Leftovers

• New York Times ☛ The Rubik Cube Turns 50

  Mathematicians and hobbyists have had a half-century of fun exploring the 43 billion billion permutations of Erno Rubik’s creation.

• Science

  • Hackaday ☛ A Brief History Of Perpetual Motion

    Conservation of energy isn’t just a good idea: It is the law. In particular, it is the first law of thermodynamics. But, apparently, a lot of people don’t really get that because history is replete with inventions that purport to run forever or produce more energy than they consume. Sometimes these are hoaxes, and sometimes they are frauds. We expect sometimes they are also simple misunderstandings.

  • Science Alert ☛ Strange Shapes Have Been Revealed in Earth's Upper Atmosphere

  • Science Alert ☛ Incredible Hydrothermal Environment Discovered Deep Beneath The Ocean

    We never knew it was there.

  • Science Alert ☛ Ancient Cave Ritual From 10,000 Years Ago May Be World's Oldest Tradition

    A practice handed down for 500 generations.

  • Science Alert ☛ Physicists Have Created The World's Most Fiendishly Difficult Maze

    Prepare to abandon all hope.

• Education

  • The Straits Times ☛ World bank approves $700 million to boost Jordan's education, health and social care

    The World Bank said on Monday that it had approved $700 million for two new programs aimed at strengthening Jordan's education, health and social assistance sectors.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Rural Republicans Pushing Back Against School Voucher Expansions

    Drive an hour south of Nashville into the rolling countryside of Marshall County, Tennessee — past horse farms, mobile homes and McMansions — and you will arrive in Chapel Hill, population 1,796. It’s the birthplace of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who helped found the Ku Klux Klan. And it’s the home of Todd Warner, one of the most unlikely and important defenders of America’s besieged public schools.

    Warner is the gregarious 53-year-old owner of PCS of TN, a 30-person company that does site grading for shopping centers and other construction projects. The second-term Republican state representative “absolutely” supports Donald Trump, who won Marshall County by 50 points in 2020. Warner likes to talk of the threats posed by culture-war bogeymen, such as critical race theory; diversity, equity and inclusion; and Shariah law.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Modeling Home Heating Systems With Circuit Simulation Software

    Electricity flow is generally invisible, silent, and not something that most humans want to touch, so understanding how charge moves around can be fairly unintuitive at first. There are plenty of analogies to help understand its behavior, such as imagining a circuit as a pipe of water, with pressure standing in for voltage and flow standing in for current. But you can flip this idea in reverse and use electric circuits to model other complex phenomena instead. [Oxx], for example, is using circuit theory to model his home’s heating systems.

  • Hackaday ☛ An IBM M2 Keyboard Lives Again

    There’s a mystique in old keyboard circles around the IBM Model M, the granddaddy of PC keyboards with those famous buckling spring key switches. The original Model M was a substantial affair with a sheet metal backplane that would probably serve well as a weapon in a zombie apocalypse and still allow writing a Hackaday piece afterward, but later on in the life of these ‘boards there was also a lighter version. The M2 as these models are dubbed has a few known problems, and [Anders Nielsen] scored one online that turned out to have dodgy capacitors. His video, below the break, takes us through the disassembly of his M2 and provides a relaxing tour of these not-quite-so-famous peripherals.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Chinese competitor to Nvidia charged with financial fraud, loses spot on Shenzhen Stock Exchange

    China-based DPU developer delisted from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange this month.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Finding Pentium 3 parts by the side of the road!

    Clara and I were briskly walking down the street for our ten thousand steps yesterday, when we chanced upon a dischevelled beige computer tower half buried in the mud. Being a retrocomputing tragic, I proceeded to load it into a large shopping bag without a second thought. This lead me to notice a bag of parts sitting underneath the case, which presumably contained all the parts from the machine. Huzzah!

  • Hackaday ☛ Split A USB-C PD Port Into Three Port-ions

    There’s no shortage of USB-C chargers in all sorts of configurations, but sometimes, you simply need a few more charging ports on the go, and you got a single one. Well then, check out [bluepylons]’s USB-C splitter, which takes a single USB-C 5V/3A port and splits it into three 5V/1A plugs, wonderful for charging a good few devices on the go!

