Institute for Strategic Dialogue: ISD Launches the Authoritarian Interference Tracker. “ISD is launching the Authoritarian Interference Tracker (AIT), a tool that catalogues interference operations by Russia, China and Iran across five incident types: cyber operations, kinetic operations, information operations, malign finance, and political and civic subversion.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Hackaday: Samsung’s SmartThings API Terminates Free Access. “If there’s one constant in the world of commercial home automation solutions, it is that of decreasing availability and higher costs as time goes on. So too with Samsung’s SmartThings, the API of which will cease free access in October of 2026. While this does not affect people who use the SmartThings app, any system that relies on access to this API will soon face a $4.99 per month fee for non-commercial users, with various commercial tiers also in the pipeline.”

Moscow Times: Russian Propaganda Is Getting Worse as the War Drags On. “In the first months of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia took pride in the high quality of its propaganda. Even its enemies and various analysts were forced to acknowledge that this was one of the few high-quality products the country produced. Four years later, something has broken. It is as if shifting the economy onto a war footing has turned the once-mighty propaganda machine into a rotting pumpkin.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Herald (Scotland): Glasgow Life and Creative Scotland join forces on arts centre archive. “Last-ditch talks are underway to secure the future of a vast cultural collection spanning half a century which charts the history of two of Glasgow’s best-known arts institutions. The Scottish Government’s arts agency is in talks with Glasgow Life, which runs museums, galleries and cultural venues on behalf of the city council, about acquiring the archive devoted to the Third Eye Centre and the Centre for Contemporary Arts.”

Tubefilter: After hosting another hit concert, Roblox gets more music rights for creators. “Roblox wants to be more than just a game-building platform. It wants to become the place you go to hear hit music, and it is amassing the rights deals it needs to make that push. Through a partnership with the indie distribution company Too Lost, Roblox will add a library of tracks from popular artists. Game builders will be able to spruce up their worlds with a soundtrack that includes notable names like Teddy Swims, Alex Warren, and A$ap Ferg.”

HuffPost: Senior Trump Official Using Government Account To Smear Sitting Federal Judges. “James Percival, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, posted a series of messages on social media last week dubbed ‘Worst of the Worst, District Judge Edition.’ … Percival names four U.S. district judges, identifies the Democratic presidents who appointed them and condemns their decisions on immigration-related cases as if they’ve gone beyond the bounds of the law.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: US FTC sues Hims & Hers for sending user health info to Meta, Snap. “The U.S. Federal Trade ​Commission sued Hims & Hers on Wednesday alleging the telehealth platform shared users’ health ‌data with online advertisers, despite promising privacy, and engaged in deceptive billing and cancellation practices.”

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Why Are Gay Bars Building Databases of Their Patrons?. “Recent reports have raised alarm about the use of PatronScan, an ID-checking and face-scanning system, at multiple LGBTQ+ bars in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood. Much of the attention has focused on reports that the system photographs patrons as they enter venues and questions about whether those images are used for facial recognition. A broader privacy concern also deserves scrutiny.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Gizmodo: SETI Scientists Think Alien Signals Could Be Hiding in Old Telescope Data. “The beauty of Mason and her colleagues’ approach is that it offers a new way to reexamine reams of old data that might already have messages from an alien civilization just waiting for us to hear. From ALMA’s archival data, the team surveyed so-called Band 3 information, with a focus on two high-frequency, narrow-band windows around 90.642 and 93.151 GHz, which have wavelengths in the millimeter and submillimeter range.”

Luxembourg Times: National Library steps up fight against book-eating pests. “When people say that someone is devouring literature, they usually mean it in a figurative sense. Unless, that is, we’re talking about a Ctenolepisma longicaudatum, also known as a paper silverfish. You could look up exactly what that is in one of the many encyclopaedias at the Luxembourg National Library (BNL) – provided the silverfish hasn’t been quicker off the mark and already devoured that very information.”

UC Santa Barbara: Thousands of America’s historic landmarks face significant wildfire risk. “Researchers at UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) have completed the first national-scale assessment of wildfire risk to American cultural heritage. Of the 100,117 sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places, more than half face measurable wildfire exposure. For 3,446 places, that risk is severe.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of British Columbia: How camera-equipped homing pigeons could improve robotic vision in flight. “The system weighs just 27 grams and includes a miniature computer, about half the size of a credit card; a tiny modified commercial camera, a motion and orientation measurement unit and cables and electronics tape to reduce static during flight.” 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.

The Story Mug: Bhoral: The Digital Archive Ensuring Assamese Cinema Is Never Forgotten. “In every Assamese household —especially in rural households —the bhoral (granary) remains a symbol of preservation—a place where the harvest is carefully stored for the future. Drawing inspiration from that enduring institution, two passionate admirers of Assamese cinema embarked on a journey to preserve its rich past and evolving present for future generations. The result is Bhoral- which, instead of grains, preserves films, filmmakers and the stories behind them, creating a digital archive for a cinematic legacy that has too often remained scattered, incomplete and at risk of being forgotten.”

University of Hawaii: UH digital exhibit connects Asia-Pacific through shared cultural stories. “An ancient glass shard. A mural painted thousands of miles from home. A ceremonial headband passed through generations. These objects tell stories that stretch across generations and oceans in The Ocean That Remembers, a new digital exhibition created through the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) and its Asia-Pacific Museum Exchange (APME) program.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Financial Times: Elon Musk settles long-running legal battle with X advertisers. “Elon Musk’s X has settled a long-running legal battle with a group of advertisers, ending a case that accused brands including Mars, Shell, Nestlé and Lego of illegally boycotting the social media platform. X Corp, the parent company of X, took advertisers and the World Federation of Advertisers, a trade body, to court in 2024 claiming that they had conspired to move ‘billions of dollars’ in advertising revenue away from the site.” 

