Poynter: Poynter’s PolitiFact launches service providing reliable, engaging health information to consumers and news organizations. “The service, called Well Informed, offers reliable, topical health information on social media, where more people are getting information – and misinformation – about health claims. The work is also be available on PolitiFact’s website. And, other news organizations that want to provide this trusted health information to their audiences can partner with Well Informed and publish the work as well, currently at no charge.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Chrome Unboxed: Google quietly rebrands ‘The Keyword’ to the new, generic ‘News from Google’. “Moving to ‘News from Google’ certainly removes any ambiguity about what the site contains, but it feels like a real step backward in terms of branding. It trades what I felt was a super-clever, memorable brand for something that feels like a generic press release site. While the domain remains blog.google, the name change really strips away a bit of the fun and character the site still has.”

USEFUL STUFF

Smashing Apps: Best Free PDF Editor 2026: Edit, Annotate and Sign PDFs Without Paying. “The challenge is that ‘PDF editor’ covers very different tasks, and not every free tool does all of them. Annotating (highlighting, adding comments) is different from editing actual text inside a PDF. Signing is different from filling form fields. Merging multiple PDFs is different from compressing one. This guide maps each task to the specific free tool that handles it best — so you spend time on the task rather than testing tools.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

MakeUseOf: The Raspberry Pi is no longer the obvious DIY choice. “If you wanted to build a home server, run Home Assistant, set up Pi-hole, or experiment with Linux on cheap hardware, the answer was simple: buy a Raspberry Pi. But Raspberry Pi isn’t the smartest for Linux projects anymore, and due to a combination of factors, it’s not the obvious DIY choice either. Prices have gone up, the total cost of a usable setup is much higher than the advertised board price, and the alternatives are now much better than they used to be.”

PetaPixel: Squarespace Is Increasing Prices By Up to 26%. “Squarespace users across the web have begun reporting receiving emails detailing impending price increases that range as high as 26%, depending on the selected plan and payment option.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Lifehacker: Scammers Are Using FaceTime to Pose As Apple Support Reps. “As spotted by Malwarebytes Labs, Apple is now warning users to be skeptical of strange FaceTime calls. It comes as an update to Apple’s guide on recognizing phishing schemes, which details the many ways hackers try to trick you into handing over sensitive information or financial data. That might have something to do with the uptick in scams involving FaceTime calls.”

BBC: Ghana TikToker jailed after sharing false news about the president. “Last month and early this month, Camilla Alhassan shared a series of videos alleging, without providing evidence, that the president sacrificed 32 cows as part of a ritual to help him win the 2024 general election. The 43-year-old also alleged that a government initiative to distribute sanitary pads to recent flood victims was an attempt to conceal what she claimed he had done.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

How-To Geek: Why I’ve started archiving software the same way I archive family photos. “I have a habit of keeping all my software and files, regardless of whether I use them regularly. I have a sweet deprecated version of Noteworthy Composer (to run on a VM) and a portable version of Reaper that I’ve been using for years. The modern web and modern services have made it increasingly difficult (ahem, Amazon, ahem) to preserve software and digital purchases. So I preserve my software as much as possible, the same way someone might preserve their family photo albums.”

The Reed and Pickup: Putting The Internet Back In Its Place. “The basic idea behind this is that back in the dial-up days, the internet lived wherever the phone line came into the house. Laptops were still massive; we still paid by the minute to access the internet –it was essentially a really long, screechy conversation with a remote server and the whole family would share the one PC. So, for a month (to begin with), I would put the laptop away and only use the internet on my desktop –a self-built machine currently running Kubuntu.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

VT Digger: At Vermont’s Estey Organ Museum, many donations total $10. Then came one so big, it paid off the mortgage.. “Volunteers at this town’s Estey Organ Museum are used to a symphony of sounds at the former home of the world’s largest manufacturer of pump and pipe instruments….But everybody went silent when peers at the local historical society, having recently banked several general bequests, arrived to announce they wanted to pay off the museum’s mortgage.” 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.

National Conference of State Legislatures: NCSL Launches New Elections Information Hub Ahead of 2026 State Elections. “The National Conference of State Legislatures launched its new State Elections 2026 page, a comprehensive, one-stop hub to follow this year’s state elections. This new resource provides information on the 2026 primary and general elections, legislative races by state and chamber, an interactive map on partisan composition, ballot measures, election administration and other key election-related topics.”

Launched last year and new-to-me, from Powder: One Man Is Preserving Freeskiing’s History, and It’s All Online. “Dedicated to the once-nascent freeskiing movement, it includes an exhaustive collection of movies, webisodes, contest results, pro models, books, and even toys, like the Jonny Moseley Huck Doll, all in one place.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: US judge approves Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement of copyright lawsuit. “A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday signed off on ‌artificial intelligence company Anthropic’s landmark $1.5 billion settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by a group of authors who accused it of misusing their books to train its AI chatbot Claude.”

