Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Is A Cheap Frequency Standard Worth It?

  In the quest for an accurate frequency standard there are many options depending on your budget, but one of the most affordable is an oven controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO). [RF Burns] has a video looking at one of the cheapest of these, a sub ten dollar AliExpress module.

• Hackaday ☛ Rethinking Your Jellybean Op Amps

  Are your jellybeans getting stale? [lcamtuf] thinks so, and his guide to choosing op-amps makes a good case for rethinking what parts you should keep in stock.

• El País ☛ ‘The [Internet] hasn’t made us bad, we were already like that’: The mistake of yearning for the ‘friendly’ online world of 20 years ago

  So, is there a way to recover the good things about the [Internet] that we miss without falling into the self-serving nostalgia of Flow 2K or into apocalyptic talk? The essays cited above offer some political keys (such as recovering our digital sovereignty) and individual ones (such as giving visibility to the self-organized projects and venues that continue to exist). Mayte Gómez concludes: “We must stop this reactionary thinking and this fear of technology that arises from the idea that the [Internet] has made us bad. That is not true: we were already like that. If the [Internet] is unfriendly it is because we are becoming less so. We cannot perpetuate the idea that machines are entities with a will of their own; we must take responsibility for what happens on the [Internet].”

• Jim Nielsen ☛ Push Notifications Are Organizational Marshmallows

  It’s a notifications’ world, we’re just living in it.

  Companies can’t help but try and get your attention via email, text, or push notifications and drive you to their app.

  Push notifications in particular are a powerful tool — and where there’s power, there’s abuse.

  I’m sure you, dear reader, have had your notifications abused by overly-eager companies (here’s a screenshot example of what I’m talking about, courtesy of a Medium article).

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Pluto And Its Moon Came Together With 'Kiss And Capture', Study Says

    True love!

  • Science Alert ☛ Roman Empire's Air Pollution May Have Lowered The IQ of Europe

    Devastation from the skies.

  • New York Times ☛ Lead Poisoning May Have Made Ancient Romans a Bit Less Intelligent

    Exposure to lead from mining probably lowered I.Q. levels in the empire, research has found. It might be the world’s first case of widespread industrial pollution.

  • Science Alert ☛ Mouse Study Suggests Surprising Link Between Alzheimer's And Nose-Picking

    Do you really need to pick it?

  • Science Alert ☛ Archaic Humans Might Actually Be The Same Species as Us, Study Suggests

    What if we're not so different after all?

  • Science Alert ☛ NASA to Announce Plans to Bring Samples of Mars Back to Earth

    It's still sitting there.

  • Science Alert ☛ Physicists Unveil Radical Plan to Send a Probe Beyond Interstellar Space

    A beam of light to Alpha Centauri.

• Career/Education

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Guest Post - College Mergers and the Implications for Libraries and Vendors

    Like the college closures discussed in my previous Scholarly Kitchen post, college consolidations have been a growing phenomenon in the United States for years. Standalone public institutions of higher education have merged into systems. Systems have merged or otherwise reorganized their component institutions with one another, while struggling private colleges are acquired by or merged into better-resourced institutions. These mergers have impacted dozens of colleges and tens of thousands of students in recent years. Also impacted are libraries and archives, as well as the library consortia and vendors that support them. While mergers can save struggling institutions and foster stronger student experiences in the long run, mergers are complex and their implications for scholarly content and services must be considered thoughtfully.

  • Sean Goedecke ☛ Is it cynical to do what your manager wants?

    The idea that “screw the managers, you should do the right thing for the customer” comes from a belief that your managers are all idiots (or at least enough of them are that good ideas don’t percolate through). They don’t care about the customer, they just care about making money. You - the pure engineer, not the slimy executive - are the only one who can be trusted to act in the customer’s best interests. This is a deeply, deeply cynical position!

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Before GPS There Was LORAN

    We found it nostalgic to watch [ve3iku] fire up an old Loran-A receiver and, as you can see in the video below, he got it working. If you aren’t familiar with LORAN, it was a common radio navigation technique before GPS took over everything.

  • Ben Jojo ☛ Building Ultra Long Range TOSLINK

    Optical data transmission is now everywhere in the datacenter, and my own stuff for bgp.tools is no exception. All connectivity in my world now comes out of Small Form-factor Pluggable (or, SFP) ports.

    The cool thing about SFP’s is that they are for the most part (when they don’t contain a FPGA and ARM CPU to run Linux) very basic inside.

  • The Register UK ☛ Trump's tariffs could raise the cost of a laptop by 68%

    The US-based association's latest study looks at two scenarios that have been floated by the incoming president: If Trump enacts a global 10 percent import tariff and imposes an additional 60 percent for China; and if he raises global import tariffs to 20 percent with an additional 100 percent for China.

  • Hackaday ☛ Growing Semiconductor Layers Directly With TMDs

    Transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are a class of material that’s been receiving significant attention as a possible successor of silicon. Recently, a team of researchers has demonstrated the use of TMDs as an alternative to through-silicon-vias (TSV), which is the current way that multiple layers of silicon semiconductor circuitry are stacked, as seen with, e.g., NAND Flash ICs and processors with stacked memory dice. The novelty here is that the new circuitry is grown directly on top of the existing circuitry, removing the need for approaches like TSV to turn 2D layers into 3D stacks.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Straits Times ☛ HMPV outbreak in China: What is the situation there and should you be worried?

    Experts say while the surge is of concern, the virus is unlikely to lead to another pandemic like Covid-19.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Easier visa rules propel Thai tourism to near pre-Covid-19 levels

    An estimated 35.5 million tourists visited Thailand in 2024, up from 28.2 million in 2023.

  • Science Alert ☛ 'Rabbit Fever' in Humans Has Surged in The Last Decade, CDC Reports

    Should we be worried?

  • Science Alert ☛ US Records Its First Death From Bird Flu in Tragic End to Louisiana Case

    The risk is still low.

  • New Yorker ☛ Yukio Mishima’s Death Cult

    The writer spent his life cultivating beauty—on the page and in the mirror—only to end it with a samurai-style suicide. Both acts spoke to a long-standing obsession.

  • In 2024 COVID-19 Wasn’t Tackled and Mass Mortality Was Just ‘Covered Up’, Based on ONS (UK Government) Data

  • EcoWatch ☛ Microplastics Are Widespread in Popular Types of Seafood, Study Shows

    “Microplastics (MPs) and other anthropogenic particles (APs) are pervasive environmental contaminants found throughout marine and aquatic environments. We quantified APs in the edible tissue of black rockfish, lingcod, Chinook salmon, Pacific herring, Pacific lamprey, and pink shrimp, comparing AP burdens across trophic levels and between vessel-retrieved and retail-purchased individuals,” the researchers wrote in the study. “Anthropogenic particles were found in 180 of 182 individuals… These findings suggest a need for further research into technologies and strategies to reduce microfiber pollution entering the environment.”