  • Hackaday ☛ Casting Concrete With A 3D-Printed Mould

    We’re accustomed to covering the use of 3D printing in casting, usually as a lost-PLA former in metal casting. That’s not the only use of the technique though, and perhaps one of the simplest is to use a 3D-printed mould for casting concrete. It’s what [ArtByAdrock] is doing in their latest video, casting an ornamental owl model.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Science Alert ☛ Alzheimer's Risk Is Strongly Shaped by Your Mother's Side, Study Finds

    Scientists don't fully understand why.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Noah Kahan Raises $2.4 Million and Counting for Mental Health Causes — Portion of All Ticket Sales Reserved for Charity

    Singer-songwriter Noah Kahan raises over $2.4 million (and counting) for rural mental health organizations with his Busyhead Project, with a portion of all ticket sales reserved for charity. Fans of Vermont singer-songwriter Noah Kahan have long known that he isn’t just talk.

  • Latvia ☛ Smoking rates rise in Latvia, say public health experts

    The sharp decline in smoking rates that statistics showed a decade ago has begun to fade. Smoking rates are once again on the rise, both in the conventional and electronic cigarette categories. Children's doctors are raising the alarm that children are starting to smoke at an earlier age, Latvian Television reported on June 30.

  • Latvia ☛ Shiny teeth are not always healthy, doctors warn

    Doctors are raising alarms about the tendency of young people to decorate their teeth in beauty salons. Only dentists are allowed to apply tooth jewels, but this recommendation is not always followed, Latvian Radio reported June 30.

  • Oops, he did it again! John Ioannidis cries “Bias!” on COVID

    Hot on the heels of having seen anti-public health propaganda by John Ioannidis disguised as a study published as a preprint last week showing “COVID advocacy bias” in papers and commentaries in The BMJ, I couldn’t help but come across references on social media to a recent paper by him and over 60 other coauthors that was actually published in a journal and, in essence, bemoans how “they” apparently “stacked the deck” when doing a Delphi consensus statement regarding scientifically recommended approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic:

  • New Yorker ☛ The Mail

    Readers respond to Masha Gessen’s article on Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom and Katy Waldman’s piece on pandemic fiction.

  • Mexico News Daily ☛ European Union retinol ban: What you should know if you live in Mexico.

    The European Union has banned higher concentrations of skincare drug retinol, but what does that mean for Mexican consumers?

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • ABP ☛ Unacademy Layoffs: The Edtech Firm Fires 250 Employees

    Unacademy Layoffs: Unacademy, an Edtech start-up backed by SoftBank, has reportedly implemented a new round of layoffs affecting 250 employees. Approximately 100 individuals from core departments such as business development and marketing have been affected, while remaining from the sales department, reported The Economic Times, citing sources.

    Unacademy, backed by investors including Peak XV Partners and General Atlantic, acknowledged the layoffs, as per the report. “As part of our ongoing efforts to streamline operations and enhance business efficiency, we have recently undergone a restructuring exercise. This was necessary, keeping in mind the company's goals and vision for the year, as we focus all our efforts on sustainable growth and profitability. Consequently, some roles have been impacted,” said the company in a statement.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • EFF ☛ Now The EU Council Should Finally Understand: No One Wants “Chat Control”

      For all those who have reached out to sign the “Don’t Scan Me” petition, thank you—your voice is being heard. News reports indicate the sponsors of this flawed proposal withdrew it because they couldn’t get a majority of member states to support it. 

    • New York Times ☛ Meta’s Ad-Free Subscription Violates Competition Law, E.U. Says

      Regulators said the subscription service introduced last year is a “pay or consent” method to collect personal data and bolster advertising.

• Defence/Aggression

  • RFERL ☛ Kyrgyz Government Critic Jailed For 3 Years On Insurrection Charge

    A district court in Bishkek on July 1 sentenced Kyrgyz poet, composer, and political activist Askat Jetigen to three years in prison on a charge of calling for a seizure of power in a widely followed case rejected by Jetigen and rights observers.

