Leftovers

• BIA Net ☛ Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan opens new photography exhibition in İstanbul

  The exhibition can be seen free of charge until Feb 23.

• Hackaday ☛ Digital Paint Mixing Has Been Greatly Improved With 1930s Math

  You might not have noticed if you’re not a digital artist, but most painting and image apps still get color mixing wrong. As we all learned in kindergarten, blue paint and yellow paint makes green paint. Try doing that in Photoshop, and you’ll get something altogether different—a vague, uninspiring brownish-grey. It’s the same story in just about every graphics package out there.

• Latvia ☛ Interactive exhibition shows 400 years of Liepāja's history

  Before the 400th anniversary of the city of Liepāja,  an innovative photo exhibition "Beautiful Liepāja - 400" has been unveiled, currently on display in the Liepāja Museum, Latvian Radio reported on January 30.

• NYPost ☛ ‘The Voice’ alum Ryan Whyte Maloney’s fiancée witnessed fatal gunshot that ended singer’s life: police report

  Ryan Whyte Malone died tragically of suicide.

• Chris Coyier ☛ Control

  Perhaps the biggest reason having your own site is a good idea is that you are in complete control. Platforms come and go, but your site is your site. You control the content, the design, the URLs, the everything. It’s a direct connection between a visitor to your site and you.

  But I got some very valid pushback on this on a panel I was on last year.

• Bob Monsour ☛ My last word on RSS entry IDs

  As has been pointed out to me, the IDs I was using for my RSS feed entries were not as permanently unique and robust as they could be.

  As one who can sometimes not let go of a bone once it's been picked up, I decided to do something about it.

• Bob Monsour ☛ Prepare for a minor flood of RSS entries

  As I have written, several times over the last few days, I've made a change to the way that I create IDs for my RSS feed entries.

• Annie Mueller ☛ Ignore this if you are a complete success - annie's blog

  It’s kind of freeing and humbling and beautiful to see that if you being you is the point, then failure and success both serve you. In fact, the idea of failure/success becomes kind of… nonsensical.

• Cory Dransfeldt ☛ Chronological feeds, slow feeds

  The modern internet demands your attention but rarely deserves it. Chronological feeds — slow feeds — allow you to filter out noise, get the updates you need and go back to doing something worth your time.

• Six Colors ☛ Reading newsletters via an RSS reader is still great

  I’m happy to report that I still do this—all of my newsletters either get sent directly to Feedbin or are forwarded to Feedbin via an email rule—and reading RSS and newsletters together is still as much of my morning routine as that tea is.

• Hong Kong Free Press ☛ ‘Masculine strength, feminine grace’: Shantou’s Chinese lion dance troupe shrugs off patriarchal past

  Flinging her male teammate into the air, performer Lin Xinmeng practises China’s world-famous lion dance with a troupe that is shrugging off centuries of patriarchal norms. Mixing acrobatics, martial arts and theatre, lion dancing is believed to bring prosperity and protection from evil spirits.

• Stuart Langridge: Forty Nine

  The sum of the digits of the square of 49 (2401) is the square root of 49.

  49 is the first square where the digits are squares. In this case, 4 and 9 are square numbers.

  It seems that 49 is an age of squares.

  I find myself increasingly OK with this.

• Ruben Schade ☛ Creating the ecomyca article on Wikipedia

  Last week I created an article for the ecomyca card:

  ecomyca (えこまいか) is a rechargeable contactless smart card issued by the Toyama Chihō Railway in Japan since 2010. The name is a portmanteau of “ecology” and “my card”, and is a play on the Toyama dialect “ikomaika” (行こまいか) which translates to “let’s go”.

  This was a lot of fun to research, and definitely pushed my limited Kanji and Hiragana! Anyone who’s fluent in Japanese, or has spent time in Toyama Prefecture, feel free to add to it, or ping me if you have more info. I only built the absolute basics.

• Ruben Schade ☛ Wait, it’s the 31st of January!?

  I saw that date under the title of my previous post as I was drafting it, and did a double-take. We’re almost into the second month of 2025. Already. What the fsck(8)? We’d better get the Xmas decorations down soon.

• Science

  • Futurism ☛ Scientists Say If We're Extremely Lucky, This Asteroid May Put Us Out of Our Misery

    "Odds have slightly increased to 1 in 83," University of Arizona researcher David Rankin wrote in a post on Bluesky. "This is one of the highest probabilities of an impact from a significantly sized rock ever."

    "Most likely outcome is still a near miss," he added. "We continue to track it!"

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ This quantum computer built on server racks paves the way to bigger machines

    Aurora is a “photonic” quantum computer, which means it crunches numbers using photonic qubits—information encoded in light. In practice, this means combining and recombining laser beams on multiple chips using lenses, fibers, and other optics according to an algorithm. Xanadu’s computer is designed in such a way that the answer to an algorithm it executes corresponds to the final number of photons in each laser beam. This approach differs from one used by Google and IBM, which involves encoding information in properties of superconducting circuits.

  • Wired ☛ Trump’s Plan for Elon Musk to Bring the ‘Stranded’ Astronauts Home ASAP Is a Headache for NASA

    Now generally, at Ars Technica, it is not our policy to write stories strictly based on things Elon Musk says on X. However, this statement was so declarative, and so consternation-inducing for NASA, it bears a bit of explication.

    First of all, the most plausible explanation for this is that Elon is being Elon. “He’s trolling,” said one of my best space policy sources shortly after Musk’s tweet. After all, the tweet was sent at 4:20 pm in the central time zone, where SpaceX now has its headquarters.

    Even if it is trolling, it will still cause headaches within NASA.

