Leftovers

• Tom MacWright ☛ Reading Zanzibar

  The Zanzibar paper made quite a stir. There are at least four companies that advertise products as being inspired by or based on Zanzibar. It says a lot for everyone to loudly reference this paper on homepages and marketing materials: companies aren’t advertising their own innovation as much as simply saying they’re following the gospel.

• [Old] AuthZed ☛ Zanzibar: Google’s Consistent, Global Authorization System [PDF]

  Determining whether online users are authorized to access digital objects is central to preserving privacy. This paper presents the design, implementation, and deployment of Zanzibar, a global system for storing and evaluating access control lists. Zanzibar provides a uniform data model and configuration language for expressing a wide range of access control policies from hundreds of client services at Google, including Calendar, Cloud, Drive, Maps, Photos, and YouTube. Its authorization decisions respect causal ordering of user actions and thus provide external consistency amid changes to access control lists and object contents. Zanzibar scales to trillions of access control lists and millions of authorization requests per second to support services used by billions of people. It has maintained 95th-percentile latency of less than 10 milliseconds and availability of greater than 99.999% over 3 years of production use.

• Science

  • Oona Räisänen ☛ Descrambling split-band voice inversion with deinvert

    The algorithm behind deinvert can be divided into three phases: 1) pre-filtering, 2) mixing, and 3) post-filtering. Mixing means multiplying the signal by an oscillation at the selected carrier frequency. This produces two sidebands, or mirrored copies of the signal, with the lower one frequency-inverted. Pre-filtering is necessary to prevent this lower sideband from aliasing when its highest components would go below zero Hertz. Post-filtering removes the upper sideband, leaving just the inverted audio. Both filters can be realized as low-pass FIR filters.

  • Paul Krugman ☛ MAGA’s War on Science

    But at this point, can we acknowledge that MAGA is indeed waging war on science? Not just “woke” stuff, but science in general.

    Nature tells us that National Science Foundation funds have been frozen, and that even if some money eventually flows again, funding will be heavily politicized: [...]

  • Futurism ☛ White House Announces Plans to Rip Up NASA's Moon Program

    In short, lawmakers will likely balk at Trump's suggestions to gut NASA's Moon program after just three flights — which could lead to some heated discussions, behind the scenes or otherwise.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Majoranas on the move: Superconductor-quantum dot combo manipulates Majorana bound states

    One of the key issues in quantum computing remains the inherent instability of quantum bits. In the quest for fault-tolerant quantum computers, topological quantum bits are expected to be significantly less prone to errors. Key to these qubits are quasiparticles called Majorana bound states, which have been predicted to appear on opposite edges of one-dimensional superconducting systems.

  • Science Alert ☛ Microplastics Persist in Drinking Water Despite Treatment Plant Advances

    There are choices we can make to minimise this.

  • Science Alert ☛ Mysterious Critters Set to Return After 17 Years Underground

    "Everybody's fascinated by them."

  • Science Alert ☛ Dawn's Second Look Reveals Vesta Could Be Part of a Lost World

    There's a core mystery here.

  • Science Alert ☛ Aging Switches on Stem Cells That Drive Belly Fat Growth

    Well, that explains some flesh.

  • Science Alert ☛ Fasting-Style Diet Seems to Result in Dynamic Changes in Human Brains

    It's not just your weight that's affected.

  • Science Alert ☛ Which Arm Gets Vaccinated Could Play a Role in Your Immune Response

    Choose carefully.

  • Science Alert ☛ This Memory Technique Primes The Brain to Absorb More Information

    A new hack for exam time!

  • Science Alert ☛ Plants Really Do 'Scream'. We Just Never Heard Them Until Now.

    The horror.

  • Science Alert ☛ World's First 'T. Rex Leather' Is Claimed to Come From Dino DNA. Is This For Real?

    We'll need a certificate of authenticity.

  • NYPost ☛ Haunting slave ships found off coast of national park 300 years later: ‘Very convincing’

    Archaeologists recently made a startling discovery: They found that two 18th-century shipwrecks off the coast of Central America were actually two Danish slave ships.

• Career/Education

  • Security Week ☛ RSA Conference 2025 Announcement Summary (Day 3) 

    To help cut through the clutter, the SecurityWeek team has published a daily digest summarizing some of the announcements made by vendors. Here is a roundup of the most important product and service announcements made on the last days of the event, as well as some announcements that we missed from the previous days.

  • Manuel Moreale ☛ P&B: Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino

    This is the 88th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino and her blog, designswarm.com

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Make Your Own Telescope, Right Down To The Glass

    Telescopes are great tools for observing the heavens, or even surrounding landscapes if you have the right vantage point. You don’t have to be a professional to build one though; you can make all kinds of telescopes as an amateur, as this guide from the Springfield Telesfcope Makers demonstrates.

  • Hackaday ☛ Printable Pegboard PC Shows Off The RGB

    Sometimes it seems odd that we would spend hundreds (or thousands) on PC components that demand oodles of airflow, and stick them in a little box, out of site. The fine folks at Corsair apparently agree, because they’ve released files for an open-frame pegboard PC case on Printables.

  • Digital Camera World ☛ This mesmerizing photograph of a bird behind a waterfall isn’t just impressive, it proves how far camera tech has come | Digital Camera World

    “It’s been over two decades since I first witnessed a dipper darting through a waterfall,” Wothe, a photographer and documentary filmmaker with a background in biology, explained. “The small passerine bird was flying back and forth to a nest tucked away safely behind a dense curtain of water. Of course, I attempted to capture the dipper on film, but my analogue camera gear did not allow me to freeze this split-second moment in sharp focus.”

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Stanford University ☛ Stanford alumna sentenced to four years in prison for DoorDash-style drug delivery service

    Stanford alumna Natalie Maria Gonzalez ’15 was sentenced to four years in prison for operating the online drug delivery service, The Shop.

  • FAIR ☛ Do Mob Wars Help Crime Victims?: Understanding media coverage of healthcare price battles

    This time last year, tens of thousands of people in Colorado anxiously wondered if they’d have to find a new doctor or start using a different hospital. Contracts setting payment levels for Catholic Church–affiliated hospital chain CommonSpirit Health to be a member of preferred provider networks run by insurer Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado were set to expire on May 1, 2024, and negotiations were a train wreck.