  • Hindustan Times ☛ 9-year-old girl asks for Trump portrait tattoo but gets American flag instead

    The post quickly garnered criticism. One user took to the comments section of a YouTube video about the incident and and wrote, “Please no. As an artist, be the bigger person and don’t do this to a 9-year-old. Then call child services.”

  • The Register UK ☛ Cyber luminary's neck injury accrues mammoth medical bill

    Whatever the incident was, it left the cyber pro with a broken neck, but he wasn't aware of this at the time. He had no symptoms other than some "manageable neck pain," and nothing out of the ordinary showed up on a routine X-ray and an MRI wasn't possible due to insurance delays.

  • The Conversation ☛ Loneliness and social isolation are linked to specific proteins – new research

    We focused on proteomics, the study of proteins. This is because we know that proteins play a role in gene expression, the process by which the information encoded in a gene is turned into biological activity. Proteins are also a major source of drug targets for developing medications.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Computer used in the first QDOS demo to Famous Criminal Bill Gates showcased in video

    The defective chip maker Intel 8086 computer used to demo QDOS to Famous Criminal Bill Gates was showcased in a video podcast this weekend.

  • Hackaday ☛ Thirty Years Later, The Windows 3.1 Video Driver You Needed

    Over the course of the 1990s we saw huge developments in the world of PC graphics cards, going from little more than the original IBM VGA standard through super VGA and then so-called “Windows accelerator” cards which brought the kind of hardware acceleration the console and 16 bit home computer users had been used to for a while. At the end of the decade we had the first generation of 3D accelerator chipsets which are ancestors of today’s GPUs.

  • Cloudbooklet ☛ Why Proprietary Chaffbot Company Is Losing Money on Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot Pro Plans

    Discover why Proprietary Chaffbot Company is losing money on Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Chaffbot Pro plans, despite high demand and advanced features.

  • Futurism ☛ Book App Alarmed as Its AI Starts Mocking Users for Reading Books by Women and Minorities

    These days, every app imaginable is deploying its own take on the wildly popular Spotify Wrapped feature by providing personalized end-of-year recaps for users' consumption habits. Hopping on the trend, Fable tried to stand out by using AI to "playfully roast" its readers.

    In some cases, however, the AI veered into overly edgy territory — in what appears to be an all-too-common case of a large language model defying its guardrails.

  • Futurism ☛ Amazon Mocked for Slapping AI-Generated Poster on Beloved 1922 Film "Nosferatu"

    In an astonishing feat of laziness, Amazon Prime Video service has adorned the iconic 1922 horror film "Nosferatu" with a slapdash poster that was obviously generated using AI.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ UK to make sexually explicit deepfakes a crime

    Deepfakes are videos, pictures or audio clips made with artificial intelligence to look real, and such technology can be used to digitally alter pornographic images into the likeness of someone else.

    Publishing intimate photos or videos without consent and with the intent to cause distress — so-called revenge porn — was criminalised in Britain in 2015, but that legislation does not cover the use of fake images.

  • Chip Huyen ☛ Agents

    Intelligent agents are considered by many to be the ultimate goal of AI. The classic book by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (Prentice Hall, 1995), defines the field of AI research as “the study and design of rational agents.”

    The unprecedented capabilities of foundation models have opened the door to agentic applications that were previously unimaginable. These new capabilities make it finally possible to develop autonomous, intelligent agents to act as our assistants, coworkers, and coaches. They can help us create a website, gather data, plan a trip, do market research, manage a customer account, automate data entry, prepare us for interviews, interview our candidates, negotiate a deal, etc. The possibilities seem endless, and the potential economic value of these agents is enormous.

    This section will start with an overview of agents and then continue with two aspects that determine the capabilities of an agent: tools and planning. Agents, with their new modes of operations, have new modes of failure. This section will end with a discussion on how to evaluate agents to catch these failures.

  • Manton Reece ☛ AI prompts vs. agents

    If you’re already sick of hearing about AI now, it’s going to get worse in 2025. The next trend is so-called AI agents. Software that can go off and accomplish more tasks on your behalf, with less supervision.

  • BBC ☛ Apple urged to withdraw 'out of control' AI news alerts

    Mr Rusbridger, who also sits on Meta's Oversight Board that reviews appeals of the company's content moderation decisions, added the technology was "out of control" and posed a considerable misinformation risk.

    "Trust in news is low enough already without giant American corporations coming in and using it as a kind of test product," he told the Today programme, on BBC Radio Four.

  • THT ☛ Trolling AI Scrapers (For Fun)

    Did you know that over 90% of my website traffic was coming from AI scrapers? Well, not anymore!

    While reviewing my Caddy logs, I noticed an overwhelming amount of activity. The logs were flashing by so quickly that I had to pause and take a closer look. What I found was a barrage of user agents, all containing "ai" or "llm." I had to do something about it, i don't want LLMs trained on my website.

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Privacy of Photos.app’s Enhanced Visual Search

      Initial speculation about a new Fashion Company Apple feature.

    • Federal News Network ☛ Is it time to throw in the towel on federal data privacy legislation?

      Is it possible that the state-level momentum will pick up and finally give way to federal legislation?

    • FSF ☛ Psychological care should grant you freedom and protection

      With more than 100k users, Soula is a popular choice for investment companies looking for opportunities to make money. The service is based on ChatGPT-3, one of the LLMs described as "so data-hungry and intransparent that we have even less control over what information about us is collected, what it is used for, and how we might correct or remove such personal information," by Jennifer King, the author of the white paper Rethinking privacy in the AI era: Policy provocations for a data-centric world. It was for the same reasons that the Italian data protection authority temporarily banned ChatGPT in 2023, after having scrutinized ChatGPT's data practices. In March 2023, a simple bug even led to descriptions of conversations being disclosed to other users by ChatGPT's chat history.

    • Techdirt ☛ Always-On School Surveillance Tech Is Sending Cops To Deal With At-Risk Students

      What was already commonplace pre-pandemic became inescapable during the pandemic years, when most students were doing all of their learning remotely. With COVID behind us (sort of…), you’d think schools would dial back the level of intrusion. But that hasn’t happened. Instead, many schools have decided that if kids were ok with being spied on when they weren’t on campus because they physically couldn’t be on campus, they’d have no problem enduring this surveillance even though most students are back in classrooms.

      Administrators have legitimate concerns. And the software they purchase to keep tabs on what students are doing with their school-issued tech does, at least occasionally, give educators heads up on kids who might be in need of mental health assistance.

    • Jamie Zawinski ☛ Hey, remember when the panopticon was going to be good actually?

      It is perhaps not sporting to be poking fun at moldering techno-optimism from 1996, from WiReD no less, but I'm going to do it anyway, because I suspect that Brin's article curdled as many brains as Barlow's asinine "declaration" did.