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: Googling ‘Jimothy’ brings up an unexpected surprise. “On Tuesday, Threads users noticed that Jimothy’s fame has now been acknowledged by the search engine gods — namely, he has his own Google animation.”

CNN: ‘Maxxing’ isn’t the best approach to any part of your health. “‘Maxxing’ is an online trend applied to advice for aspects of health including sleep, diet and fertility. But much of this maxxing advice can be unhelpful or unhealthy or go against the steady, personalized changes many experts recommend.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Russia accuses Telegram CEO Pavel Durov of aiding terrorism in its latest digital crackdown. “Russian authorities said Wednesday they had charged Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the popular messaging app Telegram, with aiding terrorism, the latest step by the Kremlin to bring the internet and digital communications under its control.”

Spectrum Local News: New York finalizes social media restrictions for kids. “[Kathy] Hochul was joined at an announcement by state Attorney General Letitia James, whose office crafted detailed regulations. The rules will apply to the largest social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, X and YouTube. Kids under 18 years old will no longer see an addictive algorithmic feed and will no longer receive notifications from midnight to 6 a.m., unless they get parental consent.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Connecticut State Library: Connecticut Institutions Win $750,000 National Grant to Preserve the State’s Revolutionary War Records. “Led by the State Library, a team of Connecticut institutions will conserve, organize, and digitize thousands of pages and objects from Connecticut’s history, then make them freely available online through the Connecticut Digital Archive (CTDA), the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), and Connecticut Archives Online (CAO).”

Copernicus Climate Change Service: Global climate data, local solutions: 17 new projects from C3S National Collaboration Program kick off. “The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) is launching 17 new projects under its National Collaboration Programme (NCP), converting C3S climate data into practical tools for users across Europe and beyond. The initiatives range from operational seasonal and sector-specific forecasting tools to educational resources, and climate adaptation applications tailored to national and regional needs.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Baltimore Fishbowl: Rat Shack in Federal Hill leaves droppings people love. “[Meg] Murray is the creator of Rat Shack, a public art installation she built out of a medicine cabinet and talent for needle-felting adorable tiny rats. There is even now chalk art pointing the way to the shack attached to the railing of her steps at the corner of William and Ostend streets.” 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.

Source NM: As Gallup officials respond to recent flooding, they say an AI news outlet is getting in the way. “Local officials said in addition to grappling with natural disasters, they were also responding to a new AI news outlet named Prism McKinley County that they say has regularly published false and misleading information in a time of crisis. For instance, within the last week, Prism published a story about a woman drowning in floods, but the death occurred last year, according to Matt Robinson, Gallup’s tourism and marketing manager.”

The Guardian: Misleading AI-generated doctors pose ‘huge danger to public safety’. “Misleading health claims online pose a ‘huge danger to public safety’, experts have warned, after research has shown that AI-generated doctors are gaining millions of views on TikTok by spreading dubious health advice.”

BBC: China’s new challenge as natural disasters strike – fake AI videos. “Powerful storms and flooding incidents over the last few months have seen fake videos inundating social media platforms – these include images of dead bodies floating in floodwaters, the false depiction of severe flooding in areas actually not affected and others with blatantly fake details of emergency response efforts. In some areas, videos containing false information about power outages prompted residents to panic buy emergency supplies.”

DATA CENTERS

This is Reno: NV Energy sues to block private arbitration for 2-gigawatt data center projects. “NV Energy filed a lawsuit Friday in Washoe County Second Judicial District Court seeking to block a private arbitration involving a large proposed data center development. The public utility argues that decisions about electric service, utility planning and customer costs belong exclusively before state utility regulators rather than a private arbitrator.”

Chicago Sun-Times: Is Hawthorne Race Course being torn down for a data center? Cicero thinks so.. “Cicero officials believe there could be plans in the works for a data center to replace the Hawthorne Race Course, which recently closed after 135 years of horse racing. In a symbol of how unpopular data center developments have become, the trustees of the near western suburb are expected to consider two resolutions opposing data centers when they meet Tuesday — even though no official announcements have been made about any projects.”

AI IN EDUCATION

TechSpot: Professor’s invisible prompt trap catches 32 students cheating on their midterm with AI. “Modern problems require modern solutions – according to the meme. In this case, the issue is students using AI to cheat on assignments. The solution, used to great effect by one professor, was to hide a white-colored font in the assignment prompt telling the AI to talk nonsense about an unrelated subject.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Texas Tribune: Texas’ multibillion-dollar sales tax exemption for data centers is growing, while audits lag. “Texas’ multibillion-dollar estimate for what it will lose on sales tax breaks for data centers is growing, but the Comptroller’s Office warned lawmakers on Monday they have little information about whether data centers are meeting their promises to be eligible for the exemption.”

The Current Georgia: Gov. Kemp backs Georgia data centers despite worries about AI’s risks. “Gov. Brian Kemp weighed in on the rush to develop artificial intelligence, calling the technology ‘scary’ while also welcoming data centers to Georgia and criticizing others who would pause their development.”

AI IN WORK

New York Times: A.I. Companies Are Recruiting Electricians and Carpenters by the Thousands. This link goes to a gift article. “There is no parallel in American history for the boom underway in the construction of data centers, fueled by companies with functionally unlimited cash that are racing to supply skyrocketing demand for their A.I. models. The explosion has offset flagging activity in other sectors, like office construction, which never recovered after the pandemic. Housing has been depressed by high interest rates, and offshore wind felled by political opposition. Still, competition for labor — never mind land and materials — is starting to weigh on other parts of the industry.”