• Career/Education

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Public libraries in dire straits: 26 of 28 librarian posts vacant in Punjab

    The 14 public libraries in the districts across Punjab are in crisis due to a shortage of librarians. According to official data, 26 of the 28 sanctioned librarian posts across the state are vacant, with the last recruitment having taken place in 1998.

    The MM Central State Library in Patiala, one of the most significant knowledge centres in the state, has seven sanctioned librarian posts, but all are vacant.

• Hardware

  • Bunnie Huang ☛ Name that Ware, January 2025

    One thing I wonder about this ware is…where are the ROMs? Perhaps I’ll find out soon!

  • Bunnie Huang ☛ Winner, Name that Ware December 2024

    The ware for December 2024 is a 2mm pitch, 64×64 LED panel purchased from Evershine Opto Limited. Their sales part number is ES-P2-I, but the silkscreen says DCHY-P2-6464-1515-VP. The seller is just the name slapped on the box; like most commodity wares, there’s likely multiple channels offering the exact same make and model. So, I’ll accept any generic that more or less matches the spec as the winner.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Multi-camera system tracks dairy cows for improved health and productivity

    While there are invasive methods, like using mechanical devices attached to dairy cows for health monitoring, non-intrusive and non-contact techniques are preferred. These methods are less stressful for the cows, as they do not require any physical attachments, making them more suitable for everyday use on farms.

    These include advanced deep learning methods, such as camera-based tracking and image analysis. This approach is based on the idea that dairy cows often exhibit unusual behaviors and movement patterns due to illness, diseases, the estrus cycle, stress, or anxiety.

  • New York Times ☛ Pause on U.S. Funding Spreads Fear of H.I.V. Spike Across Africa

    Patients and health care advocates said the abrupt decision to halt U.S. funding for a lifesaving H.I.V. program led to widespread confusion. The backtracking didn’t help.

  • New York Times ☛ FDA Approves Journavx Drug to Treat Pain Without Addiction Risk

    The drug, Journavx by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, blocks pain signals to the brain, making it nonaddictive.

  • New York Times ☛ Takeaways From Day 2 of RFK Jr.’s Confirmation Hearings

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Convicted Felon’s nominee for health secretary, vigorously defended his views on vaccines, and a key senator still has clear doubts.

  • France24 ☛ Uganda confirms Ebola outbreak caused death of Kampala hospital nurse

    A 32-year-old male nurse at Mulago Hospital in the Ugandan capital Kampala has died of Ebola, health officials said Thursday, adding that at least 44 of his contacts had so far been identified. Uganda’s last outbreak of the disease, discovered in September 2022, killed at least 55 people before it was declared over in January 2023.

  • Stanford University ☛ Stanford nurses enter contract negotiations with Stanford Health Care, children’s hospital

    This week, members of the Committee for the Recognition of Nursing Achievement (CRONA), went to the bargaining table with Stanford Health Care (SHC) ahead of the current contract’s March 31 expiration.

  • NYPost ☛ FDA approves painkiller designed to eliminate the risk of addiction associated with opioids

    It’s the first new pharmaceutical approach to treating pain in more than 20 years.

• Proprietary

  • Bleeping Computer ☛ Microsoft investigates Abusive Monopolist Microsoft 365 outage affecting users, admins

    Microsoft is investigating an ongoing outage preventing users and admins from accessing some Microsoft 365 services and the admin center. According to thousands of reports from affected customers logged by DownDetector, these ongoing issues block login attempts and impact Microsoft 365 suite websites and Outlook services.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • The Strategist ☛ Could’ve seen it coming: ASPI’s tech tracker had picked up China’s Hey Hi (AI) strength

      It shouldn’t have come as a complete shock.

    • Futurism ☛ Team Says They've Recreated DeepSeek's OpenAI Killer for Literally $30

      Jiayi Pan, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, claims that he and his AI research team have recreated core functions of DeepSeek's R1-Zero for just $30 — a comically more limited budget than DeepSeek, which rattled the tech industry this week with its extremely thrifty model that it says cost just a few million to train.

      Take it with a grain of salt until other experts weigh in and test it for themselves. But the assertion — and particularly its bargain basement price tag — is yet another illustration that the discourse in AI research is rapidly shifting from a paradigm of ultra-intensive computation powered by huge datacenters, to efficient solutions that call the financial model of major players like OpenAI into question.

    • Futurism ☛ OpenAI Asking for Tens of Billions in New Investment to "Fund Its Money-Losing business Operations"

      For evidence, look no further than the WSJ's diplomatic phrasing: the "startup also expects to use the cash to fund its money-losing business operations."

      OpenAI is looking to raise funds at least in part to fulfill its promise of committing roughly $18 billion to president Donald Trump's shiny AI infrastructure initiative. The project, dubbed Stargate, is aiming to raise as much as half a trillion dollars in a matter of four years — plans that were met with plenty of skepticism.

    • Dan Q ☛ Can AI retroactively fix WordPress tags?

      One part of such an effort might be to go back and retroactively add tags where they ought to be. For about the first decade of my blog, i.e. prior to around 2008, I rarely used tags to categorise posts. And as more tags have been added it’s apparent that many old posts even after that point might be lacking tags that perhaps they ought to have.

      I remain sceptical about many uses of (what we’re today calling) “AI”, but one thing at which LLMs seem to do moderately well is summarisation. And isn’t tagging and categorisation only a stone’s throw away from summarisation? So maybe, I figured, AI could help me to tidy up my tagging. Here’s what I was thinking: [...]

    • The Verge ☛ Chip race: Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Nvidia battle it out for AI chip supremacy | The Verge

      It’s also prompting customers, like Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, Amazon, and Google to start working on their own AI processors. Meanwhile, Nvidia and other chip makers like AMD and Intel are now locked in an arms race to release newer, more efficient, and more powerful AI chips.

