Leftovers

• Career/Education

  • Stanford University ☛ Computing and Data Science building opens its doors

    Housing a new coffee shop in addition to many academic programs, Stanford’s new Computing and Data Science complex is set to become an interdisciplinary hub.

  • East Orange parents demand answers from school board following teacher layoffs

    East Orange School Superintendent Christopher Irving continues to receive criticism from some concerned parents over the decision to lay off 75 staff members, including teachers earlier this school year.

    Many gathered last night for a monthly school board meeting, where Irving continued to explain that the district lacks the funding to pay those who were let go.

    Irving took the position last summer and almost immediately announced there was a budget shortfall and changes were necessary.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-19 [Older] 17 hospitalized in salmonella outbreak linked to mini pastries

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-19 [Older] Rocky Mountain Bikes under creditor protection as global bicycle industry reels from effects of pandemic

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-19 [Older] Escaping the cycle of addiction felt impossible. Then I became pregnant

• Proprietary

  • Bryan Lunduke ☛ Microsoft Blizzard Artist Calls For Murder of Convicted Felon Voters

    "Kill your local MAGA," says Activision Blizzard video game artist.

  • Ubisoft’s Internal Memo Says Recent Layoffs is Due to “More Efficient Operating Models”

    Following 185 layoffs and a studio shutdown, Ubisoft has sent an internal memo to staff via its Agoro Newsroom about the recent layoffs, saying that the decision was made due to “finding more efficient operating models and to ensure our long-term success.”

    The internal memo confirms that approximately 65 positions where eliminated at Ubisoft Dusseldorf, approximately 100 roles are effected at Ubisoft Leamington and Ubisoft Reflections, and approximately 20 roles at Ubisoft Stockholm, taking the total to 185 people laid off. In addition, Ubisoft’s Leamington site would be shut down.

  • 1981 Media Ltd ☛ Ubisoft confirms 185 layoffs as it closes former DJ Hero studio and downsizes others

    Ubisoft has confirmed plans to lay off 185 employees in Europe as a result of wider restructuring efforts.

    The move will see the company close Ubisoft Leamington, which is based in Leamington Spa, England, and make cuts at Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections.

    Ubisoft Leamington was previously known as FreeStyleGames – the studio behind the DJ Hero series – before it was acquired by Ubisoft from Activision in 2017. It has since worked mainly as a support studio on games such as Far Cry 5, Avatar, and Star Wars Outlaws.

    Ubisoft said in a statement provided to VGC: “As part of our ongoing efforts to prioritize projects and reduce costs that ensure long-term stability at Ubisoft, we have announced targeted restructurings at Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections and the permanent closure of Ubisoft Leamington site.

  • Game Rant ☛ Dauntless Studio Phoenix Labs Laying Off Majority Of Its Staff

    Dauntless and Fae Farm developer Phoenix Labs has announced that it will be laying off a majority of its staff, adding to the seemingly unending pattern of cutbacks and restructurings that have been bombarding the video game industry since 2023. The official statement from Phoenix Labs mirrors the dozens of announcements made by other triple-A and indie studios over the past year and a half, leaving many worried that the video game industry is still entrenched in tumultuous times.

  • Robinhood Europe UAB ☛ It’s time for the Xbox to fade away

    As Nintendo skyrocketed to juggernaut status in the 1980s and ’90s, its only real competition was Sega, a fellow Japanese publisher that developed countless memorable titles.

    Sega was a pillar. It cranked out “Sonic the Hedgehog” games, went up against Game Boy with its own handheld device, and ran attack ads against “Super Mario.” Sega, like Nintendo, appeared to be a video game hardware stalwart that would be around forever.

    But that’s not what happened. In 2001, Sega abruptly pulled the plug. It announced it was no longer in the hardware business, unable to compete with Sony’s PlayStation series. It pulled support for its Dreamcast console just two years after its release.

    Instead, Sega became a mercenary — a third-party publisher that developed games for its former rivals. Suddenly, Sonic and Mario ceased to be enemies and instead became pals.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • TechRepublic ☛ DeepSeek Chatbot Beats Proprietary Chaffbot Company on App Store Leaderboard

      The Chinese firm said it cost just $5.6 million to train a model that can reason through complex answers and compete with OpenAI’s o1.

  • Social Control Media

    • Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Deal Derby Goes Into Overdrive With Oracle, Perplexity, Musk, Kevin O’Leary, Steven Mnuchin, and MrBeast In the Running—Here’s The Latest

      Dictator says he’s in talks with multiple parties over buying Fentanylware (TikTok) and will likely have a decision within 30 days to determine the app’s fate. TikTok’s ultimate fate in the United States should be determined in the next 30 days, said President Convicted Felon on Saturday.

