Indigenous Biomedical Data, WordPress, Google Home, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 21, 2025
NEW RESOURCES
Arizona State University: Professor creates ‘a safe harbor’ for Indigenous data. “The Data for Indigenous Implementations Interventions and Innovation, or D4I, Tribal Data Repository is led by Arizona State University Assistant Professor Krystal Tsosie. The project centers Indigenous data and digital sovereignty from the ground up, technically and ethically. At its core, the repository is designed as a protected home for federally funded biomedical data originating with U.S. tribal nations and Indigenous peoples.”
TWEAKS AND UPDATES
Search Engine Journal: Internal WordPress Conflict Spills Out Into The Open. “The incident seemingly began with a September 15 announcement by Mary Hubbard, the Executive Director of WordPress. She announced a new Core Program Team that is meant to improve how Core contributor groups coordinate with each other and improve collaboration between Core contributor teams. But this was just the trigger for the conflict, which was actually part of a longer-term friction.”
The Verge: Nest is dead, long live Google Home. “The fact that one of the world’s largest tech companies took over three years to move a handful of devices into a new app is, frankly, astonishing. Combined with the slow, painful death of Nest hardware, you’d be forgiven for thinking Google had given up on the smart home. But, with a major Gemini-infused Google Home hardware announcement teased for October 1st, something is coming. The question is: will it be too little, too late?”
AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD
Hollywood Reporter: What Happens When AI Tries to Replace a Showrunner?. “The Hollywood Reporter asked a few to create scenes in the public-facing platform in its current state. Read their takes below. Spoiler alert: The writer-producers aren’t fearing for their livelihoods just yet.”
Marist University: World’s Largest Rowing Archive Finds a Home at Marist. “For over five decades, Thomas E. Weil Jr. pursued a passion that would eventually create the world’s largest collection on rowing history. Today, that legacy has found its permanent home in the Archives and Special Collections at Marist… The collection consists of over 10,000 items, including more than 2,300 books, and tells the story of how rowing evolved over time, from a working person’s necessity to transport food and cargo, into the competitive sport of today.”
Reuters: SoftBank Vision Fund to lay off 20% of employees in shift to bold AI bets, source and memo say. “While the fund will continue to make new bets, remaining staff will dedicate more resources to [Masayoshi] Son’s ambitious AI initiatives, such as the proposed $500 billion Stargate project – an initiative to build a vast network of U.S. data centers in partnership with OpenAI, the source added.”
SECURITY & LEGAL
Techdirt: Copyright Troll Backfires: Has To Pay Up To Get Out Of Its Lawsuit Of Lies. “The short version: a copyright troll that has been shaking down small businesses for years with fraudulent claims about its licensing fees just had to pay its own target to make a lawsuit go away. And in the process, [Paul] Levy has potentially opened the door for hundreds of previous victims to sue for fraud. It’s beautiful. And that’s not even revealing all of the juicy bits.”
ProPublica: ProPublica and Other News Organizations Fight to Unseal Texas AG Ken Paxton’s Divorce Records. “A group of state and national media organizations, including The Texas Newsroom, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, are arguing in court that records in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s divorce case should be made available to the public.”
RESEARCH & OPINION
UConn Today: What Even Is Social Media, Tho? Adults and Teens Often Differ, UConn Researchers Find. “When it comes to digital media and social media, fam – teens and adults are sometimes lowkey on different wavelengths. And while it might just seem kind of cringe, it’s actually big yikes. Because when adolescents and the adults they interact with on the daily – their teachers, school administrators, and parents – aren’t speaking the same language, the problem is much bigger than semantics.”
Johns Hopkins: AI fares better than doctors at predicting deadly complications after surgery. “A new artificial intelligence model found previously undetected signals in routine heart tests that strongly predict which patients will suffer potentially deadly complications after surgery. The model significantly outperformed risk scores currently relied upon by doctors.” Good afternoon, Internet…
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