    • 404 Media ☛ Researcher Turns Insecure License Plate Cameras Into Open Source Surveillance Tool

      Privacy advocate draws attention to the fact that hundreds of police surveillance cameras are streaming directly to the open [Internet].

    • Cyble Inc ☛ New HIPAA Security Rule Would Boost Healthcare Cybersecurity

      The HIPAA Security Rule would get its first update since 2013 under a new proposal that would mandate basic security practices like multi-factor authentication, encryption, and network segmentation for healthcare providers, health plans, and others who handle sensitive patient data.

      The proposed changes to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s Security Rule were published this week – and took up 125 three-column pages of the Jan. 6 Federal Register. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) estimates that the new security requirements would cost more than $30 billion over the first five years, but after a difficult year for healthcare data breaches and ransomware attacks, stronger security controls may find favor even in a tougher regulatory environment on Capitol Hill.

    • MIT Technology Review ☛ What’s next for our privacy?

      Every day, we are tracked hundreds or even thousands of times across the digital world. Cookies and web trackers capture every website link that we click, while code installed in mobile apps tracks every physical location that our devices—and, by extension, we—have visited. All of this is collected, packaged together with other details (compiled from public records, supermarket member programs, utility companies, and more), and used to create highly personalized profiles that are then shared or sold, often without our explicit knowledge or consent.

      A consensus is growing that Americans need better privacy protections—and that the best way to deliver them would be for Congress to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation. While the latest iteration of such a bill, the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024, gained more momentum than previously proposed laws, it became so watered down that it lost support from both Republicans and Democrats before it even came to a vote.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ CES 2025 brings the gratuitous bolted-on AI

      It’s that time of year again, when Las Vegas fills with tech companies presenting mockups of vague promises at CES in the hope of a stock pump! This year’s theme is artificial intelligence — gratuitously bolted on the side.

      If you didn’t already want to put a boot through your smart TV, LG unveils “affectionate intelligence” to “better understand and empathize with customers” across devices and “harmonize to create entirely new customer value.” LG is partnering with Microsoft on this, which means it’ll be ChatGPT.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Chinese freighter suspected of damaging undersea Internet cable connecting the US and Taiwan

    A Taiwanese freighter is accused of deliberately dragging its anchor to cut an internet cable directly linking Taiwan to the U.S. East Coast.

  • JURIST ☛ Former Ecuador vice president Jorge Glas evacuated from prison

    Authorities evacuated Ecuadorian former vice president Jorge Glas from prison on Sunday following a series of incidents in La Roca maximum security facility in Guayaquil. Sources confirmed incidents at La Roca, as prisoners mutinied and burned both mattresses and newspapers.

  • Site36 ☛ The K.O.M.I.T.E.E should go on trial: Prosecution 30 years after failed attack on deportation prison in Berlin

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Swedish Navy Recovers Anchor of Tanker Suspected of Baltic Sea Cable Damage

    The Swedish navy said Tuesday it had recovered from the Baltic Sea the anchor of an oil tanker suspected of belonging to Russia's "shadow fleet" and damaging four underwater telecoms cables and one power cable on Dec. 25.

  • RFERL ☛ Authorities Find Anchor Believed To Be Linked To Damaged Cables In Baltic Sea

    The Swedish Navy said earlier on January 7 it had recovered the anchor after sending a submarine to assist Finland in the investigation. A spokesman for the navy told AFP that the anchor had been handed over to Finnish authorities.

  • C4ISRNET ☛ Pentagon picks Kratos for hypersonic testbed program

    The five-year contract is part of the second phase of the Pentagon’s Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed program, or MACH-TB. The first phase of the program, led by Leidos, focused on designing and demonstrating a testbed. Through MACH-TB 2.0, the Pentagon wants to significantly increase the number of hypersonic test flights.

  • JURIST ☛ New York judge denies Trump request to postpone hush-money sentencing

    A New York judge on Monday denied president-elect Donald Trump’s request to postpone his sentencing hearing for his hush-money conviction. Trump’s sentencing remains scheduled for January 10.

    New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan found that Trump’s arguments to delay the sentencing were “for the most part, a repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past.” Merchan added that the court had already denied such arguments.

  • Advance Local Media LLC ☛ Judge denies Trump’s bid to halt Friday’s hush money case sentencing while they appeal to block it - lonestarlive.com

    Last Friday, Merchan denied Trump’s bid to throw out his conviction and dismiss the case because of his impending return to the White House, but signaled he is not likely to sentence the Republican to any punishment for his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

  • The Nation ☛ When Will We Make January 6 a Day of Commemoration?

    So couldn’t we have an hour showing when things got to be their most terrifying four years ago today? I’m not even sure when that would have been. For me it was when I found out my daughter was trapped in a House office building. But there were much more dramatic moments, bloodier moments, police battered, and poor Ashli Babbitt shot dead.

    In a better country, we would have a national commemoration. In this country, we pretend it was all a misunderstanding.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Is a Last-Minute TikTok Sale Coming? Investor Group Seeks Deal

    All told, the latter has secured north of $20 billion in capital commitments from investors, according to Reuters’ description of McCourt’s comments. Per the same outlet, the billionaire expects the Supreme Court to uphold the TikTok ban law and is anticipating more earnest sales discussions with ByteDance after the fact.

    Meanwhile, O’Leary has been in contact with President-elect Trump (who’s urged the Supreme Court to pause the ban law until he assumes office). And in a recent X post, the Montreal native O’Leary emphasized that he and McCourt wouldn’t insist on the inclusion of much-coveted algorithms.

  • New Yorker ☛ On TikTok, Every Migrant Is Living the American Dream

    Many people from the Andes have settled in New York. They face tremendous difficulties, but their online posts glamorize their lives, drawing others northward.

  • New York Times ☛ Taiwan Suspects a Chinese-Linked Ship of Damaging an Internet Cable

    Taiwan is investigating whether a ship linked to China is responsible for damaging one of the undersea cables that connects Taiwan to the [Internet], the latest reminder of how vulnerable Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is to damage from China.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Climate Models Can’t Explain What’s Happening to Earth

    Fifty years into the project of modeling Earth’s future climate, we still don’t really know what’s coming. Some places are warming with more ferocity than expected. Extreme events are taking scientists by surprise. Right now, as the bald reality of climate change bears down on human life, scientists are seeing more clearly the limits of our ability to predict the exact future we face. The coming decades may be far worse, and far weirder, than the best models anticipated.

