Links 09/05/2024: More Microsoft Layoffs on the Way
Contents
- Leftovers
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Environment
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Juha-Matti Santala ☛ The nook of creativity
I do most of my blog writing at home, at my desk. But it’s not a place for me where I feel especially creative and whenever I need to flex my creative muscles, I head out. Sometimes I take my tablet with me and actually write blog posts but more often I take my notebooks and a pen with me. I enjoy sitting in pubs and libraries, writing down my thoughts into notebooks and following my thoughts wherever they may lead.
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Hackaday ☛ Mitre Wants The Feds To Play In Its Sandbox
If you haven’t worked with the US government, you might not know Mitre, a non-profit government research organization. Formed in 1958 by the U.S. Air Force as a company to guide the SAGE computer, they are often research experts who oversee government contracts or evaluate proposals. Now they are building a $20 millon “AI Sandbox” for the Federal government to build AI prototypes.
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Hackaday ☛ Mostly Printed CNC Gets A Few Upgrades
The Mostly Printed CNC is famous for two things. First, being made mostly from 3D printed parts and commonly available steel tubing. Second, because of the materials used, its rigidity isn’t fantastic. But any CNC router is better than no CNC router, and [Alex Reiner]’s “Mostly Mostly Printed CNC” upgrades the base MPCNC into a much more capable unit.
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Education
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Security Week ☛ RSA Conference 2024 – Announcements Summary (Day 2)
To help cut through the clutter, the SecurityWeek team is publishing a daily digest summarizing some of the announcements made by vendors. Here is a roundup of some of the most important new product, service and research announcements made on the second day of the event, as well as some announcements we missed from the first day.
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Hardware
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Hackaday ☛ Bluepad32 Brings All The Controllers To Your MCU
As much as we enjoy spinning up our own solutions, there are times when you’ve got to look at what’s on the market and realize you might be out of your league. For example, take Bluetooth game controllers. Sure, you could make your own with a microcontroller, some buttons, and a couple joysticks. But between the major players like Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony, as well as independent peripheral companies like 8BitDo, there’s some seriously impressive hardware out there that can be easily repurposed.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Futurism ☛ Neuralink Cofounder Says He Quit Because of Safety Concerns
"The Neuralink system is based on penetrating microelectrodes," he continued. "The Precision system is based on surface microelectrodes, which are tiny little electrodes that coat the surface of the brain without penetrating it."
The biggest difference between these two disparate philosophies could, perhaps, be best illustrated by descriptions of their real-world implantation methods.
As we've known for a while now, Neuralink inserts its quarter-size chips by removing a part of a patient's skull and embedding the implant, allowing the chip to "replace" the bit of skull that was taken. The company has apparently perfected this method since its early monkey experimentation days in 2019 and 2020, when things went gruesomely wrong in primate test subjects that the company worked hard to cover up
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International Business Times ☛ Neuralink Co-founder Raises Red Flags, Leaves Elon Musk's Neurotechnology Company
One of the co-founders of Neuralink, Benjamin Rapoport, has departed from the Elon Musk-led brain-computer interface company due to safety concerns. The departure of this top executive intensifies the ongoing debate about the safety and ethics of brain-computer interfaces.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Windows 11 24H2 will enable BitLocker encryption for everyone — happens on both clean installs and reinstalls [Ed: BitLocker is back doored [1, 2]; this is snakeoil]
Microsoft will activate BitLocker encryption automatically during backdoored Windows reinstallations starting with backdoored Windows 11 version 24H2, for Home versions as well as Pro.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft is switching RAM speed units in Task Manager — finally moving to the more technically correct MT/s
Windows 11 begins transitioning away from MHz and to MT/s when listing RAM speeds in Task Manager, with beta builds available through backdoored Windows Insider already reflecting the change.
