Links 12/05/2024: XBox Founders Say Microsoft Lost Its Identity
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- 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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New York Times ☛ Roger Corman, Producer of Low-Budget Horror Films, Dies at 98
He had hundreds of horror, science fiction and crime films to his credit. He also helped start the careers of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and many others.
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Medium ☛ Tanmay Patil: Acrostic Generator: Part one
It’s been a while since my last blog post, which was about my Surveillance Giant Google Summer of Code project. Even though it has been months since I completed GSoC, I have continued working on the project, increasing acrostic support in Crosswords.
We’ve added support for loading Acrostic Puzzles in Crosswords, but now it’s time to create some acrostics.
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Terence Eden ☛ It was twenty years ago today
I kept up the blogging for a few months, then it trickled off. I preferred posting on Usenet and other primitive forms of social media. But, by 2007, I was back to blogging on my own site again, and I never really stopped. This blog fluctuates between being a diary, an excuse to rant, and technical writing. It's my site and I can do whatever I want with it. That's rather freeing.
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Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Riccardo Mori
This is the 37th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Riccardo Mori and his blog, morrick.me
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Greg Morris ☛ Tech And Me
Which brings me to today. My world is not as exciting as it once was. The technology that I love is now in a very different spot. It no longer sits idle until called upon like any other tool, it muscles its way into every corner of our lives. There is a lot to be excited about, but also a lot to be wary of. Modern life is a hard place to navigate, and if you’ve had to have this conversation with your children, you will appreciate that it seems to be getting worse. In many ways, we are the tools that technology companies use. To make more and more money while improving less and less about the world.
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Cory Dransfeldt ☛ Against the commercial internet
We're pursuing artificial general intelligence — it'll solve everything. Look at the industry's track record, right?
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The Straits Times ☛ ‘I teach Mandarin using Tamil’: Tutor finds success with unique approach to language lessons
Ms Sri Devi Mani started offering Mandarin lessons online, after the kindergarten she ran closed during the pandemic.
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Science
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New York Times ☛ Northern Lights Forecast: How to See the Aurora Borealis This Weekend
The Space Weather Prediction Center said solar activity would be high again on Saturday.
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Daniel Lemire ☛ Peer review is not the gold standard in science
Peer review as we know it today was introduced very late, over a century after the scientific revolution. It happened after Einstein’s time… arguably the most productive era in science. Current scientists often equate a success with the publication in a selective peer-reviewed venue. But that was never the scientific paradigm.
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New York Times ☛ Northern Lights Set to Return Tonight as Extreme Solar Storm Continues
Electrical utilities said they weathered earlier conditions as persistent geomagnetic storms were expected to cause another light show in evening skies.
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Science Alert ☛ Scientists Confirm Exercise Slows Down The Perception of Time
We knew it!
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Science Alert ☛ Your Face May Have Been Shaped by Pressure in The Womb, Study Finds
The shape of you.
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Science Alert ☛ A Neuroscientist Explains How Your Brain Actually Thinks
A supercomputer inside your head.
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Hardware
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Tedium ☛ The CPU That Will Never Die
Why the Z80 CPU has endured for the last 48 years, and what we're going to do now it starts to finally show hints of retirement.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Mexico News Daily ☛ Mexico and mental health: Exploring the power of traditions and faith
Mexico News Daily's co-owner Tamanna Bembenek shares her thoughts on how Mexico's traditions and community can improve mental health.
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Science Alert ☛ Scientists Reveal Just How Far Plastic Can Reach Into Your Lungs
By some estimates, the average person inhales a credit card's worth of plastic every week with unknown health effects. In 2022, scientists found microplastics hiding in the deepest parts of the human lung for the first time.
The worldwide spread of plastic has not only crept up on us, it has crept up in us, and scientists are now rushing to figure out where these pollutants go when we breathe them in, how long they stick around for, and if they have toxic effects.
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Science Alert ☛ This Highly Poisonous Plant Could Be The Superfood of Tomorrow
You may have already eaten it.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Reason ☛ The Night I Asked Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot How To Build a Bomb
Yes, you can trick the bot into giving you information it's supposed to keep to itself. No, that isn't something to worry about.
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India Times ☛ AI systems: AI systems are already deceiving us and that's a problem, experts warn
And while such examples might appear trivial, the underlying issues they expose could soon carry serious real-world consequences, said first author Peter Park, a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specializing in AI existential safety.
"These dangerous capabilities tend to only be discovered after the fact," Park told AFP, while "our ability to train for honest tendencies rather than deceptive tendencies is very low.
