Leftovers

• Games

  • Techdirt ☛ This Is Your Last Chance To Get A Copy Of Our New Social Media Card Game

    Now, the game is about to enter production, which means this is your last chance to secure a copy for yourself. The Kickstarter campaign is accepting late pledges from now through the end of Wednesday, May 7th. After that, we’ll be locking in our order quantity with the factory, and the games will be en route to backers some time this summer.

• Licensing / Legal

  • Free Law Project ☛ Epic Games, Inc., Plaintiff and Counter-Defendant v Apple Inc., Defendant and Counterclaimant: Case No. 4:20-cv-05640-YGR

    Apple’s response to the Injunction strains credulity. After two sets of evidentiary hearings, the truth emerged. Apple, despite knowing its obligations thereunder, thwarted the Injunction’s goals, and continued its anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream. Remarkably, Apple believed that this Court would not see through its obvious cover-up (the 2024 evidentiary hearing). To unveil Apple’s actual decision-making process, not the one tailor-made for litigation, the Court ordered production of real-time documents and ultimately held a second set of hearings in 2025.

  • RTL ☛ Payment system: US judge says Apple defied order in App Store case

    "That it thought this court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation," Gonzalez Rogers said in an order allowing Epic Games to enforce the injunction against Apple.

    "As always, the cover-up made it worse. For this court, there is no second bite at the apple."

  • Wired ☛ Apple May Face Criminal Charges for Allegedly Lying to a Federal Judge

    She also said that Apple executives tried to hide the real motivations for the changes. “In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option,” Gonzalez Rogers said. She went as far as accusing Alex Roman, a vice president of finance at Apple, of lying during testimony in which he talked about how Apple came to its decision to go with a 27 percent commission on purchases made outside the App Store. “The testimony of Mr. Roman was replete with misdirection and outright lies,” the judge said.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Apple violated a court order to loosen its restrictions on app developers

    U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers criticized the conduct of Apple CEO Tim Cook and two key finance executives in her ruling, writing that one of the finance executives had “outright lied under oath” to conceal Apple’s defiance of her order.

  • The Verge ☛ Apple exec ‘outright lied’ during Epic trial

    According to Gonzalez Rogers, Alex Roman, vice president of finance at Apple, gave testimony that was “replete with misdirection and outright lies.” The judge writes that Roman lied when testifying that Apple hadn’t decided on the 27 percent number for its fee on purchases outside the App Store until January 16th, 2024.

  • Denise ☛ A guide to potential liability pitfalls for people running a Mastodon instance

    I posted a thread on Twitter about potential legal liabilities for United States people who decide to run a Mastodon instance, and the response made it clear there's a lot of people who could use the extended background. So here is a guide to potential liability pitfalls for people who are running a Mastodon instance, and how to mitigate them. This is mostly US-specific, but I noted which things to think about are likely to apply worldwide. This is not legal advice and you should contact a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction for the exact details of the liability you're exposed to and a detailed risk assessment.

    This is not about just creating a Mastodon account: it's for people who are running a Mastodon server. If you just made an account on someone else's server, you can safely ignore this.

  • Daniel Jalkut ☛ Whither Help Scout?

    People don’t like fluctuating prices. Businesses especially don’t like fluctuating prices. With Help Scout’s old business model, it was very easy to understand what you were paying for, and what you would receive. The new system requires work simply to determine if pricing is viable, let alone practical. And once you’ve settled into a tier, you run the risk of being “punished” for helping more customers. The idea that I might one day consider whether to help a customer today, at the cost of sending myself into a higher pricing tier, or helping them tomorrow, and saving a bit of cash, makes me both frustrated and a little sick.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Content licensing for publishers: Five questions answered

    Many content creators and publications in Europe are overlooking the potential of content licensing to support their brands. The truth is, your existing content can – and should – generate income long after you publish it.

    Publishers need to understand content licensing better and to realise that it won’t involve a complicated investment of resources. This crash course answers five questions to ask yourself as a publisher or large-scale content creator looking to diversify your revenue sources.