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Bloomberg ☛ Microsoft’s Xbox Is Planning More Cuts After Studio Closings
Xbox is offering voluntary severance agreements to producers, quality assurance testers and other staff at ZeniMax as part of a broader cost-cutting initiative
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The Verge ☛ Inside Microsoft’s Xbox turmoil [Ed: Microsoft is trotting out its media operatives for damage-limiting PR. XBox is collapsing in a pile of debt.
Microsoft is making tough Xbox decisions amid a game industry that’s hurting.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft guts four studios to focus on priority games aka Bethesda games
Adding to the ever-increasing list of game developers losing their jobs, Microsoft Xbox has shuttered three studios it acquired with Activision Blizzard, according to IGN. The three shuttered development studios in question are Tango Gameworks (Hi-Fi Rush, The Evil Within, Ghostwire), Alpha Dog Games (Mighty Doom), and Arkane Austin (Prey, Redfall). Roundhouse Games is also being absorbed into ZeniMax Online Studios to work on The Elder Scrolls Online.
Of the three development studios lost in these ruthless cuts from Microsoft, Alpha Dog Games is the least-known, particularly as a mobile game developer. The Mighty Doom mobile spinoff developed by Alpha Dog may not be a high-octane FPS like Doom Eternal, but it was at least a perfectly serviceable top-down shooter with Doom characters.
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Founder Shinji Mikami on Microsoft's Surpise Closure of Tango Gameworks
Legendary master of horror, Shinji Mikami, has commented on the surprise closure of the studio he founded, Tango Gameworks, shuttered in the latest round of Microsoft layoffs. Mikami, the creator of the Resident Evil series, spent many years at Capcom, co-founded Platinum Games, and seemed intent on training the next generation of creatives at Tango Gameworks. He described the entire state of affairs as "sad".
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Microsoft’s Xbox Cuts Aren’t Over Yet, Report Says
In recent days, the gaming industry was sent reeling by the sudden closure of four studios under the Xbox banner – Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, Alpha Dog Studios and Roundhouse Games. It was a shock move that few saw coming, but according to a recent report, it seems that more layoffs and cuts are on the way, with some developing behind the scenes as we speak.
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Microsoft to lay off 96 people at Austin's Arkane Studios
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Xbox reportedly looking to make more cuts in future
In early May, news broke that Microsoft would be shutting down four Bethesda studios, seemingly to cut costs and streamline overall management: Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Games, and Roundhouse Games. Now, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier has alleged the cuts aren’t over, and that other Xbox studios may face similar cuts in the weeks and months ahead.
Writing of the recent layoffs and studio closures, Schreier claimed, “The sudden closure of several video-game studios at Microsoft Corp’s Xbox division was the result of a widespread cost-cutting initiative that still isn’t finished.” Per this report, there is currently greater scrutiny being placed on Xbox business decisions, likely as a result of costly studio acquisitions, and drops in hardware revenue.
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Metro UK ☛ Xbox president deletes tweet sharing ‘passion for developers’ after backlash
Microsoft has been heavily criticised after announcing the closure of multiple game studios, as it’s forced to redact the marketiing for
After Microsoft announced the closure of studios including Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin, goodwill around the Xbox brand feels like it’s hit a new low.
It doesn’t help that these closures come after a huge amount of layoffs at Microsoft earlier this year, which affected over 1,900 jobs across Bethesda, Activision Blizzard, and other first party developers.
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“I will be boycotting Xbox Game Pass”: Xbox Players Rise up and Boycott Over Arkane Austin Closure – Is This the Next Helldivers 2/Steam Controversy?
Microsoft has closed numerous studios at Bethesda, including Redfall developer Arkane Austin.
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More Xbox Layoffs Reportedly Inbound as Company Attempts to Cut Costs
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Xbox Can’t Hold the Line – Opinion
. It’s a worrying trend that doesn’t look like it slow down any time soon, unfortunately.