• Proprietary

  • Silicon Angle ☛ Atlassian shares drop sharply on slowing growth and wider quarterly loss

    Shares in Atlassian Corp. fell nearly 18% in after-hours trading today after the Australian collaboration software company posted a wider net loss and its slowest revenue growth in years despite solid performance in its cloud business.

  • Legendary Video Game Website Giant Bomb Is No More, Jeff Grub Says: “Out of a job at the moment”

    Giant Bomb, the beloved and long-running video game website, has effectively ceased operations as we knew it. On May 2, 2025, co-host and journalist Jeff Grubb bluntly confirmed his departure on Bluesky. For over 15 years, the company has had some of the most personality-driven content and community we’ve ever seen, and it’s a shame to see it go.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft has no plans to fix Windows RDP bug that lets you log in with old passwords

    This makes it impossible to prevent access to machines using RDP by changing the password. Old cached passwords will still allow a successful login which is a huge security concern. Despite the glaring open backdoor, Microsoft has insisted that this is intentional and the company has no plans to change the way this function operates as it provides a method for users to never be completely locked out of their machine.

  • The Register UK ☛ Apple warns US tariffs will cost it $900m, maybe more later

    That’s the news from the iGiant’s Q2 2025 earnings report, which saw CEO Tim Cook reveal $95.4 billion of quarterly revenue, a five percent year over year jump diluted earnings-per-share rising eight points to $1.65. Net income rose five percent to $24. 8 billion.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Vox ☛ OpenAI ChatGPT-4o update makes an AI overly sycophantic

      That’s not the only worrying thing, though. Another concern is the definitive evidence that OpenAI is putting a lot of work into making the model fun and rewarding at the expense of making it truthful or helpful to the user.

      If that sounds familiar, it’s basically the business model that social media and other popular digital platforms have been following for years — with often devastating results. The AI writer Zvi Mowshowitz writes, “This represents OpenAI joining the move to creating intentionally predatory AIs, in the sense that existing algorithmic systems like TikTok, YouTube and Netflix are intentionally predatory systems. You don’t get this result without optimizing for engagement.”

    • Quanta Magazine ☛ Will AI Ever Understand Language Like Humans? | Quanta Magazine

      Ellie Pavlick at Brown University is building models that could help understand how LLMs process language compared with humans. In this episode of The Joy of Why, Pavlick discusses what we know and don’t know about LLM language processing, how their processes differ from humans, and how understanding LLMs better could also help us better appreciate our own capacity for knowledge and creativity.

    • Dustin Knopoff ☛ Searching Home Videos with LLMs

      I have over 25 hours of video digitized video which was all taken on casette. Because of this, any given video can have many clips within it. In the past I've tried manually separating out clips and even scene splitting via https://www.scenedetect.com but found that it made things a bit more discoverable, but no easier to find clips I remembered but couldn't recall when they were taken.

    • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: AI and the fatfinger economy

      These traps for the unwary aren't accidental, but neither are they placed there solely because tech companies think that if they can trick you into using their AI, you'll be so impressed that you'll become a regular user. To understand why you find yourself repeatedly fatfingering your way into an unwanted AI interaction – and why those interactions are so hard to exit – you have to understand something about both the macro- and microeconomics of high-growth tech companies.

    • The Register UK ☛ AI models will lie when honesty conflicts with their goals

      Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Michigan, and the Allen Institute for AI have looked at the trade-off AI models make between truthfulness and utility, using hypothetical scenarios where the two conflict.

      What they found is that AI models will often lie in order to achieve the goals set for them.

    • Anil Dash ☛ What Would “Good” AI Look Like?

      We're a few years into the tech industry's AI hype cycle, and it's all been characterized by far more heat than light. The assertions by the people making the AI platforms are as absurd as we've come to expect from shameless Silicon Valley shills. (AGI: a strategy of raising funding based on the promise of being able to replace any worker with a Python script.)

      Interestingly enough, while there are tons of valid critiques of today's AI offerings, we don't often see an affirmative example of what we would want to see. So, I'd like to share an example that's been banging around in my head for a while of what a good AI platform might look like. Some of this is just a thought exercise, trying to imagine an alternate future. But this is also an intentional, practical strategy and an attempt at a more effective form of critique — because if we are going to have better AI in the future, we are going to have get lots of people to understand that such a thing is possible.

    • Pivot to AI ☛ No, Microsoft did not state ‘strong AI demand’ in Q1 2025 — the FT is wrong

      If you dig through Microsoft’s latest 10-Q, Azure’s 33% revenue rise includes “16 points” from AI. That’s not 16%, that’s 16 basis points — each of which is 1/100 of a percent. Azure cloud revenue from AI went up 0.16%.

  • Social Control Media

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-04-29 [Older] Zwolle man gets 6 years for sextortion of 33 girls via TikTok, Snapchat

    • Irish Examiner ☛ Esther McCarthy: As a mum of boys, comment sections of social media sites are terrifying

      Forgive my hyperbole; both are exaggerations, but the comment sections of social media sites can be terrifying. The types of videos that are blithely shared are jaw-dropping, and narratives that seem outrageous and polarising feel like they’re being normalised, made mainstream. I’m worried there’s no middle ground.

      But as a mother, I can’t just shake my head, switch off the wifi, and blame the big, bad internet — much as I’d like to.

    • Irish Examiner ☛ 'Like a circus': Cork mother heartbroken after son’s tragic death is filmed by onlookers

      Senior emergency service officials hit out earlier after it emerged that the drowning and the recovery of the man’s remains had been recorded by some onlookers.

