CHEK News: Maritime Museum of B.C. launches redesigned global maritime history database. “The Maritime Museum of British Columbia has unveiled a completely redesigned version of Nauticapedia, transforming the long-running maritime history database into what the museum says is one of the world’s largest digital collections dedicated to marine history.”

Hackaday: It’s Now Imperative That You Copy That Floppy. “Copy That Floppy! only briefly touches on the most ideal situation — that is, buying a USB floppy drive and making copies of the bog standard 3.5 inch disks you might come across. It then moves right on into more advanced topics, such as interfacing with less common drive types, how to safely clean floppies, and the use of advanced tools such as Greaseweazle to analyze captured disk images.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: Google Search hit an all-time usage record yesterday. “VP of Product over Google Search, Robby Stein, and SVP of Knowledge & Information, Nick Fox, took to Twitter/X today to confirm that Google Search hit an all-time usage high this week. Specifically, Fox says, ‘right after’ the winning goal was scored during the Argentina vs Egypt match.”

Reuters: Google appeals Indian ruling over its ads platform, citing consumer harm. “Google has challenged an Indian ​court ruling that it infringed on a company’s trademark rights by allowing rivals to use its ‌name as an advertising keyword, arguing the decision will hurt consumers, documents reviewed by Reuters show.”

USEFUL STUFF

Maps Mania: How to Turn Interactive Maps into Vector Graphics. “Map2SVG is an interactive web application built on MapLibre that lets you select any area on a map and export it as a layered SVG file. Simply navigate to the location you want, draw either a rectangle or a custom polygon around the area of interest, and click Export.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Deadline: BBC A “Disinfectant” To Disinformation On YouTube & X/Twitter, Says New Boss. “BBC director general Matt Brittin has said that the British broadcaster will double down on YouTube and X/Twitter to counter the tidal wave of disinformation online. Brittin may have spent the majority of his career at Google, but it did not stop him from acknowledging that YouTube is a breeding ground for deliberately deceptive information.”

Bangkok Post: American fitness influencer drowns in Samut Prakan. “A 32-year-old American fitness influencer drowned on Tuesday evening after he jumped into a lake at a housing estate in Samut Prakan province, where police also found he had vandalised his rented luxury house…. He was identified as Connor Michael Murphy, a Texas-born fitness influencer and bodybuilder.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Vogue Business: Do Smart Glasses Have a Surveillance Problem?. “Big Tech has been borrowing from fashion’s playbook to improve its image, and the new Kylie partnership and glasses line launch is its biggest pivot to fashion and culture yet. Beneath the question of whether Jenner can finally make Meta’s smart glasses cool, there’s a much more challenging question for Meta and its rivals. Is recruiting fashion’s most influential tastemakers enough to normalize a product that fundamentally makes consumers so uneasy?” No.

The Register: Moody Bible Institute breach leaves 2.3M accounts needing salvation, says cyber expert. “Data on more than 2.3 million people associated with Moody Bible Institute (MBI) has been exposed online after the Christian college was targeted by ShinyHunters. The attack was first disclosed by MBI in June, and the extortion crew later leaked the stolen data. Have I Been Pwned has since added the cache to its breach notification database, putting a figure on the number of exposed accounts.”

Gulf News: Up to 10 years in jail and up to Dh10 million in fines under new UAE Cultural Heritage Law. “The UAE has approved a new federal Cultural Heritage Law introducing prison terms of up to 10 years and fines of as much as Dh10 million for offences against the country’s cultural heritage, as part of a comprehensive framework aimed at protecting archaeological sites, historical assets and digital heritage for future generations.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Plutarch’s ancient advice for how to be happier online. “Plutarch’s counsel for us today would not be to turn our devices off. This is not socially possible for most people, given the changed nature of work and leisure. Yet recent legal findings in the US, as well as growing research on the effects of social media use, especially on young people, underscore that algorithm-driven social media does not promote, and can negatively effect, individual wellbeing.”

Ishiguro Laboratory, The University of Tokyo: Designing a 4D Digital Archive for Ikebana. Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arranging. “We proposed the design of a 4D digital viewing system for archiving the embodied creation process of Ikebana. Using twenty-two synchronized fixed cameras and a grasses type eye tracker, our system captures full-body motion, the evolving flower arrangements, and gaze behavior.” 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.

Tane Piper: The Reports of Jim Carrey’s Death are a Failure Mode. “On the 29th June 2026 – if you searched for Jim Carrey on Google, you would have been presented with a Knowledge Panel stating that he had died the previous day. The panel included a date of death and a biography written in the past tense.”

ANTI-AI ACTIVISM

Alaska Current: Data center critics flood Alaska land managers with opposition to North Slope project. “Opposition is pouring in against a large data center and power plant proposed for Alaska’s North Slope, as Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration considers whether to approve a 50-year lease of state land to the project’s developer. More than 500 public comments were received before a preliminary deadline set by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, according to copies of the messages released by the agency.”

