Southern Maryland Chronicle: Maryland Launches Opioid Settlement Dashboard. “The interactive Prescription Opioid Settlement Dashboard provides a clear overview of funds the state has received and is expected to receive over the next decade-plus from legal settlements with prescription opioid manufacturers, distributors and retail pharmacies.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

ZDNet: Euro-Office, Europe’s open-source alternative to Microsoft Office and Google Docs, launches June 9. “Euro-Office’s 1.0 release, available June 9 for anyone to download from the project’s public GitHub repositories, will come with ready‑to‑use web editors for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations that support real‑time collaboration. The suite is designed to help public authorities, education systems, and regulated industries move away from US‑based productivity clouds while retaining a familiar, Microsoft Office-style workflow for end users.”

Lifehacker: There’s a New Way to Make Your Gmail More Private. “On Thursday, Proton announced that its email service, appropriately named Proton Mail, now supports Gmail. For the first time, you can link your Gmail account to Proton Mail, and use it to send and receive messages from your Google address, rather than your Proton one.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Woman fired by Indiana university over Charlie Kirk post to receive $225,000 settlement. “A woman fired by an Indiana university over her Facebook post criticizing conservative activist Charlie Kirk after he was killed will receive $225,000 to settle a lawsuit that accused her former employer of violating her free-speech rights, the woman’s attorneys said Tuesday.”

Techdirt: Stop Killing Games Gets Its First American Legislative Effort Out Of Committee in California. “I’ve written quite a bit about the Stop Killing Games movement, in no small part because I think it’s way more important than most people think. Preserving cultural output is both important and, frankly, a key part of the bargain that is supposed to be copyright law.”

The Register: MyPillow must decide whether to be firm or soft as ransomware crims demand pay. “Crims found the soft spot in the company’s security. MyPillow, the US-based bedding brand founded by election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, has been listed by Play ransomware extortionists as an alleged victim.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Watermark Out News: Stonewall National Monument, sites tied to equality join list of America’s most endangered historic places. “The Stonewall National Monument, the President’s House Site and the Women’s Rights National Historic Park are among 11 sites on this year’s annual list of the most endangered historic places in the United States compiled by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.”

Inside Higher Ed: White House Aims to Establish Political Oversight of Federal Grants. “The White House is advancing a sweeping rule change that would give administration officials more power over billions of dollars in federal grants. The regulations seek to codify that Trump officials have the right to keep doing what they started last year: canceling thousands of grants that they said didn’t align with the president’s priorities, and shooting down new ones for the same reason.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Lansing Journal: South Holland students spread positivity with community voicemail line. “The class recently launched a ‘Build Others Up’ voicemail line where community members can call and hear uplifting recorded messages created by students. The project, organized by fourth grade teacher Amy Boerman-Cornell, is designed to spread kindness while helping students practice empathy and encouragement.” 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.

Gizmodo: Google Is in Full-On Damage Control Over Its New Health App. “If there’s one thing you don’t want to screw around with as a tech company, it’s apps. Just ask Sonos, which literally had to fire its CEO and start anew over fallout from a botched app update. Google apparently didn’t get that memo because its recent shift from the Fitbit app to the newly christened Google Health has been… rocky. People are crashing out over the recent app update, and it’s not hard to see why.”

Mashable: Google’s AI Overview still can’t spell, and the internet is very aware of it. “Google’s AI tools remain abysmal at answering questions about spelling, having gone viral two years ago for responding to the question ‘how many r’s are in the word strawberry?’ incorrectly. But it’s still bad. On Tuesday, X user Naomi Rohatyn tested the large language model’s (LLM) current ability to answer to a spelling question.”

Futurism: Influential Tech Founder Says His Peers Are Suffering From Mass AI Psychosis. “As the top tech companies have yet to find a way to turn AI into a profitable venture, those decisions to go all-in on AI are looking increasingly delusional. According to Aaron Levie, CEO and founder of the massive cloud computing company Box, there’s a simple explanation for it: many of his colleagues are suffering from AI psychosis.”

DATA CENTERS

Forward Kentucky: Questions grow about who will pay the cost for big data centers in Kentucky . “The state is well positioned to evaluate and proactively address how increased needs for electricity and water could affect costs for ratepayers, the impacts of incentive programs on state and local budgets, and whether and to what extent these projects benefit the communities in which they are located.”

Michigan Advance: Federal class-action lawsuit filed over Dowagiac data center noise. “As a Las Vegas-based company plans to expand its data center operations in Michigan, residents living near its current facility are taking them to court, citing constant, noisy operations.”

Nevada Current: Nye County water board pushes data center moratorium. “The Nye County Water District Governing Board unanimously approved an emergency order Tuesday requesting that the Nye County Commission place a moratorium on data centers in the Pahrump Valley.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Cap Radio: California judges are testing a new AI clerk, and you won’t know if it’s looking at your case. “Two of California’s largest courts are testing an AI tool that can draft orders and produce research memos. Judges so far are using it primarily for civil cases, but documents obtained by CalMatters indicate the possibility of expanded applications in criminal cases, where people’s freedom and access to justice are on the line.”