    • Lusaka ZM ☛ Zambia : There Is No Such Thing As Freedom To Abuse Others - Nevers Mumba

      Facebook, for example, is fast becoming a toxic space for Zambians, filled with hurtful abuse and insults. We’ve adopted harmful habits like body shaming, which causes deep emotional pain among many defenseless online victims. This online cruelty is tearing apart our nation’s peace and harmony, pushing many to the brink of despair. No one is spared – women, youths, celebrities, footballers, church leaders, the young and even the elderly are all targeted, their dignity mercilessly attacked. Many suffer in silence, battling depression and suicidal thoughts. Without protection, our most vulnerable citizens will be left to face this abuse alone. Is this what we want?

    • 404 Media ☛ Mark Zuckerberg Thinks You Don't Have Enough Friends and His Chatbots Are the Answer

      The CEO of Meta says "the average American has fewer than three friends, fewer than three people they would consider friends. And the average person has demand for meaningfully more.”

    • Nick Heer ☛ Meta’s A.I. Television – Pixel Envy

      What “friends” mean in this context is different from how it is used by Zuckerberg and in the surveys above. Also, the rest of this material is not necessarily A.I.-generated. Even so, 7–17% of users’ time is spent viewing stuff they say they want to see, and that is not necessarily because they have elected to view it less. That is driven to a considerable degree by the posts Meta has selected for you to see first, and the order in which your friends’ Stories are displayed.

      If Meta had an institutional responsibility to help users maintain their real-world friendships, it is failing to do so based on these numbers. But that is not the role it seems to want to play.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • The Record ☛ Ransomware attacks on food and agriculture industry have doubled in 2025

      Jonathan Braley, director of cyber information sharing organization Food and Ag-ISAC, spoke at the RSA Conference on Thursday and warned of not only the increase in ransomware incidents but the continued lack of visibility into the full scope of the problem.

      “A lot of it never gets reported, so a ransomware attack happens and we never get the full details,” he told Recorded Future News on the sidelines of the conference. “I wish companies would be more open in talking about it and sharing ‘Here's what they use, here's how we fixed it,’ so the rest of us can prevent that.”

• Privatisation/Privateering

  • The Register UK ☛ Trump wants to send quarter of NASA budget into black hole

    The budget document leans heavily on the commercial sector NASA nurtured and helped spawn – cough, SpaceX – to pick up the slack from the cuts; the agency will be kept clear of areas "better suited to private sector research and development."

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Papers Please ☛ Objections to blanket approval for USCIS surveillance of social media

      Today the Identity Project, Privacy Times, and Government Information Watch filed comments objecting to a proposal by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for blanket advance approval for USCIS to demand that all foreigners submitting any sort of application to USCIS provide a statement under penalty of perjury a list of all  social media “platforms” and “identifiers” they have used in the last five years. The forms on which this information would be required would include applications for permanent residency, adjustment of status, and naturalization.

      The proposal builds on earlier proposals, to which we and many other organizations objected, to require applicants for visas or visa-free entry to the US to provide lists of social media platforms and identifiers they have used. The current proposal by USCIS would extend mandatory social media usage reporting to those foreigners who have already demonstrated the strongest ties to the US, including permanent US residents applying for naturalization as US citizens. The current proposal would also give blanket pre-approval to USCIS to demand this information on other forms in the future.

    • Privacy International ☛ Rain starting to fall on Big Tech's parade

      The European Union Commission has issued the first fines for non-compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) which came into effect last year. Apple and Meta, two of the Big Tech firms designated as 'gatekeepers' under the Act, were recently fined €500 million and €200 million respectively for failing to respect rules designed to protect people against abuse of dominance in online services.

      Apple's fine is due to its vice-like grip over its app store that prevents developers from signposting cheaper alternatives to their customers. Meta was also fined in Europe for their so-called 'pay or consent' model - their latest desperate effort to keep propping up their surveillance advertising business model. Rather than give people actual control about how their data is used, Meta instead gives people a stark 'choice': you must give up your money or your rights. There's little point passing laws and then leaving them unenforced - and so it's positive that the Commission has dipped its toe into the water here.

    • EPIC ☛ (California) Testimony on the California Privacy Protection Agency’s Draft Regulations on ADMT, Risk Assessments, and Cybersecurity

      EPIC was very disappointed to see significant weakening in the latest draft regulations on ADMTs, risk assessments, and cybersecurity. Strong rules are essential to ensure that Californians are protected from the well-documented harms to privacy and civil rights caused by the unchecked use of automated decisionmaking technologies. The original draft regulations would have been a significant step toward this goal, but with each new revision, and increase in pressure from the tech industry, the draft rules have become less and less protective for consumers.

    • [Old] EDRI ☛ Digital rights advocates unite against Meta’s “Pay or Okay”

      In response to three Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) requesting a European Data Protection Board (EDPB) opinion on Meta's 'Pay or Consent' approach, Access Now, the EDRi office and other EDRi members have united in an open letter urging the Board to reject these subscription-based approaches unequivocally.

    • PC World ☛ Microsoft is now forcing new users to adopt a passwordless future

      Starting May 1st, 2025, anyone who creates a new Microsoft account will default to a login method that doesn’t use passwords. Microsoft made this announcement yesterday for “World Passkey Day,” making it clear that they want to replace passwords with passkeys sooner rather than later. In the blog post, Microsoft writes: [...]

    • Don Marti ☛ new browser buying rules for states?

      The W3C TAG, in Third Party Cookies Must Be Removed, writes, "Third-party (AKA cross-site) cookies are harmful to the web, and must be removed from the web platform."

      But, because of a variety of business, legal and/or political reasons, that’s not happening right now. As power users know but a lot of people don’t, a typical web browser is not really usable out of the box. (Remember when Linux distributions came with a mail server set up as an open SMTP relay? And you had to learn how to turn that off or have your Linux box used by email spammers? Good times.) Some of the stuff that needs to get fixed before using a browser seriously includes: [...]

    • Security Week ☛ Microsoft Accounts Go Passwordless by Default

      To enable users to sign into any account without a password, the industry came up with passkeys, which provide a phishing-resistant authentication method that can be used on any supporting application or website.

    • The Drone Girl ☛ Florida Senate Bill 1422 could let you shoot down drones

      The bill does a few things, but namely it seeks to protect the people of Florida from certain types of surveillance.