Minnesota Daily: Minnesota social media warning law is now on hold after tech companies sue. “Originally set to take effect on July 1, a proposed Minnesota law requiring social media companies to display health warnings to users is now on pause after a technology and software group filed a lawsuit, claiming the proposed legislation violates the First Amendment.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Current Affairs: Who Will Save the Internet From Disappearing?. “From deleted government records to disappearing music, our digital culture can be erased overnight. The Internet Archive’s Mark Graham and Chris Freeland explain what it will take to save it.”

Engadget: A bug in AWS has caused some customers’ bills to spike from a few cents to billions of dollars . “Forums and social media were full of posts from uneasy AWS customers detailing their sky-high bills, many in the millions or billions of dollars. One Reddit user even claimed their usage was being billed at $4.2 trillion.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: Hackers are exploiting recently patched WordPress bugs, putting millions of websites at risk. “Hackers are breaking into websites that run vulnerable versions of the popular blogging software WordPress, according to several cybersecurity firms. One estimate puts the number of vulnerable WordPress websites at tens of millions as of Monday.”

ABC News: US seizes more than 1,000 internet domains DOJ says illegally streamed World Cup games. “The U.S. seized more than 1,000 internet domains that the Justice Department says were used to illegally stream World Cup games. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Washington field office led the effort, called Operation Offsides — over three separate actions during the more than monthlong World Cup, which primarily took place in the United States.”

ARTNews: Congressional Representatives Introduce New Bill to Protect Public Artworks in Government Buildings. “The PRESERVE Act (‘Protecting Resources and Ensuring Stewardship of Enduring Records of Visual Expression Act’) would require the General Services Administration, which manages federal agencies, to identify any artworks contained within government buildings deemed ‘surplus property’ and form a committee to oversee the future of said artworks.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: Rare documents signed by Lincoln removed from D.C. memorial after heat exposure
. This is a Yahoo-syndicated version of the article and is not paywalled. “The historic 160-year-old antislavery documents on loan for a new exhibit under the Lincoln Memorial were removed Thursday after they were exposed to unsafe temperatures, said a spokesperson for philanthropist Kenneth C. Griffin, who owns the artifacts.”

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology: First Database for Solar Power Tower Plants. “Solar power towers can play an important role in energy transition. They convert sunlight into heat that can be stored or used to generate electricity. Until now, however, data to test new methods for more efficient and reliable systems have been lacking. In a world first, researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) are now publishing freely accessible operational data from the Jülich Solar Tower test power plant.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Tom’s Hardware: GTA 3 and Vice City are now playable inside San Andreas — a mod lets you revisit Liberty City and Vice City without leaving San Andreas. “A Grand Theft Auto (GTA) modder has developed a mod that lets you run Grand Theft Auto III (GTA 3) and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (GTA VC) as mini games right inside Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (GTA SA).” 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 RESOURCES

Roanoke Times: Roanoke libraries launching online archive of David Ramey drawings, writings. “When David Ramey moved from small-town Martinsville to Roanoke as a child, he could step out on his family’s back porch and see much of Henry Street, the bustling center of the city’s Black community. From the front of the house, he could look down the hill and see Gainsboro Library — a place he loved and visited frequently. The small, brick building figured prominently in Ramey’s drawings, many of which documented the historic Black neighborhood as it was before the destruction of urban renewal.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Vimeo: Vimeo On Demand — Shutdown Notice. “After many years, Vimeo On Demand (VOD) is being phased out…. If you have purchased or rented content through Vimeo On Demand, you can continue watching your library until November 20, 2026. After that date, access will no longer be available. We encourage you to download any content that supports offline viewing before the shutdown date.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: 10 Camera Hacks Every iPhone User Should Know. “Over the years, I’ve tinkered with my iPhone’s Camera app to push it to its limits, so it can return the highest-quality photos and videos possible. If you’re interested in doing the same, try these 10 hacks, tips, and tricks to get more out of your iPhone’s Camera.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wall Street Journal: Israel’s $50 million experiment to change US public opinion. This link goes to an unpaywalled, MSN-syndicated version of the article. “The text messages come from senders named Emma or Sarah, with a group called Friends for Peace. ‘How do you think the U.S. and Israel’s peace talks with Iran will impact global security?’ they ask. Millions of similar texts have flooded American cellphones in recent months. They are written with artificial intelligence, pushed by a longtime Trump adviser’s firm—and paid for by the Israeli government.”

New York Times: Do These C.E.O.s Loathe Each Other? Bet on It.. This link goes to a gift article. “…the competition between the 28-year-old Mr. Coplan and the 30-year-old Mr. Mansour goes far beyond the normal bounds of corporate rivalry. Both are newly minted billionaires, intent on dominating prediction markets, which offer betting odds on sports, politics, culture and nearly everything else. By most accounts, they also despise each other with a fervor that has seeped into how their companies interact at virtually every level, according to interviews with more than 40 people in their circles, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive dynamics.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Courthouse News Service: Toyota broadsided by website tracking class action. “Toyota was hit with a ‘trap and trace’ class action, over what the plaintiff calls an ‘outrageous privacy “bait and switch” scheme.’ In a class action filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, lead plaintiff Brittany Conner claims the Japanese automaker ‘secretly tracks, de-anonymizes and sells visitors’ personnel information before a user can provide legally valid consent.'”

