Leftovers

• Robert Birming ☛ Letting Go

  When we let go, we begin to let in.

• Alvaro Montoro ☛ Bad CSS-Dad Jokes

  So, here you go: a collection of some really bad CSS-dad jokes. Several have already made it to the comiCSS site. Some others may end up as a cartoon sooner rather than later. Some are originals, and many are adaptations of existing dad jokes. None of them are AI-generated. All of them are wonderfully awful... and, unfortunately (for you), you are in for some (questionable) CSS fun!

• Manuel Moreale ☛ On People and Blogs and courtesy

  The TL;DR; of the situation is that I got in touch with him—as I often do, you all know I love emails—and asked him if he wanted to be a guest on the series. He declined, which is perfectly fine. He’s not the first person to say no and I’m certain he’s not going to be the last. But he also provided some feedback to me via email first and then in a more public way on his blog and since his thoughts are now out in the open I’m happy to address them.

• Neil Selwyn ☛ Digital technologies are no longer something (if they ever were) that unequivocally make us feel good

  I am just finishing off the final draft of a new book (Digital Degrowth: Radically Rethinking our Digital Futures) and having to cut out a few thousand words to meet the word limit … I’ll post some of these lost excepts on this blog.

• Jim Nielsen ☛ Personal Websites Are As Vulnerable As Us

  To me, they’re living the personal website dream! But they don’t feel that way. They seem to feel…well the same way I feel about my personal website.

• Science

  • Task And Purpose ☛ Space Force guardian to lead mission to return space station crew

    Space Force guardian Col. Nick Hague will lead a NASA mission to the International Space Station that will retrieve two astronauts who have been stranded on the station due to problems with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.

  • Futurism ☛ NASA's Experimental Solar Sail Is Tumbling in Orbit

    A solar sail is designed to capture the tiny amounts of radiation pressure exerted by sunlight to propel a spacecraft to incredible speeds. The advantages are numerous: by acting like a sailing ship in space, a solar sail-powered spacecraft would be relatively simple in its construction and wouldn't rely on heavy and costly propellants.

    That's why it was so exciting when NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) mission was deployed to put the concept to the test. The microwave-sized CubeSa unfurled its 860-square-foot sail in a low-Earth orbit on August 29 after launching into space on April 23.

    Whether it's working properly in the week since is an open question, though. As a NASA spokesperson conceded to Live Science, the diminutive spacecraft has subsequently begun "tumbling or wobbling" in orbit. Its fate remains unknown, as the motion was reportedly expected.

  • CBC ☛ EEG brain scans set to transform medicine, experts say

    In a commentary in the latest issue of the journal Nature Human Behaviour, Faisal Mushtaq, a professor of cognitive science and the director of the Centre for Immersive Technologies at the University of Leeds in England, and his team discuss responses to a survey of more than 500 experts who work with EEG — from neuroscientists to brain surgeons.

• Education

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Guest Post: College Closures and the Implications for Libraries and Vendors - The Scholarly Kitchen

    In the first half of 2024, institutions of higher education in the United States closed permanently at the rate of one per week, according to one estimate, with little sign of slowing down. Where the author lives in Pennsylvania, eight colleges have closed, consolidated, or announced plans to do so since January 2024 alone. These closures directly impact small private colleges and the communities built around them, but closures also ripple throughout the academy, disbanding libraries and archives and endangering access to and preservation of the scholarly record.

  • Techdirt ☛ Is Your Google Scholar Profile Looking A Bit Empty? Need To Bulk Up Your Citations? Simple – Buy Some

    There will always be unscrupulous researchers who try to game the system of academic evaluations, and others willing to help for a fee. As many scholars have been arguing for years, the real solution to all these abuses is not to tackle them piecemeal, but to change the entire system of academic appraisals. Another benefit of doing so would be to break the stranglehold that journals with high “impact factors” have on the scholarly world. That would allow an open access title to compete for papers based on its merits, not on its perceived importance for career progression.

  • Lou Plummer ☛ Books and More Books, Never Enough

    These days I have stacks of books in my house waiting for me to read them. I'll get around to them all at some point. but by then, I'll probably have many more stacked around them also waiting to be read. I have never let the presence of unread books dissuade me from buying even more. I like choices, you know?

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Build Yourself A Beautiful Interactive Light Toy

    Sometimes, we build things with LEDs as indicator lamps or to illuminate something important. Sometimes, we build things with LEDs purely to glow and be beautiful. This interactive light toy from [Jens] falls into the latter category.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Diamond-based quantum accelerators to be integrated into Oak Ridge National Laboratory's HPC

    Quantum Brilliance (QB) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have announced a strategic collaboration that will integrate the former’s diamond-based quantum accelerators with the latter’s state-of-the-art high performance computing (HPC) infrastructure.

  • Wired ☛ YubiKeys Are a Security Gold Standard—but They Can Be Cloned

    The cryptographic flaw, known as a side channel, resides in a small microcontroller used in a large number of other authentication devices, including smartcards used in banking, electronic passports, and the accessing of secure areas. While the researchers have confirmed all YubiKey 5 series models can be cloned, they haven’t tested other devices using the microcontroller, such as the SLE78 made by Infineon and successor microcontrollers known as the Infineon Optiga Trust M and the Infineon Optiga TPM. The researchers suspect that any device using any of these three microcontrollers and the Infineon cryptographic library contains the same vulnerability.

  • Trail of Bits ☛ What would you do with that old GPU?

    Surely these older GPUs—which are still racked, installed, and functional, with their capital costs already paid—aren’t just going to be thrown in the dump… are they?

    Please don’t do that! Here at Trail of Bits, we want to use old GPUs—even those past their official end of life—to solve interesting computer security and program analysis problems. If you’re planning to dispose of a rack of old GPUs, don’t! We’d love to chat about extending the useful life of your capital investment.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Greg Morris ☛ Engagement Farming For Reward

    Should users just choose to log out for a bit because of the constant barrage of open-ended questions with 500 replies, you can’t even get away from it on Instagram. I am inundated with “someone started a Thread” or I get red bubbles encouraging me to log in and read all the replies. Only to be treated by these useless things.

    What am I supposed to do with that information exactly? Jump up and down with glee? Try harder for that hit of dopamine? No thanks, I am out.

  • Michigan Advance ☛ Swing state voters say they don’t want to criminalize abortion

    Steven Kull, the director of University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation, told States Newsroom that the study makes it clear that voters do not want state abortion bans, regardless of how they feel about abortion.

