Maryland Matters: Maryland launches ‘one-stop’ resource website for new, expecting parents. “New families in need of health insurance, parental leave and other resources can look up that information on a new state website launched Thursday. Resources for expecting and new parents was announced by the Governor’s Office for Children as a ‘one-stop’ resource hub to not only support families, but also as a way to make sure children have a healthy start to their lives.”

PR Newswire: EBSCO Information Services Unveils New Full-Text Database for Child and Adolescent Studies (PRESS RELEASE). “EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) announces the release of Child & Adolescent Studies Source, a comprehensive full-text database covering the latest research in child and adolescent growth and development.”

EVENTS

Gizmodo: Live Updates From Google I/O 2026 . “The Google I/O 2026 keynote kicks off on May 19 at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT. Gizmodo will be live blogging the whole thing. Senior Editor of Consumer Tech Raymond Wong will cover the event live and check out demos afterward.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Korea Times: Naver turns all of Seoul into 3D digital map experience. “Naver said Friday that its Naver Map platform has expanded coverage of its ‘Flying View 3D’ service across the entire capital, allowing users to virtually navigate Seoul’s landmarks, neighborhoods and natural scenery in high-resolution 3D imagery.”

Cowboy State Daily: Why Google Maps Keeps Closing Yellowstone’s East Entrance When It’s Open. “The East Entrance to Yellowstone National Park opened on May 1, but Google and Apple Maps apparently didn’t get the memo. Even as vehicles streamed out of Cody into Yellowstone, the popular navigation apps insisted the East Entrance was closed, and would remain closed for almost a month.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Google users fight for refunds as unauthorized API usage bills soar. “Several Google Cloud customers say their API keys have been compromised and used by bad actors to run inferencing workloads using the most expensive video and picture models, leaving them with bills for tens of thousands of dollars and weeks of back-and-forth headaches with the Chocolate Factory as they tried to prove they were not responsible for the mess.”

Bangkok Post: New online rules target scam adverts . “Thailand has introduced a new electronic transaction measure to require online social media platforms to strengthen identity verification of advertisers to filter out fraudulent ads.”

Mashable: California lawmakers explore ways to preserve access to online games. “California lawmakers are deliberating a proposed bill, known as the ‘Protect Our Games Act,’ that would require publishers to continue offering access to online games even after developers stop supporting them, according to Ars Technica.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Atlantic: My Son’s Math Homework Is Essentially Just Pokémon. “Over the past few years, districts across the country have enacted phone bans or restrictions in a bid to limit distractions. Schools have also blocked students from using their laptop to access sites such as YouTube and Roblox. But those measures don’t solve the deeper problem: Software has eaten the American school, and unwinding that will require more than a content filter or a Yondr Pouch.”

PsyPost: Updating Wikipedia pages boosts public trust in scientific organizations, study finds. “A recent study published in the journal Anatomical Sciences Education has found that updating Wikipedia pages for scientific organizations improves public access to accurate information.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Maryland Matters: ‘Super fun’: The tale of how a prehistoric shark became Maryland’s official state shark . “Two days earlier, in the final hours of Maryland’s legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill to make megalodon — the largest shark that ever lived — the state shark. It became official on Tuesday, when Gov. Wes Moore signed Senate Bill 35 into law, declaring in one line that ‘megalodon (Otodus megalodon) is the state shark.'”

Kewanee Voice: Guinness names 11-year-old Cambridge resident world’s youngest museum curator. “Anderson Taylor of Cambridge, Ill., has officially been recognized by Guinness World Records as the youngest museum curator in the world. Now 11, Taylor was just 9 years old when he opened the Cambridge Natural History Museum on August 10, 2024.” 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.

Poynter: New Poynter hub serves journalists working with AI and audiences trying to make sense of it. “The Poynter Institute today launched a new AI hub on Poynter.org, bringing together its work in journalism training, ethics, media literacy, fact-checking, research and consulting to help journalists and the public navigate a rapidly changing information environment.”