Financial Times: PwC published reports on AI marred by AI hallucinations. “PwC published reports on AI and electric vehicles riddled with fake footnotes, misattributed claims and unverifiable information, the latest example of a Big Four firm’s slapdash use of AI-generated content. The AI hallucinations were contained in ‘thought leadership’ reports designed to drum up consulting work for partners in the Middle East, according to an investigation by researchers at GPTZero verified by the FT.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

TechSpot: Firefox’s New Tab page is getting a daily crossword built from AI-summarized news. “Mozilla is adding new widgets to Firefox’s New Tab page, including an AI-powered crossword puzzle tied to current news. The feature is powered by Particle, an AI news reader that summarizes articles and uses that material to build a daily puzzle based on the day’s headlines.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Search Engine Journal: Indexed Claude Chats Show Why Disallow Is Not Noindex. “Anthropic told TechCrunch that share links will appear in search results only if people post them in accessible locations for crawlers, and that links sent through private messages won’t be indexed…. Google spokesperson Ned Adriance stated that search engines do not determine which pages are made public, and that Google provides site owners with control over crawling and indexing and follows those controls.” You’d think a company awash with so much money would make more effort to protect user privacy.

Reuters: Nvidia forms industry alliance for open AI security after Hugging Face hack. “Nvidia said on Monday it had formed a coalition with other companies to develop and share tools for AI safety ​and cybersecurity, days after the Hugging Face incident drew attention to ‌the dangers of losing control of autonomous AI agents.”

Euronews: AI chatbots citing Russian propaganda sourced from EU-sanctioned outlet. “AI chatbots are citing Russia propaganda from EU-sanctioned outlets, researchers say, raising questions about how hybrid warfare is expanding to influence large language models (LLMs). Mainstream large language models (LLMs) such as Google Gemini have reportedly cited pro-Russian propaganda from an EU-sanctioned outlet when generating responses, including claims that Ukraine is using the bodies of dead soldiers in meat products.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Dartmouth College: Working to Combat Propaganda in Overlooked Languages. “Anew study led by Fabrice Niyigaba ’27 reports the first digital tool for identifying online propaganda in Kinyarwanda, the national language of Rwanda’s 15 million people—and possibly the first for any of the Bantu languages spoken by 350 million Africans.” 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.

Patch California: Corporate Owners Quietly Reshape Veterinary Care Across CA: Is Your Vet One Of Them?. “That reality is the focus of Private Equity Vet, an independent website that tracks ownership of veterinary hospitals across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. California dog owner Francis Wong created the database after he says his dachshund, Pluto, died following treatment at a clinic he later discovered was owned by a private equity-backed company.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Google’s AI search is rapidly becoming the default, new data shows. “AI search is rapidly becoming the default, whether users like it or not. In just a year’s time, Google’s AI-generated answers in search, known as AI Overviews, have gone from appearing in 15% of searches to 43%, according to a new report, driving a shift in how web users consume information online.”

CNBC: EBay, former execs to pay $56 million in blogger harassment and stalking case. “Communications revealed in a 2024 criminal complaint brought by federal prosecutors showed senior eBay executives exchanging messages about Ina Steiner, including one where former CEO Devin Wenig said to ‘take her down.’ The couple received a stream of online threats and strange deliveries to their home, including live insects, a funeral wreath, a bloody pig mask and a book about surviving the loss of a spouse.”

USEFUL STUFF

LiveScience: 7 ways to photograph the 2026 total solar eclipse — from smartphone to telescope. “Photographing a solar eclipse is unlike photographing anything else. Solar safety matters, exposure changes dramatically, and totality lasts only a few precious minutes. Despite that, memorable eclipse photographs can be taken with almost any camera. The best approach depends on your equipment, your experience and what kind of memory you want to bring home.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Bloomberg: The Creator Economy Has a New Middle Class. Mikayla Nogueira is middle class? “In many cases, the followers necessary to sustain a living are smaller (and more attainable) than people might assume. A small but loyal audience can now generate enough income to rival a midlevel salary. Welcome to the middle-class creator economy.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Pope’s official prayer app commits cardinal sin, leaks 700K+ users’ info. “Click To Pray, a prayer app endorsed by the Pope with hundreds of thousands of users worldwide, has leaked people’s names and email addresses for months – or longer – according to an ethical hacker who said she found and reported the security vulnerability six months ago to no avail. This app needs to take a vow of silence when it comes to your personal information.”

Kyiv Independent: Wildberries hides military goods in search results after Ukrainian strikes hammer warehouses. “Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries, has stopped displaying military-related goods in response to searches that refer directly to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to reports published on July 26. The development comes after seven of the company’s warehouses were hit in a series of Ukrainian strikes beginning July 18. Kyiv has said that the facilities were targeted in order to disrupt Russian army logistics.”

BBC: Ariana Grande sues hackers who leaked music and videos. “Pop star Ariana Grande has filed a lawsuit against two unidentified hackers who, she claims, leaked unreleased music and studio footage after gaining access to her collaborators’ computers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

ArXiv: Analyzing Toxic Behavior and Its Impact on the Mastodon Community. “Mastodon as a decentralized federation of independently moderated social servers poses unique challenges for the detection and mitigation of toxic content. There are no unified moderation standards. The ecosystem is very diverse and uneven. This paper explores the development and spread of toxicity in Mastodon, utilizing machine learning methods to examine user posts.”

Dartmouth College: Study Shows Extent of Damage to Historic Sites in Syria. “A new Dartmouth study finds that many of Syria’s archaeological sites were damaged not just by looting but that, in areas occupied by the Turkish military, sites were systematically bulldozed…. Using satellite imagery from Google Earth and the European Space Agency’s Pleiades program, researchers analyzed looting and damage at 200 sites throughout Syria.”

