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules. Instead of ramping up tax incentives, 16 state legislatures have considered outright bans on their development. As the glut in projects strains U.S. electrical grids and voters from both parties increasingly sour on the bulky facilities, developers are rethinking what they really need.”

North Dakota Monitor: Data centers can’t be stopped, but good policy is needed, NDSU researcher says. “There’s no way of stopping the development of data centers and artificial intelligence, a North Dakota State University researcher said Wednesday, adding that attempts to slow development would only push it to other areas.”

AI AGENTS

Axios: Scoop: Unvetted AI agents are accessing U.S. bank accounts. “Major U.S. banks are detecting unauthorized third-party AI agents operating inside customer accounts, with some agents attempting to take actions that appear to be independent of user instructions, sources tell Axios.”

AI MODELS

TechCrunch: Canva releases its first image generation model. “Design platform Canva released its first image generation model, called Canva Craft, developed by its research team to compete with same-category models from Google, OpenAI, ByteDance, and Meta.”

AI IN WORK

The Guardian: Companies rushed in on AI. Now some are pulling back. “Employers are navigating a flood of errors and low-quality work that are sapping employee time, raising privacy and security risks and pushing up costs. Now, some businesses that started off fast and furious on AI are pumping the brakes, implementing restrictions where experimentation was once encouraged, bringing back experienced workers and upping training efforts.”

Denver Post: A Denver Chinese restaurant owner wanted a better name for a bun. So she turned to ChatGPT.. “Like [Nina] Zhang, local restaurateurs are using ChatGPT and similar chatbots to experiment with their recipes, design promotional fliers, manage inventory and handle workplace conflicts. The tool has helped them run their restaurants more efficiently at a time when many in the industry are making razor-thin margins, they said.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

KATU: KATU probes alleged ‘deepfake’ as cached images show upside-down flag behind Nafisa Fai. “KATU is investigating the controversy surrounding an alleged ‘deepfake’ video of Washington County Commissioner Nafisa Fai speaking at an event in Minnesota in front of an upside-down American flag. Fai is running against fellow Washington County Commissioner Pam Treece to become chair of the County Board of Commissioners.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Futurism: IMF Warns That AI Bubble Could Take Down the Entire World Economy. “Fears of an AI bubble have been growing for years. And now the International Monetary Fund is the latest to sound the alarm. In its Global Financial Stability Report published last week, the global financial institution warned that markets everywhere are increasingly at the mercy of precarious AI investments.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Florida lawyer referred for possible discipline over filing that judges called ‘AI slop’. “A Florida appeals court on Wednesday referred a lawyer to the Florida bar for possible professional discipline after finding her filings in a case bore hallmarks ​of generative AI output that the panel of judges called ‘AI slop.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: Customer Service Chatbots Must Be Stopped. “It’s easy to dismiss these exhausting mazes of chatbots, robocalls, irrelevant pop-ups and consent forms as the routine irritations of life lived on tiny screens. But taken together, these episodes can amount to something much larger — delayed medical care, denied insurance coverage, predatory subscription practices and scams that cost Americans an estimated $119 billion a year. Now, artificial intelligence is starting to make a bad situation worse.”

The Conversation: How governments worldwide are shaping what AI can say about politics. “I’m a researcher at a nonpartisan think tank at Vanderbilt University, where I study free speech policy. In two reports published in 2025 and 2026, my colleagues and I worked with global legal experts to examine how governments in 12 countries and regions regulate artificial intelligence. Our research shows that they often use existing rules, such as national security or anti-state propaganda laws, rather than new AI laws to control what AI models can say.”

NPR: AI is shaking up the field of mathematics. But what comes next?. “Mathematicians are struggling to figure out what to do with a flood of new results from artificial intelligence. As NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel reports, a release by the company OpenAI is shaping up to be just a massive homework assignment.” 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.

NEW RESOURCES

Scienmag: AI-built database of 378,000 English word families reveals how morphology shapes children’s reading. “A team of reading researchers has unveiled what they describe as the largest morphological database of English ever constructed, and used it to map, with unprecedented scope, the word-building patterns that children encounter as they learn to read.”

Found in my RSS feeds, apparently launched in late April: the Techno-Optimism Archive. “Techno-Optimism Archive traces the long history of hype surrounding new technologies….explore moments when the next big invention was supposed to solve the world’s problems.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

DigitalTrends: Arc browser is shutting down in December. Long live, ya trailblazer . “Arc browser is shutting down on December 22, following a long spell of maintenance-only work as the company behind it moves forward with its successor, Dia. Earlier today, The Browser Company announced that the beloved web browser will ride into the sunset in two months, but will continue development of the Dia browser.”