DATA CENTERS

Politico: Musk promised his data center would reuse water. That’s now stalled.. “The company announced it was stopping work on the water recycling plant in April, a month after its CEO touted it in a meeting with President Donald Trump. Now, Memphis residents are worried about their drinking water in an episode legal experts and scientists say is indicative of a broader pitfall of the data center boom.”

Cowboy State Daily: Cheyenne Won’t Take Data Center Wastewater After Meta Contractor Contaminated System. “The announcement was made by the Board of Public Utilities (BOPU) on Thursday in conjunction with naming the Meta company as the source of the initial contamination. It also comes more than four months after the Meta company — which is building a huge $800 million data center in south Cheyenne — disrupted the city’s reclaimed wastewater system with a rare bacterial contaminant.”

AI IN EDUCATION

Inside Higher Ed: Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI to Cheat. “His welfare economics class typically attracted up to 30 students, but this spring he taught 86—an increase he attributes to the promised take-home exams. When the midterm came along, the average score was 96 percent.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

CNBC: OpenAI to publicly release GPT-5.6 AI models, ending government-requested limits. “OpenAI said it will publicly release its GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna models on Thursday, roughly two weeks after the artificial intelligence company limited the rollout to a ‘small group of trusted partners’ at the request of the U.S. government.”

Politico: ‘A massive screw-up’: China hardliners take aim at Commerce Department official. “Beijing may have mistakenly accessed thousands of high-end U.S. computer chips due to an oversight by the Trump administration in May of last year. The government hasn’t updated its blacklist of foreign firms barred from receiving American technology in months. Export license applications are piling up without approvals. And rulemaking by the agency is at its slowest pace in two decades, a POLITICO analysis of federal register rule notices found.”

Maine Monitor: Jay data center developer sought to give Janet Mills ‘cover’ for key veto, emails show. “Gov. Janet Mills’ office worked closely with the developer behind a stalled Jay data center project who solicited local letters of support that would give her ‘cover’ to veto a statewide data center ban, according to emails obtained by the Bangor Daily News.”

AI LEGISLATION

New Jersey Globe: Legislature votes to eliminate $250 million in AI data center tax credits. “Assemblyman Andrew Macurdy (D-Summit) hailed the overwhelming bipartisan support for legislation eliminating $250 million in uncommitted tax credits for artificial intelligence and data center projects after the General Assembly approved the measure by a 74-4 vote on June 30.”

AI IN WORK

Reuters: Nearly half of early career lawyers use AI daily, survey finds. “Among 2022 graduates of American Bar Association-accredited law schools, 48% ​said AI use is an ‘essential’ part of their daily work, according to an employment and ‌satisfaction survey of 1,302 graduates released Tuesday by the National Association for Law Placement and the NALP Foundation. Another 30% of survey respondents said they have access to AI tools but seldom use them, while 22% said they do not use ​AI in their current positions at all.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Engadget: Reddit to combat AI with more AI. “To combat the rise of AI-generated content on Reddit, the social media platform is using its own AI tools, according to a post on its website. Reddit said its automated systems resulted in blocking 23 million spam views a day, catching roughly 25,000 posts and comments per day and revoking close to two million inauthentic votes a day.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Mashable: Midjourney pushes to expose studios’ own AI practices in copyright fight. “Midjourney is attempting to turn the tables on the Hollywood studios suing it for copyright infringement, asking a federal judge to compel Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery to disclose their internal use of artificial intelligence, according to a Variety report published this week.”

Ars Technica: Secret Claude tracker shocks users after Anthropic’s anti-surveillance stance. “Anthropic quickly removed a tracker secretly monitoring Claude Code users in China after a security researcher exposed the hidden code and condemned the spyware-like tracking as a ‘serious breach of user trust.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NBC News: Voters of both parties want tighter AI regulation, poll finds. “An overwhelming majority of likely voters want powerful AI systems to undergo mandatory formal safety reviews before they are released to the public, according to a new survey about Americans’ views on AI, going further than the existing Trump administration policy of opt-in reviews for new advanced models.”

TechCrunch: Anthropic’s Claude Science bets on workflow, not a new model, to win over scientists. “Anthropic introduced Claude Science on Tuesday, an AI workbench that gives scientists one environment to do computational research, sparing them the hassle of bouncing between databases, pipelines, and tools.” 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.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Using AI to Let History Speak About Bank Runs. “In a new paper, we use large language models (LLMs) to extract information on bank runs from millions of digitized historical newspaper pages, creating the most comprehensive database of bank runs in U.S. history. Every bank run episode that we identify is documented on a companion website where users can browse and examine individual episodes, and read the original newspaper articles.”

