morningbuzz

Publisher Pathfinder, Southern Methodist University, Amazon, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, November 9, 2025

NEW RESOURCES

Publisher Pathfinder: Publisher Pathfinder is a new tool to help developers find publishing partners and investors. “Styled as an old-school text adventure game, the tool includes a database of nearly 800 companies.”

Southern Methodist University: From rails to revolutions: New windows into the past in digital collections. “What do a sugar railway in Cuba, U.S. soldiers hunting Pancho Villa, and a priest blessing a taxi in Mexico have in common? They’re all part of a fascinating array of newly digitized materials now available in SMU’s Digital Collections.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Amazon is testing an AI tool that automatically translates books into other languages. “Amazon just introduced an AI tool that will automatically translate books into other languages. The appropriately-named Kindle Translate is being advertised as a resource for authors that self publish on the platform.” The idea of AI-translating an *entire book* makes me kind of queasy.

Tubefilter: Logan Paul’s CryptoZoo promises were just “puffery,” not fraud, says judge dismissing lawsuit against him. “A Texas judge has dismissed the class-action lawsuit filed against Logan Paul for his NFT project CryptoZoo. Judge Alan D. Albright dismissed the case with prejudice, excusing Paul’s promises about how CryptoZoo would be ‘a really fun game that makes you money’ as ‘puffery’ instead of fraud.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

San Francisco Chronicle: How a cat named KitKat became San Francisco’s latest symbol of anti-tech rage. “Eight days had passed since the death of Kitkat, a 9-year-old tabby struck and killed by a Waymo at this very site, in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District. Grief over the incident had transformed into palpable rage as mourners, and city leaders, shifted their focus to the self-driving vehicles.”

Yale Library: Beinecke Library acquires Sylvia Plath family papers. “The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has acquired a significant archive documenting the life and work of American poet Sylvia Plath. The Plath Family Papers document Plath’s relationships with family members, especially her mother Aurelia and brother Warren, and the publication and reception of her work after her death in 1963.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: Texas sues Roblox for ‘putting paedophiles and profits’ over safety. “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he has sued Roblox over ‘flagrantly ignoring’ safety laws and ‘deceiving parents’ about the dangers the online video gaming platform poses to young people.”

Ars Technica: Wipers from Russia’s most cut-throat hackers rain destruction on Ukraine. “One of the world’s most ruthless and advanced hacking groups, the Russian state-controlled Sandworm, launched a series of destructive cyberattacks in the country’s ongoing war against neighboring Ukraine, researchers reported Thursday.”

The Guardian: ‘The chilling effect’: how fear of ‘nudify’ apps and AI deepfakes is keeping Indian women off the internet. “Gaatha Sarvaiya would like to post on social media and share her work online. An Indian law graduate in her early 20s, she is in the earliest stages of her career and trying to build a public profile. The problem is, with AI-powered deepfakes on the rise, there is no longer any guarantee that the images she posts will not be distorted into something violating or grotesque.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Gizmodo: Study Finds Around a Quarter of Polymarket Trades Are Fake. “If you had the ‘over’ on the bet that over 10% of trades on the predictions market Polymarket are inauthentic, go ahead and cash in that ticket. According to a recent study from researchers at Columbia University, as much as one quarter of all trading volume happening on the platform is ‘artificial trading.’”

PsyPost: Real-world social ties outweigh online networks in predicting of voting patterns. “The research provides evidence that Americans’ political environments in physical spaces—such as where they live, work, and spend time—are more predictive of voting patterns than their online social networks.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Northeastern News: What if your Tamagatchi was alive and glowing? This toy prototype is full of bacteria. “Northeastern students designed SquidKid, a toy where keeping bioluminescent bacteria alive and glowing is the name of the game. The playful design landed a finalist spot at the international Biodesign Challenge.” Good morning, Internet…

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