      More specifically, property owners would have the right to use “reasonable force” to stop drones from conducting surveillance over their private property. There are a few stipulations, such as that the drone must be flying under 500 feet. It also must be violating “a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

      The bill also has a few other drone-related actions, such as that it amends multiple sections of Florida law to expand definitions of “critical infrastructure,” increases criminal penalties for operating drones in prohibited areas, and cracks down on tampering with FAA-mandated Remote ID systems.

  • Confidentiality

    • Bruce Schneier ☛ NCSC Guidance on "Advanced Cryptography"

      The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre just released its white paper on “Advanced Cryptography,” which it defines as “cryptographic techniques for processing encrypted data, providing enhanced functionality over and above that provided by traditional cryptography.” It includes things like homomorphic encryption, attribute-based encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and secure multiparty computation.

    • Jan Schaumann ☛ Post-Quantum Cryptography on NetBSD

      A few months ago, I imported the Open Quantum Safe OpenSSL provider into pkgsrc, and using that is straight forward: [...]

• Defence/Aggression

  • Axios ☛ Justice Jackson slams Trump's attacks on judges

    Why it matters: In some of the strongest comments yet by a justice in response to the judiciary coming under fire from Trump and his allies, Jackson said the "relentless attacks" on judges risked "undermining our Constitution and the rule of law," per the New York Times.

  • RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Forces To Join UK Military Procession In London Marking VE Day

    Ukrainian personnel will join around 1,000 UK armed forces members on May 5 as UK kicks off commemorations of Victory in Europe (VE) Day.

  • 404 Media ☛ U.S. Denies Picking Bombing Targets From Random Twitter Accounts

    Last week, a small OSINT account on X apologized for incorrectly identifying a quarry in Yemen as an underground base after a U.S. airstrike blew it up and killed eight people.

  • The Verge ☛ Google is going to let kids use its Gemini AI | The Verge

    The company says kids will be able to use Gemini to do things like help them with homework or read them stories. Like its Workplace for Education accounts, Google says children’s data will not be used to train AI. Still, in the email, Google warns parents that “Gemini can make mistakes,” and kids “may encounter content you don’t want them to see.”

  • The Register UK ☛ China turns on ‘minors mode’ to keep kids safe online

    As explained in a CAC announcement, new smartphones from Xiaomi, Honor and vivo come with minors mode loaded, while Huawei, OPPO and ZTE will deliver it in an OS update.

    Big players in fields including short videos, social networking, e-commerce, and education have signed up for minors mode and will only serve appropriate content. They’ve apparently pledged to not just keep kids away from online nasties, but to develop content for minors.

  • The Register UK ☛ UK nabs 3 in £3M bribery probe tied to Dutch Microsoft DC

    UK authorities on Wednesday arrested three individuals in connection with a multi-million-pound bribery probe tied to the construction of a Microsoft datacenter in the Netherlands.

  • Semafor Inc ☛ Irish privacy regulator files TikTok €530 million for sending user data to China

    Ireland’s privacy regulator fined TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance €530 million ($600 million) Friday for illegally sending user data to China, in an infringement of EU rules.

  • The Register UK ☛ TikTok fined €530M for sending EU user data to China

    The DPC announced its final decision Friday following an inquiry into the lawfulness of TikTok's transfers of personal data from users of the video-based social media app in the wider European Economic Area (EEA) to the People's Republic of China, where its parent company Bytedance is based.

  • The Record ☛ Privacy regulator fines TikTok $600 million over EU data transfers to China | The Record from Recorded Future News

    The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) ordered TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, to fix its data processing weaknesses within six months or have its ability to transfer data to China suspended.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Column: The 'USA' brand was 250 years in the making. It took just 100 days to trash it

    “We’re eroding that brand right now,” Griffin lamented at an economic forum. Everything that “USA” has long stood for — financial stability, military strength, cultural prestige and more — undermined. “It can take a very long time,” Griffin warned, “… to remove the tarnish.”

  • France24 ☛ Trump to combine birthday celebration, US army anniversary with military parade

    It never materialised, however, after the Pentagon said it could cost $92 million and concerns were raised that tanks and other heavy military vehicles would damage the city's streets.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Zelensky imposes sanctions on former advisor Oleksiy Arestovych — Meduza

    • CNN ☛ 2025-05-02 [Older] Russian authorities detain suspect over St. Petersburg cafe blast

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] Why EU, US companies are keeping Russian trademark rights

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] North Korea and Russia Begin Building Their First Road Link

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] At Least 9 Dead in Drone Strikes After US and Ukraine Sign Minerals Deal

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] Russian Drones Injure 14 in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia, No Deaths Reported

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] Russian Official Accuses Ukraine of Killing at Least Seven Civilians in Drone Strike

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] Russia's Medvedev Says Ukraine Minerals Deal Means Cheeto Mussolini Has Forced Kyiv to Pay for US Aid

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] US-Ukraine Minerals Deal Is Economic Partnership, Signal to Russia, Bessent Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] Vance Says He Does Not See Russia's War in Ukraine Ending 'Any Time Soon', Fox News Interview

    • Copenhagen Post ☛ 2025-04-30 [Older] EU Foreign Ministers meet in Denmark to strategize a forced Russia-Ukraine peace deal

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-30 [Older] North Korea Says New Bridge to Russia Reinforces Economic Cooperation

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-30 [Older] Russian Drone Attack Kills Two, Injures Five in Ukraine's Odesa

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-30 [Older] Russia's Putin Says Reverting to Stalingrad Name up to City Residents

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-29 [Older] How does Europe want Russia's war on Ukraine to end?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-29 [Older] Russian Drones Attack Ukraine's Kharkiv and Dnipro, One Dead, 38 Injured

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-29 [Older] Putin Names Regional Russian Airport Stalingrad

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-29 [Older] Russia's Drone Attack Kills 12-Year-Old Girl in Dnipropetrovsk Region, Ukraine Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-29 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy Says Russian Ceasefire First Step Required for Peace Settlement

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Pro-Russian hackers strike Dutch municipalities with coordinated DDoS attack

    • CBC ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Russia announces 3-day Ukraine war ceasefire next week for WWII commemoration