ABNA: Google blurs satellite imagery of sensitive Kuwait sites hit in Iranian strikes.”Google has heavily blurred and downgraded the quality of satellite imagery covering several sensitive installations in Kuwait that were recently targeted during Iran’s retaliatory strikes against U.S. operations.”

Georgia Tech: Online Age Checks Create a Pointless Privacy Risk. “New cybersecurity research indicates that one of the world’s leading age verification providers collects and shares highly sensitive personal data with third parties and in some cases don’t even enforce the policy.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Reuters: Trump calls for review related to scientific manual used by judges. “U.S. President Donald Trump called for a review related to the Federal Judicial Center’s ​scientific reference manual in cases involving climate change, writing ‌in a Truth Social post on Sunday that the work contains ‘discredited’ information that led to ‘huge losses’ for the country.”

Andros Fenollosa: I joined the IndieWeb, here’s what I learned. “Driven by curiosity, I decided to find out what the IndieWeb tag that kept showing up on some blogs and Mastodon toots was all about. I quickly discovered it was more than an empty concept or a feeling of nostalgia for the web of the 90s. It was a movement with concrete ideas, protocols and an active community! As I read through their wiki, I understood their position and the intelligence of their proposals more and more. Such was my enthusiasm that I decided to follow their advice and adopt the protocols that made sense for my site.” Good morning that was supposed to be 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.

FAO: FAO launches CropSuit app to help farmers grow the right crops in the right places. “The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) today launched CropSuit, a free web-based application that combines soil information with climate information, topography, land cover and other environmental data to identify the crops most likely to perform well in a given location.”

Creative Commons: Introducing the CC Open Heritage Companion. “The Creative Commons (CC) Open Heritage Companion is a practitioner’s guide developed to help cultural heritage institutions navigate the journey from closed to open collections. Grounded in the legal, policy, and ethical questions institutions face along the way, the Companion brings together 200+ curated resources, tools, and examples, organized into six chapters that guide practitioners from their first questions about openness to leading the field.”

EVENTS

Aywren’s Nook: Blaugust 2026 is On the Way!. “Blaugust is not a contest. While there are rewards and incentives to post a certain number of posts, that’s never what it’s been about. There are no winners or losers. There’s no failure at Blaugust. The only way to lose is to not participate and see what you’re capable of.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google is open-sourcing its 3D emoji. “Now, if you want to, you can use Google’s 3D emoji in your own creations. The company shared some details about how it went about designing the little pictograms and why, as part of World Emoji Day on Friday.”

USEFUL STUFF

Neatnik: Hardcore IndieWeb: Run your own website 100% independently for only $0.01/day. “…if the idea of having complete independence and control over your content on the web is appealing to you, read on. Because that’s what Hardcore IndieWeb is all about.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: On Kalshi and Polymarket, World Cup Final Drives Bets Into the Billions. This link goes to a gift article. “Prediction market users are poised to make the World Cup the largest gambling event in history, analysts said. In June, total wagers on the platforms topped $50 billion for the first time, much of it driven by the soccer tournament, according to data from Dune Analytics, a crypto data tracker. That was up from about $2 billion the same month a year ago.”

9to5 Mac: Investigation reveals dozens of disguised gambling apps on the App Store in Brazil. “A 9to5Mac investigation has uncovered more than 60 apps that behave exactly as depicted in their App Store screenshots when accessed from virtually anywhere in the world, except Brazil. When opened from a Brazilian IP address, the same apps instead reveal online betting platforms.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: What to know about the Tate brothers, social media influencers facing rape and trafficking charges. “Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said the new charges relate to four further victims and were brought after authorities received evidence from Bedfordshire Police in southeastern England. The charges include rape, assault, trafficking and offenses relating to ‘indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.'”

The Guardian: Burnham to scrap Starmer’s digital ID scheme in ‘reset of priorities’. “Andy Burnham is expected to scrap Keir Starmer’s plans for digital ID cards in a ‘reset of priorities’ when he enters Downing Street on Monday. The new Labour leader plans to redirect the resources earmarked for the scheme towards tackling the cost of living, his team indicated on Saturday.”

Salon: Wild animals don’t exist for your social media content. “‘Generally, if an animal is alert to your presence, you’re already too close,’ says Shervin Hess, conservation manager at Portland’s Oregon Zoo. And because humans have grown comfortable — perhaps too comfortable — around wild animals in the age of social media and smartphones, more often than not it’s the animals who wind up paying for our heedlessness.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Search Engine Journal: ChatGPT Access Tied To 9% Drop In Traditional Search. “A recent look at U.S. desktop browsing shows ChatGPT directed people to outside websites in 5.2% of sessions, compared to 31.1% for Google searches. The paper, conducted by Bocconi University researchers, examines Comscore clickstream data to gain insight into how broader access to ChatGPT has impacted traditional search.”