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Daniel Miessler ☛ Companies Are Just a Graph of Algorithms
Simple enough, and for anyone into computers you will recognize this as a series of steps, aka—an algorithm.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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El País ☛ How age verification to access porn works in France: ‘They won’t know anything about you, other than that you’re an adult’
This system is run via the FranceConnect portal, where all French people who pay social security contributions have an account. Blazy and his colleagues have used it as a gateway to access the program they have devised. This ensures that the authorities do not know which websites the user is trying to visit (in other words, which website requires age verification). “When you try to access a website that requires verification, the website will send you a challenge. That challenge is done at a verification provider, which in turn gives a group signature to the user. So the destination website only receives a group signature, with no user details. This is very basic cryptography, which has been around for 15 years, but has never been used in this context,” explains Blazy.
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OpenRightsGroup ☛ Smart meter data: the Government’s at it again
When are you usually away from home? Did you get a good night’s sleep or did you drive while sleep deprived? What time did you leave your home? Did the time it took you to get from to your workplace mean that you broke the speed limit to get there? Or, in a custody battle: Have you ever left your 11 year old child home alone? How often, and for how long? If you are claiming benefits while looking for work, can you explain why you have been away for a couple of days? These are just a range of questions that energy consumption data can answer, or at least guess: maybe you just fell asleep with the lights on, but data is against you and it’s now up to you to demonstrate that you didn’t drive while sleep deprived.
In other words, smart meter data can reveal your lifestyle habits and choices, and be used by third parties to make inferences whose validity or fairness may be doubtful. This is why we previously complained about Government plans to collect this information for “fraud detection” purposes under the Energy Price Guarantee. The Government initially planned to use smart meters to collect this data granularly, store it for ten years, and share it with credit reference agencies, local authorities and debt collectors. In our legal correspondence with them, the Government also failed to address concerns around the lack of documentation concerning this data collection and the lack of transparency about the amount of data they wanted to collect.
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JURIST ☛ Germany orders search of EU parliament member offices amid espionage scandal
The Federal Prosecutor General authorized on Tuesday the search of the Brussels offices of Maximilian Krah, a member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and EU Parliament. Krah, who is the party’s lead candidate for the forthcoming European elections in June, is regarded as a pivotal witness in the investigation targeting an employee accused of espionage.
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Scheerpost ☛ Add Bluetooth to the Long List of Border Surveillance Technology
This data collection is possible because all Bluetooth devices regularly broadcast a Bluetooth Device Address. This address can be either a public address or a random address. Public addresses don’t change for the lifetime of the device, making them the easiest to track. Random addresses are more common and have multiple levels of privacy, but for the most part change regularly (this is the case with most modern smartphones and products like AirTags.) Bluetooth products with random addresses would be hard to track for a device that hasn’t paired with them. But if the tracked person is also carrying a Bluetooth device that has a public address, or if tracking devices are placed close to each other so a device is seen multiple times before it changes its address, random addresses could be correlated with that person over long periods of time.
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The Register UK ☛ Palantir CEO calls 'woke' a risk to 'Palantir, US and world'
Palantir was founded with the help of CIA-backed investment fund In-Q-Tel and it attracted a certain controversy by providing digital profiling tools for the CIA and US immigration agency ICE.
Karp took the opportunity of an earnings call with investors and letter to shareholders to defend the company's brand of tech-nationalism and political posturing.
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The University of Wisconsin ☛ Popular social media apps use AI to analyze photos on your phone, introducing both bias and errors
Digital privacy and security engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have found that the artificial intelligence-based systems that TikTok and Instagram use to extract personal and demographic data from user images can misclassify aspects of the images. This could lead to mistakes in age verification systems or introduce other errors and biases into platforms that use these types of systems for digital services.
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Defence/Aggression
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IT Wire ☛ China dropped a flare near an Aussie copter in its EEZ. What's wrong with that?
One of the many poodles from the Liberal side, shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie, was quick to pipe up about what he called the "provocative and dangerous interaction" of the Chinese Air Force with an Australian helicopter in the Yellow Sea.