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The Telegraph UK ☛ E-gate border chaos sparked when Home Office failed to tell BT it was updating software
The Telegraph understands that the Home Office Wi-Fi outage, which is suspected of crashing the e-gates, was caused because it failed to tell BT about a software update.
The update overloaded the Home Office network, causing the outage that snowballed into chaos at e-gates on Tuesday at the UK’s busiest airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle.
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Xbox founders claim the company has lost its identity
Earlier this week Microsoft closed acclaimed studios Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks. A couple of Xbox co-founders spoke out about this decision.
Arkane’s last game, Redfall, was a commercial and critical failure that was pushed out prematurely. It’s yet to be fixed.
Tango Gameworks just released Hi-Fi Rush to a great reception last year.
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“I believe in Xbox”: Seamus Blackley gives his thoughts on layoffs and studio closures [Ed: Has XBox become a religion?]
Like other members of the industry, the developer lamented the end of Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin, as it impacted the careers of talented creatives. Despite this, he remained positive and assured that he still believes in Xbox and its future.
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Game Rant ☛ Original Xbox Creator Reacts to Microsoft's Studio Closures
The decision to shut down studios at Zenimax Media has led to massive backlash and turmoil in the Xbox community.
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Yahoo News ☛ These are the franchises being affected by the latest studio closures at Microsoft
If you've made it this far, I want to speak a little more candidly. Microsoft, what kind of message does this send your development teams underneath you?
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Microsoft Shuts Down Arkane Studios in Austin and Lays Off 96 Employees
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Yahoo News ☛ Microsoft torches multiple Xbox studios then tells you to 'feel the burn' with the most tone-deaf controller launch of all time
It's a common sentiment, the frustration with Microsoft's marketing team, or rather, the lack thereof. The perception is that the level of advertising for games at Xbox is consistently low. Yet, there's one constant: the arrival of shiny new controllers, now at the worst of times.
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IT Wire ☛ Apple aficionados get their knickers in a knot over iPad ad
Mac users are snobs. I'm not the first to make this observation; one of the first technology journalists, Robert X. Cringely, was the first by a country mile. In a 1996 reprint of his 1992 masterpiece Accidental Empires, the only book that claims to be a history of the PC industry, Cringely wrote: "Several hundred users of Fashion Company Apple Macintosh computers gathered one night in 1988 in an auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to watch a sneak preview demonstration of a new word processing application.
"This was consumerism in its most pure form: it drew potential buyers together to see a demonstration of a product they could all use but wouldn't be allowed to buy. [emphasis by Cringely] There were no boxes for sale in the back of the room, no 'send no money, we'll bill you later'. This product wasn't for sale and wouldn't be for another five months.
"Why demonstrate it at all? The idea was to keep all these folks, and the thousands of people they would talk to in the coming weeks, from buying some competitor's program before this product — this Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Word 3.0 — was ready for the market.
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Security
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Ruben Schade ☛ 2FA codes without password validation
This is an interesting security feature, intentional or otherwise!
A financial account I hold has a phone app that—among other things—generates login codes for the desktop web portal. You log into the mobile app, generate the one-time code, then use this to log into the desktop. I was always a bit miffed that I couldn’t just add it to my regular 2FA app, but I’ll take it over insecure SMSs.
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok AI Tags Expand Dramatically Under New Transparency Push
Eight months after debuting new tags for AI-created videos – and about one week after putting its Universal Music licensing dispute to rest – TikTok is expanding labels for auto-generated media.
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Defence/Aggression
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VOA News ☛ Panama's Mulino says he will close one of world's busiest migration routes
President-elect Jose Raul Mulino says he will shut down a migration route used by more than 500,000 people last year. Until now, Panama has helped speedily bus the migrants across its territory so they can continue their journey north.
Whether Mulino can reduce migration through a sparsely populated region with little government presence is unknown, experts say.
“Panama and our Darien are not a transit route. It is our border,” Mulino said after his victory with 34% of the vote in Sunday’s election was formalized Thursday evening.
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New Statesman ☛ The rise of WhatsApp government
There are questions of power at stake. Instant messaging allows leaders to detach themselves from the supporting officials and civil servants who might regulate their actions. Awkward individuals can be left out, and trusted advisers or favoured reporters brought in. Corporate interests can make themselves felt. This is a technology well-suited to bypassing hierarchies and creating shadow networks of influence, in a way that may not always be noticed. Those who might be stopped at the door in a physical setting can be “in the room” in a virtual one, while absences that would be notable in-person may be more easily overlooked.
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The Register UK ☛ Iran most likely to launch destructive cyber-attack on US
"A destructive cyber-attack against the United States would come from Iran before someone else," Morin told The Register. Check out our full interview below with Morin to find out her reasoning.
