Leftovers

• CNX Software ☛ Bosch magnetic-field quantum sensors leverage synthetic diamonds, lasers, and microwaves for ultra-precise measurements

  Most people have heard about quantum computers, but quantum sensors? I’ve just come across those as Bosch is developing magnetic-field quantum sensors harnessing “the power of quantum physics to enable measurements with unmatched precision” while being much more compact than other quantum sensors using techniques like SQUIDs (superconducting quantum interference device), vapor cells, or optical traps.

• Smithsonian Magazine ☛ Who Should Own the Hillside Where Vincent van Gogh Made His Last Painting?

  More than 130 years after van Gogh painted Tree Roots, the painting is still stirring controversy in Auvers-sur-Oise, a usually serene town of less than 7,000 people, around 17 miles from the center of Paris.

• Film Freak Central ☛ A Minecraft Movie (2025) - FILM FREAK CENTRAL

  I believe our willingness to allow our children to wither in body and mind is the rough beast Yeats warns us about in “The Second Coming”. All those “best” who sit on their hands, who have been taught throughout their school years not to think seriously about the products of our culture. [...]

• Brandon ☛ Contemplating The Online "Face"

  I bring this story up, because the idea of having an online persona fascinates me. It's really easy to see these things emerge on social media, especially through the false reality of influencers, but this sort of behavior also translates to bloggers, including myself, whether I like to admit it or not.

• Tracy Durnell ☛ Dumbness is emotional, not intellectual

  We overweight “intelligence” compared with culture in people’s decision-making, and are quick to blame stupidity although cultural incentives encourage people to disregard empirical evidence and act tribally. We overvalue the idea of generalized intelligence, when society benefits from people thinking in many different ways, expressing many different affinities, and excelling in many different disciplines. I know that even though my brain works differently than most people’s, that doesn’t make it a bad brain 😄 It is not a lack of intelligence that causes people to do dumb things, but how our cultural context shapes and offers outlets for our emotions. Part of why I’ve been interested in media ecology and what makes culture lately is because they help me understand the choices others make… especially when I disagree with them 😉

• Science

  • Futurism ☛ Incoming Head of NASA Puts SpaceX in Its Place: "They Work for Us, Not the Other Way Around"

    "They're the contractors, NASA is the customer."

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ Peer Review Has Lost Its Human Face. So, What’s Next?

    Previously in The Scholarly Kitchen, I have written about a wide range of flaws of our current peer-review systems (on several occasions, lately). In this post, I explain why I think human-dependent peer review has lost its human element, thus its relevance, and what we can do to install a new system by abandoning the present one. I offer eight points of reflection.

  • RTL ☛ Four-year project: Race to save Sweden's 17th century warship in preservation project

    Experts have begun putting in place a complex metal structure to support the hull, which more than 60 years after its salvage has begun to sag in the Stockholm museum custom-built for it.

• Career/Education

  • Michael Tsai ☛ Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

  • [Old] Hixie ☛ Hixie's Natural Log: Reflecting on 18 years at Google

    I joined Google in October 2005, and handed in my resignation 18 years later. Last week was my last week at Google.

  • IT Wire ☛ iTWire - What can you do with an electrical and computer engineering degree?

    Here's an overview of some of the top jobs and career paths for ECE majors.

  • Jeroen Sangers ☛ Jeroen Sangers ◦ brain tags - Do the right thing, in the right way, and at the right moment

    Three core principles of effectiveness and productivity. It starts with identifying the right tasks that contribute to your goals and priorities. This means being able to distinguish what is truly important from what merely seems urgent. The concept of “do the right things” comes into play here, where you focus on tasks that have the greatest impact on your long-term goals.

• Hardware

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Apple aims to beat the tariff cutoff, reportedly shipped five extra planeloads of goods from India to the U.S. in March [Ed: You can manufacture all sorts of things in India, but reaching the precision and quality levels of CJK is impossible for several more decades. Apple's devices were already unreliable; it'll get worse.]

    To avoid a new 10% U.S. import tax, Fashion Company Apple rushed five planeloads of iPhones, PCs, and other devices from India to the U.S. in late March, buying time to assess the impact of the tariff policy.

  • Hackaday ☛ Everyone’s Talking GPMI, Should You?

    The tech press has been full of announcements over the last day or two regarding GPMI. It’s a new standard with the backing of a range of Chinese hardware companies, for a high-speed digital video interface to rival HDMI. The Chinese semiconductor company HiSilicon have a whitepaper on the subject (Chinese language, Google Translate link), promising a tremendously higher data rate than HDMI, power delivery well exceeding that of USB-C, and interestingly, bi-directional data transfer. Is HDMI dead? Probably not, but the next few years will bring us some interesting hardware as they respond to this upstart.

  • The Register UK ☛ iPhone factories unlikely in US despite Trump's opinion

    Steve Jobs candidly told Barack Obama in 2011 that iPhone manufacturing was unlikely to ever come back to the US, and Apple's current leader Tim Cook has echoed similar sentiments.