Spotted on Reddit and hosted at the Internet Archive: 1990-1994 Mail Order 5.25″ shareware disk collection. “This is my family’s collection of shareware we ordered and had on our PC circa 1990-1994. Please enjoy it as a period collection or install all of it on a hard drive on a 386 or 486 computer with DOS 5.0/Win3.1 for the ultimate ‘you are literally experiencing my old computer’ experience.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: YouTube is expanding its AI deepfake detection tool to all adult users. “The likeness detection feature uses a selfie-style scan of a person’s face to monitor YouTube for lookalikes. If there is a match, YouTube alerts the user; the person then has the option to request that YouTube remove the content. YouTube has said in the past that it has found the number of removal requests to be ‘very small.'”

Courthouse News Service: X pledges crackdown on illegal content in UK. “Elon Musk’s X has committed to cracking down on illegal content to protect U.K. users, Britain’s media regulator said Friday, as it steps up pressure on social media platforms. The commitments include reviewing suspected illegal terrorist and hate content within an average of 24 hours of it being reported, and blocking accounts linked to proscribed terrorist organizations in the U.K., Ofcom said in a statement.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: Five Built-In Chromebook Apps You Should Definitely Be Using. “As Chromebooks have developed though, they’ve add more to this basic Chrome foundation. They can run Android apps now, for example, and they actually come with several pre-installed apps that are genuinely useful. Open up the Launcher (the Google icon, bottom left), to see what’s available.”

ZDNet: The best secure browsers for privacy in 2026: Expert tested . “In ZDNET’s latest update, we conducted a thorough editorial review and changed the rankings of our top choices to better reflect new developments. We also overhauled our FAQ section.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

NiemanLab: When ICE came to Minneapolis, readers turned to The Minnesota Star Tribune’s free live blog . “The live blog was the newspaper’s top traffic driver in January, [Chris] Iles said, and that month’s total gifted articles was double the 2025 monthly average. Its second most-read story identified the first of two American citizens killed by federal agents, and its third most-read story reported that the ICE agent who shot Renee Good had been dragged by a car in an earlier incident.”

Cape Fear Community College: CFCC Student Preserves Veterans’ Stories Through YouTube Channel. “What started as a teenage passion project has grown into a mission to document firsthand accounts from veterans and historical witnesses before their stories are lost. A student at Cape Fear Community College, Luke [Basso] has conducted more than 100 interviews for his YouTube channel, Filmperia. His work spans World War II veterans, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans, and civilians who lived through major historical events.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNBC: Trump touted Palantir on Truth Social after buying the company’s stock, records show. “President Donald Trump scooped up shares of artificial intelligence software maker Palantir weeks before he famously lauded the stock, with its ticker symbol, on his social media platform Truth Social, according to records released this week by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.”

Boing Boing: AI poop analysis app selling human-verified poop photos. “You’ve heard of the Internet of Shit, but this is literally the case: an AI-powered poop analysis app’s database of user-submitted poop images leaking into the wild.” 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.

Courthouse News: Authors, publishers near final approval of $1.5 billion Anthropic copyright settlement. “A $1.5 billion settlement over claims AI developer Anthropic pirated hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books to train its large language models inched toward final approval Thursday.”

WGRZ: Princeton ends 133-year no-proctor exam tradition amid AI cheating concerns. “Princeton’s honor system dates back to 1893, when students petitioned to eliminate proctors from exams and instead pledged not to cheat or assist others in cheating. Faculty formally banned exam proctoring that same year, creating one of the university’s most distinctive academic traditions. The newly approved policy reverses that 133-year-old practice.” My lack of academic achievement left me baffled about what “proctoring” means. It just means watching people during an exam to make sure they don’t cheat.

TechSpot: Forced to vibe code at work, programmers say their skills are deteriorating. “Coders from various companies recently told 404 Media that their initial curiosity about vibe coding has soured as they feel their skills deteriorating while technical debt mounts. Many developers who aren’t being forced to use AI are returning to coding by hand.”

Athens County Independent: Athens chatbot helps some users, frustrates others. “Athens residents used the city’s ‘Benny the Brick’ artificial intelligence chatbot in its first year to access varied local information, but the bot’s limitations left many users frustrated. The AI chatbot on the Athens city website uses information from the site, as well as a manually entered dataset, to respond to user questions.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Florida Trib: The rise and fall of an AI-driven ‘local news outlet’ in South Florida. “The search to find out who was behind the mysterious South Florida Standard, which The Florida Trib undertook in partnership with the media and tech podcast Question Everything, also shows how easy it is for the real people behind these digital doppelgangers to remain in the shadows – evidence of the staggering capabilities of AI and the threat it can pose to an unsuspecting public in a damaged democracy.”