    • Jamie Zawinski ☛ Werewolf Futures

      If you read these headlines and think, "That's funny, but it's absurd, because werewolves aren't real"... keep going, you're so close to figuring it out!

    • Futurism ☛ Another Chinese AI Company Says It's Beaten OpenAI

      If confirmed, the claim could mark yet another escalation in the race to develop higher performance and more cost-efficient AI models among Chinese competitors, which have thrown Western tech markets into chaos.

    • The Register UK ☛ DeepSeek not the only Chinese AI dev keeping US up at night

      As always, we recommend taking benchmarks with a grain of salt, but if Alibaba is to be believed, Qwen 2.5 Max – which can search the web, and output text, video, and images from inputs – managed to out perform OpenAI's GPT-4o, Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Meta's Llama 3.1 405B across the popular Arena-Hard, MMLU-Pro, GPQA-Diamond, LiveCodeBench, and LiveBench benchmark suites.

    • The Verge ☛ Books written by humans are getting their own certification

      Certification is currently restricted to Authors Guild members and books penned by a single writer, but will expand “in the future” to include books by non-Guild members and multiple authors. Books and other works must be almost entirely written by humans to qualify for a Human Authored mark, with minor exceptions to accommodate things like AI-powered grammar and spell-check applications.

    • The New Stack ☛ Tools for Addressing Fairness and Bias in Multimodal AI

      The recent boom in artificial intelligence gives us a fascinating glimpse of future possibilities, such as the emergence of agentic AI and powerful multimodal AI systems that have also become increasingly mainstream.

      But even as AI development blazes ahead, there are lingering questions about algorithmic bias. This term refers to how AI systems can inadvertently reflect and augment prejudices from their creators or from skewed training data, thus potentially producing unfair outcomes based on gender, race or age, and potentially perpetuating or even amplifying social inequalities and biases.

    • [Old] Yossi Kreinin ☛ The state of AI for hand-drawn animation inbetweening

      There are many potential ways to use AI1 (and computers in general) for 2D animation. I’m currently interested in a seemingly conservative goal: to improve the productivity of a traditional hand-drawn full animation workflow by AI assuming responsibilities similar to those of a human assistant.

      As a “sub-goal” of that larger goal, we’ll take a look at two recently published papers on animation “inbetweening” – the automatic generation of intermediate frames between given keyframes. AFAIK these papers represent the current state of the art. We’ll see how these papers and a commercial frame interpolation tool perform on some test sequences. We’ll then briefly discuss the future of the broad family of techniques in these papers versus some substantially different emerging approaches.

    • Sebastian Ruder ☛ The Evolving Landscape of LLM Evaluation

      Throughout recent years, LLM capabilities have outpaced evaluation benchmarks. This is not a new development. The set of canonical LLM evals has further narrowed to a small set of benchmarks such as MMLU for general natural language understanding, GMS8k for mathematical reasoning, and HumanEval for code, among others. Recently, concerns regarding the reliability of even this small set of benchmarks have emerged.

    • The Straits Times ☛ India races to build own Hey Hi (AI) models as DeepSeek leaps ahead

      It is seeking to build computing capacity of just over 18,000 graphics processing units.

    • Reuters ☛ Microsoft shares slide as cloud forecast, Hey Hi (AI) spending disappoint

      Microsoft on Wednesday forecast disappointing growth in its cloud computing business, sending its shares down 4.5% in after-hours trading as investors worry about big spending, elusive artificial intelligence revenue and competition from cheaper AI models from China.

  • Social Control Media

    • India Times ☛ Flagging people using social media to report problems, Gadkari asks officials to address highway quality issues

      Speaking at an workshop on adoption of Automated and Intelligent Machine-Aided Construction (AIMC) technology in highway construction, Gadkari said, “When you do good work, I get credit. But when there is a pothole on a highway, people criticise me... People criticised us on social media platforms when there were potholes on Delhi-Mumbai Expressway. Ab kisiki chori chhip nehin sakti (Now none can hide his/ her mistake). We all must understand that all those who are responsible will be fully exposed, if we don’t address issues quickly.”

    • Chris McLeod ☛ Follower Count

      I think I’ve come to the conclusion that on these no/less algorithm-driven platforms I prefer following more accounts, though I could probably trim the Bluesky number down a bit. The higher follower count just makes for a much more varied and lively feed, which feels more enjoyable. After a bit of adjustment, don’t feel the need anymore to read every update I might have missed. I just dip in and absorb what’s there in the moment, then dip out. Custom feeds such as “Quiet Posters” help too. On Mastodon I see most updates from those I follow, as the numbers are relatively low, but it’s easy for the feed to be dominated by 1 particular account or topic at a time, and this doesn’t feel great - particularly at the moment.

    • The Atlantic ☛ Your FOMO Is Trying to Tell You Something

      The world has changed since 2004, though. Social media began feeding the feeling of always being left out of something. Optimization-and-productivity culture encouraged the idea that one can engineer their schedule to accommodate the ideal number of enlightening, spiritually fulfilling plans. Then, naturally, a backlash arrived. It might be best summed up by a newer term: JOMO, or the “joy of missing out.” The idea is that you should savor your solitude, fully embrace the choice to do what you want to do rather than what others are doing.

    • The Atlantic ☛ Is This How Reddit Ends?

      The [Internet] is growing more hostile to humans. Google results are stuffed with search-optimized spam, unhelpful advertisements, and AI slop. Amazon has become littered with undifferentiated junk. The state of social media, meanwhile—fractured, disorienting, and prone to boosting all manner of misinformation—can be succinctly described as a cesspool.