Michigan Public Service Commission: MPSC expands transparent public access to detailed utility performance data. “The new application allows a ZIP Code-level view of reliability data for Michigan’s two largest electric utilities, DTE Electric Co. and Consumers Energy Co., which combined serve more than 80% of Michigan customers.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Register: The AI that spawned MechaHitler and deepfake porn puts on a suit to become legal advisor and Excel jockey. “…the recently renamed Eloncorp known as SpaceXAI says Grok, now in version 4.5, has cleaned up its act, wiped its browser history, covered up the swastikas, and is ready to take on more serious endeavors such as tending to your legal quandaries, fiddling in Microsoft Excel, and generating code.” I trust that about as much as I trust Graham Platner.

TechCrunch: Despite ‘misgivings,’ judge approves Elon Musk’s $1.5M SEC settlement. “A judge has approved a $1.5 million penalty levied against Elon Musk that will settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit despite having ‘significant misgivings’ about it.”

USEFUL STUFF

Boing Boing: “Knockoff” browser add-on filters junk brands from Amazon results. “Knockoff is ‘Amazon, without the knockoffs’: a browser extension for Chrome that filters out the gibberish factory brands that are typically favoried over quality products in the online retailer’s search results.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Gizmodo: Trump’s Department of Education Celebrates ‘American History’ With Old Photo From U.K.. “The U.S. Department of Education posted a historic photo to Facebook on Wednesday proclaiming, ‘American history is worth learning.’ The image shows women in clothes from the early 20th century demanding the right to vote. It’s an inspiring thing to behold. But it’s not American history. The photo is from the United Kingdom.”

Tubefilter: Can YouTube gamify its videos? Two ‘Mario Kart’ fans pulled it off.. “A playable version of Rainrow Road has come to YouTube. The notable Mario Kart level is featured in a video that utilizes YouTube’s 360-degree format to turn the platform’s video player into an interactive experience.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Members of a sexual predator network on Telegram tried to hide their crimes with code words. “They called themselves the ‘German driving school for experts,’ but prosecutors say the true purpose of their Telegram chats was to brag about the women they raped and share tips about how to drug them.”

Reuters: Cash App parent settles states’ probe over fraud protections for $45 million. “State attorneys general ‌involved in the investigation said they had found that Block misled users with advertising that falsely implied that Cash App offered protections akin to a bank including cutting-edge fraud detection. Block denied wrongdoing.”

ACLU: @CatsOnACouch Instagram Creator Barred from JD Vance Event Sues, Alleges Violation of First Amendment Rights. “Amanda McGonigle, creator of the social media accounts @CatsOnACouch, filed suit today against the U.S. Secret Service and the Executive Office of the President, alleging that she was barred from an official government event because of her social media content criticizing the vice president.” 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.

Ynet News: From torn doll to prisoner art: Digital archive opens Majdanek to the world. “A new digital archive gives free access to rare documents, artwork, photographs and personal belongings from the Majdanek, Bełżec and Sobibór death camps, preserving Holocaust history and supporting research, education and remembrance.”

EVENTS

9to5 Google: Google announces August 12 event for Pixel 11 and Pixel Watch 5. “Made by Google 2026 is officially taking place on Wednesday, August 12. This is a week earlier compared to last year, with Google once again opting for an earlier Pixel hardware unveil.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: DuckDuckGo Browser can now block video ads, including YouTube’s . “DuckDuckGo announced that it can now block most video ads, particularly those on YouTube, when a video is playing in its browser.”

Reuters: Elon Musk’s bid to set aside Twitter fraud verdict rejected by US judge. “A federal judge on Monday ​rejected Elon Musk’s bid to void a jury verdict finding that the world’s richest person defrauded Twitter investors by trying to drive ‌down the social media company’s stock price after agreeing to a $44 billion takeover.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Associated Press: FIFA is investigating an incident between a fan and streamer IShowSpeed at a World Cup match. “FIFA said Tuesday it is investigating an incident involving streamer and YouTuber IShowSpeed with a fan in the stands during the World Cup match between Argentina and Cape Verde on Friday.”

Block Club Chicago: Chicago National Archives Closure Will Be Loss For Historians, Researchers, Even Deep-Sea Divers. “The National Archives and Records Administration plans to close its Chicago facility, a sprawling building on the Southwest Side that houses transcripts from the Trial of the Chicago 7, maritime records for the Great Lakes region and documents on tribal nations.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

France 24: Russia faces challenges trying to jam Starlink in Ukraine. “Footage reportedly shows Ukrainian forces destroying a Russian system deployed to jam Starlink. The satellite network, which is notoriously difficult to jam, has become crucial for providing high-speed internet access to Ukraine.”

BBC: Victims of 23andMe data breach to get $47m payout, judge rules. “Victims of a 2023 data hack at genetics testing company 23andMe are set to receive a multi-million payout from the firm. A California bankruptcy court judge ruled on Tuesday that Chrome Holding, which last year took control of 23andMe after its bankruptcy, should pay out $46.75m (£35m) in compensation.”