    "China put an enormous focus on manufacturing. In what we would call … vocational kind of skills," Cook said on 60 Minutes in 2015. "The US, over time, began to stop having as many vocational kind of skills."

    "You can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we're currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields," Cook added.

  • 9to5Mac ☛ Trump thinks the US has the 'resources' needed to make iPhones

    As reported yesterday, Apple has been stockpiling iPhone inventory in the United States ahead of Trump’s tariffs. This will help the company stave off the impact of the tariffs and avoid price increases for now. We’re still waiting on a public response from Apple on its plans.

  • The Register UK ☛ Musk's DOGE muzzled on X over tape storage baloney

    Secondly, while magnetic tape is correctly identified as a 70-year-old technology for information storage, DOGE's post is wrong about its relevance to the modern data stack. It is the most cost-effective and stable medium for long-term storage and has benefited from investment from a number of tech companies, not least IBM.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • New York Times ☛ How to Stay Safe if You’re Traveling and an Earthquake Strikes

    Many popular vacation destinations, like California, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Thailand and the Caribbean are in active quake zones. Here are tips for staying safe.

  • Futurism ☛ Father Whose Daughter Died From Measles Says RFK Jr. Never Even Mentioned the Vaccine

    Despite his public change of heart regarding the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, it's not exactly shocking that Kennedy is privately talking out of both sides of his mouth.

  • [Old] Cornell University ☛ Modern Soma

    Every uncomfortable situation, awkward interaction or moment of boredom — soma gets rid of them all. Just reach into your pocket and feel the metaphysical weight of it. It’s what has silenced commuter trains, isolated untold numbers of people and taken away the pressure that comes with free-thinking. And why does society accept this lobotomized form of existence? Mustapha Mond, World Controller extraordinaire, answers this saying, “Anything for a quiet life.”

  • US News And World Report ☛ America's ERs In Peril, Report Says

    Under federal law, all people who arrive at an ER must be assessed and treated, regardless of their ability to pay, researchers noted.

  • MIT Technology Review ☛ A new biosensor can detect bird flu in five minutes

    The new device samples the air in real time, running the samples past a specialized biosensor every five minutes. The sensor has strands of genetic material called aptamers that were used to bind specifically to the virus. When that happens, it creates a detectable electrical change. The research, published in ACS Sensors in February, may help farmers contain future outbreaks.

• Proprietary

  • Forbes ☛ Microsoft Warns 240 Million Windows Users—Stop Using Your PC

  • The Register UK ☛ Google boards the AI agent hype train

    Among the announcements was a promise to introduce an Agent Development Kit (ADK), an open-source framework Google said would simplify the process of building business software that integrates AI agents – question-answering and task-performing software that makes decisions and forms its output using large language models. Agents can be seen as software that talks to other software.

  • Michael Tsai ☛ Why Companies Don’t Fix Bugs

    I think these kinds of bugs do drive customers away, but did it really happen if you can’t measure it? [...]

  • Macworld ☛ How Apple can handle Trump's tariffs without raising prices (too much)

    Speculation says that the prices of Apple products are headed up. Apple Stores are crowded with buyers who are trying to beat the anticipated price increases. But while prices are probably going up, that’s only one of the many levers Apple can pull in order to deal with the tariff situation. Here’s a look at what the company might do to mitigate the tariff issue as much as possible.

  • PC World ☛ April's security update for older Office version is causing app crashes

  • The Register UK ☛ Don't open that file in WhatsApp for Windows just yet

    The spoofing flaw, tracked as CVE-2025-30401, affects all versions of WhatsApp Desktop for Windows prior to 2.2450.6, and stems from a bug in how the app handles file attachments.

  • The Register UK ☛ Microsoft resets 'days since last Windows 11 problem' to 0

    The issue is the latest in a long line for Windows 11 24H2, which, it is fair to say, has not been a stellar success for Microsoft. The list of problems exceeds those in the previous version, according to the company's release health dashboard. This might indicate that the company is becoming more open about problems in Windows or that testing quality before release has continued to decline. Or perhaps it is a combination of the two.

  • Michael Tsai ☛ Locked Out of Apple Developer Accounts

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • New Yorker ☛ Will Hey Hi (AI) Save the News? [Ed: No, it will collectively discredit it]

      Artificial intelligence could hollow out the media business—but it also has the power to enhance journalism.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Google accused of paying employees to do nothing for up to a year to stifle Hey Hi (AI) talent migration

      Google is making use of aggressive noncompete clauses and extended notice periods, leaving employees who wish to change track in limbo, claims former GoogDeepMinder Nando de Freitas.

    • The Verge ☛ Waymo readies autonomous cars for first international tests in Japan

      Waymo describes it as a simple “road trip” for collecting data about the nuances of Japanese driving, including left-hand traffic and navigating a dense urban environment. The vehicles will be driven manually for the purposes of gathering mapping data and will be managed by a local taxi fleet operator, Nihon Kotsu. About 25 vehicles are being sent, with the first already having been spotted in a parking lot in Tokyo.