The Hindu: 18,000 rare books, 1,000 archives in Mysuru to go digital. “Under this agreement, Servants of Knowledge will undertake the digitisation of approximately 18,000 rare books and 1,000 archival publications housed within the Department’s library in Mysuru. This project is dedicated to safeguarding these historical materials and making the knowledge contained within them accessible to citizens, researchers, and students across India and worldwide.” 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.

Reuters: Data center opponents stage 142 protests across 42 US states. “Opponents of the rapid buildout of data centers held ​142 protests across 42 states on Saturday in the first nationwide effort to channel anger at the AI infrastructure expansion that has ramped up over ‌the past year and roiled local politics.”

Politico: ‘A better way to be relevant’: Greens embrace data center fight. “Groups including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, and Food and Water Watch are ramping up national campaigns, activating volunteers in states and providing support for local fights against the massive artificial intelligence facilities that are spreading across the country.”

CNBC: Elon Musk’s Memphis AI empire is the epicenter of the data center backlash. “Google, Anthropic and Reflection AI have all inked agreements with SpaceX to rent excess computing capacity at Colossus and Colossus II, deals worth up to $2.32 billion per month. Residents don’t feel the same benefits. Several told CNBC that SpaceXAI never consulted with them about their plans before they broke ground, though it was clear the data centers would profoundly impact nearby neighborhoods.”

DATA CENTERS

Investigate Midwest: A loophole leaves Oklahoma data center water consumption largely untracked. “While there is no official count of how many data centers are currently operating in the state, Baxtel, a data center development advisory firm, lists 55 facilities in Oklahoma. None of those facilities have applied for a water permit. Instead, they purchase water from municipal utilities, creating a gap in state oversight that leaves their water use largely untracked.”

Source NM: Energy expert tells NM lawmakers Project Jupiter could roll back air quality progress by 20 years. “Environmental advocates on Monday told New Mexico lawmakers that power plants built specifically for large data centers such as Project Jupiter could undo more than 20 years of progress on air quality.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Ars Technica: Will AI fix prior authorization—or make it worse?. “An HHS Office of Inspector General memorandum published in 2022 pointed to more than one in 10 instances in which Medicare Advantage plans denied beneficiaries’ access to services even though they apparently met coverage rules. (Being denied access doesn’t mean patients can’t ever gain access. In 2024, for example, Medicare Advantage plans overturned 81 percent of denials upon appeal.)”

Louisville Public Radio: Political text messages could get more effective and annoying. Blame AI. “AI-powered platforms are training bots to sound like political candidates in text messages, holding personalized conversations with thousands of potential voters simultaneously. The bots are also gathering data, learning what each voter wants from their representatives and using that information to shape future campaign messaging.”

The Register: Australia demands AI companies must produce more energy than they consume, stop ‘theft’ of content. “Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has delivered a landmark speech outlining the nation’s AI policy, which will require datacenter builders to contribute more energy than they consume and mean AI companies must reach agreements with local artists and media before using their content.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Mozilla Blog: Mozilla’s Inaugural ‘State of Open Source AI’ Report Is Here. “Today Mozilla is publishing its inaugural State of Open Source AI report, built on new analysis and a global survey of 950+ developers, showing that open models are no longer playing catch-up. The performance gap with top proprietary systems like ChatGPT and Claude has narrowed to just 3%, while costs have fallen up to 50x in three years.”

Mashable: OpenAI’s first physical device is here, and it’s not what we expected. “The device is a compact 13-key controller designed to work alongside OpenAI’s Codex coding assistant. It features a rotary dial to adjust the AI’s ‘reasoning level,’ a joystick to trigger coding workflows such as reviewing pull requests or debugging errors, programmable command keys for actions like accepting or rejecting suggestions, and RGB backlighting that changes color to reflect what an active Codex session is doing.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Hugging Face: Security incident disclosure — July 2026. “Earlier this week, we detected and responded to an intrusion into part of our production infrastructure. This one was different from anything we had handled before in one important way: it was driven, end to end, by an autonomous AI agent system – and we detected and dissected it largely with AI of our own.”

Techdirt: How The Spread Of Local AI Models Makes Copyright Enforcement Harder. “The EU Copyright Directive’s core assumption that the main forums for sharing material would be a few, easily controllable online giants like Google and Facebook, no longer holds. Instead, people are moving to world where millions of people are using the latest generation of open source AI tools collaboratively to generate creations. Those may or may not be based on existing copyright material, but there is no easy way to police that.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Pangram: AI Content Is Everywhere on Social Media, Especially LinkedIn. “AI-generated content appeared across all social media platforms in our data set. The average AI rate across all scanned items was 13.8%, but specific rates varied by platform and item length. On four out of five platforms, longer content was more likely to be AI-generated than shortform content. Across all platforms, one in four longform items (25.72% of items over 250 words) were fully AI-generated.”