    • Spiegel ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Recruited for the War in Ukraine: Meet the Chinese Soldiers Fighting in Russia's Army

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Russian Night Drone Attack on Kyiv Injures One, Ukraine Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Estonia Releases Russia-Bound Oil Tanker

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Russia Declares a 72-Hour Ceasefire in Ukraine for Next Week to Mark Victory Day in World War II

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Russia Says It Downs 91 Ukrainian Drones Overnight

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Putin Announces May 8-10 Ceasefire, Ukraine Wants Truce Now

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Wants a Permanent Russia-Ukraine Ceasefire, White House Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Zelenskiy Praises Killing of Top Russian Military Figures

    • 2025-04-27 [Older] Russian-linked hackers appear to have launched a crippling cyberattack on Western New Mexico University

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-27 [Older] Putin Orders Russian Emergency Planes to Iran After Blast at Port of Bandar Abbas

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-27 [Older] Russia Launches Nearly 150 Drones Against Ukraine as Cheeto Mussolini Doubts Putin's Desire for Peace

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-27 [Older] Russia Will Soon Destroy 'Scattered Remnants' of Ukrainian Army in Kursk Region, RIA Reports

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-27 [Older] Vast Russian Drone Attack Overnight Kills One, Ukraine Says

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-26 [Older] Putin: Russia open to Ukraine talks after Kursk 'liberation'

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-26 [Older] Ukraine: Hurdles to special tribunal prosecuting Russia's war of aggression

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-26 [Older] Harvard Researcher Held in Louisiana Awaits Judge's Decision on Deportation to Russia

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-26 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Expresses Doubts Putin Is Willing to End the Ukraine War, a Day After Saying a Deal Was Close

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-26 [Older] Russia Says It Has Fully Reclaimed the Kursk Region. Ukraine Says It Is Still Fighting There.

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-26 [Older] Russia Says Last Ukrainian Troops Expelled From Kursk Region, Kyiv Denies Assertion

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-26 [Older] Russia Detains Suspect in Car Bomb Killing of General Near Moscow

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-26 [Older] What to Know About the Battle for Russia's Kursk Region

    • CBC ☛ 2025-04-25 [Older] Russian general among 2 killed in Moscow-area car bombing

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-25 [Older] Could Germany return to Russian gas via Nord Stream?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-25 [Older] Putin, Witkoff discuss possible direct Russia-Ukraine talks

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-25 [Older] The risks of recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-25 [Older] Russian Satellite Linked to Nuclear Weapon Program Appears Out of Control, U.S. Analysts Say

    • The Conversation ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] What resources will US gain access to under Ukraine mineral deal? Expert Q&A

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] US, Ukraine sign 'investment' deal for natural resources

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] Zelenskyy hails Ukraine-US investment deal as 'truly equal'

    • International Business Times ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] After Cheeto Mussolini Bullies Zelensky During White House Meeting, US and Ukraine Sign Minerals Deal

    • The Age AU ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini says Ukraine deal discussed in meeting at Pope’s funeral

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] The U.S.-Ukraine Rare Earth Mineral Deal, Explained

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] What Are Ukraine's Critical Minerals and What Do We Know About the Deal With US

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] Analysis-US, Ukraine May Wait Decade or More to See Revenue From Minerals Deal

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] Factbox-Ukraine's Metals Production, Development Projects and Resources

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] Julie Davis to Serve as Top US Diplomat in Ukraine, State Department Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] Ukraine and the US Have Finally Signed a Minerals Deal. What Does It Include?

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-05-01 [Older] Ukraine's Foreign Minister Hails Minerals Deal With US as 'Milestone'

    • CBC ☛ 2025-04-30 [Older] Ukraine, U.S. officials sign natural resources deal

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2025-04-30 [Older] 50 Years Later, Vietnam’s Environment Still Bears the Scars of War and signals a dark future for Gaza and Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-30 [Older] Ukraine updates: Details emerge on Washington, Kyiv deal

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-30 [Older] Senior Ukrainian Official Signs Agreement Signed on U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Fund

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-30 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Says He Thinks Putin Wants Peace in Ukraine Despite Recent Attacks

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-30 [Older] Canada PM Carney Reiterates Commitment to Ukraine in Call With Zelenskiy

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-30 [Older] US, Ukraine Sign Minerals Deal, Bloomberg News Reports

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-29 [Older] How does Europe want the Ukraine war to end?

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-29 [Older] Ukraine updates: Germany doubtful of Putin's 3-day ceasefire

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-29 [Older] What Ukrainians think about Cheeto Mussolini's peace plan

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-29 [Older] If Cheeto Mussolini Abandons Ukraine, Can Europe Help Kyiv Fight On? the Clock Is Ticking to Answer That

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-29 [Older] One Dead in Mass Drone Attack on Ukraine's Dnipro, Governor Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-29 [Older] Rubio Says Concrete Ukraine Proposals Needed Now, or US Will Step Back

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Ukraine updates: Putin announces 3-day ceasefire in May

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] In First 100 Days, Cheeto Mussolini Struggles to Make Good on Promises to Quickly End Ukraine and Gaza Wars

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Past US Aid to Ukraine Not Included in Minerals Deal, Kyiv Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Ukraine Ready to Support Lasting, Durable and Full Ceasefire, Foreign Minister Says

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-28 [Older] Ukraine's Zelenskiy: the World Does Not Want to Wait for May 8 for Ceasefire

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-27 [Older] Shocked by US Peace Proposal, Ukrainians Say They Will Not Accept Any Formal Surrender of Crimea

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-26 [Older] Ukraine updates: Cheeto Mussolini, Zelenskyy meet at Vatican

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-26 [Older] Some Electronic Payments Systems in Ukraine Disrupted

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-26 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini and Zelenskiy Meet One-On-One in Vatican Basilica to Seek Ukraine Peace

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-25 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini Says Ukraine Has Not Signed Minerals Deal

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-25 [Older] Ukraine Detains Foreign Vessel It Says Was Exporting Stolen Grain

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-25 [Older] UN Refugee Agency Reduces Support for Ukrainians Fleeing Frontline

    • Insight Hungary ☛ Moscow imposes new sanction with Hungary exempt

      Russia has imposed a new round of sanctions on countries considered "unfriendly" or "hostile" to Russia. Hungary, as a member of the EU and NATO, has been the target of sanctions until now, but in a sanction that came into force in April and is valid until December, Hungary was exempted from the sanctions, along with Slovakia and South Korea, Hungarian news outlet Telex reports.

