National Council on Teacher Quality: Have you checked out our new database?. “Earlier this month, NCTQ launched an amazing new tool to give the public better access to the content of collective bargaining agreements, teacher handbooks, school calendars and teacher salary schedules. … We’ve begun with the nation’s 50 largest school districts but will be adding an additional 50 this year.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNBC: OpenAI trial updates: Board chair Taylor continues testimony, Altman set to take stand. “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is slated to testify in federal court in Oakland, California, on Tuesday as part of the trial in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the artificial intelligence company. Altman is expected to take the stand after Bret Taylor, the chairman of the board at OpenAI, concludes his testimony, his lawyers told Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Monday.”

Associated Press: Deal reached with hackers to delete data stolen from the Canvas educational platform. “The company that operates online learning system Canvas said it struck a deal with hackers to delete the data they pilfered in a cyberattack that created chaos for students, many of them in the middle of finals.”

The Verge: Writers are fleeing the Substack Tax. “Substack, the once buzzy newsletter platform, is losing a new swath of writers to rival platforms most people haven’t heard of. Just last month, The Ankler, one of Substack’s most popular publications, left for a platform that gives it more control over its site. Others who have departed Substack within the past year voiced similar complaints and cite the platform’s increased focus on social features as well as a pricing model that puts a chokehold on their business.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Internet Archive Blog: Internet Archive Switzerland: Expanding a Global Mission to Preserve Knowledge. “Thirty years ago, Brewster Kahle founded the Internet Archive with an ambitious goal: Universal Access to All Knowledge. Today, that mission continues to grow with an exciting new chapter: the launch of the Internet Archive Switzerland, a non-profit foundation based in St. Gallen.”

Leamington Observer: British Motor Museum image archive to become more accessible. “The project, running from spring 2026 to early 2027, will provide unprecedented access for visually impaired visitors to a historically significant collection of 20th century photographic negatives. This digital accessibility project will produce digital twins of a currently inaccessible collection using advanced digital imaging and create innovative tactile/audio models.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Tom’s Hardware: College student hacks Taiwan high-speed rail line with software defined radios, stopping four trains — 19 years without crypto key rotation ends in predictable result as hacker sails through 7 layers of protection. “The event brought four trains to a standstill for 48 minutes until the situation was verified as a false alarm, with reportedly no hard stops executed. Lin, the mind behind the operation, sailed through ‘seven verification layers’ thanks to the fact that the TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) system in use hadn’t had its cryptographic keys rotated in 19 years.”

Oklahoma Voice: Internal Oklahoma agency memos, bulletins will soon be available for public review. “Gov. Kevin Stitt has signed the Guidance Transparency Act, requiring state agencies to make available online and in person agency statements, memoranda, bulletins and other non-legally binding materials that communicate policies and rules and explain how those are being interpreted.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CIDRAP: Review uncovers rising rate of fake references in published biomedical papers. “A systematic review published yesterday in The Lancet reveals that of 97.1 million verified references in published biomedical papers, 4,046 were likely fake, with rates of fabrication rising 12-fold from 2023 through 2025—which commentators call a disturbing discovery that highlights the need to improve research integrity.”

New York Times: Meta Is Dying. It’s About Time.. This link goes to a gift article. “There is a grim satisfaction in watching this organization hoist with its own petard. This is the company that profited from trafficking in lies, that tuned its algorithms to boost hatred and division, that stole our data and used it against us, that created the culture of toxic memes that are now central to our degraded public discourse.” 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.

EVENTS

Associated Press: Tech is turning increasingly to religion in a quest to create ethical AI. “Leaders from various religious groups met last week with representatives from companies including Anthropic and OpenAI for the inaugural ‘Faith-AI Covenant’ roundtable in New York to discuss how best to infuse morality and ethics into the fast-developing technology.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

International Business Times: ‘OpenAI Is Coke, Grok Is RC Cola’: Experts Slam Elon Musk’s AI Adoption Rates. “The slowdown is stark in the numbers. According to analysis firm AppMagic, downloads of Grok’s app fell to about 8.3 million in April, a steep decline from a peak of more than 20 million in January. In other words, in less than four months, more than half of that download momentum appears to have evaporated.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TechCrunch: Digg tries again, this time as an AI news aggregator. “In an email to beta testers, the company said the site’s goal is to ‘track the most influential voices in a space’ and to surface the news that’s actually worth ‘paying attention to.’ AI is the area it’s testing this idea with, but if successful, Digg will expand to include other topics. The email warned that the site was still raw and ‘buggy’ and was designed more to give users a first look than to serve as its public debut.” I miss Digg Reader.