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Cases Against Trump: A Guide

    A judge indicated on January 3 that he would sentence Trump on January 10 for his conviction on charges related to paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, but would grant the president-elect an “unconditional discharge,” which avoids probation or jail time and does not require Trump to meet any further qualifications, such as steady employment or not reoffending. This rejects Trump’s attempt to have the case thrown out and means he remains a felon, but otherwise closes out the matter.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Trump’s rule-breaking keeps working

    In the weeks, months, and years after January 6, 2021, though, none of the above has mattered—not enough. You may recall that, after trying to overthrow the government, Trump was impeached in the House but acquitted in the Senate, which allowed for the possibility of his return. He embarked on a vengeance tour, vanquishing his GOP rivals in primaries and silencing virtually all dissenters into submission (or retirement). Democracy stood, as Harris put it, because democracy is a series of systems, and all systems can be shaped, bent, and exploited by human beings.

  • The Strategist ☛ The next Australian government needs a bolder plan for the navy

    The past year brought a renewed focus on Australia’s deteriorating security situation and maritime capability.

  • The Straits Times ☛ US to end restrictions on Indian nuclear entities to boost energy ties, Sullivan says

    NEW The U.S. government is in the process of removing restrictions on Indian nuclear entities, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Monday, in a bid to forge deeper energy ties with New Delhi and bolster a 20-year old landmark nuclear deal.

  • Defence Web ☛ India raises profile as security partner for Africa

    Over the last decade, India has emerged as a key security partner for nations across Africa with particular emphasis on terrorism, piracy and maritime domain awareness. Since 2015, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched his country’s Security and Growth for All in the Region policy, India has hosted hundreds of African leaders.

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Louisiana AG orders security investigation as Biden directs resources to help New Orleans

    Murrill said she directed the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation to conduct a “full review” of security plans for New Year’s Eve and the Sugar Bowl.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Chinese hackers were behind most cyberattacks against Taiwan in 2024, security officials say

    Chinese hackers were involved in most of the cyberattacks against Taiwan last year, which doubled to a daily average of 2.4 million, Taiwanese security officials said. China regards Taiwan as part of its territory and for years has been ramping up military, diplomatic and political pressure on the island to accept its claims of sovereignty.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Jimmy Lai denies advocating Taiwan independence to national security trial

    Jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai has denied advocating Taiwan independence in a comment presented as evidence during his national security trial in which he said the self-ruling island had the potential to become a “very unique country” through its relationship with the US.

  • Defence Web ☛ Root causes of Cabo Delgado terrorism need to be addressed – expert

    Until the world understands – and addresses – the root causes of the crisis in Cabo Delgado, there will never be a lasting solution, according to Professor Adriano Nuvunga, the director for Mozambique’s Centre for Democracy and Human Rights.

  • Defence Web ☛ NCOP security and justice oversight committee will advocate for more defence funding

    That all is not well in the maritime service of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) was acknowledged by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) Select Committee on Security and Justice (SCSJ) in the wake of an oversight visit to SA Navy (SAN) fleet headquarters in Simon’s Town.

  • France24 ☛ Israel awaits ‘status of hostages’ in Hamas truce offer, WFP condemns strike on Gaza convoy

    Hamas has yet to clarify whether an initial batch of captives it said it was prepared to release were dead or alive, Israel said Monday, amid a months-long attempt to strike a deal to end the fighting in the besieged Palestinian enclave. The negotiations continue as Israel kept up its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, where the UN’s World Food Programme said one of its convoys was struck by Israeli fire.

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea tests mid-range missile as Blinken visits Seoul

    The US Secretary of State also warned of Pyongyang's deepening ties with Moscow.

  • New York Times ☛ Four Years After Capitol Riot, Congress Certifies Trump’s Victory Peacefully

    Vice President Kamala D. Harris presided over the certification of her own loss without disputing it, and Democrats made no move to challenge the results.

  • Poland, Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Calls For U.S. Security Guarantees, Seeks Early Trump Meeting

      Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said any security guarantees for his country to end the war with Russia would only be meaningful if they were provided by the United States and he said he hopes to meet with President-elect Donald Trump soon after his inauguration.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ What to expect from Poland’s EU presidency and its focus on ‘Security, Europe!’

      Poland sought a leadership role in Europe, and now it has one as it takes up the six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Federal News Network ☛ This Social Security Administration whistleblower is nothing if not persistent

    "In the most recent case, spouses, wives or widows who worked in jobs where they did not pay into Social Security," said John McAdams.

    [...]

    A Social Security whistleblowing employee has been vindicated by the Office of Special Council. John McAdams found that retirees were getting sub-optimal advice from Social Security itself, missing out on substantial benefits they were entitled to. He’s been at it a long time. In 2022, John McAdams the special counsel named him Public Servant of the Year. For more on the latest cases, claims specialist John McAdams joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ Yes, Trump Is Trying to Prevent the Release of Jack Smith's Report

    As I have expected, Trump is trying to prevent the release of Jack Smith’s report. Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira asked Judge Cannon (who, unless I’m mistaken it, does not retain jurisdiction over the case) to prevent Smith from releasing the volume pertaining to the stolen documents. And that filing includes a long screed from Todd Blanche asking Merrick Garland to fire Jack Smith so he doesn’t do what Special Counsels do.

    Among the other things Blanche complains about is that the report includes details on people expected to be part of Trump’s Administration. And that Xitter stalled its response to a warrant.

  • 404 Media ☛ Facebook Deletes Internal Employee Criticism of New Board Member Dana White

    Meta’s HR team is deleting internal employee criticism of new board member, UFC president and CEO Dana White, at the same time that CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced to the world that Meta will “get back to our roots around free expression,” 404 Media has learned. Some employee posts questioning why criticism of White is being deleted are also being deleted.

• Environment/Earthquake

  • New York Times ☛ 7.1-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes China’s Tibet Region Near Nepal Border

    The 7.1-magnitude quake, which struck the Tibet region, was felt in neighboring Nepal. Chinese state media said there had been deaths in at least three townships.

  • France24 ☛ Powerful earthquake strikes Tibet's holy city of Shigatse, dozens dead

    A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Dingri county, Tibet, near the Nepal border at 9:05 am local time Tuesday, killing at least 32 and destroying many buildings, state media confirmed. The US Geological Survey later revised the magnitude to 7.1.

  • YLE ☛ Lapland tourists leaving pricey winter wear behind

    "We've heard that tourists in particular are leaving behind huge amounts of clothes and things. We're aware of the phenomenon, but have no idea of ​​its extent," Sieppi explained.

    Once the survey is completed this month, it will have queried local residents, tourism firms as well as tourists themselves, according to Sieppi. The survey results will be used in the spring to guide a pilot project aiming to promote the region's circular economy.

  • Jamie Zawinski ☛ Since Greenland is in the news again, let's check in on Camp Century

    Ignore the recent breathless reporting about NASA having "discovered" the "secret" base, that's all bullshit. However, in 2017 there was a research expedition to the site to see how bad it is. And campcentury.org seems to be a repository of people still doing new science on the ice samples retrieved in the 1960s!