      The decision refers to sanctions on cosmetics. Although Hungary and Slovakia are unlikely to export many cosmetics products to the Russian market, the measure is still noteworthy. The regulation, which is only four pages long, declares that it targets states that infringe the economic interests of the Russian Federation. There are several groups of products, such as fragrances, lip care products and hair care products, where Hungary, Slovakia and South Korea are exempt from customs duties. According to Telex, in the case of Hungary and Slovakia, the beauty industry considers this to be a diplomatic gesture.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Mike Brock ☛ The Irrelevant Distraction

    New reporting highlighting a 2022 traffic stop where Abrego García was questioned about transporting workers represents a textbook example of irrelevant distraction. Let's be absolutely clear: whether Abrego García once gave rides to coworkers has zero bearing on the constitutional crisis at hand. None.

    This reporting is clearly designed to plant seeds of doubt, to shift focus from the administration's defiance of the Supreme Court to questions about Abrego García's character. It's a strategy as old as authoritarianism itself: dehumanize those whose rights you violate, find something—anything—that might make people less sympathetic to them, and hope this emotional manipulation trumps principled thinking.

• Environment

  • The Revelator ☛ Feeling Anxiety About Climate Change and Other Environmental Threats? These Five New Books Can Help

  • Common Dreams ☛ House Natural Resources Would Give Oil Industry Free Rein on Public Lands, Waters

    “This measure would give the oil industry free rein to pillage our public lands and oceans. Instead of helping the American people and our shared public resources, it would allow the oil, coal and timber industries to pick and choose the areas they want to exploit. And it exposes irreplaceable Alaskan wilderness to destructive oil drilling, industrial roadways and mining.

    “Worst of all, it allows fossil fuel companies and other big polluters to buy their way out of meaningful review or public input into their projects. So, that would mean one set of rules for the fossil fuel and logging barons, and another for the rest of us.

  • Wired ☛ The Climate Crisis Threatens Supply Chains. Manufacturers Hope AI Can Help

    And while we have a reasonably good idea of how climate change will affect the planet as a whole in the coming years, the exact location, timing, and magnitude of specific disasters is tricky to predict. This is where new tools for climate-risk modeling and extreme weather prediction come in. Semiconductor and AI giant Nvidia has a platform called Earth-2, which it hopes will address this challenge, with the help of other organizations including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • MIT Technology Review ☛ A long-abandoned US nuclear technology is making a comeback in China

      China has once again beat everyone else to a clean energy milestone—its new nuclear reactor is reportedly one of the first to use thorium instead of uranium as a fuel and the first of its kind that can be refueled while it’s running.

    • Wired ☛ As Trump’s Family [Cryptocurrency] Business Gains Steam, Ethical Concerns Mount

      “The transaction reeks of influence peddling,” claims George Selgin, director emeritus for the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute, a US think tank. It risks “making the US look more and more like a banana republic.”

    • Earth Justice ☛ How much do we subsidize cryptocurrency mining’s electricity use? No one knows.

      [Cryptocurrency] mines have raised electricity rates for households while receiving big discounts and subsidies.

    • [Old] Aalto University ☛ Investigating the Cryptocurrency Mining Loads' High Penetration Impact on Electric Power [PDF]

      The study found that approximately 2.8% of Iran’s total electricity consumption is allocated to CMLs. Furthermore, if only 5% of residential customers in the Tehran Electricity Distribution Company installed CMDs in their homes, the average coincident peak demand of this customer group rose by 26.81%. Additionally, the analysis revealed that the average power factor value of a sample CMD was about 0.99, and its total current distortion and third harmonic current exceeded the permissible limits by 1.11 and 1.09 times, respectively.

    • [Old] United Nations University ☛ UN Study Reveals the Hidden Environmental Impacts of Bitcoin: Carbon is Not the Only Harmful By-product | United Nations University

      According to study results, published by the United Nations University and Earth’s Future journal, during the 2020–2021 period, the global Bitcoin mining network consumed 173.42 Terawatt hours of electricity. This means that if Bitcoin were a country, its energy consumption would have ranked 27th in the world, ahead of a country like Pakistan, with a population of over 230 million people. The resulting carbon footprint was equivalent to that of burning 84 billion pounds of coal or operating 190 natural gas-fired power plants. To offset this footprint, 3.9 billion trees should be planted, covering an area almost equal to the area of the Netherlands, Switzerland, or Denmark or 7% of the Amazon rainforest.

• Finance

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ 8BitDo backs down after blaming tariffs for suspension of China warehouse shipments to the U.S.

    8BitDo's China warehouse goods will cease being sent to the U.S., but we aren't sure about the permanence of this decision.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China says it’s ‘currently evaluating’ US offer of tariff talks

    China said any talks would first require sincerity from the US side.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Semafor Inc ☛ US losing edge in AI talent pool, reports say

    The US risks losing its edge as the best place in the world to work in tech, according to new reports. Top minds and big money are mobile, while the White House cuts federal science funding and discourages immigration.

  • Garry Kasparov ☛ Yes, There’s Still A Shared American Identity

    As a Russian-speaking half-Armenian, half-Jewish kid growing up in Soviet Azerbaijan, the complexity of nationhood and nationality was all around me. Every country inevitably faces an identity crisis, and it can feel especially fraught in a country like the United States: a multilingual, multiethnic, politically polarized democracy of over 350 million people.

    At The Next Move, we don't just want to focus on our nation's divisions, though. Our purpose is to offer a positive vision for the nation's future. That's why Colin Woodard’s research and insight are key. A world-class intellectual, whose research has revealed the differences among Americans, his new project points us toward what we have in common.