Bleeping Computer: Police arrests 5,800 suspects in global anti-fraud crackdown. “Law enforcement agencies have arrested 5,811 suspects and seized $293 million in illicit assets in a global anti-fraud operation spanning 97 countries.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Louisiana Illuminator: Louisiana doubles money available to nonprofits for conservation work. “Louisiana has doubled the state money available for nonprofit groups to preserve and restore public lands of historic, environmental or recreational importance. Louisiana Outdoors Forever was allotted $2 million by the state legislature for the 2027 grant application cycle, which starts this week. That’s up from $1.07 million in 2026 and the largest amount set aside for the program since it began in 2022.”

Asia+: Over 3,500 historical and cultural monuments digitized in Tajikistan . “More than 3,500 historical and cultural monuments in Tajikistan have been digitized as part of a nationwide effort to update the State Register of protected heritage sites, according to the Agency for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Heritage under the Government of Tajikistan.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Florida International University: Researchers install 3D-printed seawall tiles to support coastal protection and marine life. “The system uses modular, interlocking tiles that can be attached to existing seawalls. Each tile is robotically printed and designed with grooves, ridges, crevices and small pools that create more complex surfaces for marine organisms to attach, shelter and grow.” 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.

University of Duisburg-Essen and machine-translated from German: Dealing with antisemitism and Holocaust distortion on social media. “At the heart of the program is an approximately 15-minute online game that immerses participants in a realistic social media environment. There, they encounter antisemitic and Holocaust-distorting content in the same form as it is disseminated on social networks. Players take on the role of trainees in a resistance movement and analyze posts, comments, and digital communication patterns to identify antisemitic content and understand its mechanisms of dissemination.” The game is available in both English and German.

Spotted in my Calishat Snaps: Ex Situ. I would guess from from the GitHub page that it launched 3-4 months ago. Also from the Github page: “Museums across Europe and North America hold hundreds of thousands of artifacts whose provenance — where they came from, under what circumstances — remains buried in institutional databases, invisible to researchers and the public. Ex Situ makes this visible: not by duplicating institutional data, but by indexing the relationships between origin sites and destination collections as a spatial commons — connective tissue between archives that were never designed to speak to each other.”

Assam Tribune: New portal ‘Pokkhi’ maps Assam’s birdlife with 372 species in two languages. “A new digital initiative, ‘Pokkhi’ was officially launched on Sunday to document and showcase the rich avian biodiversity of Assam…. It currently features carefully-curated Assamese and English common names of 372 species, high-quality field photographs, IUCN conservation status, descriptions, and identification guides.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: Google Voice now offers paid tiers with call recording & Gemini for personal accounts. “Historically, Google Voice’s paid offerings were meant for enterprise customers, but Google is now letting you upgrade to a paid calling experience without needing a Workspace subscription.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Tubefilter: ExtraEmily’s suspension leads to calls to ban “streaming and driving”. “After a high-profile streamer’s suspension, members of the Twitch community are calling for a rule change that would curb a dangerous epidemic of distracted driving. ExtraEmily (whose real name is Emily Xuechun Zhang) earned a temporary ban after she nearly crashed her car during one of her streams.”

Arizona’s Family: Google Maps leads drivers astray onto rough forest roads near Payson. “Gila County Sheriff’s Office posted on Sunday that multiple vehicles got stuck near Forest Service Road 64 and Forest Service Road 198, roughly 20 miles northeast of Payson. Google Maps reportedly rerouted drivers onto Forest Service Road 64 from Highway 260, causing a traffic blunder. Deputies say the drivers got stuck due to bad road conditions and two-way traffic on a one-way road.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: India gives WhatsApp three days to defend username rollout amid security fears. “India has asked WhatsApp to explain why it should not face regulatory action after it announced the global rollout of a new usernames feature amid fears that the new feature could lead to increased cyberattacks.”

Reuters: French antitrust watchdog orders Meta to resume talks with media groups over publishing fees. “France’s competition authority on Wednesday ordered Meta Platforms to put forward a payment plan and resume talks with French media groups that are seeking a year of unpaid fees for the use of their content online.”

TechSpot: Google is testing a webcam CAPTCHA that scans your hand, but it’s already been bypassed using a photo. “Google is working on a new kind of challenge to improve its reCAPTCHA system, using biometric identification to confirm that the user is indeed human. The new method is officially named ‘hand gesture verification’ (HGV), and, according to early testing, is mostly useless.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Games That Weren’t: Two Long Lost Commodore PET Adventures Recovered After 45 Years. “The original Commodore PET editions of Brian Cotton’s Catacombs and Goblin Towers, published by Supersoft back in 1981, have been recovered after being considered lost for around 45 years thanks to Marcel Lansing.” 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.

Press Gazette: Google AI Overviews give ‘incredibly worrying’ prominence to suicide method. “Google queries about the death of former Love Island presenter Caroline Flack’s brother this week have prominently displayed details about his suicide in AI summaries at the top of search results pages.”