  • Axios ☛ More kids are riding electric school buses this fall

    Why it matters: Exhaust from diesel buses is linked to serious health and development conditions for children, especially in low-income communities.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • EFF ☛ EFF & 140 Other Organizations Call for an End to AI Use in Immigration Decisions

    The letter is signed by a wide range of organizations, from civil liberties nonprofits to immigrant rights groups, to government accountability watchdogs, to civil society organizations. Together, we declared that DHS’s use of AI, defined by the White House as “a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions influencing real or virtual environments,” appeared to violate federal policies governing its responsible use, especially when it’s used as part of the decision-making regarding immigration enforcement and adjudications.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ AI: Money-making machine or a billion-dollar sinkhole?

    Christian Temath from an initiative called KI NRW, which seeks to promote AI use in the German state of Northrhine-Westfalia says that practical applications that lead to greater efficiencies in companies and large-scale productivity gains have yet to emerge. "I don't think every billion currently being spent on computing capacity in the US will be recouped one-to-one," he told DW.

  • Techdirt ☛ The AI Copyright Hype: Legal Claims That Didn’t Hold Up

    Over the past year, two dozen AI-related lawsuits and their myriad infringement claims have been winding their way through the court system. None have yet reached a jury trial. While we all anxiously await court rulings that can inform our future interaction with generative AI models, in the past few weeks we have suddenly been flooded by news reports with titles such as “US Artists Score Victory in Landmark AI Copyright Case,” “Artists Land a Win in Class Action Lawsuit Against A.I. Companies,” “Artists Score Major Win in Copyright Case Against AI Art Generators”—and the list goes on. The exuberant mood in these headlines mirror the enthusiasm of people actually involved in this particular case (Andersen v. Stability AI). The plaintiffs’ lawyer calls the court’s decision “a significant step forward for the case.” “We won BIG,” writes the plaintiff on X.

    In this blog post, we’ll explore the reality behind these headlines and statements. The “BIG” win in fact describes a portion of the plaintiffs’ claims surviving a pretrial motion to dismiss. If you are already familiar with the motion to dismiss per Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 12(b)(6), please refer to Part II to find out what types of claims have been dismissed early on in the AI lawsuits.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ US man raked in millions from AI-generated songs played by bots on streaming platforms

    Smith created songs using AI, though the software he employed is as yet unknown. He then bought email addresses and created an army of bots, which over seven years listened to his songs billions of times, generating lots of money in royalties.

    Smith’s scheme was elaborate, to say the least. Prosecutors say to avoid detection, he would create so many songs that no one track was listened to too many times. His song names and band names mimicked real songs and bands – perhaps indie bands – with titles such as “Zygotic Washstands” and “Zyme Bedewing” and artist names such as “Calvinistic Dust” and “Callous Post.”

  • New York Times ☛ Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Defends App in First Comments Since Arrest

    Mr. Durov’s case has become a point of contention in the politically charged debate over the limits of free speech on the [Internet]. Telegram is committed to light supervision of what people say or do on the platform. The app has helped people living under authoritarian governments communicate and organize. But it has also become a hothouse for disinformation, extremism and other harmful content.

  • The Verge ☛ YouTube is making new tools to protect creators from AI copycats

    YouTube is developing new tools that aim to give creators on the platform more control over content that copies their voice or likeness using generative AI. In its announcement post, YouTube said the new likeness management tech will help to safeguard its creators and partners while enabling them to “harness AI’s creative potential” by promoting responsible AI development.

  • The Verge ☛ Telegram will start moderating private chats after CEO’s arrest

    But at the time of this writing, that sentence has been removed. Instead, has been replaced with: “All Telegram apps have ‘Report’ buttons that let you flag illegal content for our moderators — in just a few taps,” followed by instructions on how to report content.

  • MacRumors ☛ Mac OS X Snow Leopard Launched 15 Years Ago Today With '0 New Features'

    With Snow Leopard, Apple said it refined 90% of the foundational "projects" that were built into Mac OS X. Apple pitched the update as offering a more responsive Finder app, an improved Mail app that loads emails up to twice as fast as before, up to 80% faster Time Machine backups, and a 64-bit version of Safari that was up to 50% faster than the previous version. Snow Leopard also took up around half as much disk space as Leopard.

  • New Statesman ☛ AI will never understand what makes writing great

    Forced to concede that AI was, in fact, being used in precisely the way my friends warned, I tried to comforted myself. Yes, AI could replace many kinds of writing, including some that I do myself. But it could surely never produce literary fiction.

  • Wired ☛ Why It's So Hard to Fully Block X in Brazil

    With Brazil's population of 215 million people, its mature democracy, its sprawling land mass, and more than 20,000 [Internet] service providers, blocking a web platform in the South American nation isn't straightforward. And while the biggest ISPs have implemented the ban, many are still scrambling to comply with the order, leaving a patchwork of access to the site.

  • VOA News ☛ Like Brazil, the European Union also has an X problem

    But if Musk's reactions are anything to go by, another showdown is on the cards.

    When the EU in July accused X of deceptive practices in violation of the DSA, Musk warned: "We look forward to a very public battle in court."

    The temperature was raised even further a month later with another war of words on social media between Musk and the EU's top tech enforcer, Thierry Breton.

  • Otávio C ☛ The day I emailed Tim Cook

    I visited a couple of authorized stores in my city, where I was informed that I would need to leave the computer with them for a month. This duration was required for them to request, receive, and replace the part.

    I decided to contact the Apple Store directly, explaining that leaving the notebook at an authorized store for an entire month was not feasible. However, I was informed that this was the standard procedure for Apple’s relationship with authorized stores in Brazil—they were required to retain the device during the repair process.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Older YubiKeys compromised by unpatchable 2FA bug — side-channel attack is critical, but expensive and difficult to execute

      A critical security vulnerability has been discovered affecting many YubiKey two-factor authentication devices, breaking their security with no patch in sight. Yubico's security advisory confirmed that Yubikey 5 and Security Key Series prior to firmware 5.7 are forever vulnerable to a high-level cloning attack. However, the average user should not worry too much about the vulnerability.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • The Hill ☛ Texas sues Biden administration to block abortion privacy rule

      The rule prohibits the disclosure of protected health information related to reproductive health care in certain circumstances.

      In the suit, filed against the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Texas argued that the rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

    • India Times ☛ Meta partners with Telangana govt on e-gov, citizen services leveraging AI tech

      Meta has announced a two-year partnership with the Telangana government to enhance e-governance and citizen services using AI technologies. The collaboration aims to empower public officials and citizens with emerging technologies like AI, focusing on improving public service delivery and government efficiency through Meta's open-source generative AI technologies.