    Even though I’m not American, I’ve long believed in America as a shining city on a hill. Sharing this type of research can help Americans rediscover their common identity in spite of all the attempts to divide them.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Electronic Arts lays off hundreds of workers in latest round of cuts

    The company, based in Redwood City, Calif., has eliminated several hundred positions, including about 100 jobs at Respawn, a video game development studio based in Los Angeles.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • FAIR ☛ Hey NPR, Free Speech Isn’t Just a Vibe

    Green Card–holding students are being abducted from the streets by agents of the state for attending protests and writing op-eds. News outlets are being investigated by the FCC for reporting that displeases the president. Federal web pages are being scrubbed of a lengthy list of words, including “race,” “transgender,” “women” and “climate.”

  • FAIR ☛ Tanya Clay House on Freedom to Learn, Danaka Katovich on Attacks on Activists

  • Democracy for the Arab World Now ☛ DAWN Statement on Morocco's Imprisonment of Activist Mohamed Boustati for Criticizing Saudi Arabia

    "Saudi Arabia's campaign to export authoritarianism across the MENA region is accelerating, and now it reaches Moroccan activists," said Raed Jarrar, DAWN's advocacy director. "At a time when President Trump is crushing free expression at home and praising dictatorships abroad, it's no surprise that governments like Morocco feel emboldened to ramp up their own repression."

  • Common Dreams ☛ Order to End Federal Support for NPR and PBS Is a Legally Dubious Push to Censor Media Coverage Trump Dislikes

    “The order’s legality is dubious at best — Congress appropriates funds for public broadcasting, and the president doesn’t get a magic eraser for programs he doesn’t like. The government’s unhinged attempt to defund news outlets they deem biased is blatant censorship. This represents a dangerous assault on independent journalism and public accountability — and it’s not happening in isolation. The Trump administration is also pushing Congress to rescind public media’s already-approved budget and is trying to remove board members at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for no legally justifiable reason. Brendan Carr, Trump’s top censor at the Federal Communications Commission, has also launched an investigation into the underwriting practices of NPR and PBS, using it as a pretext to call for an end to funding.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ Evening Standard reports £20m loss in slight improvement versus 2023 [Ed: This is like saying you narrow losses or have "improvement" when you fire 90% of your staff]

    The company says Evgeny Lebedev has agreed to fund the Standard's restructure through to 2027.

  • Nebraska Examiner ☛ Trump seeks to end fed funding of public media; Nebraska Public Media says order ‘limits’ them

    It marks the White House’s latest escalation in its political battle with the media, as Trump and some congressional Republicans fulfill a pledge to cut funding to the organizations. Unlike other executive orders that he signed in public ceremonies, Trump signed this one behind closed doors, while flying on Air Force One, Politico reported.

    Initial reactions to the order from the Nebraska all-Republican federal delegation have been mixed. U.S. Reps. Mike Flood, who represents eastern Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District, echoed Trump’s criticisms of NPR’s national bias but defended the unique value Nebraska Public Media provides locally. U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith, who represents the largely rural 3rd District and U.S. Sens. Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts had no immediate comment Friday. U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, who represents the Omaha-based 2nd District, highlighted how crucial Nebraska Public Media remains to the state.

  • The Nation ☛ Trump’s Assault on PBS and NPR Chooses Oligarchy Over Press Freedom and Democracy

    This 47th president has made no secret of his disdain for the sort of robust independent media that World Press Freedom Day celebrates—print, broadcast, and digital media, both public and private, that speaks truth to political and economic power and serves as a bulwark for democracy.

    Trump and his oligarchic allies have long bristled at even the most modest efforts of public broadcasting outlets and community media to hold the billionaire class, multinational corporations, and their congressional retainers to account. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 outline for how a Republican White House would deliver politically for the right and its corporate donors declared last year that “all Republican Presidents have recognized that public funding of domestic broadcasts is a mistake.”

  • New Yorker ☛ Trump Threatens NPR and PBS

    “Journalists’ work is under fire.” Donald Trump is yanking federal funds from public media. Leaders at NPR-affiliate stations around the country explain why this attack feels different, and what the consequences of defunding would be. Plus: [...]

  • RFERL ☛ R.E.M. Backs Radio Free Europe With Remix For World Press Freedom Day

    To mark World Press Freedom day on May 3, the band has announced a special reissue of the single to celebrate the upcoming 75th anniversary of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty amid a fight over winding down operations at a number of US-funded broadcasters in what is seen by many as an attempt to silence pro-democracy media.

    “Whether it’s music or a free press –- censorship anywhere is a threat to the truth everywhere. On World Press Freedom Day, I’m sending a shout-out to the brave journalists at Radio Free Europe,” said Michael Stipe, lead singer and a founding member of the band.

  • RFERL ☛ Journalism Under Siege: The Deadly Reality Of Reporting From Ukraine's Front Lines

    Among them, at least 117 media members have lost their lives during Moscow’s ongoing attacks on the country, according to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

  • CPJ ☛ Veteran publisher Juan Dayang shot and killed in the Philippines

    Dayang was the publisher of the local Philippines Graphic magazine in the 1990s and of the now defunct Headline Manila daily newspaper and headed the Publishers Association of the Philippines Incorporated for two decades.

  • CPJ ☛ Morocco deports 2 journalists trying to enter Western Sahara

    “The deportation of Italian journalist Matteo Garavoglia and photographer Giovanni Colmoni is yet another sign of Morocco’s repressive media blockade on the occupied Western Sahara,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “Authorities must allow independent reporting from a region where transparency is already severely limited.”

  • CPJ ☛ Myanmar journalist Than Htike Myint sentenced to 5 years in prison for terrorism

    “CPJ strongly condemns the severe sentence given to journalist Than Htike Myint,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar’s junta must stop conflating news reporting with terrorism and cease treating independent war reporters as criminals.”

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • 35 years on, Chinese man seeks justice for ‘stolen’ medical college dreams

    Xi Nan passed the gaokao exam in 1990 but wasn’t admitted; he’s now seeking justice after his imposter was exposed.

  • Uyghur activists condemn Harvard over training for sanctioned China group

    Health training program continued after U.S. sanctions over repression in Xinjiang.