  • US News And World Report ☛ EU Warns of 'Serious Blow' From Trump on Climate Change

    Trump's transition team has prepared executive orders to withdraw the United States - currently the world's second-biggest polluter, after China - from the main global treaty on climate change, according to sources in the team.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • France24 ☛ Nippon Steel and US Steel sue Biden administration, USW and Cleveland-Cliffs over blocked merger deal

      US Steel and Nippon Steel filed lawsuits in Washington to try and overturn last week's decision by the Biden administration to block their planned merger. In a scathing statement, the steelmakers accused the outgoing president of making the move for political gain.  They also sued the USW and Cleveland-Cliffs for colluding to kill the deal to try and monopolise the US steel industry. Plus, a 276 kg bluefin tuna fetched €1.2 million at a New Year auction in Japan.

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ Pentagon adds world's largest EV battery maker to blacklist, posing problems for Tesla, Ford, and GM

      Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), which controls more than one-third of the global EV battery market, is among dozens of Chinese companies recently added to the Pentagon’s “Chinese Military Companies” or CMC list. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2024 bans the Defense Department from dealing with companies on the list starting in June 2026. Although private companies are not explicitly banned from doing business with designated CMCs, U.S. firms are discouraged from doing so.

      That poses a problem for Tesla, the largest global producer in the battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator market and CATL’s biggest customer. Last year, Bloomberg reported CATL was working with Elon Musk’s company on faster-charging cells and had supplied machinery to Tesla’s factory in Nevada, which is supposed to open this year.

    • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ On This Day in 1785, Two Men Braved Death When They Flew Across the English Channel in a Balloon

      The flying balloon had only been invented a couple years before, by French brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier. On June 4, 1783, the Montgolfiers had launched a silk balloon lined with paper. Carrying a dangling basket equipped with a fire that inflated the balloon with hot air, the craft rose up to 6,600 feet above Annonay, France. In ten minutes of flight, it traveled over a mile. A few months later, the brothers launched the same balloon, this time carrying passengers: a sheep, a duck and a rooster. On November 21, two men drifted over five miles in 25 minutes in the balloon: mankind’s first flight.

    • Federal News Network ☛ USPS next-gen fleet lawsuits dropped, but electric vehicle plans still under scrutiny

      California and 16 other states, plus the District of Columbia and several major cities, dropped a lawsuit last month that challenged the USPS’ plans in 2022 to purchase mostly gas-powered delivery vehicles in the coming years.

      USPS now plans to purchase mostly electric delivery vehicles, after receiving $3 billion to do so in the Inflation Reduction Act.

    • Michigan Advance ☛ Solar power firm says decision not to lease state-owned land made prior to criticism by lawmakers

      A plan to locate a solar farm on state-owned land in northern lower Michigan was scuttled before bipartisan criticism of the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) by lawmakers.

      That’s according to RWE Clean Energy, which says it is developing a 200 megawatt solar project in Otsego County, located on more than a thousand acres of privately owned land.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Trump announces Emirati businessman will invest $20B in US data centers

      Sajwani is the founder of DAMAC Properties, a major property development company based in the United Arab Emirates. In 2017, DAMAC built a golf course called Trump International Golf Club Dubai. The company has reportedly paid a multimillion-dollar licensing fee to the Trump Organization, while Sajwani contributed between $1 million and $5 million to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

    • The Hill ☛ OpenAI’s Sam Altman urges Trump to ease power plant, data center construction

      On Tuesday, Trump announced that Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani plans to invest $20 billion “over a very short period of time” to build data centers across the U.S.

    • The Register UK ☛ Trump touts $20B datacenter deal by Dubai property developer

      The impact of datacenters on the environment has been a matter of ongoing concern, at least until now. Google, for example, recently said that its datacenter emissions are up 48 percent from 2019, and up 13 percent from 2023. This is largely the result of an expanded datacenter footprint to support the intensive computing required to train and operate AI models. AI search queries have been estimated to consume ten times as much energy as traditional search queries.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Science Alert ☛ Storm-Surfing Bats Seen Using The Weather to Cover Astonishing Distances

      Riders on the storm...

    • New York Times ☛ Do Our Dogs Have Something to Tell Us?

      Many owners think so, thanks to the “talking buttons” craze on Fentanylware (TikTok) and Instagram. Scientists are less convinced.

  • Overpopulation

    • Overpopulation ☛ The impact of immigration policy on future U.S. population size

      Population size helps determine human societies’ environmental impacts. Given that immigration is a key factor influencing the size of human populations, environmentalists seeking to create sustainable societies have a prima facie stake in immigration policy. In many developed countries, decades of below-replacement fertility levels have not led to population stabilisation or decline. Instead, increased immigration has resulted in continued population growth in the United States, Canada, Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands and many other wealthy countries.

      How important will immigration be in determining future U.S. population sizes? An article I recently published in the Journal of Population and Sustainability seeks to answer this question by developing population projections under alternative possible immigration scenarios. Using demographers’ standard “cohort-component” projection method and fertility and mortality settings from the most recent (2023) U.S. Census Bureau projections, I varied net migration between 2025 and 2100 to create new projections based on alternative policy scenarios.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • New Yorker ☛ Lauren Boebert’s Survival Instincts

    The Colorado congresswoman’s inflammatory rhetoric has made her a national symbol of the Trumpist far right. She presents a different image closer to home.

  • Futurism ☛ Sam Altman Explodes at Board Members Who Fired Him

    OpenAI quickly churned through several short-lived CEOs before rehiring Altman shortly afterward, a messy custody battle that shook the company — and its public perception — to its core.

    The company's board went through a major game of musical chairs, with esoteric chief scientist Ilya Sutskever — who was one of the orchestrators of the coup and was quickly removed from the board as a result — quitting in May 2024 in a fit of rage.

  • The Register UK ☛ FCC chief urges auction to fund 'Rip and Replace' program

    The ongoing Typhoon cyberattacks, during which various Chinese-government-linked spies broke into critical computer networks for espionage and potentially destructive purposes, gave impetus to Rosenworcel's arguments, which bore fruit last December when Congress passed the Spectrum and Secure Technology and Innovation Act that allowed the FCC to borrow up to $3.08 billion from the Treasury to fully fund the Rip and Replace program.

  • Axios ☛ Zuckerberg's Meta board appointments suggest a Trump-friendly future

    Mark Zuckerberg moved further in the direction of MAGA on Monday, when he appointed three white men, including UFC chief executive and Trump friend Dana White, to the board of directors of Meta.