Bloomberg: Korea roils market by floating ‘citizen dividend’ from AI. “A top South Korean policymaker said the nation should pay citizens a ‘dividend’ using taxes on AI profits, underscoring growing pressure to redistribute gains from a boom that’s enriched chipmakers like Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc.”

Ars Technica: The newest AI boom pitch: Host a mini data center at your home. “Data centers may be coming to your neighborhood as side installations associated with new homes—and in exchange would offer subsidized electricity and Internet access along with backup batteries to homeowners. The company behind the plan has already begun pilot testing in preparation for a 100-home trial run this year.”

Gizmodo: Georgia Data Center Secretly Guzzled 30 Million Gallons of Water Before Paying a Dime. “A Quality Technology Services (QTS) data center campus located about 20 miles south of Atlanta had been draining the Fayette County water supply for months without the utility’s knowledge, Politico reported Friday. By the time officials found the two industrial-scale water hookups feeding the campus, it had guzzled nearly 30 million gallons (113 million liters) of water without paying a dime. One connection had reportedly been installed without the utility’s knowledge, and the other was not connected to QTS’s account.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Wall Street Journal: What is a ‘compute tax’ and why is the idea gaining traction?. “Many people are concerned about massive job loss as a result of AI, the concentration of the market, AI’s consumption of resources, and the community impact of expanding data centers. Some see taxation as a way to offset the loss of labor taxes to fund social services.”

Reuters: Germany’s finance watchdog to make targeted inspections amid ‘substantial’ AI risks. “Germany’s banking regulator BaFin warned on Tuesday that cyber risks were ‘growing’ and ‘substantial’ due to ​advances in artificial intelligence, and announced a new ‌division will conduct targeted inspections at financial firms.”

Florida Phoenix: Florida has a new law regulating AI data centers. “AI data centers will be required to pay for their own utilities and not shift the costs to customers now that SB 484 is law. Appearing Thursday in Lakeland with Florida Secretary of Commerce Alex Kelly, Gov. Ron DeSantis thanked the Legislature for passing the bill, even though it was less expansive than what the governor advocated.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Northeastern University: ChatGPT has a goblin problem. An expert says it’s bigger than an AI quirk.. “OpenAI’s popular AI model exhibited a strange behavior: It used the word ‘goblin’ to an unusual degree. The company has since clamped down on the quirk, but an expert says it reveals a systemic issue with AI.”

TechSpot: AI images are getting harder to spot, but physics still gives them away if you know where to look. “A study published in the journal Science explains that while modern image generators are rapidly improving, the models behind them remain fundamentally ignorant of how light and geometry work in the real world. Measuring simple details like reflections or shadows can still give away a fake photo – that gap, experts argue, is now one of the most reliable ways to distinguish authentic photographs from AI fakes.”

PsyPost: Perpetrators of AI sexual abuse often view their actions as a joke, new research shows. “26% of people who shared images and 22% of those who created them said they wanted to destroy the target’s reputation. 12% of creators and 20% of sharers reported doing it for financial gain. Most often, the perpetrators targeted current or former sexual partners. Interestingly, participants more often reported sharing deepfake sexual images of men (56%) than of women (41%).” 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.

Harvard: Harvard releases information on 1,613 enslaved individuals. “Harvard has published a database identifying 1,613 people who were enslaved by University leaders, faculty, or staff or who labored on campus as enslaved individuals between 1636 and 1865.”

Boing Boing: Pomiferous: database featuring more than 7,000 apple varieties. “Pomiferous is the world’s most extensive database of apples, containing information regarding more than 7,000 varieties. They’re organized by name, pollination group, harvest period, and other characteristics.”

EVENTS

Mashable: The biggest announcements from The Android Show: I/O Edition — Android 17 news, Google AI laptops. “Much of what was shared at The Android Show was fairly small and incremental, but between a new Google laptop brand and some useful-sounding Gemini features, there’s some meat to chew on here. So, let’s dig into everything we learned at The Android Show.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

PCMag: FCC Extends Update Deadline for Foreign-Made Routers, Drones Until 2029. “The FCC’s bans on foreign-made Wi-Fi routers and drones initially included an expiration date on software updates, but the commission has now extended the cutoff from 2027 to 2029.”

Hoodline San Francisco: Berkeley’s Big-Ticket Police Misconduct Database Goes Quiet on Recent Cases. “The state-funded Police Records Access Project, a UC Berkeley-led effort promoted as a one-stop public archive of internal police misconduct files, is drawing heat after a review found its online portal has few entries from the most recent years. Critics warn that if cases from the last two years are largely missing, the database could fall short as a tool for oversight, prosecutions and hiring checks.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Gizmodo: Google’s New ‘Googlebook’ Will Ensure You’ll Never Escape Android or AI. “Google’s next-gen blend of its lightweight laptops will be called ‘Googlebook.’ Beyond its overly Google-centric name, these future laptops are made to let Chrome users have their own Mac-like experience, as well as shove AI into everything all the way down to the mouse pointer.”