  • New York Times ☛ In Nigeria, Female Suicide Bombers Are a Terrorist Group’s Hidden Weapon

    Suicide bombers killed at least 32 people in three attacks in a Nigerian city once controlled by Boko Haram. Women, said experts, are more likely to go unnoticed when carrying out terrorist attacks.

  • New York Times ☛ Nine Killed in Central Seoul After Car Plows Into Pedestrians

    The deadly crash occurred near a busy intersection in front of city hall in central Seoul.

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea says it tested ballistic missile capable of carrying super-large warhead

    North Korean media said it will conduct another launch in July to test its 'explosion power'.

  • France24 ☛ North Korea fires two short-range ballistic missiles, one launch fails

    North Korea's launch of two ballistic missiles on Monday further escalated tensions with South Korea. The launch comes a day after Pyongyang denounced joint military exercises by South Korea, Japan and the United States.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Victims of Hamas attack sue Iran, Syria, North Korea in US court

    It accuses the three countries of providing financial, military and tactical support to Hamas.

  • New York Times ☛ Chinese Rocket Crashes After Accidentally Launching During Test

    The commercial company Space Pioneer said the accident occurred because of a structural failure in the connection between the rocket and its testing platform.

  • RFA ☛ Beijing pressed Laos to include Taiwan in visa policy for Chinese visitors: Taipei

    Laos’ decision gives the false impression that Taiwan is part of China, says Taiwan’s foreign ministry.

  • RFA ☛ Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong sails near the Philippines

    The carrier was spotted near Luzon island as the U.S.-led RIMPAC military exercise kicked off.

  • RFA ☛ Xi is a ‘dictator’ who broke Hong Kong treaty, ex-governor says

    ‘No one can trust them further than you can spit,’ Chris Patten says of Beijing.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ A brief history of Hong Kong – the city’s turbulent road since the 1997 Handover

    Hong Kong has endured a turbulent history since being handed over from Britain to China 27 years ago. Here are some key dates: 1997: Handover On July 1, at midnight, Hong Kong is returned to Chinese sovereignty after 156 years of British rule.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China to offer 5-year travel permit cards to non-Chinese Hong Kong permanent residents from next Wed

    Non-Chinese permanent residents will soon be eligible for a Mainland Travel Permit card to enable speedy clearance at self-service gates when travelling across the Chinese border. The announcement coincided with Monday’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day, marking 27 years since the Handover to China.

  • Michael Geist ☛ When Antisemitism Strikes Close to Home

    In the 269 days since October 7^th, at least 12 synagogues and 18 Jewish schools and community centres have been attacked or vandalized in Canada. The latest two synagogue attacks took this place this weekend in Toronto, which struck particularly close to home since one of the targets - the Pride of Israel synagogue - has been my family’s synagogue for decades.

  • The Strategist ☛ Australia needs a national centre for strategic warning intelligence

    Even mindboggling actions typically have a logic that’s discoverable, whether Hitler declaring war on America after Pearl Harbor or Putin invading Ukraine. That’s why ‘strategic warning’—informed by ‘strategic warning intelligence’—is so important.

  • New York Times ☛ Release of Gazan Hospital Director Draws Outcry in Israel

    Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, was released on Monday after more than seven months in Israeli detention without charges.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Are terrorists slipping across the US border? What the evidence shows.

    Could a spike in illegal immigration could open the way for terrorist attack on U.S. soil? We look at the available evidence.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Handover Day: New security law a ‘sharp sword’ says Hong Kong’s John Lee, as leader hails 1 Country, 2 Systems

    The principle of One Country, Two Systems – while “tested on all fronts” since China resumed sovereignty in 1997 – remains the “best institutional arrangement” for Hong Kong’s long-term prosperity and stability, Chief Executive John Lee has said on the 27th anniversary of the Handover.

  • France24 ☛ Ex-IOC executive says Olympics organisers hope for peaceful reaction to French elections

    The key risk to the Paris Games from the political uncertainty gripping France is public disturbances that could impact the already stretched security services, a former International Olympic Committee executive told AFP on Monday.