    • The Register UK ☛ Aspects of FDP lack legal basis, lawyers tell NHS England

      The FDP is being built by US spy-tech biz Palantir following the award of a £330 million seven-year contract by NHS England, a non-departmental public body under the Department of Health and Social Care. The total four-year budget for the project is actually £485 million, The Register revealed weeks ago.

      In December last year, a group of campaign organizations led by Foxglove began preparing a legal challenge alleging there is no lawful basis to create the FDP, as described in procurement documents, within the current legal directions used to obtain and share data within the NHS.

• Defence/Aggression

  • New Eastern Europe ☛ What if Ukraine will lose? What if Ukraine will win?

    The war in Ukraine is now reaching a turning point that could see the war-torn country either win or lose the conflict. The West is subsequently faced with the question of whether it will truly back Kyiv in its aim to achieve victory. Such a decision will have consequences for the entire world order.

  • The Hill ☛ Donald Trump advocates for TikTok, attacks Kamala Harris for ban

    Both campaigns recognize the importance of TikTok to young voters, who have trended more conservative in this election cycle than in past cycles.

  • Hakai Magazine ☛ The Big Baltic Bomb Cleanup

    The ocean became a dumping ground for weapons after Allied forces defeated the Nazis. Now a team of robots and divers are making the Baltic Sea safer.

  • New York Times ☛ Boko Haram Kills at Least 170 Villagers in Nigeria Attack

    Boko Haram killed at least 170 villagers in northeastern Nigeria, community leaders say, in what is likely one of the deadliest attacks in recent years.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ US charges Hamas leader, other militants in connection with Oct. 7 massacre in Israel

    The seven-count criminal complaint filed in federal court in New York City includes charges such as conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization resulting in death, conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals and conspiracy to finance terrorism. It also accuses Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah of providing financial support, weapons, including rockets, and military supplies to Hamas for use in attacks.

  • NDTV ☛ The Man Who Predicted Hamas' October 7 Invasion Of Israel Days In Advance

    On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian group Hamas, backed by Iran, launched a devastating invasion into southern Israel, resulting in one of the deadliest attacks in the country's recent history.

  • Energy Mix Productions Inc ☛ Scientists Urge Hope as Climate Crisis Reaches Critical Crossroads

    Navigating the climate crisis elicits both “gut-wrenching despair” and hope for the future, say researchers, raising the alarm over global heating while continuing to record progress.

  • RFERL ☛ Explainer: Putin's Mongolia Visit Shows Limits Of International Criminal Court

    It isn't clear, however, how exactly Mongolia might be sanctioned for failing to arrest the Russian president.

    One possibility would be removing both Mongolia's judge from the ICC and removing the country from the list of signatories and ratifiers of the Rome Statute.

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Russia Secretly Buying Sensitive Electronics From India – FT

    Russia has set up a covert trade route to obtain critical electronics from India for its war in Ukraine, the Financial Times reported Thursday, citing leaked government documents and anonymous sources.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ 12-year-old suffers cardiac arrest cause of chroming, a dangerous and viral social media trend

    Although this trend is highly harmful, particularly for children, breathing these compounds produces a temporary "euphoric effect." According to the American Addiction Centers, chroming is popular among Generation Z, and experimentation rates have increased for individuals aged 16 to 24 following the epidemic. The craze has gained popularity on TikTok, with millions of views on videos tagged "Whiptok," according to The New York Post.

  • Defence Web ☛ US military is leaving Niger even less secure: why it didn’t succeed in combating terrorism

    The landlocked nation in west Africa recently announced it was ending military cooperation with the US after 11 years. This was after the military in Niger overthrew the country’s democratically elected president.

    Niger has been a strategic military partner of several countries, including the US, France, Germany, Italy and Russia. In addition to helping west African countries fight terrorism, these countries were also there to promote and secure their own economic and commercial interests.

  • VOA News ☛ At least 81 killed in Nigeria in suspected Boko Haram attack, officials say

    "Around 150 suspected Boko Haram terrorists armed with rifles and RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] attacked Mafa ward on more than 50 motorcycles around 1600 hours on Sunday," said Abdulkarim Dungus, a Yobe state police spokesperson.

  • VOA News ☛ Russia weaponized migration to help bolster populists, say Latvian experts

    European Union governments have accused Russia of "weaponizing" migration by helping illegal migrants cross into the EU, stoking political tensions in countries such as Finland, Poland and Latvia. Latvian political observers say this tactic, in part, led to the gains of far-right parties in European elections this year. Henry Wilkins reports from Riga, Latvia

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • New York Times ☛ Dismissing Kursk, Putin Says Ukraine’s East Is Russia’s Main Goal

      Dismissing Ukraine’s recent invasion of Kursk, the Russian leader said Kyiv made a mistake in trying to force Moscow to divert its forces from the Donbas region.

    • RFERL ☛ Serbian Deputy PM Assures Putin That Russia Is An 'Ally'

      Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin has offered assurances to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Belgrade is an "ally of Russia" as well as a strategic partner.

    • RFERL ☛ 'Feel What We Feel': Syrskiy Says Kursk Incursion Prevented Russian Attacks

      Russia was planning to attack Ukraine from the Kursk region before Ukraine launched its cross-border incursion last month, Ukraine’s top military commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy, said in an interview broadcast on September 5.

    • RFERL ☛ Serbian President Says He Will Not Attend BRICS Summit In Russia, Despite Invite

      Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic says he will not attend an upcoming BRICS summit, despite receiving an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    • RFERL ☛ White House Says Putin Should 'Stop Interfering' After Backing Harris

      The White House called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to "stop interfering" in U.S. elections after he stated his support for Vice President Kamala Harris at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on September 5.

    • Latvia ☛ Several phone scammers detained in Latvia

      Phone scammers have defrauded residents in Riga, Latgale and Kurzeme of a total of around €407,450 in the last month. The State Police have detained several Ukrainian citizens on suspicion of the crime. The detainees do not have a residence permit in Latvia and have entered the country temporarily, the police said September 5.

    • Latvia ☛ Man gets prison sentence after assaulting Ukrainians

      The Vidzeme District Court in Cēsis has sentenced Edgars Romals from Mālpils, born in 1981,  to a year and eight months in prison for publicly praising a war crime and inciting national hatred against Ukrainians, writes "Latvijas Avīze" newspaper.

