Leftovers

• RTL ☛ Controversial figure: Tom Cruise at Olympics would be 'disgrace', say French anti-cult groups

  Anti-cult activists like Katz and Delporte accused Scientologist of recruiting outside Olympic venues, including the Stade de France north of Paris, which will host the closing ceremony.

  "They are very present at the big sporting events, they will no doubt reach many young people, I am very worried," Delporte said.

  The movement describes itself as a religion but is considered a cult in France.

• Kev Quirk ☛ Ending the PenPals Experiment

  I'll still write notes and posts regularly, but I think the cadence will likely drop a little. I'm also going to get rid of the "One a month" thing, as it's never really sat well with me, and I don't want to be accountable to other people and feel like I owe them a post. I know those people won't feel that way, but it's how I feel.

  TL;DR I'm simplifying things a little. Not much though, just a little.

• US Navy Times ☛ How a TikTok video got one military officer court-martialed

  But they did, and in June, Dickerson was court-martialed for the video, charged with a violation of Article 133 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

• [Repeat] FSF ☛ Join us in saying goodbye to our beloved office on August 16!

  The FSF is officially going remote, so come visit the FSF office one last time. We've immensely enjoyed our nineteen years at 51 Franklin Street and have made so many wonderful memories here. We've celebrated many GNU and FSF birthdays, created signs for our multiple protests, and spent time together before and after multiple LibrePlanet conferences at our beloved office. We've gotten to meet and team up with so many amazing volunteers here, as well as welcome countless visitors to the FSF. We're so grateful for the many years that we called 51 Franklin Street our home, but the time has come for a change.

• Vintage Everyday ☛ The 16th Century Optical Illusion of Florence Cathedral’s Marble Tiles on Flat Floor

  In 1504 the Consuls of the Wool Guild and the masters of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore agreed on renovating the floor, beginning from the area around the choir octagon. In the four years left to him, Cronaca (d. 1508) oversaw the large part of this first task, as well as completing the floors of some radial chapels, among which the Chapel of San Tommaso. After resuming in 1520, the works continued without interruption under Baccio d'Agnolo, completing floor after floor: in 1524, around the choir; in 1525 in the Tribune of San Zanobi; in 1526 the Tribune of the Cross and in 1528 that of Sant'Antonio.

• Manton Reece ☛ Micro.blog survey results

  No surprise here that Mac and iOS are the majority considering my roots in the Apple developer community. I’m happy that Windows and Linux are starting to poke into the stats, though. That’s a good indication that we should continue to prioritize the web platform as the most complete, primary interface for Micro.blog.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • 404 Media ☛ Cops Used Facial Recognition on Lost iPhone Lock Screen to Find Post Office Robbers

    Two men face felony charges after allegedly bungling an attempt to rob a post office and two postal carriers, court documents show. According to court documents, police used facial recognition on a photo of the suspect on a phone dropped during the robbery.

  • [Repeat] Dedoimedo ☛ Samsung A54 long-term usage report 5

    Without going into too many details - after all, that's what the original review is for - I have a new phone, and I'm not too happy with it. The hardware is good, the camera is reasonable, the price is really nice, and it will have five years of updates and patches. Awesome. But the software is annoying, the Samsung ecosystem is really in-yer-face, the phone apps are many and pointless, and worst of all, some nine months later, I still occasionally have to fiddle with the phone, changing this or that little setting. All of these escapades are outlined in rich detail in four long-term reports. Start with the fourth, and work your way back. Now, let's see what this fifth review will bring.

• Science

  • Crooked Timber ☛ The not-so-strange shortage of conservative professors — Crooked Timber

    The fact that conservatives are thin in the humanities and social sciences departments of US college campuses is well known. A natural question, raised by Steven Teles, is whether the rarity of conservative professors in these fields reflects some form of direct or structural discrimination.

    But the disparities are even greater in the natural sciences. In 2009, a Pew survey of members of the AAAS found that only 6 per cent identified as Republicans and there is no reason to think this has changed in the subsequent 15 years. One obvious reason for this is that Republicans are openly anti-science on a wide range of issues, notably including climate science, evolution and vaccination.

  • Science Alert ☛ You're Not Indecisive, You're Unbiased. Science Says So.

    Turn that weakness into a strength!

  • New York Times ☛ Engineered Virus Steals Proteins From H.I.V., Pointing to New Therapy

    After promising results in monkeys, scientists plan to test the new treatment in a few people with H.I.V.

  • Science Alert ☛ NASA's SpaceX Rescue Plan May See Boeing Astronauts Stranded 8 Months

    It was only meant to be one week.

• Education

  • Lou Plummer ☛ Self Educated - Represent!

    I managed to hang on until I was 18 but that was it for me. I had two children by my 20th birthday so going to college the conventional way was out. I managed to find a career in an industry that was changing so rapidly that experience counted more than formal education and I was never motivated to seek a degree when I worked side by side with people who had them. If I'd gone to college and they made me take "Introduction to the Internet" or a class on Microsoft Office, I would have gone insane.