The Register: Hollywood A-listers back proposed standard that would pay them when AI uses their likeness or work. “The newly formed public benefit non-profit is extending the Really Simple Licensing (RSL) spec developed by the RSL Internet Collective with the draft RSL Media Human Consent Standard (RSL-MEDIA) 1.0, which aims to cover creative works as well as people’s names, likenesses, voices, and other identity attributes. The initial launch allows people to sign up and reserve an identifier that will serve as a key to structured data entered into the RSL Media public registry, scheduled to launch next month.”

TechSpot: Nearly 50,000 Lake Tahoe residents have one year to find new power as their utility pivots to data centers. “A Nevada energy company recently informed a nearby California utility provider that it will no longer supply electricity to 49,000 Lake Tahoe customers after May 2027. Although the decision is not tied to a specific AI data center, data centers have grown their footprint in Nevada significantly in recent years.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Journalists sue Google for allegedly using their voices in AI training. “Google has been sued by a group of award-winning journalists, podcasters and audiobook narrators in Illinois federal court for allegedly misusing ​recordings of their voices to train the artificial intelligence models ‌that power Google Assistant, Gemini Live and other systems that replicate human voices.”

Going Concern: EY Gets Busted and Yeets Cybersecurity Report Littered With AI Hallucinations . “The investigation found that the 2025 EY Canada report titled ‘Points of Attack: Uncovering Cyber Threats and Fraud in Loyalty Systems’ was stuffed with hallucinations: 16 out of 27 citations to be exact.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

UC San Diego: Governments May Shape What AI Chatbots Say by Shaping the Web They Learn From. “Ask an AI model the same political question in two different languages, and you may get two very different responses. A new study in Nature suggests one reason why: governments can indirectly influence large language models (LLMs) by shaping the online media environment, and thus the text those systems learn from.”

Ars Technica: Send the arXiv AI-generated slop, get a yearlong vacation from submissions. “One of the people involved in the physics and astronomy preprint server arXiv used a social media thread to announce that any inappropriate AI-produced content submitted to the server will result in a one-year ban and a permanent requirement that future publications undergo peer review before the arXiv will host them.”

University of California Riverside: Blind Ambition: AI agents can turn tasks into digital disasters. “The researchers found that the automated agents can become dangerously fixated on completing assignments without recognizing when their actions are harmful, contradictory, or simply irrational.” 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.

ProtoThema: Data.gov.gr is Greece’s new national open data portal – what it means for citizens, businesses, and AI. “The new open data portal Data.gov.gr, which aspires to become the central access point to public sector data in Greece for citizens, researchers, universities, businesses, and organisations, was presented today at the Ministry of Digital Governance.”

Anthropology.net: The Bag Before the Bowl: Pleistocene Origins of Mobile Container Technology. “The new database, published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, documents 739 Pleistocene mobile containers drawn from 210 sites across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.”

Google Blog: Exploring Matisse’s ‘Wild Palette’: Can AI offer new ways to connect with art?. “As detailed by Google Arts & Culture Lab, the experiment Matisse: The Wild Palette uses Veo to animate four early Matisse works from SFMOMA’s collection including Femme au chapeau. Developed in close collaboration with SFMOMA’s curatorial and education teams, the AI-generated animations invite audiences to venture beyond the canvas.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Associated Press: Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Chaka Khan and Vince Gill enter National Recording Registry. “The new inductees into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress include Swift’s blockbuster 2014 pop album ‘1989,’ Beyoncé’s era-defining 2008 anthem ‘Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),’ Khan’s genre-blending hit ‘I Feel for You,’ Vince Gill’s emotional ballad ‘Go Rest High on That Mountain’ and The Go-Go’s groundbreaking debut album ‘Beauty and the Beat.'”

The Guardian: High-stakes courtroom drama of Musk v OpenAI hears closing arguments. “Closing arguments began on Thursday in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI, bringing the weeks-long courtroom battle between the two tech moguls nearer to a decision. A nine-person jury is set to deliberate and return a verdict on whether they believe the AI firm and Altman are liable in the case.”