"This builds on the pattern of aggressive behaviour from the People's Liberation Army – Navy towards the Australian Defence Force over the past few years, including the sonar attack on RAN divers in November last year," thundered Hastie.
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The Strategist ☛ The sad state of Australia’s security discourse
Australia has all but institutionalised self-censorship in intellectual strategic thought.
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The Dissenter ☛ Leak The Report Showing Israel Has Committed War Crimes With US Weapons
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FAIR ☛ TikTok Law Is an Attempt to Censor, Not a Warning to Big Tech [Ed: Censor is what TikTok does a lot of; this inverts the reality; saying TikTok is free speech is like saying CPC is "democracy"]
As US lawmakers’ agitation over TikTok culminates in a law that threatens a nationwide ban if the social media platform isn’t sold to a US buyer within nine months, an emergent media narrative finds a silver lining. Every legislative move targeting TikTok, the story goes, has the potential to inspire much-needed regulation of tech behemoths like Meta, Amazon, Google and Apple.
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Defence Web ☛ Boko Haram factional violence worries Islamic State - defenceWeb
Having already moved hundreds of fighters to Nigeria’s North West and North Central as part of its expansion efforts, Islamic State also knows ISWAP cannot afford a lengthy, distracting and deadly confrontation with JAS.
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ADF ☛ With ‘Borno Model,’ Nigeria Hopes to Encourage Defections, Protect Civilians to Undermine Extremist Groups
“Various stakeholders in Borno State agreed to accept and forgive the initial 3,900 repentant Boko Haram fighters who have surrendered to troops,” the Nigerian newspaper Blueprint reported. A retired brigadier general, Abdullah Sabi Ishaq, said the defections were the result of the use of the “Borno Model,” which begins with “the use of dialogue” to persuade Boko Haram and ISWAP fighters “to lay down their arms to troops at the various reception centres and embrace peace.” Officials say the model relies heavily on rehabilitation, reconciliation and reintegration techniques.
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Marcy Wheeler ☛ How We Got to a Place Where Right Wingers Cheer Stealing Nuclear Documents
A mob-think that can be wielded to drown out the basic fact that Trump is accused of refusing to give back a nuclear document.
Of course, Elon Musk’s decision to grant people with a certain sized following, which includes me, checkmark status some months ago helps to ensure that anything I say will be visible to and therefore subject to this kind of mob treatment. Because of that involuntary checkmark, anything I say will be a magnet for this kind of mob response.
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Scoop News Group ☛ How an Iranian-linked influence campaign pivoted after Oct. 7 attack on Israel
Tears of War is most likely an Iranian-linked persona, exposed months ago by researchers and the Israeli government as a tool used to inflame tensions within Israel.
But this week’s messages, relentlessly hammering the narrative, represent part of the third stage of what Recorded Future’s Insikt Group said Wednesday is a yearslong Iranian-aligned influence operation it tracks as Emerald Divide.
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The Verge ☛ TikTok ban: all the news on attempts to ban the video platform
Discussions about banning TikTok have seen politicians in the US and internationally accuse it of being a tool for propaganda and a security risk. Attempts to force a sale of TikTok first began under the Trump administration before culminating in the successful late-April legislative push.
Prior to the law’s signing, a slew of TikTok bans across the US barred the app from devices tied to universities and government hardware at the state, local, and federal levels.
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The Hill ☛ Graham: Only 'dumba--es and 'terrorist sympathizers' among Gaza protesters
“There’s two classes of people here. Antisemites: If you say, ‘We are Hamas,’ and you mean it, then you are a religious Nazi. If you say, ‘We are Hamas,’ and you don’t know what Hamas is all about, you are a dumbass,” Graham said during a Fox News interview on “Jesse Watters Primetime.”
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Trump classified documents trial postponed indefinitely
Cannon, a Trump appointee, did not set a new date for the start of the federal trial and it is unlikely to take place before the presidential election, which will take place in November.