Fark: Fark NotNewsletter: Not Ready to go on the cart. “Initially I couldn’t believe Google could be so dumb to kill the thing it makes literally all its money from, but lately I’ve arrived at another conclusion: Google knows it’s killing the open web and is doing it on purpose. There’s no way no one at Google realizes what’s happening. There’s no way this hasn’t been brought up internally in meetings. Anyone can see what the impact will be long term. What Google thinks they’ll have for a core business if they succeed in capturing all outbound traffic for themselves, I have no idea. They probably think they’ll be an AI company doing AI stuff making AI revenue, but in my opinion that’s a goal with no clear path, not a plan.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of Connecticut: Christmas in July: UConn Engineers Capture Gigapixel 3D Video of Snowflakes. “For the first time ever, researchers can witness nanometer-scale thickness changes across a melting snowflake, with a compact, lensless chip that captures gigapixel video at 30 frames per second across centimeter-scale fields.” 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.

Arch Daily: aflalo/gasperini arquitetos launches a free digital archive of its most iconic works. “Bringing together some of the firm’s most iconic projects developed between 1955 and the present day, the archive offers free access to technical drawings, sketches, design statements, and photographs of works such as the Galeria Metrópole in São Paulo, the proposal for the international competition for the Peugeot building in Buenos Aires, the Claudio Santoro Auditorium in Campos do Jordão, and the Citicorp Center in São Paulo.”

FYIVT: Vermont Just Got Its Own Search Engine — And It Reads the Documents Google Can’t. “The FYIVT Finder currently indexes more than 90,000 documents (and growing as you read this). That includes every Vermont bill dating back to 2010, searchable by subject rather than only by bill number. It includes more than 45,000 legislative committee documents — testimony, amendments, reports and fiscal notes — stretching back through the 2019 session.”

Ohio History Connection: Listen, Watch and Connect with LGBTQ+ History. “In 2025, the Ohio History Connection (OHC) was awarded a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to preserve fragile magnetic media – U-Matic, VHS, audio cassettes and 3/4″ audiotape – that were reaching the end of their lifespan. The grant made it possible to work with Scene Savers to digitize material from seven LGBTQ+ collections, documenting 35 years of Ohio’s gay history from 1968-2003. I’m excited to share that our processing is complete, and these amazing materials are now available to view in our online catalog for the very first time.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

UA News: YouTube Has Blocked Another 25 Channels Spreading Russian Propaganda — CPD. “YouTube has blocked or completely removed another 25 channels from its platform that are linked to Russian propaganda and the information war against Ukraine. Among them are channels run by sanctioned individuals, Kremlin-affiliated media outlets, and organizations that spread disinformation and justified Russia’s aggression.”

Cord Cutters News: Google Just Added Over 60 Free Live TV Channels to Google Freeplay on Google TV Streaming Devices. “In a significant boost to its free streaming offerings, Google has expanded Google TV Freeplay by adding more than 60 new free live TV channels. The service, which previously stood at around 250 channels, now provides access to 316 live channels at no cost to users.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Spectrum Local News: Student journalists create oral archive after Texas Hill Country floods. “From Texas to California, recent natural disasters have taken a toll on communities. As recovery continues, teens are documenting people’s stories. ‘These kids have come from all over our country and our state, just to help change the story here,’ said student journalist Hayden Magnell. She attends Tivy High School in Kerrville, one of the hardest-hit areas from last July’s floods.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Baltimore Banner: You’ve been served — on TikTok. Baltimore teacher uses social media to sue right-wing influencer.. “Baltimore County Circuit Judge Ralph Sapia signed an order on June 23 that allowed [Alexa] Sciuto’s attorneys to serve [Libs of TikTok founder Chaya] Raichik by posting at least once per week on TikTok, and tagging @LibsOfTikTok, for three consecutive weeks. They were also required to mail a legal notice to several addresses and publish it in a local newspaper.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Vaccine mis‑ and disinformation isn’t just a threat to public health, but also to our autonomy. “Autonomy, broadly, is the ability to make choices in life that align with who we are, and our own personal beliefs and values. It is the foundation for informed consent and thus a central aspect of ethical vaccine policies and programs. But genuine autonomy depends on the information we are exposed to and have access to, and that helps shape our beliefs. When we are exposed to mis- and disinformation, it becomes difficult to be truly autonomous.”

University of Waterloo: GeoSafe empowers communities to plan for a changing climate. “Drawing on more than 18 years of experience in civil and environmental engineering, geospatial technologies and infrastructure resilience, Shwan developed GeoSafe, a user-friendly platform that helps property owners, municipalities, engineers, planners, insurers and developers better understand climate-related risks early and make more informed decisions about the land they own, develop and manage.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

The Register: Cassette simulator rewinds digital audio to a more analog time in hiss-tory. “If you have wistful longings for the days when your songs carried the subtle hiss of the cassettes you listened to, we have some reel good news. A new project takes modern music back to the analog era. The project, available on GitHub, is called ‘Audio Cassette Simulation’ and uses FFmpeg to transcode audio files to get that ‘wish I’d bought some decent tapes instead of the superstore’s own-brand’ sound.” 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.