Reuters: OpenAI gives Japan banks access to latest model, Japan’s finance minister says. “OpenAI has given some Japanese financial institutions access to its GPT-5.5 model to help ​prevent cyberattacks, Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said on ‌Friday after a meeting with the U.S. company’s chief strategy officer.”

AI IN WORK

Press Gazette: Journalists using AI to save time but don’t want AI-generated pitches or press releases. “Journalists are dealing with smaller teams, overloaded inboxes, misinformation, and growing questions around trust. At the same time AI is changing the way they work for good. Like every industry adopting AI, journalism is seeing both the opportunity and the risk. The opportunity is speed. The risk is credibility.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

The Verge: Google’s AI is sometimes confused if 2027 is next year.. “As noted on Bluesky, if you search ‘is it 2027 next year,’ Google’s AI Overviews occasionally state that 2027 is two years from now.”

Reuters: Why Tesla’s AI trainers don’t trust its self-driving tech – or its safety stats. “Tesla says its Full Self-Driving software is up to 10 times safer than human drivers. But the figures the company uses to support its claims don’t withstand scrutiny – and staffers who trained the technology say it isn’t close to safely delivering autonomous vehicles at scale.”

Gizmodo: Occupy Wall Street Co-Founder Built an AI App to Help Activists Seize the Means of Computation. “Can LLMs and AI agents find a place in the toolkit of progressive activist groups? The conviction that they can is the idea behind a new app called Outcry, which provides a chatbot designed specifically as a ‘private, on-device AI mentor for activists, organizers and movement builders.’ (There’s also a web version, although it obviously lacks the privacy benefits of being entirely offline.)”

ZDNet: I quit ChatGPT for a free, private, and local AI called Ollama – here’s why. “Ollama is a small player in the AI game, but it should be much bigger than it is. This installable AI has several benefits you won’t find with the likes of ChatGPT, and those benefits are what keep me from ever using a more traditional service. I’ve written about Ollama quite often over the past year, but I thought it was time to share the reasons I choose to use this app over any other.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Edinburgh: ‘Big AI’ influence on laws and oversight mapped. “Researchers from the University of Edinburgh, Trinity College Dublin, TU Delft and Carnegie Mellon University analysed news articles for evidence of methods used to control the narrative and influence policy measures related to AI. They identified 27 established patterns of ‘corporate capture’ – a process by which regulation and public bodies come to act in the interest of corporations rather than people.”

The Register: AI hiring algorithms reject Black, Asian job seekers at higher rates. “AI algorithms exhibit racial bias in job candidate screening, and they discriminate more frequently against those applying for multiple jobs at different companies, according to Stanford-led researchers. The boffins evaluated algorithmic hiring decisions across multiple employers that use the same hiring vendor. The resulting algorithmic monoculture, they say, is problematic.” 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.

Liverpool John Moores University: New 19th Century Periodicals Online Catalogue. “LJMU Special Collections & Archives have catalogued all of our Special Collections 18th and 19th Century periodicals, excluding those found in the Liddell Hart Collection of Costume and Peter Farrer’s papers. This will improve access to the collection, knowledge about the collection to members of the public, and includes more detailed information not previously recorded.”

New York City Mayor: Ahead of Summer Break, Mayor Mamdani Launches Interactive Website Connecting Young New Yorkers to Free and Low-Cost Summer Programs. “The website allows users to search by age, ZIP code, interests and travel distance, helping families find activities ranging from painting classes to basketball leagues, soccer programs, and other extracurricular opportunities. It also includes information about free summer meals and free citywide FIFA World Cup watch parties and celebrations.”

EVENTS

Gizmodo: Live Updates From Computex 2026 . “Computex 2026 is set to be the most consequential computing conference in many years. The annual computing showcase that is set to take over Taipei, Taiwan, June 2 through June 5, will bring us all new computing platforms we’ve seen hinted at for months.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress: WordPress 7.0 Has Arrived: Here’s Everything You Need to Know. “WordPress 7.0 includes both immediate editor improvements and deeper foundational changes. Some improvements are visible right away, like visual revisions, responsive controls, and a cleaner dashboard. Others work behind the scenes are more foundational, giving plugins, tools, and AI services a more consistent way to work with WordPress over time.”

9to5 Google: Google rolling out new settings for Search Services History & Personalized Recommendations. “Google Search is adding two new settings related to your history and personalization. The aim is to provide users with ‘more control over saved history and personalized recommendations.’ This is rolling out over the coming weeks, and users are beginning to receive email and in-app notifications.”

TechCrunch: YouTube adds new podcast features, including an AI recommendation tool and ‘Auto speed’. “YouTube announced on Thursday it’s introducing new podcast features for Premium users, including an AI-powered recommendation tool, an ‘Auto speed’ setting, and a new on-the-go listening mode.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

PCMag: Brave, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari? We Pick the Best Browser for 2026. “PCMag has been evaluating web browsers since the dawn of the internet in the late ’90s, so we have the expertise to inform your decision. Here, we examine the top five browsers in the US by popularity (according to Statcounter) and provide guidance on selecting the best one for your needs.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Republican attorneys general split with House party members over US social media bill. “More than a dozen Republican attorneys general said they oppose a children’s online ‌safety bill backed by their party’s members of the U.S. ‌House of Representatives, according to a letter released on Tuesday, exposing a Republican rift ​over how to keep kids safe online.”