    • The Verge ☛ Zuckerberg wants to Make Facebook Great Again

      Recapturing the OG Facebook vibe could mean several things. Many people like myself will think back to the era before it was overtaken by our boomer and Gen X relatives — online spaces are less fun with your family spectating. But let’s not forget that the original Facebook, known as Facemash, was a site Zuckerberg created to nonconsensually rank his female classmates at Harvard by attractiveness. I sure hope this isn’t the “masculine energy” he thinks we need more of, given he reportedly blamed former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg for making inclusivity changes at the company.

• Pseudo-Open Source

  • Openwashing

    • HPC Wire ☛ AI Needs Its Linux: Oumi Comes Out of Stealth with an Open Source Vision [Ed: Misusing the word "Linux" for hype]

      A new company called Oumi has just been launched, emerging from stealth today with $10 million in seed funding. The company’s founders describe Oumi as the world’s first unconditionally open source AI platform, positioning it as a collaborative and transparent alternative to today’s proprietary AI ecosystems, similar to how Linux revolutionized operating systems.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ Fake Reddit and WeTransfer Sites are Pushing Malware

      There are thousands of fake Reddit and WeTransfer webpages that are pushing malware. They exploit people who are using search engines to search sites like Reddit.

      Unsuspecting victims clicking on the link are taken to a fake WeTransfer site that mimicks the interface of the popular file-sharing service.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • OpenRightsGroup ☛ New report: Voter data privacy concerns over apps used by political parties

      Open Rights Group’s investigation raises concerns about privacy and security of political parties’ canvassing apps.

      Our report illustrates how provisions in the Data Use and Access Bill could be exploited by an incumbent government for political advantage in elections.

      Questions also raised about whether the public’s data is being unlawfully shared with commerical organisations.

    • OpenRightsGroup ☛ Moral Hazard: Voter Data Privacy and Politics in Election Canvassing Apps

      In this report we analyse the technical architecture, and associated privacy policies, of the canvassing apps used by the Liberal Democrat, Conservative, and Labour parties during the 2024 general election.

    • OpenRightsGroup ☛ Moral Hazard: Voter Data Privacy and Politics in Election Canvassing Apps [PDF]

      Our analysis of apps shows that concerns around privacy and security are already very significant. Our Static Application Security Testing analysis of the Liberal Democrat’s MiniVan App found that it was deployed with infrastructure with a history of security vulnerabilities. An analysis of Labour’s web-based Reach, Doorstep and Contact Creator apps found these apps were integrated with infrastructure owned by Experian. The Conservatives’Share2Win app also presented security vulnerabilities and access to data that would raise privacy concerns, such as location tracking. All parties – including the Conservatives through their Share2Win and VoteSource App – appear to be reliant on international commercial entities to run their digital campaigning infrastructure.

    • The Local SE ☛ Swedish government speeds up introduction of law to monitor children's communications

      Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced at a press conference on Thursday that the government is speeding up the introduction of a law which would allow police to secretly monitor communications of children under the age of 15.

    • The Register UK ☛ Amazon sued for snarfing sensitive data via advertising SDK

      The legal filing takes issue with the Amazon Ads SDK, a software library that the e-commerce giant provides to third-party app makers to serve ads, while also allegedly collecting user data.

    • Pete Brown ☛ Data privacy laws should work for people, not for businesses.

      What we absolutely, positively, 100% do not need are data privacy laws written and supported by industry groups “that will be easier for businesses to adhere to.” This road leads to federal privacy legislation that will be onerous for small businesses and individual creators that do not have the resources to have teams of privacy experts on-hand. It will also mean privacy laws that are designed to protect the industries and companies whose lobbyists wrote them, not the people whose data they are extracting and exploiting.

    • JURIST ☛ Consumers sue Amazon over alleged tracking of sensitive data

      A class of consumers sued Amazon.com, Inc. on Wednesday, claiming the technology company secretly tracked and sold their sensitive data without their consent.

  • Confidentiality

    • Wired ☛ Exposed DeepSeek Database Revealed Chat Prompts and Internal Data

      The Chinese generative artificial intelligence platform DeepSeek has had a meteoric rise this week, stoking rivalries and generating market pressure for United States–based AI companies, which in turn has invited scrutiny of the service. Amid the hype, researchers from the cloud security firm Wiz published findings on Wednesday that show that DeepSeek left one of its critical databases exposed on the [Internet], leaking system logs, user prompt submissions, and even users’ API authentication tokens—totaling more than 1 million records—to anyone who came across the database.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Sensitive DeepSeek database exposed to the public, cybersecurity firm Wiz reveals

      New York-based cloud cybersecurity firm Wiz Inc. said Wednesday it discovered a sensitive database belonging to popular Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek the company did not properly secure and thus exposed it to the public internet. DeepSeek has gained popular media fame in recent weeks after releasing several groundbreaking Hey Hi (AI) models, including DeepSeek-R1.

    • Cyble Inc ☛ DeepSeek Security Scrutinized Amid Data Leaks, Jailbreaks

      Claims that DeepSeek can be easily jailbroken appeared within hours of the AI startup’s rise to the center of the AI world, followed by reports of misinformation and inaccuracies found in the would-be rival to ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs). Scammers wasted no time piling on, as Cyble detected a surge in fraud and phishing attempts aimed at exploiting DeepSeek’s sudden popularity.

      The latest DeepSeek security issue involves an exposed database discovered by Wiz Research, which added to concerns about the AI startup’s security and privacy controls.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Wiz researchers find sensitive DeepSeek data exposed to internet

      Experts for the clown security firm pulled sensitive data from the service with simple SQL queries.

    • Futurism ☛ If You Think Anyone in the AI Industry Has Any Idea What They're Doing, It Appears That DeepSeek Just Accidentally Leaked Its Users' Chats

      "This database contained a significant volume of chat history, backend data and sensitive information," Wiz explained in its vulnerability report, "including log streams, API Secrets, and operational details."

