Wall Street Journal: The AI backlash has tech executives fearing for their lives. This link goes to an MSN-syndicated, non-paywalled version of the article. “In recent months, mounting opposition to AI has given rise to a surge of violent rhetoric, threats against people and property, and a serious attempt at harm. The phenomenon has executives at tech companies large and small reconsidering their personal security arrangements and how they talk about their products to a public that is increasingly wary of the technology and the societal changes it is ushering in.”

DATA CENTERS

The Register: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country’s electricity. “The latest figures from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that giant server farms now account for nearly a quarter of the country’s metered electricity consumption. Their share rose to 23 percent in 2025 after passing 20 percent in 2023 and 14 percent in 2021 – up from just 5 percent way back in 2015.”

Capital B News: Meta’s $250B Louisiana Data Center Is the Most Expensive in U.S.. “In mostly white evangelical Baptist churches, congregants have praised the project as providence, a divine engine for jobs, evangelism, and serving as the ‘hands and feet of Jesus.’ Some have even organized monthly feedings and prayer drives for the more than 7,000  construction workers now flooding into the parish of 20,000. Across town, many members of historic Black congregations read it differently — as another empire rising on land their ancestors tended.”

Arkansas Times: AVAIO finally faced the Wrightsville community over its $6 billion data center. Pizza couldn’t quell the anger.. “AVAIO executive John Malone faced the audience, made up of residents of the poor, predominantly Black area that is tucked into the southeastern corner of Pulaski County…. Despite the stacks of pizza provided by the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, frustrations boiled over by the end of the hour-plus meeting as the audience had not been given a chance to ask questions directly of the AVAIO team.”

AI IN EDUCATION

Mashable: A New York school district is testing robot teachers. “A New York school district is piloting a humanoid robot teacher to help students with summer school classes. Announced earlier this year, Salamanca City Central school district, located in Salamanca, New York, and Toronto-based robotics company Realbotix have partnered to integrate a new AI teachers’ assistant into classrooms — and potentially debut a fleet of robot tutors this fall.”

Capital News Illinois: Illinois State Board of Education issues AI guidance, written with help from AI. “The Illinois State Board of Education released new guidelines recently on how schools should and should not use artificial intelligence in K-12 education. One of the most notable aspects of the AI guidelines, however, is that it was written with help from popular AI programs including ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Gizmodo: ‘I Want Everything Completely Uncensored’: Here’s What Grok Users Are Complaining About to the FTC. “We were told by the FTC that the agency has 873 complaints that mention Grok, though we were only given 153 to read. What are people complaining about when it comes to Grok? Many of the complaints involved how difficult it can be to cancel the AI service (an issue that is not unique to Grok), while other people really disliked the way they were being throttled. The term ‘bait and switch’ appears quite a bit.”

Bridge Michigan: AI campaign ads are here. Is Michigan’s new deepfake law ready?. “Michigan is one of at least 31 states to regulate political deepfakes or other forms of AI-assisted advertising. But two years into the new state law, the quickly improving technology has backers wondering if more can be done to help voters separate fact from fiction.”

AI IN WORK

Local News Matters: Kaiser nurses say AI, workplace surveillance are making their jobs and patient care worse. “KAISER PERMANENTE NURSES who answer advice and triage calls say their duty of care for patients is being increasingly threatened by workplace surveillance. Seven current and former nurses told CalMatters that those who spend more than 15 minutes on a call with a patient routinely face criticism from Kaiser management or get called into performance evaluation meetings. Call time, they said, factors into monthly performance scores they receive.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Electrek: Elon Musk quietly buys a $1 billion gas turbine company to power Grok. “Elon Musk has quietly bought APR Energy, a Jacksonville-based company that operates a fleet of mobile gas and diesel turbines totaling more than 1 GW of generation capacity. The self-styled champion of a ‘solar electric economy’ now owns a fossil fuel power company — and he’s buying it to feed the electricity-hungry data centers running xAI’s Grok.”

PetaPixel: Patreon Blocks AI Crawlers From Copying Content: ‘Creators Deserve Compenstion’. “Patreon has announced a new update that blocks AI crawlers from hoovering up content on the platform for training purposes.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Musk’s xAI sues Grok user over sexualized ‘deepfakes’. “Elon Musk’s artificial-intelligence startup xAI has sued a South Carolina man arrested earlier this year on charges of sexually exploiting ​minors, alleging he misused the company’s AI system Grok to ‌create child sexual abuse material.”

Euronews: Anti-tracking fashion: Startup designs clothing to foil AI surveillance cameras. “Using fashion to counter tracking and AI surveillance – that is the concept behind Leipzig start-up Urban Privacy. For several years, Nicole Scheller and Daniel Preuß have been developing products such as anti-tracking jackets. They do not make their wearers invisible, but they do make them harder to track.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PsyPost: AI models are far more susceptible to misleading nudges than humans, study shows. “A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides evidence that AI agents overreact to minor cues in their environments, responding to these nudges much more strongly than humans do. This hypersensitivity suggests that relying on current language models for autonomous decisions could lead to unpredictable or easily manipulated outcomes.”