West Virginia University: WVU engineers develop AI system to speed satellite tracking of wildfires. “A new artificial intelligence system developed by West Virginia University engineers could help firefighters respond to wildfires sooner by enabling satellites to detect blazes and automatically adjust their positions for continued monitoring.”

The Guardian: Could AI be conscious?. “In building ever more advanced AI, we may be creating a new type of being – and this could be the most consequential thing our species has ever done. Yet we have essentially no plan for how to navigate this process ethically. That, by any reckoning, is insane. Are we creating a kind of being that matters morally? Are AI systems conscious, in some way? And, if they aren’t now, might they become so soon?” I don’t think we have to worry about that with our current “spicy autocompete” model. Good evening, 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.

Correctional Association of New York: CANY Releases New Interactive Dashboard on State Prison Releases. “The Correctional Association of New York (CANY) today released a new interactive dashboard containing data on releases from the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) facilities. The dashboard includes releases from January 2015 through May 2026, providing transparency into demographic profiles, commitment counties, security levels, and release types.”

EVENTS

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress: WordPress 7.0.2 Release. “The 7.0.2 security release addresses one critical and one high severity security issue. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. Due to the severity, the WordPress.org team have enabled forced updates via the auto-update system for sites running affected versions.”

Reuters: Musk’s X, major labels end dispute over music on social-media platform. “A group of major music publishers including Universal Music Group and Sony Music have agreed to end a legal dispute with Elon Musk’s X Corp over the use of their music on the X social-media platform, according to federal court filings.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: These Gboard Alternatives Are Open-Source and Privacy-First. “Gboard is the default keyboard for Pixel smartphones and many devices that use stock Android, but it’s not the only option out there. Recently, Gboard has been swept up in a privacy controversy highlighting how your data is used by Google for its own training and collection. The data that Google collects can be intercepted and tied to individual users. Luckily, you can disable some of those data-sharing settings.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Tubefilter: TikTok’s plan to break into sports involves slam dunks and right hooks. “As the value of sports broadcast packages continues to rise, TikTok has struck multiple deals that will bring top athletes to its platform. Upcoming broadcasts on the video app include a championship boxing match headlined by Amanda Serrano and basketball highlights courtesy of the NBA and WNBA.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

RTE: Google not immune from liability over gambling ads – Europe’s top court. “Alphabet unit Google is not immune from liability for videos uploaded to YouTube by commercial partners, Europe’s top court said in a ruling, which could put social media networks on the hook for uploaded content not managed by them.”

CT Mirror: ‘Click to cancel’ rule aims to protect CT consumers from unwanted subscriptions. “Under the law, which went into effect July 1, companies must notify consumers of automatic renewals and give subscribers a clear ability to cancel. If that doesn’t happen, residents can file a complaint with the state Attorney General or the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MOCT: In cities across Ukraine, an exhibition featuring the sounds of the occupied Askania-Nova will be shown. “The biosphere reserve ‘Askania-Nova’ is preparing an exhibition dedicated to the sounds of the Ukrainian steppes, including the Askania steppe….The exhibitions are planned to be held in August in Kyiv and Kherson, and later the audio archive will be published on the reserve’s website.”

University of New Hampshire: Bystander videos are ‘fundamentally changing how the news is made’. “Just weeks before [Alex] Pretti’s death, Renee Good was shot and killed by federal agents during Operation Metro Surge, a large-scale ICE deployment in Minnesota. In the Good case, too, bystander videos analyzed by professional journalists contradicted the government’s account of the incident.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Bedford Citizen: Vishal Gopalan Works to Recycle 5,000 Used Tennis Balls. “Vishal Gopalan, a rising senior at Bedford High School, is on a mission to recycle 5,000 tennis balls by the end of 2026. Having begun the project in March, Gopalan already has 1,600 balls in his collection.”

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

The 51st: Check out thousands of photos of midcentury D.C.. “The photos show a bygone D.C. – when there were still troughs for horses, parts of the city could be mistaken for the countryside, and Adams Morgan looked like a quaint village – and glimpses of the future, including the opening of the Whitehurst and 14th Street bridges.”

Google Blog: Experience the legacy of Estadio Azteca on Google Earth.. “Through a Google Earth and Fundación ICA collaboration, you can get an up-close look at Estadio Azteca through an interactive digital canvas and imagery dating to the 1960s. From its origins in 1961 to the clashes that crowned legends like Pelé and Maradona, the stadium has been home to six decades of sporting history that are now yours to explore.”