    • Simon Willison ☛ Model Context Protocol has prompt injection security problems

      As more people start hacking around with implementations of MCP (the Model Context Protocol, a new standard for making tools available to LLM-powered systems) the security implications of tools built on that protocol are starting to come into focus.

    • Futurism ☛ You'll Die Inside When You Hear How Trump's Education Secretary Pronounces "AI"

      During an education summit organized by Silicon Valley venture capitalists, the 76-year-old Trump appointee and former professional wrestling promoter repeatedly pronounced "AI" as "A1," the name of a popular steak sauce produced by Kraft Heinz.

      The baffling appearance suggested that McMahon somehow doesn't know how to pronounce one of the most ubiquitous acronyms in modern society.

• Pseudo-Open Source

  • Openwashing

    • Venture Beat ☛ The RAG reality check: New open-source framework lets enterprises scientifically measure Hey Hi (AI) performance

      New open-source evaluation framework quantifies RAG pipeline performance with scientific metrics, helping enterprises cut through the Hey Hi (AI) hype cycle with objective measurements.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Deep Cogito releases open-source language models that outperform Llama [Ed: Openwashing garbage again]

      Startup Deep Cogito Inc. launched today with a series of language models that it claims can outperform comparably-sized open-source alternatives.  According to TechCrunch, the company was founded last June by former Surveillance Giant Google LLC staffers Drishan Arora and Dhruv Malhotra.

• Security

  • Security Week ☛ Aurascape Banks Hefty $50 Million to Mitigate ‘Shadow AI’ Risks

    Silicon Valley startup secures big investment from Menlo Ventures and Mayfield Fund to solve the “shadow AI” security problem.

  • Security Week ☛ Microsoft Patches 125 backdoored Windows Vulns, Including Exploited CLFS Zero-Day [Ed: But back doors will be left for Trump's NSA, as usual]

    Patch Tuesday: Abusive Monopolist Microsoft ships urgent cover for another WIndows CLFS vulnerability already exploited in the wild.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Microsoft patches zero-day actively exploited in string of ransomware attacks

    Microsoft said Storm-2460 has exploited the zero-day in the backdoored Windows Common Log File System to attack organizations in the U.S., Venezuela, Spain and Saudi Arabia.

  • Citizen Lab ☛ How Can Canada Tackle Foreign Interference Without a U.S. Ally?

    In a piece for the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, Emile Dirks and Diana Fu argue that the U.S.’s pull back from its liberal-minded engagements in China “poses an imminent challenge to Canada: how to curb Beijing’s foreign interference without the support of a network of organizations backed by its powerful ally to the south.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Federal News Network ☛ What’s it like inside the intelligence community anyway

      The intelligence community has been caught the spotlight as it has always been a cauldron of big personalities dealing with big issues and lots of opinions.

    • Press Gazette ☛ Investigatory Powers Tribunal rejects Government secrecy over Fashion Company Apple encryption case

      The IPT also raised the prospect that future hearings around the case may be held in public.

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Google tools required for classwork are allegedly being used to build data profiles of each student

      A new lawsuit alleges that Surveillance Giant Google is spying on school children and harvesting their data to create profiles, due to the mandated use of Surveillance Giant Google hardware and software.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Privacy fights over expiring surveillance law loom after House hearing

      At issue are warrant requirements sought by Judiciary Committee members and other gripes they have about the most recent Section 702 legislation.

    • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: EFF’s lawsuit against DOGE will go forward

      In my 23 years at EFF, I've been privileged to get a front-row seat for some of the most important legal battles over tech and human rights in history. There've been tremendous victories and heartbreaking losses, but win or lose, I am forever reminded that I'm privileged to work with some of the smartest, most committed, savviest cyberlawyers in the world.

      These days, it's more of a second-row seat – I work remotely, mostly on my own projects, and I rely on our Deeplinks blog as much as our internal message-boards to keep up with our cases. Yesterday, I happened on this fantastic explainer breaking down our most recent court victory, in our case against DOGE on behalf of federal workers whose privacy rights have been violated during DOGE's raid on the Office of Personnel Management's databases: [...]

    • Wired ☛ Spyware Maker NSO Group Is Paving a Path Back Into Trump’s America

      The Israeli spyware vendor has been on the US Commerce Department’s “blacklist” for more than three years, meaning it cannot do business with US companies without specific government approval. NSO Group poured at least $1.8 million into an aggressive pre-election lobbying effort, focusing primarily on Republican senators and representatives, with some meetings occurring as often as eight times. Yet the company remains on the Entity List.

      Now, with a new occupant in the White House, NSO Group appears to be shifting its political strategy.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Contributor: How a $200 check can put you on a government watch list

      More than 1 million Californians and Texans are about to face a new level of financial surveillance from the federal government. Although cash transactions over $10,000 have long been reported under current law, now many transactions of as little as $200 will have to be reported in 30 ZIP Codes along the border with Mexico. Financial surveillance in the United States has needed reform, but this policy marks little more than another intrusion into the lives of Americans.