University of Hawaii: Rising heat, humidity threatens cheaper AI data center cooling methods. “Reliable operation of data centers has become essential to nearly all sectors of modern society, including healthcare, education, government services, power grid operation, banking, defense and disaster relief. New research published in Scientific Reports and led by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa atmospheric scientists revealed that future climate conditions may reduce the availability of one of the cheapest and most energy-efficient approaches to cooling data centers.” 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.

DJ Mag: New online tool maps community radio stations around the world. “The Community Radio Index is an interactive map and directory designed to connect listeners with independent and community-run stations across the globe. Users can move around the map to discover stations in different regions, with each listing providing a direct link to the station’s website.”

State of New Mexico: NMED launches harmful algal bloom advisory map. This link goes to a PDF. “The New Mexico Environment Department today announced the launch of its Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) Advisory Map, providing the public with timely information on current algae bloom conditions at monitored lakes across New Mexico.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: Google urges EU top court to back ruling scrapping $1.7 billion antitrust fine. “Alphabet unit Google on Wednesday urged Europe’s top court to dismiss EU antitrust regulators’ appeal against a lower court ruling that scrapped a €1.49 billion ($1.7 billion) fine, saying the regulators’ arguments were flawed.”

Associated Press: Bryce Harper says FanDuel used his Cameo video as VIP reward without consent in a gambler’s case. “Philadelphia Phillies slugger Bryce Harper said he did not know a Cameo video he recorded would be used by FanDuel as a reward for a VIP customer who later sued the sportsbook, saying it took advantage of his gambling addiction.”

USEFUL STUFF

It’s FOSS: 7 Open Source Trello Alternatives For Your Kanban Boards. “After its acquisition and recent AI surge, Trello has changed a lot. But I still miss its simplicity in Kanban style tools I have tried so far. As I lean more towards, open source and self-hosting, I have collected a bunch of projects that can be considered in the same league as Trello.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Radio New Zealand: Massive ‘old and clunky’ government database gets $60m upgrade. “A massive database that pulls together information from across government agencies, Stats NZ surveys and non-government organisations, is set to receive a nearly $60 million tune-up. Over the next three years, the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) will see current systems replaced with faster and more reliable versions, with data updated more often – with tools supporting faster and more complex analysis.”

Android Authority: Remember Flash games? This Android app will let you relive your childhood. “A developer who goes by NaviVani-dev has released a new app called Swiff. The app is specifically designed to let you enjoy Flash games and animations directly on Android. According to the GitHub page, Swiff gives you access to over 100,000 pieces of Flash content, which is possible due to the Flashpoint Archive.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Xbox gamer wins lawsuit against Microsoft to restore account and digital library. “A sole Xbox gamer has seemingly won an important judgement against Microsoft, which requires the tech giant to restore the user’s suspended Xbox account and accompanying video game library. In a post on Reddit, Ordo_Liberal said that a Brazilian court has ordered Microsoft to reverse its decision to revoke access to the user’s account and library after it was hacked.”

The Register: EU and UK officially blame Russian spies for cyberattack on Poland’s power grid. “The UK and EU are demanding urgent action from critical infrastructure organizations after formally attributing the December 2025 cyberattack on Poland’s power grid to Russia’s Federal Security Service.”

TechSpot: An abandoned IBM campus became a TikTok sensation, now it’s a magnet for trespassers. “The former IBM campus in Somers, New York, is drawing attention again, but not for any new development plans. Instead, the long-vacant property has become a frequent target for trespassers, many of them drawn in by videos circulating on social media.” 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.

Spotted in my RSS feeds: ReciproCard. From the FAQ: “ReciproCard is a discovery engine that helps you figure out exactly how many library cards you qualify for. By mapping overlapping networks and reciprocal agreements across the country, we help you get more library cards so you can skip the wait for popular titles and unlock more free ebooks and audiobooks on the Libby app.”

Coywolf: You can now chat using RSS. “Dave Winer, the person who made Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0) the standard for following blogs in feed readers, asked whether RSS could be used for online chat, and quickly concluded that it could. … The rss.chat site shows public chats using the new approach that look similar to social media posts and support message threads.”

Daily Nous: Free Web-Based Logic Software (guest post). “I taught introductory logic to large classes (400-500 students) for over a decade. The desktop software I inherited worked, but supporting it was a headache: install conflicts, only supported on certain devices, students fighting IT on shared machines. In 2014 a student in my class and I started building a web-based replacement. That became Elogic. It’s a browser-based environment for logic exercises with immediate, automated feedback. There’s nothing to install, and it works on anything with a browser.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google and Epic give up fighting — third-party Android app stores are coming next week. “Epic Games and Google have just jointly withdrawn their attempt to retroactively settle the lawsuit that’s changing how Android app stores work in the United States — and that means Google will be forced to carry rival app stores inside of its own. In fact, Google tells the court, it’s ready to begin carrying third-party app stores on Wednesday, July 22nd.”

BBC: YouTube still recommending eating disorder videos to teens, research finds. “The Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) set up a simulated account for a 13-year-old girl viewing unsafe diet and body image content for the first time. It found one in 10 videos recommended by YouTube’s Up Next algorithm featured thinspiration, extreme calorie restriction or other harmful material, although the situation had improved over the past two years.”