      Even worse, that wide-open back door at the open-source AI company could easily have led to an attack on DeepSeek's systems "without any authentication or defense mechanism to the outside world," the researchers wrote.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Defence Web ☛ Kagame talks tough on SA involvement in the DRC ahead of SADC meeting

    Rwandan President Paul Kagame has accused the Southern African Development Community Mission in the DRC (SAMIDRC) as being a belligerent force and said South Africa – as a mission contributor – is in no position to take on the role of a peacemaker or mediator.

  • CS Monitor ☛ As Musk amps up his support for the far right, Europe pushes back

    Elon Musk is intervening in European politics with a slew of vitriolic posts supporting far-right parties. European leaders have begun to object.

  • New York Times ☛ Musk’s Ex-Twitter Takeover Offers Convicted Felon a Blueprint

    Federal agencies have offered exits to millions of employees and tested the prowess of engineers — just like when Elon Musk bought Twitter. The similarities have been uncanny.

  • New York Times ☛ Muhammad Deif, Hamas Military Commander in Gaza, Is Dead

    Mr. Deif was assassinated in an Israeli strike on southern Gaza on July 13, Israel said. He was one of the most senior Hamas leaders inside the territory and one of Israel’s most-wanted militants.

  • Fighting in Myanmar’s Sagaing region prompts thousands to flee to India border

    The military has responded to a rebel offensive with airstrikes and drone bombs, forcing residents to seek shelter.

  • New York Times ☛ Appeals Court Strikes Down Federal Ban on Handgun Sales to Teenagers

    The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit applied the Supreme Court’s “historical tradition” test.

  • The Register UK ☛ Lazarus Group's latest heist hits hundreds globally

    Lazarus Group primarily forked open source projects for this campaign, we're told. If you've come across, or installed, any of the malware-laced packages identified by SecurityScorecard, be aware and take action.

  • The Conversation ☛ Australia’s social media ban shows how extreme the technology debate has become – there’s a better way

    The recent decision by the Australian government to introduce a ban on social media for under-16s has been received with both praise and condemnation.

    Those who approve of the proposal tend to consider that children are being exploited by egregious levels of exposure to this technology. Opponents of the ban argue that it is not proportionate to the potential harms of denying young people appropriate access to what have become integral features of everyday existence.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ If we listen to how Gen Z really feel about democracy they might stop telling us they prefer authoritarianism

    These are trends to be worried about. But Gen Z are not somehow inherently anti-democratic. Understanding why these trends are happening is vital if young people are to participate in democracy.

  • VOA News ☛ NATO, EU on high alert as undersea cable attacks escalate in Baltic

    As authorities investigate the fourth Baltic Sea cable-cutting incident in recent months, European leaders have expressed concern about the frequency of attacks involving civilian vessels and critical civilian infrastructure.

  • C4ISRNET ☛ 11 Baltic cables damaged in 15 months, pushing NATO to boost security

    At least 11 Baltic cables have been damaged since October 2023 — the most recent being a fiber optic cable connecting Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland, reported to have ruptured on Sunday. Although cable operators note that subsea cable damage is commonplace, the frequency and concentration of incidents in the Baltic heightened suspicions that damage might have been deliberate.

  • Crooked Timber ☛ On the End of [NATO]: a European perspective — Crooked Timber

    In fact, within Europe (and the European side of [NATO]) the Europeans have ceded political agency to Turkey which has been active trying to redraw the political map among its (Middle Eastern) neighbors not the least Syria. Turkey is only the seventh largest economy in Europe. After shutting the Turks out of any future EU expansion plans, it shouldn’t surprise that Turkey’s actions in the Levant and toward Russia & The Ukraine need not always fit European priorities.*

  • Futurism ☛ Elon Puts Kid Who Just Graduated From High School in Charge of Disemboweling the US Government

    Although both these tykes are ostensibly poised to rip and tear through America's federal agencies, Wired declined to name them "because of their ages" — a somewhat baffling choice given that both appear to be of legal age. (And if they're not, well, that's a much bigger problem.)

    Populating the OPM with naive-yet-loyal yes men seems to be a key strategy in Trump's plan to drastically cut down the federal workforce. It also follows Musk's disastrous playbook at Twitter — the two young OPM hires are reminiscent of a move the billionaire pulled when he hired his alarmingly junior and inexperienced cousins to facilitate three massive rounds of layoffs as he took over the platform.

  • Wired ☛ Elon Musk Lackeys Have Taken Over the Office of Personnel Management

    According to the same sources, other people at the top of the new OPM food chain include two people with apparent software engineering backgrounds, whom WIRED is not naming because of their ages. One, a senior adviser to the director, is a 21-year-old whose online résumé touts his work for Palantir, the government contractor and analytics firm cofounded by billionaire Peter Thiel, who is its chair. (The former CEO of PayPal and a longtime Musk associate, Thiel is a Trump supporter who helped bankroll the 2022 Senate campaign of his protégé, Vice President JD Vance.) The other, who reports directly to Scales, graduated from high school in 2024, according to a mirrored copy of an online résumé and his high school’s student magazine; he lists jobs as a camp counselor and a bicycle mechanic among his professional experiences, as well as a summer role at Neuralink, Musk’s brain-computer interface company.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Philippines president Marcos plans to meet Convicted Felon to discuss immigration policy

    Marcos said he would return a missile system to the US if China ceased its "aggressive behaviour".

  • Thousands of ‘Terrorism Suspects’ on ‘Shanghai List’ Include Uyghur Children, Elderly

    The recently leaked document provides new insight into how China characterizes extremist threats.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Insurrectionist’s commerce pick signals hawkish China stance

    The Insurrectionist’s commerce secretary nominee told his US Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday he favors “across-the-board” tariffs targeting countries rather than products, while signaling a hawkish China stance. “We can use tariffs to create reciprocity, fairness and respect,” said Howard Lutnick, a close Convicted Felon ally and billionaire CEO of Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald.