    • Security Week ☛ Russian GRU Unit Tied to Assassinations Linked to Global Cyber Sabotage and Espionage

      A secretive Russian military unit, previously linked to assassinations and destabilization in Europe, is blamed for destructive wiper malware attacks in Ukraine.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Cadet Blizzard hacking group linked to unit of Russia’s GRU

      A hacking group known as Cadet Blizzard has been revealed to associated with a unit of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. A group of government agencies from the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Canada, Ukraine and a number of other countries disclosed the discovery today.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Too many still view Ukraine through the prism of Russian imperialism

      Far too many Western newspaper editors, academics, and cultural commentators continue to view Ukraine through the distorting lens of Russian imperialism, writes Olesya Khromeychuk.

    • Defence Web ☛ Russia sends Africans to fight in Ukraine

      Among a handful of prisoners of war captured in Ukraine after fighting for Russia, a young Somali man stood out. He said he joined the army to give his family a “good future,” and was told he would be a “helper” doing logistics and first aid.

    • France24 ☛ 🔴 Live: UK to supply Ukraine with hundreds of new missiles

      The UK will send Ukraine 650 new specialist missile systems to boost its air defences, London said Friday, weeks after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticised the pace of weapons deliveries.

    • France24 ☛ Why Russia is accusing its own scientists of treason

      A prominent Russian scientist specialising in hypersonic technology has been sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of treason. His conviction is the latest in a series of arrests targeting researchers since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, in what experts are calling a politically motivated crackdown on scientists.

    • JURIST ☛ New Labour government pushes for International Tribunal to prosecute Russian leaders for aggression

      The newly elected Labour government is aiming to accelerate global efforts to establish a tribunal capable of trying Russian officials for crimes of aggression in Ukraine, according to Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood. This initiative seeks to breathe new life into a process that has faced numerous hurdles over the past two years. 

    • JURIST ☛ Ukraine anti-corruption agency dismisses deputy director

      The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) said Tuesday that it dismissed its first deputy over their role in a whistleblower case. NABU issued the statement on its Telegram channel without naming the specific employee or case.

    • RFERL ☛ Death Toll In Russian Attack On Poltava, Ukraine, Rises To 55

      The death toll in a Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Poltava rose to 55 on September 5, the Interior Ministry said, adding that the number of wounded also rose and now stands at 328.

    • RFERL ☛ U.S. Indicts GRU Members On Charges Related To Hacking Of Ukrainian Computers

      A grand jury in the U.S. state of Maryland has charged six Russians, including five who are officers in Russia's military intelligence agency (GRU), with conspiracy to hack into computer systems and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

    • RFERL ☛ Romanian President Signs Bill Clearing Way For Donation Of Patriot System To Ukraine

      The Romanian government is in the final stages of donating a Patriot missile system to Ukraine in the midst of Ukraine’s ever-increasing calls for more support from the West.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukraine's Parliament Appoints New Foreign Minister In Major Cabinet Reshuffle

      Ukraine’s parliament has approved the nomination of Andriy Sybiha as the country's new foreign minister, replacing Dmytro Kuleba as part of a major government reshuffle.

    • RFERL ☛ IAEA Head Says Tower At Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya Station Requires Demolition After Fire

      The head of the UN nuclear watchdog said a cooling tower at Ukraine's Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant had been badly damaged in a fire last month and would probably have to be demolished.

    • RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy To Meet German Chancellor In Frankfurt, Reportedly Attend Ramstein Meeting

      German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will meet on September 6 in Frankfurt, a German government spokesman said.

    • New York Times ☛ Russian Military Intelligence Members Indicted Over Ukraine Cyberattack

      The indictment unsealed on Thursday comes as the United States expands its hunt for Russia’s most elite cyberwarriors.

    • Meduza ☛ ‘It’s getting harder and harder to hide’: How children living under Russian occupation have secretly continued attending Ukrainian schools — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russia is rolling out an unprecedented military enlistment ad campaign amid Ukraine’s offensive in the Kursk region — Meduza

    • Latvia ☛ Latvian Saeima supports broad ban on Belarus-registered cars

      Latvia's parliament, the Saeima, on September 5 backed proposals that would see Belarus-registered cars treated the same way as Russian-registered cars, effectively banning them from Latvian roads, except in a few special circumstances.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ U.S. charges five Russian military members for destructive cyber ops, hack-and-leak campaigns

      The hackers were working with a unit in the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate, according to the DOJ.

    • France24 ☛ Turkey’s ‘balancing act’ with BRICS bid raises NATO concerns

      Turkey’s application to join the BRICS bloc, led by Russia and China, is sparking concerns over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's commitment to NATO. The move, by a member of the world’s most powerful military alliance, highlights the geostrategic shifts straining the post-war order at a time of heightened international tensions.

    • France24 ☛ US seizes websites, charges two from RT over Russian disinformation

      In seizing Kremlin-run websites and charging two Russian state media employees, the White House executed its most sweeping effort yet to push back against alleged Russian attempts to spread disinformation as the US presidential election approaches a critical stage.

    • LRT ☛ Setting up Russia tribunal requires ‘bulletproof’ legal base – CoE chief

      Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić says that setting up a Special Tribunal for Russia is taking time due to efforts to create a “bulletproof” legal framework.

    • RFERL ☛ Russian TV Presenter Who Was Former Trump Adviser Charged With Violating U.S. Sanctions

      Russian TV presenter Dimitri Simes, who served as an adviser to former President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, and his wife, Anastasia, have been charged with violating U.S. sanctions in connection with alleged schemes to benefit Russian broadcaster Channel One.

    • RFERL ☛ 3 Officers Of Moscow Migrants Center Arrested On Corruption Charges

      A Moscow court on September 5 sent three officers of a notorious immigration center in Sakharovo near Moscow to pretrial detention for at least two months on corruption charges.

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Blogger Sentenced To 8 Years In Prison

      A Moscow court has sentenced blogger Aleksandr Shpak, who now lives abroad, to eight years in prison for allegedly distributing false information about the Russian military.

    • RFERL ☛ Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry Warns Citizens Not To Travel To Russia

      Kyrgyzstan's Foreign Ministry has warned the country's citizens against traveling to Russia, citing beefed-up security measures and increased document checks by Russian border guards.

    • Marcy Wheeler ☛ The Doppelgänger Dossier

      A description of the Russian propaganda plans, largely designed to help Trump, included in a takedown affidavit.

    • CS Monitor ☛ Biden administration cracks down on Russian fake news sites ahead of election

      The Justice Department is aiming at Russian attempts to sway US voters. It has seized 32 websites and issued sanctions. Nearly 2,000 videos posted by a Russian-funded media company have reached more than 16 million views on YouTube alone, prosecutors say.