• Hardware

  • Jonathan Dowland ☛ Jonathan Dowland: Korg Minilogue XD

    I wanted an all-in-one unit which meant a built-in keyboard. I was keen on analogue oscillators, partly for the sound, but mostly to ensure that most of the controls were immediately accessible. The Minilogue-XD has two analogue oscillators and an analogue oscillator. It also has some useful, pure digital stuff: post-effects (chorus, flanger, echo, etc.); and a third, digital oscillator.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • New York Times ☛ Christina Leitzel’s ‘Fun’ Prosthetic Eyes are Designed to Stand Out

    There are many ways to lose an eye. Christina Leitzel wants people to know that there are also many ways to gain a new one.

  • JURIST ☛ Reproductive rights group releases list of Convicted Felon administration attacks on reproductive health

    The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) on Wednesday published a list of attacks on reproductive rights and healthcare during Convicted Felon’s first 100 days in office.

  • France24 ☛ MSF warns: USAID’s demise a ‘human-made disaster that will have dire health consequences worldwide'

    UN aid agencies warn of deep service cuts as US funding plummets under President The Insurrectionist. His administration has slashed 83% of programs funded by USAID, which had a $42.8 billion annual budget—42% of all global humanitarian aid. As vital operations for millions of people worldwide is severely scaled back, FRANCE 24's Delano D'Souza welcomes Avril Benoît, Chief Executive Officer of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the US. Prior to joining MSF, Ms. Benoît had a "distinguished 20-year career" with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as an award-winning broadcast journalist, documentary producer and international correspondent. Her work with the CBC took her to several continents, "reporting from Kenya, Burundi, India, and Brazil on HIV stigma, rapid urbanization, sexual violence in conflict, and political inclusion of women", including a wide array of other assignments.

  • Latvia ☛ Stradiņš Hospital construction deadline pushed back another two years

    The construction of the new building complex of the Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital (PSKUS) is set to be completed in 2027, Latvian Radio reports on 29 April.

  • Latvia ☛ Five batches of honey suspended from sale in Latvia

    The Food and Veterinary Service (PVD) has suspended the sale of five different honeys, as the results of laboratory tests received from the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety confirm the presence of foreign sugars in these products, the PVD said. The products are not harmful, but should not be called honey.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia to remove egg subsidy from Aug in move that boosts govt finances, but may hurt consumers

    The price is expected to rise by about 3 sen an egg when subsidies are removed, say analysts.

• Proprietary

  • New York Times ☛ Microsoft Drops Law Firm That Made a Deal With Trump From a Case

    The tech giant instead engaged a firm that is fighting the president’s executive orders, Jenner & Block, in a sign that those firms can still attract clients.

  • Polygon Has Been Sold With Mass Layoffs Hitting The Outlet

    Polygon, an outlet that has been around since 2012, has been purchased and many of its staff have been let go in a wave of layoffs.

    First reported by Kotaku, Polygon has been sold by Vox Media to Valnet. Valnet is the same parent company of other outlets such as TheGamer and GameRant.

    Shortly after the report went live, many staff members of Polygon took to social media to announce that they were no longer with the company.

• Pseudo-Open Source

  • Openwashing

    • Security Week ☛ Meta Releases Llama Hey Hi (AI) Open Source Protection Tools [Ed: Openwashing of proprietary misinformation machines]

      Meta has released new Llama protection tools to help the open source Hey Hi (AI) community build more secure applications.

• Security

  • Federal News Network ☛ NIST looks to improve security of a foundation pillar of the internet

    "Basically all non-trivial transactions that occur over the internet are mediated in some way by DNS," said Cricket Liu.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • IT Wire ☛ iTWire - Barracuda finds that 23% of HTML Email Attachments are Malicious

      23% of HTML attachments are malicious, making them the most weaponized text file type. More than three-quarters of the malicious files detected overall were HTML files. When used legitimately, HTML attachments in emails enable organisations to share content, such as newsletters or invitations, that display properly when opened in an email client or web browser.