  • Logikal Solutions ☛ Six Sigma Was Always a Joke

    If you keep halving your staff, eventually you are down to one person that knows anything about multiple critical business systems.

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Poetry Was an Official Olympic Event for Nearly 40 Years. What Happened?

    The baron believed that humanity had “lost all sense of eurythmy,” a word he used to describe the harmony of arts and athletics. The idea can be traced back to sources such as Plato’s Republic, in which Socrates extolls the virtues of education that combines “gymnastic for the body and music for the soul.” Poets should become athletes, and athletes should try their hand at verse.

• Hardware

  • The Register UK ☛ Intel has a new GPU – for cars

    Termed the A760A, the discrete or dedicated graphics chip is the first the x86 giant has ever-launched for cars, at least in recent memory. Intel announced the silicon today at its AI Cockpit Innovation Experience event.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Intel targets opportunity for AI-powered cars in China with its first discrete GPU

    The new Intel Arc Graphics for Automotive dGPU was unveiled at the company’s AI Cockpit Innovation Experience, ahead of a mass rollout that’s planned to begin next year. According to the chipmaker, the new dGPU will be commercially deployed in vehicles in China starting in early 2025, unlocking a new era of “AI-driven cockpit experiences and enhanced personalization” for drivers and car manufacturers.

  • [Repeat]Security Week ☛ Over 40,000 Internet-Exposed ICS Devices Found in US: Censys

    An analysis conducted by internet intelligence platform Censys shows that there are more than 40,000 internet-exposed industrial control systems (ICS) in the United States, and notifying their owners about the exposure is in many cases impossible.

    Censys pointed out that more than half of these systems are likely associated with building control and automation, and roughly 18,000 are actually used to control industrial systems.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ AMD’s new 65 watt CPUs are a huge achievement

    The tech press are largely ambivilent towards AMD’s new Ryzen 9600X and 9700X CPUs, but Wendell from Level1Techs added some context 📺:

  • US News And World Report ☛ Nokia and Swisscom to Deploy Drone Service Across Switzerland

    The Finnish telecom gear maker will supply 300 un-manned vehicles that mobile provider Swisscom will operate through a drones-as-a-service (DaaS) network across the country.

    DaaS is a business model that allows clients to use drones on demand without having to buy or operate them.

    Swiss public safety agencies such as police or firefighters will be able to request a drone flight from Swisscom Broadcast and access collected data.

  • The Verge ☛ What PC makers like Dell and HP will do about Intel’s extended warranty

    There is no fix for Intel’s crashing 13th and 14th Gen Raptor Lake desktop processors. If your chip isn’t yet damaged, please apply motherboard BIOS updates early and often to prevent issues. If it’s already damaged, your only option is to exchange it.

    But what if you didn’t buy a chip — but, rather, an entire PC? Will PC makers have your back? Will they pass along the extra two years of warranty that Intel just theoretically granted them, or will they perhaps try to save money at your expense?

  • New York Times ☛ Why TSMC Has Struggled to Manufacture Chips in Arizona

    American officials have long been concerned about the country’s reliance on TSMC. Gina M. Raimondo, the U.S. commerce secretary, has said America buys 92 percent of its “leading edge” chips from Taiwan. The TSMC factory in Arizona stands as a test of American efforts to diversify its reliance on chips produced overseas.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • USMC ☛ Camp Lejeune water survivors urged to file claim before deadline

    Service members affected by toxic water at Camp Lejeune between Aug. 1, 1953, and Dec. 31, 1987, are eligible to file a claim.

  • US Navy Times ☛ Camp Lejeune water survivors urged to file claim before deadline

    The Navy is advising veterans exposed to contaminated water aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, to file their claim by the August 10 deadline.

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Your Microwave Is Teeming With Bacteria, Study Suggests | Smithsonian

    Researchers described their findings in a new paper published Wednesday in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

    Home cooks shouldn’t panic, however—their microwaves likely aren’t any dirtier than any other parts of the kitchen. However, the findings should serve as a reminder that these appliances need to be cleaned regularly, too.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Futurism ☛ MIT Economist Blasts AI Hype, Says It's Too Dumb to Really Impact Jobs

    In an interview with NPR, MIT economist and leading AI skeptic Daron Acemoglu made a case that the tech is simply far too dumb to have a major impact.

    When asked if generative AI would usher in revolutionary economic changes, Acemoglu had a straightforward answer.

    "No. No. Definitely not," Acemoglu told NPR. "I mean, unless you count a lot of companies over-investing in generative AI and then regretting it, a revolutionary change."