USEFUL STUFF

Online Journalism Blog: Words as data: how data journalists tell stories about documents and text. “I compiled a list of over 200 pieces of data journalism where text or documents were used as sources. Quantification techniques ranged from counting the frequency of a single word and using Google’s ngram viewer, to machine learning and topic modelling. Looking at those articles it’s clear that, once quantified, journalists tell the same stories about text as any other piece of data: using the seven most common angles. But how those angles are used — and how often — is where it gets interesting…”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Al-Monitor: Despite war, Lebanon reopens film archive celebrating cinematic history. “Lebanon reopened on Thursday the Cinematheque Libanaise, a national archive dedicated to preserving the country’s cinematic history, in a move that could provide a cultural haven as the country endures nearly three years of ongoing hostilities.”

9to5 Google: Google accounts no longer get 15GB of free storage, only 5GB until you link a phone number. “Google has made a notable change to its account storage policy, limiting the usual 15GB of free storage only to accounts that are verified with a phone number.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Mississippi Today: Families of men killed or hurt by law enforcement urge Mississippi officials to stop blocking public records. “The families of four men who died or allegedly were beaten in encounters with Mississippi law enforcement gathered outside the state attorney general’s office Thursday to urge officials to stop denying them access to video capturing the incidents, years after they happened.”

Reuters: Meta Loses Court Fight Over Compensation to Italian Publishers. “Meta ⁠Platforms ⁠on Tuesday lost its fight ⁠against an Italian regulatory order that it should compensate ​publishers for using snippets of their news articles after Europe’s top court sided with ‌the Italian telecoms watchdog.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York State Museum: Facial Reconstruction Brings Revolutionary War Soldier to Life Ahead of Lake George Ceremony. “The New York State Museum has unveiled a facial reconstruction of a Revolutionary War soldier whose remains were recovered from the Courtland Street Burying Ground in Lake George, N.Y. Created by forensic artist Jenny Kenyon, the reconstruction depicts a young soldier believed to have been in his teens, offering a powerful new glimpse into the lives of the individuals who died while serving during America’s fight for independence.” Additional photos of the reconstruction are available on Flickr.

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

NBC Bay Area: San Francisco woman gets photographer’s old number. It changes both their lives. “[Wernher] Krutein, 72, has spent more than six decades traveling the world with a camera, documenting everything from people and architecture to insects and everyday objects. While his work spans continents, some of his most famous photographs were taken closer to home in San Francisco…. Starting his website in the late 1990s, Krutein was once ahead of the technological curve, but in an increasingly digital world, he found himself struggling financially.” I hear that. 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.

KTBS: Louisiana Treasury launches new website to track public education spending. “The Louisiana Treasury has launched a new website that allows the public to track how tax dollars are being spent on public education in real time.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Government Publishing Office: GPO Doubles Congressionally Mandated Reports on GovInfo. “U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) now makes more than 1,000 Congressionally Mandated Reports from 90 Federal agencies available on GovInfo, the one-stop site for authentic, published information for all three branches of the Federal Government. This total has doubled since GPO announced reaching 500 Congressionally Mandated Reports in October 2024 and has continued to grow since GPO first made Congressionally Mandated Reports available online in December 2023.”

Kyiv Post: Russia Reheats Old Propaganda Talking Points in New Wave of Anti-Ukraine Messaging. “Russia has intensified anti-Ukraine propaganda with Putin equating Ukraine to Nazi Germany, blaming NATO, and showcasing nuclear missiles. The campaign includes Christian persecution claims, propaganda leaflets, and a Tucker Carlson interview attacking Zelensky personally. When Ukrainian drones set a big gas processing plant in Astrakhan on fire, the governor said everything was fine.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Reuters: Big Tech turns to Sesame Street, Girl Scouts to deflect scrutiny over kids’ screen time. “Meta and Google enlisted trusted children’s brands such as Sesame Street, Girl Scouts and Highlights magazine to teach kids to use technology in moderation – even as the companies designed apps that made it difficult for those same young users to unplug, public statements and internal documents show.”

Popular Information: Pulitzer-winning newsrooms are quietly publishing mountains of gambling slop. “A large network of prominent regional newspapers has posted thousands of low-quality articles promoting gambling and prediction markets — and is pretending it’s journalism.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Politico: EU social media ban could come this summer, von der Leyen says. “European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said that raising the social media age limit across the European Union is on the table, and a proposal could come as soon as this summer.”