  • ACLU ☛ Why Sanctioning the ICC Would Be Terrible for Civil Liberties

    A bill that would have required the president to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) has failed in the Senate. It may return, or President The Insurrectionist may unilaterally impose sanctions on the ICC, as he did in his first administration. Either result would raise serious constitutional concerns and deal a grave blow to human rights accountability, including investigations the United States has supported.

  • New York Times ☛ Who Is Syria’s New Interim President?

    The rebel chief who led the overthrow of the longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad has been declared the head of government for a transitional period.

  • Breach Media ☛ Lives ruined, no ‘traitors’ found: the cost of baseless reporting on Chinese interference

    How unsubstantiated claims about foreign meddling by Global News and The Globe and Mail left a trail of human damage

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysian police arrest 5 after 2 cars ram into crowd outside KL nightclub

    According to a witness, a pickup and a sedan were recklessly driven outside Top Plus Club in KL.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • LRT ☛ Lithuanian border guards discover smugglers’ tunnel on border with Belarus

      Border guards from Lithuania’s State Border Guard Service (VSAT) have discovered a 25-meter-long underground tunnel on the border with Belarus, which may have been used for smuggling.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuania’s MFA says it couldn’t assist citizens in trouble in Belarus

      As agencies in Lithuania continue offering trips to Belarusian sanatoriums, the Foreign Ministry warns that Lithuanian citizens are still advised against travelling to the neighbouring country and that it has little opportunity to assist them there in case of need.

    • Meduza ☛ Moscow police arrest multiple former Rusnano executives tied to Anatoly Chubais in reported corruption case — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russian prosecutors seek state takeover of Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, citing ‘foreign control’ — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ E.U. officials debate returning to Russian gas as part of deal to end war — Financial Times — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Syria’s new authorities ask Russia to hand over Assad — Reuters — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russian figure skaters reportedly among passengers in Washington D.C. plane crash — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Like someone’s building a dacha’: Russian kindergartens’ request for donated construction materials to help the war effort leaves parents baffled — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Anti-Corruption Foundation uncovers evidence that Russian state oil giant Rosneft maintains a staff of paid escorts — Meduza

    • New York Times ☛ Married Russian Figure-Skating Stars Are Among Victims of Plane Crash Near Washington, D.C.

      A Boston skating club confirmed that Yevgeniya Shishkova, 52, and Vadim Naumov, 55, were on the plane that crashed after colliding with a military helicopter.

    • RFERL ☛ Pro-Russian Party In Georgia Cuts Ties With European Body - What’s At Stake?

      The Georgian Dream party ceased its work in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the head of the Georgian delegation said after the Strasbourg-based legislative body overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on Georgia to set a date for new parliamentary elections.

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Champion Skaters Naumov, Shishkova Among Scores Of Passengers Dead In D.C. Plane Crash

      Former Russian World Champion figure skaters Vadim Naumov and his wife, Evgenia Shishkova, are among scores killed in a mid-air collision between a passenger jet a military helicopter on a training flight over the Potomac River near the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

    • Latvia ☛ Rīga says it's ready to unplug from Russian power grid

      Rīga is ready to disconnect from the BRELL electricity grid, which connects Latvia to the Russian and Belarusian electricity systems, as confirmed by the Rīga City Council after a meeting of the Civil Protection Commission on January 30.

    • Meduza ☛ Russian state media publishes battlefield photos from the Kursk region, showing destroyed AFU equipment and fallen Ukrainian soldiers — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘The world doesn’t want to deal with us anymore’: Hundreds of thousands of Russians left their country after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Why have many started going back? — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu says Ukraine is a ‘fictional state,’ talks post-war partition — Meduza

    • New York Times ☛ Kyiv’s Mayor Feuds With President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine

      The mayor, Vitali Klitschko, who has had a tense relationship with President Volodymyr Zelensky, accused him of trying to usurp the powers of elected officials in the capital.

    • RFERL ☛ China Supplying Key Chemicals For Russian Missiles, RFE/RL Investigation Finds

      An investigation by RFE/RL’s Schemes has found that companies at least partially owned by the Chinese state are feeding critical minerals to Russian suppliers to manufacturers of weapons the Kremlin has used to pummel Ukraine since its all-out invasion nearly three years ago.

    • RFERL ☛ At Least 6 Killed In Russian Drone Strike On Ukraine's Sumy

      A Russian drone attack that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called "a horrible tragedy" struck a residential building in the Ukrainian regional capital Sumy, officials said, killing at least six and injuring nine others, including a child.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuania would consider sending peacekeepers to Ukraine – defence chief

      Chief of Defence Raimundas Vaikšnoras believes that Lithuania should consider sending troops to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping mission.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuania sends short-range air defence systems to Ukraine

      Lithuania has sent short-range man-portable air defence systems with missiles to Ukraine, the Defence Ministry said on Thursday.

    • France24 ☛ ‘This centre saved my life’: US aid cut hits charities for Ukraine war veterans

      After President The Insurrectionist ordered a 90-day freeze on non-military foreign aid, US projects worldwide are in jeopardy. One of the worst-hit countries is Ukraine, where stop-work orders were issued to initiatives all over the country, including those assisting war veterans – despite growing need. FRANCE 24’s Gulliver Cragg reports.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Trump’s out-of-the-box approach is perfect to help demilitarize Kaliningrad

      Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine should also consider European security in the war’s aftermath—and this should include removing the threat that Russia’s control over Kaliningrad poses to the continent.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Ukrainian Holocaust survivor: Russia is waging ‘war of extermination’

      Ukrainian Holocaust survivor Roman Schwarzman has implored Germany to increase support for Ukraine in the fight against Russia’s “war of extermination,” writes Peter Dickinson.