New York Times: One Big Headache for Politicians These Days: a Messy Digital Footprint. This link goes to a gift article. “First: Long-ago social media posts or video clips by political candidates get exposed online, prompting a backlash from rivals. Second: The candidates downplay the comments and distance themselves, often insisting their views have changed. Third: In some cases, voters and the news media tire of the topic and move on. Or they don’t.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Doozy of a Patch Tuesday includes 30 critical Microsoft CVEs. “Microsoft released fixes for 137 CVEs on Tuesday, none of which are known to have been targeted by attackers. But the news is not all good as Redmond rated a whopping 30 flaws as critical, with 14 earning a 9.0 or higher CVSS severity rating, including one perfect 10.”

Future of Privacy Forum: The EU Commission’s Approach to Age Verification: Mobile Apps, DSA Enforcement, and Challenging National Social Media Bans. “This blog post outlines the Commission’s emerging strategic approach to the implementation of EU-wide age verification measures, provides an analysis of the legal framework envisioned for their deployment, and includes notes on the Commission’s thinking with regard to possible social media bans in individual Member States.”

Reuters: TikTok challenges EU ‘gatekeeper’ status at Europe’s top court. “Bytedance’s social media platform TikTok on Tuesday made a last- ditch attempt at Europe’s top court to scrap its ‌designation as a ‘gatekeeper’ under EU rules, which require it to meet tougher standards ‌as regulators seek to curb the power of Big Tech.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NOAA: Explore the Sea Floor with NCEI’s Modernized Portal. “NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is excited to announce a big upgrade to the Bathymetric Data Map Viewer. The updated viewer is more responsive and provides a better mobile experience. NCEI scientists have also added more powerful search/filtering capabilities, and improved accessibility for users.”

Search Engine Land: Google quietly gave 54 publishers control over their Discover profiles. Here’s what they did with it.. “Our Profile Features Monitor tracks 46,926 publishers across seven languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese. To isolate the enhanced cohort, we filtered for publishers that showed persistent enhanced-profile signals across multiple snapshots: active links, full banner headers, or both. The result: 54 domains with stable access to the enhanced profile surface. The composition of that group offers clues about Google’s intentions.” 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.

NEW RESOURCES

Spotted on Reddit: SFWDOG, a search engine for subreddits. From the Reddit announcement: “I indexed every subreddit with more than 1k subscribers so you can easily discover new communities. Try it → https://sfwdog.com. Type any query into the search bar, or browse through categories like Lifestyle, Entertainment or just Vibes. Filter by subscriber count to find massive hubs or niche groups.”

ProBono: New Database of Constitutional Rights Cases – 1994 – 2026. “The Public Interest Practice has published a free online book, Key Judgments Advancing Constitutional Rights in South Africa: A Curated Database, April 1994 – March 2026 by Erica Emdon. Available on the SAFLII website, this resource brings together more than 180 judgments that have shaped and strengthened constitutional rights in South Africa.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Digital History at University of Houston: Important update: Please read this announcement.. “After nearly 25 years of service to students and educators worldwide, Digital History will cease operation on May 31, 2026…. This resource has served millions of users, providing free, reliable content as an alternative to expensive textbooks. However, maintaining the site now requires extensive technical infrastructure updates to meet current standards – work that exceeds available funding and makes continued operation unsustainable.”

Reuters: Microsoft, Google, xAI security test details deleted from US government website. “The U.S. Commerce Department removed details from its website ‌about its agreement with Google, xAI and ‌Microsoft to test their artificial intelligence models for security vulnerabilities, ​according to a Reuters review of the agency’s site.”

Mississippi Today: xAI now has 46 gas turbines without air permits. State officials are ‘evaluating the situation’. “The company uses the turbines to power its two data centers just across the state line in Memphis, and is also planning to build another large center in Southaven. XAI now has 46 ‘temporary-mobile’ turbines at its Mississippi facility, according to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, up from 18 turbines when it first arrived last year.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNBC: EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram’s ‘addictive design’ targeting kids on social media. “The EU is clamping down on social media firms and plans to target ‘addictive design’ features on TikTok and Instagram as governments worldwide look to protect children from the harms of social media.”

KitGuru: Forza Forums celebrates its 20th anniversary by shutting down the site. “While a disappointing conclusion, what is perhaps even more unfortunate is the fact that ‘we do not plan to archive or replace the Forums in their current form’ – meaning 20 years of fan discourse will be wiped from the internet.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Courthouse News Service: Meta can’t duck majority of Android advertising tracking claims. “A federal judge ruled Monday that Meta must face claims brought by Android users who say the tech giant exploited vulnerabilities in Android smartphones to match users’ browsing activity to their Meta social media accounts in an attempt to create more detailed advertising profiles.”