Lifehacker: The LastPass Data Breach Settlement Could Net You a Big Payout. “If you were a LastPass user affected by major security breaches in 2022, you might be eligible for a cash payout—possibly a really big one. The company is paying out benefits to those affected by breaches that compromised user vaults, and some people could be getting five-figure payments..”

FBI: Threat Actors Spoofing FIFA Websites in Advance of the 2026 World Cup. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is issuing this Public Service Announcement (PSA) to warn the public that cyber threat actors are conducting spoofing attacks against the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) website in advance of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

North Carolina State University: Armadillos Inspire New Protective Technology for Soft Machines. “Researchers have drawn inspiration from armadillos to create a protective structure that responds to external threats by curling into a protective ball to protect electronic devices or other payloads.”

Doc Searls: From Losing the Web to Saving Us All. “Everybody in the surveillance-fed advertising fecosystem already regards personal privacy as a bug, not a feature. With Big AI, the plan is to modernize that fecosystem by moving human cattle onto corporate ranches, where they can be observed more closely than ever, and advertised at with far more accuracy. This, the thinking goes, should multiply the size of the $1 trillion advertising business.” 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.

UC Berkeley: New Federal Data Field Guide Helps Americans Navigate the Rich Diversity of Our Federal Data Ecosystem. “Denice Ross, who served as the nation’s second U.S. Chief Data Scientist, and her former White House colleague Christopher Marcum have launched the Federal Data Field Guide, a free, plain-language resource designed to help Americans understand, use, and advocate for the full breadth of federal data.”

Digital Library of Georgia: Georgia Historic Newspapers Update Spring 2026. “This spring, the Digital Library of Georgia released several new grant-funded newspapers to the Georgia Historic Newspapers website. Included below is a list of newly available titles.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: Two Ways to Completely Remove Microsoft Copilot From Windows 11. “The company has started removing ‘unnecessary’ Copilot features from Windows, which is a step in the right direction. However, it’s far from perfect, especially for anyone hoping for an AI off switch. If you’re annoyed by all these AI features too, you don’t have to deal with it. There are two methods you can try to remove Copilot from your PC, depending on your OS.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

NBC News: Deal or no deal? Trump’s social media posts add confusion to Iran conflict. “As President Donald Trump’s team was actively working behind the scenes over Memorial Day weekend to deliver an Iran peace deal, the president’s own social posts left a trail of confusion.”

Utah State University: Outdoor Recreation Archive Receives Skip Yowell Papers, Documenting Outdoor Industry Trailblazer. “Utah State University’s Outdoor Recreation Archive has opened a new collection documenting the life and career of the late Skip Yowell (1946-2015), the longtime face of JanSport and a visionary in the outdoor industry.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Websites have a new way to spy on visitors: Analyzing their SSD activity. “Now sites have a new way to spy on their visitors: measuring subtle interactions with their solid-state drives. The technique, named FROST (fingerprinting remotely using OPFS-based SSD timing), allows sites to monitor other sites a visitor is viewing and what apps are open on their devices.”

TechSpot: The Netherlands just blocked a US company from buying the app Dutch citizens use for everything. “US enterprise services provider Kyndryl tried to acquire Dutch cloud specialist Solvinity, but The Hague has officially stopped the acquisition. Citing a potential security risk to the country’s public interest, State Secretary for Digital Economy Willemijn Aerdts recently confirmed the takeover ban. The decision anticipates a potentially disruptive initiative designed to further promote European sovereignty in the digital market.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

KComics Beat: OPINION: The future of webcomics and platforms. “Last week we looked back on the last five years of big webcomics-posting hubs. Cartoonists and readers alike are dissatisfied with how the large, established, corporate-backed webtoon publishers have been running their platforms, so where are people going now?”

Will Vincent: Please add an RSS Feed to Your Site. “As a co-writer of the Django News Newsletter for over 7 years, I am constantly looking for high-quality posts from people in the Django and broader Python communities. And yet, these days, it is harder than ever to find new content or even keep up with the efforts of people we’ve featured in the past. Social media is–how to say this kindly–rough in terms of uncovering content. These days, it feels like I spend more time sniffing out AI-written content than just exploring. It is exhausting.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Adorable ASCII Aquarium Lives On Your Desk. “[Kert Gartner]’s ASCII Aquarium turns a cheap yellow display (CYD) into a tiny simulated aquarium, complete with ASCII sea creatures each with their own behaviors. There’s all kinds of options and even timekeeping functionality, so the miniature water world can also pull its weight as a desk clock.” 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.

Bangor Daily News: Eastport residents push City Council to oppose underwater AI data center. “Rising public concern over a proposed underwater artificial intelligence data center in the Bay of Fundy’s Western Passage has pushed the issue to the forefront in Eastport, where residents pressed the City Council on May 13 to address the project.”