    • Digital Music News ☛ Perplexity Reshapes Fentanylware (TikTok) Offer with 50% Ownership for U.S. Government

      Perplexity Hey Hi (AI) has submitted a new proposal that would allow the U.S. government to own up to 50% of a new entity that merges Perplexity with TikTok’s U.S. business.

    • Digital Music News ☛ X Expands Vertical Video Feed Outside the US as Fentanylware (TikTok) ‘App Rot’ and Availability Issues Continue

      Elon Musk’s X is expanding the release of its dedicated vertical feed to users worldwide shortly after its debut in the US. X, Elon Musk’s social control media platform formerly known as Twitter, has started expanding the release of its dedicated vertical video feed to users around the world.

    • NYPost ☛ Dictator suggests Abusive Monopolist Microsoft is in talks to buy TikTok, hopes for a ‘bidding war’

      “I would say, yes,” Convicted Felon told reporters aboard Air Force One when asked if the software giant was bidding to buy Fentanylware (TikTok) from its Chinese parent company ByteDance.

• Security

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ New [proprietary] VPN Backdoor

    A newly discovered VPN backdoor uses some interesting tactics to avoid detection:

    When threat actors use backdoor malware to gain access to a network, they want to make sure all their hard work can’t be leveraged by competing groups or detected by defenders.

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Pro Publica ☛ Dozens Died in Sober Living Homes as Arizona Fumbled Fraud Response

      At least 40 Native American residents of sober living homes and treatment facilities in the Phoenix area died as state Medicaid officials struggled to respond to a massive fraud scheme that targeted Indigenous people with addictions.

      The deaths, almost all from drug and alcohol use, span from the spring of 2022 to the summer of 2024, according to a review of records from the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner. Over half died as officials ignored calls to address lax oversight later shown to have contributed to thousands of patients being recruited into sham treatment programs.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • New York Times ☛ How Surveillance Giant Google Maps Plans to Handle the ‘Gulf of America’

      Google said it would follow the Convicted Felon administration in renaming the Gulf of Mexico once the new name is updated in government sources.

    • University of Michigan ☛ Don’t send me a GCal invite

      Imagine you get a text from your friend telling you about a bar crawl happening this weekend. As you start to reply, letting her know that you’re looking forward to it, a Surveillance Giant Google Calendar invite pops up.

• Defence/Aggression

  • France24 ☛ 'There are a number of hostages that have lost their lives'

    "There are a number of hostages that have lost their lives", noted Mark Owen, FRANCE 24's correspondent in Jerusalem. Other hostages "are coming though alive and well", he added. The Israeli government revealed in a news conference various aspects of psychological torture that some of the hostages have undergone, which "clearly points to an issue of a war crime being committed".

  • New York Times ☛ Israeli Forces Again Open Fire in Lebanon

    For a second day, Lebanese were defying Israeli warnings and attempting to reach southern border towns that remained occupied by Israeli troops. At least two people were killed, officials said.

  • France24 ☛ Lessons from the last survivors: How to remember the Holocaust?

    Some 50 former inmates of the largest of the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz-Birkinau making the trip to Poland for the 80th anniversary. How to process the collective folly of the industrial-scale mass extermination of one million Jews along with 100-thousand others in the space of a few short years?The Holocaust shattered the belief that technology could only be synonymous with progress and on that score, the gas chambers serve as a cautionary tale. How do citizens and nations remember in 2025? From the former Soviets whose forefathers liberated the camps to nations at the other end of the globe untouched by World War Two, what’s the lesson?The words "never again" ring hollow in today's world. An all-too-long list of genocides that have unfolded since. How then to talk about it?

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] Nine South African Soldiers Killed as Eastern Congo Conflict Escalates

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] Two South African Peacekeepers Killed Fighting Rebels in Eastern Congo, Officials Say

  • Defence Web ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] Three SANDF soldiers killed in the DRC – Sandu

  • The Age AU ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] Shelter from the storm of Africa

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] The Rescue of Hundreds of Miners in a Deep South African Gold Mine Began With a Camera and a Note

  • HRW ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] Death of Miners in South Africa a Government Failure

  • Defence Web ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Piracy slightly down in 2024, IMB warns against complacency

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-20 [Older] Aritzia, Canadian Tire, Groupe Dynamite among Canadian retailers shifting production outside China

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-20 [Older] India detaining, ejecting Canadian man is the latest example of revived 'blacklist' for Sikhs: experts