New York Times: France Passes Law Easing Process of Returning Looted Art. This link goes to a gift article. “Nine years after President Emmanuel Macron of France announced that his government would return some historic pieces of African art held in French museums to the continent, his government has passed a law making it easier to do just that.”

Meduza: Yandex subsidiary fined for transferring Yango taxi users’ personal data to Russia. “A Dutch-registered subsidiary of technology company Yandex has been fined 100 million euros for transferring the personal data of users of the Yango taxi service to Russia, Finland’s Data Protection Ombudsman announced. The company, MLU B.V., is part of the Yandex group and registered in the Netherlands.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Artnet: A New Landmark Survey Aims to Bring Transparency to Museum Collecting Practices. “Next week, the Penn Cultural Heritage Center (PennCHC) at the University of Pennsylvania‘s Penn Museum will launch a first-of-its-kind survey exploring the collecting practices in place at museums and libraries across America.”

Mashable: New report: X remains the most dangerous platform for LGBTQ users. “GLAAD assessed external-facing policies on diversity programs, content moderation, user suppression, and enforcement mechanisms, among other metrics, for six major companies: Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, and TikTok. X scored just 29 points out of a possible 100. No platform has ever scored above a 67.” 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.

UCLA: ‘Our history is your history’: Multimedia textbook brings Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences to the forefront. “Written by more than 100 leading scholars, journalists, organizers and community historians, and featuring an extensive archive of videos, photographs, audio clips, poems and interviews, plus ready-to-use lesson plans for students in high school and college, it is the most comprehensive collection of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) histories ever made available online and freely accessible.”

Press Gazette: AI in journalism: Live tracker of scandals and mistakes. “There have been numerous similar cases of AI work mistakenly published by major news outlets in the past year as the technology grows more sophisticated. Sometimes the ‘journalists’ are caught out by commissioning editors pre-publication…. In this new page, Press Gazette will keep track of such incidents to help publishers to learn from these mistakes.”

WISH TV: Indiana expands platform for health care prices. “Indiana is expanding and renaming its health care price transparency platform, formerly known as the Indiana All Payer Claims Database, Gov. Mike Braun’s office announced Thursday. Now called Indiana Health Prices, the platform will integrate comprehensive prescription resources, hospital cash prices, and voluntary provider submissions to help Hoosiers understand, compare and save on health care costs.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mashable: TikTok AI text summaries are rolling back after wild errors. “TikTok was offering AI-powered text summaries of videos, but that’s no longer happening. Business Insider reported that the feature, which went live recently, is being heavily scaled back due to its propensity for strange, inexplicable errors.”

Search Engine Land: Why Facebook account lockouts are rising and what’s driving them. “Over the past few months, a growing number of users have reported being locked out of their Facebook accounts — often suddenly, and sometimes permanently. What used to feel like a rare inconvenience has become a widespread frustration, affecting everyday users, creators, and business owners alike. So what’s actually driving the increase? It’s a combination of AI moderation, security shifts, platform economics, and evolving user behavior.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Internet Archive Blog: Celebrating Thirty Years of the Internet Archive with the ‘Class of 1996’. “On the occasion of the Internet Archive’s 30th anniversary, we’re opening the internet’s yearbook to celebrate the sites, services & scrappy experiments that helped shape the web as we know it. From class leaders like Center for Democracy and Technology to cultural icons like The Onion to the archivists making sure none of it disappears, this is a reunion worth attending.” ResearchBuzz wasn’t born yet but I had a book out!

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: French prosecutors seek charges against Elon Musk and X over child sexual abuse images. “French prosecutors are seeking charges against Elon Musk and his social platform X for child sexual abuse images on the platform, deepfakes, disinformation and complicity in denying crimes against humanity by the platform’s artificial intelligence system, Grok.”

NBC News Bay Area: Santa Clara County sues Meta over misleading ads. “Santa Clara County filed a civil lawsuit Monday against Meta, accusing the social media company of targeting users with misleading and fraudulent advertisements. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of all California residents, alleges the Menlo Park-based company tolerated and profited from scam ads on its platforms.”

The Register: 60% of MD5 password hashes are crackable in under an hour. “Using a dataset of more than 231 million unique passwords sourced from dark web leaks – including 38 million added since its previous study – and hashing them with MD5, researchers at security firm Kaspersky found that, using a single Nvidia RTX 5090 graphics card, 60 percent of passwords could be cracked in less than an hour, and a full 48 percent in under 60 seconds.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Slate: The Unsavory Side of FoodTok. “Amid the cultural shift away from longer-form food writing and criticism toward stylized, 30-second reaction videos on FoodTok, does carefully composed, sense-based storytelling still matter? What do we collectively lose, and maybe gain, as sound effects and hyperbole subsume rich, descriptive text with phrases like really delicious and stanning for this burger, utterances that don’t exactly kindle the imagination?”