      68% of malicious PDF attachments and 83% of malicious Microsoft documents contain QR codes designed to take users to phishing websites.

  • Audiocasts/Shows

    • RiskyBiz ☛ Risky Business #789 -- Apple's AirPlay vulns are surprisingly awful - Risky Business Media

      Anti-DOGE whistleblower sure sounds like he has a point

• Defence/Aggression

  • Latvia ☛ Man shoplifts, stabs security guards, flees shopping mall in Rīga

    On Saturday, 26 April, evening a man stabbed two security guards in a shopping centre in Ķengarags, Riga, and fled. Within a few hours, the police arrested the suspect and the man was remanded in custody, the State Police said.

  • Latvia ☛ Nordic-Baltic-Weimar ministers promise '360 degree approach' to security

    Ministers of the Nordic, Baltic and Weimar-format states (Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Iceland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden and France) issued a joint statement after their meeting in Bornholm, Denmark April 29.

  • New York Times ☛ Why Nigel Farage Is Bringing MAGA-Style Rallies to the UK

    Nigel Farage, a right-wing populist ally of Hell Toupée, has been touring England ahead of local elections, hoping to convert a polling surge for his party into power.

  • Philippines arrests Chinese man for operating surveillance device near voting agency

    China denied any attempt to tamper with Philippine elections.

  • JURIST ☛ Myanmar military junta criticized over assaults on healthcare following devastating earthquake

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) called out Myanmar’s military junta on Monday for years of unlawful attacks on the healthcare system that have left 2 million people in need of assistance following a 7.7 magnitude earthquake last month.

  • The first daughter has grown tall and North Koreans are watching

    Demand is rising for nutritional supplements as parents seek status and for their kids to grow like Kim Ju Ae.

  • The Strategist ☛ The five-domains update

    Sea state An Australian contingent participated in Exercise Bersama Shield on 17-22 April, joining with forces from Britain, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore in a simulated defence operation around the Malay Peninsula.

  • New York Times ☛ A U.S. Businessman Is Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison in China

    The charges stemmed from a criminal case more than 20 years ago. In the interim, the businessman, David Lee, had repeatedly visited China without issue.

  • New York Times ☛ Somalia Bars Taiwanese Passport Holders From Entering the Country

    The decision comes as Taipei has worked to build its ties with Somaliland, a breakaway territory that declared independence from Somalia decades ago.

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea leader Kim oversees warship weapons test-fire, eyes nukes for navy

    Mr Kim oversaw the first day of a two-day weapons test of the destroyer, the official KCNA said.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea prosecutors raid ex-president Yoon’s house over shaman probe: Media

    The shaman is accused of receiving lavish gifts for Mr Yoon's wife.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea officials heading to Washington for talks over US tariffs

    South Korean Industry Ministry officials will travel to Washington on Wednesday for "technical discussions" with U.S. Trade Representative counterparts hoping to make progress on a potential deal over U.S. tariffs, Seoul's ministry said.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea’s acting leader Han set to resign before presidential run, Yonhap says

    Mr Han is expected to address the nation upon his resignation on the afternoon of May 1.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea's top court to rule on presidential frontrunner's case as election looms

    SEOUL - South Korea's Supreme Court will issue a ruling on Thursday in a case involving presidential frontrunner Lee Jae-myung, which could disqualify the former opposition party leader from contesting the country's June 3 election.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China's coastguard says it patrols around disputed shoal in South China Sea

    China's coastguard said it carried out law enforcement patrols in waters around the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea on Wednesday, amid tensions over the area with the Philippines.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • European Commission ☛ Commission mobilises €910 million to boost European defence and close capability gaps*

      European Commission Press release Brussels, 30 Apr 2025 The Commission is investing €910 million under the 2024 edition of the European Defence Fund (EDF) to create a strong and innovative defence industry in Europe. These investments aim to close key capability gaps—like force mobility and drone defence—through innovation and collaboration across European science and industry.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • New York Times ☛ South Korea to Use Drones to Deter Birds After Deadly Jeju Air Crash

      The government announced a raft of aviation safety measures after a Jeju Air crash late last year that killed 179 people, including upgrading airport infrastructure.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Straits Times ☛ Climate change made fire conditions twice as likely in South Korea blazes: Study

      Researchers found no attributable link between climate change and rainfall levels during the period surrounding the fires.