    Why it matters: We're a long way from 2022, when Peter Thiel resigned from the same board in order to be able to support Trump-aligned candidates.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Mark Zuckerberg Is at War With Himself

    I don’t have access to Zuckerberg’s brain, so I can’t know the precise reasons for his reversal. Has he been genuinely red-pilled by UFC founder (and new Meta board member) Dana White and his jiu-jitsu friends? Is he jealous of Musk, who seems to be having a good time palling around with Trump and turning X into 4chan? Is he simply an opportunist cozying up to the incoming administration? Or is he terrified that Trump—who not long ago threatened to send him to jail—will follow through on his promises of retribution against tech executives who don’t bend to his whims? Is this indeed just an opportunity for Meta to get back to its relatively unmoderated roots? My money is that Zuckerberg’s new posture—visiting Mar-a-Lago, donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, and elevating Joel Kaplan, a longtime Republican insider, to the top policy job at Meta—is motivated by all of the above.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • NPR ☛ Meta says it will end fact checking as Silicon Valley prepares for Trump

      Meta set up one of the most extensive partnerships with fact checkers after the 2016 presidential election, in which Russia spread false claims on Facebook and other online platforms. The company created what has become a standard for how tech platforms limit the spread of falsehoods and misleading information.

    • France24 ☛ Social media giant Meta culls US fact-checks ahead of Trump term

      Social media behemoth Meta on Tuesday eviscerated its content moderation policies, including culling its US fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram, in a major shift that aligns with the flagship policies of President-elect Donald Trump.

    • Futurism ☛ Zuckerberg Announces New Measures to Increase Hate Speech on Facebook

      In a cringe-inducing attempt to curry favor with president-elect Donald Trump, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced sweeping changes on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads that will almost certainly allow hate speech, misinformation, and other deleterious drek to proliferate on the platform even more than it already does.

    • New York Times ☛ Mark Zuckerberg’s Political Evolution, From Apologies to No More Apologies

      It was the latest step in a transformation of Mr. Zuckerberg. In recent years, the chief executive, now 40, has stepped away from his mea culpa approach to problems on his social platforms. Fed up with what has seemed at times to be unceasing criticism of his company, he has told executives close to him that he wants to return to his original thinking on free speech, which involves a lighter hand in content moderation.

    • India Times ☛ Disinformation experts slam Meta decision to end US fact-checking

      Tech giant Meta's shock announcement that it is ending its US fact-checking program triggered scathing criticism Tuesday from disinformation researchers who warned it risked opening the floodgates for false narratives.

    • VOA News ☛ Meta shelves fact-checking program in US, adopts X-like 'Community Notes' model 

      The Community Notes model will allow users on Meta's social media sites Facebook, Instagram and Threads to call out posts that are potentially misleading and need more context, rather than placing the responsibility on independent fact checking organizations and experts.

    • Axios ☛ Meta eliminating fact-checkers in favor of "community notes" system

      Why it matters: It's part of a growing trend among online platforms, which are shifting away from policing misinformation and content amid charges of bias. The shift will have consequences for digital safety and young users.

    • The Independent UK ☛ Facebook lifts restrictions on calling women ‘property’ and transgender people ‘freaks’

      The document updated on Tuesday — Meta shows a log of the changes made to the policy — is only a public-facing summary of the actual rules enforced by the company’s content moderators, which are far more detailed and usually kept secret from users.

    • New York Times ☛ Facebook Shifts Content Moderation to Its Users. Are You Ready?

      Meta would like to introduce its next fact-checker — the one who will spot falsehoods, pen convincing corrections and warn others about misleading content.

    • New York Times ☛ Meta to End Fact-Checking Program in Shift Ahead of Trump Term

      Meta said on Tuesday that it was ending its longstanding fact-checking program, a policy instituted to curtail the spread of misinformation across its social media apps, in a stark sign of how the company was repositioning itself for the Trump presidency and throwing its weight behind unfettered speech online.

    • Press Gazette ☛ Meta fact-checking partner says scheme's end is 'backwards step'

      Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Whatsapp, announced on Tuesday that its current system of fact-checking — in which claims flagged by users around the world are sent to local third-party organisations for assessment — will be replaced by a community notes system similar to the one brought in by Elon Musk on X (formerly Twitter).

      Full Fact, a fact-checking charity funded largely by donors, has been part of Meta’s third-party fact-checking programme since 2019. It received £373,510 from the social media company for fact-checking services in 2023, the largest sum it was given by any single financial contributor after Google (which gave £522,632).

    • The Register UK ☛ Meta to eliminate fact checkers, loosen speech policies

      TL;DR? Expect your Facebook feed to start looking a lot more like X, the site better known as Twitter, including the return of political content that was previously down-ranked in an attempt to keep the platform civil. Meta, which has billions of users worldwide, now intends to bring back the political argy-bargy, which it calls "civic content."

    • India Times ☛ Zuckerberg follows Musk’s lead: Meta ditches fact-checkers, embraces community notes

      The new system will rely on user-generated input to flag misleading content while narrowing Meta’s automated moderation focus to "high-severity violations" like terrorism and child exploitation. Zuckerberg acknowledged the trade-off: “We’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts we accidentally take down.”

    • New Yorker ☛ Mark Zuckerberg and Meta Abandon Fact-Checking

      A majority of Americans do worry about how to deal with false information online, and Facebook’s fact-checking processes have in the past been criticized for being too slow or too partial to make much of a difference. Deciding who gets to say what—most often framed as finding a balance between personal freedom of expression and the public’s need for accurate information—is difficult. Meta’s announcement, about which incoming Trump Administration officials were reportedly told in advance, and which was first publicized on “Fox & Friends,” makes clear that the company has changed its approach.

    • The Nation ☛ The TikTok Case Could Open the Floodgates to More Corporate Influence on the Media

      But this case is about far more than whether the United States should allow a Chinese-controlled TikTok to operate in the US. It’s about corporate speech rights, and the nature of national sovereignty. Even if you don’t agree with Biden’s argument about TikTok, you shouldn’t be rooting for the court to strike down the law. You should be rooting for this court—which can get a little trigger happy with corporate speech rights—to say nothing at all.

      That’s because there’s a real possibility that the court could reject TikTok’s specific plea but nonetheless give Big Tech companies a road map for insulating themselves from regulation by describing social media rights in sweeping First Amendment terms.

    • The Atlantic ☛ January 6 and the Triumph of the Justification Machine

      The revision of January 6 among many Republicans is alarming. It is also a powerful example of how the [Internet] has warped our political reality. In recent years, this phenomenon has been attributed to the crisis of “misinformation.” But that term doesn’t begin to describe what’s really happening.