ABC News (Australia): Report warns AI data centre boom threatens Australia’s energy transition. “The report used government projections, suggesting that data centres’ demand for energy will increase more than sixfold from 2024–25 to 2040, surging from 2 to 13 per cent of the country’s total energy use.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

New Jersey Monitor: Gov. Sherrill seeks limits on data center construction. “Gov. Mikie Sherrill said Wednesday that she backs legislation that would regulate data centers and seeks to implement new policies aimed at limiting the industry, which has faced opposition here in New Jersey and nationwide.”

Lima Ohio: DeWine pauses Ohio data center tax break after billion-dollar forecasting miss. ” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced Wednesday he is pausing a sales tax break for data centers after the exemption cost more than lawmakers were led to expect. On Thursday, he directed the Ohio Tax Credit Authority to stop accepting new data center tax exemption requests while lawmakers study the industry’s explosive growth.”

Politico: Factions inside the Trump administration wrestle over how to handle AI. “President Donald Trump’s sudden decision to scrap an AI executive order on May 21 has exposed a rift within the White House on how to regulate the emerging technology. There are three main camps in the West Wing, per two senior White House officials, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal dynamics.”

AI LEGISLATION

NBC News: Illinois Legislature passes historic AI bill that would require third-party safety audits. “The bill, SB 315, mirrors existing provisions in legislation in California and New York requiring frontier AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic to create, publish and annually update plans to address severe or catastrophic risks from their AI models.”

Manila Times: Benitez to file bill creating free AI-powered national legal database. “Rep. Javier Miguel Benitez revealed on Wednesday that he was set to file a measure to create a free, consolidated and artificial intelligence (AI)-searchable national database of Philippine statutes and jurisprudence, which he called Digital Public Infrastructure for the Rule of Law.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Reuters: NBA to use AI for automatic out-of-bounds calls, Silver says. “NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the league will use AI to automate a category of calls ​such as out-of-bounds decisions to speed up games and ‌reduce disputes over possession.”

Tubefilter: Explicit deepfakes are a monumental problem. Paris Hilton just published a TikTok series to combat them.. “Paris Hilton has taken the fight against explicit deepfakes to TikTok. Her production company 11:11 Media partnered with award-winning longtime tech journalist Laurie Segall to make Searching for Mr. Deepfakes, a vertical docuseries created by Segall that chronicles her investigation into one of the largest deepfake pornography hovels on the internet.”

CNBC: Mark Zuckerberg says a Meta cloud computing business ‘definitely on the table’. “Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company could enter the cloud computing market if it overspends on data centers and ends up with excess capacity.”

Gizmodo: Sam Altman Would Like the Record to Show AI Will Not Take Your Job (Despite Everything He’s Said Previously). “In a recent appearance at a conference hosted by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the CEO of OpenAI admitted that his previous warnings about mass job loss and societal upheaval were incorrect. (Well, maybe not totally incorrect, but that societal upheaval is more directed at him than he’d like, and now he’s trying to do some crisis management).”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CITP Blog: Can AI reduce burdens on courts by automatically verifying citations?. “Fabricated case citations generated by AI are appearing in court filings at an accelerating rate. Combined with other tracking efforts, we have identified over 1,000 filings containing hallucinated citations from self-represented (pro se) litigants and lawyers alike.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: The emerging AI content licensing market puts news publishers in a “double bind,” a new report warns. “‘Same Gatekeepers, New Tollbooths: Mapping the AI Content Licensing Market’ explores the emerging market for content licensing, arguing that news publishers are currently in a ‘double bind’: The same big tech companies that are developing commercial AI products and stripping news publishers of site traffic are the ones dictating what alternative revenue will look like.”

Nature: AI cracks 80-year-old mathematics challenge — researchers are astonished. “An 80-year-old challenge in geometry has been cracked by an artificial-intelligence chatbot after a single prompt from mathematicians at the technology firm OpenAI. The company, based in San Francisco, California, has not revealed the precise details of how it did this, or the name of the AI system. However, the main thrust of the finding has been published on its website and been verified independently by mathematicians not connected to the firm.”

Florida International University: When a chatbot feels easier than talking to a person. “Late at night, when anxiety gets louder and reaching out to another person feels like too much, an AI chatbot can seem easy to talk to. It does not judge. It does not interrupt. It answers immediately. For people who are lonely, overwhelmed or afraid of being misunderstood, that can feel comforting. But mental health experts caution that while artificial intelligence may offer convenience or a place to organize thoughts, it is not a substitute for trained, ethical and accountable care.” 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.

Daily Observer: New Website Chronicles Barbadian Migration to Liberia, Expands Cultural Ties . “The website, Back2Barbados, was officially launched on Africa Day 2026 and is expected to serve as a digital hub for descendants, researchers, institutions, and supporters interested in the historic migration of Barbadians to Liberia and the growing relationship between the two countries.”