New York Times: When Starshield Cut Out, Ukrainian Drones Fell From the Skies. “Ukrainian accounts of Starshield’s abrupt throttling have become a flashpoint in a worsening feud between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Trump. A week after the first problems were reported, Ukrainian troops said that the situation had improved but that connectivity issues remained. The Trump administration has offered mixed messages, both denying any change to Starshield service and saying that service has been restored.”

NiemanLab: Publishers pressure Meta to nix new terms that would let the company scrape their websites. “The largest news publishing trade association in the United States is calling on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to suspend the implementation of the company’s new commercial terms of service, set to go into effect on October 30. In an open letter to Zuckerberg published Thursday, News/Media Alliance’s president and CEO Danielle Coffey wrote that Meta should ‘withdraw these terms and should hold discussions around future changes with NMA and publishers.'”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Variety: Trump Says Google CEO Rejected His Request to Rename Atlantic Ocean on Google Maps. “President Donald Trump, who has already renamed two bodies of water after America, said he would like to redub the Atlantic Ocean as well — but that the CEO of Google pushed back on the idea.”

Associated Press: A Vermont woman scrubs grime from gravestones and researches who is buried there. “[Caitlin] Abrams doesn’t solely focus on the cleaning process. She researches and then shares the details she has found of the individual lives in her videos while filming the moss and buildup being washed away. Abrams focuses on 18th and 19th century headstones in remote yet picturesque graveyards in Vermont, and her viewers are drawn to her deep dives into the past that also touch on the dark nature of death and spirits.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNBC: Meta ordered to pay $25 billion penalty in New Mexico Cambridge Analytica case. “Meta
was ordered to pay $25 billion in penalties by a New Mexico court on Wednesday as part of a data privacy case that stemmed from the company’s Cambridge Analytica scandal from nearly a decade ago.”

Reuters: California settles 23andMe data breach claims for $6 million. “California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday announced the state will receive a $6 million settlement payment in 23andMe’s bankruptcy, resolving California’s ​legal claims related to a 2023 data breach that exposed 6.9 ‌million customers’ genetic and other personal information.”

Politico: The Pentagon is quietly building an elite new tech sabotage agency. “The Pentagon has spent months quietly building an elite new tech agency to help covertly disrupt and sabotage foreign technology programs considered threats to American military superiority.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Neil Turner Photographer: Bye bye Alamy . “The best that I could hope for was 40% but my calculations told me that I would be dropping to their basic 20% level pretty soon. I’m a level-headed chap and the thought that 20% of something is better than 100% of nothing went through my head many, many times. When you factor in that more and more of my limited sales were coming through at US$0.39 each and that I was actually only going to receive 8 US cents or around 6.5 British pennies for each of them, the final straw was well within reach.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Second Wave Media: Nature beneath the power lines: Transforming utility corridors into public trails . “In Portage, partnerships with Consumers Energy have allowed land used for electricity infrastructure to become connections for bikers and pedestrians…. In July, Consumers Energy announced that it had not only surpassed its goal to ‘enhance, restore, or protect 6,500 acres of land,’ but reached that goal earlier than anticipated.” 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.

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Baltimore Fishbowl: New data dashboard tracks crashes on Maryland roads. “Maryland drivers (and nervous parents) now have a resource that tracks crashes on the roads thanks to a new statewide crash data dashboard. Launched by the Maryland Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Administration’s Highway Safety Office (MHSO), the new dashboard uses the crash information to identify trends and shape safety initiatives for the future.”

Lawrence Times: KDOT launches tool to track snowplows on Kansas highways. “An online tool will now allow travelers to track active snowplows on Kansas highways in real time, the Kansas Department of Transportation has announced…. KDOT will also have 12 trucks across the state with cameras that appear on the online map as blue truck icons. People can click those icons to see recent images from the trucks.”