Gizmodo: Google Images Is Trying to Be… Pinterest?. “Google Images’s latest update appears to be taking some inspiration from the digital pinboard platform Pinterest. The company is celebrating Google Images’s 25th anniversary this week by looking back at its history and announcing a major redesign that turns the search engine into more of a personalized visual feed.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TechSpot: Firefox is switching to a faster release schedule, just like Chrome and Edge. “Google recently announced an accelerated Chrome release schedule. Now, another major player in the browser market, Mozilla, is doing the same. The company plans to drop two updates for its open-source browser every month across both desktop and Android devices.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: ‘A very good clone’: news stories faked to lure victims to scam investment sites. “The Guardian is one of many news organisations that fraudsters are using in a bid to find victims. Respected news sites are mirrored then manipulated with fake information in the hope that readers will not be able to tell the difference.”

ZDNet: Is that QR code a trap? How to spot quishing scams before it’s too late. “Quishing, or QR code-based phishing, embeds malicious links in QR codes to bypass traditional phishing filters and slip through security nets. The lure is the same: create a sense of urgency, appeal to our greed, instill fear and panic, or promise rewards for scanning the QR code with our phones and clicking the embedded link to visit an online page or platform.”

Reuters: UK plans default midnight social media curfew for teens aged 16-17. “Older teenagers in Britain will ‌have to switch the settings on social media apps to be able to use them after midnight under new safeguarding rules planned by the government. A month after it announced plans to introduce a sweeping ban on social media for ​young people under 16, the government said on Tuesday it also planned a default overnight ​curfew for young people aged 16 and 17.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Florida State University: FSU researcher creates seawater isotope database to improve climate reconstructions, projections. “A Florida State University paleoclimatologist led the creation of a global database hosting thousands of seawater isotope measurements collected over almost 50 years that will aid scientists in generating more accurate climate reconstructions and predictions.”

British Film Institute: Chronically online criticism: how we’re archiving the video essay boom. “Pithy, playful, provocative – video essays have emerged as a major form of cultural commentary since the dawn of online video sites in the mid 2000s. Here we introduce the five video essay makers whose work we’ve selected for preserving in the BFI National Archive.” 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.

Press-Enterprise: Citrus crate label collection offers a slice of Inland Empire and California history. “Family members inherited Kelley’s labels, including his grandson Jacob Kelley — who put together an online archive featuring more than 250 citrus labels. Called California’s Citrus Heritage, the collection is digitized and searchable by location, art style and subject.”

Found in my RSS feeds: Clipart.studio. An online version of clipping out images from magazines (and in this case also Wikimedia Commons images) and turning them into a collage. I’m probably not visual enough to truly appreciate this but I enjoyed playing with it.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Microsoft is making the Windows Search Box more streamlined and useful . “Microsoft announced that a bunch of new adjustments are coming to the Windows Search Box in Windows 11. Each individual item is a minor improvement, but hopefully in aggregate, the changes will add up to a better experience for search.”

USEFUL STUFF

Spotted in my RSS feeds: Buddy List. See which of your Bluesky mutuals are online. No login or credential required. If you remember AIM this is some nice nostalgia.

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

ArtForum: ICOM Formally Adopts New Code Of Ethics For Museums. “Following a vote on June 25, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) adopted a new Code of Ethics to guide the activities of museums globally. The vote, which passed by a margin of 85.9% in favor, was held at ICOM’s 41st Ordinary General Assembly in Paris. ICOM is a non-governmental body that establishes standards of operation for museums all over the world.”

Comic Librarian Ash: Curating Comic Resources. “This week, my class was tasked with exploring different curation websites and trying three of them. I explored a bunch of options, and then I decided on three to try: Wakelet, Padlet, and Evernote. For each of them, I included the same curated list of 10 comic resources. These include book lists, reviews, resources, and links to read comics online!”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: The US government warns that Russia state hackers are coming after your router. “The federal government is warning users of home and small office routers to secure their devices as Russia state hackers continue to mass-compromise them for use in obscuring nefarious actions against sensitive organizations in the public and private sectors.”

AM NY: NYC’s new ‘click-to-cancel’ rule takes effect this fall to help New Yorkers get out of a bad subscription. “New Yorkers who sign up for gym memberships, streaming services, and other recurring subscriptions must soon be allowed by law to cancel them just as easily — and through the same method they used to enroll — under a new city rule taking effect Oct. 1.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

DanQ: Today I Rescued 7,234 Old GIFs. “This week, GlitchyZorua brought to my attention the Ibiblio Icon Browser, a collection of many thousands of GIF icons curated in the 1990s by Gioacchino La Vecchia. Glitchy’s goal was to archive a copy of all of the icons, which was turning out to be… challenging.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

TechSpot: Minecraft joins Doom in the “can it run?” hall of fame with Game Boy Color port. “The question of whether something can run Doom is almost always yes, it can. But Minecraft, while not exactly renowned for being graphically intensive, is more demanding and modern, so it’s especially impressive that a YouTuber managed to get the game running on Nintendo’s 1998 Game Boy Color.” 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.

New York Times: Data Centers to Add Billions in Power Costs in 13 States. This link goes to a gift article. “PJM, the nation’s largest electrical grid operator, on Tuesday released results of an electricity auction that would add $6.3 billion in costs to the bills of millions of households and businesses within the next three years, an increase driven by the power demands of data centers.”