• Environment

  • Atlantic Council ☛ From greenfield projects to green supply chains: Critical minerals in Africa as an investment challenge

    This report provides a snapshot of Africa’s mineral wealth and mining industries, draws out the similarities between the mining and infrastructure investment attraction challenges, describes the competitive landscape African nations find themselves in, and makes innovative recommendations—namely to the US government—to rapidly accelerate investment in sustainable mining industries in African markets.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • New Yorker ☛ How to Survive Lions and Bears and Racism in Nature

      Rae Wynn-Grant, the host of “Wild Kingdom” and author of “Wild Life,” recounts the times she nearly died.

• Finance

  • Latvia ☛ New Latvian collector coin celebrates writer Vilis Plūdons

    The Latvian central bank, Latvijas Banka (LB) has announced details of its latest colelctor coin. Titled 'Childhood joy', it pays tribute to the 150th anniversary of writer Vilis Plūdons.

  • RFA ☛ Body cams prevent North Korean customs agents from living off bribes

    Border officials who took out huge loans to survive the pandemic now cannot repay them.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • OpenRightsGroup ☛ General Election 2024 analysis of manifestos

    ORG has analysed the main political parties’ manifestos for the General Election 2024 to identify which policies will impact on our digital rights. This document includes commentary on proposals by the Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, Reform and Greens.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ Justice Roberts’ Drone Strike on George Washington’s Legacy

    In an opinion that tries to cloak his power grab with an appeal to President Washington, John Roberts has suffocated the greatest thing Washington gave the United States, the presumption that Presidents would cede to the power of elections.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Believe Announces Greater China Executive Appointments, Eyes ‘Long-Term Investment in Asia’ As Privatization Plans Proceed

    One week after an EQT-powered consortium took another key step on the road to privatizing Believe, the digital music company has made a major move in China. Paris-headquartered Believe today disclosed that move, the formal appointment of two execs to its Greater China leadership team, as well as an anticipated “long-term investment in Asia.”

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ In Pictures: Hong Kong sees citywide Handover celebrations, discounts, but meagre turnout at patriotic fair

    Hong Kong on Monday saw citywide festivities to mark 27 years since the city was handed over from Britain to China. But the turnout at a park fair on Chinese culture and innovation was meagre, as one attendee complained that the heavy police presence cast a shadow over the celebratory atmosphere.

  • Democracy Now ☛ “Uncharted Territory”: Biden Vows to Stay in the Race Despite Public’s Doubts About His Health

    Chris Lehmann, D.C. bureau chief for The Nation, discusses the ongoing fallout from Thursday’s first presidential debate of 2024 and mounting pressure on President Biden to drop out of the race amid questions about his age and mental fitness. “It appears that Biden and his inner circle of advisers are doubling down,” says Lehmann. “They took this incredible risk to do this debate … and they’re now saying it’s a greater risk to change horses.”

  • Democracy Now ☛ “Power Grab”: SCOTUS Overturns 4 Decades of Federal Regulatory Control, Hands Power to Courts

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday approved a power grab by corporate interests who want to strip federal agencies of their power to regulate public health, the climate and environment, worker protection and more. In the 6-3 ruling, the court’s conservative majority overturned a precedent known as the Chevron doctrine that stems from a Reagan-era ruling called Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which established that judges should defer to federal agencies on interpreting a law if Congress did not specifically address the issue. We speak with Mustafa Ali, former head of the environmental justice program at the Environmental Protection Agency, who describes it as “a very devastating decision,” and to The Nation's justice correspondent, Elie Mystal. “It's taking power out of our hands, out of the democracy’s hands, and putting it in the hands of the court,” says Mystal, who also addresses other recent rulings from the court at the end of its term, including the highly anticipated ruling on presidential immunity.