PC Gamer: Open source game engine Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions: ‘We can’t trust heavy users of AI to understand their code enough to fix it’. “Today, after months of discussion, the Godot Foundation and its maintainers are drawing a line in the sand. In a blog post, the Foundation announced that Godot’s guidelines for contributors will soon be amended to forbid AI-authored code, pull requests submitted by AI agents, and AI-generated text in human-to-human communication.”

NiemanLab: Now we’re getting AI fake news complaining about how AI fake news is the death of real news. “Did 47 Alabama newspapers die on a single day and no one noticed? (Hint: No, they didn’t.)” Crazy read.

ANTI-AI ACTIVISM

The Shoestring: “Ban! Ban! Ban!”: Data-center discontent reaches western Massachusetts. “An explosive growth in demand for resources, primarily power and water, needed to fuel AI data centers is being met with strong local opposition to these projects. Western Massachusetts is leading that movement in the Bay State, turning up to protest proposed projects both big and small.”

DATA CENTERS

Reuters: Big Tech data centers are driving up power bills at America’s Rust Belt factories. “For years, electricity costs for the Belden Brick Company in Sugarcreek, Ohio, had been relatively stable. Last year, they surged by 90% — largely because of rising power demand from data centers in the region.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Mashable: OpenAI might give a 5 percent stake to the US government. “According to a new report from the Financial Times, OpenAI, which is currently valued at $854 billion, is currently in early talks to give the U.S. government a five percent stake in the company.”

State of North Carolina: Governor Stein Announces AI Strategic Roadmap to Protect and Better Serve North Carolinians, Prepare Workers, and Strengthen Economy. “Governor Josh Stein’s North Carolina AI Leadership Council released the AI Strategic Roadmap, a guide with strategic goals and principles to address the potential impact of AI on how people live and work.”

AI LEGISLATION

Source New Mexico: New Mexico lawmakers announce proposed statewide moratorium on data centers. “Several Democratic state lawmakers on Thursday announced they intend to introduce legislation in next year’s legislative session to create a statewide moratorium on ‘large-scale’ data centers.”

AI IN WORK

Wall Street Journal: Big tech has suddenly flipped on the AI jobs wipeout scenario. “The sentiment change isn’t limited to tech leaders: A survey by EY-Parthenon found that the percentage of CEOs who believe AI investments will result in significant reductions in head count fell from around 46% in January 2025 to just 20% this May.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Ars Technica: Google’s AI buildout drove 37% increase in electricity use in 2025. “Google reported that its annual electricity consumption rose by 37 percent in 2025—the largest increase in the company’s history as Silicon Valley’s AI data center buildout continues. But the tech giant says it kept operational carbon emissions down by continuing to purchase massive amounts of clean energy.”

NBC News: Tilly Norwood, AI ‘actor’ denounced by actors union, to star in feature film. “The feature film will be a comedy-drama called ‘Misaligned,’ and it will star Tilly Norwood in a ‘hybrid production with traditional film and TV professionals — such as directors, writers and editors — working alongside AI specialists, with AI training and mentorship built into the production itself,’ the company said.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

United Nations: When AI hurts people, who’s to blame? Global experts grapple with accountability. “Who is legally responsible when Artificial Intelligence causes harm? The issue took centre stage on Tuesday – day two of the first ever UN summit on AI governance, where leading experts warned of mounting evidence of human rights violations linked to the revolutionary technology.”

TechSpot: A new attack uses a BioShock-style puzzle to convince AI browsers they’re not in the real world. “Researchers from LayerX recently unveiled BioShocking, a new type of vulnerability designed to target AI-powered browsers capable of executing autonomous tasks on the open web. The security firm explained that BioShocking can ‘game’ an AI-based browser, causing the system to execute malicious instructions after effectively bypassing its intended security guardrails.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Search Engine Journal: Google AI Overviews Study Finds Lost Clicks Weren’t Lower Quality. “An updated AI Overviews experiment finds no measurable difference in bounce rates, time on site, or returns to search between clicks with and without summaries.”

Origami by Michał Kosmulski: COrigami – an AI-based Origami Design Tool. “I’m very excited to announce a paper I have co-authored: COrigami: An AI Pipeline for Co-Designing Flat-Foldable Visually Recognisable Origami. It introduces COrigami, a first of its kind AI-based origami design tool, capable of generating origami crease patterns and simulating their folded look, including simple shaping, starting from a textual description.” 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.

Wyoming State Library: The Plains to Peaks Collective Launches a New Discovery Platform. “The Colorado State Library, in partnership with the Wyoming State Library, is excited to announce the launch of a brand-new Plains to Peaks Collective site (plains2peaks.org) for searching historic collections across Colorado and Wyoming.”