San Jose Spotlight: Is Google hiding a data center project in North San Jose?. “The tech giant’s plans at 5079 and 5087 Disk Drive call for demolishing an existing warehouse and parking lot to construct up to three research and development (R&D) facilities across nearly 483,000 square feet. Architectural blueprints for the facilities show an onsite substation and switching station with three transformers, multiple generator yards and more. The facilities would have a 250-megawatt capacity — enough to power 250,000 homes at any given time. The project is still in the early stages of review.”

AI IN EDUCATION

9to5 Mac: Anthropic is giving teachers free access to premium Claude features, details here. “Anthropic is providing free access to premium Claude AI features to K-12 teachers in the United States. The effort is part of a new Claude for Teachers initiative.”

AI FINANCE

Reuters: SoftBank’s Son says AI will need $5 trillion per year by 2040, dismisses bubble talk. “The development of AI will require investment of $5 trillion each year by 2040, and any talk ‌of a bubble forming around the technology is “absurd”, SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son said on Tuesday.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Politico: GOP governors, utilities join Trump data center pledge. “Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon and Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe have all signed the White House’s so-called Ratepayer Protection Pledge, a set of principles committing data center developers to pay for their fair share of energy and water use, along with electric grid improvements and maintenance, according to officials in each state. Electric utilities are also expected to sign the pledge, according to seven people familiar with the plans.” I’d rather a law than a pledge.

North Dakota Monitor: North Dakota AI committee releases agenda for first meeting next week. “The new committee tasked with studying artificial intelligence and data centers ahead of North Dakota’s 2027 legislative session has released the agenda for its first meeting. The inaugural meeting of the committee is scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday in Bismarck.” Today.

AI IN WORK

Axios: Help wanted: Anthropic hires to head off catastrophe. “Anthropic has 32 very scary job openings for roles designed to prevent people from using AI to build everything from human-made explosives to nuclear weapons. Catch up quick: Anthropic is hiring analysts focused on chemicals and explosives, nuclear weapons, financial scams, cybercrime and more.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Bloomberg: Beijing edict leaves Chinese with virtual lovers heartbroken. “Alongside Beijing-based ByteDance, major Chinese technology companies like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd are also disabling functionality that lets users customise artificial intelligence (AI) companions, effective July 15…. The sudden shutdown of the AI personas leaves users facing the loss of relationships that they’d spent years building. Messages of frustration and bereavement flooded Chinese social media since the announcement.”

TechCrunch: Anthropic’s newest ad is creeping people out. “The ad begins with a video of a burning house (not exactly a heartwarming start) before pivoting to a series of still images. These images include a crowd of people being surveilled by facial recognition, a homeless person sleeping on the street, rows upon rows of tombstones in a cemetery, and what appears to be a group of laborers toiling in a mine where (presumably) raw materials for smartphones are being dug up.”

Search Engine Land: Ask YouTube AI search experience expands to U.S. desktop users. “Ask YouTube lets users type natural-language questions into the YouTube search bar and receive responses that combine text, video clips, long-form videos, and Shorts. Users can also ask follow-up questions to refine results.” I’ve tried it. It’s fine. YouTube’s regular search is so bad in my opinion that it’s not a very high bar.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: News outlets urge a judge to sanction OpenAI in a high-stakes AI copyright fight. “The New York Times, the Daily News and other media outlets are asking a federal judge to impose sanctions on OpenAI, escalating a fight over artificial intelligence and copyright that could shape the future of a struggling news industry.”

Mother Jones: Lawsuit: Meta Used AI For Discriminatory Layoffs. “A group of 26 current and former Meta employees filed a lawsuit Monday evening accusing the tech company of using AI software to target employees with disabilities and those who took medical or family leave in its mass layoffs in May.”

San Francisco Standard: Why ex-EFF chief Cindy Cohn worries about OpenAI and Gemini. “Cohn recently stepped down as EFF’s executive director — not to slow down, but to get back into the fight more directly: to make sure the government and tech companies don’t trample everyone else, your chatbot queries stay private, and your rights don’t stop when you open your laptop.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

TechCrunch: OpenAI researcher Miles Wang in talks to launch AI drug discovery startup valued at $2B. “Miles Wang, an OpenAI researcher whose work includes using AI to accelerate scientific and biological discovery, is leaving the ChatGPT maker to launch a new startup focused on developing AI models for drug discovery, according to four people with knowledge of his plans. Several other OpenAI researchers are expected to join the new company.”

Pivot to AI: Terrorists are using AI — and the chatbot is killing them. “Why did the bot suggest practicing with a flaming pit full of broken glass? Because Boko Haram got the AI to tell them this by asking for script ideas for an action movie. That was their jailbreak. They could have filled the pits with water or something for practice. But no, the bot said fire and glass, so they used fire and glass. I can appreciate the researcher not saying to the murderous terrorists’ faces, ‘that’s really dumb.’ But it’s really very dumb.” 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.

Winterthur Museum: Explore the New Winterthur Museum Collections Database. “We’re excited to introduce a redesigned Winterthur Museum Collections Database, making it easier than ever to explore our extraordinary collections from anywhere. The new site offers improved stability and accessibility, and is mobile-friendly, creating a faster, more intuitive experience for researchers, students, collectors, and curious visitors.” Winterthur is an American decorative arts museum in Delaware. It also has an extensive garden.