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CS Monitor ☛ We tried to protect these people from the Taliban. They’re still in Afghanistan.
Now, with the Taliban back, he is sitting in hiding, with no job, no way to feed his family, and his son killed because of the father’s connection to an American, Christian newspaper. “If we catch another son, we will kill him,” those threatening Mr. Zadran by phone still say. “We will behead you.”
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VOA News ☛ Greece criticizes Turkey for converting ancient church to mosque
Greece’s criticism centers on the formal opening of the Church of St. Saviour in Chora as a Muslim house of worship, four years after it was converted. The ancient site was a museum before its conversion to a mosque and is a United Nations-protected monument revered for its mosaic masterpieces.
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[Repeat] Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Booted from Tech Lobbying Group Amid Legal Battle
The ByteDance-owned social media giant has been a member of NetChoice since 2019, but the Washington-based lobbying group booted the company from its membership roll this week. According to people who spoke with Politico anonymously, the decision was made after an investigation by the office of Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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Modern Diplomacy ☛ Russia Educating and Training Future African Leaders
According to the Russian Education and Science Ministry, more than 355,000 foreigners are currently studying in Russian universities. Acting Minister Valery Falkov earlier said Russia has the world’s sixth-largest number of foreign students.
According to calculations by TASS News Agency, the number of foreign students in Russian universities has increased by more than 20% over the past five years. Most often foreign applicants accepted by Russian universities come from China, Vietnam, former Soviet republics, and countries in Asia and the Middle East.
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France24 ☛ Russian attacks force hundreds to flee border area in Ukraine's Kharkiv region
Fierce fighting raged into a second day on the fringes of Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region on Saturday as Moscow said it had captured five villages, while Kyiv said it was repulsing the attacks and battling for control of the settlements.
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RFERL ☛ Report: EU Said To Agree On Security Assurances For Ukraine
Germany's Welt am Sonntag reports that the European Union is currently discussing with Kyiv possible security assurances for Ukraine with the aim of providing what the outlet says is "extensive security commitments" by the beginning of July.
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RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Calls Frontline Situation 'Especially Tense' As Russian Attacks Intensify
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy raised alarms about frontline conditions in the war against Russia, labeling the situation in the eastern Donetsk region as "especially tense" and as hundreds of residents were forced to flee parts of the Kharkiv area.
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RFERL ☛ U.S. Announces $400 Million Package Of Weapons For Ukraine
The U.S. announced a new $400 million package of military aid for Ukraine on May 10, as Kyiv struggles to hold off advances by Russian troops in the northeast Kharkiv region.
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Marcy Wheeler ☛ Barr Time 1: “Conjuring up criminal conspiracies about political opponents”
Bill Barr walked into the AG job determined to kill an investigation into Russian interference. Before he walked out, he set up a system that protected interference from Russian agents in Ukraine. His claims about what he did fall apart given what we've learned since he made them.
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CS Monitor ☛ Ukrainian civilians flee as Russia says it has captured 5 villages
Russia's renewed assault on the Kharkiv region, which Ukraine says has forced more than 1,700 civilians residing in settlements near the fighting to flee, seeks to exploit ammunition shortages before Western supplies promised to Ukraine can reach the front line.
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New York Times ☛ Russian Attacks Open a New Front in Ukraine
Russia’s latest offensive has expanded the battlefield along Ukraine’s northern border, and sent thousands of civilians fleeing to Kharkiv, the closest large city.
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New York Times ☛ Who Are the Favorites to Win Eurovision?
Some of the buzziest acts taking part in Saturday’s final hail from Croatia, Israel and Ukraine.
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RFERL ☛ Drone Sparks Fire At Russian Oil Refinery After Zelenskiy Says Front Line 'Especially Tense'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy raised alarms about frontline conditions in the war against Russia, labeling the situation in the eastern Donetsk region as "especially tense" and as hundreds of residents were forced to flee parts of the Kharkiv area.
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France24 ☛ Georgia protest against ‘Russian law’ draws tens of thousands on Tbilisi streets
Around 50,000 protesters marched through central Tbilisi on Saturday at a rally against a controversial foreign influence bill, dubbed "the Russian law", and backed by the Georgian government. Critics say the bill is inspired by a law in Russia that has been used to clamp down on dissent.
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RFERL ☛ Partner Of Sanctioned Russian Oligarch Bought Austrian Villas Worth $28 Million
The 50-year-old partner of Russian oligarch and sanctioned former Rosneft CEO Eduard Khudainatov is reportedly the mystery buyer of four chalets in the Austrian Alpine resort of Kitzbuehel worth a combined 26 million euros ($28 million).
