morningbuzz

WWII Hungary, New York State Death Index, Raspberry Pi, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, December 8, 2025

NEW RESOURCES

Hungary Today: New Database Showcases Hungary’s Military Occupation between 1944-1945. “After 80 years, 117,000 families can now learn about the circumstances of their ancestors’ wartime sacrifices, and the residents of 3,155 settlements can learn about the losses suffered by their communities during the war, as well as about the battles and hardships, all by taking advantage of the possibilities offered by technology and using data visualization tools that meet modern expectations.”

Reclaim the Records: The FULL New York State Death Index, 1880-2017. “Indexed and searchable data from more than ten and a half million death records from the state of New York for the years 1880-2017 has now been published at NewYorkDeathIndex.com.” The site is usable but still under construction.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Raspberry Pi raises prices, thanks to AI. “The Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 modules are shooting up by $5 to $25, depending on the model and the included amount of RAM. The 16GB memory variants of the Compute Module 5 are going up by $20 and now start at $140. This is a bummer and we know who to thank. It’s the ultimate memory hog of all time, the AI industry.”

Lifehacker: YouTube Has a New Annual Recap. “Taking a cue from YouTube Music and YouTube Gaming, YouTube as a whole is now finally introducing a Spotify Wrapped-style annual recap. Simply called YouTube Recap, this feature will break down your watching habits across all categories in 2025.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: Fake AI-generated shops, ads flourish on Facebook. “These AI-generated products look like quality items, which the scammers then pitch at affordable prices. When a user clicks on the ad, which the scammer paid Facebook to serve, they are sent to the thieves’ e-commerce storefront. The consumer makes their purchase without realizing the item is a fake. They’ll either receive a cheap imitation product, or never receive any item at all.”

GroundUp (South Africa): Facebook promotes rubbish because it doesn’t understand indigenous languages. “Facebook is actively promoting clickbait and the spread of fake news – and rewarding the people who create it. This is especially true in regions like the Vhembe district, where the tech giant’s algorithms battle to understand local languages. The result is that a new generation of content creators is having a field day posting misinformation and disinformation and being paid for it, with little to no regard for the consequences of their actions.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: How a Cryptocurrency Helps Criminals Launder Money and Evade Sanctions. This link goes to a gift article. “Smugglers, money launderers and people facing sanctions once relied on diamonds, gold and artwork to store illicit fortunes. The luxury goods could help hide wealth but were cumbersome to move and hard to spend. Now, criminals have a far more practical alternative: stablecoins, a cryptocurrency tied to the U.S. dollar that exists largely beyond traditional financial oversight.”

Reuters: EU hits Meta with antitrust probe over plans to block AI rivals from WhatsApp. “EU regulators launched an antitrust investigation into Meta Platforms on Thursday and may even temporarily halt its rollout of artificial intelligence features in its WhatsApp messenger that would block rivals, hardening Europe’s already tough stance ​on Big Tech.”

State of California: California announces new online portal to report misconduct by federal agents. “Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta today announced a new online portal to assist members of the public in sharing information with the California Department of Justice regarding potentially unlawful activity by federal agents and officers across the state.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PsyPost: Personalization algorithms create an illusion of competence, study finds. “The findings provide evidence that when algorithms tailor information to a user’s behavior, that user may develop a biased understanding of the subject while simultaneously feeling overconfident in their inaccurate knowledge.”

MIT Technology Review: OpenAI has trained its LLM to confess to bad behavior. “OpenAI is testing another new way to expose the complicated processes at work inside large language models. Researchers at the company can make an LLM produce what they call a confession, in which the model explains how it carried out a task and (most of the time) owns up to any bad behavior.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Associated Press: Detroit’s own crime-fighter RoboCop finally stands guard in Motor City. “RoboCop has finally found a permanent home in Detroit. A statue looming 11 feet tall (3.3 meters) and weighing 3,500 pounds (1,587 kilograms) has been drawing fans since it began standing guard over the Motor City on Wednesday afternoon, after about 15 years in the making.” 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. Nobody reads my nonsense. I finally put my 1992 tax returns in the shred pile. 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.