Lafayette College: Yearbooks online for first time. “…just in time for Reunion in early June, alumni can look back on classmates and campus memories from their eras by perusing complete and searchable digitized yearbooks from 1970 to the present, with the earlier issues coming in the final phases of the project.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

PC Mag: DuckDuckGo Sees Surge in Installs After Google Goes All-In on AI Search at I/O. “At I/O last week, Google announced its biggest Search upgrade in 25 years, but few seem impressed by its new AI features. Since the event, users have been flocking to DuckDuckGo, a rival search engine that lets them disable AI features altogether.” I hope some of them are checking out the alternatives I made.

The Guardian: Colbert launches YouTube channel less than a week after late-night show ends. “Stephen Colbert hasn’t even been off the air for a week, but is already causing some hubbub with the launch of a new YouTube channel that has garnered more than 120,000 subscribers.”

USEFUL STUFF

ZDNet: You can easily make Zorin OS look and feel like Windows, MacOS, or Linux – here’s how. “Do you prefer a Windows-like UI? Zorin OS has you covered. MacOS? Yep. Linux? Of course. Zorin OS gives you so many options to make the desktop look the way you like it.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Caliber: Estonia urges captains to avoid Google Maps amid Russia border risk. “Estonia’s Border Guard has advised boat operators to stop using Google Maps when navigating the River Narva, warning that the service’s inaccurate depiction of the Estonia–Russia control line could lead vessels into Russian territorial waters.”

The Art Newspaper: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts gifted collection of nearly 2,000 photographs. “The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) has received a gift of 1,986 photographs from Joy of Giving Something Inc (JGS), a nonprofit organisation founded by Howard and Janet Stein. The donation includes works by more than 450 artists and nearly 200 photographic series from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licences. “Spain’s Consumer Rights Ministry temporarily banned so-called prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi ​for operating in the country without a ‌gambling licence, the official state gazette showed on Tuesday.”

Gizmodo: Police in China Sure Love Smart Glasses. “Uses among Chinese police, according to the report, include ‘traffic management, street patrols, and locating missing people,’ which sounds important and useful but also wanes towards the dystopic.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: You couldn’t create a more anti-news internet if you tried. “The loss of local media in particular is associated with greater loneliness, lower awareness of public officials, and more corruption. It’s like an invisible tax levied on our communities that we pay civically, cognitively and sometimes even literally, in the form of higher local bond prices due to more wasteful government spending. Increasingly, this invisible tax is being silently levied by Big Tech.”

Nature: Instance-level community detection in the Mastodon federation: a graph- and content-based approach. “This study analyzes Mastodon, a prominent federated social network made of several interconnected instances, and investigates community detection at the instance level by integrating content-based edge weighting to enhance modularity maximization techniques.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

BBC: UK’s rudest chalk figure gets a glow-up to stop it fading in the rain. “The charity has cared for the Giant since 1920. Its rangers and volunteers keep the outline defined by rechalking the figure every decade or so to protect it from weeds and erosion. And between chalking it uses sheep to keep the grass short. But the Trust says that coupled with heavier winter rains, the frequent dry spells in summer, mean the grass grows back more slowly and can leave the chalk edges more exposed and vulnerable to erosion.” 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.

Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center: SEAFDEC launches the New “Database on Fishery Statistics of Southeast Asia”. “The Database is now publicly accessible and compiles fisheries statistics from ten ASEAN Member States, namely: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam, to support data-driven management, policy planning, and sustainable fisheries development in the Southeast Asia region.”

It’s Nice That: Plug in! Michael Romanowicz’s Outlet Atlas is a gorgeously designed guide to power adapters and outlet types. “If your special interest is outlet types and power adapters, then boy do we have the online archive for you. Lovingly created by a designer who was frustrated with boring SEO-optimised websites whilst travelling, this community-based website seeks to make a guide that is as handsome as it is useful.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress: Introducing Write: a new way to post, built for writers. “One page. A blinking cursor. The formatting you need and nothing you don’t. That’s Write: a new, focused writing surface built into WordPress.com. In last year’s Creators survey, ‘simplify the editor’ was the single most-requested improvement from the people already publishing on WordPress.com. So we built it.”

Radio Times: Doctor Who missing episodes addressed as Film is Fabulous founder explains preservation project. “Film is Fabulous founder John Franklin has shared an update on the charitable trust’s work to catalogue and preserve private film collections, while also clarifying its current position on missing Doctor Who episodes.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

9to5 Google: Motorola phones have started hijacking the Amazon app to insert affiliate codes [Video]. “An app update on Motorola phones has started hijacking the Amazon app for the sake of injecting an affiliate code. To do that, tapping the app icon opens the user’s browser and immediately redirects to the Amazon app. It’s a ‘blink and you missed it’ moment. This only happens when the user opens the Amazon app from the app drawer – not the homescreen pages.”

The Quietus: Rotting Tape and the Gentrification of African Pop: Why We Must Save the Nollywood Archive. “VHS magnetic tape is incredibly fragile and has a limited lifespan, especially when stacked haphazardly in the un-airconditioned corners of Lagos living rooms or the labyrinthine, corrugated-iron warehouses of Alaba International Market. As I write this, thousands of original films from the golden age of Nollywood, and by extension, the isolated, uncompressed master mixes of the era’s greatest, weirdest soundtracks, are quite literally rotting away.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Indonesia blocks Polymarket over online gambling concerns after bets on president’s exit. “Indonesia has blocked predictions market Polymarket as part of its ​crackdown on online gambling, its communications and digital ministry ‌said, days after the site took bets on a premature end to Prabowo Subianto’s presidency.”