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YLE ☛ Russia starts detaining migrants attempting to cross into Finland
Moscow seems to have stopped funnelling migrants to the Finnish border, according to a Russia expert.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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[Repeat] Breach Media ☛ Pundits regularly attacked pharmacare without disclosing Big Pharma ties
The authors of these op-eds, and dozens of others like them, were identified by the media outlets as policy experts at “independent” research institutes.
In fact, a new investigation by the Council of Canadians reveals they all have ties to pharmaceutical and insurance companies, the industries with the most to lose from a public pharmacare program.
Many are current or former employees, lobbyists, or consultants for these companies. All work for think tanks that are funded by drug manufacturers like Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson and lobby groups like Innovative Medicines Canada, or whose boards are dominated by executives and lobbyists from pharma and insurance companies.
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Environment
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Energy/Transportation
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JURIST ☛ Argentina labor union strike leads to stoppage of public transportation services
Argentina’s main labor unions held a 24-hour general strike of bus, train, subway, and airplane services on Thursday to express their discontent with President Javier Milei’s austerity policies.
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Wildlife/Nature
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Science Alert ☛ Scientists Spent 15 Years Listening to Blue Whales. Here's What They Heard.
The calls of nature.
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Finance
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YLE ☛ Kela to continue paying pension top-ups to recipients abroad
Last month the government ruled that the supplement to the lowest pensions is a social benefit limited to residents.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Apple nears deal with OpenAI
Apple has closed in on an agreement with OpenAI to use the start-up’s technology on the iPhone, part of a broader push to bring artificial intelligence features to its devices, according to people familiar with the matter.
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Futurism ☛ Donald Trump Doesn't Use a Computer or Have an Email Address, Former Aide Reveals in Court
Strangest of all, in a country where virtually everybody is now online, she also said that Trump didn't even have a computer or an email address — yet another peculiar twist that highlights just how technologically challenged the former head of state is.
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Futurism ☛ Google Execs Say Employees Will Be Rewarded for Huge Profits With Fewer Layoffs
In another question, an employee asked why, "despite the company’s stellar performance and record earnings, many Googlers have not received meaningful compensation increases."
"When will employee compensation fairly reflect the company’s success," the employee asked, "and is there a conscious decision to keep wages lower due to a cooling employment market?"
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CNBC ☛ Google staffers question execs over 'decline in morale' after earnings
Alphabet's top leadership has been on the defensive for the past few years, as vocal staffers have railed about post-pandemic return-to-office mandates, the company's cloud contracts with the military, fewer perks and an extended stretch of layoffs — totaling more than 12,000 last year — along with other cost cuts that began when the economy turned in 2022.
Employees have also complained about a lack of trust and demands that they work on tighter deadlines with fewer resources and diminished opportunities for internal advancement.
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France24 ☛ 'To be clear, I won the election': Thai opposition leader Pita Limjaroenrat speaks to FRANCE 24
Pita Limjaroenrat, the former leader of the Move Forward Party, won the most votes in Thailand’s 2023 general election but was blocked from becoming prime minister – and his party excluded from the governing coalition – over calls to reform Thailand’s strict lèse-majesté laws, which prohibit criticism of the royal family. Limjaroenrat tells FRANCE 24 his party merely wants to find a balance between respecting royalty and freedom of speech in Thailand, which has some of the strictest royal insult laws in the world.
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New York Times ☛ Why Antiwar Protests Haven’t Flared Up at Black Colleges Like Morehouse
The White House appears anxious about President Biden’s coming speech at Morehouse College. But for complex reasons, such campuses have had far less visible Gaza tensions.
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Insight Hungary ☛ Xi Jinping and Orban agree on strategic partnership
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and President of the People's Republic of China, issued a joint press statement.
Orbán began his speech by saying that we live in a multi-polar world order, and one of the pillars of this order is China. He described the relationship between the two countries as an uninterrupted allyship, and underlined that Hungary has always been committed to the "One China Principle". The Hungarian Prime Minister said that Hungary supports all initiatives to end the Russian-Ukrainian war, including the Chinese "peace plan".
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FAIR ☛ GOP Grilling NPR Is a Tired Ritual That Needs to Be Rejected
Every so often, Republicans in Washington engage in the ritual of shouting about public broadcasting’s supposed left-wing bias, usually threatening to cut its federal funding.
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Pro Publica ☛ IRS Audit Could Cost Trump $100 Million
Former President Donald Trump used a dubious accounting maneuver to claim improper tax breaks from his troubled Chicago tower, according to an IRS inquiry uncovered by ProPublica and The New York Times. Losing a yearslong audit battle over the claim could mean a tax bill of more than $100 million.