PR Newswire: New Online Resource Hub Empowers Gallbladder Cancer Patients and Caregivers with Critical Guidance and Support (PRESS RELEASE). “Facing a rare and aggressive diagnosis like gallbladder cancer can leave patients and families feeling overwhelmed and isolated. To bridge this critical gap, the Gallbladder Cancer Foundation has expanded its digital portal to provide comprehensive support at every stage of the journey—from initial diagnosis through treatment, caregiving, and loss.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Guardian: Andrew and Tristan Tate to remain in jail until next extradition hearing. “US magistrate Lauren Louis set a detention hearing for 13 August to determine whether the Tates should stay in jail or be released during what could be a months-long extradition process.”

TechCrunch: Snapchat now lets you share what you’re listening to in real time. “Snapchat is now letting users share the music they’re listening to in real time via a new feature in Snap Map, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: The Breakup Loop: Why the TikTok Algorithm May Keep You Heartbroken. This link goes to a gift article. “As social media companies face increasing scrutiny over addictive design features and accusations that their algorithms can feed users harmful content, mental health advocates are pointing to the platforms’ handling of breakup content as a stark example of their failure to protect users. Steering people who have exited a relationship toward a never-ending well of breakup content, which could increase engagement by trapping them in a state of rumination and grief, can have severe consequences for their mental health and raises a host of thorny ethical questions, experts say.”

University of Hawaii: Windward CC student launches online home for traditional Hawaiian kōnane. “Andrew ‘Keahi’ Castro, a Windward Community College student, has created Likōnane, a free online platform dedicated to the Hawaiian strategy game kōnane, which was traditionally played with black and white stones. … Using his background in mathematics and statistics, Castro spent years building Likōnane. The platform features live multiplayer games, tournaments, puzzles and an artificial intelligence opponent named Lopako. Unlike many gaming sites, it is completely free and ad-free.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NBC News: Influencer killed by husband, police say, after she accused him of pedophilia on TikTok. “Sara Gilson was fatally shot Thursday in Owasso, Oklahoma, by husband Jeremiah Duffey, who went by Shawn Duffey on social media, according to the Owasso Police Department. She was 43. A little over a month earlier, on June 10, she filed and was granted an emergency protective order against Duffey after police informed her he’d been accused the day prior of molesting a minor.”

Reuters: UK lawmaker suing Musk’s xAI seeks order to stop Grok generating sexualised images. “Jess Asato, a member of Britain’s governing Labour Party, said last month that users created fake images of her, including a video of her ‘being chloroformed and prepared for a ​sexual assault’, after she publicly criticised Musk and Grok. She has filed a lawsuit at London’s High Court for ​misuse of private information and breach of data protection laws and alleges the way Grok was ⁠designed and trained enabled it to generate sexualised content.”

Variety: Massive Tribeca Fest Data Leak Exposes Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro and More Celebs’ Contact Info; Meet the Man Who Discovered the Files. “The Tribeca Festival suffered a data leak that exposed hundreds of thousands of records, as well as the contact information for thousands of celebrities, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jennifer Lawrence, Angelina Jolie and festival co-founder Robert De Niro.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Rijksmuseum: Rijksmuseum launches new research into underrepresented histories with support from Baker McKenzie. “The Rijksmuseum will conduct new research into historically underrepresented subjects, including queer history. The museum’s collection, which spans from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, forms the basis for this work. The Rijksmuseum carries out research to gain new insights, tell more complete stories and share them with the world.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

I know I’m putting way too many things in this section today, but it’s not my fault I’m finding good stuff. Portland Press Herald: Portland’s Umbrella Cover Museum turns 30. “Nancy 3. Hoffman thinks her Umbrella Cover Museum has survived and thrived all these years because “people love and need whimsy and surprise.” The walls and ceiling of the small space on Peaks Island are covered with the little sock-like sleeves that come with new umbrellas. Most people throw them away or lose them, but Hoffman has collected more than 2,500. She entertains visitors by playing her accordion and recounting stories about how each little lost cover found its home with her.”

Hackaday: Taking Tri-Camera True-Color Infrared Videos. “Silicon-based CMOS camera sensors are cheap and plentiful, but they’re rarely used to their full potential: they can detect a greater range of wavelengths in the infrared spectrum than they can in the visible spectrum, but in most cameras this is blocked by an IR-cut filter. [Project 326]’s infrared camera system reverses this: it records infrared images in color while blocking out visible light.”

NJ.com: You can now watch Lucy the Elephant 24/7 — just in time for her 145th birthday. “Lucy the Elephant has watched over the Jersey Shore for 145 years. Now you can watch her right back. The six-story wooden pachyderm, a National Historic Landmark and the oldest roadside attraction in America, is now the star of a round-the-clock live stream. The feed lets fans watch the Margate icon from anywhere in the world.” 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.

Politico: Emails show how Virginia regulators downplayed data center health concerns. “When Virginia’s top environmental regulator received an analysis warning of data center pollution, it took him less than five minutes to forward it to seven people on his staff. The Piedmont Environmental Council had sent the report to Michael Rolband as a courtesy two days before publicizing it in March. It ignited a scramble within the agency to poke holes in the analysis, which raised concerns about the health effects of an AI facility that stands at the vanguard of the state’s fastest-growing industry.”

ZDNet: 250 Eiffel Towers’ worth of waste: The AI boom’s toxic hardware problem. “Discarded electronics are the fastest-growing category of waste, and humans are on track to produce 82 million metric tons annually by 2030. But as the AI boom brings with it a wave of data centers packed with chips, servers, networking gear, storage devices, cables, and more, researchers estimate the turnover of all that hardware could generate about 2.5 million metric tons each year, according to a June report from the United Nations University. That’s the equivalent of 250 Eiffel Towers.”