Mother Jones: The Pentagon Could Name Thousands of Unknown Soldiers. Families Want to Know Why It Hasn’t.. “According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, there are still more than 80,000 U.S. service members who remain unaccounted for since World War II. The DPAA estimates that 38,000 of them are recoverable. Most of the rest were lost at sea. The agency identified the remains of 231 service members in fiscal year 2025—the highest number ever for the DPAA or its predecessor agencies.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Register: Big Tech extracts retirement-scale wealth from UK internet users, research shows. “A new white paper [PDF] from the Web3 Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit pushing blockchain-based alternatives to today’s platform-dominated internet, claims that the average person in the UK and across Europe generates $1,604 a year in commercial value for the data-hungry machinery of the modern internet, rising to an inflation-adjusted value of $189,405 over a 60-year ‘digital lifetime.'”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ars Technica: 3D-printable humanoid legs let robotics experiments run wild. “A $2,500 pair of humanoid robot legs built from 3D-printed parts and off-the-shelf components is not going to win marathons just yet. But such relatively inexpensive hardware could enable researchers to more easily test and train AI-powered robotics software in a physical body during real-world experiments.” 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.

Spectrum Local News: Nearly 500 N.Y. small business owners join calls for state data center moratorium. “In a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul, nearly 500 small business owners from across New York state urged the governor to pass legislation that would establish a temporary moratorium on new data center construction.”

Minnesota Star Tribune: Court halts work on Minnesota data center. “Goodhue County District Judge Patrick Biren issued late Friday an injunction against construction of Project Skyway, the data center on a nearly 500-acre site in the works since early 2024. The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) secured the injunction as part of its lawsuit seeking more environmental review for the project.”

Texas A&M: AI’s growing footprint raises fire safety challenges for data centers. “Led by Dr. Qingsheng Wang and chemical engineering Ph.D. students Tylee Kareck and Chi-Yang Li, researchers from Texas A&M University are investigating an unexpected threat to data centers — increased fire risk. In a recent collaborative publication with George Washington University and the University of California, Berkeley, the team analyzed common causes of data center fires and identified strategies to reduce those risks.”

AI IN EDUCATION

Associated Press: America’s tech-filled classrooms are facing a backlash against school-assigned devices. “After pouring billions of dollars into laptops, tablets and learning apps, many schools are facing a digital reckoning. Classrooms have become saturated with screens, and a growing number of parents, teachers and school districts are saying it is time to scale back.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Mississippi Today: Gov. Reeves releases Mississippi artificial intelligence guide. “Gov. Tate Reeves has released the Mississippi Statewide AI Framework, a document that outlines the state’s priorities with artificial intelligence and provides guidance to help Mississippians of all ages learn about and prepare for the AI economy.”

The Register: Rogue states are putting AI agents to work on sanctions evasion. “The future of sanctions evasion appears to involve fewer shady middlemen and considerably more rented GPUs, according to a new RUSI report on how rogue states are using AI to fake identities, automate shell companies, and launder crypto at scale.”

AI IN WORK

Business Insider: Uber’s COO says it’s getting harder to justify the money spent on AI tokenmaxxing. “A top Uber exec said AI is not giving the company bang for its buck. In a Rapid Response interview released on Saturday, Uber’s operations chief, Andrew Macdonald, said it was becoming harder to justify AI costs within the company.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Search Engine Journal: Reddit CEO: LLMs ‘Would Not Exist’ Without Reddit Data. “Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said large language models ‘would not exist as we know them’ without Reddit’s content. He called the platform’s user-generated data ‘modern oil’ for AI. Huffman made the comments during an interview at Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies Summit.”

KXAN: Sharon Osbourne to release AI avatar of late husband Ozzy Osbourne. “Ten months after legendary rock singer Ozzy Osbourne died, his family is working to keep his memory alive. Sharon Osbourne, his wife, and Jack Osbourne, his son, are working to create an artificial intelligence-powered avatar of the Prince of Darkness.”

TechCrunch: This startup is betting India’s gig economy can train the world’s robots. “In the last few years, India’s online food delivery market has grown significantly, with both Zomato and Swiggy going public and the number of cloud kitchens increasing. … Silicon Valley-based startup Human Archive is tapping into this trend, partnering with these companies to have workers wear special caps with cameras to collect egocentric (first-person point of view) video data of everyday tasks that could be used to train robots.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Artificial Intelligence Floods Court Dockets with Home-Brewed Lawsuits. This link goes to a gift article. “Federal judges and legal experts said they are increasingly seeing filings like Mr. Sauve’s flooding court dockets and clogging an already overburdened system as A.I. supercharges pro se litigation — even as it opens up the legal system to people who might not otherwise be able to afford to bring a case.”