PsyPost: ChatGPT’s free version is 26 times more likely to respond inappropriately to psychotic delusions. “The authors note that the free version’s poorer performance provides evidence for a specific public health concern. Individuals at risk for psychosis tend to be overrepresented among economically disadvantaged populations. This means those who are most vulnerable might only have access to the least safe chatbot option.”

Ars Technica: RIP social media. What comes next is messy.. “Even if the threshold for disagreement was quite low, disagreements were amplified to the point that each random interaction was increasingly likely to exceed the threshold. More and more users were pushed to relocate until what was once a community with a solid diversity of opinion rapidly became polarized and/or overly homogenous.” Good evening, Internet…

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

Spotted in my RSS feeds: Archivarix Tube Search. From the About page: “Web pages, including YouTube video pages, are routinely captured and preserved by public web archiving initiatives such as the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) and Common Crawl. When a YouTube video becomes unavailable for any reason, the metadata that was previously captured by these archives — including titles, descriptions, upload dates, and text-based subtitles — may still be accessible through their public APIs and datasets. Archivarix Tube Search aggregates and indexes this publicly archived data to make it searchable.”

York News Focus: York’s past at your fingertips: Explore York launches new digital archive. “York’s history just became much easier to explore. A newly expanded digital archive catalogue has gone live at Explore York Libraries and Archives, opening up centuries of local stories, records and images to anyone with an internet connection.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

AFP: Fearing return to war, Iran conservationists shore up damaged heritage sites. “As fears of renewed conflict hang over Iran, conservationists are shoring up battered historic sites and taking stock of the damage caused by the war with the United States and Israel, though experts warn some repairs could take years.”

Variety: Trump Media, Parent of Truth Social, Reports Q1 Sales of $871,000 and $405.9 Million Net Loss. “For the first quarter, TMTG generated net sales of $871,200, up 6% year over year. The company reported a $405.9 million net loss and a $387.8 million adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) loss for the first quarter of 2026.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: This free CAD software runs in your browser and puts expensive programs to shame. “Computer-aided design has a reputation problem. For most people, a CAD design means multi-gigabyte installers, clunky license managers, and subscriptions that sometimes cost more than the hardware your PC has. Now there are a lot of design tools that don’t require a subscription, but one of them is quite a solution when it comes to CAD. That is, until you discover SolveSpace.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

NPR: Campaign staffers tell NPR they make ‘thousands’ betting on their own candidates. “For this campaign staffer, the method was simple. First, they’d receive a tip on an unreleased poll and compare it with the odds on a prediction market, like PredictIt or Polymarket. If the poll reported their candidate had a better chance of winning than the prediction markets, they’d use this edge to buy low-cost odds on their candidate — known as event contracts — before the poll was released.”

AFP: Europe’s new social media apps face uphill battle against tech giants. “A flurry of new schemes to launch Europe-based social networks faces a steep, rocky road to seduce users away from American and Asian giants in the sector. Founders nevertheless see opportunity in the disillusionment and distrust of major platforms that have spiked alongside transatlantic tensions under Donald Trump’s second presidency.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Daily Montanan: Digitally altered political mailers spur lawsuit over Montana AI law. “Two state lawmakers running in Republican primary elections have said that hundreds of mailers sent out depicting them waving a pride flag and wearing a button with pronouns on it violate a Montana law prohibiting the use of artificial intelligence to produce ‘deepfakes’ in campaign materials.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Guardian: ‘Things were going dark left and right’: the race to save US government datasets before they’re deleted. “André is part of a group of ‘data rescuers’ who have banded together during Trump’s second term. They have been quietly racing to save hundreds of critical government datasets before they are no longer available. Now known as the Data Rescue Project, it’s a grassroots network of more than 800 people around the world who spend up to 40 hours a week painstakingly archiving the US government’s digital footprint in their spare time.”

Michigan Daily: Say goodbye to your individuality. “I always thought the phrase ‘be yourself’ was so stupid. Obviously, you’re being yourself, who else could you be? With the rise of TikTok aesthetics, I’ve realized that in actuality, we all are desperate to be absolutely anyone else. The boxes have been created. Go choose one. For the cost of a few hundred dollars and an obscenely high screentime, you have had the pleasure of saying goodbye to your individuality.” 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.