      Think back to the original “fake news” panic, surrounding the 2016 election and its aftermath, when a mixture of partisans and enterprising Macedonian teenagers served up classics such as “FBI Agent, Who Exposed Hillary Clinton’s Cover-up, Found Dead.” Academics and pundits endlessly debated the effect of these articles and whether they might cause “belief change.” Was anyone actually persuaded by these stories such that their worldviews or voting behavior might transform? Or were they really just junk for mindless partisans? Depending on one’s perspective, either misinformation posed an existential threat for its potential to brainwash masses of people, or it was effectively harmless.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • New York Times ☛ Rudy Giuliani Is Held in Contempt of Court in Defamation Case

    Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, has failed to turn over his assets to two Georgia poll workers who won a defamation lawsuit against him.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Florida experiences a huge 1,150% surge in VPN use as Pornhub blocks access in response to age-verification law

    Pornhub's parent company describes the age-verification methods mentioned in the laws to be "ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous."

  • Digital Music News ☛ Roc Nation, Jay-Z Attorneys Face Allegations of Bribing People to Sue Buzbee Law Firm

    Another case has been filed against law firm Quinn Emanuel, alleging participation in a scheme attempting to solicit and pay individuals to sue the Buzbee Law Firm.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Danny Elfman Loses Bid to Dismiss Defamation Lawsuit Brought By Nomi Abadi

    Danny Elfman has lost a bid to dismiss the defamation lawsuit against him by fellow composer Nomi Abadi over statements he made to Rolling Stone. Danny Elfman has lost his bid to dismiss the defamation lawsuit brought against him by fellow composer Nomi Abadi about statements he made to Rolling Stone.

  • Cloudbooklet ☛ Joy Taylor Video Leak Sparks Lawsuit as Acho Deletes Evidence

    In a shocking turn of events, Acho allegedly deletes evidence related to Joy Taylor video leak. The lawsuit unfolds here.

  • Vietnamese Facebookers face prosecution for posts

    They were accused of insulting the police and government agencies.

  • FAIR ☛ WaPo Kills Cartoon That Mocked the Boss—and Trump

    When Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post cartoonist, submitted a draft sketch shortly before Christmas, she must have known she was stirring the pot.

  • France24 ☛ France's 'schizophrenic' approach to freedom of expression helps erode free speech - researcher - A propos

    France has marked 10 years since an Islamist attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper that shocked the country and led to fierce debate about freedom of expression and religion. [...]

  • VOA News ☛ France commemorates victims of Charlie Hebdo attacks 10 years on 

    France on Tuesday commemorated the victims of the deadly assault on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine 10 years ago that began a spate of Islamist militant attacks on the country and stoked a debate on press freedoms that still rages today.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Saudi Arabia Presses Florida Man to Give up US Citizenship Over Critical Tweets, Family Says

    The son of a Florida retiree says Saudi Arabia has forced his father to take steps to renounce his American citizenship after jailing him over social media posts critical of the kingdom’s crown prince

  • Techdirt ☛ Jeff Bezos’ Latest Gambit To Bring Back Trust In Media: Silence Editorial Cartoonists Who Call Out Your Sniveling Compliance

    The latest example? The Post silencing criticism by blocking an editorial cartoon mocking billionaires, Bezos included, for throwing millions at Trump’s inauguration in a pathetic attempt to curry favor. And it’s exactly this kind of behavior that is destroying the public’s trust in media.

    The public sees right through the charade. They know billionaires are using their media properties to skew coverage, squash dissent, and meddle in the newsroom to protect their egos and bottom lines. Is it any wonder trust is in the toilet? People are hungry for fearless, independent journalism that speaks truth to power and holds the wealthy and powerful to account.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ DC Thomson reports falling revenue for 2023/24 but investments boost profit [Ed: "investments" = speculations (more money to be lost)]

    Press & Journal publisher back in pre-tax profit after investments make massive gain.

  • Press Gazette ☛ City AM ends Monday print edition with ‘renewed focus’ on video and audio

    Small number of jobs put at risk as result of print reduction.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Around 4,000 journalism job cuts made in UK and US in 2024

    Q1 and US publications hit hardest by 2024 journalism job cuts.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Journalism industry job cuts 2025 tracked with up-to-date list

    In 2024, according to our analysis, there were around 4,000 journalism industry job losses.

    The losses were double that number in 2023 when the industry hit at least 8,000 job cuts.

  • Washingon-Baltimore News Guild ☛ Post Guild statement on Washington Post layoffs - Washington-Baltimore News Guild

    It is especially disturbing that Post CEO, Will Lewis, has not directly addressed his employees in a whopping 230 days — during which tumult and turnover have driven many of our highest-profile colleagues to other companies and new policies have been implemented with little explanation.

  • VOA News ☛ Calls grow for better protection after brutal killing of journalist in India

    Chandrakar, who was part of the Mahar community in the Indian city of Bijapur, was known for his coverage of corruption. He worked for the TV news channel NDTV and ran a YouTube channel “Bastar Junction,” which has 170,000 subscribers.

  • BIA Net ☛ Delegation to receive journalists’ remains kept waiting at Silopi

    The remains of journalists Nazım Daştan and Cihan Bilgin, who were killed in Syria, will be handed over at the Semelka Border Crossing between Syria and Iraq. However, the delegation from Turkey has not been allowed to pass into Iraq for 18 hours.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Public Knowledge ☛ Privileged Conversations | Jan. 2025

    Public Knowledge has the pleasure of inviting you to a multifaceted program focused on training and developing the next generation of tech policy experts and public interest advocates that reflects the diversity of voices and experiences in our society.

  • India Times ☛ Google should be forced to bargain with contractor's union, US labor agency says

    The complaint issued by the National Labor Relations Board last week claims that Google is a "joint employer" of about 50 San Francisco-based content creation workers employed by IT firm Accenture Flex who voted to join the Alphabet Workers Union in 2023, according to board spokeswoman Kayla Blado.

    Blado said the board is separately investigating an October complaint by the union that Google and Accenture Flex made changes to working conditions without bargaining first.

  • Vox ☛ College athletes were ready for unions before Trump’s win. What now?

    The athletes “have pushed the conversation on employment and collective bargaining in college sports forward,” said Chris Peck, president of Service Employees International Union Local 560, in a statement. “While our strategy is shifting, we will continue to advocate for just compensation, adequate health coverage, and safe working conditions for varsity athletes at Dartmouth.”

  • The Hill ☛ Jimmy Carter's impact on U.S. foreign policy and human rights

    Carter’s vision for human rights was clearly articulated in his inaugural address, where he stated, “The world itself is now dominated by a new spirit. Peoples more numerous and more politically aware are craving and now demanding their place in the sun — not just for the benefit of their own physical condition, but for basic human rights.” His statement reflected his belief that the U.S. should no longer support dictatorships just because they opposed communism. His administration aimed to promote democracy and human rights on the global stage, contrasting sharply with the policies of his predecessors, particularly those of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who often overlooked human rights abuses in favor of Cold War alliances.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ Nominations to the APNIC Executive Council (EC) now open

    Four APNIC Executive Council (EC) positions will be open for election at APNIC 59 on Thursday, 27 February 2025.