  • The Nation ☛ War on Terror Brain Rot Brought Us to This Point

    It seems that the CIA had finally realized that they had arrested the wrong man. They wanted some other Khalid el-Masri, thought to be an Al Qaeda associate, and not, as Amy Davidson wrote in The New Yorker, that “car salesman from Bavaria.”

  • Vox ☛ Public lands for sale? How Trump is renewing a push to transfer protected landscapes for private interests.

    Despite broad, bipartisan public support for protecting public lands, these shared landscapes have come under relentless attack during the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term. The administration and its allies in Congress are working feverishly to tilt the scale away from natural resource protection and toward extraction, threatening a pillar of the nation’s identity and tradition of democratic governance.

  • The Register UK ☛ Open source AI models favor men for hiring, study finds

    While bias in AI models is a well-established risk, the findings highlight the unresolved issue as the usage of AI proliferates among recruiters and corporate human resources departments.

  • Advance Local Media LLC ☛ Oral histories and now DNA of Picuris Pueblo link their ancestors to Chaco Canyon

    As members of the Picuris Pueblo seek a greater voice in shaping decisions about the future of Chaco Canyon, where debates about oil and gas drilling loom, leaders including Quanchello decided that using DNA sequencing to complement or corroborate their oral histories could be a useful tool. The group began a collaboration with an international team of geneticists.

  • Nature ☛ Picuris Pueblo oral history and genomics reveal continuity in US Southwest | Nature

    [...] This suggests a firm spatiotemporal link among these Puebloan populations of the North American Southwest. Furthermore, we see no evidence of population decline before European arrival11,12,13, and no Athabascan ancestry in individuals predating 1500 ce, challenging earlier migration hypotheses14,15,16. This work prioritizes Indigenous control of genetic data and brings together oral tradition, archaeology, ethnography and genetics.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • The Local DK ☛ Denmark’s defence deal with US ‘could cause’ telecommunications disruption

    Lars Dittmann, a researcher at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) specialising in network technology and service platforms, told IT Watch that the Danish government is proposing to give the US military broad powers to use Danish radio frequencies.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• RTL ☛ 'Illegal monopoly': US asks judge to break up Google's ad tech business

  "We have a defendant who has found ways to defy" the law, US government lawyer Julia Tarver Wood told a federal court in Virginia, as she urged the judge to dismiss Google's assurance that it would change its behavior.

  "Leaving a recidivist monopolist" intact is not appropriate to solve the issue, she added.

• Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ US turns the screws on Google

  The DoJ made the request in a US court on Friday during a trial involving Google’s advertising operations. The government is also in trial against the company in a separate case in Washington focused on Google’s dominance in search.

  US district judge Leonie Brinkema set a 22 September date to hear proposals to address competitive harm she found in Google’s advertising business.

• Tedium ☛ Epic vs. Apple Ruling Takeaway: The Finance Team Lost One

  For years, many of Apple’s most consumer-unfriendly decisions have felt like an extension of a revenue-optimization strategy at constant risk of backfiring. Thanks to a bracing legal decision, now it has.

• Wired ☛ A DOGE [sic] Recruiter Is Staffing a Project to Deploy AI Agents Across the US Government

  Jancso, a former Palantir employee, wrote in a Slack with about 2000 Palantir alumni in it that he’s hiring for a “DOGE [sic] orthogonal project to design benchmarks and deploy AI agents across live workflows in federal agencies,” according to an April 21 post reviewed by WIRED. Agents are programs that can perform work autonomously.

• John Gruber ☛ Daring Fireball: Apple Updates U.S. App Review Guidelines Following Injunction

  In other words, plainly and obviously, in-app purchases must compete with purchase offerings on the web. Which is exactly how the policy should have been for at least the last 10 years. It’s been incredibly frustrating and baffling that Tim Cook has refused to see that this is the obvious and correct path for everyone involved, including Apple itself.

• Copyrights

  • LOC ☛ A.I., Art, and Copyright: The Human Element That Makes All the Difference

    The capabilities of the latest generative AI technologies raise significant questions about the nature and scope of human authorship—including in music. In early 2023, the U.S. Copyright Office launched an initiative exploring the intersection of copyright and artificial intelligence. In August 2023, the Office formally sought public input on the full range of copyright issues that have been raised by generative AI, receiving more than 10,000 comments from all 50 states and from 67 countries representing a broad range of perspectives. After reviewing these comments, the Office began working on a Report for Congress and the public, which can be found online at copyright.gov/ai.

    To discuss the Office’s findings and latest decisions, Miriam Lord, Associate Register of Copyrights and Director of Public Information and Education, sat down with two colleagues, Senior Counsel Chris Weston and Assistant General Counsel Jalyce Mangum.

  • [Old] Oxford University Press ☛ Importance of the doctrine of digital exhaustion in copyright law

    The doctrine of digital exhaustion (also known as the first-sale doctrine) has emerged as a critical issue in copyright law, due to the increased use of digital goods and the embedding of technological protection measures (TPMs) in digital devices, such as the encryption of software, passwords, and access codes. These measures often restrict users’ rights and limit their ability to exercise ownership of digital assets. This article examines the importance of extending the first-sale doctrine to digital goods and devices, allowing users to freely use, modify, or repair digital products without requiring additional authorization from manufacturers. It addresses the judicial and legislative responses to the first-sale doctrine in Australia, the European Union, and the United States of America, highlighting the need for effective legal frameworks to protect the fundamental principles of copyright law by fostering creativity while respecting users’ rights.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ DAZN's New Pirate IPTV Blocking Order and its 'Confidential' Secret Sauce

    Being seen to take action against piracy is a public reminder to pirate sites and suppliers that rightsholders are always watching. At the top of the supply chain that’s unlikely to act as a deterrent but lower down, where resellers and the public are much more exposed, even a pause for thought could prove useful.

    In broad terms, anti-piracy announcements in this context are more easily framed as regular advertising. New and improved, whatever couldn’t be wiped away last time will now meet our toughest formula yet. So capitulate now, because we are going nowhere.