Cannon said in a five-page order that it would be "imprudent" to set a new date.
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India Times ☛ TikTok: TikTok, ByteDance sue to block US law seeking sale or ban of app
TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance said on Tuesday they filed suit in U.S. federal court seeking to block a law signed by President Joe Biden that would force the divestiture of the short video app used by 170 million Americans or ban its use.
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Atlantic Council ☛ The drones are small—the arms race may not be. Here’s how the US can win.
The era for small-drone warfare has arrived. Recent attacks on Israel and the continuing war in Ukraine have put a global spotlight on the proliferation of small, commercially available Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS), commonly known as drones. This proliferation of sUAS stands in stark contrast to the use of larger, more complex, and expensive military-grade UAVs, such as the MQ-9 Reaper, which remain out of reach for many militaries, rebel groups, and other non-state actors. These groups are instead embracing commercially available drones and transforming modern warfare and battlefield tactics as a result.
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Environment
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Crooked Timber ☛ Why has global biodiversity governance failed so badly?
None of those targets were met. In response, the Kunming-Montreal Agreement recently agreed to protect 30% of ecosystems by 2030, to restore 30% of degraded ecosystems, and so on and so on and so on. On current projections, these targets are going to be missed too, by some distance. Like Canute ordering the tides to stop, it turns out that setting targets, by itself, achieves nothing.
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Energy/Transportation
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7 Tips For A Healthier, Happier Battery
Did you know, one of the leading reasons why people decide to buy a new phone is a dying battery? That adds up, because a battery on its last legs can directly impact the performance of your device.
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Garrit Franke ☛ I sold my car
My car costs over 1000€ per year, or about 85€ per month, just to be moved about twice a month! So, a few weeks ago, I decided to sell it.
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Wildlife/Nature
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Overpopulation
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Overpopulation ☛ New State of the World Population report conceals family planning as UNFPA's most successful product
When UNFPA was established in 1969, there were just 3.6 billion “threads” and counting. Concerns about unrestrained population growth led to its fourfold mandate in 1973, which was reaffirmed in 1993: (1) capacity building in order to respond to needs in population and family planning; (2) raising awareness of population problems and possible strategies to deal with these problems; (3) assisting countries to reduce population growth in the forms and means best suited to the individual countries’ needs; (4) assuming a leading role in the United Nations system in promoting population programmes, and coordinating projects supported by the Fund.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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IT Wire ☛ When will Labor level with the public about the Facebook (Farcebook) deals?
Last year, Facebook (Farcebook) showed it has the appetitie for continued fights on this score, and went nuclear in Canada, cutting off access to news feeds in August when the government tries to make it obey a new law. The feeds have notbeen restored.
For good measure, Madden added a line designed to please his boss: "News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller has previously described misinformation and disinformation as 'the Frankenstein creations built in Meta’s laboratory'. The truth is misinformation and disinformation are phenomena that exist only because of social control media’s dominance, business model and deep unwillingness to protect their users.”
Nice bit of spin there, James. But of what use is it when a mega-corporation decides on a course of action and neither the government nor the Australian mainstream media hold hands with no cards in them at all?
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Jimmy Lai gave company to Hong Kong activist during 2019 protests as ‘reward,’ witness tells national security trial
Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai transferred one of his private companies to an activist engaged in international lobbying during the 2019 protests as “a reward for his service,” a prosecution witness has said in the mogul’s national security trial.
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New York Times ☛ Trump in Court and Biden’s Holocaust Speech Offer a 2024 Election Split Screen
President Biden gave a speech on Holocaust remembrance. Former President Trump was in court with Stormy Daniels. The day captured the sometimes unreal reality of a presidential race like none before it.
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New York Times ☛ Biden Condemns a ‘Ferocious Surge’ of Antisemitism in the United States
President Biden’s speech at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony came during weeks of protests on U.S. college campuses against Israel’s war in Gaza.