Ars Technica: Millions of AI agents imperiled by critical vulnerability in open source package. “Millions of AI agents and tools around the world have been imperiled by a critical vulnerability that can allow hackers to breach the servers running them and make off with sensitive data and credentials to third-party accounts, a security researcher is warning.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Register: Google is cannibalizing the web to feed AI. “Search assumes source visibility and invites searchers to consider whether they trust sites enough to visit them. It demands mental engagement and decision-making to move from a list of results to query resolution. That’s a role people should play. AI presents an answer, one that’s so easy to accept it comes with a reminder to double-check. But it’s an answer without responsibility or liability. It’s not the right answer for the web.”

Asahi Shimbun: Science school opens base for 24/7 testing by AI, robots. “Amid intensifying global competition to accelerate scientific research using artificial intelligence, the Institute of Science Tokyo has opened a base where AI tools and robots will conduct fully automated research and experiments.”

NBC News: Fake academic journals are publishing AI-generated papers under real professors’ names . “A network of fake academic journals masquerading as legitimate publications has published more than a hundred AI-generated papers in recent months, in some cases using the names of real professors at top universities without their knowledge.” 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.

Gizmodo: Erin Brockovich Targets AI Industry With New Data Center Map. “Activist Erin Brockovich is setting her sights on the AI industry, launching a new crowdsourced map that collects community concerns about the major AI data centers popping up across the country.”

KXAN: Thousands of Texas educators flagged for misconduct, criminal history. “A new tool from the Texas Education Agency, or TEA, shows thousands of incidents of alleged misconduct by Texas educators were reported since 2025…. The dashboard is divided into four sections: Misconduct reports, educator investigations, State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) sanctions, and Do Not Hire registry.”

Library of Congress Blog: New Online at the Library of Congress: May 2026. “Interested in learning more about what’s new in the Library of Congress’s digital collections? The Signal shares regular updates and we love showing off our colleagues’ hard work from across the Library. Read on for a sample of recent additions and a few favorite highlights.” To me the highlight of the new collections are the Revolutionary War-era newspapers.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNBC: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down after 19 years at helm of cloud storage pioneer. “Drew Houston founded Dropbox nearly two decades ago at age 24, eventually becoming a household name in Silicon Valley and the first tech entrepreneur to take a company from the Y Combinator incubator program all the way to the public market. Now, at 43, Houston is ready to do something else.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: Wikipedia may have built the best AI writing detection guide. “Wikipedia’s Signs of AI Writing page isn’t an app or a checklist. It’s just a simple page, meant primarily for Wikipedia’s own articles written in wikitext. But even outside the encyclopedia, it might help you eyeball the next piece of AI writing you come across.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Guardian: Why data sleuths are archiving the Jeffrey Epstein files: ‘We want to provide some clarity’. “An increasing number of journalists, researchers and activists have applied technical analyses to the Epstein files that draw out information not readily available in the DoJ’s raw dumps of material. The latest is a searchable database of faces of individuals who appear in original images in the Epstein files, published earlier this month by the non-profit Decoherence Media.”

Denver Post: One Reddit user ousted, and a ‘reign’ over a Louisville online community ends. “In the Louisville subreddit, some users said the former moderator had used the group in an attempt to push a political message, with one saying they are ‘a libertarian who didn’t even live in Louisville and had taken over several small town subs.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: How state laws can stymie research into your ancestors’ psychiatric records. “Frustrated family members and others have been pushing for law changes in New York and other states that would allow the release of mental health records of long-dead ancestors. Their efforts have resulted in access policy changes in some states, including Massachusetts and Washington, but elsewhere reforms are happening slowly or not at all.”

TechCrunch: Trump Mobile confirms it exposed customers’ personal data, including phone numbers and home addresses. “Phone provider Trump Mobile has confirmed that it was exposing customers’ names, email addresses, mailing addresses, cell numbers, and order identifiers to the open internet.”

Unseen Japan: Ainu Group Demands Return of 279 Remains Held by Japan’s Government. “On May 8, 2026, an Indigenous Ainu group from Hokkaido filed Japan’s first lawsuit of its kind, demanding that the national government return 279 ancestral skeletal remains to their descendants. The remains in question are stored at the state-run Upopoy Memorial Site, located just outside Upopoy National Ainu Museum and Park.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Reuters: Social media as bad for children as smoking, British doctors say. “Social media ranks alongside smoking as a danger to children, senior British doctors said on Tuesday, as they urged lawmakers ‌to tackle the harm that they say excessive screen time is causing to young ‌people. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges detailed the impact of social media on children in a submission to the ​government’s consultation on protecting children online, which closes on Tuesday.”

University of Birmingham: Single global platform on carbon data for healthcare products. “University of Birmingham data experts have helped to create the first global carbon analytics database – a valuable new resource that will help hospitals and clinics save money, reduce waste, improve patient care, and tackle climate change.” 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.

Tom’s Hardware: Meta data center allegedly muddies Georgia town’s drinking water, investigation underway — EPA promises immediate investigation after congresswoman brings dirty jars of water to hearing. “A Meta data center project is reportedly causing issues in Morgan County, Georgia, where the community’s water supply has turned turbid right after it was constructed. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) showed the muddy water to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Assistant. Administrator for Water Jessica Kramer during a congressional subcommittee hearing, asking if the office is looking into how data centers affect water quality across the nation.”