Signal Cleveland: New tool lets Clevelanders search police discipline cases. “For years, Cleveland police discipline records have been public – technically. But in practice, they have been difficult to access, search or analyze. The records exist across thousands of pages of hearing notices, disciplinary decisions and arbitration records that have never been assembled into a single public resource. Signal Cleveland, working with Cleveland Documenters, spent years collecting and organizing those records into a searchable database that covers disciplinary hearings involving more than 1,000 Cleveland Division of Police employees between 2016 and mid- 2026.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Futurism: Truth Social Stock Hits All-Time Low as Userbase Craters on Trump’s Twitter Clone. “The company has weathered bad news before, hitting all-time low stock prices on multiple occasions over the past year. But those days now look balmy in comparison, with the social network’s shares sliding more than 7.5 percent on Monday alone and setting a new rock bottom of just $6.40. Zooming out doesn’t paint a prettier picture, either: over the past month, the company’s stock has fallen a stomach-churning 29 percent.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Engadget: LinkedIn is adding new tools to help people with their side hustles . “LinkedIn is adding a bunch of new features meant to help people keep up with their side hustles, vibe-coding projects and other pursuits that might not align with their day job. The company is tweaking profiles so people can highlight multiple jobs and introducing new creator-focused tools for founders.”

Mashable: What’s going on with Elizabeth Holmes’ X account?. “A lot is dissected in the nearly three-hour runtime of Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s new documentary, You Can See Everything, much of it centered on the very Fielderian topics of truth and reality. The question of whether disgraced biotech founder Elizabeth Holmes is lying threads throughout the film, and extends to her X account, which is active even as Holmes is serving her 11.25-year prison sentence.” The article has spoilers.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Courthouse News Service: Justices’ book deals disarm SCOTUS in music copyright case . “The justices’ lucrative publishing deals left the Supreme Court unable to settle a major music copyright dispute Monday. Four of the high court’s nine members sat out on an appeal from the international record label BMG Rights Management. The label is owned by the same German media company as Penguin Random House, which published books by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.”

ProPublica: Trump Appointees Asked a Federal Cybersecurity Agency to Secretly Acquire a Voting Machine — and Hack It. “The appointees wanted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to procure the machine, examine it and report back the findings so they could be given to the White House, according to two former administration officials with knowledge of the request. The proposition was shocking to CISA’s career staffers, according to one of the former officials. CISA typically worked to thwart hackers.”

Bloomberg: Australia to sue Facebook, TikTok for alleged breaches of ban: Minister. “Australia’s government is set to sue Facebook, TikTok and other major digital platforms for alleged non-compliance with a nationwide social media ban for under-16s, Communications Minister Anika Wells said in an interview.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): 1 in 5 Americans Regularly Get News on TikTok. “TikTok is primarily known for short-form video sharing, but it has also become a common place for many people to get news. A fifth of U.S. adults regularly get news on TikTok, according to a Pew Research Center survey from August. That share is unchanged from 2025 but up from just 3% in 2020.” 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.

Reuters: Russia cracks down on AI bears as real attacks spread fear. “A woman in Russia’s Far East was fined this week after an AI-generated image of a bear, created to prank a friend, went viral ​and triggered a real-life hunt, the regional courts said. Russian authorities are ‌on high alert this year due to a spate of deadly attacks in several regions, where growing bear populations and a poor crop of berries and pine nuts have increased the ​chances of encounters with humans, experts say.”

Mashable: AI did not delete Swedish reality TV series, broadcaster says. “Swedish television channel TV4 has refuted reports that an AI agent deleted an entire season of a television show mere weeks before it was scheduled to air. Instead, the problem was allegedly caused by human error.”

ANTI-AI SENTIMENT

Orlando Sentinel: ‘They utterly hate them’: Florida candidates, counties face data center debate. “Data center fervor is sweeping Central Florida, as voters pressure political leaders to keep the massive hubs of network infrastructure out of their cities and counties for fear they’ll gobble up local water resources and lead to higher electricity prices. And whether it’s in Florida’s governor race or local contests, candidates are being pinned down in forums and interviews for their positions on so-called hyper-scale data centers that polling shows voters loathe.”

DATA CENTERS

New Jersey Globe: Data centers in Jersey? Fuhgeddaboudit. “Nearly three-quarters of New Jersey adults oppose building a data center in their hometown, and a substantial majority don’t want them built anywhere in the state, according to a new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released Friday. The poll found that 72% oppose a data center in their town or city, including 54% who strongly oppose it, while only 21% support one.”