    • The Register UK ☛ 'Copilot will remember key details about you'

      We asked Microsoft if this would be an opt-in feature. A spokesperson told The Register that "if personalization is available, Copilot will remember key details about you and make your Copilot experience catered to you. You can opt out of Personalization anytime if you no longer want Copilot to remember facts about you through memory."

    • The Verge ☛ Microsoft starts testing Copilot Vision update that can ‘see’ your screen and apps

      Microsoft has started testing a new update to its Copilot app on Windows that will let you share your screen or apps with the AI assistant. Copilot Vision was originally limited to Microsoft’s Edge browser, but it’s now extending to any app on your PC.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Mexico News Daily ☛ US considering using drone strikes against cartel members in Mexico

    According to NBC News, it is unclear whether American officials have floated the possibility of drone strikes to the Mexican government.

  • LRT ☛ Man sentenced in Lithuania over Fentanylware (TikTok) killing

    The Court of Appeal on Tuesday upheld the conviction of Orestas Jasaitis, a 24-year-old resident of the Rokiškis district, northeastern Lithuania, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for murdering a man during a livestream on the social control media platform TikTok.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Extended Fentanylware (TikTok) Forced-Sale Deadline Draws Congressional Pushback: ‘A Clear Violation of the Law’

    Is the latest extension to the Fentanylware (TikTok) forced-sale deadline “a clear violation of the law”? At least one member of Congress believes so, and he’s expressing “deep reservations” as a result.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Second TikTok Sale Deadline Extension Spurs Lawmaker Criticism

    Time will tell exactly what the criticism (coming only from the senator, with no co-signers on the letter) means for TikTok’s possible U.S. sale. Most immediately here, from the perspective of support among younger voters, logic and evidence suggest that aggressively advocating for TikTok’s stateside shutdown is ill-advised.

  • Axios ☛ Facebook whistleblower to tell Congress Meta undermined US national security

    The big picture: The former global public policy director at Facebook, now Meta, will allege that Facebook cooperated with China's ruling Communist Party, per her opening testimony, as seen by Axios.

  • [Repeat] Digital Music News ☛ And After All That, TikTok Could Still Go 'Poof'

    Last we checked, TikTok is available on both the iOS App Store and Google Play Store, though this situation is volatile. And certainly not a recipe for crafting stellar, long-term artist marketing campaigns — or advertising campaigns, for that matter.

  • [Repeat] Digital Music News ☛ TikTok to Stay on App Store Amid Forced-Sale Uncertainty: Report

    But what about TikTok’s presence on the App Store and the Play Store? As we learned earlier in the forced-sale fiasco, besides being unavailable to download, TikTok when booted from app marketplaces cannot deliver all-important updates to existing users.

  • The Record ☛ Estonia considers allowing Navy to sink merchant ships threatening submarine cables | The Record from Recorded Future News

    The Riigikogu, Estonia’s parliament, is set to have the first reading of a new proposed law on Wednesday that would allow the country’s Navy to sink merchant ships that are threatening to damage submarine cables.

    It comes amid increased concern about Baltic Sea subsea infrastructure following a series of cable breaks that have prompted fears of a Russian sabotage campaign.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Dissenter ☛ Boeing Says Attacks On Whistleblowers All Part Of The Past

  • Pro Publica ☛ N.C. Lawmakers Ask for Investigation on Money Meant for Sexual Abuse Survivors

    Members of a bipartisan committee of North Carolina senators are asking the state auditor to investigate how money intended to stop human trafficking had been spent and managed, in response to ProPublica’s reporting.

    ProPublica had reported how the Republican-dominated legislature had directed $15 million for sexual abuse survivors away from Democratic-led agencies that had long overseen such money, sending it to a tiny commission in the Republican-helmed state court system. The Human Trafficking Commission struggled to disburse the funds in a timely manner, according to its former grants administrator. Staffers at 18 crisis centers told ProPublica payments were delayed for months and led to cuts, some of which continue to limit urgent, potentially lifesaving services.

  • FAIR ☛ NYT Covers Up for Cuomo

    Shockingly, however, Cuomo has entered the New York City mayoral race and catapulted directly into the polling lead, with the help of his widespread name recognition—and some journalists willing to lend a hand to his image rehabilitation campaign. While some local papers have been scathing in their coverage of the ex-governor, the New York Times seems to be largely buying what Cuomo’s selling.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Meta silenced a whistleblower. Now she’s talking to Congress.

    A former global policy director at Meta told a Senate committee Wednesday that top executives at the social media giant were willing to undermine national security and “betray American values” to build a censored version of Facebook for the Chinese market.

    Sarah Wynn-Williams, who worked on a team that handled China policy issues and has since written a best-selling book that Meta has sought to prevent her from promoting, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Meta — then called Facebook — developed a censorship system in 2015 that would have allowed the Chinese Communist Party to oversee social media content and squash dissenting opinions.