The 92-story, glass-sheathed skyscraper along the Chicago River is the tallest and, at least for now, the last major construction project by Trump. Through a combination of cost overruns and the bad luck of opening in the teeth of the Great Recession, it was also a vast money loser.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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MIT Technology Review ☛ Hong Kong is targeting Western Big Tech companies in its new ban of a popular protest song
Google, Apple, Meta, Spotify, and others have spent the last several years largely refusing to cooperate with previous efforts by the Hong Kong government to prevent the spread of the song, which the government has claimed is a threat to national security. But the government has also hesitated to leverage criminal law to force them to comply with requests for removal of content, which could risk international uproar and hurt the city’s economy.
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BIA Net ☛ Journalist, artist Zehra Doğan cleared of 'terror' charges after serving 2 years in prison
Doğan is known for her political artworks that often address the struggles of the Kurdish people and the repression they face. One of her notable works is based on Ceylan Önkol, a Kurdish child who was killed by the army's artillery fire in 2009.
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RFA ☛ Chinese police harass family members of US-based content creators
A current affairs YouTuber and some satirical filmmakers are the latest targets of China's 'long-arm' censorship.
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New York Times ☛ A Way Back from Campus Chaos
Colleges have failed to strike a balance between academic freedom and free speech during this spring’s protests.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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VOA News ☛ Jailed journalist Kurmasheva recognized for her courage
RFE/RL’s parent organization the U.S. Agency for Global Media, or USAGM, honored Kurmasheva, 47, with a David Burke Distinguished Journalism Award, which recognizes courage and journalistic excellence.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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VOA News ☛ Online abuse silences women in Ethiopia, study finds
The Center for Information Resilience, a U.K.-based nonprofit organization, spearheaded the study. The CIR report, released Wednesday, says that women in Ethiopia are on the receiving end of abuse and hate speech across all three social media platforms, with Facebook cited as the worst.
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New York Times ☛ Canada’s Public Sector Unions Threaten Disruption Over Return to Office
After their strike last year failed to win the right to work remotely, the unions are challenging a plan calling for three days a week at workplaces.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Massive solar storm degrades Starlink services
Starlink, the satellite arm of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, warned on Saturday of a “degraded service” as the Earth is battered by the biggest geomagnetic storm due to solar activity in two decades.
Starlink owns around 60% of the roughly 7 500 satellites orbiting Earth and is a dominant player in satellite [Internet].
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Digital Music News ☛ Taylor Swift Bill Enacted in Minnesota, Targeting Ticket Resellers
At the top level, the Minnesota law (which won’t go into effect until 2025, once again) extends to tickets for “all forms of entertainment,” including but not limited to theater and opera performances, concerts, amusement parks, sports events, “and all other forms of diversion, recreation, or show.”
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Trademarks
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Futurism ☛ OpenAI Mocked for Issuing Infringement Claim Over Its Logo While Scraping the Entire Web to Train AI Models
Per 404, r/ChatGPT mods first took to the subreddit yesterday to share a screenshot of a message they'd received from Reddit leadership explaining that the company had "received a copyright complaint from openai.com alleging unauthorized use of their copyrighted logos in r/ChatGPT." This, the message added, might "lead to user confusion," and provided the moderators until May 16 to remove the logo. (The mods posted the screenshot with zero context, just a "thumbs up" emoji, the connotation of which may or may not be little passive-aggressive.)
But if this request is real — neither OpenAI nor Reddit reportedly responded to 404's requests for comment — a side-eyed response does feel warranted.
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Copyrights
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Tom's Hardware ☛ OpenAI hits subreddit with copyright monopoly claim for using ChapGPT logo — r/chatGPT used the official Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot logo
Reddit sent a copyright monopoly notice to r/ChatGPT to remove the Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot logo from its profile photo. However, Proprietary Chaffbot Company permitted the subreddit to use its logo one day after sending the notice.
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VOA News ☛ AI becomes latest frontier in China-US race for Africa
In the coming years, researchers predict AI companies will run out of data in English and Western languages but that is not the case in Africa where much more data is still needed, Okolo said.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Marvel Subpoenas Instagram to Expose 'Captain America: Brave New World' Leaker
Last week, new footage of Marvel's upcoming 'Captain America: Brave New World' appeared online. The film is due to be released in 2025 but the allegedly leaked material, posted in an Instagram story by a well-known 'scooper', clearly has Disney and Marvel concerned. Through a DMCA subpoena, the movie companies aim to find out who's behind the social media account.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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