  • NPR ☛ 10 reasons why AI may be overrated : Planet Money

    Because there is quite a bit of uncertainty over how much AI will ultimately affect the economy — and because neither of us really wanted to regret making dumb prognostications — we chose to obscure our personal opinions on the matter. We flipped an AI-generated coin to determine which side of this debate each of us would take. I got "AI is overrated."

  • Security Week ☛ AWS Patches Vulnerabilities Potentially Allowing Account Takeovers

    The flaws could have also led to the exposure of sensitive data, denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, data exfiltration, and AI model manipulation.

    The vulnerabilities were found in AWS services such as CloudFormation, Glue, EMR, SageMaker, ServiceCatalog and CodeStar.

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ With Shared Software, Landlords Are Teaming Up to Raise Rents

    Last month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a city ordinance that would ban the use of algorithmic pricing software for rental housing. San Francisco’s housing crisis is among the very worst in the nation, with a constricted housing supply and massive wealth inequality pricing most people out of the ability to afford a home. This is happening while the city continues to enjoy steady economic growth according to the metrics that matter most for the wealthy.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Automattic rolls out AI-powered writing readability assistant for WordPress bloggers

    Jetpack is a set of tools and plugins for WordPress sites designed to improve security, performance and productivity developed and maintained by Automattic. Its features are available from the company for WordPress.com-hosted websites and as a plugin for self-hosted WordPress installations, which provide access to the Jetpack AI features and now Write Brief with AI.

  • CBC ☛ Social media platform X sues advertisers over alleged boycott after Musk's Twitter takeover

    The company formerly known as Twitter filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in a federal court in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted.

  • The Register UK ☛ X sues advertisers for ditching the social network

    Ever since Musk took over Twitter and fired the majority of its staff, let previously banned users back on, and banged on about things like the "woke mind virus," big-name brands have been wary of using the platform to push their wares. This wasn't helped last year when Musk, on stage at a conference, told advertisers to "go fuck themselves," although he has since tried to build bridges.

  • PC Gamer ☛ Sony says the 220 layoffs at Bungie were made in the name of—you guessed it—things like 'portfolio optimization' and enhancing 'the efficiency of the business'

    Post-layoff justifications are fast becoming their own brand of technobabble. In case you're out of the loop, Bungie laid off 220 employees late last month due to "rising costs of development", "economic conditions", and all the things you're used to hearing by now.

    The initial statement did at least paint some kind of proper picture. A model of "incubation projects" that "stretched our talent too thin, too quickly" was cited, with the layoffs characterised as a restructuring and refocusing on the studio's central games: Destiny and Marathon.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Wired ☛ Computer Crash Reports Are an Untapped Hacker Gold Mine

      At the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, Wardle made the case that crash reports are an underutilized tool. Such system snapshots give software developers and maintainers insight into possible problems with their code. And Wardle emphasizes that they can particularly be a fount of information about potentially exploitable vulnerabilities in software—for both defenders and attackers.

    • The Korea Times ☛ Trainee soldiers to use mobile phones at boot camp starting September

      The move comes nearly four years after the government eased mobile phone use regulations for conscripts after work in July 2020, allowing them to use their personal devices from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays, and from 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends and holidays.

      The ministry said it has no plan to further ease its regulations for conscripts, citing security concerns and side effects, such as soldiers engaging in illegal gambling or posting photos of their military units on social media.

  • Confidentiality

    • The Register UK ☛ Copilot, Studio bots are woefully insecure, says Zenity CTO

      "It's actually very difficult to create a [Copilot Studio] bot that is safe," Bargury told The Register in an interview ahead of his conference talks, "because all of the defaults are insecure."

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Local SE ☛ 'Swedish child soldiers' involved in 25 criminal cases in Denmark this year

    The minister has previously said Danish authorities take the trend “very, very seriously” and are working with Swedish counterparts to stamp out the apparent use of hired Swedish [sic] youths to commit crimes.

  • The Nation ☛ Project 2025 Is Coming for Your Rights

    The wholesale capture of the state is the ultimate goal of its Christian nationalist architects. Project 2025 simply clarifies just how they plan to implement their drive for power. Each of its sections—from “taking the reins of government” by centralizing executive authority in the office of the president to securing “the common defense” by expanding every branch of the military—is worth reviewing.

    The longest section focuses on “general welfare” and it should be no surprise that the departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development are subject to significant cutbacks, including: [...]

  • Futurism ☛ Analysis of Trump's Speech Finds Signs of Cognitive Decline

    Trump's affinity for word soup isn't new, but the increasing disarray of his speech is striking for the 78-year-old candidate. Case in point, a group of experts interviewed by STAT say that Trump's speech patterns have deteriorated in recent years, a common sign of worsening cognitive health.

    "There’s reasonable evidence suggestive of forms of dementia," clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis told STAT after reviewing recent Trump speeches. "The reduction in complexity of sentences and vocabulary does lead you to a certain picture of cognitive diminishment."