  • Nieman Lab ☛ How to leak to a journalist

    I spoke with eight journalists about how to leak in a safe, smart way. Disclaimer you probably knew was coming: No method of leaking is 100% secure, and the tips here reduce risk but cannot eliminate it completely. “I know it’s appealing to be instrumental in helping a reporter break a story, and god knows reporters love breaking stories,” says Marisa Kabas, an independent reporter and writer of The Handbasket who’s been breaking one scoop after another about DOGE and the Trump administration. “But in almost all cases, your safety and physical and mental health should come first.”

  • Bruce Schneier ☛ How to Leak to a Journalist

    Neiman Lab has some good advice on how to leak a story to a journalist.

• Environment

  • New York Times ☛ Dozens Die in Floods Hitting Congo’s Capital

    While the Democratic Republic of Congo reels from a new rebel offensive in the east, its capital in the west, Kinshasa, grapples with deadly floods.

  • Overpopulation ☛ Overpopulation: A New Survey Confirms the Cause of the Planet’s Environmental Crises

    The article surveys recent scientific literature on the six most pressing environmental crises facing humanity: deforestation, climate change, biodiversity loss, fishery depletion, water scarcity, and desertification. Drawing on hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, one conclusion becomes crystal clear: unless the world confronts overpopulation, genuine environmental progress will remain elusive.

    Here’s a brief summary of what emerges about each of these global challenges.

  • MDPI ☛ The Environmental Impacts of Overpopulation

    Overpopulation’s central role in environmental degradation is intermittently challenged. This article assesses the impact of mounting demographic pressures on six critical global sustainability challenges: deforestation, climate change, biodiversity loss, fishery depletion, water scarcity, and soil degradation. By synthesizing findings from hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, the article offers a comprehensive review of the effects of expanding human populations on the most pressing current environmental problems. Although the rate of population growth worldwide is slowing, human numbers are expected to continue increasing on Earth until the end of the century. Current research confirms that overpopulation causes substantial and potentially irreversible environmental impacts that cannot be ignored if international sustainability policy is to be effective.

  • Chris O'Donnnell ☛ Climate Change in One Sentence

    Just leaving this here because I'm sure I'll be referring to it regulalry.

  • France24 ☛ Japan to sell more rice reserves as prices soar

    The shortages have been driven by factors including poor harvests due to hot weather in 2023 and panic-buying prompted by a "megaquake" warning last year.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • France24 ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man signs executive orders to boost coal industry

      President The Insurrectionist has signed executive orders Tuesday aimed at boosting coal, a reliable but polluting energy source that’s long been in decline. Convicted Felon will use his emergency authority to allow some older coal-fired power plants set for retirement to keep producing electricity to meet rising U.S. power demand amid growth in data centers, artificial intelligence and electric cars. FRANCE 24's Siobhan Silke reports.

    • La Quadature Du Net ☛ Simplification’ law: stop the data center boom!

      This is all the more concerning that the principle of a moratorium — a way of laying the foundations for democratic control of data centers, and of countering the government’s desire to accelerate ever further in defiance of rights and democracy — is supported by a wide range of actors.

    • The Register UK ☛ Microsoft puts $1B DC builds on hold amid AI, tariff worries

      The Windows maker confirmed it put on hold $1 billion plans for three bit barn sites in Licking County – at New Albany, Heath and Hebron – citing a strategic investment review for the decision, telling The Register it will "not be moving forward at this time with our plans to build datacenters at the Licking County sites. We will continue to evaluate these sites in line with our investment strategy."

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Single Pilot Operations — let’s replace airline copilots with AI!

      There’s a shortage of airline pilots. The airlines are cutting training for new pilots, they’re running out of ex-military pilots who want to go civilian, and prospective pilots are reluctant to drop $100,000 or more personally.

      But “AI” is hot right now, so it’s the perfect time for the airline industry to push once more for single pilot operations — where you replace the copilot with a machine-learning system! At least it’s not an LLM.

    • The New Leaf Journal ☛ Amazon “Cargo Bikes” in Brooklyn

      While I have enjoyed watching the funny Amazon carts drive around, I had not dug into their backstory. Let us change that.

    • IT Wire ☛ Why airlines are banning power banks on flights: what passengers need to know

      “The main issue with power banks is the lithium-ion batteries they contain, which, if damaged or faulty, can pose a fire hazard. A malfunctioning power bank can overheat, catch fire, or even explode, which is particularly dangerous in the confined space of an aircraft,” said travel expert Colin Pearson.

    • YLE ☛ Amazon buys up all electricity from huge wind farms in western Finland

      Swedish energy company OX2 announced last week that it would invest 700 million euros in the Rajamäenkylä and Halsua wind farms. They will have a capacity of 472 megawatts (MW).

      Amazon said that it will use its wind power investment as part of efforts to offset its total emissions. According to the company, this does not mean that it is planning to build a data centre in Finland.