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France24 ☛ Modi votes as mammoth Indian elections reach half-way mark
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi cast his ballot Tuesday as India's multiphase general election hit the half-way mark after the Hindu nationalist leader mounted an increasingly shrill election campaign, ramping up polarising rhetoric in incendiary speeches that have targeted the Muslim minority.
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YLE ☛ HS: Nokia planning hundreds of job cuts in Finland
Nokia announced a massive savings [sic] programme in October that could see it shed 14,000 jobs worldwide over the next three years. The company said at the time that it aims to reduce costs by between 800 and 1.2 billion euros by 2026.
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New York Times ☛ Reddit Posts $575 Million Loss Tied to I.P.O. but Also Strong Growth
Reddit on Tuesday posted a more than $500 million quarterly loss in its first earnings report as a public company, largely due to stock-based compensation expenses incurred during its initial public offering in March.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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Meduza ☛ The making of a myth How Russian media uses a 2014 fire in Odesa to justify the war on Ukraine
Ten years ago, in early May 2014, after several months of widespread political unrest in Odesa, Ukraine, street clashes between pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine factions resulted in a deadly fire in the city’s Trade Unions building. It’s still unclear who exactly is to blame for the deaths. Nonetheless, the Russian state-run media machine started churning out propaganda about the fire the very next day, characterizing the events as a merciless attack by “Ukrainian neo-Nazis” on Russian-speaking civilians. In the decade since, the Trade Unions building fire has entered Russian political mythology. It remains one of the main stories Russian propaganda uses to dehumanize Ukrainians and justify its war on the country.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok's Latest Viral Song?—A Propaganda Tune from North Korea
So what is TikTok’s latest viral hit? A propaganda song released by North Korea that calls for the annihilation of the United States. Here’s the latest.
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uni Northwestern ☛ Impact of AI on Local News Models
There are further dangers. AI, which has shown a propensity for mistakes early on, could be prone to spreading misinformation and disinformation, either by accident or design. And if Google can respond to reader queries by producing answers generated by AI and sourced without attribution from online news reports—instead of by offering links to the articles themselves—digital traffic to news sites may suffer a monumental blow.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Reason ☛ This Student Was Allegedly Suspended for Saying 'Illegal Aliens.' Did That Violate the First Amendment?
Christian McGhee is suing, arguing a North Carolina assistant principal infringed on his free speech rights.
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RFA ☛ Court bans protest song over 'insult' to China's national anthem
A Hong Kong court has banned "Glory to Hong Kong," a protest song from the 2019 pro-democracy movement that has been frequently mistaken for the city's official anthem, calling it a "weapon" that could be used to bring down the government and an "insult" to China's national anthem.
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RTL ☛ Claims it incites violent protests: Hong Kong demands online platforms remove banned protest song
The case has been closely watched for how it would affect tech firms and [Internet] platform operators -- a concern that has been raised internationally over the free flow of information in Hong Kong.
Wednesday's ban comes after a campaign by the city's authorities against the song, which has seen them demand it be removed from Google's internet search results and other content-sharing platforms -- a request that has been largely rebuffed.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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CPJ ☛ Nigerian police secretly arrest journalist Daniel Ojukwu over critical report
Ojukwu was arrested over his November report, which alleged that Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals, paid 147 million naira (US$106,154) of government money for school construction into a restaurant’s bank account, according to the FIJ and its founder, Fisayo Soyombo, who spoke to CPJ.
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CPJ ☛ Guinea suspends journalist Mamoudou Babila Keita and Inquisiteur website for 6 months
The suspension followed a March 27 complaint filed by Alphonse Charles Wright, the former Minister of Justice and Human Rights, over a March 20 Inquisiteur investigation into allegations of corruption in public contracts, according to the HAC decision, reviewed by CPJ.