    • Meduza ☛ Ramzan Kadyrov’s cousin owns a luxury villa in Dubai that serves as an ‘unofficial Chechen embassy’ — iStories — Meduza

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Verge ☛ Meta warns that it will fire leakers in leaked memo

    Moments after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s all-hands comments to employees were widely leaked, a company executive warned in an internal memo that leakers will be fired.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Whistleblower ‘forced to disguise himself’ because of Tulsi Gabbard

    A Syrian defector was told to hide his face while testifying to US Congress about the horrors of the Assad regime amid fears Tulsi Gabbard would leak his identity, according to former state department officials.

    Ms Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran accused of echoing Russian and Syrian propaganda, is facing a battle to secure her nomination to the post of Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

  • AccessNow ☛ Ten years of tracking transparency: the Transparency Reporting Index

    We’re refreshing our Transparency Reporting Index to reflect current practices and trends, including adding reports on content governance.

  • AccessNow ☛ Transparency Reporting Index

    We’re refreshing our Transparency Reporting Index to reflect current practices and trends, including adding reports on content governance.

• Environment

  • The Hindu ☛ Extreme climate events impacting southwest coast, says study

    “The study showed that the southwest coast has seen a steady rise in extreme rainfall events, increasing at a rate of 0.23 mm per season. This trend is strongly tied to the thermodynamic component of moisture flux, which itself correlates with warming SSTs in the southeast Arabian Sea,” according to Ajil Kottayil, scientist at the Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research, Cusat, who had guided the study authored by Tesna Maria, a doctoral scholar at the centre. The research was a collaborative effort with Dr. Viju John of EUMETSAT and Prince Xavier of the UK Met Office, he said.

  • RIPE ☛ Why Small and Medium-Size Operators Should Care About Sustainability

    A new resource dedicated to small and medium-sized digital infrastructure providers in Europe highlights the benefits of incorporating sustainability into their operations, offers a consolidated list of best practices and recommendations, and shares additional resources to help them make practical changes to save time, energy, and money.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Thousands evacuated as heavy rain hits Malaysian states

    The Malaysian Meteorological Department warned that the rains will continue until Jan 31.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Straits Times ☛ ‘Open the door, open the door!’: How dozens fled an inferno on a plane in South Korea’s Busan airport

      Concerns were raised about whether Air Busan’s crew had followed standard safety procedures.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Joint probe to begin into Air Busan fire at South Korean airport amid speculation over cause

      A portable power bank in the plane's overhead bin is suspected to be at fault.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia petrol dealers seek fines for foreign vehicles that pump subsidised RON95 petrol

      The issue has to be handled through systemic reforms and enforcement, said an official.

    • Futurism ☛ America's Deadliest Airliner Crash in 23 Years Happens a Week After Trump Guts Airline Safety Groups

      Just over a week after firing the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard, eliminating all members of a key aviation security advisory group, and freezing all hiring at the Federal Aviation Administration including key air traffic controllers, the United States has experienced its deadliest aviation disaster in nearly 24 years.

    • NOAA ☛ New data for improved navigation in the upper Hudson River

      The Turkey Point station is equipped with pressure-based and microwave water level sensors, satellite transmitters, as well as rechargeable batteries and solar panels. The redundancy of the built-in sensors and power sources is designed to ensure the station operates in all weather conditions, and that NOAA’s critical real-time data continues to flow when it is most urgently needed by the maritime community. The station is also equipped with an anemometer that measures wind speed, pressure, and direction; sensors for air and water temperature, relative humidity, and conductivity; as well as a barometric pressure sensor to measure meteorological conditions.

    • The Conversation ☛ Swimming in the sweet spot: how marine animals save energy on long journeys

      Using Fitbit-style accelerometer data, depth-loggers and video footage from animal-borne cameras, we collected detailed swim-depth measurements in free-living little penguins and loggerhead turtles. We compared these with satellite-tracking depth data for green turtles on long-distance migrations, and published data from whales, other species of penguins and migrating sea turtles from other populations.

    • Renewable Energy World ☛ Backing Texas grid resilience, investment firm acquires nearly 1 GWh battery energy storage portfolio

      The three standalone systems — known as Anole, Desert Willow, and Burksol, located in Seagoville, Midlothian, and Afton, Texas, respectively — are expected to reach commercial operations in the first half of 2025.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • CBC ☛ Who's the daddy? Baby shark hatched at aquarium with no males might not have one

      When an egg appeared one day in a shark tank at a Louisiana aquarium, staff were puzzled. The tank only has two resident sharks — and they're both female.

      What's more, neither of them have had contact with any males in over a decade.

• Finance

  • Ubisoft to Shut Down Leamington Studio in Cost-Cutting Move

    Ubisoft has announced the closure of its Leamington studio as part of a broader restructuring effort that will result in 185 job cuts across multiple locations. The company is also downsizing operations in Düsseldorf, Stockholm, and Newcastle-based Ubisoft Reflections, citing cost-cutting measures to streamline projects and ensure long-term stability.

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Apple reports record quarterly revenue despite iPhone sales miss

    Apple Inc. has just delivered its “best quarter ever,” with record-breaking revenue helping to boost its stock even as iPhone sales missed expectations.