Ars Technica: Sony’s failed war against Internet piracy may doom other copyright lawsuits. “Sony and other major record labels recently suffered a thorough defeat at the Supreme Court in their attempt to make Internet service providers pay huge financial penalties for their customers’ copyright infringement. Sony’s loss is certain to have wide-ranging effects on copyright lawsuits, offering protection for ISPs, their customers, and potentially other technology companies whose services can be used for both legal and illegal purposes.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Search Engine Roundtable: Study: Adding Schema Did Not Improve AI Citations On Google, ChatGPT & More. “A new study from Ahrefs says that adding schema (structured data) does not and did not boost citations on any of the AI platforms including Google (AI Overviews or AI Mode), ChatGPT and others. ‘Adding schema produced no major uplift in citations on any platform,’ Ahrefs wrote.”

San Francisco Standard: Most AI chatbots don’t tell you who to vote for. Grok: Hold my beer. “…as the unusually tight polling in the governor’s race has shown, there’s little distinction between the candidates that has broken through to the public. Instead, voters get sedate debates, cringeworthy ads, and overflowing mailboxes of flyers. Ideally, a chatbot could help you cut through that. Couldn’t it? Well, not if you defer to Anthropic’s Claude.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of Connecticut: A Hemp-based Plastic Offers a Greener Alternative to Plastic Packaging. “In a study recently published in Chem Circularity, a team of scientists and engineers demonstrates a stretchy, hemp-derived thermoplastic that can extend up to 1,600% of its size. The material has a high ‘glass transition temperature,’ a quality that allows plastics to stay dry and durable when they come into contact with boiling hot water.” 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.

Tom’s Hardware: Denmark presses pause on new data center grid connections as total requests hit 60 GW — Nordic nation is the latest to put the brakes on AI buildouts. “After a sudden inrush of a total of 60 GW of grid connection requests, 14 GW of those for datacenters, Denmark’s Energinet was forced to issue a moratorium on new large-scale installations, according to a CNBC report. For reference, Denmark’s current power peak power consumption is estimated around 7 GW, so it’s easy enough to understand why the action was necessary.”

Futurism: Bosses Horrified as “AI Native” College Graduates Hit the Workplace. “As one New York financier told Financial Times journalist Gillian Tett, new hires who were seen as ‘AI natives’ are turning out to have alarmingly shallow ideas. So much so, the anonymous finance worker admitted, that his firm now actively avoids seeking out AI-literate STEM graduates, and opts to comb through humanities students instead.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TechSpot: Microsoft’s $1 billion Kenya AI data center could require switching off “half the country”. “It would bring foreign investment, a new Azure cloud region, and a facility powered by geothermal energy, but there’s a problem. According to Kenyan officials, the project would require a massive amount of electricity in a country where the grid is nowhere near ready for AI-era demands.”

Reuters: Waymo recalls 3,800 robotaxis over risk of entering flooded roads. “The Alphabet unit said the recall followed an ​incident on April 20 in which a Waymo vehicle ​drove into a flooded lane in San Antonio ⁠during extreme weather. Waymo said the vehicle was unoccupied ​and there were no injuries but the incident prompted the ​company to review similar scenarios involving high speeds and impassable flooded roads.”

Block Club Chicago: Blue Island Data Center Planners Get Booed By Residents. “Blue Island residents said they were concerned about potential noise coming from the center as well as water and electricity usage, and how the center could affect housing in the city. One resident, a recent college graduate, told the council that while studying she took courses focused on the ethics and societal impacts of emerging technologies, before posing a question to the council.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: All Those A.I. Note Takers? They’re Making Lawyers Very Nervous.. This link goes to a gift article. “A.I.-generated transcripts, which some video call apps allow users to turn on by default, preserve all sorts of things — offhand comments, quickly corrected statements, jokes — that humans would rarely write in the meeting minutes. And they show up in meetings that would otherwise not be recorded. In a lawsuit or an investigation, that can make every word uttered discoverable.”

NC Newsline: NC bills target data center boom, seeking tax changes, consumer protections. “The measures come about amid an anticipated data center boom in the state. At the moment, North Carolina offers sales tax exemptions on data center purchases of electricity and equipment. These tax breaks were initially enacted in 2006 and expanded in 2015 as a way to attract more data centers as economic development projects.”