  • TruthOut ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini’s Inauguration Speech Threatened New Depths of State Cruelty

  • TruthOut ☛ 2025-01-20 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Makes Frightening Far Right Promises in Inauguration Speech

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Canada's immigration department cutting roughly 3,300 jobs over 3 years

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-19 [Older] Sudanese Canadians decry delays in bringing their family members to safety

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Tariff threat should force British Columbians to rethink travel to the U.S., premier says

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Twenty arrested after Russian teens riot over cancellation of TikToker’s concert due to bomb threat — Meduza

• Environment

  • BIA Net ☛ Earthquake strikes northwestern Turkey, felt in İstanbul

    The epicenter of the magnitude 4.1 quake was Bursa's Nilüfer district.

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] Rural areas are harder hit by climate change. These communities are rising to the challenge

  • The Age AU ☛ 2025-01-25 [Older] ‘Managed retreat’: Should Australians withdraw from our beloved coastlines?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] Can the climate change-fueled insurance crisis be fixed?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] How renewables boom could mitigate global climate change

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] LA fires cast light on climate change insurance crisis

  • Vox ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini’s attack on EVs is just theater — so far

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] How food waste apps can help the climate and save you money

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] As Cheeto Mussolini moves to withdraw from global commitments, China is waiting in the wings

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-23 [Older] US Exit From Paris Climate Deal Complicates Finance Targets, Says COP30 Head

  • HRW ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] US Paris Agreement Withdrawal Threatens Global Efforts to Tackle Climate Change

  • Renewable Energy World ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] Executive orders on energy and climate have advocates across the nation on edge

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] What Is the Paris Climate Agreement, and Why Does Cheeto Mussolini Want to Pull the U.S. Out of It?

  • Vox ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] How Canadian wildfires are impacting air quality across the US

  • Vox ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] The Air Quality Index and how to use it, explained

  • Vox ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] What makes a neighborhood resilient to fires?

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Michigan’s EV transition in limbo as Cheeto Mussolini halts climate spending

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini orders US exit from Paris climate agreement and WHO

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini to withdraw US from the Paris climate agreement — again

  • Vox ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] What did Cheeto Mussolini just do to the environment?

  • Vox ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] I care a lot about climate change. Does that mean I can never ever fly?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-20 [Older] What Cheeto Mussolini's EPA pick, Lee Zeldin, would mean for climate

  • Truthdig ☛ 2025-01-20 [Older] Did America’s First Climate President Have an Impact?

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini’s ‘energy emergency’ – This Week in Cleantech

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] California just debunked a big myth about renewable energy

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ 2025-01-24 [Older] ‘You know what else people don’t like?’ Cheeto Mussolini turns his sights to solar

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] South Korea to Shrink Biomass Energy Subsidies After Criticism Over Link to Deforestation

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] Europe Posts Record Year for Clean Energy Use as Cheeto Mussolini Pulls US Toward Fossil Fuels

    • New Yorker ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Invents an Energy Emergency

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • CBC ☛ 2025-01-19 [Older] Plovers in a dangerous time: Endangered bird may be making a comeback on N.B. shores

    • CBC ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] A dog bite to my face almost ended my veterinary career, yet my passion for animals prevailed

• Finance

  • Scheerpost ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] BRICS Expands to 54.6% of World Population By Adding Nigeria, Africa’s Most Populous Country

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] Why is rent falling in Canada’s most expensive cities? | About That

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-22 [Older] Amazon to close Quebec facilities, insists it's not because of new union

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-21 [Older] Canada's inflation rate fell to 1.8% in December, with prices declining during GST break

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Pro Publica ☛ The North Carolina Voters Who Could Have Their Ballots Tossed By Jefferson Griffin’s Election Challenge

    A Republican judge has spent more than two months trying to overturn his narrow defeat for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat by arguing that around 60,000 ballots should be tossed out. But many residents have only recently learned that their votes are in danger of not being counted and say they have done nothing wrong.