  • New York Times ☛ Apple’s Revenue Increases 4 Percent Despite Slowing iPhone Sales

    The tech giant’s sales of apps and services helped profit grow 7 percent from a year ago, even as the company contended with slumping sales in China.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • France24 ☛ Dictator floods the zone, leaving opposition drowning

    The Insurrectionist's opponents have spent the days since his inauguration playing political whack-a-mole over a torrent of orders specifically calibrated to overwhelm and bewilder, say analysts, as the new president gets to work on his radical policy agenda. A chaotic first week saw him sign scores of divisive executive orders.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Barry Kauler ☛ Coordinated misinformation in mainstream media

      I have posted about this plenty of times in the "ethos" tag of my blog. I was reminded a few days ago of what major organizations get up to, this video posted by "The Electric Viking":

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yockrXllJRE

      He is quite brave, an individual guy making these statements. It doesn't matter if he is telling the truth; the truth doesn't have much to do with it if challenged by a huge organization with enormous legal team and deep pockets.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Some content on RFA Vietnamese’s Facebook (Farcebook) page suddenly disappears

    The site now only shows posts from 2023 and earlier.

  • It's FOSS ☛ Everything is Spam on Facebook Unless It is Paid Post (or Actual Spam)

    Have you tried sharing any interesting articles from It's FOSS on Facebook in the past few months?

    If yes, you may have seen a message that your post was removed.

    It doesn't matter if it was shared by It's FOSS Facebook page or a reader like you on their wall. You share a URL from itsfoss.com or news.itsfoss.com, it gets removed as 'spam'.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Exiled citizen journalist Teacher Li still a target for Beijing

    ‘Mr Li is not your teacher’ to keep posting censored news despite China’s targeting of him, his family and follower

  • Press Gazette ☛ Major job cuts at Mail titles in final stage of digital-first transition

    Mail says job losses "always regrettable" but it needs to position for "an even brighter future".

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • AccessNow ☛ Access Now demands U.S. lift sanctions blocking Syria’s digital recovery

    Access Now joins the American Coalition for Syria, and over 160 civil society organizations in urging the U.S. government to expand sanctions relief in Syria.

  • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ St. Paul man charged with sexually assaulting 71-year-old woman he befriended on Facebook

    He was on probation from a 2019 sexual assault in St. Paul.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • AccessNow ☛ 2025 elections and internet shutdowns watch

    Governments around the world continue to shut down the internet during elections. Join our 2025 elections watch to #KeepItOn.

  • Public Knowledge ☛ FCC Chairman Carr Moves To Weaponize Agency Against Public Media [Ed: This agency has a Microsoft mole in it]

    Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced today that he is launching an investigation into whether NPR and PBS member stations have violated FCC rules through their underwriting practices, saying this could inform Congressional funding decisions.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Digital Music News ☛ Did Amazon Music Just Pull a Spotify? Price Increases Hit Audiobook-Equipped Unlimited Plans — But Not ‘Amazon Music Standard’

    Another round of streaming price increases has arrived in the U.S. – this time from Amazon Music Unlimited. Like with Spotify’s bundling extravaganza, the move could have major royalty implications for songwriters and publishers. The Amazon-owned streaming platform emailed customers about the pricing pivot and, wasting no time, updated its subscription options accordingly.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Follow-up on Peterson v. Minerva: LIFT OUR VOICES Amicus Brief

    In early January 2025, I wrote about Peterson v. Minerva Surgical, No. 24-712, a case involving a former Minerva sales director (Dan Peterson) seeking Supreme Court review of an arbitration award that went against his whistleblower claims. See Dennis Crouch, Patents as Product Liability Admissions: A Cert Petition Highlights Novel Use of Patent Filings in Whistleblower Case, Patently-O (Jan. 4, 2025).  As I explained in that post, Peterson's argument for review relies on Minerva's own patent monopoly filings as evidence that the company knew about safety issues with its endometrial ablation device —and that it fraudulently provided contradictory testimony during the arbitration proceedings.

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Federal Circuit Outcomes from the Past Four Years

    The pie chart shown here depicts the distribution of Federal Circuit case outputs from 2000 to 2024 across three categories. The plurality of cases, 44%, resulted in a Non-Precedential Opinion, indicating a substantial volume of decisions with limited precedential impact. Following this, 38% of outcomes are categorized as “No Opinion (R.36).”  These are cases where the court issued a summary affirmance of a lower tribunal holding without any written explanation.  I want to note for a moment here that other federal appellate courts also have an approach known as “summary affirmance, but those courts always provide at least a brief explanation of the ruling and its justification. The Federal Circuit provides no opinion, just the judgment.

  • Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 awarded for AutoConnect vehicle patent monopoly prior art

    Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, Tanya Chauhan, who was awarded $2,000 for her prior art submission on U.S. Patent 8,793,034, owned by AutoConnect Holdings LLC, an NPE. The ‘034 patent monopoly focuses on methods for automatically determining the presence of a person within the vehicle, identifying them, and storing personal settings.

  • Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 awarded for Avant Technologies wireless patent monopoly prior art

    Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Priti Dubey and Ekta Aswal, who split a cash prize of $2,000 for their prior art submissions on U.S. Patent 10,009,720, owned and asserted by Avant Location Technologies LLC, an NPE and entity of Anjay Venture Partners LLC. The ‘720 patent monopoly focuses on areas where mobile operators face competition from short-range wireless communication technologies like Bluetooth, DECT, and WIFI. The patent monopoly has been asserted against Apple, Fibar Group, Nice Group, and Samsung.

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ Will the UPC get its “long arm” slapped by the WTO? [Ed: UPC is totally illegal; they need to go further and arrest the people who brought about this corruption, including EPO management, but now the corruption has spread to the EU, so this is considered acceptable]

      Last Tuesday, the big news in the patent monopoly world was of course that the UPC’s Court of First Instance (CFI), Düsseldorf Division, in case 355/2023, found that if the defendant is domiciled in a Contracting Member State (in the case at hand, Germany), the UPC has jurisdiction to hear the infringement action [...]