Oklahoma Watch: More Data Centers, More Coal Emissions — and an OU Researcher Watching Atlantic Storms. “Air quality alerts that popped up on Oklahomans’ phones over the weekend reflected Professor Xiao-Ming Hu’s research findings in real time. Hu is an air quality researcher at the National Weather Center at the University of Oklahoma. His work focuses on ozone pollutants from fossil fuel-burning power plants and how tropical storms in the Atlantic can push those pollutants across the state.”

AI AGENTS

Gizmodo: Four AI Agents Have Slain Minecraft’s Ender Dragon. “Today in news about stuff that AI agents have done that is relatively benign and/or at least does not involve hacking the government-funded healthcare system in my home country: beating Minecraft! And look, I’ll be honest: as someone who hasn’t allowed Minecraft into my life, I can’t say I was entirely aware that ‘beating’ it was something that one could do. Isn’t it a voxelized sandbox in which one can do cool things like building hard drives and giant temples and whatnot?”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Politico: Wanted: Tech experts to help Congress regulate AI. “Lawmakers are under pressure to pass legislation to address the threats from advanced artificial intelligence, but many have serious doubts they have the capacity to regulate the technology’s explosive growth. Few are expecting lawmakers themselves — some of whom still proudly use flip phones — to become AI experts overnight. But while even congressional Luddites acknowledge there is urgency for Capitol Hill to quickly expand its expertise in tech policy to help with legislating, regulating and conducting effective oversight, there’s no consensus yet on how to achieve it.”

Idaho Education News: Idaho politicians are using AI to write for them. “The next time you come across an op-ed by an Idaho politician, think twice about the source. It may not be human. Op-eds and other online posts from some of Idaho’s most powerful elected officials contain heavy doses of artificial intelligence, according to AI detectors, tools that distinguish between writing by humans and writing that comes from machines like ChatGPT.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Kotaku: MrBeast Joins Shark Tank, Invests Quarter Million In AI-Powered ‘Ball 2’. “James Stephen Donaldson, the algorithm ruling, product hustling, normal smile having YouTube superstar better known as MrBeast recently made his debut on Shark Tank. During his first episode on the show where celebrity investors put ‘idea people’ through a humiliation ritual, Donaldson cut from the pack to back an AI-powered ball. It rolls. You can throw it. It’s, y’know, got AI in there. Donaldson opted to invest a quarter million into the product.”

Associated Press: Consumer apprehension grows as US retailers adopt AI-assisted pricing tools. “Digital price tags are rapidly replacing paper ones in grocery aisles. Artificial intelligence tools help businesses decide what to charge by predicting how customers might respond. Terms like ‘dynamic pricing’ and ‘surveillance pricing’ are stirring anxiety on social media, where users wonder if different people are getting different prices for the same product.”

KQED: Too Many Bots in the Kitchen? Williams Sonoma Bans AI Shoppers. “San Francisco-based Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn sent emails to customers this week, updating terms of service to bar customer AI agents from shopping on their websites without the company’s written permission.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Homeland Security bans DeepSeek use in federal civilian agencies . “The Department of Homeland Security has issued a sweeping restriction to remove DeepSeek use across all federal civilian agencies and their IT systems. In a notice published with the Federal Register, DHS characterized the risks of DeepSeek use as potentially resulting in the “transfer of sensitive data” of US government employees and vendors to the Chinese government.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): The Gender Gap in AI. “Men report using chatbots more regularly than women and are more likely to turn to them for a variety of things, including work. Women, on the other hand, are more skeptical about AI, including how it will impact their own lives.”

New Jersey Monitor: NJ picks Rutgers to lead social media research center. “Gov. Mikie Sherrill said Monday that Rutgers was selected through a competitive grant process that will provide the state university $500,000 to assess the impact of social media on New Jersey teens, identify specific measures that can be used to mitigate the damage it causes, and promote healthy and responsible use of social media apps.”

Mashable: A new mission to find Amelia Earhart’s plane turns to AI for help. “In all seriousness, generative AI models like ChatGPT were prompted to analyze historical theories and place a digital pin where Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10-E might be resting. Ironically, the algorithm pointed to the same visual anomaly that human scientists had spotted on satellite imagery years earlier.” 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.

ZDNet: How many jobs is your state losing to AI? This dashboard tracks the cuts – and the cost. “The Wage Loss Dashboard includes a map of where layoffs have occurred since January 2026 (it was just updated this month to include September data) and a drop-down that shows data for the entire country or an individual state. As of now, the dashboard finds just over 117,000 job cuts attributed to AI nationally this year — $8.5 billion in estimated annual wage losses.”