ANTI-AI SENTIMENT

TechCrunch: Librarians are hosting viral ‘Avoiding AI’ workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech. “AI naysayers know that this technology is far broader than just chatbots and deepfake apps. [Hannah] Cyrus mentioned how useful optical character recognition is for scanning old documents at the library. But for her and the people who go to her workshops, the anti-AI movement isn’t about rejecting technology altogether so much as it is about advocating for more control, agency, and freedom in how people use technology.”

Missoula Current: In Oregon suburb, data center boom spurs protests, lawsuit. “When the Shute-Meierjurgen Farmstead was built outside Hillsboro in the 1880s, it looked out over 600 acres of pastures and orchards. Today, fewer than four acres remain. The Queen Anne-style farmhouse and its big red barn are now hemmed in on all sides by data centers and warehouses.”

Gizmodo: Someone Was Arrested at a Public Meeting For the Crime of Anti-Data Center Clapping. “Let’s get this out of the way: the teacher in question, 37-year-old Lux Claridge, was warned. The whole room was warned before this happened—warned not to clap, which is an expression of approval…. For what it’s worth, a blog post on the First Amendment Coalition website questions whether a public meeting can even deem clapping to be a disruptive act and set an enforceable rule against it.”

DATA CENTERS

WXYZ: Neighbors say noise from Michigan data center is 24/7 and upending their lives. “Lindy Valenzuela and Marjorie & Billy Finn are neighbors who all live directly across the street from a data center in Dowagiac, Michigan. The data center is known by residents as ‘Hyperscale Data.’ It is owned by Alliance Cloud Services LLC, a company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. They say that for the past couple of years, it has been emitting a high-pitched sound, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

AI IN EDUCATION

Financial Times: Universities drop AI detection tools over fears about accuracy . “Universities, determined to maintain integrity following the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, have turned to applications with AI-detection features such as GPTZero, Copyleaks and Turnitin. The tools analyse features such as text structure and rhythm to identify non-human patterns, but their reliability — specifically regarding false positives and bias — is under fire.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Toronto Star: This politician made an embarrassing blunder. The reaction from the masses gives me hope. “I was pleasantly surprised to see all these negative reactions to Oliver outsourcing his role to a robot. They expose, I think, a growing divide in our society: between the elites, who are only too happy to delegate their duties to the Borg; and the masses, who find this objectionable. The latter camp is correct — and the elites should take heed.”

Spotlight Delaware: ‘Beyond the Headlines’: How Delaware is responding to the data center boom. “After several months, we’re pleased to have Olivia Marble back on the podcast to discuss data centers and Delaware’s energy market. A lot has happened on that front in recent months. Olivia recently wrote an article summarizing the Delaware General Assembly’s efforts this year to legislate around data centers and energy. We’ll talk about that, as well as how the governor and Delaware’s counties are wrestling with these issues.”

AI IN WORK

Hollywood Reporter: QVC Hosts Vote to Unionize Amid Concerns Over Generative AI. “During the election, 37 hosts voted to join the national performers’ union while nine voted against, resulting in about 80 percent support. All full-time and part-time QVC and HSN hosts employed at the company’s West Chester, Pennsylvania headquarters, working across linear television as well as livestream and shortform programming, were eligible to participate.”

Phantasmag: Guillermo del Toro Says “Absolutely No Goddamn AI” Was Used in Pan’s Labyrinth 4K Re-Release: “We Are Protecting a Lineage of Art”. “Guillermo del Toro has emphatically declared that ‘absolutely no goddamn AI’ was used in the upcoming 4K and 3D re-release of Pan’s Labyrinth. ‘It’s more expensive — I don’t care,’ he said to applause at San Diego Comic-Con. “What we’re protecting is the beauty and the redeeming power of art,” he elaborated.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

New York Times: Silicon Valley Splits Over Closing the Borders to Chinese A.I.. This link goes to a gift article. “On one side are leading A.I. companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, which claim that some A.I. models are too dangerous to be developed in the open and must be tightly controlled — by businesses like themselves — for safety. On the other is the rest of the tech industry, including giants like Microsoft and Nvidia, which contend that so-called open-source A.I. models must remain open for people to further develop technologies and build new businesses. Those camps have started publicly clashing.”

Search Engine Journal: X Live-Tweets Its Fight Against Chatbot Spam In Real-Time. “Nikita Bier, head of product at X (formerly known as Twitter) posted a series of extraordinary tweets about spam on Twitter, explaining the motivation of some of the spammers, they described types of spam and mentioned that some spammers were using Grok to auto-post spam responses at scale. Nikita Bier spent 24 hours tweeting anti-spam actions in real time, revealing details about how how automated and fast-paced AI-assisted platform spamming has become.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Indian court says OpenAI did not violate news agency ANI’s copyright. “An Indian court said on Friday that ​OpenAI’s use of news agency ANI’s content ‌to train its ChatGPT service did not amount to copyright infringement. The remarks are the first substantive ​court finding in India on whether ​AI companies can train large language models ⁠on copyrighted news content without a licence, ​a question being litigated in similar suits against ​OpenAI in the United States and Canada.”

Tokyo Reporter: AI fortunetelling scammers fleecing victims of up to ¥500,000 for fake exorcisms. “A post-pandemic surge in loneliness and social anxiety has swollen Japan’s fortunetelling market to a staggering 1-trillion-yen industry. But behind this ‘Reiwa-era fortune-telling boom,’ malicious operators are increasingly weaponizing Artificial Intelligence to empty the wallets of vulnerable victims.” 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.