EVENTS

UNESCO: UNESCO Launches a Global Dialogue on the Financing of Culture. “How can culture become a strategic investment priority rather than a sector competing for limited resources? This question was at the heart of the first session of UNESCO’s Online Dialogue Series on Advancing the Financing of Culture, organized on 9 July 2026, with the generous support of the European Union.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ukrayinska Pravda: Google Play removes Russian apps Max, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. “The removal of the apps appears to be linked to the recent EU sanctions imposed on VKontakte and its subsidiary, Communications Platform, the investment company that developed Max. The EU says the messaging app was created under the control of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and includes surveillance capabilities.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: Why Immich succeeded where every other Google Photos alternative failed. “It seemed like Immich came out of nowhere, but suddenly all my colleagues appear to be using it. I’m not as into self-hosting as some of them, so perhaps that’s why I’m surprised, but the more I look into it, the more obvious it seems that this photo management solution is turning into a sleeper hit. The question is: why? At first glance Immich doesn’t seem to be all that, but there’s a reason (or five) people are dropping their cloud subscriptions in favor of managing their own digital photo collections.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Time Extension: This Cool Project Allows You To Emulate Old LCD Games, Including A Possible Nintendo First. “All of this is me arguing that LCD games did have their place in the wider gaming climate, even if today they are more commonly considered cheap plastic tat you’re more likely to find in a bargain bin than a museum. With that in mind, I was pretty happy to be sent some information recently in our news tips about a project called BrickEmuPy, a dedicated “Handheld LCD games emulator in Python with PyQt6″ that preserves a bunch of these games for future generations in a playable format.”

Mudkip Mud Sport: Introduction to KizunaShelf: A shelf for everything you love. “I settled on an Obsidian Vault where everything I care about is a Markdown file, complete with front matter and organized using Dataview and later Obsidian Bases. But manually managing a database of over 2,000 Markdown files introduced a new kind of friction: hunting down metadata, updating statuses, and tracking dates. The tedious labor of acting like a librarian replaced the actual joy of discovering what to enjoy next. KizunaShelf is the answer to all of that.”

UK Heritage Fund: Preserving Wales’ weightlifting stories. “Weightlifting Wales is safeguarding the living history of weightlifting and Para Powerlifting before it is lost. The project is recording the memories of former lifters, coaches, officials and volunteers, while digitising medals, trophies, programmes, photographs and other artefacts currently held in private collections. These materials will be preserved in a publicly accessible bilingual digital archive, supported by community exhibitions delivered through clubs across Wales.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Vancouver Sun: Lions Bay search-and-rescuers warn against dangers of Google Maps. “Lions Bay Search and Rescue is reminding those venturing into the wilderness that Google Maps isn’t an adequate planning tool. The warning comes after hikers were rescued this week after attempting to complete the Howe Sound Crest Trail using printed Google Maps directions that said the hike would take less than half the amount of time it usually requires.”

CBS News: DOJ says it’s no longer illegal to download TikTok on federal devices. “The Justice Department determined this week a federal law banning TikTok from government devices no longer applies to the social video app.”

Reuters: DraftKings sues Philadelphia to end enforcement probe following subpoena, block consumer law. “In a complaint filed in Philadelphia federal court, DraftKings said Pennsylvania laws governing consumer protection and unfair trade practices forbade Philadelphia from enforcing a 2024 ordinance ​creating a municipal enforcement scheme to protect consumers.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Mixfont: Decoy Font. “Decoy font is a font that prints a decoy for every letter, making it more difficult for AI to read what you type. The font works by using separate spatial frequencies to communicate two different letters in the same space.” 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.

Google Blog: Explore The Met in new ways with generative AI. “In tandem with the residency, we are also launching Art Aura, an interactive, multimodal AI experience developed by the Google Arts & Culture Lab in collaboration with The Met. Powered by Google Gemini, Art Aura allows users to drag artworks, styles or descriptive phrases into a digital zone to uncover hidden thematic connections across the centuries of art featured in The Met’s collection, creating a personalized portrait of their unique artistic taste.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Associated Press: YouTube joins Meta in appealing a jury verdict that faulted them for users’ social media addiction. “YouTube has appealed the verdict of a landmark social media addiction lawsuit in Los Angeles, seeking to challenge the jury’s determination that the company designed its platform to hook young users without concern for their well-being.”

Reuters: EU accepts action plan by Elon Musk’s X to become more transparent. “The European Union, which fined Elon Musk’s social media ​network X €120 million ($137.2 million) last year, said on ‌Wednesday it had accepted an action plan by X to comply with transparency rules under the EU’s Digital Services ​Act.”

USEFUL STUFF

ProPublica: How to Research Private Schools Like an Investigative Reporter. “It can be really hard to get transparent, comprehensive information about private schools. Our investigative reporters share some suggestions for parents and guardians who want to collect it themselves.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

ABC News: White House teleprompter operator made more than $100K betting on Trump’s speeches: Sources. “President Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on more than a dozen of Trump’s speeches on the prediction market Kalshi, federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.”

NM.news: We’re working to save the Roswell Daily Record, an American journalism institution. Here’s how.. “The newspaper that told the world about a ‘flying saucer’ crash near Roswell in 1947 nearly became history itself this week — but just two days after announcing it would shut down, it has found a new owner and will keep publishing. The Roswell Daily Record’s ownership announced Wednesday they reached an agreement to sell to the New Mexico News Group, which will keep the paper publishing.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, is investigating TikTok’s child safety measures. “Specifically, the regulator is looking at whether TikTok has failed, or is currently failing, to comply with requirements outlined in Section 12 of the Online Safety Act 2023. This section refers to the mitigation and management of the risks of harm to children online, and how successfully they are prevented from encountering harmful content.”