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Chinese-born academic convicted in US of spying for Beijing

    A prominent Chinese-born academic and author who feigned being a pro-democracy activist was convicted on Tuesday of acting as a covert Chinese agent, the Justice Department said.

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ 2 youths planned attacks on Taylor Swift’s Vienna concerts, authorities say – Twin Cities

    The youths accused of planning to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna had hoped to kill as many people as possible, Austrian authorities said Thursday, outlining a plot designed to copy some of the worst terrorist assaults of the last decade.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ ISIS-inspired suspect in Taylor Swift show planned suicide attack

    "The main perpetrator has confessed that he was supposed to carry out a suicide attack with two accomplices," said Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer.

  • France24 ☛ Three Taylor Swift concerts cancelled in Vienna over fears of extremist attack

    Ruf said the 19-year-old had pledged an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State group.

  • TMZ ☛ Taylor Swift's 'Eras' Concerts in Vienna Canceled Due to Planned Terrorist Attack

    Cops say both men were radicalized and had pledged allegiance to ISIS.

    Authorities believe the men had targeted one of the 3 shows that were slated to begin in Vienna this weekend.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Taylor Swift Concerts in Austria Canceled Over Terrorist Threat

    According to TMZ, Austrian authorities aren’t confident they’ve caught all the individuals involved in the “abstract” attack, though they say the threat has been “minimized.” Vienna police arrested two Austrian citizens, both of whom were “radicalized and had pledged allegiance to ISIS,” according to Vienna police chief Gerhard Pürstl.

  • Associated Press ☛ US ambassador to Japan to skip A-bomb memorial service in Nagasaki because Israel was not invited

    He will instead honor the victims of the Nagasaki atomic bombing at a ceremony at a Buddhist temple in Tokyo, it said.

  • Wired ☛ X Is Boosting the Far Right’s UK Riots as Telegram Scrambles for Control

    After the death of three children in Southport during a mass stabbing attack last week, which sparked the riots, conspiracies flooded social media platforms, including X. But it was on Telegram where much of the initial organization for the attacks took place.

    Far-right channels not only posted information on locations and times for protests, but shared information on how to construct Molotov cocktails and set fire to buildings, according to a WIRED review of multiple Telegram channels.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Conversation ☛ Forensic science cracks the ‘unsolvable’ case of a World War I soldier’s identity, enabling his re-burial

    Using this information, I conducted genealogical work and found a family member from his matriline in Montana. Beverly Dillon knew the story of her great uncle well and she read me the last letter he wrote as he shipped out to France from New York. Mitochondrial DNA is useful in identification. This is genetic material separate from the nuclear DNA. It is only inherited from the mother’s side and resides in the mitochondria, “organelles” inside our cells. This DNA is passed down from mothers to their children. Beverly’s mitochondrial DNA matched Pfc McAllister.

    This gave me enough statistical data to show that it was impossible for the remains to belong to anyone else. Finally, a family member from the male line provided a nuclear Y-chromosome DNA sample. This is genetic material passed down from fathers to sons. The identification of CIL 2004-101-I-02 could no longer be denied, Pfc Charles McAllister could finally be laid to rest with military honours in his hometown, Seattle.

• Environment

  • Michigan News ☛ E-bike access expanded on thousands of miles of Michigan trails

  • The Independent UK ☛ Common plastic packaging material linked to increased risk of autism in boys

    The study, published in Nature Communications, found that boys exposed in the womb to bisphenol A, or BPA as it is commonly known, are more likely to show autism symptoms by the age of two and six times more likely to be diagnosed with autism by age 11.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • DeSmog ☛ Alberta Premier Danielle Smith Still Won’t Mention Wildfire Links to Climate Change

    • Hindustan Times ☛ Dog starts house fire by chewing on battery pack! 5 steps to make sure pets stay safe when you are away from home

      A video recently went viral where a dog can be seen starting a house fire after chewing on battery packs. In the video, captured on the CCTV, a dog can be seen wandering inside the living room with another dog and a cat around. The dog can be seen carrying a battery pack in his mouth and sitting down on a mattress to chew on it. Suddenly the battery pack can be seen sparking, scaring the dogs. Then, the battery pack can be seen starting a fire on the doggie mattress which further spreads to the sofa, with the dogs watching.

    • India Times ☛ Watch: How a pet dog caused fire after it bites into mobile power bank

      Tulsa, Oklahoma – Local fire officials are urging pet owners to exercise caution after a recent house fire ignited by a curious canine. A dog chewed through a portable power bank, causing the lithium-ion battery to spark and ignite a blaze.

    • Wired ☛ AI Is Heating the Olympic Pool

      Yet France has a “very low-carbon electricity mix,” according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), with 62 percent of its electricity generated by nuclear power. And critics say multiplying heat-reuse projects are a distraction from the real issue: the amount of land, water, and electricity data centers consume. “When the data centers are already here, of course it's better to reuse the heat than do nothing,” says Anne-Laure Ligozat, computer science professor at France’s National School of Computer Science for Industry and Business (ENSIIE). “But the problem is the number of data centers and their energy consumption.” There would be less of an environmental impact to to have a basic electricity heating system without the data center, she adds.

    • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Circular battery self-sufficiency

      If we are going to survive the climate emergency, we will have to electrify – that is, transition from burning fossil fuels to collecting, storing, transmitting and using renewable energy generated by e.g. the tides, the wind, and (especially) the Sun.

    • Gannett ☛ Video: Dog chews lithium-ion battery, sparking Oklahoma house fire

      "Fire departments all over the country are seeing fires related to these batteries and we want the public to learn about usage, safe storage and proper disposal of these potentially dangerous batteries," the department noted.

  • Overpopulation

    • VOA News ☛ Malnutrition surging in Nigeria’s Bauchi state, aid group says

      Thierry Boyom, MSF's medical coordinator, said poverty is a key driver of malnutrition but not the only reason why the numbers are surging.

• Finance

  • Business Insider ☛ The full list of major US companies slashing staff this year, from Tesla and Lucid Motors to Google and Paramount

    Tech titans like IBM, Google, and Microsoft; finance leaders like Goldman Sachs, Citi, and BlackRock; entertainment behemoths like Pixar and Paramount; and corporate giants like Tesla, Dow, and Nike have all announced layoffs.

  • Martina Slabejová: Companies will need to adjust to the advent of AI [Ed: Hyping up a popping bubble, still]

    AmCham boss talks nascent tech, Ukraine war, labour shortages and her organisation’s 30th anniversary.

  • Axios Cuts 50 Jobs Amid Shifts In Media Industry

    American news website Axios is laying off about 50 employees, roughly 10% of its workforce, as announced in an internal memo from CEO Jim VandeHei. The Arlington, Virginia-based company cited a "rapidly changing media landscape" as the reason for the cuts.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Barents Observer ☛ Unavailable in Russia, users report

    Users all over the country complaining about the difficulty in accessing YouTube, according to the YouTube monitoring website and users The Barents Observer spoke to.

  • The Record ☛ UN cybercrime treaty passes in unanimous vote

    In an interview with Recorded Future News following the vote, he cited concerns that have been echoed by several other human rights and digital freedoms organizations.“We think this convention text that has advanced is insufficient in its human rights commitments,” Singh Chima said.

    “It does not have strong safeguards to prevent misuse of digital investigation and digital evidence powers in the 21st century,” he added. “It, in fact, would enable more surveillance and enable data access in a way that undermines people's trust in computers and in digital technology and directly puts people at risk.”

  • Vox ☛ Why Elon Musk’s X filed an antitrust lawsuit against advertisers

    Since having to buy the site for a painful $44 billion in 2022, Musk has tried to turn it into a haven of unmoderated speech. Critics have argued that the site, often called a “hellsite” for how toxic it could be even before the Musk era, became an unusable cesspit of vitriol and incoherent porn bots. Advertisers fled, because businesses don’t want to risk their ads showing up next to objectionable or outright illegal content, like child sexual abuse material. This is very bad for X, since, like other social media companies, it would go belly up without ad money. X contends this cessation of business is a “naked restraint of trade” because advertisers collectively forced the site to adhere to their content standards. It even had to lower its ad prices, the filing alleges.

    The lawsuit places the bulk of the blame on the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), an initiative launched in 2019 to establish a standard for brand safety across ad platforms. GARM’s membership, which was listed on the site as of August 6, includes consumer brands, ad agencies, and media companies where ads are served (such as Spotify and, up until recently, X), asking them to commit to a shared understanding of what counts as harmful or risky content that shouldn’t be monetized by ads. Membership is voluntary, and GARM says that individual advertisers ultimately decide how and where they advertise. It did not reply to a request for comment.

  • El País ☛ The siege on Google intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic

    After Monday’s U.S. ruling, whose penalties have yet to be announced, the spotlight is currently on Alphabet and its search engine. In its statement on the ruling, the company said: “This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine. Given this, and that people are increasingly looking for information in more and more ways, we plan to appeal,” it announced.

  • India Times ☛ digital transformation deals: Digital transformation deals back in play for IT industry with a cost twist

    Infosys and Wipro also secured deals from Sweden’s Ikea and Finland’s Nokia.

  • Axios ☛ Scoop: X files antitrust lawsuit against ad industry group GARM

    Why it matters: The lawsuit is part of a broader effort by conservative lawmakers and media companies to go after GARM, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media.

    Catch up quick: GARM was created by members of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) in 2019 to set standards around brand safety for digital advertisers. Members include major tech companies, advertisers, agencies, ad tech firms and advertising coalitions.