Moldova 1: One in five Moldovan WWII soldiers died; online database lists the missing. “The National Archives Agency has made a significant digital collection available to the public, containing the personal data of tens of thousands of Moldovan soldiers who went missing during World War II. This resource is intended to help relatives searching for information about their grandparents or great-grandparents who disappeared during the war.”

NPR: UFO files spanning decades are released by Defense Department. “Cold War reports of mysterious rotating saucers; recent sightings of metallic elliptical objects floating in mid-air. Those and other reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAPs — the military’s term for UFOs — are described in a trove of documents released by the Department of Defense on Friday.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: Chrome’s 4GB AI model isn’t new, but you’re not wrong for being confused. “Some desktop Chrome users have also noted that the browser appears to suddenly want more storage space for AI. This is true—Chrome does download a 4GB AI model for on-device processing. It’s been doing that for years, though. Google hasn’t actually changed anything about Chrome’s on-device AI, but the confusion is understandable, as the company has done a poor job of explaining what it’s doing and why. This is, unfortunately, par for the course with Google’s AI efforts.”

Tom’s Hardware: Internet archival sites struggling to preserve the internet because of skyrocketing hard drive prices due to the AI boom — Wayback Machine and Wikimedia punished by stratospheric storage pricing and stricter anti-scraping measures blocking the wrong bots. “The internet is getting harder to archive because the AI boom has caused a storage crisis, with both NAND and mechanical drives facing shortages. The same large-capacity HDDs now cost up to 3x more due to shriveled production capacities that have otherwise been entirely booked out by hyperscalers.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Dallas Observer: African American Museum Unveils First of Many Big Upgrades in Multiyear Plan. “The lab’s new digitization equipment will allow the museum to establish an online archive — a years-long process key to making the museum’s cultural artifacts and primary source materials more accessible. The new lab will also feature an observation window so visitors can witness the archivists’ conversation work in real time, an effort to increase transparency and interaction.”

UPI: Google Maps glitch sends drivers the wrong way on one-way road. “Winona Drive residents said they discovered last week that the sudden influx of wrong-way drivers on the southbound street was a result of a Google Maps error that listed the road as northbound-only. The error was in place as early as April 29.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ZDNet: Roku sued for allegedly bricking TVs – see which models are affected, and your best alternatives. “In a recent filing in California, a user is accusing Roku and TCL North America of issuing defective software updates that render TVs unusable. In some cases, the suit alleges, the TV only shows a black screen. In other instances, the TV gets stuck in a boot loop, freezes, or restarts repeatedly. A replacement set suffered similar problems.”

DigitalTrends: Your coworker’s AI-built app might be leaking company secrets. “Security researcher Dor Zvi and his team at RedAccess analyzed thousands of these apps and found more than 5,000 that had little to no security or authentication. Most of these apps could practically be accessed by anyone who found the ‘right’ URL.”

Associated Press: Google settles racial discrimination lawsuit for $50 million . “Google has settled with Black employees who alleged systemic racial disparities in hiring, pay, and advancement in a lawsuit filed in 2022. April Curley, a former Google employee, had sued the tech giant for racial discrimination, saying it engages in a ‘pattern and practice’ of unfair treatment for its Black workers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Artforum: 85% of All US Museums Need Repairs, Study Finds. “According to a survey conducted in March by the US Government Accountability Office, a whopping 85% of all museums in the United States are in need of repair; even more dire, 77% of US museums have at least one structural issue that puts their collections at risk, according to The Art Newspaper.”

University of Cambridge: Copyright research and the Liberation collection (1944-1946). “It will include copyright research and clearance allowing for the publication of a selection of digitised books from the Chadwyck-Healey Liberation collection (1944-1946) on Cambridge Digital Library. As part of the project, we will hold a series of meetings to discuss the challenges and opportunities raised by using copyrighted images for research and beyond, in the light of current AI developments.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of Washington: UW researchers launch ‘little free pantry’ mapping pilot, internet-connected pantries in Seattle. “Now, anyone who interacts with micropantries or community fridges in the Seattle area can try out an experimental app, made by University of Washington researchers, that brings a suite of new features to the micropantry network. The app, called PantryMap.org, maps many local pantries across the region.” 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.

South China Morning Post: New database tracks shifting outcomes of Malaysia’s political corruption cases. “An AI-powered database tracking corruption cases against Malaysia’s politicians was independently launched on Friday, putting fresh scrutiny on the status and outcomes of the country’s biggest graft prosecutions across administrations.” The URL is not included but if you websearch the name of the resource it pops right up.