    • Futurism ☛ Trump Tells Justice Department to Just Let [Cryptocurrency] Fraud Slide

      Specifically, the memo calls for the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Unit (NCET) to be disbanded "effective immediately" to comply with Trump's January executive order related to digital assets.

      The task force was established in 2021, and was made up of prosecutors and attorneys specializing in money laundering and cybercrime.

    • Hindustan Times ☛ Why power banks are being banned on flights: Essential facts you should know

      Airlines are increasingly implementing restrictions or outright bans on carrying power banks during flights due to safety concerns. These small, portable battery packs, once vital for travellers needing to charge devices in transit, are now considered a fire risk. The growing caution comes as aviation authorities highlight the dangers of lithium-ion battery malfunctions, which can lead to overheating, fires, or explosions.

    • Common Dreams ☛ Trump’s Abuse of Emergency Declaration to Force Ratepayers to Prop Up Inefficient Coal Power Plants Is Breathlessly Stupid

      “Reviving or extending coal to power data centers would force working families to subsidize polluting coal on behalf of Big Tech billionaires and despoil our nation’s public lands. States planning to move to cleaner, cheaper energy sources could be forced to keep old coal plants up and running for years, forcing nearby residents to breathe dirty air and harming the climate. Trump’s expected use of the threat of power demand growth from AI data centers to ramp up domestic coal mining and consumption is unjustifiable, as Public Citizen recently pointed out to Congress. Trump and his team of incompetents continue to demonstrate their lack of understanding of how energy markets work. Public Citizen is more than happy to meet with Administration officials and walk them through why forcing American families to pay for uneconomic coal power plants is dull-witted and will result in a massive ratepayer-funded subsidy for Big Tech billionaires.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ Saving America’s National Parks and Forests Means Shaking Off the Rust of Inaction

• Finance

  • LRT ☛ Banks not planning to exit Lithuania, SEB headquarters issue still open – PM

    Commercial banks operating in Lithuania have no plans to pull out of the country, Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas said on Monday while commenting on proposed tax changes currently under discussion within the ruling coalition and their possible impact on the investment environment.

  • China vows to fight back as many scramble to strike tariff deals with Convicted Felon

    Dihydroxyacetone Man vowed an additional 50% tariff on Chinese imports if Beijing doesn’t drop its retaliatory tariffs on the US.

  • Common Dreams ☛ Congress Allows Musk’s X Money to Fleece Consumers

    “Elon Musk orchestrated a plan to rip off consumers with impunity when he tweeted ‘Delete CFPB’ and Congress just rubber-stamped it. Today’s shameful vote means that X, an app already swarming with bots and scammers, will be able to connect to your bank account and allow fraudsters to take your money without accountability. Thanks to the CFPB’s supervision, $120 million was refunded to consumers who were scammed through Cash App. That kind of policing will be significantly harder now that Congress has voted to strip the CFPB of its ability to proactively watch over payment apps. And thanks to DOGE’s intrusions into the CFPB’s databases, Musk now has access to sensitive financial data from companies investigated by the agency, including virtually all would-be competitors to X Money in the digital payments space.”

  • Lee Peterson ☛ How much money have I made with wallpaper packs?

    So here we are $40 in almost 2 years. Not setting any records am I or even covering the site costs but it’s something that does pay a little portion of it.

    It’s a hobby, alas not enough to support me but it doesn’t take away my creative enjoyment of creating them and seeing them being used.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Register UK ☛ Trump orders probe of 'censorship' by former CISA boss Krebs

    Other elements of the memo, such as claims that the 2020 election was rigged, have been disproved many times. Because those claims weren't at all true.

  • TruthOut ☛ DHS Is Searching Social Medias of Visa and Green Card Applicants for “Antisemitism”

    The press release makes it clear that the administration is targeting speech that favors certain “terrorist” groups fighting Israel over its genocide in Gaza, specifically naming Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Houthi movement.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Trump signs order stripping Chris Krebs of security clearance

    Trump dismissed Krebs, a highly esteemed Department of Homeland Security official, in November 2020 after what he viewed as actions not sufficiently loyal to the president. Krebs had played a key role in protecting the 2020 election from hacking and misinformation, consistently debunking baseless claims of widespread electoral fraud made by Trump and his allies, typically avoiding direct reference to the president.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ Labour ‘dropped grooming gangs inquiries to avoid offending Pakistanis’

    Sir Trevor, the former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said Labour’s response to the grooming gangs scandal was “utterly shameful” because it was “so obviously political” to avoid offending a particular demographic of voters.

  • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Microsoft Fires Workers After Israel Contract Protest

    Microsoft accused one of the workers in a termination letter Monday of misconduct "designed to gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption to this highly anticipated event.” Microsoft says the other worker had already announced her resignation, but on Monday it ordered her to leave five days early.

  • India Times ☛ Tech CEOs spent millions courting Donald Trump. It has yet to pay off.

    The sweeping tariffs he imposed last week will squeeze Apple's iPhone supply chain and make it much more expensive for Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft to build supercomputers to power artificial intelligence. The president has slashed federal funding for research into emerging technologies like AI and quantum computing. His immigration clampdown has incited fears that he will cut off pipelines for tech talent.