  • Democracy Now ☛ Far Right in France “On the Doorstep of Power” as National Rally Surges in Snap Election

    France’s far right has won the first round of voting in a snap election, followed closely by the left, as President Emmanuel Macron’s coalition is trounced. We go to Paris for an update as the far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen shocked the French establishment after winning the most votes in the first round of parliamentary elections on Sunday. A broad alliance of left-wing parties calling itself the New Popular Front came second, while President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist bloc fell to third place. Macron called the snap election after the National Rally won the most seats in last month’s vote for European Parliament, even though his own presidential term runs until 2027. A second round of voting on July 7 will decide the final makeup of the National Assembly, but if the National Rally wins outright, it will mark the first time the far right has governed in France since the Nazi occupation during World War II. “This decision was timed at a moment when the far right was at its strongest historical position in modern French political history, and they’ve capitalized on that,” says Harrison Stetler, an independent journalist and teacher based in Paris. He says that while the left has already committed to forming “a republican front against the far right,” Macron’s centrist forces have sent “mixed signals” on joining forces after a campaign in which they recklessly portrayed both the left and the right as equally dangerous to the country.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Enemies of the Nigel: BillBC joins growing list of Farage media beefs

    Reform UK has accused the BBC, Channel 4 and Daily Mail of biased coverage.

  • Press Gazette ☛ General election 2024 press endorsements: Sunday Times and FT back Labour

    As Labour wins more press backers, right-wing titles back Tories versus Reform.

  • New York Times ☛ All Kings, a Retreat for Men, Tackles Masculine Rage, Sadness and Trauma

    After a weekend camping in the woods, a small group of guys — many of them former prisoners — hoped to leave healed.

  • RFERL ☛ UN Group Demands Release Of Ex-Pakistan PM Khan

    A UN rights group on July 1 called for the immediate release of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, saying he had been detained "arbitrarily in violation of international laws."

  • LRT ☛ Asylum seekers seek compensation from Lithuania for illegal detention

    Twenty-four migrants have filed a class action lawsuit requesting compensation from Lithuania for arbitrary detention in 2021–2022.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Online gig by Hong Kong singer-activist Denise Ho interrupted by a dozen police officers citing noise complaint

    A live-streamed gig by Hong Kong singer-activist Denise Ho was interrupted by police citing a noise complaint on Sunday, with around a dozen officers arriving at the venue and taking down the identification details of the crew. Ho ended up performing online after venues repeatedly shunned her efforts to book space.

  • Public Knowledge ☛ Supreme Court Decision in NetChoice Case Protects Online Free Speech

    The Court held that the First Amendment prevents states from overriding the content moderation policies of social control media companies.

  • Reason ☛ Four Justices in Netchoice Flag Question Whether First Amendment Protects AI-Curated Materials

    From Justice Barrett's concurrence in today's Moody v. Netchoice, LLC: Consider, for instance, how platforms use algorithms to prioritize and remove content on their feeds. Assume that human beings decide to remove posts promoting a particular political candidate or advocating some position on a public-health issue.

  • Reason ☛ Justice Barrett's Netchoice Concurrence Raises Questions Relevant to Fentanylware (TikTok) Case

    From her opinion in Moody v. Netchoice, LLC: Corporations, which are composed of human beings with First Amendment rights, possess First Amendment rights themselves. But foreign persons and corporations located abroad do not. Agency for Int'l Development v. Alliance for Open Society Int'l, Inc. [II] (2020)….

  • Reason ☛ Social Media Moderation Is Speech, Says Supreme Court

    The Court is remanding these two cases for more analysis—but it made its views on some key issues clear.

  • Reason ☛ The Supreme Court's Reasoning Prohibits the Deplatforming that the Parties Care About

    As the Moody v. NetChoice majority noted, the parties focused on Facebook's and YouTube's main feeds. The majority similarly focused on those main feeds in its extensive discussion of First Amendment principles, and, as co-blogger Ilya notes, it left little doubt about the unconstitutionality of the Texas and Florida statutes as applied to them.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Supreme Court returns Texas and Florida social control media laws to lower courts

    The Supreme Court today avoided making a decision in two closely watched social control media moderation cases and instead sent them back to the lower courts for review. The justices issued the decision unanimously. There were four separate concurrences, opinions written by justices who agree with the majority view but for different reasons.