Discovered via BoingBoing: Book Corners. “A community-driven directory of little free libraries — those small book exchange spots found in public spaces where you can leave or take a book for free. Book Corners lets anyone discover nearby little free libraries on an interactive map, submit new ones with photo and location, and report issues to keep the directory accurate. Live site: bookcorners.org API docs: developers.bookcorners.org”.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Calishat: Adding Two New Tools to SearchTweaks.com. “I don’t know about y’all but I am having my usual wild Friday night working on my search tools. I’ve just added two new tools to SearchTweaks.com; if you do any local news searching I think you’ll really like at least one of them. Like all of the site they are free to use and free of ads….SearchTweaks is a collection of 19 tools for better search, divided into four categories: Query Builders (100% AI-free!), News-Related Search, Time-Related Search, and Search Utilities.”

Associated Press: Trump says the US will investigate EU trade practices, claiming the bloc unfairly fined tech giants. “The United States will open a formal investigation into the European Union’s trade practices, President Donald Trump said on Friday, claiming the bloc has unfairly levied billions of dollars of fines against Google, Apple and other U.S. tech giants.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: The federal government is erasing bike lanes — from its websites. “Transportation employees, including those working for the Federal Highway Administration, have been ordered to find and even remove mentions of bikes, bike lanes, and bike safety from online pages, an investigation by NPR found. In the last week, dozens of safety pages have been taken down or edited to remove public access to resources, the publication reported, such as the Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Analysis Tool.”

Bloomberg: India’s Modi adopts Meta Platforms’ Reels amid Instagram-fueled student unrest. “As student protests spread across India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has turned to Meta Platforms Inc.’s Instagram Reels, swapping his trademark cinematic videos for raw, self-recorded messages aimed at the country’s youth. The 75-year-old posted two selfie videos on Instagram in as many days.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNBC: Google slapped with $1 billion fine under landmark EU digital law. “European regulators have fined Google 890 million euros (US$1 billion), alleging the company gives preferential treatment to its own services. The fine is Google’s first under the European Union’s sweeping Digital Markets Act which aims to scrutinize Big Tech’s operating practices in Europe.”

Future of Privacy Forum: FPF Releases New Issue Brief on U.S. “Data Broker” Regulatory Landscape. “To help make sense of this rapidly evolving regulatory space, FPF is releasing a new issue brief, The Boundaries of Data Brokerage: An Overview of the U.S. Regulatory Landscape. This issue brief provides an overview of the emerging regulatory landscape—focusing on recently enacted state and federal laws that specifically regulate the data broker industry—as well as key considerations for policymakers and industry actors.”

Radio New Zealand: Google alert for Taumarunui quake sounded like ‘bell on the Titanic’. “Civil Defence says some people received an alert on their cellphone during Saturday morning’s Taumarunui earthquake while others did not because of the way Google works.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CSUN: Efforts to Re-Write History Fail Because Truth is Found in the Chronicling of Everyday Life, Says CSUN Archivist. “There’s an old axiom that ‘history is written by the victors.’ To that end, there have often been efforts over the years by those in power to re-write historical markers or erase memorials that contradict their versions of history. California State University, Northridge archivist Keith Rice, a historian with the university’s Tom & Ethel Bradley Center, said those efforts always fail in the end.”

ABC News (Australia): Archivists race to save Papua New Guinea’s film collection from climate damage. “Work is underway to preserve Papua New Guinea’s collection of more than 1,300 film reels and tapes, stored at its small National Film Institute in Goroka, before climate change causes permanent damage. Humid conditions and a history of flooding have created a far-from-ideal environment for maintaining a fragile film collection.”

New York Times: Trump Orders Warnings Placed at ‘Inaccurate’ Smithsonian History Museum. This link goes to a gift article. “President Trump on Friday ordered warning signs and exhibits installed outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to alert the public that the museum does not, in his view, accurately reflect American history.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Taking Tri-Camera True-Color Infrared Videos. “Silicon-based CMOS camera sensors are cheap and plentiful, but they’re rarely used to their full potential: they can detect a greater range of wavelengths in the infrared spectrum than they can in the visible spectrum, but in most cameras this is blocked by an IR-cut filter. [Project 326]’s infrared camera system reverses this: it records infrared images in color while blocking out visible light.” 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.

Kansas Reflector: New dashboard tracks Kansas Affordable Care Act enrollment by legislative district, county. “A new dashboard tracks the number of Kansans enrolled in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, offering data for legislators and others to understand the effects of policy changes, a health organization said.”

Border Telegraph: Over 100 tales of the River Tweed collected for new archive. “More than 100 personal stories have now been gathered as part of the Tweed Stories project, which is part of the broader Destination Tweed initiative. The project aims to gather and preserve memories, histories, and legends connected to the river, creating a lasting archive for future generations.”

USEFUL STUFF

Maps Mania: Free Map Tiles for Everyone. “One of the biggest barriers to building web maps has always been the cost and complexity of map tiles. Services such as Google Maps and Mapbox offer excellent infrastructure, but commercial pricing can quickly become prohibitive as projects grow. Self-hosting OpenStreetMap vector tiles is an alternative, but maintaining a global tile server yourself is far from trivial. Fortunately, there is now a small but growing number of services trying to make high-quality OpenStreetMap-derived vector tiles freely accessible.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: What Happened When Meta Used A.I. to Ban Accounts on Facebook and Instagram. This link goes to a gift article. “What happened to the Hansons was a case of artificial intelligence gone wrong. The technology is increasingly responsible for deciding which accounts broke Meta’s content rules while also managing the appeals for those decisions. Adding to people’s distress, it is often difficult for users like the Hansons to reach anybody at the company to figure out what to do.”

Manchester’s Finest: Queer Up North archive and events celebrate Manchester festival’s legacy. “The history of Manchester’s influential Queer Up North festival is being preserved through a new digital archive and a programme of exhibitions, talks, screenings and performances. Produced with Manchester Histories, the heritage project explores the festival’s first decade, from 1992 to 2002, and has been supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Granada Foundation.” The archive does not launch until October, which is why this is in “Around” instead of “New”.