University of Victoria: Digital pathways into the University Art Collections – a new Vault collection. “Woven Legacies is a new digital collection of historical and contemporary baskets made by Indigenous artists and currently in the care of the University Art Collections (UAC).”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Snap’s $400 million deal with Perplexity is dead . “Snap’s $400 million deal with Perplexity to put the AI search engine directly in Snapchat is dead. The two companies ‘amicably ended the relationship’ earlier this year, Snap disclosed in its latest earnings report. ”
Gizmodo: ‘Directionally Very Bad’: Everything You Missed During Week 2 of the Elon Musk vs OpenAI Trial. “After last week’s Musk-dominated time in front of the judge, the past few days have been primarily dominated by OpenAI’s time in the barrel. While it’s tough to get into a disreputable figure contest with Elon Musk, the fine folks at the world’s biggest AI company certainly came out looking worse than when they started.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

DVIDS: Nellis AFB, UNLV collaborate on preserving the base’s history. “The 99th Air Base Wing History Office launched a collaboration with University of Nevada, Las Vegas to digitize its collection of more than 50,000 newspaper pages, some articles dating back to the base’s earliest days in World War II.”

Tubefilter: Streamers are mogging each other, so Twitch changed its rules to accommodate them. “Like Omegle, Omoggle puts two individuals in a side-by-side video chat. Instead of talking to each other, however, Omoggle users compare their looks. The app scans both participants’ faces to determine which one is closer to the idealized beauty standard that creators like Clavicular aspire to.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Google has bit more time to address concerns in EU investigation, EU Commission says. “EU regulators are giving Alphabet’s Google a little bit ‌more time to sooth their concerns ‌after a previous proposal from the company fell short, ​the European Commission said on Friday.”

Associated Press: Canvas system is online after a cyberattack disrupted thousands of schools. “Tens of thousands of students studying for final exams around the world Friday regained access to a key online learning system after a cyberattack had earlier knocked it offline, throwing schools and universities into turmoil.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Texas A&M: Digital use linked to higher employment and earnings for women, global study finds. “Women who use digital technologies are more likely to be employed and tend to earn more than those who do not, according to a new World Bank study co-authored by Dr. Raymond Robertson of Texas A&M University. The analysis also finds the link between digital adoption and employment is stronger for women than for men.”

PsyPost: Taking a break from social media does not improve mental health, mass data review finds. “The researchers searched scientific databases for studies that forced adults to completely abstain from social media for a set time. They excluded experiments that merely asked people to reduce their screen time. They wanted to see exactly what happens when the digital plug is pulled completely.” 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.

Parks Stewardship Forum: Marianas Wartime Oral Histories Portal— Public-Facing Digital Archive of Island Memory. “The Marianas Wartime Oral Histories Portal is a public-facing digital archive of island memory that presents first-hand accounts of World War II (WWII) in the Mariana Islands.”

Cranfield University: UK’s national soil database goes open access. “In collaboration with Defra, Cranfield’s Land Information System (LandISPortal) – which includes the National Soil Map of England and Wales (NATMAP) – is now on a new platform and open access, free and available for everyone to use. The initiative delivers the commitment in the government’s Land Use Framework to make this soils data open access.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: Judge won’t rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s $1.5M settlement with SEC over Twitter disclosures. “A federal judge on Friday declined to quickly approve the Securities and Exchange Commission’s $1.5 million settlement with Elon Musk over his purchase of Twitter, saying she wants more information about whether the accord is fair and how it was reached.”

Mashable: YouTube’s picture-in-picture goes global for free, but there’s still an annoying catch. “In the U.S., picture-in-picture isn’t limited to Premium users; Premium Lite users, as well as users who aren’t paying any sort of YouTube subscription, get it too. Now, YouTube has announced it will be rolling out this feature to all users globally, on both iOS and Android.”

The Register: AI layoffs backfire as cutting staff doesn’t cut it, firms warned. “New research from Gartner lays out the problem in stark terms. The analyst firm surveyed 350 global businesses – all with annual revenues above $1 billion, all piloting or deploying intelligent automation – and found that around 80 percent had cut staff as a result. The returns? Elusive. Companies that reduced their workforces were just as likely to see negative outcomes or marginal gains as they were to generate any meaningful return on investment (ROI).”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: Inside a MAGA influencer’s turn against the right-wing machine. This link goes to a Yahoo-syndicated version of the article with no paywall. “[Ashley] St. Clair’s transformation from a self-described ‘good little foot soldier’ to MAGA turncoat has unspooled in near-daily monologues to more than 77,000 followers on her TikTok feed, where she applies makeup from her New York apartment and claims to expose the secrets of her former allies and the hidden machinery that made them social media stars.”