  • Reason ☛ Supreme Court Remands Texas and Florida Social Media Cases—But Strongly Suggests the States' Laws Violate the First Amendment

    The majority opinion makes clear that social control media content moderation is an activity protected by the First Amendment. That likely dooms large parts of the state laws restricting content moderation.

  • Reason ☛ When May Law Require Social Media Platforms to Disclose Basis for Moderation Decisions?

    From the majority in Moody v. Netchoice, LLC: The laws, from Florida and Texas, restrict the ability of social-media platforms to control whether and how third-party posts are presented to other users … [including by] requir[ing] a platform to provide an individualized explanation to a user if it removes or alters her posts….

  • EFF ☛ Victory! Supreme Court Rules Platforms Have First Amendment Right to Decide What Speech to Carry, Free of State Mandates

    As we explained in our amicus brief, users are far better off when publishers make editorial decisions free from government mandates. Although the court did not reach a final determination about the Texas and Florida laws, it confirmed that their core provisions are inconsistent with the First Amendment when they force social media sites to publish user posts that are, at best, irrelevant, and, at worst, false, abusive, or harassing.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Supreme Court holds Texas and Florida social control media laws. Cases returned to lower courts.

    The Supreme Court has kept a hold on Texas and Florida efforts to restrict content moderation and alleged silencing of “conservative viewpoints and ideas” on social control media platforms, returning the cases to the lower courts.

  • JURIST ☛ Supreme Court orders new review of Florida, Texas social control media laws

    The US Supreme Court on Monday vacated and remanded lower court rulings regarding the constitutionality of statutes enacted by Florida and Texas to regulate large social control media companies’ content moderation practices.

  • Reason ☛ Louisiana Parents Sue Over Law Mandating 10 Commandments Displays in Classrooms

    "This is an obvious attempt to use our public schools to convert kids to Christianity. We live in a democracy, not a theocracy," one ACLU attorney tells Reason.

  • New York Times ☛ Supreme Court Declines to Rule on Social Media Laws in Florida and Texas

    The justices unanimously returned two cases, which concerned state laws that supporters said were aimed at “Silicon Valley censorship,” to lower courts. Critics had said the laws violated the sites’ First Amendment rights.

  • BIA Net ☛ Pro-Erdoğan professor gets over 2,900 articles about him censored

    Among the censored content is bianet's Media Monitoring Report, which documents all detected violations of press freedom in Turkey.

  • Internet Society ☛ US Supreme Court Upholds Right of Websites to Moderate Content

    In a decision on the NetChoice cases, the US Supreme Court upheld the rights of social control media platforms to moderate content.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Gov’t team behind new security law among 502 named in Hong Kong’s 2024 honours list

    Core members of the Hong Kong government taskforce behind the legislation of a homegrown security law are among 502 people named in the annual honours list.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Sydney Morning Herald ☛ Assange may be free, but journalism everywhere is in chains

    The overwhelmingly positive response to the pictures of Julian Assange stepping back onto Australian soil and hugging his wife speaks to the very human story at the core of this 14-year saga.

  • Project Censored ☛ Freedom for Julian Assange and Navigating our Digital Democracy

    Independent journalist Kevin Gosztola, author of Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange, rejoins the program to discuss Julian Assange’s plea bargain with the US Department of Justice that finally frees the WikiLeaks founder from Britain’s Belmarsh Prison. Assange, who was detained there for more than five years, was returned home to Australia a free man. The Assange legal case may be over, but Gosztola discusses the ongoing implications for press freedom, especially given the details of the deal where Assange was basically found…guilty of journalism? Then Mickey speaks with Project Censored’s Kate Horgan, Reagan Haynie, and Shealeigh Voitl, authors of a new article in the special media literacy issue of The Progressive magazine. The piece, “Navigating the Digital Democracy,” outlines the efforts of government and Big Tech to control or censor social media platforms (often without users’ knowledge), and the countermeasures employed by online communities to maintain open and uncensored communications. The guests discuss how social media can influence the 2024 election and how critically media literate citizens can be more meaningfully, civically engaged.