Camboja News: Kem Ley Archive Unveils Unpublished Writings Decade After His Killing. “A digital archive containing tens of thousands of speeches, handwritten notes and research by slain government critic Kem Ley will be released on Saturday, a day after supporters marked 10 years since he was gunned down in broad daylight in Phnom Penh. Dozens gathered at the Caltex gas station in the capital on Friday, where Kem Ley was fatally shot while drinking his morning coffee on July 10, 2016, laying flowers and chanting for justice.”

Citizens Budget Commission: CBC Releases ‘Competitive NYS Dashboard: One-Stop Shop for Data on New York’s Ability to Attract and Retain Residents and Business’. “The dashboard provides a comprehensive look at New York’s population, economy, taxes, public spending, and education. By comparing New York over time, across regions and counties, and against peer states and the nation, Competitive NYS highlights where the State is thriving, where it is falling behind, and where policy choices matter most.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: I tested 6 Google Maps alternatives—this is the one I’m sticking with. “As good as Google Maps is, I’ve long found it cluttered and bloated, offering features that I never use. And since I’m also becoming increasingly aware of how much data Google has on me, I decided to find an alternative. After testing out six of the best, with hundreds of millions of downloads between them, there’s one that I really recommend.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TechCrunch: As TV-tracking app TV Time shuts down, its founder builds Bingers, a new home for fans. “Bingers will offer TV Time’s existing users a potential lifeline soon after the original app disappears from the app stores. It also gives the existing social community another place to go to continue discussing TV episodes, something that not all TV show tracking apps offer.”

The Mac Observer: WordPress Just Launched A Brand New Apple TV App With Free Videos. “The software brings the entire video catalog from the WordPress community to your television. You can easily watch past WordCamp session recordings from events that happened all over the world. It also includes helpful tutorials on design, business development, and general content creation.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ABC News (Australia): More than 2,000 sexual extortion complaints spark warning to young men. “The eSafety Commissioner received more than 2,000 reports of sexual extortion in six months, with young men the most common victims. Major online platforms are accused of failing to deploy readily available technology to detect well-known blackmail tactics.”

9to5 Google: Samsung Health will delete your data unless you hand it over for AI training. “As its new redesign rolls out, Samsung Health is also forcing users into a choice – let their data be used for AI training, or make it effectively unusable in the long term.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce: Hutton awarded £146,000 from National Lottery Heritage Fund to preserve Scotland’s soil mapping heritage. “The project, titled Hutton Unearthed: A New National Soils and Peat Map Archive, will restore, preserve and digitise irreplaceable soil and peat maps, aerial imagery, field notebooks and survey records collected since 1947.”

Santa Barbara Independent: Yale, Harvard Return Ancestors and Artifacts to Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. “[Kathleen] Marshall was in Boston when they packed up the semi-truck with more than 2,000 remains and artifacts — filling it almost to the brim — and flew home to meet them at the Santa Ynez Chumash Museum and Cultural Center on June 27. She tracked the truck on GPS for its entire, multi-day journey to the Central Coast.”

Mashable: I tried to scrub weight loss content from my FYP. Here’s what I learned.. “I’ve worked hard to keep that messaging out of my life, but I’ve noticed that weight loss influencers still frequently infiltrate my daily scroll. About every third ad is for a weight loss service. I’m seeing GLP-1 influencers more than my friends. What’s going on, ‘Not Interested’ button? If you are like me, shouting disinterest to the TikTok algorithm gods, I have horrible news. It doesn’t appear to do anything.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Gizmodo: Archaeologists Just Found the Earliest Known Named Scientist in the Ancient Americas. “In a paper published today in Antiquity, the research team reports the first-ever known Maya mathematician-astronomer, Saktahnwaax (‘White-Chested Fox’), who likely lived around 800 CE.” 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.

BBC: Condoms and love letters all in a castle’s secrets. “Nineteenth Century condoms, love letters, and the tale of a servant pilfering a lady’s Easter egg are among unexpected discoveries made by archivists collating Warwick Castle’s records. A new online catalogue, charting 800 years of maps, letters and legal documents, shines a light on previously hidden stories, including those of the castle’s female inhabitants and servants.”

Reddit: I built a news aggregator called the I Ching Insight. “It’s an aggregator feed that tracks daily headlines based on I Ching hexagrams. It scans rss feeds relevant to the keywords and phrases for each of the 64 hexagrams. A new way of looking a current events and news.” A very interesting way to explore headlines and a creative take on RSS. I like this.

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: These 4 browser extensions are so good Chrome should just include them. “Google Chrome is known for its wider library of browser extensions, readily available through an official store. More importantly, there are some really cool extensions that do things Chrome doesn’t really do on its own. Here are four browser extensions so good that Chrome should just include them in the next version.” BRB, installing Consent-O-Matic

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Heise Online: Cultural institutions call for a digital long-term archive for Germany. “The German National Library, the Federal Archives, and the German Literature Archive Marbach are calling for a digital long-term archive for German cultural heritage. According to their proposal, which they recently presented to the Bundestag committee for culture and media, the federal government should provide approximately 150 million euros for infrastructure development from 2027 to 2036.”