  • Sumana Harihareswara ☛ Tim Walz's Policy Approach

    A number of people on Bluesky, in the Fediverse, and elsewhere have been pointing to a recent speech of his. He spoke to a geographic information systems (GIS) conference run by the behemoth Esri on July 16th, discussing his personal story as a high school geography teacher and Esri user, and how maps and geographic data inform his policy work. Video's available on Esri's site and on YouTube, and the Minnesota Reformer has a text summary.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Guardian UK ☛ Trump lashes out at Harris and falsely claims no one was killed on January 6

      Struggling in the polls and charged with running a lackluster presidential campaign, Donald Trump faced reporters on Thursday for an hour-long press conference that swiftly descended into a familiar mess of freewheeling invective, outlandish claims and outright lies.

    • US News And World Report ☛ FACT FOCUS: A Look at Claims Made by Trump at News Conference

      In his first news conference since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, former President Donald Trump said he would debate her on Sept. 10 and pushed for two more debates. The Republican presidential nominee spoke for more than an hour, discussing a number of issues facing the country and then taking questions from reporters. He made a number of false and misleading claims. Many of them have been made before.

    • RFA ☛ Did a South Korean legislator propose changing the country’s name?

      A claim has been repeatedly shared in Chinese-language social media posts that a South Korean politician proposed changing the country’s name to a transliteration of the English word “Korea”.

      But the claim is false. No such proposal has been made. The claim has circulated online since as early as 2008.

    • India Times ☛ Elon Musk stirs UK divisions, sparks calls for faster rollout of online safety laws

      Elon Musk has been accused of exacerbating tensions after a week of far-right rioting in Britain, sparking calls for the government to speed up the rollout of laws policing harmful online content.

      Misinformation and calls to violence have spread on social media over the past week after far-right and anti-Muslim groups seized on the fatal stabbing of three young girls in the English town of Southport.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Advertising coalition disbands after lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X

    When the news about the lawsuit hit this week, experts weighed in, saying it was likely that GARM and the companies working under it would be protected by the First Amendment, but WFA Chief Executive Stephen Loerke said today that there weren’t enough resources to fight the lawsuit, despite the decision to disband “not made lightly.”

  • RFERL ☛ Executions In Iran Show No Sign Of Letting Up As 36 Hanged In 2 Days

    Iran executed 36 people on August 6-7, including 26 in a group execution in one prison, a rights group said on August 7, a day after Tehran faced international condemnation for executing an Iranian activist arrested during the "Women, Life, Freedom" protests.

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Russian Military Blogger Jailed for Criticizing Armed Forces

    The blogger fought alongside Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine when fighting first broke out in 2014, but he later expressed views that were more critical of the military, the independent news website Mediazona reported.

    Shortly after Moscow launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, authorities banned any criticism of the country's armed forces. Since then, the authorities have detained thousands of people for spreading "fakes" about the military.

  • [Repeat] RFA ☛ No TokTok in Tibetan

    Tibetan users of Douyin, the ByteDance-owned TikTok equivalent in China, are complaining that all content in their language is being censored. They say posts in Tibetan – even those without political content about the sensitive Himalayan region – have been deleted.

  • [Repeat] ACLU ☛ High School Students Explain Why We Can’t Let Classroom Censorship Win

    The ACLU has challenged classroom censorship laws and book bans nationwide as part of its broader efforts to defend education equity. To better understand who these censorship attempts harm and how young people are being impacted, this back-to-school season, we spoke to high school students from across the country at the ACLU’s annual National Advocacy Institute about how classroom censorship has impacted their right to learn.

  • PC World ☛ ProtonVPN unveils new anti-censorship features, and more

    Finally, Proton announced that it has added 12 new country locations to its VPN server network. These include Afghanistan, Bahrain, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Yemen. All of which Proton notes are at the bottom of the Freedom House Index and the Democracy Index.

  • Deseret Media ☛ Lawsuit to move 'free speech zone' closer to prison for execution is denied

    The free speech zone is a section of blocked-off roadway marked by a flashing road sign and a perimeter of flood lights. It is closer to the interstate than the correction facility, which lies behind one of the abundant white and gray distribution centers the size of city blocks.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • [Repeat] Press Gazette ☛ Journalists facing 'appalling harassment and abuse' amid riots

    “A free press and being able to report without intimidation or fear is an essential part of our democracy. The safety of news crews and other media workers must be absolutely paramount.”

    Tim Dawson, IFJ deputy general secretary said: “At a time when untrue information is rife, the work of journalists is all the more crucial, and is dependent on the ability of reporters and photographers to do their work.

    “Those who attack journalists are attacking democracy, and undermining everyone’s right to know. They must be protected and safeguarded – just as should be the vulnerable communities who are targeted.”