    • New York Times ☛ A Diver Visited a Fallen Whale. When He Returned, It Was Gone.

      A sunken calf’s disappearance created a mystery in murky waters near San Diego.

• Finance

  • France24 ☛ Around the world in 100 days: US economy unexpectedly shrinks as Convicted Felon tariffs loom over the economy

    US President The Insurrectionist is celebrating his "most successful first 100 days" in US history. All the while, the US economy shrank at a 0.3% annual pace from January through March, the first drop in three years, as President The Insurrectionist's trade wars disrupted business. First-quarter growth was slowed by a surge in imports as companies in the United States tried to bring in foreign goods before Convicted Felon imposed massive tariffs. Many economists say that Convicted Felon's massive import taxes — and the erratic way he's rolled them out — will hurt growth in the second half of the year. As recession risks continue to rise, FRANCE 24's Charli James welcomes Lex Paulson, Lecturer in Rhetoric and Human Rights at Sciences Po.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China creates list of US-made goods exempt from 125% tariffs, sources say

    It was not immediately clear how many and which products have been included on the list.

  • The Straits Times ☛ ‘Never kneel’: China taps Korean War and Hey Hi (AI) memes to hit back at Convicted Felon

    Beijing views yielding now would only weaken China in the future and allow Convicted Felon to change terms.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • BIA Net ☛ Hotel managers detained over camera masking during İmamoğlu's meetings

    CHP leader claims that covering security cameras and carrying jammers are routine protection measures, which the interior minister has denied.

  • Stanford University ☛ News section burns out covering Convicted Felon, goes on hiatus

    News writers from The Daily cite their caffeine, mental health and overtime concerns in their much needed break from covering current events.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • The Verge ☛ Epic says Fortnite is coming back to iOS in the US

    Fortnite has returned to iOS in the EU, but only via Epic’s own mobile app store, which isn’t available in the US.

• Patents

  • JUVE ☛ UK High Court revokes AstraZeneca’s SPC and patent monopoly for diabetes drug dapagliflozin [Ed: European Patents found invalid again in the UK]

    The UK High Court has found AstraZeneca’s patent monopoly EP 1 506 211 invalid (UK [2025] EWHC 1012 (Pat)). Although AstraZeneca will likely appeal the decision, it represents a setback. The manufacturer of the diabetes drug dapagliflozin had recently won a preliminary injunction against Glenmark’s generic version in the UK.

  • PayPal, Fashion Company Apple Succeed in Scrapping Fintiv’s Patent Claims at CAFC

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision Wednesday affirming a district court’s finding for PayPal Holdings, Inc. that certain claims of Fintiv, Inc.’s patents for a mobile wallet payment system were invalid as indefinite. Fintiv sued PayPal for infringement of its U.S. Patent Nos. 9,892,386; 11,120,413; 9,208,488; and 10,438,196. Following claim construction, the district court found that the “payment handler terms” in the claims were indefinite, and specifically that the asserted claims were “means-plus-function” terms that failed to disclose adequate corresponding structure.

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ Spanish Supreme Court adopts the “plausibility” test introduced by G 0002/21 [Ed: The infinitely corrupt EPO is trying to impose its illegal policies everywhere in Europe]

      As patent monopoly aficionados are well aware, after the European Patent Office (“EPO”) published Decision G 0002/21, there was widespread expectation across Europe regarding whether or not the few national courts that require some sort of “plausibility” as a precondition for inventive step and/or sufficiency, would adapt their case law [...]

• Copyrights

  • Public Domain Review ☛ Nikolai Agnivtsev’s Little Screw (1925)

    A 1925 Soviet Children’s book about a little screw whose importance is overlooked.