Unseen Japan: Japanese Social Media Auto-Translation: a Blessing, or a Curse?. “Plenty of people outside Japan browsed Japanese posts, but unless they could speak Japanese themselves or they deliberately hit the ‘Translate Post’ button, conversations mostly stayed within their own language communities. Ah, those sweet, halcyon days. Now, social media sites like X are auto-translating languages, whether users like it or not. Some in Japan are asking: Is that a good thing? Or is it causing more friction than harmony?”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Cal Matters: Proposal would allow drivers to trade personal data for potentially lower insurance rates. “A bill to allow insurance companies to monitor California drivers’ behavior in exchange for potential discounts on their premiums would change the state’s longstanding insurance law, drawing opposition from the Insurance Department as well as consumer and privacy advocates.”

Politico: EU sanctions Russian cyber spies for years-long hacking. “The European Union on Monday blacklisted members of a Russian intelligence group it said were responsible for spying on and hacking targets across the EU and Ukraine from as early as 2010.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Juha-Matti Santala: Thoughts on making zines after 7 months. “Zines are prominent in counter culture as they enable people who don’t have access to spread their ideas via publishers or traditional media. In the age of the Internet, that dynamic has changed a lot and indie web movement shares a lot of similar ideas with zine culture.”

The Distant Librarian: Saying goodbye to my Meta Ray-Bans. “Earlier this month, I got a new pair of glasses to replace the Meta Ray-Bans I’ve been wearing every day since the fall of 2024. There’s nothing wrong with the Ray-Bans (some might disagree), but over the past few months, I have noticed people asking about my ‘spy camera’ more frequently than I’m comfortable with. My daughter was concerned enough to let me know that in many of the forums she frequents, men who wear these classes are thought of as creepers. I heard someone on a podcast call them Cybertrucks for your face.”

Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): Nearly 6 in 10 young women get health and wellness information from influencers. “This is especially true for young women: 57% of women ages 18 to 29 say they ever get health and wellness information from influencers. That is 10 percentage points higher than the share of young men, according to a fall 2025 Pew Research Center survey.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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

Gizmodo: Meta’s AI Detector Can’t Detect Images It Generated Itself, Report Finds. “…in a report published on Friday, Reuters reporters found that the AI detection tool failed to identify more than half the images it generated once they had been cropped. In the first test, Reuters found that the tool correctly identified all 40 images generated by Muse Image as AI-generated, but once those images were cropped to half or one-third of their original size, the tool was only able to identify 55% as AI-generated.”

Reuters: Pollution from Musk’s unpermitted xAI power project hits hardest in Black communities. “Elon Musk’s xAI has installed far more gas turbines without federal permits at its Colossus 2 data center project in Tennessee than it has publicly acknowledged, and the pollution is hitting predominantly Black neighborhoods the hardest, a Reuters analysis found.”

DATA CENTERS

Cowboy State Daily: Say Hello To Google, The Mystery Owner Behind Wyoming’s Largest Data Center Project. “Project Jade, Wyoming’s largest data center, is now Project Tembo, and the company behind the 2.7-gigawatt facility is a mystery no longer. The data center will be owned and operated by none other than Google, giving Cheyenne yet another of the world’s largest tech companies in what is fast becoming an emerging tech frontier.”

Texas Tribune: Planned Texas data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than many countries. “Including Stargate’s Abilene campus, at least 15 gas plants tied to data centers are planned for Texas, according to Cleanview. Available permits reviewed by Floodlight show that nine of them combined could emit more than 130 million tons of greenhouse gases every year. That’s the equivalent annual emissions of 35 coal-fired power plants, according to an Environmental Protection Agency calculator.”

The Conversation: It may be almost impossible to make data centers pay their ‘fair share’ of electricity costs. “So while every state’s consumer advocate is concerned with keeping the utility’s costs as low as possible, they may be barred by law from adopting a position on how those costs should be allocated. This lack of representation in this aspect of rate-setting for average households may lead to situations where the data centers’ advocates argue for minimal costs to be allocated to them – but nobody advocates on behalf of residents to examine or refute that argument.”

AI FINANCE

AdWeek: OpenAI’s Ad Business Is on Pace to Miss Its Own Forecast By 90%, Analyst Says. “The AI lab has projected $2.5 billion in ad revenue this year and $100 billion by 2030. Emarketer’s data finds that standalone chatbots like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot app, Google AI Mode, and Amazon Alexa for Shopping (formerly Rufus) in U.S, will generate less than $1 billion in ad revenue this year, and just $5.41 billion by 2030.”

AI LEGISLATION

Associated Press: New York to impose the country’s first statewide moratorium on data centers. “New York will block the construction of any new large data centers for up to a year so the state can create rules to protect the environment and energy grid from the power-hungry facilities that fuel artificial intelligence technology.”

AI IN WORK

NiemanLab: A new study looks at the skills journalists are losing (and gaining) because of AI tools. “Journalists will also need to bolster their fact-checking and editing abilities, some interviewees suggested. If journalists are handling more AI-generated copy, they will need to make sure that copy is factually accurate and doesn’t read as generic or stilted. Some also posited that AI tools are not good at ‘storytelling’ and that the information provided by them will still need to be tied together by a journalist in a compelling or convincing way.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

The Guardian: ‘These are some of the most complex structures ever created’: how tech reporting moved into the physical world. “Journalists often use the term ‘shoe-leather reporting’ to refer to the on-the-ground legwork that goes into covering certain stories. As the tech industry’s focus has shifted from screen-based realities to the physical world of colossal AI datacentres and social media harms, comfortable footwear has become more essential to a tech reporter’s job.”