  • India Times ☛ Europe wants to lighten AI compliance burden for startups

    EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen will present the measure on Wednesday.

    The 27-country European Union signed off the landmark AI Act last year, a more comprehensive rulebook than the United States' light-touch voluntary compliance approach. China's AI regulations aim to maintain social stability and state control.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Futurism ☛ China Creates Mocking AI Video of Average Americans Working in Garment Factory

      A wild AI-generated post depicting schlubby Americans toiling in dingy factories has gone viral on Chinese social media before leaking out onto US trending tabs. It pokes fun at Trump's so-called "reindustrialization" gambit to bring factories back to the US — and anyone foolish enough to believe the billionaire's policies will benefit American workers.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • AccessNow ☛ Gabonese authorities must ensure internet access throughout upcoming elections

    Authorities in Gabon must ensure unfettered access to the internet throughout the upcoming elections in the country on April 12, 2025.

  • AccessNow ☛ #KeepItOn: authorities in Gabon must safeguard open and secure internet access during elections

    #KeepItOn urges authorities in Gabon to keep the internet, social control media, and all communication channels open and secure during the April 12 elections.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • New York Times ☛ Robert W. McChesney, Who Warned of Corporate Media Control, Dies at 72

    In over a dozen books, he explored the failures of journalism and the internet, blaming capitalism and calling for the nationalization of Facebook (Farcebook) and Google.

  • CPJ ☛ At least 7 journalists detained in Ethiopia on terror allegations

    The journalists’ lawyers argue editorial lapses should be addressed under Ethiopia’s media law, which stipulates administrative and civil remedies, and a proclamation against hate speech, not antiterrorism legislation.

    CPJ’s emails requesting comment from Ethiopia’s federal ministry of justice were unanswered.

  • Axios ☛ Judge sides with AP over White House ban for press coverage

    A federal judge on Tuesday sided with the Associated Press in its lawsuit against the White House, declaring that under the First Amendment the government can't bar journalists from certain government events because of their viewpoints.

    Why it matters: It's a huge victory for both the AP and the free press.

  • uni Northwestern ☛ Students on the Beat

    The University of Vermont was not the first school with students providing local news coverage, but it is central to this burgeoning national movement. Richard Watts had noticed the dwindling number of news internships and mentorship opportunities available to his University of Vermont journalism students when he created the school’s Community News Service in 2019 to get them out into the surrounding communities to report.

    “The basic point is to bring more of these experiences into the curriculum, so first and foremost, it’s about a high-impact experience for the students,” Watts said. “And then content is available for free to local media partners.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Pro Publica ☛ Trump’s Shuttering of DHS Civil Rights Office Freezes 600 Cases

    On Feb. 10, more than a dozen Department of Homeland Security officials joined a video conference to discuss an obscure, sparsely funded program overseen by its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The office, charged with investigating when the national security agency is accused of violating the rights of both immigrants and U.S. citizens, had found itself in the crosshairs of Elon Musk’s secretive Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

    It began as a typical briefing, with Homeland Security officials explaining to DOGE a program many describe as a win-win. It had provided some $20 million in recent years to local organizations that provide case workers to keep people in immigration proceedings showing up to court, staff explained, without expensive detentions and ankle monitors.

  • TruthOut ☛ Trump Is Trying to Axe Collective Bargaining for 1 Million Federal Employees | Truthout

    Amid all this noise, many may have missed the massive public policy shift on federal trade unions, a move that could deeply alter the functioning of the U.S. government: In late March, Trump signed an executive order which, if it withstands legal challenges, will essentially end the right to collective bargaining for huge numbers of federal employees.

  • TruthOut ☛ Trump Revived the Law Used to Intern Japanese Americans, and SCOTUS Let Him | Truthout

    In its procedural ruling on Trump v. J.G.G., the court upheld the Trump administration’s rhetorical reliance on the Alien Enemies Act to justify the transfers but required it to comport with the barest minimums of constitutional “due process” through individualized habeas corpus proceedings in largely hostile courts closer to the location of the detention centers where those targeted by the act are likely being held. The Supreme Court’s majority opinion was simultaneously outrageous and perfunctory, and procedural challenges are likely to continue.

  • Hamilton Nolan ☛ An International Minimum Wage

    In the post-NAFTA world, “free trade” has indeed produced a great amount of wealth. What’s not to like is that essentially all of the wealth has been captured by the investor class. The American workers who lost their jobs got screwed and the overseas workers who took the newly created low wage jobs are still poor and all of the gains in profits that were produced in the economically rational process of producing products more cheaply was funneled to shithead business guys who live in Tribeca and have never set foot in a factory in their lives. The wreckage that “free trade” has produced in the US is, at its core, a distribution problem. NAFTA and similar policies were sold on the basis of “Hey this will increase efficiency and unlock vast wealth.” No thought was given to the fact that, absent specific policies to prevent it, that wealth would be distributed in vastly unequal ways. The people most affected by the policies, the workers, did not benefit from the new wealth that the policies unlocked. Quite the opposite!!!!