  • Democracy Now ☛ Phone Hacking, Stolen Info: New Washington Post Publisher’s Ties to Murdoch Papers Raise Alarm

    We look at the unfolding ethics scandal at The Washington Post that has rocked one of the nation’s leading news outlets and raised questions about its future. The controversy centers on CEO and publisher Will Lewis, who has reportedly pressured journalists inside and outside the newsroom not to run unflattering stories about him. His efforts to reshape the newsroom in the face of steep financial losses have also alarmed staff, and British editor Robert Winnett, Lewis’s pick for a top editorial role, withdrew amid concern over his history of using fraudulently obtained information in newspaper articles. Lewis is also implicated in the long-running U.K. phone hacking scandal. Both Lewis and Winnett are veterans of conservative British papers owned by Rupert Murdoch, and The Guardian recently revealed that Lewis advised then-U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson on how to cover his tracks amid public outrage over violations of COVID precautions at the height of the pandemic. “At the most basic level of how journalism should operate, executives in charge of news in the public interest should not be suppressing news. It’s a pretty simple bar, and Will Lewis has failed to clear it,” says Chris Lehmann, D.C. bureau chief for The Nation.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Julian Assange is finally free – but should not have been prosecuted in the first place

    Julian Assange’s lengthy detention has finally ended, but the danger that his prosecution poses to the rights of journalists remains. As is widely known, the US government’s pursuit of Assange under the Espionage Act threatens to criminalize common journalistic practices. Sadly, Assange’s guilty plea and release from custody have done nothing to ease that threat.

    That Assange was indicted under the Espionage Act, a US law designed to punish spies and traitors, should not be considered the normal course of business. Barack Obama’s justice department never charged Assange because it couldn’t distinguish what he had done from ordinary journalism. The espionage charges were filed by the justice department of Donald Trump. Joe Biden could have reverted to the Obama position and withdrawn the charges but never did.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • JURIST ☛ Afghanistan dispatch: Doha Meeting begins behind closed doors as lack of transparency and relegation of women to the sidelines prompt concerns

    Law students and young lawyers in Afghanistan are reporting for JURIST on the situation there after the Taliban takeover. For privacy and security reasons, we are withholding the name of  our correspondent filing this dispatch. 

  • Reason ☛ Nazi Germany Isn't Properly Described as "White Supremacist"

    One of my pet peeves is the way the modern academic left insists on seeing all ethnic and racial conflict through the lens of the American black-white racial dynamic. One example is the notion that Nazi Germany was "white supremacist."

  • New York Times ☛ Myanmar Shop Owners Are Being Jailed for Increasing Wages

    Myanmar’s junta, facing a growing popular rebellion, has plunged the country into economic crisis, reversing gains from a decade of civilian leadership.

  • How tech policies could change the UK — Top 10 election areas

    TechInformed explores in depth how the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, and other parties plan to shape the UK's digital future.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ Farewell APNIC community

    Thought on the remarkable journey we’ve shared over the past 25 years.

  • Ali Reza Hayati ☛ Digital friends

    I have digital friends. Friends who I love dearly. Digital friends, for me, are ones who I consider friend but I’ve never seen them and our relationship remains over internet.

  • Russell Coker ☛ Russell Coker: VoLTE in Australia

    Introduction

    In Australia the 3G mobile frequencies are to be reused so they are in the process of shutting down the 3G service. That means that everyone has to use VoLTE (Voice Over LTE) for phone calls (including emergency calls). The shutdown time varies by telco, Kogan Mobile (one of the better services which has good value for money and generally works well) shut down their 3G service in January. Aldi Mobile (another one of the good services which is slightly more expensive but has included free calls to most first-world countries and uses the largest phone network) will shut theirs down at the end of August.

    For background there’s a Fosdem talk about OpenSIPS with VoLTE and VoNR [1], it’s more complex than you want to know. Also VoNR (Voice over New Radio) is the standard for 5G voice and it’s different from VoLTE and has a fallback to VoLTE. Another good lecture for background information is the Fosdem talk on VoLTE at the handset end [2].