    • New York Times ☛ U.S. Charges American Commentator Who Works for Russian State TV

      Dimitri K. Simes, who was an adviser to Donald J. Trump’s first campaign, and his wife, Anastasia Simes, are accused of violating U.S. sanctions.

• Environment

  • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Humans Pollute the Environment With 57 Million Tons of Plastic Each Year, Study Suggests

    If you organized the plastic pollution that entered the environment in 2020 in a line, it could circle the Earth more than 1,500 times. Simply dumped into a pile, the refuse would fill up New York City’s Central Park in a layer as high as the Empire State Building.

    Put another way, that’s about 57 million tons (52 million metric tons) of plastic waste that was not properly disposed of—and pieces of it could now be floating in the ocean, sitting at the top of a mountain or even infiltrating your bloodstream. In a new study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, scientists tallied these numbers, creating the first-ever global plastics pollution inventory.

  • Latvia ☛ Private jet use should be clearly regulated, says State Chancellery head / Article

    Special flights should not be used by government officials if there are no procedures and criteria in place, Raivis Kronbergs, the new director of the State Chancellery, said in an interview with newswire LETA September 5.

  • CBC ☛ When bats were wiped out, more human babies died, a study found. Here's why

    Ecologists know that bats play a crucial role in eating up and controlling insect pests.

    Because of that, Eyal Frank, an environmental economist at the University of Chicago, decided to look at what happened when white-nose syndrome spread into new counties in the eastern U.S., decimating bat populations.

  • Hindustan Times ☛ India emerges as the largest plastic polluter globally

    A new study by the University of Leeds, published in Nature Journal, revealed India as the biggest contributor to plastic pollution. Annually a staggering amount of 57 million tons of plastic pollution are generated which infilter every space of the planet- from the deepest trenches, and mountaintops to the human brain.

  • VOA News ☛ World pumps out 57 million tons of plastic pollution yearly and most comes in Global South

    The study examined plastic that goes into the open environment, not plastic that goes into landfills or is properly burned. For 15% of the world's population, government fails to collect and dispose of waste, the study's authors said — a big reason Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa produce the most plastic waste. That includes 255 million people in India, the study said.

  • DeSmog ☛ How Oil And Gas Companies Infiltrate Higher Education to Maintain Influence

    A former Exxon executive sits on a university’s board of trustees. Fossil fuel representatives develop undergraduate courses. Schools lease out their land for fracking. Industry-funded studies end up influencing federal energy policy.

    These aren’t just isolated examples of oil and gas companies partnering with academic institutions, according to a study published in the journal WIREs Climate Change by researchers with six universities, but an international effort by the industry spanning decades with the goal of obstructing and slowing down climate action.

  • The Register UK ☛ AI’s drinking problem may just solve itself

    "ChatGPT needs to 'drink' a 500 ml bottle of water for a simple conversation of roughly 20-50 questions and answers, depending on when and where ChatGPT is deployed," the researchers estimated in a paper published early last year.

    To make matters worse, that was for a GPT-3-class model measuring roughly 175 billion parameters, a figure that feels positively tiny by today's standards. GPT-4 is estimated to be somewhere between 1.7 and 1.8 trillion parameters in size, and, as OpenAI's Trevor Cai put it in his Hot Chips keynote last week, these models are only going to get bigger.

  • DeSmog ☛ Climate Denier John Rustad Is Now a Major Player in BC’s October Election

  • DeSmog ☛ Climate Denial Funder Pumps Another £30,000 into Tory Leadership Race

  • Energy/Transportation

    • H2 View ☛ Ontras looks to bring hydrogen from 1GW Danish project to German customers

      H2 Energy Europe and German transmission system operator (TSO) Ontras have agreed to explore transporting hydrogen from a planned 1GW plant in Denmark through the German hydrogen core network (HCN) to industrial customers.

    • NPR ☛ Should your car warn you that you’re speeding? California lawmakers vote yes

      “Unfortunately our cars right now are kind of in the business of distracting us,” Beeber said. “I think this increases distracted driving.”

      The auto industry doesn’t like the speed assistance bill, either.

    • NPR ☛ Cleveland closes road to traffic to test drive Open Streets program

      "What we've learned from both Market Ave. and East Fourth Street is that having areas with strong retail or commercial around really helps to amplify the vibrancy of an open street," Huang said. "This open street is a little different because it's right in the middle of a residential area that kind of bridges into a commercial area, so you have more residents bumping into each other and you have the opportunity to a little bit more flexible with the space."

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ Species Spotlight: Going to Bat for Painted Woolly Bats

    • The Scotsman ☛ Cats that play fetch may be playing with us as much as we are playing with them

      Four out of ten cats are willing to play fetch with their human owners. But who is playing with whom?

• Finance

  • FAIR ☛ ‘They See These Price Hikes as a Good Thing’: CounterSpin interview with Freddy Brewster on supermarket megamerger

    Janine Jackson interviewed journalist Freddy Brewster about the supermarket megamerger for the August 30, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

  • Futurism ☛ People Who Used "Glitch" to Get Free Money From Chase ATMs Are Now in Huge Trouble

    Again, these examples could be jokes, some a little more plausible than others. But according to Jim Wang, a personal finance expert, this is in line with what banks would actually do, which is placing a hold on the offending accounts by deducting the amount of fraudulently obtained cash.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ 27,000 techies laid off across the globe in August, highest since January 2024

    The layoffs in tech companies has witnessed a surge in August, since January 2024.

    According to reports, a total of 27,065 employees have been laid off across 44 companies, indicating a sharp rise compared to July, when 30 companies removed 9,051 staff.

  • The Korea Times ☛ US seeking export controls on quantum computing; limited impact expected for Korean firms

    The latest controls target quantum computers, related equipment, components, materials, software and technology that can be used in the development and maintenance of quantum computers, according to the department.

  • The Register UK ☛ Global powers sign AI pact focused on democratic values

    The new framework agreed by the Council of Europe commits parties to collective action to manage AI products and protect the public from potential misuse.

    The agreement was signed against a backdrop of high expectations from governments, which see AI as likely to boost productivity and, for example, increase cancer detection rates - despite concurrent concerns from industry over hallucinations and incurracy. On the regulatory side of things, fears persist that AI could also risk the spread of misinformation or create biased automated decision-making.