Stereogum: MSG Suing Wired Over Article Alleging Company Kept Database Of LGBTQIA Celebrities. “A week ago, Wired published a report alleging Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. maintains a database of LGBTQIA celebrities. At the time, MSG said they’d be suing Wired over the article. As promised, that lawsuit was filed today.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Protothema: Archaeological and National cadastre systems join forces to protect and promote cultural heritage. “The collaboration focuses on the further development of the Archaeological Cadastre using the geospatial foundations of the National Cadastre, the promotion and utilization of the real estate assets managed by the Ministry of Culture, and the systematic geospatial mapping of cultural heritage protection zones across the country.”

Alex Turner: Why I Left Google DeepMind. “I wanted AI ethics commitments to hold under pressure. In particular, I wanted Google DeepMind (GDM) to maintain its existing commitment against supporting killer robots. Over several months, I asked many people to act. I asked senior people⁠—respected people⁠—people with reputations silvered by their concern about AI ethics and safety. Nearly all declined.” 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: Developers Claim OpenAI’s New AI Model is Going Rogue and Deleting Files. “But one of the upshots of building highly agentic AI systems is that they’re prone to all kinds of unexpected behaviors—including now and then deleting copious amounts of files. Multiple people have reported this recently happening to them while using GPT-5.6, the newest model from OpenAI.”

ANTI-AI ACTIVISM

Signal Cleveland: Google is building a $500 million data center in rural Ohio. Neighbors are furious . “Over 373 acres of pancake flat, former farmland, Google is building a $500 million data center here, about seven miles northwest of the county seat of Lima. The neighbors in American Township, population 14,538, are furious. They’ve stuffed public hearings and public comment boxes in a perhaps fruitless effort to block an ongoing construction project pushed by one of the most powerful companies in the world.”

DATA CENTERS

South Jersey Climate News: Early optimism about AI data centers runs into new reality. “The state’s big dream of turning New Jersey into the ‘Silicon Valley’ of artificial intelligence has run smack into the reality of soaring energy costs, the unrealistic ambitions of overly optimistic lawmakers and a public backlash against the growing number of data centers.”

Baltimore Fishbowl: Operator of Mid-Atlantic power grid, which includes Maryland, to finalize key data center regulations. “The PJM Interconnection – the regional power grid operator for Maryland and 12 other states and DC – is in the midst of finalizing consequential decisions around how it will handle the electricity demand of data centers.”

Cal Matters: Survey: Californians overwhelmingly opposed to new data centers. “The latest Public Policy Institute of California poll of 1,578 adult Californians finds that 73% oppose the construction of data centers in their communities. Though the majority of both Democrats and Republicans disapprove of building data centers, Republicans are slightly more likely to favor them than Democrats.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

PetaPixel: Mayor Mamdani Says Landlords Can’t Secretly Use AI Images to Advertise Properties. “New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani is having a very busy week. Just a day after announcing a ‘click-to-cancel’ rule aimed at companies like Adobe, Mamdani is cracking down on ‘deceptive landlord practices,’ including using AI-generated and AI-edited images designed to make properties look more appealing.”

Politico: White House launches cybersecurity clearinghouse to patch software flaws discovered by AI. “The Trump administration has launched a new artificial intelligence cybersecurity clearinghouse that officials say will help federal agencies, critical infrastructure owners and operators, and AI companies identify and patch software vulnerabilities discovered by advanced AI models.”

AI IN WORK

The Guardian: Thousands of Google workers demand layoff protections amid AI boom in petition to CEO. “Google workers on Thursday delivered a petition calling for layoff protections as tech giants continue to slash their workforces while pouring billions into AI.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

NME: Lorde hits out at AI-generated Spotify feature: “We don’t want this”. “With a new function, however, Spotify has been sharing the personal meaning behind songs, providing a short paragraph that explains the lyrics and how the artist has been playing it live at their shows. For Lorde, the description of her song ‘Current Affairs’ has caught her eye, and she has now hit out at it as being inaccurate and unnecessary.”

Tubefilter: TikTok’s AI labels might not be effective, so the app is educating its users. “TikTok was one of the first social media companies to add labels to AI-generated content. Those tags were first teased in 2023 and added to the app a year later. Unfortunately, AI labels don’t seem to be as effective as TikTok wants them to be.”

ZDNet: Linus Torvalds puts his foot down, tells anti-AI programmers to ‘fork it’. “Many people hate AI. They don’t trust it a bit. Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, isn’t one of them. Torvalds thinks AI can be quite useful for programming and maintenance. Indeed, AI is explicitly approved for use in the Linux kernel.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Researcher poisons open-weight AI model for under $100. “Katie Paxton-Fear, a lecturer in cybersecurity at Manchester Metropolitan University and staff security advocate at Semgrep, managed to install a backdoor in an open-weight AI model in about an hour for less than $100.”