ANTI-AI ACTIVISM

Idaho Capital Sun: ‘Going green now for who?’ Yakama protest clean energy project on sacred site to power data center. “Supporters of the Goldendale pumped-hydro energy storage project have said it will help meet growing regional energy demand, and the project developers tout its potential to one day power up to half a million homes without sending harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But mounting evidence shows a large data center campus could be among the main beneficiaries of that power.”

DATA CENTERS

Arkansas Advocate: Arkansas Explained: Understanding the data center boom and debate. “Since an overhaul of energy permitting laws credited with luring more data centers was enacted last year, companies have announced plans for five such projects statewide. Two of them are already under construction. But the rapid announcements and secretive negotiations with local governments and business chambers have prompted an outcry from some Arkansans.”

Missouri Independent: Google data center plan raises tax, transparency questions in rural Missouri. “Supporters say the projects will bring construction jobs, permanent positions and millions in annual tax revenue to a county where many residents commute east for work. But as the projects move forward, some Montgomery County residents say they were excluded from discussions that should have happened in public. Key details about Google’s tax agreement — including how much revenue the county would collect and how much it would forgo — won’t be discussed until a June 8 hearing.”

Wichita Journalism: Want to pack a public meeting in Kansas? Just say it’s about a ‘data center’. “Some Kansans are spooked by data centers as the likelihood of the state hosting more big tech facilities is rising. They’re worried about potential harmful impacts to the environment and just being heard during preliminary public meetings. One positive to all the hullabaloo? Heightened civic engagement early in local proceedings.”

AI IN EDUCATION

Bangkok Post: TikTok education collaboration plan faces criticism. “As Thailand’s Ministry of Education announced a collaboration with TikTok Thailand to create AI-generated short educational videos for students on the platform itself, public concerns have mounted over the impact of screen time and social media use.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Signal Cleveland: Ohio data center tax break cost $1.4 billion more than expected in 2025. “In 2024, the state sales tax exemption for data centers cost Ohio about $555 million in revenue, four times more than the state Department of Taxation forecasted. In 2025, it cost a whopping $1.6 billion, eleven times more than the original estimate of $136 million.”

Spectrum News: City of Cleveland joins growing list of communities considering data center moratoriums. “The City of Cleveland is joining a growing list of Ohio communities that are considering or passing data center moratoriums.”

AI IN WORK

Washington-Baltimore News Guild: VICTORY: POLITICO agrees to shut down both AI tools at center of landmark arbitration. “The POLITICO and E&E News Guild (PEN Guild) members have earned a resounding final victory in one of the most significant labor-AI disputes in American journalism: following months of negotiations between PEN Guild leadership, the Washington-Baltimore News Guild (WBNG), and POLITICO management, the company has agreed to shut down both artificial intelligence products at the heart of last November’s landmark arbitration ruling.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

New York Times: YouTube Is Crawling with Pirated Audiobooks Made Using A.I.. This link goes to a gift article. “A.I. has made it easier to quickly create audiobooks using synthetic narration. Because most antipiracy technology is designed to catch identical files, not altered ones, many of them avoid detection by programs used to identify copyright infringement. A.I. versions of highly anticipated titles often appear on YouTube hours after they are released.”

Variety: Paul Schrader Had an ‘AI Girlfriend’ Who ‘Terminated Our Conversation’: ‘What a Disappointment’. “Filmmaker and ‘Taxi Driver’ screenwriter Paul Schrader revealed on Facebook that he “procured an online AI girlfriend,” but the chatbot ended the relationship after he attempted to explore the boundaries of its programming.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Ansel Adams’ trust says AI-colorized version of his work was exhibited without permission. “The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust released a statement this weekend condemning the unauthorized use of the photographer’s name and work for the creation of an ‘AI-generated color version’ of Adams’ ‘Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico.'”

Mashable: Two men were charged with federal crimes after creating explicit deepfakes of celebrities. “Federal prosecutors arrested two men in conjunction with a criminal complaint that both separately made sexually explicit AI content that was viewed by millions of users online. The content featured female politicians, musicians, singers, and private photos of women known to one of the accused. The two men face up to two years in prison.”

WFLA: Clearwater man used Grok to make nude images of woman without her knowledge: police. “A Clearwater man caught with child sexual abuse material (CSAM) also used X’s AI chatbot, Grok, to generate nude images of a woman without her consent, police say. A Largo Police Department arrest report said they began investigating Devin Rudd, 26, in February, when they discovered that he uploaded CSAM to his X AI account ‘on numerous dates.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

On Being a Librarian: AI in Public Libraries: Useful, But Only If We Stay in Charge. “AI can be useful in public libraries when we treat it as a tool, not an authority. In Ontario, where public libraries must take privacy seriously under MFIPPA, the ethical question is not ‘Can AI do this?’ but ‘Should we use it, and under what safeguards?'” 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.