  • The Verge ☛ US and UK sign legally enforceable AI treaty

    The treaty, called the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, lays out key principles AI systems must follow, such as protecting user data, respecting the law, and keeping practices transparent. Each country that signs the treaty must “adopt or maintain appropriate legislative, administrative or other measures” that reflect the framework.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ OpenAI co-founder raises $1-billion to build safe AI

    Sutskever introduced Safe Superintelligence in June, shortly after leaving OpenAI. The venture aims to develop a powerful AI system within a pure research organisation that has no intention of selling AI products or services in the near term. Its approach differentiates Safe Superintelligence from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, which offer AI products for consumers and businesses.

  • India Times ☛ US, Britain, EU to sign agreement on AI standards: report

    The three would sign the Council of Europe's convention on AI on Thursday, the newspaper said, adding that the convention was drafted for over two years by more than 50 countries including Canada, Israel, Japan and Australia.

  • VOA News ☛ US, Britain, EU to sign first international AI treaty 

    The AI Convention, which has been in the works for years and was adopted in May after discussions between 57 countries, addresses the risks AI may pose, while promoting responsible innovation.

    "This Convention is a major step to ensuring that these new technologies can be harnessed without eroding our oldest values, like human rights and the rule of law," Britain's justice minister, Shabana Mahmood, said in a statement.

  • 404 Media ☛ Big Tech ‘Clients’ of Jacob Wohl’s Secret AI Lobbying Firm Say They've Never Heard of It

    Monday, Politico revealed that convicted fraudsters and right-wing activists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman have been secretly operating a company that purports to do AI-powered lobbying called LobbyMatic. 404 Media has learned that the company also, for months, advertised in screenshots that major companies were using its product; many of these companies told us that they have never been clients of LobbyMatic.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Axios ☛ 2024's triple threats on election disinformation

      Why it matters: Three of America's most potent adversaries — Russia, China and Iran — make the list.

    • The Atlantic ☛ The Russian propaganda attack on America

      What’s really going on here is that the Russians have identified two major weaknesses in their American adversaries. The first is that a big slice of the American public, especially since the ascent of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, has an almost limitless appetite for stories that jack up their adrenaline: They will embrace wild conspiracies and “news” meant to generate social conflict so long as the stories are exciting, validate their preexisting worldviews, and give them some escape from life’s daily doldrums.

      The other is that more than a few Americans have the combination of immense greed and ego-driven grievances that make them easy targets either for recruitment or to be used as clueless dupes. The Russians, along with every other intelligence service in the world, count on finding such people and exploiting their avarice and insecurity. This is not new. (The United States does it too. Money is almost always the easiest inducement to treason.) But the widespread influence of social media has opened a new front in the intelligence battle.

    • The Moscow Times ☛ U.S. Accuses Russia’s RT News Outlet of Election Interference

      The United States indicted two employees of Russia's RT and imposed sanctions on top editors of the state-funded news outlet on Wednesday, accusing them of seeking to influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

      The 10 individuals and two entities sanctioned by the Treasury Department include RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonovna Simonyan and deputy Elizaveta Yuryevna Brodskaia.

    • VOA News ☛ Top Kremlin official falsely characterizes reason for US sanctions on Russia’s state media

      The U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment charging Russian nationals RT employees with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and money laundering. They are accused of orchestrating a $10 million scheme to covertly spread disinformation in the U.S. via a front company, while falsely claiming it was backed by a private investor.

      The Department of State has imposed new visa restrictions and designated Rossiya Segodnya and its subsidiaries as Foreign Missions. The Treasury Department also sanctioned 10 individuals, including RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, for their roles in the covert influence campaign.

    • Vox ☛ Russia paid millions to Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, and other right-wing podcasters | Vox

      The group of far-right and right-leaning influencers, most of whom are known for podcasts and YouTube shows, are all members or former members of Tenet Media, a Nashville-based content creation company co-owned by yet another well-known conservative media pundit, Lauren Chen.

      The Department of Justice is alleging that since its founding in 2022, Tenet has served as a front for Russian agents to spread Russian state-directed content using each of these pundits’ platforms.

    • The Washington Post ☛ YouTube takes down Tenet Media, Lauren Chen channels after DOJ indictments

      On Wednesday, the Justice Department indicted two employees of the Russian government-backed media organization RT, formerly known as Russia Today, accusing them of illegally funding a Tennessee-based media organization. The government has not specifically mentioned Tenet, but a quote from the media organization’s YouTube channel listed in the indictment suggest it is the media organization targeted. Some right-wing influencers have subsequently identified Tenet as the company in the indictment.

    • RFERL ☛ U.S. Accuses Russia Of Attempting To Influence 2024 Election Through Kremlin-Backed News Outlets

      The Kremlin has used media outlets such as RT, formerly Russia Today, and online platforms it backs to target U.S. voters with disinformation, the department said. RT, a major focus of the announcement, is seen as a key part of the Kremlin's propaganda efforts.

      The department announced the seizure of 32 Internet domains that it said had been used in "Russian government-directed foreign malign-influence campaigns" that FBI Director Christopher Wray said operate at the direction of the Russian government, setting up websites "filled with Russian government propaganda" meant to deceive American users.

    • Common Dreams ☛ FCC Urged to Amend Regulation to Account for False AI Content

      Today, Common Cause, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, and a number of other concerned organizations, filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in a rulemaking urging the agency to address disclosure and transparency of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content in political advertisements on the nation’s airwaves. The groups warn of the dangers posed by the new technology in an era when political disinformation is widespread and the public has trouble identifying AI-generated content.

    • CBC ☛ U.S. accuses Russia of using unwitting influencers, fake news sites to sway presidential election

      U.S. said Kremlin's 'inner circle' directed Russian PR companies to spread disinformation

    • Security Week ☛ US Targets Russian Election Influence Operation With Charges, Sanctions, Domain Seizures

      The operation targeted a campaign dubbed Doppelganger, which the Justice Department says violated money laundering and criminal trademark laws.

      The campaign spread misinformation in an effort to influence the 2024 US presidential election. The Justice Department did not clearly state it, but evidence made public on Wednesday shows that the influence campaign attempted to boost Donald Trump.

    • VOA News ☛ US crackdown calls out Russian disinformation campaign

      The schemes “make clear the ends to which the Russian government, including at its highest levels, is willing to go to undermine our democratic process,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, addressing a meeting of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force.

      “This is deadly serious, and we are going to treat it accordingly,” he added.