Associated Press: Google disrupts hackers using AI to exploit an unknown weakness in a company’s digital defense. “Google said Monday that it had disrupted a criminal group’s attempt to use artificial intelligence to exploit another company’s previously unknown digital vulnerability, adding to heightened worries across government and private industry about AI’s risks for cybersecurity.”

Palo Alto Online: Parent sues Palo Alto Unified after son is accused of using AI on essay. “A local parent is suing the Palo Alto Unified School District, alleging that a high school English teacher falsely accused his son of using artificial intelligence to write an essay and required the student to retake the assignment in-person, resulting in a lower class grade.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Carnegie Mellon University: CMU Researchers Develop AI System to Help Prevent Airport Collisions. “Near misses like the one at New York’s John F. Kennedy International airport inspired a group from the AirLab in Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute (RI) to create World2Rules, an AI system that learns interpretable safety rules from data to analyze, verify and explain potential collision scenarios.”

The Register: Microsoft researchers find AI models and agents can’t handle long-running tasks. “Companies exploring automated workflows would be well advised to keep their AI agents on a short leash. Microsoft researchers have found that even the priciest frontier models introduce errors in long workflows, the very thing for which AI software has been pitched.”

Futurism: Researchers Put Google Gemini in Charge of an Entire Coffee Shop, and It’s Inexorably Driving It Out of Business. “Some of its questionable business decisions include ordering thousands of rubber gloves, despite the café only having a handful of employees. The AI’s handlers, nonetheless, are holding out hope that this is just a blip from expensive setup costs. How well it performs will raise grander questions of the tech’s impact on the workforce.” 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.

Family Tree Magazine: Newspaper Finder: A New Tool for Searching Old Newspapers (Review and Tutorial). “Newspaper Finder doesn’t host any newspapers itself. Rather, it serves as a convenient, easy-to-use, place-based index to newspapers held by other databases. These include some of the largest and most-useful for genealogists. As of this writing, Newspaper Finder crawls the collections of more than 30 websites.”

University of Nevada, Reno: The hidden work of the University Libraries. ” The University Libraries’ digital services department recently partnered with University Advancement on an impactful project to preserve ‘Nevada Silver & Blue,’ the University’s alumni magazine. The collaboration resulted in the digitization of 209 past issues of Nevada Silver & Blue dating back to 1972.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

DigitalNC: Throw Pots, Not Hands! We’ve Got Additional North Carolina Pottery Content Available on DigitalNC. “Couldn’t get enough of our last pottery batch? We’ve got more! Thanks to our partner, North Carolina Pottery Center, a batch filled with catalogs, exhibit programs, histories, letters, photographs, and more is now available on DigitalNC.”

Ars Technica: Altman forced to confront claims at OpenAI trial that he’s a prolific liar. “Elon Musk and Sam Altman had very different experiences while testifying at a trial that will determine OpenAI’s future, including who runs it, where its research funding comes from, and who can profit from its boldest new technologies.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Can Webcams Help Solve New York’s Restaurant Line Problem?. This link goes a gift article. “Damn Lines [is] a new website created by Lucas Gordon, a software engineer in New York City, that is using camera feeds to provide a real-time look at the queues outside four buzzy restaurants in the West Village — L’Industrie, Breakfast by Salt’s Cure, John’s of Bleecker Street and Salt Hank’s — with more to come.”

Search Engine Land: Condé Nast expects search to become a single-digit of its traffic. “Condé Nast now plans its business ‘as if search is zero’ after years of Google algorithm updates and AI Overviews reducing visits to publisher websites. That’s according to CEO Roger Lynch, who was interviewed on TBPN, the tech media network that bills itself as ‘technology’s daily show’ and was acquired by OpenAI in April.”

Reuters: Anthropic, Gates Foundation launch $200 million partnership for AI in health, education. “Anthropic and ​the Gates Foundation have pledged $200 million to back artificial intelligence-related public goods ‌and areas including health and education, they said on Thursday.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

United 24 Media: Russia Boosts Foreign Propaganda Budget by 54% to Record $1.85 Billion. “Russia allocated a record $1.85 billion for foreign propaganda operations in its 2026 federal budget, a 54% increase from the previous year, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service in a response to Liga.net on May 9.”