VentureBeat: Forget typosquatting; slopsquatting is the software supply chain threat created by AI coding tools. “Slopsquatting is a new type of supply chain attack that uses large language model (LLM) hallucinations to inject malicious code into development workflows. The term combines ‘AI slop’ and ‘typosquatting,’ a deceptive practice where attackers register misspelled or lookalike versions of popular domains to prey on users who enter URLs incorrectly.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Reuters: Meta Oversight Board finds top AI models less likely to criticize repressive regimes. “AI models from leading labs including Anthropic and OpenAI are much less likely to criticize governments known for restricting free speech, Meta’s Oversight Board said on Thursday.”

Yale School of Medicine: 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.

WTXL: Tallahassee neighbor launches ItsMyScene to connect local bands, venues, and fans all in one place. “Jacob Sanford launched ItsMyScene, a community-driven website putting local bands, venues, and shows in one place. Sanford first tried the idea in the early 2000s with TallahasseeShows.com. More than two decades later, he’s bringing it back with new technology and a bigger vision.” Early days but looks promising.

North Carolina Department of Transportation: NCDOT Launches Interactive ‘Projects Near Me’ Tool. “The N.C. Department of Transportation recently launched an interactive online tool called Projects Near Me, where people can explore a map featuring a wide range of state transportation project data. The map is searchable by address, making it easy to find projects near any location, and by project identification number in the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). It can also display projects by county or NCDOT Highway Division.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Tubefilter: YouTube clarifies that creators can’t monetize “generic or repetitive content,” content that’s “unsatisfying or off-putting,” or content with fake AI “experts”. “To be clear, this is not a new policy. The update is a communications fix: clearer, more actionable language so creators know why a channel gets flagged. The rules themselves haven’t changed, and creators are not facing demonetization for new reasons.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Louder: KnuckleBonz reveal details of a 3D digital museum in collaboration with the late Metallica bassist’s estate. “KnuckleBonz, the company which creates officially licensed statues of musical icons, has announced details of a ‘first-of-its-kind immersive 3D digital platform’ celebrating the life of the late Metallica bassist Cliff Burton.”

BBC: Trump Media to sell instant access to ‘market-moving’ social posts. “Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, is launching a paid service to give Wall Street firms high-speed access to its most influential posts. From 1 August, instant updates will be delivered from ‘the highest-ranking’ accounts, it said. US President Donald Trump currently has the most followers on the platform.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Musk promises purge after Grok Build caught sending entire repos to the cloud. “The researcher who exposed Grok Build uploading users’ entire repositories to cloud storage says the transfers have stopped after a server-side change. Elon Musk has separately promised that all previously uploaded user data will be deleted.”

Reuters: US judge blocks Trump administration’s visa limits for social media researchers. “A federal judge on ‌Tuesday blocked U.S. ‌President Donald Trump’s administration ​from enforcing a policy that targets foreign nationals who study ‌disinformation ⁠and hate speech on social media ⁠for visa denials and deportation.”

Associated Press: She knew he wasn’t real. She was in love with him anyway. One woman’s story of a romance scam. “Romance scams are on the rise across the United States. Last year, more than 49,000 Americans reported losing a collective $1.3 billion to romance scams, according to available FTC data shared with The Associated Press. That’s an increase of at least 14% and likely more from the previous year. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdowns that fractured communities and frayed the social fabric of society, there are more lonely people than ever.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CBC: He saw a pit on Google Maps. It turned out to be a 390-million-year-old meteor crater. “Amateur astronomer Joël Lapointe stumbled upon what he thought looked like a suspicious pit in Quebec’s Côte-Nord region while he was wandering with his Google Maps cursor in 2024. He was simply trying to plan his camping vacation when he spotted something unexpected on his screen — what researchers recently confirmed is a previously unidentified, 390-million-year-old meteor crater.”

The Guardian: Kalshi to offer betting on drug trial results and FDA regulatory decisions. “Kalshi is expanding its wagers to include bets on drug trial results, an expansion into new predictions territory as platforms continue to rapidly gain popularity and offer opportunities to bet on virtually anything.”

University of Cambridge: Cambridge and Oxford join forces to unlock over a million biological records for climate research. “The University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford will lead a major new partnership to digitise over 1.1 million natural history specimens, creating a step-change in how researchers and conservationists access vital biodiversity data.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Danville SanRamon: Legendary Livermore lamp reaches 125-year milestone. “Since 1901, the [Centennial Light Bulb] has burned for over 1.5 million hours with intermittent outs, according to retired deputy fire chief Tom Bramell of the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department. Besides in-person visits to its home at LPFD’s Fire Station No. 6, the bulb has grown its following with its own website, livestream camera feed, email address and social media account, not to mention its features in film, TV shows and international news.” 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.