Intent: In Kyiv, artifacts from the war—ranging from the Maidan to the battles for Kherson—have been digitized. “The National Military History Museum of Ukraine has unveiled a multimedia guide featuring a digital archive that covers events ranging from the Revolution of Dignity to the liberation of Kherson. The project allows visitors to interact with over 500 digitized exhibits.”

State of Hawaii: Hawaiʻi Climate Rebate Finder Helps Residents And Local Businesses Save On Upgrades. “In addition to residential incentives, the rebate finder includes dedicated resources for commercial operations, small businesses and nonprofit organizations. Business owners can easily locate commercial energy efficiency rebates, water conservation incentives and clean-fleet opportunities designed to lower overhead costs and boost operational resilience.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Register: ICANN vows to work faster, improve transparency. “Internet governance organization the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has come to the realization it needs to move faster. The org today opened its annual conference in Bali, Indonesia, with an opening ceremony during which chair Tripti Sinha noted that it’s now just over ten years since the US government effectively handed over internet governance responsibilities from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to ICANN.”

Politico: Sergey Brin’s political awakening. “Sergey Brin once called government a ‘giant bonfire of partisanship’ and spent years on the political sidelines. But in recent months, the Google co-founder has emerged as a political force in California, pouring unprecedented sums into the fight to defeat a proposed tax on billionaires. This year alone, Brin has spent about 40 times what he put into politics in the previous two decades, making him the biggest individual donor to a ballot measure campaign in California history.”

Front Office Sports: Polymarket Removes Cornell 7 Market After Blowback. “Polymarket and its athlete endorsers came under fire for a market on the company’s international platform that allowed users to bet on whether any of the seven male defendants accused of raping a Cornell student will be charged with a felony sex crime. Following initial publication of this story, the company removed the market. The market, which was not available on Polymarket’s U.S. app, was first made available Sept. 30. As of early Monday afternoon, there was $451,633 in volume, with traders placing a roughly 28% chance on the market resolving to ‘yes’ by Jan. 31, 2027, which is when the market was set to close.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Nebraska Examiner: Omaha father suing DHHS after records-request estimate of nearly $1M, 2076 deadline. “An Omaha father said he was ‘dumbfounded’ when his request for transparency about a DHHS tool used in determining funding for families with disabilities led to a nearly $1 million estimate to provide records, with expected completion by September 2076. DHHS now faces a lawsuit over the estimate.”

Associated Press: Online forum controlled by Nevada GOP House candidate contains slurs and Nazi talk, AP review finds. “Long before running for Congress, Marty O’Donnell was an award-winning music composer for the popular ‘Halo’ video game franchise. His work drew legions of fans to an online forum, which the Nevada Republican has tried to turn into a galvanizing force as he tries to unseat a Democrat in a Las Vegas area district that could help decide House control…. An Associated Press review of thousands of posts made on the forum between 2022 and 2026 found racial slurs, minimizations of Nazi Germany and defenses of white nationalist conspiracy theories.”

Gizmodo: New Data Show How Much Worse Scams Are Getting for Americans Over 60. “The report, which is mandated by Congress under the Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act of 2017, found that the amount of money seniors reported to the FTC as being lost to fraud jumped from $600 million in 2020 to $3 billion in 2025. But the real number is likely several times that, since most fraud goes unreported.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNN: Trump admin cuts to satellites will set back US weather forecasting by a decade, experts say. “The Trump administration’s cuts to weather satellites will set the country back nearly a decade, experts say. The loss of data used to observe, forecast and research extreme weather could prevent the country from making major advances in weather prediction in the coming years.”

The Conversation: Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russian data centres may change how we see disinformation. “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strikes had made it ‘easier to breathe on many social media platforms’, by reducing Russian disinformation and bot activity. Later reports have cast doubt on Zelensky’s claim. Either way, the incident highlights the role of physical communication infrastructure in the online world. It also raises questions over what ‘digital sovereignty’ really means, and hints at a way to fight disinformation.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

This is from last July but I only just now found it. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: UWM engineering student brings metal casting to the masses. “The man behind the metal is Swaroop Behera, a doctoral student in engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He’s running Foundry in a Box, a portable outreach kit designed to give people a hands-on intro to metal casting. If you’re lucky enough to stumble across one of these pop-up events, you might walk away not only with a new appreciation for applications of materials science in engineering, but with a freshly cast metal keychain you made yourself.” 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.