Spotted in my RSS feeds: Tinfoil Pigeons. From the About section on the front page: “Every airliner, cargo hauler, helicopter and suspiciously quiet turboprop broadcasts its position over ADS-B, and our scope listens. Enter a postcode or town — anywhere in the world — or use your location, and the flights overhead appear as blips, sweep after sweep, exactly where they really are.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

State of California: California releases CalEnviroScreen 5.0 to identify and prioritize pollution-burdened communities, announces preliminary disadvantaged communities designation. “The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) today released CalEnviroScreen 5.0, an update to the state’s mapping tool that identifies communities hardest hit by multiple pollution sources. Combining data from multiple environmental, health and socioeconomic indicators, the state has used CalEnviroScreen to focus resources and environmental protection actions where they are needed most.”

Search Engine Journal: Fabrice Canel, Longtime Bing Search Leader, Retires From Microsoft. “Canel led the Bing team responsible for crawling and indexing the web, and he was closely associated with Bing Webmaster Tools. He also became the public face of IndexNow, the open protocol Microsoft Bing announced with Yandex in 2021 for notifying search engines about new and updated pages.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

9to5 Google: Google Maps is restoring the names of locations in Poland that were changed to offensive alternatives. “Polish news network TVPWorld reported on the matter, with examples including the Presidential Palace being renamed ‘Hooligans’ Palace,’ the Warsaw Uprising Museum becoming ‘Museum of the Third Reich Uprising,’ and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier becoming ‘Tomb of the Known SS Soldier.’ Screenshots of some of the altered names were shared on social media.”

Scientific American: Wordle, but for art history—Anthropeum turns the Met Museum into an online game. “Armchair art historians, rejoice: there’s a free online daily game just for you. Called Anthropeum, the game involves guessing where and when various artifacts from New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art come from.”

Jeffrey Zeldman: The Human Story of the Open Web. “The new digital landowner class can also take away our favorite software, or change it in ways to which we never consented. The answer to this destruction of our shared digital commons by a handful of billionaires is the same as it has always been: own your content on the open web (your domain on a server, like mine on this one), and replace proprietary software with open source alternatives.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: If you use Google, you’re training its AI. Here’s how to opt out.. “Consider this a belated PSA: A recent change to Google’s privacy settings is allowing the company to store more of your data, including media such as ‘images, files, and audio and video recordings,’ to improve its AI models. In other words, if you upload any media to Google’s Search services, it’s being used to train AI unless you opt out.”

Ars Technica: Musk’s X poses “serious risk to Americans’ privacy,” advocates warn FTC. “Ahead of a July 2 deadline to submit public comments, advocates are warning the Federal Trade Commission that it must keep close watch over Elon Musk’s X and firmly reject a recent bid to end the agency’s ongoing audits of the platform’s data handling.”

Engadget: Threads’ ubiquitous Mr Beast spam is part of a massive crypto scam network . “A spam account replies to a popular post with a nonsensical phrase and a low-quality screenshot of the British newspaper The Times featuring a fictitious story about Mr Beast. There’s usually a second, seemingly random, image — often a bouquet of flowers with an iPhone. The formula has some minor variations, but these posts are absolutely everywhere. Like so much spam on social media, it’s part of a massive crypto scam.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Connecticut: There May Be Three Times as Many Insect Species as Previously Thought. “Most experts have currently accepted an estimate of about 6 million insect species, an appraisal that has stood for the last 40 years. But the new count, which used genetic information for 1.6 million individual tropical insects, a census of a highly diverse group of parasitic wasps in Costa Rica, and statistical strategies, conservatively estimates the total number of insect species at closer to 14 to 20 million.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Northeastern University: Could the clean energy revolution be powered by wastewater?. “The researchers found that enough magnesium, lithium, uranium, titanium, fluorine and silicon could be recovered from wastewaters to meet at least one-tenth of each resource’s projected demand in the international clean energy sector.” 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.

CBC: New archives bring New Brunswick’s hidden queer history online. “The Queer Heritage Initiative of New Brunswick has launched a new website this week, bringing together more than a decade of archival work documenting LGBTQ+ life across the province.”

Texas Tribune: Vaccination rates in Texas schools have been dropping. Look up the latest vaccination rates in your district.. “Each school year, Texas public school districts and private schools report to the state vaccination rates for each immunization required to attend kindergarten and 7th grade. The state publishes spreadsheets with information from these reports. The Texas Tribune has made this publicly available data easily searchable. Find those coverage rates for the 2025-26 school year with the change from the previous year below.”

City of New York: NYC Department of City Planning Launches NYC Language Explorer, a New Interactive Tool Mapping Languages Spoken Across the Five Boroughs. “Offering detailed information on the most commonly spoken languages at the citywide, borough and Community District levels, as well as statistics for additional language groups, the tool provides a powerful new way to examine the city’s rich linguistic diversity and better understand local language service needs.”

Columbia Gorge News: Discovery Center’s Historic Photo Archive online, open to public. “Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum has restored their Historic Photo Archives online…Thanks to a grant from the City of The Dalles, the public now can view more than 30,600 images from the museum’s vast photo collection.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TechSpot: Former Microsoft dev built a 2.5KB Notepad clone with zero AI features. “[Dave] Plummer is the man who claims to have created some major Windows features, including the original Task Manager application. Now, the YouTuber and retired developer shared his latest creation: a text editor named TinyRetroPad, which is designed to mimic Notepad’s text editing functionality while staying as small as possible on disk.”