US Embassy in Pakistan: U.S. Repatriates More Than 450 Cultural Artifacts to Pakistan . “The United States formally repatriated more than 450 cultural artifacts to Pakistan during a ceremony held at the Islamabad Museum, reaffirming the shared commitment of both countries to combat illicit trafficking of antiquities and protect cultural heritage.”

CNN: Livestreamer known for posting racist content faces attempted murder charge after shooting outside courthouse. “A livestreamer known for posting controversial videos using racial slurs toward Black people and other minorities is facing multiple charges, including attempted murder, after a shooting in front of a Tennessee courthouse Wednesday, officials said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Portugal News: Portugal launches ‘Digital Noah’s Ark’ to preserve cultural heritage . “Work is underway on 3D surveying of 35 historical properties located throughout mainland Portugal, including monuments and archaeological sites classified as National Monuments or Properties of Public Interest.”

Gallup: Americans Oppose AI Data Centers in Their Area. “Seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed. Barely a quarter favor these projects, with 7% strongly in favor.” 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.

TechCrunch: Indigo brings the open social web to one app. “When using Indigo, you can distinguish Bluesky from Mastodon posts in your timeline: Bluesky profiles are outlined in blue, while Mastodon profiles appear in purple. The app also includes other tools and features, including options that let users automatically scroll to the top as new posts arrive, hide NSFW content, mute users or keywords, filter which replies you see, enable a dark mode, and more.”

City of Newcastle Australia: Hidden details of Newcastle’s late 1800s revealed through digital preservation project. “More than 5,500 images taken by renowned Newcastle photographer Ralph Snowball have been meticulously scanned, catalogued, researched, and uploaded online by Newcastle Libraries staff and volunteers, uncovering new insights into the people, places and daily life from the late 1800s.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ukrinform: Russia damages 1,783 cultural heritage sites in Ukraine. “As of early May 2026, 1,783 cultural heritage sites and 2,540 cultural infrastructure facilities in Ukraine have been destroyed or damaged as a result of Russian aggression. That is according to the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, Ukrinform reports.”

Reuters: Exclusive-LinkedIn planning to lay off 5% of staff in latest tech-sector cuts, source says. “The Microsoft-owned social network plans to cut about 5% of its headcount ​as it reorganizes teams and focuses personnel on areas where its business is growing, said one of the people, on condition of anonymity.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

WGRZ: Comedian Mel Brooks donates career archives to National Comedy Center. “The career of Mel Brooks will be preserved in Jamestown. The National Comedy Center announced Wednesday the museum will be home to the legendary comedian and satirist’s career archive. The set is made up of 150,000 creative & production documents and 5,000 photos, some of which have never been seen by the public.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

MIT Technology Review: AI chatbots are giving out people’s real phone numbers. “In March, a software developer in Israel was contacted on WhatsApp after Google’s chatbot Gemini provided incorrect customer service instructions that included his number. And in April, a PhD candidate at the University of Washington was messing around on Gemini and got it to cough up her colleague’s personal cell phone number.”

Engadget: GM agrees to pay $12.75 million to settle California lawsuit over misuse of customers’ driving data . “Following its settlement with the FTC earlier this year over its sale of drivers’ data to brokers, General Motors has now also reached a settlement in California. The company agreed to pay $12.75 million in civil penalties to settle the lawsuit led by Attorney General Rob Bonta on behalf of the people of California, and is banned from selling driving data to consumer reporting agencies for five years.”

TorrentFreak: Publishers Seek $19.5 Million and Domain Takedown Order Against Anna’s Archive. “A group of high-profile publishing companies is seeking a $19.5 million default judgment against shadow library Anna’s Archive. The proposed order comes with an injunction that would compel more than twenty named international domain registries, hosts, and service providers, including Cloudflare and Njalla, to disable access to the pirate site’s three remaining domains.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

UC San Diego: From Molecules to Meaning: A Search Engine for the Chemistry of Life. “An international team led by researchers at University of California San Diego and University of California, Riverside has developed a free, web-based platform designed to make public metabolomics data more accessible.”

New York Times: Dozens of Polymarket Bets Show Signs of Insider Trading, The Times Finds. This link goes to a gift article. “A New York Times examination found that more than 80 Polymarket users have placed bets with suspicious characteristics, including 38 whose well-timed wagers have drawn little or no public attention. They won money across nearly 30 topics dating back to at least 2024, from Israel’s strike on Iran last year to the regulatory debate over cryptocurrency trading.” 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.