  • Sahilister ☛ Sahil Dhiman: Personal ASNs From India

    Internet and it’s working are interesting and complex. We need an IP address to connect to the Internet. A group of IP addresses with common routing policy is known as an Autonomous System (AS). Each AS has a globally unique Autonomous System Number (ASN) and is maintained by a single entity or individual(s). Your ISP would have an ASN. IP addresses/prefixes are advertised (announced) by an AS through Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to its peers (ASes which it connects to) to steer traffic in its direction or back.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • EFF ☛ Keep The Momentum Going for The Right to Repair

    That’s why EFF is celebrating the right to repair movement on “Repair Independence Day.” And we’re keeping up the momentum with our newest member t-shirt, “Fix Copyright”:

    With this shirt design, we have our eyes set on pushing back against companies who threaten individuals' rights to repair the devices and equipment they own—specifically referencing the ongoing battle farmers are facing against John Deere to repair their tractors.

  • EFF ☛ Celebrate Repair Independence Day!

    Our years of hard work pushing for consumer rights to repair are paying off in a big way. Case in point: Today—July 1, 2024—two strong repair bills are now law in California and Minnesota. As Repair Association Executive Director Gay Gordon-Byrne said on EFF's podcast about right to repair, after doggedly chasing this goal for years, we caught the car!

    Sometimes it's hard to know what to do after a long fight. But it's clear for the repair movement. Now is the time to celebrate! That's why EFF is joining our friends in the right to repair world by celebrating Repair Independence Day.

    EFF is joining our friends in the right to repair world by celebrating Repair Independence Day.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Beyond Dropbox and Disco: How Songbox Surpasses SoundCloud and Songspace in Music Sharing

    If you’re using a service like Dropbox, SoundCloud, Songspace or DISCO to share audio and music files, you might want to reconsider whether that’s the best idea. The following comes from Songbox, a company DMN is partnered with.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Silicon Angle ☛ France poised to slap Nvidia with antitrust charges stemming from its Hey Hi (AI) dominance

  French antitrust regulators are reportedly on the verge of slapping Nvidia Corp. with charges that allege it has engaged in anti-competitive practices regarding its domination of the artificial intelligence computing industry.

• Patents

  • JUVE ☛ Intellectual Ventures loses SEP dispute in Paris [Ed: Microsoft proxy Intellectual Ventures]

    Intellectual Ventures has been locked in a bitter dispute against various telecommunications companies for years. The NPE accuses the companies of infringing its EP 1 694 020, which protects a multicarrier modulation system and method.

  • Software Patents

    • Unified Patents ☛ Nostromo location-based patent monopoly challenged

      On June 27, 2024, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 8,559,970, owned and asserted by Nostromo, LLC, an NPE. The '970 patent monopoly is generally directed to providing location-based information and notifications to a user's device, based on location, user preference settings, and conditions for triggering the information delivery.

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ Precedential No. 13: TTAB Reverses Requirement to Disclaim "ARCHITECT" in KORN FERRY ARCHITECT for HR Services

    The Board upended the USPTO's refusal to register the mark KORN FERRY ARCHITECT absent a disclaimer of the word ARCHITECT, for, inter alia, "executive search, recruitment and placement services; business consultation services in the field of human resources management and development" and for "providing temporary use of online non-downloadable software in the field of human resources." The evidence failed to show that "architect" "identifies a defined position in the human resources field, or that it "immediately describes any quality, characteristic, feature, function, purpose, or use of any of the services identified in the application." In re Korn Ferry, Serial No. 90890949 (June 27, 2024) [precedential] (Opinion by Judge Christopher C. Larkin).

• Copyrights

  • The Verge ☛ Microsoft’s Hey Hi (AI) boss thinks it’s perfectly OK to steal content if it’s on the open web

    Microsoft Hey Hi (AI) boss Mustafa Suleyman incorrectly believes that the moment you publish anything on the open web, it becomes “freeware” that anyone can freely copy and use.

  • Digital Music News ☛ National Association of Broadcasters President Pushes Back on Recording Performance Royalties

    The National Association of Broadcasters President Curtis LeGeyt testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet against the American Music Fairness Act.