Associated Press: VR and gaming are adding a kick to taekwondo. “Competitors wear VR headsets that transport them into a digital 3D arena, and strap motion-tracking sensors on their spine, thighs and shins. They use their bodies to control digital avatars in noncontact virtual matches, where every fast and well-timed strike depletes the opponent’s virtual health bar.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gizmodo: Grim New Details From the Life of the Plaintiff in Social Media’s ‘Big Tobacco’ Case. “K.G.M., the profile says, was a working class child of a fairly recent divorce when she started using YouTube, and was obsessed with her older sister who was careening toward an eating disorder. She was struggling in school. It’s familiar, and so is the idea of coping with heavy use of YouTube.”

The Chief: $40 million for 9/11 document discovery, release included in city budget . “The city will devote $34.2 million in the coming fiscal year to creating a public online portal to post documents related to post-9/11 air quality and health risks as part of the $125.8 billion Fiscal Year 2027 city budget announced June 30. Also included in the finalized budget is $6.25 million for the city’s Department of Investigation, $4 million of which will go towards completing the City Council-mandated inquiry into documents maintained by agencies across the city government from the period after 9/11.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Nautilus: How a Twitter Post Discovered a New Wasp Species to Japan. “In 2018, insect enthusiast and author Kanji Toyosaki posted a photo to Twitter (now X) of a tiny wasp laying its eggs on a praying mantis’ egg case. The photo caught the attention of Japanese entomologist Taisuke Kawano of the Kyushu University Museum, who formally described the male of the species (Eupelmus curvator) for the first time in the journal Travaux du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle ‘Grigore Antipa.'”

Shropshire Council: Sound archive to be safeguarded thanks to university funding. “The collections include local radio archives, oral history interviews, and music recordings. The recordings frequently capture the memories and experiences of people and communities who are underrepresented in the archival record. They include memories of local industries, rural life, the natural world, and the experiences of people and communities who have made the Midlands their home. During the next year, an initial 1,200 recordings will be digitised and preserved. A range of events and learning activities will take place across the region, designed to showcase this important heritage.” 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.

Library of Congress: Remembering the Past, Preserving the Present: The America 250 Semiquincentennial Web Archive. “The America 250 Semiquincentennial Web Archive documents how Americans are commemorating and reflecting on the nation’s 250th anniversary. In this interview, Malea Walker discusses how the collection evolved from a project focused on government websites into a broader effort to document the many ways communities across the country are marking this historic milestone.”

CKRM: Regina Legion celebrates 100 years with launch of historic digital collection. “The Regina Branch 001 Museum and Archives, in partnership with the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Regina, has launched a new online digital collection featuring more than 2,000 historical photographs, letters, documents, and other records documenting military life in Saskatchewan.”

Penn State: Lehigh Valley art collection joins College of Arts and Architecture’s digital archives. “Penn State Lehigh Valley’s historic art collection is the newest addition to the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture’s digital archives, a platform designed to preserve and provide access to collections from visual centers across Penn State.”

BBC: Victorian poet’s archive made available online. “Dorset dialect poet William Barnes bequeathed his writings, woodcuts and engravings to the county museum that he co-founded in 1846. The William Barnes Society raised £35,000 to catalogue the collection so it could be accessed anywhere in the world.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Tom’s Hardware: Germany’s massive 60,000-game preservation project collapses after €1.5 million funding dries up — world’s largest game archive was entirely publicly available, now abandoned just as Sony kills physical media. “The Internationale Computerspielesammlung (ICS), a German effort to assemble the world’s largest publicly accessible video game archive, is being wound down after roughly €1.5 million in public funding expired at the end of April and the federal government declined to renew it. GamesWirtschaft reported on July 3rd that the project’s shareholders voted unanimously to shut it down, leaving the future of its database of more than 60,000 cataloged titles unresolved.”

Tubefilter: YouTube harkens back to original Instagram with photo post update. “When you open up the YouTube Shorts app, you might not expect to see many photo posts in your feed, but YouTube wants to make those still images more common. An update to photo posts will bring snippets of licensed pop music to those pieces of content.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mediaite: Trump admin deletes cooling advice after right goes scorched on Mamdani for same info. “The U.S. Department of Energy apparently deleted its longstanding guidance that homeowners keep their air conditioning set to 78 degrees, after critics slammed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) for giving the exact same advice during the current heat wave.”

Vanguard (Nigeria): Presidency trains over 100 Northern influencers to counter fake news. “The Office of the Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Public Enlightenment, Mr Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, has trained over 100 social media influencers from across Northern Nigeria on the effective use of social media. Speaking during the training on Sunday in Kano, Abdulaziz said the workshop was organised to equip influencers with the skills to counter disinformation and misinformation.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Search Engine Journal: Fake DMCA Complaints Keep Erasing Real Pages From Google – What To Watch For. “Copyright complaints can remove live pages from Google search before the dispute is resolved. Here’s how the takedown process works and how to spot it.”