MS NOW: Secret paid influencer campaign backing Stevens floods Michigan Senate race. “Secret influencer campaigns have been a hallmark of this election cycle. In California, creators were paid to post favorably about Tom Steyer’s gubernatorial campaign — some with disclosures, others without, drawing a state ethics complaint. In Illinois, a dark money group paid influencers to attack congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh in the final days before her primary. Democratic donors have poured tens of millions into building creator networks, including efforts like Project Bullhorn and Chorus, that operate largely without transparency.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: TikTok US chief security officer to testify before US House on September 15. “TikTok U.S. chief security officer Will Farrell will testify before ‌a U.S. House committee on September 15, according ‌to a Congressional aide.”

VN Express International: Vietnam proposes banning under-16s from posting, commenting on social media as Meta, TikTok object. “Vietnam is proposing to bar children under 16 from posting, commenting, sharing or reacting on social media, leaving them able only to view content, under a draft amendment to a decree on internet management.”

Courthouse News Service: X ordered to turn over deleted posts in defamation case against Media Matters. “X claims Media Matters intentionally manipulated the platform’s algorithms in order to get ads to appear alongside extremist content and falsely presented that as what an average user experiences on X. As part of its defense, Media Matters sought copies of posts from around fifteen users whose content was discussed in its reports that have since been deleted by the platform or by the users themselves.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

UC Riverside: New tool identifies the sources of fake videos. “…a computer science team led by researchers at UC Riverside has developed a tool that moves beyond simply identifying whether a video is fake. It also determines which AI system created it. The new framework identifies visual patterns within fake video frames that were unintentionally introduced by AI video generators, providing a forensic path to identifying the systems that created the videos.”

Spudart: Deciphering the Matrix Digital Rain. “…if it’s not secretly a recipe for spicy tuna rolls, what is on the screen? I decided to find out the dumbest, most 2026 way possible. I ran it through Google Translate. It’s kind of fun to point today’s ‘instantly understand any language’ technology at a 27-year-old movie prop and just see what happens.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Yale Engineering: A cheaper, sustainable alternative to carbon fiber. “Researchers in the lab of Professor Liangbing Hu … have found a way to upgrade cheaper material into something comparable to carbon fibers. And in doing so, they managed to put the greenhouse gas methane to good use, as well as produce hydrogen as a clean side product.” 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 Library of Medicine: 250 Years of American Medicine, a new NLM History of Medicine digital gallery. “Announced earlier this month, NLM History of Medicine unveiled its most recent project, 250 Years of American Medicine. This digital gallery includes a variety of materials that include manuscripts, audiovisuals, images, texts, and born-digital objects. This collection is made up of one item that was published or created in the United States for each year since 1776 to reflect how medicine has changed in the United States over the last 250 years.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Marine Technology News: New Google Transatlantic Cable Connects Portugal with the US. “Alphabet’s Google has successfully connected a new transatlantic subsea cable to Sines in Portugal, it said on Tuesday, adding another U.S.-Europe data route as demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence services surges.”

Search Engine Roundtable: Large Publishers Strongly Considering Blocking Google Search Completely. “Several large publishers are strongly considering blocking Google Search entirely after clicks from Google Search have continued to decline, and the exchange of value in having Google consume its content is no longer translating into enough clicks from Google Search.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Chytomo: Slovenia unveils portal for publishers and digital preservation. “Slovenia’s National and University Library, known as NUK, presented eKnjiga, a digital environment that brings together key publishing procedures and supports the long-term preservation of the country’s written heritage.”

University of Pittsburgh: The University Library System is helping to digitize a rare East African archive. “The University of Pittsburgh Library System (ULS) is working with two Kenyan librarians this summer to digitize centuries-old records documenting slavery and emancipation in East Africa.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: EU finds TikTok violates its digital rule book by failing to protect privacy of minors. “The European Commission on Friday said it found TikTok had not adequately protected children’s privacy rights on its platform by allowing adults to view the accounts of minors. The action exposed children to cyberbullying, unwanted contact and predatory behavior, commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said.”

Mother Jones: Every Time the Tates Get Arrested, Their Media Empire Kicks Into Gear. “The infrastructure they’ve created to build their wealth also snaps into action each time they face legal trouble. Using a network of monetized X accounts, some newly-launched Substacks, and referring continually back to the products they sell—along with conversations and relationships with other so-called masculinity influencers and vloggers like Neel—the Tates manage to use their legal troubles to further bolster their infamy and as vehicles for continuing to build their wealth.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Music Network: APRA AMCOS and NFSA Launch The National Songbook. “APRA AMCOS and the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia have launched The National Songbook, a new annual initiative designed to formally recognise the songs and scores that have helped shape Australia’s cultural identity. Established as APRA celebrates its centenary and the NFSA marks its 90th anniversary, The National Songbook will combine industry recognition with long-term cultural preservation.”

Union of Orthodox Journalists: AR model to recreate UOC monastery and hetmans’ burial vault in Sumy region. “An augmented reality model will recreate the UOC’s Hamaliivka Monastery, while Orthodox churches in Hlukhiv, Poloshky, Voronezh, and other communities will also be digitized.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of Copenhagen: DNA vacuum reveals local wildlife in Danish nature. “Researchers have developed a DNA vacuum that can suck genetic traces from animals out of the air and reveal which animals live in an area. In two new studies, the researchers collect air samples in three natural areas in Denmark and show that the method can be used to map local wildlife. This brings them a major step closer to better monitoring of biodiversity using DNA from air.” 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.