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Maine Morning Star ☛ Pulitzer Board recognizes Alabama Reflector editor in commentary category
The Alabama Reflector’s founding editor, he’d spent a lot of his 24-year journalism career as a reporter covering the state’s politics. And, he joked, he hadn’t penned a column since college. But he would start writing one every week.
His many years chasing hard news informs how he’s approached this work, which earned Lyman recognition by the Pulitzer Board in the commentary category “for brave, clear and pointed columns that challenge ever-more-repressive state policies flouting democratic norms and targeting vulnerable populations, written with the command and authority of a veteran political observer.”
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VOA News ☛ Nigerian journalist's arrest last week triggers criticism of worsening press freedoms
The arrest of Ojukwu, who was later transferred to the Nigerian capital of Abuja, follows his report about alleged financial mismanagement of over 147 million naira ($104,600) involving a senior government official, according to his employer, the foundation.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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International Business Times ☛ Coffee Shop Bans Laptops After Remote Workers Ask For Silence During Their Zoom Meetings
At Fringe and Ginge, the atmosphere was worsening as little interaction was taking place between customers.
Edwards explained, "There are places dedicated to people working - and they have cafes as well. Here, we realised we wanted to take hospitality back and dedicate it to just serving people and letting them have a nice experience."
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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VOA News ☛ Africa should forge path for secure data flow across borders, experts say
Digital experts called on African countries Tuesday for laws to protect the data of individuals and businesses, saying that a single digital market in which data can safely flow across borders would help overcome barriers to commerce and trade on the continent.
African government information and communications technology representatives, international organizations, diplomats and experts are meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, this week to discuss how data can move freely from one country to another without risking people's privacy and safety.
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International Business Times ☛ Jeff Bezos, Other Amazon Execs Used This App To Keep Their Texts Private Amidst Antitrust Lawsuit
A recently released transcript revealed Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, was grilled by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over his use of Signal, an encrypted messaging app with a disappearing message feature.
Last week, the FTC filed a new complaint, including a previously unreported transcript of Bezos' testimony. The complaint accuses Bezos and other top Amazon executives of using Signal to destroy evidence in the ongoing antitrust lawsuit against the company.
The FTC's court filing alleges that Amazon executives continued deleting Signal messages after a 2019 request to preserve relevant documents. The court filing now seeks additional documents from Amazon concerning their use of ephemeral messaging apps like Signal.
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Copyrights
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Torrent Freak ☛ Nintendo's DMCA Operation Continues With Lockpick, Kezplez-nx Takedowns
After taking down over 8,500 Yuzu repos with a single DMCA notice just a few days ago, Nintendo appears to be pressing ahead with its Switch circumvention tool clean-up operation. In a new wave, the gaming giant has targeted dozens of repos containing tools designed to provide access to Switch encryption keys. Elsewhere, at least 200 takedowns each day target other content.
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Torrent Freak ☛ 'IP House' Takes Global IP & Anti-Piracy Protection to a New Level
Anti-piracy outfits come in all shapes and sizes but the new venture 'IP House' aims to stand tall and above all. Headed by a former ACE/MPA boss, with a veteran U.S. federal law enforcement chief at his side, the private-equity-backed company positions itself as the 'haute couture' of global intellectual property enforcement.
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The Verge ☛ Stack Overflow is feeding programmers’ answers to AI, whether they like it or not
Stack Overflow’s new deal giving OpenAI access to its API as a source of data has users who’ve posted their questions and answers about coding problems in conversations with other humans rankled. Users say that when they attempt to alter their posts in protest, the site is retaliating by reversing the alterations and suspending the users who carried them out.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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Afterlife alternative
Watching water slowly flow down the street after a normal amount of rain
I remembered waking up at 4am on the kitchen floor, a knife on the floor near my hand. The sharp red light of the furnace display. Minutes take ages to go by when you look at the clock.
I know that I tried to kill myself at 1am. I do not know what happened between 1 and 4. I just woke up, stood up, ribs and back hurting from sleeping on tiling, looked at the clock go by, put back the knife.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.