Lapaas Voice: Brazil Google notice targets YouTube betting channels. “Brazil Google notice is the latest move by Brazil to curb illegal online betting. A notice is a formal government warning. In this case, officials told Google they were concerned about YouTube profiles that seemed to promote gambling sites not cleared to work in Brazil.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Kansas Reflector: Kansas records conflict could be handled more smoothly by an open government advisory board. “Taxpayers should not be on the hook simply because state law creates an unresolved conflict of interest for the body enforcing not only KORA but also its companion, the Kansas Open Meetings Act. Rather, the law should empower the agency enforcing those laws to be free to construe them liberally and enforce them rigorously, not give it an excuse to bow out. Other states solve this problem in part by establishing an open government advisory board, which includes members of the public.”

Lookout Santa Cruz: How buying a washing machine became an AI comedy: Why the AI customer service revolution is a failure. “In too many cases, AI is deployed less to improve service than to create a barrier between customers and the people who could actually help them. The result is a system that saves businesses money while shifting costs onto customers.” 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.

KUER: UVU helped digitize America’s birth certificate, bringing its drafting to life. “Given today’s technology, the idea of writing the Declaration of Independence with quill pens on parchment paper seems daunting. But that’s what the scribe charged with the task had at his disposal in 1776. It’s also why a collaboration between Utah Valley University and Pembroke College at Oxford University is called the ‘Quill Project.’ They’ve developed an interactive digital model that maps the intricate, step-by-step process of drafting the declaration.”

Petrapixel is building an Indie Web Database. “The Indie Web Database is a collection of all things indie web. For now, we have a collection of websites, webrings and cliques. The database is a project created and managed by Petrapixel (that’s me, hi!), but contributions can come from everyone. This way, the maintenance of the database is not depended on one person, but a task of the community. This also means you should take any information with a grain of salt; While I do moderate responses and do my best to keep spam out, contributions are generally not approved before going online, only changes to existing entries are.” It launched this month but already has over 500 listings available.

EVENTS

MoneySense: Online “finfluencers” grow up. “The Creator Insights Forum featured a scrolling highlight reel of leading content creators, including yours truly. The forum brought financial content creators together to acknowledge the growing influence of their voices and the role they play in educating Canadian financial consumers. While regulatory considerations were discussed, the broader emphasis was on helping creators navigate the space responsibly.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Kagi: July 2nd, 2026 – Heads, tails, and an AI toggle. “We’ve added an option to disable access to AI features in search, under settings/ai. We’re also planning to add this option to onboarding, so new users can personalise their Kagi experience from the start. It’s finally here! We believe that Kagi’s application of AI should always be useful – there when you’d like it, and never when you don’t, and always respecting your privacy.”

The Chronicle: Online collection of historic Washington newspapers reaches a million pages. “As of June 16, the Washington Digital Newspapers program has officially gathered more than a million pages from historic local newspapers in its online collection.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Engadget: PlayStation just struck a hammer blow to game preservation. “So, that’s it then. As of 2028, game discs will be a thing of the past for PlayStation. And after previously attempting to do so five years ago — before a backlash prompted it to reverse course — Sony is finally shuttering the digital storefronts on PS3 and PlayStation Vita. It doesn’t seem like the company will back down this time.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Trump administration’s $46 billion ‘smart wall’ races ahead on the US-Mexico border. “The wall is under heavy scrutiny for the billions of dollars being dedicated to it when border crossings are at their lowest in decades. Critics say the U.S. is militarizing the border as it increasingly deploys sophisticated surveillance technology to the area, impacting local communities.”

Reuters: How drug gangs use social media to recruit Thai air crew as couriers. “In Thailand, trafficking networks target specific groups of travellers, including flight attendants, to help transport the drugs overseas, said Police Major Suriya Singhakamol, Secretary-General of the ONCB. In the case of the Thai Airways flight ​attendant arrested in Australia, she had initially posted in a social media group where people offer to carry items overseas for ​a fee, he said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Cal Matters: Californians can protect their personal data with one click. Help us test if it works. “Starting at the beginning of this year, the California Privacy Protection Agency allowed residents of the state to sign up for the Delete Request and Opt-out Platform, or DROP. The tool lets consumers send an instant request to hundreds of data brokers, asking them to delete their data and stop tracking them…. CalMatters and The Markup want to keep tabs on whether data companies comply with DROP, and that’s where we need your help.”

PBS: White House report brands Smithsonian leadership as radical activists who can’t be trusted. “A White House report brands the leadership of the Smithsonian Institution, especially at the National Museum of American History, as radical activists who cannot be trusted, indicating that President Donald Trump may be preparing to install his own team.” 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.