  • CPJ ☛ Pakistani journalist in hiding after police raid his home over protest reports

    Pakistani police have raided the home of digital journalist Usman Khan three times, forcing him into hiding to avoid detention for his coverage of protests over alleged human rights abuses in southwestern Baluchistan province.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • FAIR ☛ ‘DEI Has Become the New N-Word’: CounterSpin interview with Tim Wise on 'DEI hires'

  • EFF ☛ Reintroducing the EFA

    But the network is bigger than EFF. EFA is composed of its members, and relies on dedicated local advocates, educators, and hackers to help drive the work forward. If you’re part of a not-for-profit community group, we encourage you to apply.

  • VOA News ☛ Russian prosecutors seek 15-year sentence for US-Russian woman

    Khavana was detained in February while on a trip to visit relatives in Yekaterinburg. She was accused of treason for donating $51 to a United States charity that helps bring aid to Ukraine amid its ongoing war with Russia.

    The charity, Razom, says that it supplies items like first aid kits and clean water to Ukraine.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Managers want remote work to end

    Managers need to understand that it’s (a) culture, (2) flexibility, and (Γ) pay that move the needle. Some people, like me, prefer being in an office a couple of days a week. Others don’t. How you respond to that reality determines how well you’ll retain staff. It’s as simple as that.

  • JURIST ☛ HRW report holds Russia accountable for increased crackdown on civil liberties following invasion of Ukraine

    The report also points out that following the invasion of Ukraine, numerous laws were quickly enacted to censor information about the military’s decisions, with serious consequences for those who deviated from the official narrative, highlighting that over 480 people have been prosecuted under these war censorship laws. In furtherance of the conclusions highlighted in its 205-page study, the organization pressed the Russian government to abolish these oppressive regulations and work towards creating an atmosphere favourable to civil society, emphasizing that the country’s present trajectory is a return to previous tyranny rather than a step forward for rights.

  • Federal News Network ☛ More agencies turn to AI to fix website accessibility issues

    Carter said enhancing digital accessibility can also lead to unexpected benefits for a broad range of users.

    Carter cited a study from YPulse, a market research firm that specializes in Gen Z and Millennials, that a vast majority of Gen Z respondents and more than half of Millennials preferred closed-captioning for videos.

  • [Repeat] RFERL ☛ Russia's Stifling Of Civic Freedoms Dramatically Up Since Ukraine Invasion, Rights Watchdog Says

    The government of President Vladimir Putin's more-than-a-decade-old, systematic break-up of Russians' fundamental rights went into overdrive over the past two years, making not only dissent, but even openly critical discussion in Russian society a punishable offense and forcing many people to leave the country while hundreds others have been thrown behind bars for long prison terms after arbitrary sentences, the report said.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Assam launches financial incentive scheme for girl students to end child marriage

    The scheme—Mukhya Mantrir Nijut Moina Asoni (MMNMA)—is expected to cover around one million girl students and cost the exchequer Rs.300 crore in the first year and around Rs.1500 crore over a five-year period, government officials familiar with the matter said.

    According to the state government, the scheme would increase the enrollment ratio of girls in schools, colleges, and universities, and around 200,000 more girl students are expected to enroll in educational institutions this year.

  • JURIST ☛ American Bar Association calls for investigation of human rights violations in Tibet

    In a landmark development, the American Bar Association (ABA) has adopted a resolution urging the United States and the United Nations to investigate human rights violations in Tibet. Resolution 502, passed on August 5 at the ABA’s Annual General Meeting in Chicago, marks the first time the organization has taken a stance on the issue of Tibet, and “recommends measures to address ongoing atrocity crimes in Tibet”.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • India Times ☛ TRAI has a 'ban warning' for companies: If these links or files are shared after September 1, all telcos will bar you

    In a decisive move to combat the menace of spam calls, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has announced stringent measures against entities misusing bulk connections. Effective immediately, telecom operators -- Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and BSNL -- will be required to disconnect the services of any entity found to be making spam calls through PRI or SIP connections.

  • The Register UK ☛ Verisign under fire for increasing .com prices every year

    Verisign, in consultation with ICANN, has been given the authority to periodically raise the wholesale price of .com domains. Domain registrars (the retail sellers of domain names) then add whatever markup works for their business and pass that cost on to their customers.

  • IT Wire ☛ Southern Cross Cable deploys FibreSense subsea monitoring capability

    Deep-tech fibre sensing company FiberSense and subsea cable provider Southern Cross Cable (SX) implemented FiberSense’s DigitalMarine subsea cable monitoring capability across SX’s New Zealand shore-end infrastructure.

    The capability provides 24x7 monitoring of both shore-ends (from cable landing station to first repeater) as well as the terrestrial network connecting the two landing stations, providing total “always on” cover.