Straits Times: ‘AI, digital tools can help popularise, preserve calligraphy’. “National Unity Minister Datuk Aaron Ago Dagang said digitising calligraphy works, organising virtual exhibitions and developing learning applications through technological collaborations could help preserve the traditional art. He said embracing innovation would allow tradition and modern technology to coexist, enabling calligraphy to evolve with the times while preserving its authenticity.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Channel News Asia: AI-generated women are spreading disinformation about Singapore on TikTok. “A CNA investigation of 30 such TikTok accounts found a factory-like system behind over 550 videos. Nearly all (98 per cent) were assembled by taking AI-generated, manipulated or copied female personas, and stitching them together with reused voices and recycled scripts. Nearly nine in 10 videos pushed false or misleading claims about Singapore and Malaysia, drawing more than 3 million views in total.”

AL.com: Birmingham’s humane society sues city, AI company over data center plans. “Alabama’s oldest and largest humane society is asking a judge to determine whether the construction of a hyperscale AI data center is legal. The Greater Birmingham Humane Society is joining the legal pushback against the city and Nebius Inc. because of the organization’s plans to build an animal welfare campus nearby.”

Ars Technica: Now, defenders are embracing the prompt injection, too. “Researchers from Tracebit on Monday said they found that placing prompt injections alongside passwords, cryptographic keys, and other secrets stored on Amazon Web Services was often all that was needed to shut down attacks from AI hacking agents. The prompts direct the attacking LLM to perform an action forbidden by its guardrails, the safety barriers AI developers erect to prevent it from taking harmful actions. The LLM responds by shutting down.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Mother Jones: A World Cup Star Can Be “Babygirl.” But For Now, He’s Mostly AI.. “Haaland posts selfies with his ‘twin’—a low-res image of the animated character Shrek—on his Snapchat, and has a large designer bag collection—Chanel, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, etc. He is tailor-made for internet fandom. But a lot of the most viral content is AI-generated, gets endlessly reshared, and is often uncannily accurate—including one where Haaland appears to get scared by his own reflection while eating.”

USC: USC researchers develop low-cost AI tool to help cities map urban tree canopy. “The USC-developed tool combines free aerial imagery with AI to create detailed tree canopy maps without costly lidar surveys, which use lasers to produce highly detailed 3D landscape maps, or commercial satellite imagery that many existing systems require. The technology could help communities make smarter, targeted investments in urban forests as extreme heat becomes more common.” 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.

GPO.gov: GPO Launches Public Access To 1.2 Million Historic Government Records Dating Back To 1895. “The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) has launched public access to more than 1.2 million newly available records of historic U.S. Government publications, making it easier than ever to find documents published between 1895 and 1976.”

Calishat: Search by Year (1995+) and State News Sources: Peabody Search. “I made Peabody Search, named after Mr. Peabody and his Wayback Machine. He could set his time machine to go to a particular year and place, and that’s what this tool does as well (though it’s restricted to US states.) Peabody Search walks you through the process of setting the query, selecting the years, choosing a state, and then choosing outlets from that state. At the end of it you get Google search query links incorporating your time and location search information.”

Spotted in my Calishat Snaps: TickZone. “TickZone reads local weather, the tick life-stage, forest cover, and county disease data into a plain 0–100 score, refreshed every day. Calm and sourced, for people who’d rather just know.”

USEFUL STUFF

TechCrunch: A new app alerts you if someone nearby is wearing smart glasses. “The Android app, aptly named Nearby Glasses, constantly scans for nearby signals that emit from Bluetooth-enabled tech, such as wearable devices made by Meta (and Oakley) and Snap.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mediaite: CNN Duped By Phony GOP Congressman Claiming to Have Spoken to Mitch McConnell. “CNN This Morning got tricked by a parody social media account Wednesday, sharing a tweet from the @RepJackKimble account along with posts from actual members of Congress. The topic of the segment in question was Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) absence from the Senate.”

Hollywood Reporter: YouTube Pastry Chef Amaury Guichon Signs With UTA (Exclusive). “Besides running his own Las Vegas school, Pastry Academy, Guichon has around 23.5 million YouTube followers, and in all 96 million on social media platforms, viewing his video content where he creates giant and lifelike chocolate showpieces. Using his Willy Wonka chest of culinary tricks, Guichon has created a whole foosball table, dragons, motorcycles and life-sized animals crafted entirely from chocolate, among other stunning builds.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Euronews: Google gives Swiss Android users fewer search options than their EU counterparts, regulator says. “Switzerland’s competition watchdog has opened a preliminary investigation into Google after the tech giant removed a feature allowing users to choose their default search engine when setting up Android devices in the country.”

