BlogFlock

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…

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…

Axios: The secret Trump administration battle to fight Chinese AI. “Parts of the administration have tried to implement de facto bans on foreign open-source models before, knowledgeable sources tell Axios. Last week’s rise of Chinese model Kimi is reigniting those efforts. Pro-competition voices fear the implications.”

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…

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.”

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…

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.”

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 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…

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,…