      The Justice Department indictment unsealed Wednesday alleges Russia tried to “hide its hand,” using two employees of the state-controlled RT media outlet, shell companies and fake personas to funnel nearly $10 million to a U.S. company in Tennessee to promote and distribute English-language material favorable to the Russian government.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ US sanctions Russians over alleged election interference campaign using social media influencers

      Announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland (pictured, right), the claims, which some media outlets are referring to as “Russiagate 2.0,” include that two employees of Russian-backed media outlet RT conspired to commit money laundering and violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The details of the claims were also unveiled in an indictment unsealed in the Southern District of New York.

    • NBC ☛ Biden administration hits Russia with sanctions over efforts to manipulate U.S. opinion ahead of the election

      Attorney General Merrick Garland announced charges against two employees of the Russian-backed media network RT accused of conspiring to commit money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act in an indictment unsealed Wednesday in the Southern District of New York.

      "The American people are entitled to know when a foreign power is attempting to exploit our country's free exchange of ideas in order to send around its own propaganda," Garland said.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • RFERL ☛ Russian Blogger Sentenced To 8 Years In Prison

    [...] The sentence in absentia stems from a video about the destruction by Russian forces of the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine in June 2023 that Shpak posted on Instagram. [...]

  • India Times ☛ Delhi High Court warns Wikipedia: “If you don't like India…..”

    We will ask government to block your site," Justice Chawla declared, as reported by legal news website Bar and Bench. The court's fury was provoked by Wikipedia's alleged failure to disclose information about editors who made controversial changes to ANI's Wikipedia page.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Salman Rushdie's Memoir of His Attack Is Among 12 Books up for a Top Nonfiction Prize

    Rushdie’s memoir “ Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder ” is among 12 books on the long list for the 50,000 pound ($66,000) Baillie Gifford Prize.

  • ANF News ☛ Prisoners sentenced to solitary confinement for dancing to Kurdish songs

    In Batman T Type Closed Prison, 15 prisoners were sentenced to 15 days of solitary confinement on the allegation of ‘making propaganda for an illegal organisation’ for dancing halay to Kurdish songs with whistles and clapping.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Tor ☛ 'A newspaper without borders': Mediapart now available as .onion

    We are excited to officially welcome Mediapart.fr, an independent French investigative online newspaper, to the growing list of news outlets that have adopted a .onion site on the Tor network. By leveraging Tor technology, Mediapart ensures that its reporting can reach everyone, everywhere, regardless of the political climate.

    Readers can now access Mediapart's reporting via https://www.mediapartrvj4bsgolbxixw57ru7fh4jqckparke4vs365guu6ho64yd.onion/. 

  • The Dissenter ☛ Incarcerated Journalist Endures Campaign Of Retaliation From Texas Prison Officials

  • RFERL ☛ Journalist Afqan Muxtarli Wins Lawsuit Against Georgia, Azerbaijan In Strasbourg

    The ECHR ruled on September 5 that Georgia violated Article 3 (prohibition of torture) and Article 5 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights by not investigating Muxtarli's claims that he was abducted in Georgia, ill-treated, and illegally transferred to Azerbaijan.

  • BIA Net ☛ Two detained in connection with ‘contract for killing journalist’

    Meanwhile, Mahsun Kuruçay, the alleged organized crime leader accused of planning to kill Ağırel, has denied any involvement. In a statement, Kuruçay said, "There has been a misunderstanding as a result of the news about me in the media. The person Ağırel refers to as 'I spoke to my hitman' is not me. I have not and will not engage in hitman activities."

  • Press Gazette ☛ FT journalists in US secure pay deal including min salary of $75k

    The tentative agreement means new hires at the FT in the US will now receive a minimum salary of $75,000. Press Gazette has seen job adverts that suggest the current minimum is $71,000 (£54,000).

  • CPJ ☛ CPJ, others reject 7-year prison sentence for Brazilian journalist over blog

    The Committee to Protect Journalists joined the 10 other members of Brazil’s Coalition in Defense of Journalism in condemning the August 12 sentencing of journalist Ricardo Antunes to seven years in prison for slander, libel, and defamation after he published five blog posts about a businessman.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ WSJ urges sanctions over HK journalist convictions; gov't hits back

    The Wall Street Journal wrote on Monday that “[b]usinesses need reliable information to make decisions, but practicing journalism can now count as a crime in Hong Kong,” adding that Chung and Lam “know better than most in the West the price of fighting for a free press.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Pro Publica ☛ Judge Orders Guardian to Return Thousands to Elderly Woman For Services It Never Provided

  • The Dissenter ☛ Dissenting Against Rogue Texas Prison Officials

  • New York Times ☛ When Gambia Banned Female Genital Cutting, a Defiant 96-Year-Old Resisted

    One of the 30 cutters present that day, a grandmother named Yassin Fatty, would over a decade later become the first Gambian cutter ever to be convicted of female genital mutilation.

  • International Business Times ☛ Americans Think An Hour Of Their Time Is Worth $240 Or 8 Times The Average US Salary

    The survey found that Americans, on average, valued their time at $240 an hour or almost $500,000 annually, considering 40 hours of work per week. However, $240 per hour is over eight times the average US salary of $59,852. Millennials significantly contributed to the high average rate as they expected $328.84 for an hour of their time. Furthermore, 25% of the millennials wanted $500 per hour! Empower thinks millennials value their time more because of the economic downturns they have faced in the last two decades, like the 2008 crisis, record student debt levels and mortgage rates that affected the ability to save and buy homes, pushing back their life goals by several years. The survey also highlighted that almost 41% of millennials were ready to take a solid 15% pay cut if it bought them more free time.

  • Techdirt ☛ Automakers Still Trying To Weaken Maine’s Popular ‘Right To Repair’ Law

    The original law mandated the creation of a new portal car owners and independent mechanics can access to reset car security systems. Automakers were also supposed to create a “motor vehicle telematics system notice” system informing new car owners how access will work. The bill also mandated that the AG create an oversight board to ensure automakers are complying with data share requests.

    But automakers quickly got to work trying to claim that this new system was a threat to consumer privacy. They also convinced some lawmakers to push for new versions of the bill literally written by the auto industry that would eliminate the standardized database and the oversight entity as part of a near-total rewrite of the bill: [...]

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ Announcing the new APNIC Academy IPv6 certification

    The associate-level certification focuses on the basics of the IPv6 protocol, combining both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Delivered in a five-day face-to-face bootcamp format, the certification concludes with a knowledge-based examination.

  • RIPE ☛ How We Distribute RIPE Atlas Probes

    With a limited supply of hardware probes and thousands of networks yet to be covered, how do we prioritise the applications to host probes? In this article, we explain our hardware probe distribution strategy to improve RIPE Atlas’s global coverage.