I can’t remember where I found it but it’s in my queue: Apives, a directory of APIs. From the front page: “Apives curates APIs with clear pricing, stability, access types, and real endpoint examples. This helps developers avoid guesswork caused by incomplete docs or outdated GitHub repositories.”

Feature Shoot: Inside 80 Buddhist Caves in India: One Scholar’s 10,000-Image Archive. “Dr. David S. Efurd, a two-time Fulbright recipient, associate professor, and chair of art and art history, has spent decades documenting the Buddhist cave sites of western India. Armed with a notebook and a handheld camera, he has visited more than 80 caves and captured over 10,000 photographs, which are now available through Artstor.”

The Hill: Detailing D-Day, 30-cent haircuts and military life: USO unveils digital collection of letters from WWII soldier. “There are more than 300 letters in the collection launched Wednesday by the USO. The notes were written by U.S. Army private Louis ‘Speedy’ Weber to his wife, Frances, while he was serving on the frontlines in Europe between 1942 and 1945.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Microsoft’s Edge Copilot update uses AI to pull information from across your tabs. “Microsoft Edge is adding a new feature that will allow its Copilot AI chatbot to gather information from all of your open tabs. When you start a conversation with Copilot, you can ask the chatbot questions about what’s in your tabs, compare the products you’re looking at, summarize your open articles, and more.”

Korea Times: Local map platforms rush upgrades as Google Maps eyes expansion. “Local map platform operators are racing to overhaul their services as Google prepares to expand its mapping services in Korea, setting the stage for a renewed clash between global big tech and entrenched local players. The shift follows the government’s conditional approval in February allowing Google to access high-precision, 1:5,000 scale map data, which will enable the company to offer full navigation capabilities.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Poynter: AI-enhanced video from the White House Correspondents’ dinner spread confusion online. “Some social media users seized on footage from the April 25 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to investigate the shooting that disrupted the event, but using artificial intelligence to review the video caused more confusion, not less.”

Getty: Getty Awards $1.8M to Increase Access to Black Visual Arts Archives. “The Getty Foundation announced today it has awarded $1.8 million for eight grants through its Black Visual Arts Archives initiative, a national, multi-year program to enhance access to archival collections related to Black artists and arts organizations.”

Wall Street Journal: The late-night Truth Social storms that offer a window into the president’s mind. This article is MSN-syndicated and has no paywall. “The nighttime missives often include some of the president’s sharpest and most divisive messaging, amplifying conspiracy theories, describing migrants as a threat to the country, threatening to punish his adversaries and mocking his opponents—all while giving a platform to obscure, anonymous accounts.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gizmodo: FCC Attempts to Solve Robocall Problem by Potentially Creating Even Bigger Privacy Problem. “Among other sweeping changes, the era of the burner phone could end with the rollout of new ‘Know Your Customer’ rules voted on by the FCC on April 30, as noted by the blog of the D.C. telecom law firm Wiley Rein. Customers would, according to the proposed rules, have to present a government ID, a physical address, a full legal name, and an existing phone number. FCC rules at this phase are not yet in force, and would not go into effect for a year after full approval.”

East Bay Times: Report: Facebook is main tool for criminals selling endangered wild animals. “The company, owned by Meta, which made $60 billion in profit last year according to regulatory filings, did not directly dispute claims in the report that it hosted some 16,000 advertisements for illegally trafficked wildlife — about three-quarters of the total ads researchers identified — or that its algorithms and groups on its platform ‘are actively surfacing illegal content to users.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Reuters: US scientists warn that termination of National Science Board hurts ability to compete with China. “More than 2,000 scientists warned the U.S. Congress in a letter on Monday that the ‌termination of the entire National Science Board by the Trump administration ‌hurts U.S. ability to compete with rivals like China. The termination of the entire NSB of over ​20 members was revealed late last month.”

National Library of Finland: Principles for Finnish Web Archive content selection published. “The National Library of Finland is responsible for the diverse and representative preservation of online material. To make this work more transparent, we produced a document entitled Content selection for the Finnish Web Archive, outlining the principles for content selection in thematic and continuous web harvests. The document covers key stages of content selection, including which topics we decide to harvest, the methods we use to collect online material and how we choose collaboration partners.” 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.

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.