As the war escalates, the digital battlefield is proving just as volatile as the physical one putting civilian lives directly in the line of fire. 

If you’ve ever wondered how platforms seem to know exactly where you came from, like prompting you to follow an account after watching a shared video, it’s probably due to ad trackers.

You’ve probably seen a link that looks normal at first, then keeps going: ?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=spring_sale. All that extra text after the ? is an ad tracker.

Le comité exécutif de la Ville de Montréal a entériné la nomination des 17 personnes qui se verront remettre, le 8 mai, les insignes de l’Ordre de Montréal. Nous sommes heureux d’annoncer que Catherine Régis, chercheuse au CRDP, figure parmi elle et sera reçue officière.

Alison Grant, Canadian Ambassador to Austria, and Barbara Cullinane, Irish Ambassador to Austria, visited the University of Klagenfurt

How do climate change and artificial intelligence interact? How AI can help in the fight against climate change?
The post AI between climate change and climate protection appeared first on HIIG.

As global conservation policy focuses primarily on the expansion of protected areas, one may ask if and how protected areas contribute to the conservation of endangered species and habitats. The usual way to answer this question in the context of conservation is to regularly survey, or monitor plants, animals and ecosystems.

Dunja Pucher successfully defended her doctoral thesis entitled “On the Stable Set and Graph Coloring Problems: Semidefinite Relaxations and a Quantum Annealing Approach” on April 27, 2026. 

The idea of using the entire internet as a basis for AI training data represents an unimaginable technical effort with questionable benefits for the quality of the respective models, yet there are developers of generative AI systems who claim to have done precisely that – naturally without asking permission of the rights holders of the media content used, let alone sharing any profits with them.

Together, we are developing a tool that will bring public data closer to citizens, allowing them to get data by simply asking a question.
The post Brazil and OKFN partner to enable citizens to ‘talk’ to national data first appeared on Open Knowledge Blog.

The systems that govern speech online were not built for Arabic-speaking users. Women across the Arab world are paying the consequences.

Aliya Nasif was campaigning for re-election to the Iraqi parliament in October 2025, when someone used AI face-substitution tools to superimpose her face onto the body of a Ukrainian dancer in a video originally posted to TikTok in 2023. The resulting clip, framed as a pornographic scandal, was posted to X. 

WWie lässt sich technologische Innovation so gestalten, dass ethische Verantwortung nicht auf der Strecke bleibt? Das bidt-Projekt „Ethik in der agilen Softwareentwicklung“ (EDAP) hat dafür nicht nur Problembewusstsein geschaffen, sondern konkrete Antworten entwickelt. Statt Ethik als nachgelagerte Prüfung oder moralischen Zusatz zu verstehen, rückte EDAP sie dorthin, wo über digitale Systeme tatsächlich entschieden wird: in den Entwicklungsprozess selbst.

Our times are marked not just by a crisis of facts, but a crisis of reality production. Oligarchs, platforms, reactionary movements and attention entrepreneurs have learned to stage fantastic parallel worlds, exploit all manners of anxiety and alienation, and scale their fictions as power, while the once grander fictions of capitalism and democracy are becoming less relevant by the day.

Two senior leaders from the Gates Foundation’s Africa team, Matshidiso Masire and Bahati Ngongo, visited the Policy Innovation Lab at Stellenbosch University to explore how the Foundation’s catalytic funding is unlocking further investment and impact. The visit also examined how the supported work is enabling practical learning between countries in the Global South.
Digital public infrastructure and South-South learning

On International Archives Day, June 9, 2026, the University Archives (N.0.55) will be open from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. to answer your questions!
You’ve been carrying around questions about the University Archives for a long time that you’ve never dared to ask: What does a university archive do? What happens in the university archives? Why are university archives needed? Who hands over what to whom, when, and why?
Come to the University Archives’ Open Day and get answers to all these questions!
We look forward to your visit!