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ Share your thoughts on the proposed by-laws changes

    The EC received thoughtful and valuable input during the consultation. A summary of the feedback, along with a recording of the session, is now available online. It will also be shared on the APNIC-Talk mailing list on Orbit.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Juha-Matti Santala ☛ Life without advertisements is a great life

    I don’t see any of them. I don’t have a TV so I watch pretty much all my entertainment from streaming services, free or premium. I don’t go to web without an active and aggressive ad blocker. I don’t subscribe to any ad funded magazines or papers and I’ve blocked all paper ads to be delivered to me.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Non-Tariff Countermeasures to U.S. Tariff Hikes: IP, Services, and Investment Implications

    In April 2025, Hell Toupée took initiative to sharply increased tariffs on imports, citing trade imbalances and reciprocity. In response, major trading partners such as the European Union (EU), China and others are considered countermeasures that go beyond tit-for-tat tariffs. Hell Toupée's actions were ostensibly driven by the large U.S. trade deficit in goods, but it also threatens key areas of U.S. strength – namely services, intellectual property (IP), and foreign investment where the U.S. runs global surpluses that far outpace the goods deficit.

  • JUVE ☛ Ones to Watch UK 2025: Emily Bottle [Ed: Marketing spam, i.e. more of the usual from JUVE, which also bags money to lobby for illegal things such as UPC (for Team UPC)]

    Every year, JUVE Patent carries out extensive research in the UK patent monopoly market, culminating in the publication of the UK patent monopoly ranking. Our latest research highlighted Emily Bottle, newly appointed partner at Herbert Smith Freehills, as one of the current ‘Ones to Watch’ in the UK patent monopoly market.

  • Unified Patents ☛ Davidson Kempner entity, QPrivacy, data security patent monopoly challenged

    On April 1, 2025, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 11,816,249, owned and asserted by QPrivacy USA LLC, an NPE and a Davidson Kempner entity.

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ Patent Attorneys, Democracy and the UPC [Ed: UPC is patently illegal and an attack on democracy by the litigation industry and corrupt EPO. The very existence of this kangaroo 'court' demonstrates that Rule of Law was abandoned for corporations' gain.]

      A famous joke that must now be over 30 years old quips about the strength of the (German) patent monopoly attorney profession: „If all German patent monopoly attorneys and their families decide to settle in a single place, they would not even win the communal elections in Miesbach.“

• Copyrights

  • Press Gazette ☛ Who’s suing Hey Hi (AI) and who’s signing: 14 publishers join lawsuit against start-up Cohere

    14 major publishers sue Hey Hi (AI) start-up Cohere Inc.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Internet Archive vs. Music Labels: $600m+ Copyright Rift Edges Toward Settlement

    Seven years ago, the Archive began archiving the sounds of 78rpm gramophone records, a format that is obsolete today. In addition to capturing their unique audio characteristics, including all ‘crackles and hisses’, this saves unique recordings for future generations before the vinyl or shellac disintegrates due to age.

    The ‘Great 78 Project‘ received praise from curators, historians, and music fans but not all music industry insiders were happy with it. Several record labels including Sony and UMG, sued the Internet Archive for copyright infringement in federal court in 2023.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Reintroduced No Fakes Act Draws Music Industry & Tech Support

    It probably goes without saying, but this newfound unity resulted from months of back and forth on the No Fakes Act, the latest iteration of which is 40% longer than the original by page count.

    Just scratching the surface here, the bill contains updated liability exclusions, including for any “service by wire or radio that provides the capability to transmit data” and any “online service” provider for which it’s “not technologically feasible” to remove “offending material.”

    Meanwhile, the heftier legislation dives into a variety of penalties, for both online service providers and individuals, pertaining to alleged deepfake violations. And perhaps most notably, the No Fakes Act would enable litigating rightsholders to ask any district court clerk “to issue a subpoena to a provider of an online service for identification of an alleged violator” of the law.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Quavo Faces Copyright Lawsuit from Artist Daniel Arsham

    Also in 2018 (and then again in 2023), the plaintiff allegedly displayed the creation, photos of which are included in the suit, to the public in an exhibition. Fast forward to December 2024, when Quavo allegedly took to Instagram and TikTok to upload a teaser for “Trappa Rappa” (2025).

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Tech Giants Propose "Critical" Piracy Shield Regulation Amendments

    Proposals for new technical and operational changes were reported last month. Hampered by the veil of secrecy surrounding Piracy Shield and its operations, input from the public has little chance of being taken seriously. Fortunately, the most important issues won’t go unaddressed.

  • The Register UK ☛ IETF building tech to tell AI scrapers what authors want

    AIPREF co-chair Mark Nottingham thinks those items are needed because current systems aren’t working.

    He thinks the “non-standard signals” in robots.txt files – an IETF standard that defines syntax on whether crawlers are allowed to access web content – aren’t working.