Irish Times: Records of children ‘boarded out’ from religious institutions to be withheld. “Personal records of children who were ‘boarded out’ from religious institutions will be withheld from a new public archive set up to remember the abuse of women and children in 20th-century Ireland.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Tim Bray: Mastodon, The Only Good Choice. “Dear World: Now is a good time to get off social media that’s going downhill. Where by ‘downhill’ I mean any combination of less useful, less safe, or less fun. It’s time for something better, and by ‘something better’ I mean Mastodon. Which, I’m here to say, offers a better social-media experience than the alternatives. Furthermore, the alternatives are fatally flawed.”

Justin Pot: Google is strip mining the web. Publishers might leave.. “Google changed the terms of publishing online. For decades Google indexed the web and, in return, gave publishers traffic. Now they’re just going to index the web and show users a summary of it, meaning only Google gets traffic (and ad revenue). Why should publishers take that deal? It makes sense that some are starting to decide (or at least threatening) not to.”

Portland Press-Herald: Walk around Fort Williams’ Goddard Mansion with augmented reality. “The Italianate mansion was one of the first grand houses on Cape Elizabeth’s shore when it was built in 1858 as the home of John Goddard — a commanding Union officer who made his fortune in the lumber trade up north. The military expanded nearby Fort Williams to include this building in 1902, and it was converted into noncommissioned officers quarters and later a club.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ingleside Light: Huge Scale Model Of San Francisco Finds A Home At Long Last. “A huge scale model of the City by the Bay made by artists during the Great Depression will go on display later this year. After years of searching and an attempt to locate the model in Ingleside, the San Francisco Scale Model Project announced that a home has been found for the 1,500-square-foot wooden model of San Francisco.” 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.

Digital Meets Culture: Introduction to XR for cultural heritage. “This introductory course provides a foundation for understanding XR and its applications in cultural heritage. You will explore the core concepts of Extended Reality, discover why XR matters for heritage, and become familiar with the EUreka3D-XR ecosystem and the tools that support the creation of XR experiences.”

University of Montana: UM Scientists Unveil Free Product That Maps Trees, Shrubs Across Entire Country. “Researchers at the University of Montana have created a new free product that displays the height and structure of individual trees and shrubs across the entire contiguous United States in fine detail.”

This popped up in my Calishat Snaps: a CCTV Camera Database. From the GitHub page: “An open, structured database of 2,230 CCTV / IP camera models and their technical specifications, covering 71 brands across every market segment — from budget consumer WiFi cameras to enterprise PTZ domes and thermal imaging systems.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress: WordPress 7.0.1 Maintenance Release. “This minor release includes fixes for 31 bugs throughout Core and the Block Editor, addressing issues affecting multiple areas of WordPress including the block editor, admin ui, and media.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Indiana Capital Chronicle: Governor’s administration deletes helpful transparency tool. “In a blow to transparency, the state of Indiana’s website axed a website search tool that helped Hoosiers reach taxpayer-paid state employees. The ‘Find a Person’ tool on IN.gov had been going downhill since Gov. Mike Braun took over, with many new hires not added to the directory.”

TechCrunch: A new app, HyperTexting, turns the open web into a scrollable social media-like feed. “A new app called HyperTexting is making it as easy to surf the web as it is to scroll through a social media feed, like Facebook or X. The app, newly available for iOS, also aims to make updating your own personal website as simple as sending a text message.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Mediaite: Madison Square Garden Has Massive Database of Celebs Who Attend Knicks Games and Gives Them a ‘Risk Score’: Report. “In 2023, New York Democrats threatened to strip MSG of its property tax exemption over the venue’s use of facial recognition technology; and earlier this year, it was revealed that Dolan’s company kept a database of biometric data and even tracked the movements of specific guests. A Thursday report from WIRED revealed that the MSG also keeps a database of celebrity guests.”

Associated Press: Technology is driving an increase in attacks and threats to the UK, senior officials say. “Technology and online platforms are increasingly being used to threaten the United Kingdom, including by hostile countries, extremists and far-right groups, senior British police officials said Thursday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

KnowledgeSpeak: SPIE acquires The Lens to expand access to patent data . “SPIE has announced the acquisition of The Lens, an open‑knowledge platform that provides global access to scholarly works and patent information. The acquisition is intended to broaden SPIE’s scholarly portfolio and enhance the accessibility of patent application data by showing real‑time utilization of research.”

University of Regina: In Her Own Hand: The Gladys Arnold Project. “We have partnered with Zooniverse to provide an exciting online crowd-sourced project. The University of Regina Archives has many primary sources about Gladys Arnold, a prize-winning Saskatchewan journalist. We request volunteers to transcribe her writings. In Her Own Hand: The Gladys Arnold Project consists of 4 sub-collections with French and English options.”

Cobb Courier: We’re turning off comments under the articles on our main site once again … here’s why. “A few years ago we turned off comments under the articles here, then later changed our mind and turned them on again. Now we’re going through that loop again, but providing readers with a better option for expressing their views.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Engadget: Guy who took photo of Jupiter with a Game Boy Camera and giant telescope publishes DIY tutorial . “Musician and retro tech fan Chris Graue made headlines last month after using a Game Boy Camera to take a photo of Jupiter. Obviously, a Game Boy Camera isn’t capable of that kind of range on its own. He and some colleagues connected the novelty camera to the eyepiece of the Hooker Telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory thanks to a 3D-printed adapter. Now, Graue has released the schematics for the adapter, meaning anyone can print their own for free.” 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.