  • C4ISRNET ☛ Air Force Research Lab eyes space data transport demo in 2026

    Andy Williams, AFRL’s deputy technology officer for space, said the group is making progress on its first task: helping the Space Warfighting Analysis Center, SWAC for short, determine whether its plans for a future network of data transport satellites are feasible.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Digital Music News ☛ Billie Eilish is About to Make History with 100M Spotify Followers

    Billie Eilish was made for breaking records. The “bad guy” singer became only the third artist and the youngest overall to reach 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify back in June, achieving the feat with less than half the number of tracks in her catalog as the two artists who precede her, Taylor Swift and The Weeknd. Now, the 22-year-old is crossing the 100 million Spotify followers threshold — yet again taking on Taylor Swift’s reign.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Silicon Angle ☛ UK antitrust regulator launches probe into Amazon’s Anthropic partnership

  The regulator stated in its brief announcement of the probe that it now has “sufficient information” about the partnership for an inquiry. The probe’s goal is to determine whether the companies’ collaboration should be referred to a Phase 2 antitrust investigation. Such an investigation could potentially lead the CMA to order that Amazon and Anthropic change certain terms of their partnership.

• Matt Birchler ☛ You thought that was good news? Sucker!

  Anyway, this is all really annoying and I wish they would treat these required changes the way they’ve treated things like adopting USB-C or RCS where they do them well and lean into how they make their users’ lives better. This whole affair looks so petty.

• Jeff Triplett ☛ Jeff Triplett's Micro.blog

  Eric Holscher posted this post today, and I wanted to share my speculation.

  Calling it now:

  Google stops paying Apple & Mozilla for search Apple ships search (probably buys DDG or similar) Apple pays Mozilla to be default search engine

• CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: The Google antitrust remedy should extinguish surveillance, not democratize it

  The big guns, though are the structural remedies. The court could order Google to sell off parts of its business, like its ad-tech stack, through which it represents both buyers and sellers in a marketplace it owns, and with whom it competes as a buyer and a seller. There's already proposed, bipartisan legislation to do this (how bipartisan? Its two main co-sponsors are Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren!): [...]

• Trademarks

  • Right of Publicity

    • Futurism ☛ Google Caught Taking Money to Promote AI Apps That Create Nonconsensual Nudes

      As caught by 404, searches for terms like "undress apps" and "best deepfake nudes" display paid advertisements for websites offering services like "NSFW AI Image Generator" and other readily available AI tools that can be used to create explicit imagery of real people without their consent.

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Japan vs. Manga Piracy: $800m Losses & 100 New Pirate Sites in One Month

    The continued rise of Japanese manga is accompanied by interesting facts, figures, and curiosities alike. Of all graphic novels sold in the U.S. during 2023, half were manga. Of those who consume manga digitally in Japan, the most prolific are the over 50s; half read manga every day. Estimates show that over 1,300 pirate sites offer manga and in a recent single month, 100 new pirate manga sites appeared online. Cost to the industry: $800m per month.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ U.S. Copyright Groups Urge Canada to Prioritize Anti-Piracy Enforcement

    The IIPA, which represents the MPA, RIAA, and other entertainment industry groups, believes that Canada could and should do more to tackle online piracy. The association argues that anti-piracy efforts, in the broadest sense, should be prioritized. In addition, copyright exceptions that, by IIPA's standards, grant the public too much freedom, should be scrapped.

  • Matt Birchler ☛ NVIDIA is consuming a lifetime of YouTube per day and they probably aren’t even paying for Premium!

    I’m not a lawyer (something I find myself having to say more often these days), but it does feel slimy to use data that was collected with permission to perform academic research and then use it to do something totally different (and far more commercial). Again, not sure on the legality, but it feels to me like when you send someone a private photo and then they post that photo to social media without asking you if you’re okay with it.

  • Variety ☛ Cate Blanchett Says 'No One Got Paid Anything' for 'Lord of the Rings'

    Blanchett is not the only “Lord of the Rings” star who’s expressed how low their pay was for the fantasy epic. Last year on “The Howard Stern Show,” Orlando Bloom, who plays Legolas, said he was paid just $175,000 for all three movies.

    “I basically got free sandwiches, and I got to keep my [elf] ears,” Blanchett said of her “Lord of the Rings” salary on “Watch What Happens Live.”

  • Wired ☛ Generative AI Has a 'Shoplifting' Problem. This Startup CEO Has a Plan to Fix It

    AI companies often argue that they need vast troves of data to create cutting-edge generative tools and that scraping data from the internet, whether it’s text from websites, video or captions from YouTube, or books pilfered from pirate libraries, is legally allowed. Gross doesn’t buy that argument. “I think it’s bullshit,” he says.

    So do plenty of media executives, artists, writers, musicians, and other rights-holders who are pushing back—it’s hard to keep up with the constant flurry of copyright lawsuits filed against AI companies, alleging that the way they operate amounts to theft.

• Gemini* and Gopher

  • Science

    • News and Links (publ. 2024-08-08)

      This layman-level explanation was helpful to me. I think it is important, when hearing about things supposed "proven by science", to understand whether or not the scientific method is actually being used, and if the variables are all really identically between your test subject(s) and your control subject(s)