Hell Gate NYC: Comparing New York’s Most Powerful Judges’ Records Has Never Been Possible—Until Now. “The platform, called Decoded, is the newest project from Oded Oren, who in 2023 left his job as a public defender to start Scrutinize, a website dedicated to increasing judicial transparency. (Hell Gate used Scrutinize as a research tool for our project Courts of Contempt, a deep dive into how judges become judges in New York, and the consequences the broken system can have for everyday New Yorkers.) Decoded uses AI to scrape and organize the judges’ decisions, a platform Oren launched Wednesday after a year of intense development and trial and error.”

DigitalNC: EXTRA, EXTRA! DigitalNC Sets New Record of 5 MILLION Newspaper Pages with Addition of Blue Ridge Sun. “We are elated to have the entire run of The Blue Ridge Sun (Sparta, N.C.) join our newspaper collection for many reasons, such as its geographic location, time period coverage, and that it was established, published, and edited by a woman.”

DeepSeek now has a Search API and a Fetch API.. It costs 75 cents per thousand requests. 75 cents is within my budget so I’ll think I’ll be doodling around with this one a bit.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Roundtable: Bing Tests Related Searches Based On Your Browsing. “Bing is testing showing ‘Related searches based on your browsing’ similar to how Google is/was showing this a few months ago. In Bing’s test, this is below the Microsoft Ads in the search results.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Eurogamer: In the age of AI, one man spent years squeezing an entire museum onto a Game Boy – Why? For the most human of reasons. “‘Let me be honest from the start: nobody was waiting for this. The world has many needs, and a Game Boy cartridge with no game inside it was not high on the list.’ So begins Dr Marcel Pflug’s explanation for one of the most unexpected projects I’ve come across in a while: a Game Boy reference museum that isn’t just a Game Boy reference museum; it’s one that works on a Game Boy cartridge.”

MakeUseOf: Google has officially turned these Nest thermostats back into dumb thermostats. “…the first- and second-generation Nest Learning Thermostats were officially dropped by Google last year. Nest Learning Thermostats hook up to your home’s electrical wiring, so there’s no battery to worry about. But key Nest Learning Thermostat features depend on Google services to work…. If you own one of the affected models, you might be happy to learn that a free and open-source software project restores your Nest Learning Thermostat’s cloud functionality once again.”

National Comedy Center: National Comedy Center Preserves Hundreds of Rare, Never-Before-Seen “I Love Lucy” Behind-the-Scenes Photographs and Early Pilot Script for 75th Anniversary. “On the 75th anniversary of I Love Lucy’s historic October 15, 1951 premiere, the National Comedy Center today announced the acquisition of one of the most significant collections of original I Love Lucy production material to emerge in decades – including hundreds of rare, previously unseen behind-the-scenes photographs, Lucy and Desi’s personally owned 35mm film prints of the series, and a rare original script draft representing the earliest known revisions to the formative I Love Lucy pilot episode.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: NY congressman to introduce bill protecting video game ownership . “Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) has announced plans to introduce a bill calling on the Federal Trade Commission to protect people’s ability to own and play the video games they’ve purchased.”

Florida Phoenix: In the dark? 2026 ‘Government in the Sunshine’ manual seemingly shelved. “Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has not published the Government in the Sunshine Manual this year, seemingly breaking an annual effort by attorneys general in the state for decades. The book is typically published in partnership with the Florida First Amendment Foundation and explains Florida’s public records and public meeting laws plus any changes made via case law or the Legislature since the last edition.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Low Poly Brainblast: Hosting an ‘Internet Search Party’. “I recently hosted an in-person ‘Internet Search Party’ (and single release) here in Boston. The purpose and position of the party was exactly what it sounds like — we literally surfed the web. ‘…But why?’, you ask yourself. Read on for more.” As you might imagine I LOVE this.

XDA Developers: I de-Googled my life for a week, and this is the local setup that replaced search, photos, and documents. “I wanted to see how much of my digital life could actually survive without Google in the event I wanted to ditch it for good. Email was a no-go at this moment since I couldn’t change my contact details with every organization I’m registered with. But the rest was pretty much free game. I already made my own little calendar tool with Claude, so this wasn’t an area I needed help with. But Photos, Search, and Docs were the big ones, and turns out, there are loads more private options.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Salt Lake Tribune: Author Jodi Picoult came to Utah with a surprise: 600 free copies of her bestselling novel banned from public schools. “Jodi Picoult’s novel ‘Nineteen Minutes’ was banned from all Utah public schools this year — and all copies were destroyed, which state law requires districts to do. But during a Saturday evening talk at Salt Lake City’s West High School, Picoult surprised attendees by giving away 600 free copies of the banned book.” 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.