  • APNIC ☛ Watch incoming APNIC Director General’s opening remarks at APNIC 58

    Jia Rong Low gave his inaugural opening remarks as APNIC’s incoming Director General at APNIC 58.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Digital Music News ☛ UK's CMA Launches Ticketmaster Probe Over Oasis Ticket Prices

  And among other things, said demand, in coordination with Ticketmaster’s controversial “dynamic pricing,” has ushered in decidedly expensive Oasis ticket prices. Now, due in part to the “significant issues” fans have reportedly faced when attempting to buy passes, the CMA says it wants to determine if “the sale of Oasis tickets by Ticketmaster may have breached consumer protection law.”

  Per the regulator, the probe will seek to ascertain whether Ticketmaster “engaged in unfair commercial practices,” failed to provide customers with “clear and timely information” about dynamic pricing, or placed shoppers “under pressure to buy tickets within a short period of time.”

• BinaryNights LLC ☛ Google Drive Access in ForkLift: Current Limitations and How to Work Around Them

  Recently, Google has limited or blocked direct connections to Google Drive through ForkLift. Depending on whether users have previously connected to Google Drive through ForkLift, they may encounter one of two warnings when trying to connect via the Connect Panel.

• India Times ☛ EU regulators to seek feedback on Google's compliance proposals to avert charges

  The move came after rivals, which include comparison shopping sites, said Alphabet's Google had not complied fully with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) aimed at reining in the power of Big Tech and to create a level playing field for smaller competitors.

• India Times ☛ UK clears Microsoft's partnership with Inflection AI

  Britain's competition regulator, on Wednesday, cleared Microsoft's hiring of some former staff of Inflection AI and its partnership with the startup and said the deal did not required a deeper investigation.

• Deutsche Welle ☛ India eyes digital law to rein in Google, tech giants

  India's competition regulator is looking to curb Big Tech's dominance over web search and advertising. Interest groups say monopolistic practices hinder competition and negatively impact Indian businesses.

• The Register UK ☛ Apple accused of misleading UK competition watchdog

  Apple appears to have misled the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in a regulatory filing that attempts to downplay competition concerns, according to Open Web Advocacy (OWA).

  OWA, a web technology lobbying group, flagged the alleged misstatement on Wednesday in a document [PDF] filed by Apple last month in conjunction with the CMA's competition inquiry into the mobile browser and cloud gaming markets.

• Patents

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ Big Pharma Is a Big Menace to Global Health

    Pharmaceutical companies claim their profits are necessary for vital medical research, but it’s public investment that funds the research before private firms gobble up the benefits through patent monopolies.

  • Software Patents

    • [Repeat] Digital Music News ☛ BMG Slapped with Patent Infringement Over Song-Selection

      A company called Muvox LLC is suing BMG and technology giant IBM in a separate filing for alleged patent infringement in the US. The lawsuit, filed in a Texas court last month, stems from a patent involving “a method for selecting a song” based on other songs with similar moods. Specifically, the lawsuit focuses on song recommendation features within the BMG Synch service.

    • Alan Cross ☛ A company no one has ever heard of says it owns a patent for music streaming and playlist creation | Alan Cross

      Ever hear of Muvox LLC? Me, neither. But I did come across the name in a patent infringement lawsuit against BMG. Last month, the company filed suit in Texas (of course; traditionally, juries there tend to be very sympathetic to plaintiffs in these types of cases) reference a patent that references “music streaming, playlist creation, and streaming architecture.”

    • WithGuitars ☛ BMG faces lawsuit in the US for alleged patent infringement • WithGuitars

      The lawsuit was filed in a Texas court last month and references a patent titled ‘Music streaming, playlist creation and streaming architecture‘, which describes “a method for selecting a song” based on other songs with similar “moods”.

• Copyrights

  • Techdirt ☛ Second Circuit Says Libraries Disincentivize Authors To Write Books By Lending Them For Free

    Even though this outcome was always a strong possibility, the final ruling is just incredibly damaging, especially in that it suggests that all libraries are bad for authors and cause them to no longer want to write. I only wish I were joking. Towards the end of the ruling (as we’ll get to below) it says that while having freely lent out books may help the public in the “short-term” the “long-term” consequences would be that “there would be little motivation to produce new works.”

    Which is just all kinds of disconnected from reality. There is not a single person in the world who thinks “well, I would have written this book, except that it would be available for people to borrow for free from a library, so I guess I won’t.” Yet a three-judge panel on the Second Circuit concludes exactly that.

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Ensuring attribution is critical when licensing content to AI developers - The Scholarly Kitchen

    A robust conversation has been brewing about licensing and artificial intelligence (AI). It isn’t the lawsuit question, which is pursuing apace and likely will lead in my estimation to some form of settlements for the majority of cases. The other conversation I’m considering is about licensing content for use in AI systems. Several publishers see this as an opportunity. Many authors have serious concerns. While the income from these deals seems big, is it really? Will it be enough? Will it bring any resources to support scholarly publishing and the digital transitions that still lay before it? Importantly, does it protect the interests of authors, particularly those of scholarly authors who care most about attribution? There will be time enough to assess the business opportunity. The questions about the interests of professional, scientific and scholarly authors seem to be less considered. Will their ideas be accurately represented? Will they get credit for their ideas?

  • Variety ☛ Cars Frontman Ric Ocasek's Catalog Acquired by Primary Wave

    The estate of Ric Ocasek, cofounder and songwriter of the Cars, and Primary Wave Music have announced a new partnership that will see the company acquiring the late artist’s publishing catalog, including all of his songs from his stint with the Cars as well as his solo material — in addition to sharing name, image and likeness rights with the estate. The estate will have access to the company’s marketing team and publishing infrastructure, working closely on new marketing, branding, digital, and synch opportunities, as well as film & television projects. Further terms of the deal were not disclosed.

  • Nick Heer ☛ The Surprisingly Big Business of Library Ebooks – Pixel Envy

    If you want to know why publishers so aggressively fought the Internet Archive on its model of lending out scanned copies of physical books, this is the reason. Publishers have created a model which fundamentally upsets a library’s ability to function. There is no scarcity in bytes, so publishers have created a way to charge more for something limitless, weightless, with nearly no storage costs.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Internet Archive Loses Landmark E-Book Lending Copyright Appeal Against Publishers

    The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has dealt a blow to the Internet Archive's digital book lending program. The court upheld a lower court's decision, stating that IA's practice of scanning and lending copyrighted books without permission is not fair use. IA's lending program directly threatens the revenues of publishers and violates copyright law, the judges ruled.