Forward Kentucky: AI ‘deepfake’ ads attack Massie and Gallrein in northern Kentucky GOP primary. “The heated Republican primary between Congressman Thomas Massie and Ed Gallrein in the northern Kentucky district now features super PAC attack ads deceptively depicting each candidate with artificial intelligence-derived videos.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gizmodo: Meta and TikTok Are Getting Your Data From State Healthcare Sites: Report. “According to a report from Bloomberg, all 20 state-run healthcare marketplaces include advertising trackers that share information with Big Tech companies.”

TechXplore: Google faces new UK lawsuit over online display ads. “The claim filed on behalf of British advertisers is seeking up to £3 billion ($4 billion) in compensation, according to an estimate from KP Law, the firm leading the action. The case argues that Google favored its own display advertising services, such as banner ads shown on websites, while excluding its rivals.”

Oklahoma Voice: Permanent school cellphone ban signed into law by Oklahoma governor. “Oklahoma’s school cellphone ban will become permanent beginning next school year. Gov. Kevin Stitt has signed House Bill 1276 into law, making the state’s previously established yearlong ban permanent.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NBC News: Judge rules Trump administration’s cancellation of humanities grants was unconstitutional. “The Trump administration’s cancellation of more than $100 million in humanities grants to scholars, writers, research groups and other organizations was unconstitutional, and the Department of Government Efficiency had no authority to end the funding, a federal judge in New York ruled on Thursday.”

PsyPost: Deepfake videos degrade political reputations even when viewers realize they are fake. “Artificial intelligence can be used to generate deceptive videos that damage a politician’s reputation, even when viewers suspect the footage is fake. A new study published in Communication Research found that these manipulated clips decrease support for targeted candidates. Standard fact-checking efforts reportedly fail to undo the total reputational harm.” 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.

EPA: EPA Launches Transparent, Interactive Permitting Map. “Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is launching the EPA Permitting Authority Map. The interactive map—accessible via EPA’s website—identifies which regulatory agencies have the authority to issue permits covering all of EPA’s permitting programs and environmental statutes.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Google’s AI search results will now turn to Reddit for expert advice . “Google is updating AI Overviews and AI Mode, the AI-generated portions of its search engine, to highlight sources in new ways, and interestingly, more prominently feature first-hand accounts from social media, expert blogs and forums like Reddit.” Which you could learn to search yourself.

Digital Public Library of America: We’re Welcoming Two New Hubs to the Network. “We are thrilled to welcome two new Hubs to the DPLA Hub network: the Jewish Heritage and History Hub, a partnership between the Jewish Heritage Network and the Center for Jewish History, and the Mississippi Digital Library. We have had the pleasure of working closely with both for years. Together, these Hubs bring more than 60,000 items into DPLA.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TechSpot: AI data centers are delaying Texas housing projects by hiring away electricians. “The AI data center gold rush is now colliding with one of Texas’ other major problems: a shortage of homes. Builders say projects are taking up to two months longer to complete because data center operators are hiring away the electricians needed to wire new houses, duplexes, and apartments.”

Reuters: Motor racing-As Formula One evolves, AI becomes part of the race. “Artificial Intelligence’s integration into Liberty Media-owned Formula One and its 11 teams has been noticeable on- and off-track in the already highly tech-powered sport. Eight new AI partnerships were signed in the past six months alone, according to research firm Ampere ‌Analysis.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ZDNet: Why Edge stores your passwords in plaintext, according to Microsoft. “A security researcher found that Edge stores your plaintext passwords in memory when you use the browser to manage them. In a social media post, researcher Tom Jøran Sønstebyseter Rønning explained how the process works and posted a video showing it in action.”

Mashable: Student sues matchmaking app for allegedly stealing her likeness for an ad. “A 19-year-old University of Tennessee freshman is suing the makers of a social matchmaking app after the company allegedly lifted a video from her TikTok page and used it — without her knowledge or consent — in an advertisement suggesting she was looking for casual sexual encounters. The company then supposedly targeted that ad at men living in her own dormitory.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Hindu: Preservation of ancient palm-leaf manuscripts launched. “A scientific preservation programme for rare ancient palm-leaf manuscripts was undertaken on Wednesday at the library of P.B. Siddhartha Arts and Science College.”

The Register: Musk has never built a wafer fab, but he wants to burn $119B on one anyway. “Elon Musk’s SpaceX hopes to plow as much as $119 billion into the southeast Texas countryside to build a massive semiconductor fab to produce chips for orbital AI datacenters. We won’t hold our breath.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

BINJ News: The Boston Library Where You Still Can Borrow A Giant Puppet. “Beneath the Emmanuel Church on Newbury Street in Boston, tucked away in the basement, sits a library. A puppet library. It’s been there for decades, and despite innumerable changes in the nearby retail storefronts, this hidden artistic community treasure remains. Throughout the cellar, puppets of all shapes, sizes, and materials sit idle, ready to be borrowed by the public free of charge.” 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.