    ProPublica has heard from dozens of voters who expressed astonishment and anger at state appeals court Judge Jefferson Griffin’s ongoing attempts to cancel their ballots. The claim at the heart of Griffin’s challenge: No ballot should be counted for a voter whose registration is missing a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Ramsey County probation officers to announce vote count on strike authorization Tuesday

    Teamsters Local 320 represents 213 probation officers in the county.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • France24 ☛ No, these Democrat politicians did not make the same arm gesture as Elon Musk

      A photo montage of four Democratic politicians - Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris - has racked up over 150 million views on X, claiming to show them doing what has been likened to a “Nazi salute,” similar to the arm gesture Elon Musk was criticised for at Convicted Felon’s inauguration. These images are stripped of their context, all taken as screenshots from wider speeches; with no deliberate gestures. Vedika Bahl debunks clip by clip in this episode of Truth or Fake.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • JURIST ☛ Egypt authorities arbitrarily detaining activists ahead of UN review: report

    Egyptian officials have arbitrarily investigated and detained human rights activists over peaceful dissent ahead of Tuesday’s UN Universal Period Review (UPR), Amnesty International said Monday. Activists that are under investigation include politician Hisham Kassem and human rights activist Hossam Bahgat.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • CBC ☛ 2025-01-19 [Older] Gig workers want change after B.C. court rules accepting orders amounts to distracted driving

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Michael Geist ☛ The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 224: Why Prorogation and The Insurrectionist Spell the End of an Era in Canadian Digital Policy

    A lot has happened over the past six weeks since the last Law Bytes episode that provided a  year-end review. Fentanylware (TikTok) briefly went offline in the US,  Meta changed its content moderation policies in a major shift designed to curry favour with The Insurrectionist, Amazon announced it is laying off all of its Quebec-based employees, and Bell obtained an expansive court blocking order covering copycat sites to name just a few developments.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Hackaday ☛ The FTC Take Action, Is Time Finally Up For John Deere On Right To Repair?

    Over the last decade we have brought you frequent reports not from the coolest of hackerspaces or the most bleeding edge of engineering in California or China, but from the rolling prairies of the American Midwest. Those endless fields of cropland waving in the breeze have been the theatre for an unlikely battle over right to repair, the result of which should affect us all. The case of FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION, STATE OF ILLINOIS, and STATE OF MINNESOTA, v. DEERE & COMPANY  relates to the machinery manufacturer’s use of DRM to restrict the repair of its products, and holds the promise to end the practice once and for all.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Unified Patents ☛ Adeia Technologies optimization patent monopoly prior art found

    Unified is pleased to announce prior art has been found on U.S. Patent 9,208,155, owned by Adeia Technologies Inc, an NPE. The ‘155 patent monopoly discloses a content recommendation system focusing on enhancing user experience by observing and adapting to user interactions with various list presentations.

    We would also like to thank the dozens of other high-quality submissions that were made on this patent.

  • Unified Patents ☛ $10,000 for Dominion Harbor entity, Arlington Technologies, networking patents prior art

    Unified Patents added five new PATROLL contests, each with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on the list below. The patents are owned by Arlington Technologies LLC, an NPE and entity of Dominion Harbor Group. The patents relate to various technologies and two of the patents have been asserted against Comcast.

    The contests will expire on February 28, 2025.

  • JUVE ☛ Generics companies successfully challenge Biogen’s Dutch Tecfidera patent [Ed: EPO has once again granting fake patents]

    Dimethyl fumarate, or DMF, treats multiple sclerosis. The dispute between Biogen and numerous generics manufacturers concerns the daily oral administration of 480 grams of the active ingredient. Biogen’s EP 2 653 873 protects this low dosage administration.

  • Unified Patents ☛ AutoNavigare mobile app control patent monopoly challenged

    On January 24, 2025, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 9,288,665, owned and asserted by AutoNavigare, LLC. The ‘665 patent monopoly relates to controlling applications on a mobile device, such as a mobile phone, using an in-vehicle control system. It is currently being asserted against Toyota.

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ E.D. Va. Reverses TTAB's Precedential Decision in HME Opposition, Orders USPTO to Issue Registration

    In a precedential decision in September 2023, the Board sustained an opposition to registration of the mark HME in the stylized form shown below, for various types of pipes and other building products, finding confusion likely with opposer's mark KME for overlapping goods. [TTABlogged here]. Applicant Zhejiang Hailiang Co., Ltd. then commenced a civil action in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, for review of the Board's decision. On January 10, 2025, the District Court reversed the TTAB's ruling and ordered the USPTO to issue a registration for the opposed trademark. Zhejiang Hailiang Co., Ltd. v. KME GermanyGmbH, 1-23-cv-1606 (LMB/LRV) (E.D. Va. Jan. 10, 2025).

• Copyrights

  • Digital Music News ☛ Finally, a Way to Leverage Songwriter and Producer Opportunities That Distributors Neglect

    Navigating the complexities of the music industry can be overwhelming. For independent artists, publishers, and smaller labels, managing royalties, rights, and registrations often feels like an uphill battle.