Found in my RSS feeds: The RSS Universe. “No algorithm, no timeline, no engagement bait. Just feeds you chose. Here’s the whole ecosystem — readers, feed generators, monitoring, directories, and the standards that hold it together.” RSSGizmos.com not included — now I have to figure out how to suggest a site via a GitHub PR….

Sustainable Packaging News: Carton Council Launches Image Database to Support AI-Powered Carton Sorting. “The Carton Council, an association dedicated to improving the recovery and recycling of food and beverage cartons, has launched a new initiative to help artificial intelligence-powered sorting systems more reliably identify cartons moving through material recovery facilities (MRFs). The association has created a pilot library of photographs showing cartons as they actually appear in the recycling stream – partially folded, torn, discolored, or otherwise altered through collection, compaction, transportation, and processing.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

MinistryWatch: MinistryWatch 1000 Database Tops 1,800 Ministries — and Counting Plus, other notable ministry happenings from this week.. “Here at MinistryWatch, one of our goals is to equip donors with the information they need to make wise decisions with their giving. That’s why we manage our database, which rates more than 1,000 of the country’s largest ministries based on their financial efficiency, financial transparency, and their donor confidence.”

Engadget: Opera’s lightweight Air browser is back, unbothered, moisturized, in its lane . “Opera has relaunched its very mindful Air browser with a host of new anti-distraction features. The audiovisual makeover is designed to help you focus better on what you’re actually supposed to be doing, rather than encouraging you to wander into yet another free time-draining Reddit rabbit hole.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

FedScoop: Meet the former U.S. data chief taking the ‘Lorax’ approach to disappearing federal data. “Much like Dr. Seuss’s children’s book character the Lorax, who ‘speaks for the trees’ amid deforestation, [Denice] Ross aims to speak for federal data through her leadership of the Federation of American Scientists’ budding Data Policy Institute. The analogy is silly, she admits, but her meaning is clear: Federal data might not be as accessible as other issues and stands to benefit from an advocate.”

The Register: TinyLittleOffice, where the link is the document. “TinyLittleOffice comprises a selection of tools, including a basic word processor, presentation builder, spreadsheet, calendar, and a drawing tool. The theory is a simple one: create a document and get a link. The link is the document.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Okay, this is a weird link but hear me out. The link is to PACER: PACER Quarterly Announcements | October 2026. That link leads to a PDF which downloads automatically when you click on it, and that is what I am quoting. “On January 1, 2027, a modest temporary increase in fees for electronic access to court records will take effect to help reimburse the costs of the development of the new case management and public access system. The increase of two cents per page, from 10 cents to 12 cents, was approved by the Executive Committee on behalf of the Judicial Conference. In addition, the automatic exemption for PACER fees will be raised from $30 to $40 per quarter, ensuring that most individual users (those who use $40 or less in PACER services per quarter) will continue to incur no fee or fee increase. ”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Rocketry Research Journal: The Revival of the Flight Logs Database?. “Given the use of AI in the Linux kernel, I decided to see what would happen if we tried to use AI to bring back Flight Logs. We asked Grok if Flight Logs could be updated to modern standards and the response was an unequivocal ‘No’ and it proceeded to explain that what killed the project to begin with hadn’t changed, and there are no routes using even the current version of Access that will change that. But then it said something unexpected. That there is a way to bring back Flight Logs, but it would need to start from scratch.”

BBC: Our business ads were taken down for saying ‘pregnancy’ on Instagram. “When Irene Breen got a notification in January 2025 that Instagram was removing adverts for her company’s pregnancy pillows, she was confused. What was so offensive about a pillow? She was later told on a call with Meta that the problem was the word ‘pregnancy’.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Block Club Chicago: Chicago Sewing Museum Opens In Avondale With 100 Sewing Machines Through The Ages. “The quirky museum has 100 sewing machines dating back to the 1800s sourced from collectors, donations, online shops and garage sales, plus historical needles and irons, threads, buttons and more. Helmed by Katie Esslinger, who has sewn clothes since she was a kid and made her own wedding dress, the community museum seeks to be a place to learn, make and celebrate historical sewing and tailors.” 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.