  • APNIC ☛ Three of the best: Development

    APNIC plays an active role in promoting the development of the Internet in the Asia Pacific. Here are the top three posts on the topic from 2024.

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Franksting’s new blog: features, value, and opt-in

    Long-time Ex-Twitter and now Mastodon friend @Franksting has a new blog, and he’s started with a topic near and dear to me:

    If a product team has done a good job, users will clearly understand a new feature’s value and they can turn it on whenever they choose.

  • Techdirt ☛ U.S. Media Once Again Fails To Cover The Corrupt Net Neutrality Ruling With Any Clarity

    But net neutrality had broad, bipartisan support. One 2022 survey found that 72% of Americans supported reinstating net neutrality, including 82% of Democrats, 65% of Republicans, and 68% of Independents. At the same time, letting a corrupt court system defang federal consumer protection hurts everybody, it’s not going to selectively hurt just Democrats. The framing here is bullshit.

    This Reuters article suffers from the same problems. If you don’t fall asleep halfway though the story, you’re unlikely to walk away with any understanding that there’s an actual problem here (monopoly power coddled by congressional corruption) that needs fixing, or that the ruling was anything more than the dullest of ambiguous, procedural fisticuffs.

  • EFF ☛ Sixth Circuit Rules Against Net Neutrality; EFF Will Continue to Fight

    This ruling fundamentally gets wrong the reality of internet service we all live with every day. Nearly 80% of Americans view broadband access to be as important as water and electricity. It is no longer an extra, non-necessary “information service,” as it was seen 40 years ago, but it is a vital medium of communication in everyday life. Business, health services, education, entertainment, our social lives, and more have increasingly moved online. By ruling that broadband “information service” and not a “telecommunications service” this court is saying that the ISPs that control your broadband access will continue to face little to no oversight for their actions.

    This is intolerable.

  • Chris Coyier ☛ Starlink

    I don’t actually have Starlink. I was just considering it for a hot second and figured I’d write down the thoughts.

  • Inside Towers ☛ FCC Scrutinizes Communications Marketplace in 2024

    The FCC concludes in the report that overall, the U.S. communications marketplace has experienced significant changes in recent years, especially with respect to fixed broadband, according to the Rural Spectrum Scanner. The Commission also determines there are new technologies, including 5G fixed wireless and low-Earth orbit satellites, that provide options for consumers.

  • The Nation ☛ Pro-Corporate Judicial Activists Have Shredded the First Amendment of the Internet

    The appeals court ruling represents a dramatic setback for the multiyear drive by civil rights, civil liberties, and media reform groups to maintain an open Internet in the face of free-spending lobbying by telecommunications corporations that seek to rewrite the rules in their favor. The telecoms have long wanted to gut net neutrality rules, which have been aptly described as “the First Amendment of the internet.” Specifically, they have sought the leeway to create a multi-tiered system of communications where there are fast lanes for missives from multinational corporations and powerful political interests, and slow lanes for civic groups and grassroots organizations, which lack the ability to pay for prioritized services.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • The Register UK ☛ John Deere unveils new autonomous vehicles at CES

    The new hardware, said CEO of Deere autonomy subsidiary Blue River Technology Willy Pell, will upgrade driverless Deere vehicles from plowing straight lines in open farm fields to navigating tight orchard lanes, quarrying, and mowing grass. Those new capabilities are thanks to enhanced camera arrays that extend the vision range from 16 metres to 24 metres, and Nvidia Orin GPUs that enable "full classification in milliseconds," Pell said.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ Precedential No. 1: TTAB Upholds USPTO Objections to Over-Inclusive Drawings for Watch Configuration Marks

    The Board affirmed the USPTO's refusals to register the product configuration marks shown below, for "watches, wristwatches," on the ground that the drawings were unacceptable for two reasons: (1) they include functional elements, and (2) they include elements that have not acquired distinctiveness. In other words, certain of the elements shown in solid lines should have been depicted in dotted or broken lines because they lack trademark significance. In re Audemars Piguet Holding SA, Serial Nos. 90045780 and 90045814 (January 2, 2025) [precedential] (Opinion by Judge Thomas L. Casagrande).

    Applicant Audemars Piguet described the marks as consisting of 12 specific elements as to the first design, but only nine of the 12 as to the second design. The Board noted that "[n]either refusal is based on lack of acquired distinctiveness of the entire designs or on the functionality of the entire designs." Instead, they are based on the applicant’s refusal to comply with Examining Attorney Taryn Smith's requirement that the drawings be revised.

  • International Business Times ☛ Dell Defends Against 'Apple Copycat' Claims In Naming New Computers: 'Pro And Max Are Not Exclusive To One Company'

    The company announced on 6th January, ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), that it is retiring long-standing names like 'XPS' and 'Inspiron.' Instead, Dell is adopting a streamlined branding approach, focusing on simplicity by centring its new range of devices around the 'Dell' name - an approach some people believe sounds eerily similar to Apple's own line.

  • Tedium ☛ Dell’s Dull Rebrand: Laptops Within The Lazy Grid

    So, this week’s news that the company was going to rebrand its entire PC portfolio under different variations of the Dell moniker feels like it should be a step in the right direction. And yet.

• Copyrights

  • Torrent Freak ☛ IPTV Piracy Expert Urges Restraint in Rush Towards Automated Blocking

    In the live sports broadcasting arena, dynamic blocking of pirate IPTV streams is seen as increasingly useful to tackle a prevalent and highly resilient form of illicit content delivery. Yet as the highly-publicized blunders of 2024 showed, getting blocking wrong benefits nobody. To that background, a blocking specialist at anti-piracy company Friend MTS is encouraging restraint.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Getty and Shutterstock agree $3.7bn merger

    The companies said the merger will result in a bigger content library for customers, including pictures, videos and music, as well as more opportunities for their contributors and a “reinforced commitment to the adoption of inclusive and representative content”.

  • New Yorker ☛ Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer’s Story?

    Tracy Wolff, the author of the “Crave” series, is being sued for copyright monopoly infringement. But romantasy’s reliance on standarized tropes makes proving plot theft tricky.

  • Heather J Meeker ☛ 9th Circuit Clarifies Derivative Works of Software: Oracle v. Remini Street

    A new opinion from the 9th Circuit, filed December 16, 2024, may change the way we think about copyleft licensing. It’s rare for the courts to opine on what constitutes a derivative work under copyright monopoly law, even less so for software.

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Ripe for Review: Digital Access to a Banana taped to the Wall

    Let me peel back the layers of this slippery copyright monopoly dispute that has the art world going bananas. In Morford v. Cattelan, No. 23-12263 (11th Cir. 2024), the Eleventh Circuit confronted the question of whether an artist can claim copyright monopoly protection over the concept of taping a banana to a wall. The appellate court sided with the accused famous artist, Morford continues to pursue his copyright monopoly action in a newly filed petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court.